My personal theory before this video was that a bad ending save is an "angel's heaven" and a good ending is the only way to fix it, "banishing" the bad data. Remember, a bad undertale ending was a permanent corruption of your file. We now have 3 different files so we can fix files using different files.
Ooooh I like this theory as it implies that your choices don't matter in the timeline your playing in, but do matter in the other timelines your not playing in!
Furthermore, 3 files, 3 Heroes. What if the 3 heroes that appear at World's edge is actually 1 hero appears in each file and you Gotta smh reunite them to save the World ?
@@laguet93 ooooo That's a good one but that would mean we either get 3 Kris or 3 Susie or.... Unless, it's something like Kris Susie Ralsei BUT they all have a copy of the soul from each file, meaning technically one hero
@@laguet93 beacuse of different routes i can imagine the 3 heroes: first a pacifist, second a wannabe killer but everyone escapes, third instane manipulator of weird route
I'd like to note that it specifically uses "Erase" rather than "Delete", and in Undertale's Genocide Route, we're given the choice of "Erase" the world or "Do Not"
I think to answer the question of why we get three save files, we could look at it through the lens of 'what sort of player behavior does this encourage?' Having only a single save forced players to view the world and story of UT in a very specific way. DR's multiple saves however allow players to easily switch between the normal route where they've done nothing wrong and the weird route in which they've deliberately tried to enact as much harm as possible while keeping both 'timelines' simultaneously intact. I think that ability would open up the venue for some kind of meta critique of the type of player who switches between murder-hobo and goody-two-shoes with a flick a button and who holds no commitment to either mode. edit: clarity
Oooo, that's interesting. Maybe there's some dialogue later in the game where, depending on if you did snowgrave on other save files or if you're on snowgrave now but the other files you're normal, they talk about what it could have been, or the lengths the player will go to see as many sides of the game as possible
Yup, i 100% sure that doing Snowgrave in other save file will affect other save files. It's already kinda implied since you can acquire Jevil items without fighting him if you beat him in other save file
that was my first thought when I saw there are multiple save files. Like "yeah toby I see what you did here, and I'm not buying it. I won't do any f-ed up things even in other save files, knowing how in UT genocide f-ed up even resets". Didn't even know about Jevil items. This implies Jevil is some kind of entity that goes beyond timeline, just like the player? yet it doesn't work with spamton, am I correct? So it's not that shadow crystal doings? Though the thign that kinda doesn't add up for me is how these save files work. You can jump into "another" save file at any point in the game, like for example to go back and forth in time, these aren't exactlty separated entities. You can play some section of the game, then save in a second file, play further and rewrite data back on the first one. Basically your normal save file stuff. so... thoughts?
In fact, since Toby is really good at misleading us, I really wonder whether the "your choices don't matter" is referring to us, since in the two chapters, things Kris does don't matter, while our decision changes something (what machine Rouxls used to fight us and we use to fight Giga Queen, and even if we killed Berdly and nearly everyone in the Cyber World) That's also the reason I suspect the three heroes may in fact be the player (human), Noelle (monster) and Lancer (dark world prince), as these three are who's choices matters
But isn't it Susie who we see make more choices than anyone else, going even against our -the player- wishes? And Noelle in the other hand it's been use by Queen and, in a weird route, by the player. So if you're theory is right, the monster shouldn't be Susie?
If you see Steins Gate, it would be the same thing, where there's different timelines, but as long those timelines are in the same attractor field, they will have the same results in the big factor of events.
The problem with this is that there are times where the Player isn't given a chance to respond. Like when Susie is bullying Kris in the hallway in Chapter 1 and asks us a question and interrupts before we can answer with 'your choices don't matter' or when Ralsei asks Kris and Susie which one he should go with and Susie cuts in saying "Why does Kris always get to decide?" and drags Ralsei with her. Both scenarios don't account for player input as far as I know because it doesn't give us time to decide. There's also the fact that the routes themselves don't change as far as outcome, no matter what you do within the game. You can kill as many enemies as you want or either help or hurt Noelle during the weird route and it changes virtually nothing in regards to the chapter endings. If Toby was trying to convey that the Player's choice is what matters then why are there things that are programmed in the game that hinder those choices?
Asriel's drawer is a tiny change _now._ But the next dark world takes place in the Dreemurr household, and we know that its scope reaches to Kris and Asriel's room thanks to the Green Room.
I can't believe you didn't mention possibly the most interesting bit of dialogue in the menu dialogue - that when you make every slot have the same file, he says "Preparations are complete." That has some huge implications for how the end of the game might function depending on your different saves.
Maybe what toby meant by "there's something more important than reaching the end" may just be that we can either choose to help the characters feel better about themselves, and not help. Even if the ending will be the same, we can end the game with a clear mind that the characters now feel ok (because at least for me, if pixels are feeling good im feeling good). You see, on snowgrave route you just make noelle feel worse about everything, but in normal routes she feels better about herself. I think that even if the end is the same, what's important is helping the troubled characters, not finishing the game.
@@zigazav1 something i also forgot to add is that this is why there's always the more rude options to tell a character, which could prove more this theory!
