My theory is that the ending will always be the same, but what we have done up to that point will give it a vastly different meaning, kind of like in chapter 2
Should be noted that in Undertale the prophecy was that "the underground will go empty" which is true in the pacifist and genocide routes. They can hardly be considered the same ending, but it is fulfilled either way. Both prophecies involve an angel too. However, it is not fulfilled in the neutral route so maybe we shouldn't trust that Ralsei's prophecy will be fulfilled either. I think you are on point about the theme though. I also hope to see a new angle to that message in the typical Toby Fox manner.
I think that the "your choices do not matter" statement serves the same function as Flowey's "in this world is to kill or be killed" quote. The point of those is to provide the player an expectative to subvert/break. We subvert Flowey's thought by doing a true pacifist route. We will subvert the "futility" of our actions by sparing in Deltarune.
I think the weird route is how we'll subvert it. I think it would ask an interesting question: is freedom worth it if you have to do horrible things to acquire it? Don't take my word for it, Spamton says it himself during the weird route: YOU THINK MAKING [Frozen Chicken] WITH YOUR [Side Chick] IS GONNA LET YOU DRINK UP THAT [Sweet, Sweet] [Freedom Sauce]? WELL, YOU'RE [$!$!] RIGHT! BUT DON'T BLAME ME WHEN YOU'RE [Crying] IN A [Broken Home] WISHING YOU LET YOUR OLD PAL SPAMTON [Kill You]
The short answer is, having one ending doesn't mean having one route. This is just like with real life. You are going to die in the end, but you can live it however you want. Unless... Well, just stick to that explanation.
Actually, i think ending is something, that happens between the saves: and routes are not supposed to be called "endings". We see on green screensaver in Deltarune Ch.1 that our saves, all three of them, are important... Something, like in the end we need to combine all possible routes to defeat something multiversal, something that crosses timelines.
10:20 "If you go down the Weird Route, Kris does obtain the one thing they've always wanted: Freedom." Not really. Kris is shown to be visibly distraught after freezing Berdly, as noted by Ralsei and Susie before entering Queen's Mansion. The Weird Route is a consequence of *our* choices. We're still making them, and Kris is still carrying them out.
I think He means it at the ultimate end. Kris' control stay within its limits at ant other point in the story. If Kris were to get "freedom", they might still achieve that no matter what path they (or well, you) go down with. But everything else will still be messed up.
The "ending" theory I've always liked is that it's a combination of Sonic Adventure's character stories, and Undertale's reload after Neutral Pacifist to get to True Pacifist. Basically every save file in the game is designed to be used for a different route in the game, and the end of each individual file will be different, but they are not the "true" ending to the story. They all leave something out, and they all end badly because they all have individual flaws that spiral out of control. I imagine the 3 files would be Pacifism, Violence, and Weird. When you complete each ending, it unlocks a sort of "final story", where all 3 timelines collide in some way and open the way to the real end to the story.
Even if it doesn't work quite like that, it would be interesting if each ending revealed some different facts and perspectives that, when taken together, reveal the full story of what's going on.
One flaw in your theory is that, without knowing later paths, we can't say that they aren't entirely diverged. Maybe in chapter 3 after the weird route there will be an issue with Berdly being "dead", when Undyne inevitably shows up in the dark world. At the end of the day we just don't have enough details to know if the weird route is its own path or not, so we can't really say for certain. Toby got us good with that one for sure though, as until I really thought about it I also ascribed to the notion that they were the same path in the end, with "minor" changes. But Berdly being dead in the library would be a MASSIVE change, that would no doubt alert Undyne to something happening.
I haven’t watched the video yet but I really enjoy one theory I saw that states that the weird route is actually gonna be part of the “good” ending. As we’ll need Noelle’s (and potentially whoever we manipulate next) strength to defeat the Titans and save the world. It creates such a cool moral dilemma. Like, can you justify the weird routes and all the atrocities committed if it meant saving the world? It’s very fascinating.
The World is saved, but everyone who survives now see Kris as a irredeemable monster and worse he can't say anything and nobody would ever believe it wasn't him. Save the World and condemned Kris or Everyone dies at the end of a "Normal Playthrough" ending. Tough choice indeed
I think there's something to this, considering you can only obtain the 'Twisted Sword' using the Thorn Ring, which is only obtainable from Weird Route; however, there is no way of knowing if Noelle will ever be back in the party. Especially in Chapter 3 which we know takes place in the middle of the night. Logically, the only way to obtain the Thorn Ring and have it by the end of the chapter is to abort a weird route. To me at least, it's interesting to wonder if those choices do matter. If the Roaring happens, it doesn't matter what Darkners did or did not exist since they'll all be stone. Someone who would ice Darkners, but never harm Lightners, might be let off with a slap on the wrists when it comes to the story cracking down on 'bad stuff bad'. At least, that's what I imagine, and the curiosity alone ensures that the neutral route is my third file
@@Punsmaster2bruh, Noelle OBVIOUSLY will eventually return to the party, like do you really believe Toby will just leave the thing with Noelle at half-point? Hahaha,WRONG!!! There's certainly going to be more "weird routes" in future chapters, and since it said that Noelle will be on the church "tomorrow"... Well, I think you can connect the dots from there.
@@Lissy_YT481 Most of what we can come up with now is going to be speculation, it's very possible "our choices didn't matter" in influencing Noelle to that extent, like on a Snowgrave route, she could stay home from the Church visit out of fear of running into Kris If our choice did matter, it might just be in the fact that Berdly isn't going to show up in the future, which could influence The Roaring or something along those lines Lastly, I'm not saying it's impossible that Toby follows up on this, in fact I'd really like to see the direction it takes if Noelle shows up, 'determined' to expose what happened to Kris. What if she could somehow convince Ralsei or Susie that the soul were malicious? It'd completely disintegrate the narrative
What if the middle path is the actual "weird/meta" route in the end. While the weird route is blatantly the "evil" option, the middle path could use certain aspects of the weird route to gain an advantage if you abort it at the right time. Could honestly be quite interesting.
