#Shadow Crystal

[serennes-art]

"I can see in the dark, you know! The question is... can you?"

[gaster-fan-47]

[thewolfisyou]

I'm sorry, someone LEFT it in your desk? But you didn't use it. Is that why you're not corrupted like the other secret bosses old man?

[conjureandreanimate]

Darkness even Darker than Dark

[twilightofthesandwiches]

It’s funny… Ramb refer to the Mantle game as being more ‘free’ than the restrictive and railroady ‘Legend of Tenna’. Calling it “the original game, where you decide what to do” is obviously supposed to call into mind Undertale, and so do the designs of the enemies.

But… how ‘free’ is it, really?

Tenna removed the sword-based combat and replaced it with more ‘wholesome’ activities like puzzles and quizzes that progress in a fairly-linear order but… the ‘original game’ was nothing but combat. Fighting is something you have no choice but to do if you want to progress the game. In fact, you have to literally follow orders the game tells you.

This is obviously a huge contrast to Undertale, and Deltarune's Weird Route, as well as the Dragon Blazerz game that seems to have been the in-universe inspiration to this game (as well as kind of an Undertale parallel in its own right).

All of these feature a choice between being a Horrible Murderbastard and solving conflicts through other means to some degree. The Mantle Game is a one where you have to be violent, you basically don’t have a choice.

Sure, I guess you can go to any screen you’d like and decide to fight the enemies in whatever order you want… but by this metric, even “Legend of Tenna” had some degree of non-linearity in terms of which puzzles you do when or the order you pick up keys/take photos. I guess comparatively, Mantle has more freedom of movement, but it also had it's own progression-based roadblocks.

Even when you can upgrade your sword to go ‘out of bounds’ in the Mantle Game, there’s really only one thing to find and one thing to do there.

If anything, you can argue that Tenna’s game is a lot more ‘free’, because Tenna replaced the in-game combat with regular Deltarune battles… which do allow you to choose between different violent and non-violent options.

I’ve often said that Deltarune’s central theme is less “your choices don’t matter” and more like “do your choices matter?”, "what makes your choices matter?" and this feels like an extension of that. How many roadblocks does a game need before it starts feeling truly railroady?

How do games sell you the illusion of freedom, and what do they need to do to make it truly convincing?

Does a game that allows you to do a violence actually feel more ‘free’ than non-violent game, even if they’re both equally restrictive in terms of your interactions?

And of course, neither of these games have any ounce of ‘Freedom’ from Kris’ perspective. Because violence or pacifism, puzzles or swords, they never get to be the one in control.

[8ctogirl]

the roaring knight is an extreme difficulty spike for a shadow crystal, even with the shadow mantle. someone who found spamton and jevil fun might really dislike fighting the knight due to how unforgiving and brutal it is. so, you probably want to get the shadow mantle to make it somewhat bearable

but getting the shadow mantle is similarly brutal, in an emotional and backtracking and “requires you to get good at a whole different video game” kind of way. interestingly, after the end of the mantle game, susie comes in and asks kris if they seriously enjoy being a tryhard playing games by themself, and you can say… no. if you do, susie takes the controller and throws it to the ground and says: “then here’s an idea. don’t play it”

it sorta feels like she’s giving you permission to sit out on this if you’re not having fun? so i think that… even if you can’t find and defeat the shadow crystal bosses right now… it’ll be okay

[brixbraxium]

A quick theory on Shadowcrystals

We're told that the Shadow Crystals grant some sort of power:

But we never quite get a good idea of what combat advantage, if any, the crystals offer.

But I actually think we do. I propose that the Shadow Crystals are what allow you to do a "Neo Attack", or more commonly referred to as a fullscreen attack. Y'know, Jevil's True and Neo Chaos, Spamton's Power of Neo, and the Knight's Roaring attack.