I think that erasing a save file destroys the timeline though, because it has the same ERASE/DO NOT options as destroying the timeline in Undertale's genocide route
I dont think anyone ever thinks "maybe the three save files come from the three heroes and the three titans" And by extension the three deltas in the delta rune In all three situations i described, its always the same thing, two identical ones and a single different one Two triangles pointing upwards, one pointing downwards Two slender titans, one chunkier, more elaborate titan Two lightners, one darkner My idea? Something something "determination of the three" idk
Jaru Jaru's theory of a time loop may actually lead to a cool true ending. What you do doesnt matter. Well, maybe that only applies to any one save. Maybe by completing all 3 saves, or doing something specific in all 3 saves, you could end up breaking the loop.
actually maybe the "one ending" applies to there only being one true ending, and the other three "endings" are just pieces of the puzzle needed to reach the true ending
my theory about the differing contents of the drawer is that asriel might be a completely different person depending on which save file you choose. so in the first save file, he's a jock (cuz of the cross country uniform), in the second one he's maybe more bookish (not sure about this one) and in the third maybe he's a stoner/slacker type (cuz of the pizza coupons). just a thought edit: i just realized the stoner/slacker personality would kinda go against all the trophies in his room though. it's not a perfect theory lol
i think it means that Asriel was either a party person like that one dude implied or that Asriel is popular but a loner or something alone those lines. Its hard to decide if the coupons are expired because he hasnt been using them since he's absent for so long, or if he had them and never had a chance to use them (you can have pizza whenever but usually you'd share them with friends or at parties. his family clearly homecooks so pizza wouldnt be a need to have unless he were living alone as well.) -
I just thought of something that could be a potential clue. There are 3 save files, each with slight differences... and also chapters 3-5 (a total of 3 chapters) all come out at the same time. I wonder if each of the upcoming chapters will have something to do (even as a B-plot) with one of the things in Asriel's desk drawer. The expired pizza coupons are connected to Ice-E, and by extension Noelle, easter egg hunting, etc. Possibly more Weird Route shenanigans? The picture with the embarrassing haircut is specifically not worded to say which kid it belonged to. It could technically be anyone, but given that Asriel would be most likely to have either their own or Kris's, and it was referred to as embarrassing, I'm going to guess Kris. So, more backstory for Kris as a character, possibly including bullying, since bad haircuts often lead to that and Kris is a loner type. Finally, the cross-country shirt brings sports into the mix. Yes, Asriel has a lot of trophies, which often implies sports, but all they technically mean is that he's good at winning SOME kind of competition, which could be academic, or game related, or sports, or heck, even beauty pageants. So sports will probably come up as a side plot, probably meaning Jockington will get more spotlight
@@stwbmc98 It went back and forth. First was that it was going to be chapter by chapter and there would be 5 chapters, then it got switched to 2-5 (aka rest of the game) at once. Then he surprise-dropped Ch 2 on us, and the fact it would be actually 7 chapters was revealed in the menu. Within a short time after that he said it'd be 3-5 at once, but no info on 6 and 7.
i see the difference in the contents of asriel's drawer being a hint that asriel might be exempt from the theme of peoples' choices not mattering. which normally wouldn't be a huge deal, since plenty of characters have the ability to make plot-altering decisions... but only in the dark world. asriel has made an alteration to the light world. i think this is especially important given that the light world seems to feel a lot more restrictive than the dark worlds. noelle feels powerless to help her dad. asgore is stuck separated from his family and facing financial issues. susie feels so alienated in the light world that she'd rather continually escape into the dark fountains. among all of this, only asriel seems free... ...unless you also count the player.
There actually one more very, very interesting line when you mess around with the save files. If you copy a save to all three slots so that they are all identical, the voice says "PREPARATIONS ARE COMPLETE." Also when you start chapter two the weird all caps Gasterlike voice is replaced with a much closer to normal writing style and copy/erase lines.
Honestly the ending of a chapter being a reset although a bit far fetched does still make a lot of sense when you think about it. It makes it more easier to understand the save files' purpose. For the player's convenience and entertainment
Oh god my siblings and I use the 3 save files so we all have our own personal experiences when a new chapter comes out. I’m extremely interested to see where this goes.
Someone on tumblr found that, if you copy your save data in that screen into all three save slots, the text is "THE PREPARATIONS ARE COMPLETE". I think whatever's going on, we'll need to have three different saves to accomplish it. That might not mean playing the game three whole times either, as it's part of the lore as well that what you do in one save file can affect another - if you fight the secret bosses in one save for example, you get their items in the other saves, and Seam even references that in-game.
Something I could totally see Toby doing is if you want to get the “True Ending”, then you will need to have played all 3 save files in specific ways that somehow affects things within the other save files.
@@StarPlatinum-ch3gi All I know is that people did play Undertale over and over again to get all of the endings. If Toby does things correctly, I don't think this will be an issue. I mean, we already have the Weird Route stuff, which for the vast majority of the playthrough is exactly the same. For all we know, the Weird Route Save File might be a completely different experience from the Normal Route Save File, add a Third route variant on top of that, and I don't think replaying the game 3 times will be a problem for most people. We can also use the three saves to our advantage to cut down as much needless replaying as possible.
The idea that the ending is a reset makes a ton of sense. It plays perfectly into the meta of Under-rune. It explains the save files. It sounds like an extreme Toby would go for. And even if it isn't exactly a reset, I think the effect will be similar. Whatever happens, we'll feel something along the lines of "well, it's over, nothing mattered, but it was fun." This, of course, is the same as any game we play, since the ending never really matters, but because it's Under-rune we notice it, and it weighs on us. It means something. And doesn't that fit with the way Toby wrote Undertale? Calling out the players' tendancies in how they play games?
I like having 3 save files because i use one for full pacifist/recruiting everyone and the second one for attacking everyone and getting stronger And third one is for experimenting
Didn't finish watching yet so Im not sure if you mention this bUT, I think Deltarune having 3 save files also works just from a game design standpoint. It seems like, despite having one ending, Deltarune will have 3 different routes. One being recruiting everyone, the other being failing to recruit everyone and fighting enemies, and the last being the weird route. (You can tell because of how much Berdly's fate changes by the end of chapter 2. One has him being fine, another has him frying his arm, and in the last has him presumably DIE.) The difference between Deltarune and Undertale, however, is that Deltarune is much longer and has a much more complicated chapter system. So having 3 save files just makes it much more convenient for the player to keep track of which chapters they're doing and in which routes. It'd be a nightmare to try the different routes across every chapter without an extra save file. So while there absolutely can be a lore reason, I just think it's worth mentioning that it also makes sense non-lore-wise.