@@Punsmaster2 I mean, bruh, her sick dad said that he would be there, do you really believe that she wouldn't go just out of fear that Kris come out considering EVERYTHING going on with Rudy and her mother? Besides, we're still not sure about the EXACT condition of Berdly after the Snowgrave route, it's implied for the dialogue in both chapters that he's not really dead (at least yet) but he may have "fall down" or at the very least got knocked down HARD. And lasty, I think it's a bit soon to guess how the thing with Noelle and the "weird route" will go in future chapters, maybe not really "exposing" what's going on with Kris (wich I must add she doesn't really know what it is exactly) but maybe as you go "breaking the paths" throught the game Susie and Ralsei will slowly realize that something's "not okay" with Kris (and of course we can't forget about what will happen once we get the Twisted Sword...)
Oh god… what if the weird route is us as players Insisting that there must be a different ending, and doing all of that heinous manipulation just to force things to change 😨
@@minestar2247 Yeah, and Flowy was a metta depiction of players getting bored and messing with the game characters after enough runs. So it fits as an actual part of the game.
My gosh, Kris’s life would be ruined if that’s true. The poor kid already being controlled by us. If some players go weird routes every chapter and it slowly causes everyone to be sus/dislike Kris without knowing they’re being controlled…Kris would lost all their friends and just be stuck like in the beginning…a broken lonely home.
if you think about it, Chapter 1 worked basically like Chapter 2 did but on a micro scale, with the only difference being how the King ended up, but Chapter 2 kinda did the same thing but on a far bigger scale, i think that's gonna keep happening, on bigger and bigger levels of divergence but always leading back to the same point The blue bead may be ripped off, but the others continue on their destined path
Toby said that he had a dream about ending of a game and now he wants to make it.. this game is probably Deltarune so it would make more sense if it had only one ending, the one Toby dreamed about. However there might be different ways and paths to achieve this ending
Anyone else notice how the rings that you give Noelle in the weird route have a side thingy labeled ‘trance’? As well as the fact that ‘proceed’ is like a sort of trigger word to make her do stuff? Hmmmm
I believe that the "one ending" means that in the end, no matter what you do the roaring will happen and the world of deltarune will be destroyed. Not that our choices don't matter at all and we can't affect the other characters in deltarune. What our choices do is change the last living moments of everyone in hometown. We could either make their last days absolutely awful or help them live their last few days happily. It's kinda sad when you think about it. Knowing you can't save anyone no matter what you do, but you can at least make their last few moments better
I think that the darkness can be stopped by the player, toby himself responded with "only one ending..?" Implying that there could be more than one This can be implied by the fact that whenever we don't persist when we lose, the darkness occurs
ive got a theory that the weird routes will have a big effect on the ending, in the weird route noelle was basically power leveled to a point she can dish out insane damage, way more than any other character we know of, and assuming this is the same on potential future weird routes where more and more characters are power leveled to a "perfect" self (max leveled) we can amass a VERY powerful group of characters, assuming the rauring and the titans come and the world is covered in darkness in the ending, perhaps the light world covered in dark during the rawring gives the lightners their dark world abilities in the light world, meaning the very powerful weird routed characters could potentially have a chance against fighting a titan, i also have a crackpot theory that potentially we could use multiple save files to get these perfect selves, like what if a future weird route leveled birdly? he cant be leveled up if hes dead, so potentially the perfect selves could be sent outside of time like gaster to bring them all to one timeline (perhaps the normal timeline? or maybe one thats been prepared to welcome the perfect selves?) i think it would be really cool if you had to complete every weird route before finishing the main route to get a change that brought legendary (and traumatized) versions of the characters, and i really hope the weird route is for a good cause, because it feels too cruel to have it be for a bad end and i think it would be an interesting subversion of expectations
I think it's one ending but with the implications of what happens beyond that is depending on your final choice. I think the ending is going to be you having to fight Kris to let you leave. I think Kris summoned you to help them make friends specifically probably just Susie and I think they are going to realize if you leave it's all going to go away like what happened with spamton after the phone guy left him. Inb4, you say you are the one controlling kris, and they don't like it. Kris has full control, they stop you from showing the trash orb to torial they can remove you when they wants to they clearly can take action whenever they want to. Kris did have the bird cage ready for you. I think it's heavily implied that you are giving suggestions and Kris is choosing to follow you kind of like what you did with Susie in chapter 1 and 2 and how Noelle can still hear you despite kris being knocked out in the weird route.
Many people don't actually realize that in the pacifist route especially, all friends Kris made are the soul's friends as well The soul's actions were the ones who helped Kris throughout everything
from what we know atm, recruiting is implied to affect castle town throughout chapters, which would fit your definition of a high-level choice (affects what's happening in a future chapter) at this point we don't know if castle town will have a bigger relevance, but i wouldn't completely disregard it as plot-irrelevant since the darkners we spare are 'recruited' and the "If you recruited the right characters, the band can play a new BGM for your town!" line from 2022 status update implies that who you recruit will end up shaping the town itself
Something a lot of people forget when they say the weird route will be needed to defeat the roaring; When we spare enemies, we recruit them. In the weird route we’ll beat the titans with our traumatized powerhouses, but in more peaceful routes we have a whole ass army
I just hope that the lack of multiple endings and the wide assortment of different actions we can take in the future chapters will make people stop sticking to one-dimensional routes like 'full pacifist' or 'no mercy' and explore the idea of what THEY THEMSELVES want to do, without sticking to 'a route'. Undertale fans kinda devolved the game by only considering Pacifist and No Mercy the only options, while there are so many Neutral options, so I hope Deltarune is just a bunch of neutral endings that all lead to the same conclusion.
well, the thing about the Weird Route is, despite being TOLD that they're free, Kris isn't any more free than they were on the main route, they're still under your control, YOU are free to make choices, but they aren't
I said this before and I'll say it again: if the ending is something as drastic (and, personally, extremely cool) as the characters taking control of their own world and detaching us (players) from it permanently, either them doing it or the game simply ending, that would slap. Game ends, either because we have reached *the* end, or the we helped the characters (maybe someone even used us to do so, like Kris) to detach themselves and their world from our influence. Same ending, different paths. I don't really know what exactly the Prophecy is about, but the "and the WORLD saved from destruction" line makes me believe it's not just the normal narrative of saving one's planet, but quite literally the game world. The save itself. That would perfectly tie into the save menu being diegetic. It would be extremely brutal if we got straight up locked from accessing that save file just because that's how the story ends. While I might be wrong about the details, I'm sure there will be much more to the menu. I just...AHHH I'm so excited. Tl;dr - it's the same ending for us, it's a different ending for them.