This would explain why Gerson does not have a fullscreen attack- he doesn't use his crystal, he says so himself:

And this also potentially explains why the Knight drops a shadowcrystal on defeat, despite presumably not wanting to give it to us. They drop it because they were just using it, since they had just called upon its power to use a neo attack.

The narration warning you about the fullscreen attack draws special attention to the Knight's hands. Why? Because their Shadowcrystal is in their hand and they're channeling its power. It's no wonder that they dropped it after Susie clashed with them- it must've still been in their grasp!

[humunanunga]

...Right, so, what I was gonna say was, the shadow crystals are either glass or something like glass, right, and the black shards presumably make a matching crystal.

You know how we've only seen the Knight with only one eye open? I think? I'm pretty sure?

And we're all thinking it. We're all thinking that's gotta be Dess, so let's say that means Dess might also have only one working eye. You with me so far?

Well, I've wondered since Chapter 2 if the pure crystal were glasses, which is why one of my predictions was that the mantle would be the cleaning cloth. But back to the crystals.

My thought was that if the pure crystal were a pair of glasses, that'd make the other which broke off into black shards a pair of shades.

But then I had... a thought, you see.

A thought that maybe they aren't each a full pair of glasses, as the glass has no frame in the Light World even after reassembly. Maybe it's just the lens itself.

And maybe, same goes for the other.

Maybe they're each one lens, each broken from a frame. Which together make a pair........

From the same frame........

With a clear lens for a wearer's good eye, and an "opaque" "lens" over the other........

[possiblycringe]

Appraised

[loathemetc]

Some thoughts on leitmotifs in Deltarune Chapters 3 and 4.

Now that I've played the game and had time to let my thoughts stir a bit, I think it's about time I start getting them out there. Obviously there are a lot of musical motifs throughout the game but I wanna talk about three of them specifically.

The first would be the lost girl motif. While in Chapter 2 it was mostly just used in direct relation to Noelle, we see it being used a lot more for emotional moments when she's not around in chapters 3 and 4. Most notably it features in Raise Up Your Bat, the song from the rhythm game segment. Tenna talks about December and the music video channel she used to watch right before this, and the song was first mentioned in the "currently listening to" section on Noelle's blog, implying that this is an in universe song that Dess was a fan of. The fact that said song features the motif therefore makes me think that it's the origin of the motif. Lost Girl plays at such emotional moments because in a way, it's the ghost of Dess's favorite song haunting the narrative. And I just think that's neat.

Second is the so-called freedom motif that plays in direct relation to the secret bosses. In Chapters 1 and 2 this plays in THE WORLD REVOLVING and BIG SHOT, the secret boss fight themes for both Jevil and Spamton respectively, as well as The Circus and Dialtone, two other songs related to them. In Chapter 4 again this motif plays in the fight with the Hammer of Justice, in the song called... Hammer of Justice. And again this is a secret boss fight, where the "Air crackles with freedom." Pretty straight forward.

But strangely, this motif doesn't obviously play in Chapter 3. There's a short string of notes in the Knight's battle theme, Black Knife, that sounds kind of like it? Which would make sense, given the Knight holds a shadow crystal just like those other three bosses, but it's not enough for me to really make an conclusion on. But the Knight having the shadow crystal and no one else in chapter 3 having one is interesting right? Almost as if it's the one who's been handing them out, but since this whole chapter is about waiting for the Knight to arrive, there was no time for it to give a shadow crystal to Ramb.

Weirdly though, it does play a second time in Chapter 4. And this is a double spoiler warning, if you've beaten Chapter 4 but haven't reloaded your save after beating it, go do that right now, you're missing out on something major if you don't and I'm going to be talking about it.

Went and did that? Alright, cool.

So that was a pretty fun extra boss right? Good time was had by all. But you probably noticed that despite being some sort of secret boss, there was no freedom motif in the song Catswing, and no shadow crystal. Which again makes sense, these are just more Chapter 3 darkners. So why am I even talking about this?