You also have to look at this from the other aspect of the save files: One per soul. Flowey wound up with 6 save files or so when he became Omega Flowey, so the idea of us having 3 save files would imply the presence of two other souls in our control. If we're counting us and Kris as having two separate files, then who is the third? It's not like we can just wave them off as purely for convenience of the player, Asriel's drawer contents change depending on which you use.
Ah that's a good point, I didn't really focus on the soul aspect of it and looked at it more from a gameplay perspective when writing the script. However I think the soul aspect of it being confusing is a large reason why I didn't look at it from that perspective in this video. I've always had some gripes with the Third Entity esque theories because it never made a ton of sense from a narrative perspective imo and I still don't think there's a good candidate for who the third entity would even be. But I agree that I should've at least addressed the soul aspect of it in the video.
Well if Kris has their own soul, where is it? It can't possibly be in Kris' body since if the player's soul shatters Kris will die, and that would also prevent the possibility of a third soul too.
Before I watch it I remember a one thing: flowey having 6 human souls was able to save and load like 7 save files. This shown that a powerful enough creature is able to have multiple save files
I'd like to think that Sans' line about "timelines jumping left and right, stopping and starting... until suddenly, everything just ends" Has a lot more weight than just Undertale. In fact, I doubt it has much to do with Undertale at all. If we consider Save Files to be the start of Timelines, as in Resetting the Save File means Resetting the Timeline, it wouldn't make much sense if Sans was referring to our Timeline in Undertale. If we consider Sans to be the same as himself in Deltarune, then he may be referring to our soul, which remains in BOTH Undertale and Deltarune. The line about timelines "jumping left and right" could refer to us switching between save files in Deltarune. The line about "stopping and starting" could also refer to us erasing and starting the save files. The line about "until suddenly, everything just ends" could directly refer to the fact that all of the save files are intertwined, and despite those timelines being different with choices made in them... Those choices don't matter. Everything ends. Everything ends the exact same way. Nothing comes after. That's why your choices don't matter. Sans probably knows even more about Deltarune than we know he does. I'm going to examine all of his dialogue to see if it matches with this theory, byee!
One thing that is interesting is that Sans' dialogue makes literally 0 sense in UT. UT's variant of time travel is imperfect time rewinding. It leaves deja vu in a ton of chracters & Flowey is determined enough to just remember fully. This doesn't make sense if each load or reset was a seperate timeline.
Regarding the save file screen, did you notice how it's a green Interface on a black screen ? Exactly like the screens in the true lab ! You also hear the DRONE sound effect, just like at the beginning of Ch1 before The Doctor turns on the GONER MAKER device AND when you select a chapter. I'm actually convinced all these sequences take place in the Doctor's lab which would be the Bunker (notice how the slowed down smile.ogg sounds like a machine of some sort). It's actually pretty huge because that means we (the player) may have been in the Bunker. As for the ERASE feature, it's pretty obvious to me that, unlike in undertale, we don't have the RESET/SAVE power. Someone else has it and manages the files for us. Obviously, from the file screen dialogues we Can assume it's The Doctor. It would make sense that HE owns more than 1 file and Can erase at any time : he would be much more knowledgeable about the save/reset stuff than us, puny undertale players. That puts him in a whole other power tier
speaking of the true lab... theres something i realized recently. go and take a look at the generator that alphys turns on at the end the area. it has a creepy smile and a red heart-shape on the front of it. now this machine never got a proper explanation in undertale and many theorists at the time speculated that the heart might actually be chara's soul, but in hindsight-that doesnt really make a lot of sense. chara's soul was absorbed by asriel and disappeared along with his when he died, leaving chara as a souless being much like flowey. (this is why chara is able to hitch a ride on frisk's soul later on because frisk is essentially a "vessel with determination" just like asriel's flower after alphys injected it with DT.) soo if it's not chara's soul, then...what if its kris's? the machine with the heart is referred to as a "generator" and gaster supposedly disappeared after falling into his invention, the core that powers the underground. what if gaster somehow summoned kris's soul to the undertale universe in his attempts to escape the barrier and eventually went off the deep end as he began experimenting more and more on kris and the other universe he discovered, ultimately leading to him disappearing from his own. considering how meta these games are, maybe during his research on interdimensional travel he accidentally learned that his whole world existed inside a videogame and this is what actually caused him to go insane. afterall jevil and spamton who have likely been corrupted by gaster seem to hold similar sentiments on the true nature of the reality they live in
@@gristenVery compelling stuff to think about! Very possible! Just a minor correction though: Gaster WAS said to have fallen into his creation... But they never said which one. Popularly, players assume it's The Core. But, Gaster may have invented many other things. Perhaps the Determination Extractor (Alphys said she built this one using already existing blueprints), perhaps the machine in Sans's basement (which he & another person, perhaps Alphys or perhaps Papyrus, tried in vain to fix, which Toby actively pointed out at some point), maybe that generator. Who knows what else it could be? All I know is that, when we join Deltarune to create our Vessel, the code references it as Goner Maker, & Device.
@@ZaCloud-Animations___she-her that is true but the core has always been the most popular theory and i didnt want the theory to get too complicated by adding speculation on what the invention is. the goners tell us about the core specifically so unless its just a red herring, i think thats the conclusion the game wants us to make. i also think its interesting to note that when alphys talks to us about how the core works she suddenly cuts herself off and changes the subject. could mean nothing but i always found that to be really suspicious
It would be such interesting outcome, if 3 save files represent 3 way of ending. Maybe it would be standart run, "weird" rout and for secret bosses, which could "destroy" the game. Yeah, maybe the final cutscene of each run can not be changed, but final battle - can.
Eyy, thanks for the shoutout! I've been so busy that I hadn't checked this out yet. Great video! The three save files are definitely a persistent mystery, and one that I'm only slowly beginning to wrap my head around.