I think the perfect example you could have given for choices would be: "Building a duck as the thrash machine" - choice "Building the thrash machine" - not a choice The sequence occurs regardless. And I think that Toby's desires and what he wants to state with this game is the final word. He is quite literally God/doG (ahh, a man of culture) and he is telling this story. The narrative of the story is exactly what he wants it to be, so is what is said (narration), so are all the inevitable events and sequences. Usually, that's just a normal part of the story, but in this case, it is a part of the story's lore and that's brilliant.
My personal theory is that in the normal route(s), we will fight the titans and seal the fountain, but, as a madman named "jaru" once said "the angel will reset all of reality back to the very beginning", but if you do the weird route, you'll be able to manipulate most of the main undertale characters that are in deltarune, kill the titans with one hit, and confront the angel himself but no matter what you do, you ALWAYS loose the Battle and the angel will ALWAYS reset (I also think that at one point during the route ralsei will either abandon the party or fight it and loose)
I think a good comparison to your idea is the “neutral route” in undertale. There are countless different variants of that route but they all end basically the same with the mood and tone being the major difference based on how violent you were and to who. No matter what you do as long as it wasn’t a full pacifist or genocide route, Asgore dies and Frisk leaves the underground, with the monsters staying trapped. The position and status of the rest of the monsters is entirely up to you but in a neutral route some things are just set in stone and can not be changed.
You are a small channel, but I am glad I stumbled upon your "ultimate theory" video from a few weeks ago. You have a great voice and great editing, with very cool and helpful visuals. I hope your channel blows up soon, loving the content!
My thought is that the ending of the game will work like the Neutral Routes from Undertale. No matter what you do in Undertale, unless you go down one of the two extremes the ending is roughly the same. Asgore is dead, the souls are gone, and monster-kind are generally worse off. Outside of those basic parameters, there are so many slightly different variations.
I personally see this as the Undertale neutral ending. There are actually a lot of endings but all somewhat similar. The outcome always stays the same in specific areas : Asgore died, the human souls disappeared, sans is alive and always is the one to call you, Frisk allegedly escaped the underground. I see the end of Deltarune with a similar endind. Some characteristics remain the same (the roaring or whatever the finale will be) while others change because of them (weird route)
Well know something for sure. The ending is the creator's dream. As he's been interviewed before about Deltarune. Dreams tend to be illogical, so I would guess the ending is more abstract.
Something that I think is extremely important to note is the ball toy in the town hall, where in the Weird Route it says that one of the balls have fallen off their lines. This is extremely compelling to me as it's directly telling us that we've pushed something out of line for the story as a whole. It's only one ball out of line right now, and therefore the story is able to continue mostly unhindered, but if we keep chipping away at the foundation eventually the whole thing will collapse.
My guess is the ending will always be the same on a cosmic scale. Whether or not Noelle and Kris are permamently traumatized doesnt change the fact that the cyber world fountain WAS closed, either way.
My belief is that it will like the neutral ending from Undertale, where, you still fight Omega Flowey, Asgore still dies, you still leave the underground, but there will be different calls at the end with different stories to tell, and also lets mention that your choices do effect interactions with other characters, like how, if you kill Papyrus, Undyne mentions that he isn't answering his calls, so I think that's how Deltarune will end, you'll still fight the same final boss, no story events will be majorly different, but there can be minor interaction changes depending on what you do, and a different epilogue based on your actions.
The way I see it, the endings of the chapters don't ammount to just the parts that play out the same way. If I kill everything, even if the ending cutscene plays the same way, I don't feel like it's worth to call it "the same ending". To make my logic clearer, what I mean is that timelines that get split in two by choices lead to their own singular ending, even if it looks the same as the others.
I think maybe the presence of Noelle is what allows the weird route to happen and that Susie’s greater presence in ch. 1 compared to ch. 2 is why our choices seem to matter less in ch. 1. I’m not sure how this might impact ch. 3 but I don’t expect a weird route continuation to be possible until our next chapter with Noelle
10:26 I don't think it's freedom from _our_ control, because if anything we are forcing Kris to make very bad choices that they themselves would never make. It's going to be freedom from whatever prophecy is supposed to take place. Seam makes it known that there are some things bound to happen regardless of what we do, it just might be that the weird route is our way of breaking the plot of the game through weird and uncharacteristic choices to force a different outcome.
If you ever beat birdley with violence you cannot ever save his arm. I learned that the hard way when I kept trying to beat the queen by mercy, but even at 100% birdley losses his arm.
Either way, if something bad happens to Kris or Susie I’ll be depressed for a month, I do think that each chapter will end slightly differently, including the ending, I believe Toby Fox said something about him just wanting to have fun while making the game, so I don’t think he’ll make a sad depressing ending (I hope). Personally that why I don’t like to make theories about Deltarune because it makes me paranoid while playing it
I like this theory, but I can see a sort of alternate interpretation of Ralsei’s line about a happy ending. Maybe all the things we go through to try to force a different ending make us unhappy with the ending we get. It’s us that get changed, not the ending. Just an idea I’m throwing out there!
I saw a theory where in the Weird Route, you softlock. TECHNICALLY it’s not an ending, but it still punishes you for being a jerk. Evidence: Noelle skips a party member she needs to keep going in Dragon Blazers and softlocks. (Spamton Sweepstakes)
10:25 That sounds to me like an escuse. Is like when in Undertale you attributes your horrible actions to Chara. Kris only wants to do Kris things like being a zombie or eating pie. You, the player decided to interfere with their life as a game and now they are a pawn.
i think the ending wil define our status with kris well either learn to coexsist and share the control or well be put out of kris body and never see anyone again(we could also get our own body maybe if well collect all shards and get the vessel back)
so basically, it'll be like Undertale's neutral ending, where most of what happens during the end is the same, but you are either shown or told about the consequences of previous actions?
So My theory is kinda in the same vein. My theory is more the lines of: there is only one ending, but your choices effect everything else. Like a commentary on life Dope vid😊
I feel like rather than "freedom" letting loose Kris from player control, it's more players seeking freedom from the one line of the plot. We will be disconnected from the game (and therefore Kris) at the end no matter what. What's happening in the weird route is that we're purposely breaking free of the narrative in search of something more. However, what is a story without a narrative? Just as Spamton is lifeless when his strings are cut, a story has no driving force without a constructed narrative, determining the actions of the characters and the results of those actions. You can try to break free but what do you really get out of that?
