There is no canonical “best” Undertale character: the answer depends on whether you value story impact, personality, emotional payoff, or route-specific significance most. This ranking weighs all four across the principal cast and considers the game’s routes, while judging each character by their overall contribution rather than one route alone. Spoilers for major character reveals and route events follow.
How this Undertale character ranking works
Each character is judged by the same four criteria: how much they shape the story and the player’s understanding of the Underground; how distinctive their personality and interactions are; how much development, revelation, or emotional payoff they receive; and how strongly they serve the game’s themes across routes. This is an editorial ranking, not an official verdict or a popularity poll.
Other lists make different choices. Jackson Cooke’s September 18, 2024 ranking evaluates design, story, battle, and theme, while Attack of the Fanboy uses tiers, placing Sans, Papyrus, Toriel, Asgore, Frisk, and Asriel in S tier. Those are useful examples of differing editorial standards, not evidence of broad consensus. Cooke’s ranking and Attack of the Fanboy’s tier list do not report a representative audience survey.
Who is the best character in Undertale? Ranked
1. Toriel
Toriel earns the top spot because her opening act teaches the player how Undertale’s moral questions work. She offers Frisk safety and care, then blocks the exit because she believes the outside world is too dangerous. The player must decide whether to accept her protection or leave despite her fear. That conflict makes mercy and agency immediate, personal choices rather than abstract themes.
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Her warmth, dry humor, and loneliness make her memorable beyond that first dilemma, and her later appearances deepen the consequences of her choices. The limitation is that she is less present through much of the journey than the characters who accompany the player more consistently. She ranks above Sans because her defining choice establishes the game’s ethical stakes before its mysteries and jokes take center stage.
2. Sans
Sans combines an instantly recognizable comic voice with a more unsettling role as the player’s actions accumulate. His jokes and laid-back attitude give way to a sharp awareness of consequences, especially in the route where the player has caused widespread harm. That contrast makes him one of the game’s most effective ways of confronting the player with what their choices mean.
His impact depends heavily on route and on how much the player reads into his sparse dialogue; he is not as emotionally open as the characters above him. Toriel ranks higher because her central conflict is established through direct relationship and choice, while Sans’s most forceful payoff is more conditional.
3. Papyrus
Papyrus turns what could have been a simple obstacle into a generous, funny relationship. His elaborate plans to capture Frisk coexist with a sincere desire for friendship and recognition. His interactions with the player show how patience and kindness can change an encounter without reducing him to a joke.
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4. Asgore
Asgore embodies the tragedy at the center of the Underground’s conflict: he has pursued a plan involving human souls, yet the game presents him as sorrowful rather than triumphant about what that plan requires. His position forces the player to confront the gap between a leader’s public duty and private grief.
He is less sharply defined in direct interaction than the three characters above him, and the game gives him comparatively little time to explain himself. That makes him powerful as a tragic figure, though less fully developed on screen. Papyrus ranks higher for his richer moment-to-moment characterization; Asgore ranks above Alphys because his role is more directly bound to the game’s central conflict.
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5. Alphys
Alphys stands out for a character arc built around insecurity, avoidance, and the damage caused by concealment. Her awkward humor and enthusiasm make her approachable, while what the player learns about her actions complicates that first impression. She is one of Undertale’s clearest examples of a character whose flaws matter to the story rather than merely decorating it.
Her extended role is concentrated in particular sections, and some of her most consequential history is revealed indirectly. That can make her feel less immediate than the characters above her. Asgore’s place in the core conflict gives him the edge; Alphys’s more personal growth puts her above Undyne in this ranking.
6. Undyne
Undyne arrives with force: she is a formidable pursuer whose determination and theatrical intensity make her encounters memorable. As the story develops, her loyalty and sense of justice emerge alongside her aggression. Her interactions with other characters also reveal a more playful, socially awkward side that complicates her warrior image.
Her appeal is especially strong in the route material and character interactions that give her more room, but her overall contribution is less tied to the game’s central revelations than Alphys’s. Alphys ranks higher for the consequences and development attached to her choices; Undyne still stands out as one of the cast’s strongest personalities.
7. Flowey
Flowey is a potent antagonist because he makes the game’s systems part of his characterization. His unsettling familiarity with how encounters work turns the player’s expectations about restarting and control into part of the story. The contrast between his cheerful appearance and cruel behavior gives his presence an immediate edge.
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His importance grows with the revelations around him, but the character’s full emotional context depends on later story developments and route knowledge. Undyne ranks higher for her fuller relational presence across the journey; Flowey ranks above Mettaton because his role is more closely bound to the game’s structure and themes.
8. Mettaton
Mettaton brings spectacle, vanity, and a sharp shift in tone to the Underground. His show-business persona makes encounters feel different from ordinary battles, and his hunger for attention gives him a clear comic identity. The character also helps the game explore performance: what people present to an audience and what they want from it.
His most memorable contributions are concentrated in set-piece encounters, so his emotional development is less sustained than that of the characters ranked above him. Flowey’s relationship to the player’s control and the larger story gives him more weight; Mettaton’s theatrical presence nevertheless makes him one of the most entertaining members of the cast.
9. Asriel
Asriel’s significance comes from how later revelations reframe the story’s history and relationships. His connection to the Underground’s past gives the game some of its strongest emotional payoffs, particularly for players who have followed the story’s route-specific developments.
Because much of his impact is revealed late and depends on route context, he has less ongoing presence than the characters above him. Mettaton offers a more consistent personality in the player’s moment-to-moment journey; Asriel’s place rests on the weight of his revelations and resolution rather than sustained interaction.
10. Frisk
Frisk is the player’s point of entry into the Underground, and the game’s quiet protagonist leaves room for the player to interpret their actions. That design makes the player’s choices feel unusually direct: the journey is not only about what happens to Frisk, but what the player chooses to do through them.
The same restraint limits Frisk as a conventional character. Their personality is less explicit than that of the cast around them, and the ranking gives more weight to distinctive characterization and development than to protagonist status alone. Asriel ranks higher because his revelations and emotional payoff are more fully dramatized, while Frisk remains essential to how Undertale makes the player part of its story.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why other rankings may put different characters first
A ranking that emphasizes battle design, visual identity, or recognizability can reasonably move characters such as Undyne, Mettaton, or Sans upward. Cooke’s list explicitly includes design and battle alongside story and theme; the tier format from Attack of the Fanboy groups six characters together at the top rather than distinguishing among them. Neither approach is inherently more authoritative: the result follows from the criteria.
Toby Fox’s authorship is relevant context, but not a shortcut to a definitive order. Nintendo’s August 29, 2018 interview identifies Fox as Undertale’s developer and says he worked largely by himself on its story, systems, character design, and music. It does not establish which character is best. Nintendo’s interview with Toby Fox provides that creator context.
How to choose your own favorite
- Choose by story role if you value how a character changes the player’s understanding of the Underground.
- Choose by personality if the strongest voice, humor, and interactions matter most to you.
- Consider route-specific scenes if a character’s importance changes with the choices you make.
- Separate personal favorite from overall ranking: the character you most enjoy meeting need not be the one with the largest effect on the story.
If you have not played Undertale, meeting the characters in context is the best way to decide. Attack of the Fanboy’s guide reports availability on Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One; current store listings and physical-format details are not established here.
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