I've had my own theory/thoughts for a while that having different save files where you behave differently (like going Pacifist in one and Weird in another) will affect other files in certain ways. We already know that there's some weird save file stuff going on as if you defeat Jevil in Chapter 1 but continue on a separate save file into Chapter 2, the game acknowledges this and you can find his rewards in the cliffs' hole in Castle Town, meaning that what you do in previous save files in the past still has an effect in future files. So going off of this I believe it is entirely possible that if you follow the Weird Route across several chapters, certain changes or effects could take place on other Pacifist save files in future chapters from then on. Or maybe once you progress far enough into a Pacifist save file, maybe even close to the end, a character in-game will recognize that you're not actually completely clean and somehow, somewhere, you did something really bad, referencing your Weird Route saves in other save files and locking you out of a potential 'True Pacifist' ending if there's such a thing, like a sort of punishment for treating their other selves from other saves as mere test subjects or playthings.
9:47 THe ending might be the same, the one from the 2011 fever dream, but what's around the ending could be very different. You can see this in some of the old Fire Emblem games, where each character meets a specific fate even with the same ending playing out, but you know a game which I remember exemplifying this? The Red Strings Club. The game opens with a guy you don't know falling out of Supercontinent's tower, talking to someone. You know what that is? That's the last node in the web of narrative that's the game. It will always happen. The game is all about playing a different take on VA-11 HALL-A to see what path and which people take you to it, altering the patron's emotions and memorizing valuable intel and deep questions. But one thing always remains, in the red strings screen. The last node: "Brandeis fell out of Supercontinent's tower". And you can leave those lives in VERY different spots, your knowledge night and day, but Brandeis will always fall out of Supercontinent's tower. I think Toby will take the game in that direction, especially if the Weird Route has literally any presence in the game at large. I'm pretty sure Kris will be there, we will be there (for a while, at least), maybe even Susie will be guaranteed to survive to that point. And it's gonna be a hell of an Ending, given the two and a half games it took to make it, but I just wonder... Does that mean Noelle's quest to save Kris is doomed to fail? What hope or tragedy will await us there? We have not seen Brandeis fall out of Supercontinent's tower, but damn ain't this gonna be the Neon Genesis Evangelion of indie games for me, at least.
I have a pet theory in my head that the song "Don't forget" will later be sung by a male singer [Gaster, Asriel, Ralsie, Asgore, Rudy, Father alvin, ect] somewhere in chapters 3-5, and eventually it will be sung as a duet between the male and female singers. This could symbolize the parental assurance of Toriel and Asgore to Kris, or the lost love between Dess and Asriel, or some other "greater than the some of its parts" revelation in the story. I partially get the idea from elsewhere in gaming [Spoilers ahead]. Bastion's "Setting sail, coming home" re-contextualizes 2 separate songs as part of a single duet between a mother and son. In "Want to be free" by sea power, which is featured in an altered way in the game "Disco Elysium", what first appears to be a solo is actually a duet with a female voice if you listen closely enough and you hear the female vocals isolated in a boat ride to the game's final area, and the motif is meant to symbolize the main character's lingering memories of his ex-wife. [Spoilers end] I also think the don't forget motif will appear in the final battle theme/sequence.
>Talks about Gaster save file dialogues > Doesn't mention "PREPARATIONS ARE COMPLETE" at all, or the "kris" named save file when interacting with a save point for the very first time (across ALL runs) lmao, good job. Seriously through, there's a VERY specific dialogue during that save file screen that's triggered by coping one save file and then pasting it on the other two (which MUST be different from the first one you just copied), upon doing that Gaster (?) will says "PREPARATIONS ARE COMPLETE". So could this imply there might be a point where you NEED all 3 save files for something? Regarding the second point, the very first time you interact with a save point, the file will be named "kris", then upon saving yourself, it will be erased on all subsequent runs. This is currently the holy grail for theories that are about Deltarune being "post-reset" or simply the "reset" and save files being contextualized into the game's world, just like Undertale.
I actually did mention the Kris save file thing in a prior video I believe. However I think the point still stands since it seems like the save files belong to us now and not Kris, and bringing up that point would just overall muddy the point I was trying to make but maybe I could've found a way to bring it up in a clear way with a bit more time. I did miss the "preparations are complete" thing though
@@MysticSlime You missed another super compelling detail too: What the voice says if you repeatedly threaten to erase a file, then spare it, over & over (I forget how many times). The voice then says something like "WHAT AN INTERESTING BEHAVIOR." 😨
The wording of the pre-chapter 1 file management stuff actually makes me think about the vessels. If copying a file is creating a reflection, then there has to be something to reflect. Cancelling a file deletion being referred to as sparing it also suddenly makes more sense.
I'm thinking Seam will be an important part of this equation. We might be able to travel between chapters & influence certain things retroactively or concurrently... & maybe even save slots too. Seam already displays the ability to know between both cases! I think that might be why Toby is specifically releasing several chapters in one package. The main bulk of the current chapters don't work that way (As far as I know, if you trigger most of certain events in Chapter 1 that affect Chapter 2, experience those effects in Ch2, then reload Chapter 1 & change what you do... you won't suddenly have that item or that dialogue availability if you go back to Chapter 2. [IIRC, please correct me if I'm wrong])... BUT, an exception is Seam knowing if we haven't beaten Jevil in Chapter 2. Then with us going back to Ch 1 & beating him (even if we don't save afterwards), then returning, Seam acknowledges what we did & can proceed to discuss the next steps. Seam might be our emissary between time & space. They seem to be the character concept that became Sans when Toby decided to make Undertale instead of Deltarune; a nihilist who knows a bit too much (including that the world is on the way to ending), uses humor to shrug off the depression, who knows about other timelines (Seam even knows if you beat Jevil in another save file altogether, IIRC), who is able to exist outside of the normal plane (their shop [seap, hehe] seems to be stitched into the darkness of the background, rather than properly standing on the open ground like the rest), & they know who we're up against next. They said we can't defeat the next secret boss without the Shadow Mantle. Well... what if we indeed have to move on & NOT battle them in Chapter 3 (perhaps futility dying tons of times to drive the point home, or they'll basically zap us out of the area, or have an aura so powerful we can't approach), & so beat it normally & move on to Chapter 4... But then find the Shadow Mantle there, & can then take it to Seam who may give us some knowledge, before we go back to Chapter 3 specifically to finish the fight! 😮 I wouldn't be surprised if that tattered cat will also continue knowing things between Save slots as well, revealing it more cryptically or subtly... I guess time (& space) will tell...