I think that delta rune will have multiple routes. With some even branching into crazy paths. But they will all have the exact same ending There will be points of interest, but the endings will be identical from one another. Kinda like… that episode of ok ko “we’ve got fleas” If no one watched the episode, no one would know that the main three were reverse furrys for the remainder of the show. Only the player will have the context, of the things they’ve done
So in other words, you are proposing that deltarune will have an ending like the "Neutral route" in Undertale. One single ending that can play out multiple ways depending on who you kill and who you spare.
Heres my personal theory: Deltarune is learning from the mistakes of Undertale. An unforunate side effect of letting Frisk do whatever he wants is the possibility of The Genocide Route. Deltarunes world needed to learn from Undertales world to prevent another genocide route hence it made our choices not matter, or at least tried to. The Snowgrave Route was not a possibility Deltarunes world did not expect for in the same way The Genocide Route was a possiblility Undertales world did not expect. The difference is that Deltarune tried to prevent it but failed while Undertale was not aware of something like this happening. Future werid routes may be harder to achieve than The Snowgrave route this is because the game will likely be more and more insistent on making your choices not matter.
Your choices may not matter in the end, and you may not be able to choose who you are in this world but. What YOU do with YOUR life ultimately does matter. It may not matter to the indifferent cruelty of this world. But you shouldn't just let your view be clouded by it. I believe that your choices, at the very least, to YOU... Do, indeed matter. The destination is nothing, without the journey. Death has no purpose without life.
I feel like the normal route won't have the roaring, but the weird route will. Though, the deltawarriors will defeat the titans in the roaring, but both routes will end in the timeloop being broken and them living their futures normally. and the broken home thing, I believe the chapter 3 weird route will end in Toriel's house burning down as we manipulate Toriel by putting Kris in life threatening situations, making her believe the world is nothing but bad and to use harming magic on it.
I agree. An alternative way there can simultaneously be one and multiple endings. There is supposed to be one ending, but fourth wall/meta/Gaster mumbo jumbo breaks the game giving us the power to change fate.
Basically The Witcher 3 endings, where we make low level choices thoughout the game wich change some aspects of the ending, but the main history of the game is the same.
New choice ending theory: So the whole prophecy is that darkners will disappear, and lightners will lose all hope, so recruitment doesn't actually matter. Ralsei says the choices of KRIS matters. Not us, the player. The PLAYER'S choices don't matter just as much as the CHARACTERS' choices don't matter, because in the end, one will cancel out the other. Killing everyone means you, the player, will have only your army to control, and are weaker against the characters' choices but your choices are a stronger influence on the plot. Sparing the characters means that the characters are stronger to rebel against your choices, they are stronger in influencing the outcome of the plot when you as the player's choices are weaker. In the end the plot remains the same, and the choices have balanced each other out. One ending but many ways to achieve it.
But the player chooses to help them, the characters doing what they want is what the player in pacifist wants The majority of the characters in the game are good, in pacifist the soul is also good So the soul doesn't need to enforce anything upon any character Because it wants what everyone wants, peace The player in that route wants freedom as well and only wants to help If our choices didn't matter in pacifist, our actions wouldn't have any influence on the characters and their behavior towards Kris They befriend Kris and the player because the player chooses kindness over harm And if the characters wanted to rebel against the player in pacifist, their intentions would be harmful
Hm, how very interesting, this was pretty much already inline with what I had already in mind, but this was well done regardless, I think this is probably the Case too, but i guess we’ll see to know for sure. Regardless, thanks for the Video, appreciate it. Say, have you watched mollystar’s Video?
And the post game finishes the story the way you've played up to that point. If you play normal, you get this average post-game. If you do the weird route, you get a darker post-game...
My theory is that the ending will always be the same, but what we have done up to that point will give it a vastly different meaning, kind of like in chapter 2
Same
The ending will be the same but the choices you did in the chapters effect it in some way like characters or locations in hometown etc ...
@@aperta_fox that's also possible, but I'm talking about the actual ending cutscene of the game
The only immutable thing about the ending is that Kris and Susie get an F on the group project because they ain’t doing shiiiiiit
Yeah, also like true pacifist vs soulless pacifist in Undertale
Should be noted that in Undertale the prophecy was that "the underground will go empty" which is true in the pacifist and genocide routes. They can hardly be considered the same ending, but it is fulfilled either way. Both prophecies involve an angel too. However, it is not fulfilled in the neutral route so maybe we shouldn't trust that Ralsei's prophecy will be fulfilled either. I think you are on point about the theme though. I also hope to see a new angle to that message in the typical Toby Fox manner.
I think that the "your choices do not matter" statement serves the same function as Flowey's "in this world is to kill or be killed" quote. The point of those is to provide the player an expectative to subvert/break. We subvert Flowey's thought by doing a true pacifist route. We will subvert the "futility" of our actions by sparing in Deltarune.
But sparing puts us in the main route. The weird route is the departure.
@@dhararry7929 Not really.
We can still defeat enemies without doing the weird route.
@@pedromarques2788yes, but if you fight or spare doesnt matter. Going out of your way to change the story is doing the weird route
I think the weird route is how we'll subvert it.
I think it would ask an interesting question: is freedom worth it if you have to do horrible things to acquire it?
Don't take my word for it, Spamton says it himself during the weird route:
YOU THINK MAKING
[Frozen Chicken]
WITH YOUR
[Side Chick]
IS GONNA LET
YOU DRINK UP
THAT [Sweet, Sweet]
[Freedom Sauce]?
WELL, YOU'RE
[$!$!] RIGHT!
BUT DON'T BLAME
ME
WHEN YOU'RE [Crying]
IN A [Broken Home]
WISHING YOU LET
YOUR OLD PAL
SPAMTON
[Kill You]
The short answer is, having one ending doesn't mean having one route. This is just like with real life. You are going to die in the end, but you can live it however you want. Unless... Well, just stick to that explanation.
Actually, i think ending is something, that happens between the saves: and routes are not supposed to be called "endings".
We see on green screensaver in Deltarune Ch.1 that our saves, all three of them, are important...
Something, like in the end we need to combine all possible routes to defeat something multiversal, something that crosses timelines.
