I suppose he wanted it to be like undertale in that the pacifist route was the good one. Unfortunately, he fucked up the part where the monsters in undertale are actually forgivable, and you can understand and empathize with them. Which, was kind of the vital part in order to make people befriend them. Can't really empathize with or understand the monsters in shrift due to the whole... they steal people's souls thing. And you could say that the monsters in undertale did that, but that was just six. The monsters in shrift are entire species (barghest, lampas, echo, camazotz) that will, if left unchecked, wipe out humanity with ease simply to sate their hunger. not even counting the more fucked up ones like titanoboa or arachne who do it just for the fun of it.