Well, one of the mini games you unlock after this, BATTAT, has its own song called Air Waves. And this one... does, have the freedom motif...? Which is weird right. Still no shadow crystal, and this isn't even a boss fight. But there's that song. The only weird thing about this game is that it does seem to be an actual fleshed out version of the cat clicking mini game from the sweepstakes update and just like that game, the IMAGE_FRIEND smile can appear here too. Which is certainly weird, but the IMAGE_FRIEND smile appears twice in Chapter 3 and once in Chapter 2 with no freedom motif attached.

I could make a guess here, like maybe the Mike conspiracy board calling direct attention to Kris's dislike of Asgore's conspiracy board is a tease for a real Mike secret boss in chapter 5, but I was kind of under the impression that the giant realistic microphone was the real Mike, so I don't really know.

It's worth noting that the mini games names seem to be french words, Jongler and Pluey being Jongleur and Pluis, french for Juggler and Rain respectively. My french has never been that good though so while Battat definitely sounds like a french word I can't really put my finger on it. It's probably also just a word that describes the mini game though. Probably doesn't mean anything deep but if it secretly does hey at least I mentioned it.

Okay that was too many paragraphs about the freedom motif. Air Waves is weird. Really damn good track though. The drum line is also like one note off from Bad Apple's which is funny. Moving on!

So notably while the freedom motif is tied to the secret bosses, Chapter 3 does have a secret boss track that lacks the motif. BURNING EYES, the theme of the fight with... Eram? The shadow mantle? It's hard to know really whether to trust a track name or sprite file name on what to call this thing because the game gives us nothing to work with really. It's a strange and irregular boss battle, with Zelda-like gameplay and against a character we can't even identify at all. But despite that, the theme does give us something to work with, a motif. Just not the freedom motif.

It's... Power of NEO.

And I know what you're thinking, I thought we were done with Spamton NEO. And I think we are. But Spamton NEO is not the only reference to NEO in Deltarune. Jevil, Queen, and Tenna all mention it. THE TRUE AND NEO CHAOS, Noelle creating a neo dark fountain, NEO shows, NEO programs. Queen and Tenna use it just like a stand-in for new but that's what makes the choice of words so conspicuous.

You could argue, sure, that Jevil, Queen, and Tenna are all characters who have history with Spamton. The fight for the shadow mantle even comes soon after a scene where Tenna talks about this. But I think there's something a lot bigger here than just an Undertale reference. I think we gotta ask ourselves something.

What IS the power of NEO?

In Undertale the motif plays twice I believe. In the fights with Undyne the Undying and Mettaton NEO, both people determined to protect everyone from being killed by you. Now Mettaton did a pretty poor job at that but it's the thought that counts, right? You could make the argument that the power of NEO is determination, Queen even uses the word when referring to Noelle creating a dark fountain, the power to create, to make new?

But does this really work for where this motif plays in Deltarune? In the case of BURNING EYES, definitely not. BIG SHOT is interesting though because it plays in two contexts, and the weird route context could arguably put Spamton in the same spot as Undyne, but his motivations are far more selfish.

But let's try looking at it from another perspective. For a long time people have suggested that MEGALOVANIA isn't Sans's theme but rather the theme of the player, or Chara, or whatever. A theme of violence, of malice. But what if that's actually Power of NEO? After all, in Undertale it only plays against bosses on the no mercy route. In Deltarune, not only is Spamton a violent malicious and selfish person, but you're also forced to fight him on the game's own version of the no mercy route. And of course, Spamton is pretty famous for comparing Kris to himself.

The fight for the shadow mantle has dialogue that is all the way up this alley. "There! That's what I wanted to see. Flickering red, like pretty little flames... Your eyes can't hide it Kris. Without play... The knife grows dull. Haha... well, enough of that. We both have work to do." Getting the Shadow Mantle and using it to get through the Knight fight even puts you on the path to being able to kill the titan spawn instead of purifying them, so I've heard. I haven't actually beaten the Knight yet. I'm sorry it's really hard. But if that's the work that has to be done... The mantle or eram or whatever even accuses Kris of enjoying what we did in the weird route, knowing they could say it wasn't really them. It's hard to say how accurate of a character judgement this is, though. Because genuinely what the fuck is this fight. I'm losing my mind.