9:43 anyone else's heart sunk after hearing this? really hoping the game doesn't have a mother 3 type ending. i for the love of god hope the time loop theory isn't true. like god call me romantic or whatever, but i just cannot stand unsatisfying endings.
A thought about “Deltarune’s Ending Will Be A Reset”… I don’t believe that Resetting is the Ending, especially considering Toby’s ? on the store page. What I do believe is that the final confrontation will have two outcomes, the Ending, and the Reset. Through some nigh unknowable chain of events that we will need to play through dozens upon dozens of times to find, we will eventually find a method to prevent the Reset. Until then, upon victory or defeat, we’re reset to the beginning, waking up as Kris once more on the first day, retracing our steps to see where we went wrong. A miscalculation, a choice made incorrectly, a boss not fought, those kinds of minute decisions eventually stack up to what’s needed to prevent the Reset. And something tells me such an ending may not be so happy for many characters.
@@whomstthehecc3028 ? I mean, the first ending you get is the neutral ending, and then everything is reset, and you go on the date with papyrus, befriend undyne, and then go on the date with alphys and traverse the true lab, so everything falls into place for the true pacifist ending.
@@atrebuchet5267 you can also get the genocide ending first, so, that point kinda goes out of the window. Though, yeah, Flowey DOES kinda reset for you, before letting you go and befriend Alphys, huh.
@@whomstthehecc3028 first off, getting the genocide ending first blind is unrealistic. Also my point isn't thrown out the window. My point that reaching an unsatisfying conclusion and then going back to change things or do things differently to get a better conclusion is something Undertale already did and it would be a bit repetitive for Deltarune to do it so that's why I perceive it as unlikely.
I personally believe that instead of the timeline being reset in the ending, Kris is the one who erases our connection to the timeline, making it to where we cannot control them anymore. There will be different endings to a extent, but we will always be disconnected from the timeline by Kris, no matter what we do.
There are two things you forgot like first you can erase the files that holds those timelines thus yes you can erase the files in undertale But then i want to mention that you can copy the pacifist and put it in a folder in which that folder literally holds all the characters in the pacifist endings so if you reset in the game it’s not much because you literally made a direct copy of the pacifist run that life’s inside that folder outside of the game
What I find odd is all three items in the drawer are abandoned in a sense. As we know secret bosses are abandoned things, the joker card and a scam email. So this could mean the secret boss might be different for each file. Though this is unlikely and I'm probably digging into too deeply.
Another reason for it to be three save files and one ending is to give the players a feeling of helplessness. Showing that no matter what you do, *your choices don't matter.* No matter whether you do the weird routes, abandon them or not even start them, nothing will change
I think it will be a part of an elaborate, or convoluted mechanic, later in the game that's going to let player retroactively influence earlier chapters.
I think the "ending" is the dark world will end and it's inevitable and unpreventable. Does anything say there is specifically one "game" ending or one "Deltarune" ending? I think something else will end and it's going to be big. The 3 save files tie into this: in order to save everyone, you have to save all the heroes, in each save file (it might be a choice, Asriel, Noelle and Yourselves, or tied to the save slot which hero you can rescue; the 3 heroes might be different characters). With the 3 heroes together, you can bring everyone out of the dark world into the light world before the dark world ends, getting the true ending is supposed to be a puzzle and your reward is saving everyone. The failure state is the game resets to the start of chapter one, and the characters keep saying "Your choices don't matter" because some characters remember going through the loop over and over again, and Kris and the characters who remember everything have experienced this countless times.
Remember that in undertale theres actually at least 6 save files, that are seen in omega flowey fight, he uses file 2 to save and load attacks, file 3 at the start of the battle and 6 at the end to prevent you from dying from the pellets while hes speaking, my little theory is that if you have more than 1 soul you get 1 extra save file for each soul , omega has 6 souls so he has 6 files including yours
"Deleting timelines with three button presses may be a tad extreme" Well Ralsei does state that Kris's Soul does contain their Will, Compassion and most importantly the Fate of the World. Which at first sounds like goat boy is hyping them up (and part of him probably is) but in actuality, if Kris dies and the player refuses to persist, by simply pressing no, the world is covered by darkness. Which could fit into the whole "as if it was never there thing" because you can't really see it. Versus if we press yes, Gaster (?) will instead tell us the future is in our hands. Now that's extreme. Like why should the world be "covered in darkness" just because Kris died and the player chose not to playball but hey that's how it is. Admittedly, the exact details are vague but we know it's not anything good obvi. Looping this back to your theory, by us erasing the world, while it is vague what it is were erasing, a case could be made, by us erasing our save file we are effectively severing our connection to that world but by extension dooming it. Whether you view that by deleting the timeline all together or essentially covering a world into darkness (whatever that means besides "BAD ENDING" vibes) for a timeline I'll leave for you to decide.
Wow, great point! That could indeed be the case either way. Why "THEN IT WILL BE DESTROYED" seeming like such a dire warming in red. World itself or just the connection, either way, it falls into darkness without you there to save it.