10:20
"If you go down the Weird Route, Kris does obtain the one thing they've always wanted: Freedom."
Not really. Kris is shown to be visibly distraught after freezing Berdly, as noted by Ralsei and Susie before entering Queen's Mansion. The Weird Route is a consequence of *our* choices. We're still making them, and Kris is still carrying them out.
I think He means it at the ultimate end. Kris' control stay within its limits at ant other point in the story. If Kris were to get "freedom", they might still achieve that no matter what path they (or well, you) go down with. But everything else will still be messed up.
The weird route puts Kris and Noelle FIRMLY under YOUR control.
So the exact opposite of "freedom".
The "ending" theory I've always liked is that it's a combination of Sonic Adventure's character stories, and Undertale's reload after Neutral Pacifist to get to True Pacifist. Basically every save file in the game is designed to be used for a different route in the game, and the end of each individual file will be different, but they are not the "true" ending to the story. They all leave something out, and they all end badly because they all have individual flaws that spiral out of control. I imagine the 3 files would be Pacifism, Violence, and Weird. When you complete each ending, it unlocks a sort of "final story", where all 3 timelines collide in some way and open the way to the real end to the story.
That sounds really narratively satisfying.
Even if it doesn't work quite like that, it would be interesting if each ending revealed some different facts and perspectives that, when taken together, reveal the full story of what's going on.
That’s literally what I’m doing, I’ve just finished my pacifist and weird route and I have just started doing my “genocide” route.
its kinda like file 0 after getting every ending in needy girl overdose where we learn the truth
One flaw in your theory is that, without knowing later paths, we can't say that they aren't entirely diverged. Maybe in chapter 3 after the weird route there will be an issue with Berdly being "dead", when Undyne inevitably shows up in the dark world. At the end of the day we just don't have enough details to know if the weird route is its own path or not, so we can't really say for certain. Toby got us good with that one for sure though, as until I really thought about it I also ascribed to the notion that they were the same path in the end, with "minor" changes. But Berdly being dead in the library would be a MASSIVE change, that would no doubt alert Undyne to something happening.
I haven’t watched the video yet but I really enjoy one theory I saw that states that the weird route is actually gonna be part of the “good” ending. As we’ll need Noelle’s (and potentially whoever we manipulate next) strength to defeat the Titans and save the world.
It creates such a cool moral dilemma. Like, can you justify the weird routes and all the atrocities committed if it meant saving the world? It’s very fascinating.
Yes. Yes you can.
The World is saved, but everyone who survives now see Kris as a irredeemable monster and worse he can't say anything and nobody would ever believe it wasn't him. Save the World and condemned Kris or Everyone dies at the end of a "Normal Playthrough" ending. Tough choice indeed
Is it tho ?
@@stevenclouds *they
I prefer if the weird route didn't change the end, as a karmic retribution for making those choices,or for trying to find "freedom"
I think there is more to the neutral path then people are accounting for. there are some secrets you only see in a middle bath
I think there's something to this, considering you can only obtain the 'Twisted Sword' using the Thorn Ring, which is only obtainable from Weird Route; however, there is no way of knowing if Noelle will ever be back in the party. Especially in Chapter 3 which we know takes place in the middle of the night.
Logically, the only way to obtain the Thorn Ring and have it by the end of the chapter is to abort a weird route.
To me at least, it's interesting to wonder if those choices do matter. If the Roaring happens, it doesn't matter what Darkners did or did not exist since they'll all be stone. Someone who would ice Darkners, but never harm Lightners, might be let off with a slap on the wrists when it comes to the story cracking down on 'bad stuff bad'.
At least, that's what I imagine, and the curiosity alone ensures that the neutral route is my third file
@@Punsmaster2bruh, Noelle OBVIOUSLY will eventually return to the party, like do you really believe Toby will just leave the thing with Noelle at half-point? Hahaha,WRONG!!!
There's certainly going to be more "weird routes" in future chapters, and since it said that Noelle will be on the church "tomorrow"...
Well, I think you can connect the dots from there.
@@Lissy_YT481 Most of what we can come up with now is going to be speculation, it's very possible "our choices didn't matter" in influencing Noelle to that extent, like on a Snowgrave route, she could stay home from the Church visit out of fear of running into Kris
If our choice did matter, it might just be in the fact that Berdly isn't going to show up in the future, which could influence The Roaring or something along those lines
Lastly, I'm not saying it's impossible that Toby follows up on this, in fact I'd really like to see the direction it takes if Noelle shows up, 'determined' to expose what happened to Kris. What if she could somehow convince Ralsei or Susie that the soul were malicious?
It'd completely disintegrate the narrative
What if the middle path is the actual "weird/meta" route in the end. While the weird route is blatantly the "evil" option, the middle path could use certain aspects of the weird route to gain an advantage if you abort it at the right time. Could honestly be quite interesting.
@@Punsmaster2 I mean, bruh, her sick dad said that he would be there, do you really believe that she wouldn't go just out of fear that Kris come out considering EVERYTHING going on with Rudy and her mother?
Besides, we're still not sure about the EXACT condition of Berdly after the Snowgrave route, it's implied for the dialogue in both chapters that he's not really dead (at least yet) but he may have "fall down" or at the very least got knocked down HARD.
And lasty, I think it's a bit soon to guess how the thing with Noelle and the "weird route" will go in future chapters, maybe not really "exposing" what's going on with Kris (wich I must add she doesn't really know what it is exactly) but maybe as you go "breaking the paths" throught the game Susie and Ralsei will slowly realize that something's "not okay" with Kris (and of course we can't forget about what will happen once we get the Twisted Sword...)
Oh god… what if the weird route is us as players Insisting that there must be a different ending, and doing all of that heinous manipulation just to force things to change 😨
It litteraly is that from a metta perspective
That's what I'm thinking.
@@minestar2247
Yeah, and Flowy was a metta depiction of players getting bored and messing with the game characters after enough runs. So it fits as an actual part of the game.