It's honestly really hard to conclude anything at this point about what the power of NEO is exactly, but I feel like we'll be hearing about it more in the future. It curiously isn't mentioned at all in Chapter 4 from what I can remember, but it's also a chapter with several main antagonists who don't speak at all and a secret boss who didn't even look at his shadow crystal, so.

NEO means new, of course, we can't forget that when thinking about this. I believe there was someone who wanted us to create a new future with them...?

Curiouser and curiouser.

Of course I'm also obligated to mention that the IMAGE_FRIEND smile appears in the shadow mantle fight as well, what even is up with that thing. It's pink and yellow eyes tie directly to Spamton's glasses and the buttons on the oddcontroller, and the Hammer of Justice mentions Chapter 5 will be about a field of pink and gold, so... I guess we'll find out.

MINOR EDIT: Apparently on the Switch 2 version of the game, the mini games are slightly different, with Battat and Jongler being replaced by Air Waves and Main Performance. Obviously the song "Air Waves" plays in the game Air Waves here instead of Battat. As far as I can tell the IMAGE_FRIEND smile doesn't appear here at all, but it is by far the most pink and yellow of all the mini games. So this doesn't really change much but it's definitely worth noting, so I did.

[patchwork-crow-writes]

It has only just occurred to me right now how strange it is for Gaster to directly intervene during the Roaring Knight encounter, allowing us to retry the fight without having to trudge through Tenna's dismemberment over and over. And the only logical conclusion you can infer from such is that Gaster wants us to collect shadow crystals, and is actively facilitating events so that we are able to do so.

Not so earth-shattering a revelation on its own perhaps... but think about how this completely recontextualises the secret bosses that came before - Jevil and Spamton NEO. Both were contacted by a "certain someone" (heavily implied to be Gaster himself) who filled their head with meta knowledge that broke them. Jevil began seeing the whole world as a game to be played entirely without consequence, and Spamton became obsessed with reaching "H E A V E N" with the help of Kris's SOUL. They were set on a maddening path, attained phenomenal power, and were ultimately pacified/defeated by the heroes, yielding up their Shadow Crystal.

Do you see? Gaster didn't do all of this in an attempt to create a "guide" for the player, or so he could have agents in the world of Deltarune that could act on his will... Gaster created the monsters that were Jevil and Spamton for the SOLE PURPOSE of creating the conditions necessary for the creation of shadow crystals - then set them in our path so we could defeat them and harvest those crystals.

Gaster wants us to collect the crystals. The question now is - why?

[emiplayzmc]

"Blinded by the Light"

FINALLY did more of a Spamton-centric piece after focusing on the Addisons for a bit! Although he isn't TECHNICALLY shown, it's pretty easy to guess that that's his hand, lol

Alternate glare intensities:

[moonfang256]

Theory: Castle Town is currently the Player's Dark World.

If we think about it, it has our name:

The Darkners seem to be aware of our presence and call us: "Boss".

We've our own room/throne in the castle which we'll see in the future.

Technically, as rulers, Kris, Susie, Ralsei, and the other members of the Fun Gang become our warriors, sages, servants, etc. Of course, as a result, they get their own rooms and belongings, and Ralsei is demoted, which is why the other Darkners don't obey him.

We decide who can stay in our domain.

Darkners who cause trouble to us, the Fun Gang, or any other Darkner will be imprisoned.

What I'm saying is: This place is specifically designed so the Player can be the ruler and do whatever they want here with the Fun Gang. That's why the Dark Fountain from this place is powerful and has the ability to host Darkners from other Dark Worlds without turning them into stone.

As Ruddin says:

Great, right?