What if all 3 save files actually play into the 1 true ending? Think along the lines of the Dark and Light stories from Sonic Adventure 2, where the ending is only unlocked once both have been completed. That would explain why you can go down such wildly varying paths in the story without affecting the ending- because ALL endings are part of 3 distinct timeliness which will inevitably collide with each-other, revealing one final battle to set everyone free from your connection to the game. After all, the original Deltarune Prophecy never discussed that kind of freedom- it's two types were freedom from their imprisonment, and freedom from the mortal plane. But what about freedom from control? The control that characters like Jevil and Spamton seek to become detached from? The freedom that the man who spoke to them had told them about.. my idea is that the 3 "endings" of Deltarune are the Darkners are set free from their worlds, the Darkners are set free from life, and the Darkners, or really EVERYONE, is set free from the control of YOU, the player. The one true ending to the Deltarune Prophecy must compete ALL of these to be satisfied.
yep thats what ive been thinking too. the game already kind of has 3 different routes possible too: the normal route, the weird route, and the normal route where the best circumstances werent met (ie. lost recruits, berdly hurting his arm)
i also believe that the "angel's heaven" refers to us the players. noelle is obviously the angel here and were the "heaven" that commands her. the biggest clue about this i feel is when spamton says "are you watching heaven?" when theres no one else around but kris and us watching from behind the screen. the strings attached to him during his fight are the same green color often using in computer coding, which adds to the feeling that what spamton really wants is to escape from the predetermined path that has been coded for him. spamton seems to want kris's soul in order to be closer to the "heaven" that he reveres, the players outside the game.
@@gristen that's definitely not an approach I've heard to explaining Heaven, but an interesting one. My assumption was that Heaven referred to the dark worlds in some way, as we see the sigil embedded in a dark fountain during the legend, and it's also specifically referred to as the ANGEL'S Heaven. Well, we the player obviously don't belong to Noelle, but a dark world technically could if she creates one, like all Lightners supposedly can. And, given the health condition of her father, her missing sister, and neglectful mother, she would be a prime candidate to open a dark world in the image of her own "Heaven". A dark world that could result in the disruption of the balance of light and dark, causing the roaring, and requiring it be banished. However, I do agree that it would be a more satisfying ending if the 3 heroes banished YOU from the story, rather than simply closing a dark world. Another thing to note is that the fountain containing the Angel's Heaven is notably bright for a dark fountain, though. Perhaps it ISN'T a dark fountain? Maybe instead it's a LIGHT FOUNTAIN? As a result you could say the fountains are effectively "elevators". Taking one in the dark directions sends you further intro the game, and more under someone else's control. But using a light fountain would be equivalent to traveling UP the chain of reality, bringing you closer to Heaven, who could be the player like you say. That would mean that banishing the Angel's Heaven is to banish the connection established with the player at the start of the game, returning the balance of the world. Thinking about it, the opening of the game at the character creator says "Nobody can choose who they are in this world. Your name is..." with a fade to white. That fade to white could symbolize the creation of the light fountain, establishing your connection to the layer below- to Kris. A similar white fade is used whenever sealing a dark fountain, which makes sense, as the only way to neutralize darkness is with light.
If the coupons expired before the book was printed, that means no one would have a 'good' reason to put them there rather than throw them away. Perhaps it's a memento of someone or some day.
"Neutrality, Unity, and Depravity. 3 parallel universes all destined to meet the same fate. One cannot exist without the other, all born from the same beginning, and connected through the one CONDUCTOR. Despite the necessary depravity, true unity will be born from it's knowledge, tempered with the balance of neutrality." I wrote this up in the style of what I think a lore drop would sound like in-game, explaining how all 3 Endings are needed to exist at once, in order to create the 4th True Ending, only possible through the combined knowledge that the Player gained from each save file. An experiment by Gaster to see if he can achieve a good ending for three realities at once, by overcoming an otherwise impossible problem baked into the world. If anyone here is a Zero Escape fan, this should all sound very familiar. Try viewing all of Deltarune through the lense of a Zero Escape story, and you might be surprised. ;3
Well, I think that there are three save files from a lore perspective because there may be three souls in Deltarune. Kris’ soul, rhe player’s soul, and someone else’s. The reason I believe this is because during the Photoshop Flowey fight in Undertale, since there are 6 human souls, Flowey gets access to 6 save files. We know this because of the file saved thing in the bottom left. So yeah, I think that there are three souls that could explain the save files
Every time someone brings up the number of save files, I dearly hope they won't say that Undertale only had 'one'... If we are looking at it from the /narrative/ perspective, Undertale had a whopping NINE (9) save files! Photoshop Flowey seemingly has a save file from each human soul he absorbed, as well as previously being able to save and load prior to the latest human's arrival, thus Flowey alone brings the count up to 7. After that, what people tend to overlook alot is that the player themselves has TWO save files: The one used at all the save points throughout Undertale... and the 'Reset' save. How else could the player canonically have the ability to go back to two different points? The obvious answer is that they have two save files, one for Frisk and one for Chara. So, /whose/ saves are being used in Deltarune? Kris, the possesing-player, and...? Ralsei? G-?
It could be possible that there’s only one ending because the main events take place in the dark world, while each chapter ends in the light world. So even if you commit mass genocide everything will be fine in the light world and thus lead to the same ending. “But what if lightners go into the dark world and you kill them there?” Well there’s only gonna be 7 chapters so only a handful of people could actually die. Other than lightners believing several people went ‘missing’ everything is gonna end up working the same.
It would be interesting if the key difference between the three timelines in the save slots was Asriel himself and what kind of person he is in each timeline.
finally someone makes a video about this! ive been leaving comments on youtube videos everywhere about the three save files theory because no one's been talking about it 😅 one thing you didnt mention is the fact that the 3 titans in ralsei's story all have faces that resemble save points and i dont think this is a meaningless coincidence. plus chapter 2 kind of already brought us 3 different endings we can achieve: the normal route, the weird route with noelle, and the normal route where berdly breaks his arm. i think the game is going to want us to achieve all these possible endings on the 3 save files in order to unlock the one true ending
I kinda hate that. I created one save file for almost full almost 100% pacifist route and another save file for the rudest no-talk genocide route. AND I DON'T WANT SOME HIDDEN LORE FEATURE OF CORRUPTING SAVE FILES TO AFFECT MY WALKTHROUGHS
Yeah, I've seen stories that end that way. They're almost all trash, no matter how good the story had been up until that point. Sans' dialogue during his fight in Undertale is pretty much a negative review of those stories.