My gosh, Kris’s life would be ruined if that’s true. The poor kid already being controlled by us. If some players go weird routes every chapter and it slowly causes everyone to be sus/dislike Kris without knowing they’re being controlled…Kris would lost all their friends and just be stuck like in the beginning…a broken lonely home.
if you think about it, Chapter 1 worked basically like Chapter 2 did but on a micro scale, with the only difference being how the King ended up, but Chapter 2 kinda did the same thing but on a far bigger scale, i think that's gonna keep happening, on bigger and bigger levels of divergence but always leading back to the same point
The blue bead may be ripped off, but the others continue on their destined path
Toby said that he had a dream about ending of a game and now he wants to make it.. this game is probably Deltarune so it would make more sense if it had only one ending, the one Toby dreamed about. However there might be different ways and paths to achieve this ending
Anyone else notice how the rings that you give Noelle in the weird route have a side thingy labeled ‘trance’? As well as the fact that ‘proceed’ is like a sort of trigger word to make her do stuff? Hmmmm
I believe that the "one ending" means that in the end, no matter what you do the roaring will happen and the world of deltarune will be destroyed. Not that our choices don't matter at all and we can't affect the other characters in deltarune. What our choices do is change the last living moments of everyone in hometown. We could either make their last days absolutely awful or help them live their last few days happily. It's kinda sad when you think about it. Knowing you can't save anyone no matter what you do, but you can at least make their last few moments better
Them just destroying the world would be anticlimactic
I think that the darkness can be stopped by the player, toby himself responded with "only one ending..?"
Implying that there could be more than one
This can be implied by the fact that whenever we don't persist when we lose, the darkness occurs
ive got a theory that the weird routes will have a big effect on the ending, in the weird route noelle was basically power leveled to a point she can dish out insane damage, way more than any other character we know of, and assuming this is the same on potential future weird routes where more and more characters are power leveled to a "perfect" self (max leveled) we can amass a VERY powerful group of characters, assuming the rauring and the titans come and the world is covered in darkness in the ending, perhaps the light world covered in dark during the rawring gives the lightners their dark world abilities in the light world, meaning the very powerful weird routed characters could potentially have a chance against fighting a titan,
i also have a crackpot theory that potentially we could use multiple save files to get these perfect selves, like what if a future weird route leveled birdly? he cant be leveled up if hes dead, so potentially the perfect selves could be sent outside of time like gaster to bring them all to one timeline (perhaps the normal timeline? or maybe one thats been prepared to welcome the perfect selves?) i think it would be really cool if you had to complete every weird route before finishing the main route to get a change that brought legendary (and traumatized) versions of the characters, and i really hope the weird route is for a good cause, because it feels too cruel to have it be for a bad end and i think it would be an interesting subversion of expectations
I think it's one ending but with the implications of what happens beyond that is depending on your final choice. I think the ending is going to be you having to fight Kris to let you leave. I think Kris summoned you to help them make friends specifically probably just Susie and I think they are going to realize if you leave it's all going to go away like what happened with spamton after the phone guy left him.
Inb4, you say you are the one controlling kris, and they don't like it. Kris has full control, they stop you from showing the trash orb to torial they can remove you when they wants to they clearly can take action whenever they want to. Kris did have the bird cage ready for you. I think it's heavily implied that you are giving suggestions and Kris is choosing to follow you kind of like what you did with Susie in chapter 1 and 2 and how Noelle can still hear you despite kris being knocked out in the weird route.
Many people don't actually realize that in the pacifist route especially, all friends Kris made are the soul's friends as well
The soul's actions were the ones who helped Kris throughout everything
from what we know atm, recruiting is implied to affect castle town throughout chapters, which would fit your definition of a high-level choice (affects what's happening in a future chapter)
at this point we don't know if castle town will have a bigger relevance, but i wouldn't completely disregard it as plot-irrelevant
since the darkners we spare are 'recruited' and the "If you recruited the right characters, the band can play a new BGM for your town!" line from 2022 status update implies that who you recruit will end up shaping the town itself
Something a lot of people forget when they say the weird route will be needed to defeat the roaring;
When we spare enemies, we recruit them. In the weird route we’ll beat the titans with our traumatized powerhouses, but in more peaceful routes we have a whole ass army
I just hope that the lack of multiple endings and the wide assortment of different actions we can take in the future chapters will make people stop sticking to one-dimensional routes like 'full pacifist' or 'no mercy' and explore the idea of what THEY THEMSELVES want to do, without sticking to 'a route'.
Undertale fans kinda devolved the game by only considering Pacifist and No Mercy the only options, while there are so many Neutral options, so I hope Deltarune is just a bunch of neutral endings that all lead to the same conclusion.
well, the thing about the Weird Route is, despite being TOLD that they're free, Kris isn't any more free than they were on the main route, they're still under your control, YOU are free to make choices, but they aren't
I said this before and I'll say it again: if the ending is something as drastic (and, personally, extremely cool) as the characters taking control of their own world and detaching us (players) from it permanently, either them doing it or the game simply ending, that would slap. Game ends, either because we have reached *the* end, or the we helped the characters (maybe someone even used us to do so, like Kris) to detach themselves and their world from our influence. Same ending, different paths. I don't really know what exactly the Prophecy is about, but the "and the WORLD saved from destruction" line makes me believe it's not just the normal narrative of saving one's planet, but quite literally the game world. The save itself. That would perfectly tie into the save menu being diegetic. It would be extremely brutal if we got straight up locked from accessing that save file just because that's how the story ends. While I might be wrong about the details, I'm sure there will be much more to the menu. I just...AHHH I'm so excited.
Tl;dr - it's the same ending for us, it's a different ending for them.
I think the perfect example you could have given for choices would be:
"Building a duck as the thrash machine" - choice
"Building the thrash machine" - not a choice
The sequence occurs regardless. And I think that Toby's desires and what he wants to state with this game is the final word. He is quite literally God/doG (ahh, a man of culture) and he is telling this story. The narrative of the story is exactly what he wants it to be, so is what is said (narration), so are all the inevitable events and sequences. Usually, that's just a normal part of the story, but in this case, it is a part of the story's lore and that's brilliant.
My personal theory is that in the normal route(s), we will fight the titans and seal the fountain, but, as a madman named "jaru" once said "the angel will reset all of reality back to the very beginning", but if you do the weird route, you'll be able to manipulate most of the main undertale characters that are in deltarune, kill the titans with one hit, and confront the angel himself but no matter what you do, you ALWAYS loose the Battle and the angel will ALWAYS reset (I also think that at one point during the route ralsei will either abandon the party or fight it and loose)
I think that choices do not matter for the characters. But ours matters.
Susie's choice to grab Ralsei and go up the road certainly mattered.