But there's something else: Before we arrived here, this Dark World belonged to someone else. We can deduce this from its previous condition:

Whoever owned it before left this place abandoned, empty, and in ruins, and at some point, it was transferred to us. So now we own this, and we'll take it upon ourselves to repair and fill it to our liking.

Another point worth noting: When ownership of the world was transferred to us, we acquired Ralsei, the sole living inhabitant of the place. In other words, Ralsei is now our Darkner, and as Darkner, he must fulfill his role of serving us, whether he likes it or not.

Now, I know a lot of people are saying that Noelle is the angel and all, but if we start thinking about the theory about the Player being the actual angel from the prophecy, then that means...

The Castle Town fountain must be sealed when the Player and the Fun Gang reach a high level to restore balance between worlds, but at the cost of the Lightners and the Darkners never meeting again, for who knows how long... or perhaps never…

If we don't do the right thing, then…

They will all perish and…

A difficult decision to make, but one that must be made for the good of everyone in this world.

Although…

Perhaps with the power of the Shadow Crystals and the Player, something may change.

[brutalcritical]

"Hurt people hurt people" - Deltarune "Egg Route" and Weird Route Analysis

This is a sequel to another post I made regarding my theory that obtaining the various eggs from the Forgotten Man is key to what amounts to the "True Pacifist" counterpart to the Weird Route's Genocide. I did plan for a while on a sequel post on the specifics of how I think it would go, but i'm not starting on that note. Instead, i'll talk about a theme throughout the game that might provide a key to why the weird route and the egg routes are set up as opposite routes as they are.

I will say upfront that I live a fairly comfortable life and thus have no trauma to speak of, and I am by no means an expert on the subject, and this is just my analysis of how trauma is used and presented in Deltarune. This entire opening bit was inspired by a blog post from No Chocolate in regards of Asriel being a case of abuse by his adoptive sibling Chara.

So onwards to Deltarune, most of the source of this trauma seems to originate when "Lost where the forest would grow, the children follow the pointed tail", as alluded to in the ROOTS room of chapter 4 and the adjoining Art Therapy Room, possibly involving FRIEND and certainly the shelter. This would ultimately lead to Dess disappearing and (almost certainly) later becoming the Roaring Knight.

As a result of this, Toriel and Asgore are divorced (the latter having an entire conspiracy board likely dedicated to Dess's Cold Case), This is likely a catalyst for Asriel leaving town (and maybe going to college?), Noelle is missing her sister and Froze up when just merely spelling her name (and likely went alongside Asriel, Kris, and Dess into the forest where they followed the pointed tail and repressed all memories of it if a line about them exploring a forest in chapter 2 is to go by), Susie is implied to have a negligent if not abusive homelife, and Kris is pinned between us controlling them, and being bound by a promise by the voice on the phone (either Carol or the Knight, it honestly depends).

This is not even going into about what's Dess is doing, as I bet she's probably gonna be scarred for life even if she is restored from being the Knight (and that's assuming it's not weird route exclusive either, which I hope it's not the case). I doubt being trapped in darkness for years and turned into whatever you consider her knight form to be is at all pleasant.

Thus, we enter the three routes the game can take: the normal route (where you don't do the weird route but also don't get all the eggs as well), the Weird Route, and my proposed Egg Route.

The Normal Route represents escapism, shocker that being a big theme in the game after all. Not becoming worse due to what you are experiencing, but not becoming better for it, and overall just ignore the festering wound at the centre of it all.

The weird route is to become worse people for it, manipulating and abusing others. It's said by the shadow mantle holder that Kris enjoyed the events of the weird route from the previous chapter, knowing they can blame it on someone else (either Noelle or, more likely, us). I also heard this could be indicative of us acting on Kris's darker impulses (hell, I made a theory this isn't Kris's first rodeo as far as using Noelle as a cryomantic death machine).