My thought is that if the player is unhappy with the way a timeline goes for Kris or anyone else (aka the Snowgrave route) that can choose a new one to start to make sure everything goes right and according to plan
Just throwing this out there for the youngins out there. Back when we played RPGs on nes/SNES, there was only enough room for a few save files on the battery backed up cartridge. Their original purpose was to allow one household to share one copy of a game over siblings/parents/etc. Also, most commonly there are 3 save files (Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy 5/6(ff4 has 4 saves), Dragon Warrior). Later on, separate save meduims were used, like save cards with the PSX onto simply saving onto a hard drive like we do today. I feel like a grampa now
With the new music video: “skies forever blue”, I think I can make a theory myself. So, you know how toby dreamed about the deltarune’s ending? And how he really wants to put it in a game? What if that desire affected the “skies forever blue” without toby himself realising it? Or maybe he realised it but didn’t think we would catch on. Now, I don’t wanna be the type who tries to find some connection in everything, as I really liked that music(which is the main reason why I’m making this, I am just trying to cope lol) but I think it could make sense + it’s just a theory, so who cares? If that is true, then we can go backwards to try and guess what will happen. So, in that music video, the main girl has a unfinished job(confessing), but the game ends without her being able to do it. As the game resets, she gains awareness and tries to finish her job before the reset. She succeeds. Then, knowing that she did what she wanted to do, she smiles as the world resets. That we have deltarune, which says that our choices don’t matter. I have 2 possible theories: The first one is the game ending in a reset. The world resets, but depending on our route, our characters feel like they have accomplished everything they wanted. It may be ending, but they are satisfied, and that is what matters. The other one is the world ending. Actually, this one may be a reset too, but it could also not be, so… whatever, let’s continue. So, the world ends, but we still have unfinished business, unanswered questiıns etc. So, what if when we start in another save file or reset after the ending, the game changes? The world may end again, maybe not, I don’t know. But we will be able to close every open door with this playtrough. So, what about it? I really didn’t think much on this theory, so I understand if it’s garbage, Lol
I think the reason for 3 save files is so players can experiment with the outcomes of their actions. Remeber how many fresh neutral run outcomes there were, and yet people enjoyed only pacyfist? I think toby wants to avoid it this time, and give us the power to enjoy both neutral runs and perfect pacyfist, even though there will be one ending...
Every single game ever has the same ending: the player choosing not to play anymore. No matter what, Deltarune’s world won’t continue without you playing through it. Even if you get an ending that allows everyone to live happy lives, they will never live those lives because the game is over.
I just had a flash of genius, your idea of the only ending being a reset is interesting, but I want to play the devil's advocate and ask you a question: wouldn't the "game over" screen count as an ending? as "then the world shall be covered in darkness" being an ending? I think the reason the true ending is going to be a reset is because the whole world is going to be covered in darkness by one mean or another and that's how the story would go full circle.
I don’t think so, Toby came up with the idea of Deltarune before Undertale, and says that he wants the 2 games to be separate things. I think there’ll definitely be a connection, through Sans or Gaster or something, but it being based on Undertale’s story just seems unlikely and to be honest, kinda disappointing.
@@rihard999 that still doesn’t address the issue of him wanting people to consider Deltarune and Undertale to be separate things. He tweeted about how he was grateful that people were talking about Deltarune on it’s own, not in relation to Undertale.
4:45 You can actually do a true reset after the pacifist route, and you still can't destroy the timeline since Chara still remembers the other one where you did Genocide.
Oh yeah in 7:48 (before probably) the fate of Berdly in Chapter 2 (assuming he's dead in Snowgrave) is different if you wanna go crazy Captain Freezer.
apologies if this has been mentioned already, as I haven't read all the comments - but the idea you discussed of the save files being erased is your connection to that world being erased, I immediately thought of Goner Kid's dialogue in undertale: "Have you ever thought about a world where everything is exactly the same... Except you don't exist?" I think Toby as an artist/creator is clearly very interested in the concept of how game worlds and characters are shaped by player action/inaction, and this is another example of how that is shown in deltarune. In this case, going back to Goner Kid's line, it makes you think - do the other save files (worlds) exist if the player doesn't use them? and further, if we acknowledge that they do exist regardless (because some other player somewhere is using them), what are those worlds like - exactly the same, but "you" (an individual player) don't exist? does it matter if there is ever a player at all, because the worlds will exist in the form of code anyway? You can really end up going down a big spiral with this line of questioning (especially once you factor in timeloop/time travel theories)!
It's probably just because you have 1 for the normal route, 1 for weird, and a third for if you don't want to delete those just to fuck around in a chapter
I believe you missed some details about the copying and erasing text. You can try to Erase an already empty save fuels, but it will say “it was already barren”. Your connection to a world being barren doesn’t really make sense, but a world being barren does.