Other way around, bud.
I think a good comparison to your idea is the “neutral route” in undertale. There are countless different variants of that route but they all end basically the same with the mood and tone being the major difference based on how violent you were and to who. No matter what you do as long as it wasn’t a full pacifist or genocide route, Asgore dies and Frisk leaves the underground, with the monsters staying trapped. The position and status of the rest of the monsters is entirely up to you but in a neutral route some things are just set in stone and can not be changed.
You are a small channel, but I am glad I stumbled upon your "ultimate theory" video from a few weeks ago. You have a great voice and great editing, with very cool and helpful visuals. I hope your channel blows up soon, loving the content!
Maybe the real ending was the friends we made along the way
That's a funny way to spell snowgrave 😊
My thought is that the ending of the game will work like the Neutral Routes from Undertale. No matter what you do in Undertale, unless you go down one of the two extremes the ending is roughly the same. Asgore is dead, the souls are gone, and monster-kind are generally worse off. Outside of those basic parameters, there are so many slightly different variations.
We have one example of a high level choice. Giving up, and allowing the Roaring to happen, or trying again
we can never predict next Tobyy's move. What's next? Chapter 3 secret boss is a thing covered in foam?
he already has thing like this in alphyss basement
I personally see this as the Undertale neutral ending. There are actually a lot of endings but all somewhat similar. The outcome always stays the same in specific areas : Asgore died, the human souls disappeared, sans is alive and always is the one to call you, Frisk allegedly escaped the underground.
I see the end of Deltarune with a similar endind. Some characteristics remain the same (the roaring or whatever the finale will be) while others change because of them (weird route)
Well know something for sure.
The ending is the creator's dream. As he's been interviewed before about Deltarune.
Dreams tend to be illogical, so I would guess the ending is more abstract.
best "maybe the real treasure was the friends we made along the way" theory Video ever
Something that I think is extremely important to note is the ball toy in the town hall, where in the Weird Route it says that one of the balls have fallen off their lines. This is extremely compelling to me as it's directly telling us that we've pushed something out of line for the story as a whole. It's only one ball out of line right now, and therefore the story is able to continue mostly unhindered, but if we keep chipping away at the foundation eventually the whole thing will collapse.
My guess is the ending will always be the same on a cosmic scale. Whether or not Noelle and Kris are permamently traumatized doesnt change the fact that the cyber world fountain WAS closed, either way.
My belief is that it will like the neutral ending from Undertale, where, you still fight Omega Flowey, Asgore still dies, you still leave the underground, but there will be different calls at the end with different stories to tell, and also lets mention that your choices do effect interactions with other characters, like how, if you kill Papyrus, Undyne mentions that he isn't answering his calls, so I think that's how Deltarune will end, you'll still fight the same final boss, no story events will be majorly different, but there can be minor interaction changes depending on what you do, and a different epilogue based on your actions.
The way I see it, the endings of the chapters don't ammount to just the parts that play out the same way.
If I kill everything, even if the ending cutscene plays the same way, I don't feel like it's worth to call it "the same ending".
To make my logic clearer, what I mean is that timelines that get split in two by choices lead to their own singular ending, even if it looks the same as the others.
I think maybe the presence of Noelle is what allows the weird route to happen and that Susie’s greater presence in ch. 1 compared to ch. 2 is why our choices seem to matter less in ch. 1. I’m not sure how this might impact ch. 3 but I don’t expect a weird route continuation to be possible until our next chapter with Noelle
10:26
I don't think it's freedom from _our_ control, because if anything we are forcing Kris to make very bad choices that they themselves would never make.
It's going to be freedom from whatever prophecy is supposed to take place. Seam makes it known that there are some things bound to happen regardless of what we do, it just might be that the weird route is our way of breaking the plot of the game through weird and uncharacteristic choices to force a different outcome.
I personally believe the high level choice is the snowgave on berdly and iceshock is everything below
If you ever beat birdley with violence you cannot ever save his arm. I learned that the hard way when I kept trying to beat the queen by mercy, but even at 100% birdley losses his arm.
Funnily enough, you did make my day better by posting this 😂 I was having a littleeeee anxiety attack earlier but this is nice to focus on 😅
Either way, if something bad happens to Kris or Susie I’ll be depressed for a month, I do think that each chapter will end slightly differently, including the ending, I believe Toby Fox said something about him just wanting to have fun while making the game, so I don’t think he’ll make a sad depressing ending (I hope). Personally that why I don’t like to make theories about Deltarune because it makes me paranoid while playing it
Here before this channel blows up. I promise, it will.
Longest “friends we made along the way” joke ever
I like this theory, but I can see a sort of alternate interpretation of Ralsei’s line about a happy ending. Maybe all the things we go through to try to force a different ending make us unhappy with the ending we get. It’s us that get changed, not the ending. Just an idea I’m throwing out there!
I saw a theory where in the Weird Route, you softlock. TECHNICALLY it’s not an ending, but it still punishes you for being a jerk.
Evidence: Noelle skips a party member she needs to keep going in Dragon Blazers and softlocks. (Spamton Sweepstakes)
I always wonder if the shadow crystals are in any way relevant to any possible conclusions
Lore of CHOICE THEORY and the ENDING of DELTARUNE momentum 100
I have a solution: it has one ending but how you get to it is what matters. Your actions and choices will determine how kris will turn out
There has been a datamine confirming that there will actually be more then 7 chapters but i'm pretty sure it doesn't change anything to this theory.
10:25 That sounds to me like an escuse. Is like when in Undertale you attributes your horrible actions to Chara. Kris only wants to do Kris things like being a zombie or eating pie. You, the player decided to interfere with their life as a game and now they are a pawn.
This video was really fun and well made, suprised how underrated you are!! :D
i think the ending wil define our status with kris well either learn to coexsist and share the control or well be put out of kris body and never see anyone again(we could also get our own body maybe if well collect all shards and get the vessel back)
so basically, it'll be like Undertale's neutral ending, where most of what happens during the end is the same, but you are either shown or told about the consequences of previous actions?
I like your conclusion. Very wholesome
Good ending, Neutral ending Freedom ending, Sacrifice ending, Weird ending.
So My theory is kinda in the same vein. My theory is more the lines of: there is only one ending, but your choices effect everything else.