Naturally, this leads us to the Egg Route. Digging through our pile of guilt and trauma till we are at the roots of it. Being open about what hurt us back then, and what it ultimately led to us doing in the present. In Kris's case, working with the knight and carol on some illumaniti-type bullshit (probably involving Gaster if entry 17 being played at -666% speed in the holiday mansion's basement is anything to go by). Helping others heal from their trauma as well as your own.

Trauma is, at least from what I gather from us passing the halfway point, a major theme of Deltarune, and I feel like this would most manifest in the game's various routes.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

The first thing to bring up is something a commenter said regarding the Forgotten man, and that its likely gaster also forgets about him. It's likely from the Voice's perspective, we just kinda blipped out of existance when we get into these egg rooms and good W.D. had separation anxiety or something and deemed it enough of an issue to ding us some playstation achievements.

The second thing is regard to the prophecy, and that the Forgotten Man is basically THE character most free from it. On account of the whole (how the hell can you record a man who everyone forgets) thing. If the Forgotten Man finally pops out of that tree (and honestly by law of checkov's gun, its going to happen at some point), he's basically the most FREE character in the entire game. At this point the prophecy is unlikely to adjust to him fast enough before he does something importent to screw with it, and considering how generally cordial the forgotten man is with Kris he's 100% going to be an importent ally.

Another observation is the coloration of the secret bosses and thats the usage of Pink (sometimes purple instead) and Yellow. Jevil is purple and yellow, spamton has yellow and pink glasses and Spamton Neo is also Yellow and Pink, there's the Yellow and Pink eyes of a friend (and purple is used for the background for FRIEND's one and only introduction scene), and Gerson has a yellow eye and a pink bandana. I bring this up due to Susie and Noelle, whose battle menu icons are those colours. While susie is purple in the light world, pink in the dark world, and has yellow eyes and bracelet spikes, noelle has blonde hair to justify her icon color. Considering the colors connection to secret bosses, how noelle has a history with spamton and the knight (not to mention devil's knife smiling at her), i suspect this is a significant detail. If the Egg Route were to end up roping both of them into a quest to save Dess and possibly defeat Gaster as well, combined with Kris being buddies with the forgotten man, the prophecy and the game as a whole would end up going fucking sideways. Especially if the forgotten man is a shard of gaster or something along those lines.

[twilightofthesandwiches]

I mean, it would be cool if, by the end of the Bonus Boss Route, Susie and Ralsei will have a load-out/stat-build that turns them from a fighter and a squishy healer to a healer-tank and a glass cannon, have their roles sort of swap to go with the themes of Freedom from your assigned role…

But there’s also something about the idea that Susie’s build is just gonna keep getting more and more useful and versatile while Ralsei kinda lags behind…. Not as a way to diminish Ralsei’s importance, but to emphasize his importance as a person.

Like, it’s the whole thing of pointing out the dissonance between a Player’s mindset and the mindset of character in the narrative. A Player might be tempted to appreciate a character less if they’re kinda middling in gameplay terms, but even if Susie ever overshadows Ralsei in terms of healing, she will never stop appreciating as a teammate and a friend.

And Ralsei himself has self-worth issues tied to the idea that he only matters as long as he can be useful. It made him define his entire identity around how he can be as pleasant and inoffensive and helpful as possible to his Lightners Teammates, and... maybe also to the Player.

It's hard to say what exactly he knows/thinks of the Player just yet... but even without speculating too much... I think his non-conformational and deferential attitude at the very least makes him a representation of a typical 'Helpful NPC', same with him being a source of Tutorials, helpful information and useful healing/support spells.

Ralsei's biggest fear is being discarded by the Lightners because he has outlived his use, and yet he rationalizes it as being totally okay and understandable thing for the Lightners to do. What is his worth if he's not a Useful Helper NPC anymore?

So, it would be a total refutation of this toxic mindset if Susie's progress with Healing Magic diminish from his use... but does not diminish from his value as a person and friend in Susie's eyes. That he learns it's okay for him to be 'obsolete'.

In other words…

[dr-ortex-provides]

The Secret Bosses of Adventure No. 1 and 2