Like a commentary on life
Dope vid😊
I feel like rather than "freedom" letting loose Kris from player control, it's more players seeking freedom from the one line of the plot. We will be disconnected from the game (and therefore Kris) at the end no matter what. What's happening in the weird route is that we're purposely breaking free of the narrative in search of something more. However, what is a story without a narrative? Just as Spamton is lifeless when his strings are cut, a story has no driving force without a constructed narrative, determining the actions of the characters and the results of those actions. You can try to break free but what do you really get out of that?
The path you take in the Dark Worlds doesn't matter, but in the Light World it _does_
It’s prob going to end the same but the things like if Kris breaks free or if Kris ends up massacring the town stuff happens
It could just end one way and then we have to go back through time (and space) using the save files to get the true ending.
I think that delta rune will have multiple routes. With some even branching into crazy paths.
But they will all have the exact same ending
There will be points of interest, but the endings will be identical from one another.
Kinda like… that episode of ok ko “we’ve got fleas”
If no one watched the episode, no one would know that the main three were reverse furrys for the remainder of the show.
Only the player will have the context, of the things they’ve done
So in other words, you are proposing that deltarune will have an ending like the "Neutral route" in Undertale. One single ending that can play out multiple ways depending on who you kill and who you spare.
Heres my personal theory: Deltarune is learning from the mistakes of Undertale.
An unforunate side effect of letting Frisk do whatever he wants is the possibility of The Genocide Route. Deltarunes world needed to learn from Undertales world to prevent another genocide route hence it made our choices not matter, or at least tried to.
The Snowgrave Route was not a possibility Deltarunes world did not expect for in the same way The Genocide Route was a possiblility Undertales world did not expect.
The difference is that Deltarune tried to prevent it but failed while Undertale was not aware of something like this happening.
Future werid routes may be harder to achieve than The Snowgrave route this is because the game will likely be more and more insistent on making your choices not matter.
❤️ Thank you for the new long form theory videos bro.
Your choices may not matter in the end, and you may not be able to choose who you are in this world but.
What YOU do with YOUR life ultimately does matter.
It may not matter to the indifferent cruelty of this world.
But you shouldn't just let your view be clouded by it.
I believe that your choices, at the very least, to YOU...
Do, indeed matter.
The destination is nothing, without the journey.
Death has no purpose without life.
I think that theres not only one ending, and if there is, its going to be diferent based on how much shadowcrystals you have.
I mean maybe in the end if you got all of the 6 shadowcrystals in chap 7 you will fight the secret boss, that is gaster.
I hope you get more popular, these theories are great!
I feel like the normal route won't have the roaring, but the weird route will. Though, the deltawarriors will defeat the titans in the roaring, but both routes will end in the timeloop being broken and them living their futures normally.
and the broken home thing, I believe the chapter 3 weird route will end in Toriel's house burning down as we manipulate Toriel by putting Kris in life threatening situations, making her believe the world is nothing but bad and to use harming magic on it.
I agree. An alternative way there can simultaneously be one and multiple endings. There is supposed to be one ending, but fourth wall/meta/Gaster mumbo jumbo breaks the game giving us the power to change fate.
Bro really made an intermediate choice with this video
Basically The Witcher 3 endings, where we make low level choices thoughout the game wich change some aspects of the ending, but the main history of the game is the same.
So it might be a bit like the original neutral endings of Undertale? Largely the same, with some details changing?
pretty great analysis 👍 i just watched the deltarune ch2 longplays on your channel too
So your idea is that there are small choices we can make that really dont change the course of the game but it wont change the ultimate outcome.
There's only one ending*
*to the main story. Mostly
So
You mean like the multiple neutral endings in undertale?
i do think the ending is always reach the same goal, as example: Banish The Angel Heaven, Or Maybe The Roaring Knight
New choice ending theory: So the whole prophecy is that darkners will disappear, and lightners will lose all hope, so recruitment doesn't actually matter. Ralsei says the choices of KRIS matters. Not us, the player. The PLAYER'S choices don't matter just as much as the CHARACTERS' choices don't matter, because in the end, one will cancel out the other. Killing everyone means you, the player, will have only your army to control, and are weaker against the characters' choices but your choices are a stronger influence on the plot. Sparing the characters means that the characters are stronger to rebel against your choices, they are stronger in influencing the outcome of the plot when you as the player's choices are weaker. In the end the plot remains the same, and the choices have balanced each other out. One ending but many ways to achieve it.
But the player chooses to help them, the characters doing what they want is what the player in pacifist wants
The majority of the characters in the game are good, in pacifist the soul is also good
So the soul doesn't need to enforce anything upon any character
Because it wants what everyone wants, peace
The player in that route wants freedom as well and only wants to help
If our choices didn't matter in pacifist, our actions wouldn't have any influence on the characters and their behavior towards Kris
They befriend Kris and the player because the player chooses kindness over harm
And if the characters wanted to rebel against the player in pacifist, their intentions would be harmful
Just, what is the point of even bringing up High Level Choices if you think we will never get the chance to make them?
It’s going to be like the neutral route from undertale
It's only going to have one ending, and that's final.
However, that ending means is up to you.
what if your choices do matter in the dark world but not in the Light world
Papyrus definitely will be the knight due to his Undertale bio being "forgettable" and makes the skeleton In closet joke
for ch1 what about getting the shadow chrystal
i havent seen anyone talk about this yet
Hm, how very interesting, this was pretty much already inline with what I had already in mind, but this was well done regardless, I think this is probably the Case too, but i guess we’ll see to know for sure.
Regardless, thanks for the Video, appreciate it.
Say, have you watched mollystar’s Video?
So basically its like epic micky
Bro this channel is an existence, congratulations I'm very happy to have you theorizing here :3
underrated
YES
Maybe we will have only one ending but we will have a post-game experience as well. That way, everything can get wrapped up in a post-game conclusion
And the post game finishes the story the way you've played up to that point.
If you play normal, you get this average post-game.
If you do the weird route, you get a darker post-game...
@@TheSkyGuy77 Yeah, exactly like that
There can be one “ending” but several epilogues.
*The true ending is the friends we made along the way*
Very epic video
What a great channel
Sorry Berdly, you are only an INTERMEDIATE choice
this video is presented very well
My theory is that that no matter what, you will stop the roaring.
But if there's anyone left to share freedom with afterwards is up to you.
Awesome video.
oh?