my personal theory as to why toby fox stated there is "only one ending (.....?)" right before releasing chapter 2 with its entire alternate storyline that ends with an entire major character death that cannot possibly avoid having major light AND dark world implications going forward, is that: building from JaruJaruJ's time loop theory, the Pipis route (i still refuse to call it anything else im sorry we had a perfect name already why must we deviate from it) is the FIRST iteration of the timeline and culminates in Noelle increasing her power and ascending to godhood, becoming the "Angel" so often talked about, who Jaru believes is the one to reset the timeline for whatever reason. So your save file that completed the Pipis route in chapter 2 will continue and be likely set on that path in chapter 3 and onwards, eventually permanently locking you into that path with no way to abort. (assuming of course that that hasn't ALREADY happened, given said main character's death. this is also why i believe chapters 3-5 are being developed and released all at once, because they Need to be released together. chapter 3 seems to be starting immediately in a dark world and noelle seems unlikely to be in it so maybe differences between carried over save files won't be immediately apparent until you finally return to the light world and can be informed about your classmate.) Your save file that maintained the pacifist/neutral/"regular" storyline is intended as the main "true" story, where the timeloop is finally brought to an end, whether by the angel being defeated/killed/pacified/etc. or by any other sort of means. That's why Toby states there is only one ending while implying there may or may not soooort of be other endings as well. it's not that there are other possible endings that simply aren't canon or "true" in any sense, but that there are a lot of what TECHNICALLY count as "endings" because they end with time being reset once again, and the only "one" ending, the actual TRUE ending, is the "pacifist" ending you can get by simply playing normally and doing whatever you usually would. It did occur to me that this would only necessitate the existence of Two save slots in that case, however. So perhaps the third ending is one that occurs sometime between the other two? Perhaps one even more deeply buried and with even more well hidden criteria to uncover and access than the Pipis route, perhaps focused on giving more insight to Ralsei and his character, and learning about how he seems to know so much, why he looks like Asriel, etc. (in other words an iteration of the time loop that ends with the reveal of Ralsei's origin/existence, potentially as depicted in Jaru's other video about Ralsei :P) Perhaps the third save slot could be for the secret Ralsei route that serves for being filled with even more explanations, hints and implications about Ralsei, (Gaster? perhaps?? please???) Asriel and the game world's lore in general that couldn't be touched on in the first two routes for one reason or another.
SO: even on the occasions when your choices sure SEEM to matter a WHOLE GREAT FUCKIN LOT, such as the Pipis route... Ultimately they won't end up mattering anyway, because the ending of that route isn't the ending of the story anyway. as you said, no choices you make actually end up mattering when you're in a timeloop. your choices only matter insofar as they provide more lore. there's only one real ending, and YOUR choices can't affect that. Kris, Susie, Ralsei, and everyone else will get there eventually, regardless of what you do. whether they understand what's going on by the time they're there or not. whether they even care enough to find out or not. it's their lives, not ours. we were allowed to choose whatever path we like in Undertale, but we were only given one save file to do so, and so we were expected to live with those choices and accept the outcome and consequences whether we liked them or not. deltarune is giving us More than one save file and full permission to do whatever the hell we want multiple times over, because whatever we do won't really matter in the end. our choices matter in undertale. they don't matter in deltarune. (also: maybe the differing contents of asriel's desk drawer could possibly connect each save slot to each timeline in some way??? maybe the pizza coupons book means the third slot is "The Pipis Route" slot because of Noelle or smth like that? that's probly a stretch ofc lol but. idk maybe toby had some kind of "intended" specific use in this regard for each slot in a specific order or smth) (i probly could have summed up all of this in far fewer words than i did lmao sorry)
also in undertale it says "reset" but in both undertale genocide and deltarune it says "erase" and like you said, the only time u can truly reset the timeline is in the undertale genocide route. maybe its connected
Hm, how very interesting, I guess we’ll see eventually. Also, about Deltarune being in a Time-loop, it’s funny you brought it up, ‘cause I have been thinking for the longest time that Undertale is in a Time-loop.
I'm pretty sure you said this in the noelle v ralsei video, but it's possible the save files could be one per route. One could be the main pacifist route where you don't kill anyone. Another could be the full snowgrave like routes in all future chapters. (if that happens) and the last could be a full fighting only approach. No snowgrave or anything, JUST fighting with kris. Obviously there aren't many major differences so far in the chapters if you only fight, but I feel like it'll be mentioned again somewhere if you DID choose to fight
technically, Undertale _does_ have multiple save files. Specifically, the save files in the games folder. When you save the game, it stores your progress in a file named file0, and during certain moments, like before bosses and such, the game autosaves to file9. The obvious question, then, is why file9 and not file1? why don't file1 through file8 exist? well, one clue to this is that the file8 slot actually does get used: when flowey sizes control, he creates file8. given that flowey had the ability to save right up until frisk's arrival it wpuld make sense if his file comes right before theirs. But if frisk's file is file9, why does the player have control over file0 instead? if the files are numbered based on who had access to SAVEing in order, then file0 would be the very first person capable of making a file: chara/the first human. This makes sense, the file _does_ have their name on it, after all, and it's very heavily implied that they are somehow present for frisk's journey. All of this begs the question of who exactly files 1-7 belonged to. 1-6 are pretty obvious: the six human souls. Asgore's reaction to being told that he's killed you before suggests that at least one of the previous humans had the ability, and presumably died permanently only because they gave up. It's not a stretch to imagine that all of them could manage it at least once. That just leaves file7. based on what we've established, it belongs to someone with more determination than a monster can properly contain, who appeared some time after the last of the six humans, but either they died for good before flowey showed up or flowey had even more of it. I think this file belongs to the amalgamates, either as a shared file for the group or for lemon bread specifically. When we encounter lemon bread, they're disguised as a _save point._ it seems as if the only people who can see save points are those that can use them, and how would lemon bread know what that looked like unless they'd seen it before? It's not clear what, if anything, this means for deltarune though. also, disclaimer: I got a lot of this theory from a half-remembered Tumblr post (though I did fact-check it) I don't remember who made it though. If anyone knows the post, let me know and I'll add the link in an edit.
It might be a stretch but i think the implication is Asriel having some ability to cause timelines to shift just slightly, as his previous incarnation (when he wasnt sweet and innocent- this part has been imparted to ralsei) was to be a save-scumming flower or an all powerful being. And we KNOW how THAT went. I'd like to add that in the mansion, everyone has rooms when they were captive, INCLUDING ASRIEL. Not Ralsei. It's crazy enough to think that he's been in the dark world, being his own player, but that he's left a trace in it as well. As himself, not Kris' interpretation of him (Ralsei, if we go with the imagination theory, which is getting harder to work with if not flatout dismissed at this point. Maybe it still works but its "complicated") So he has both awareness And power in Deltarune too. Maybe that's the real reason he's absent, he's not in college, he's just jumping timelines and causing disturbances. Which is already crazy to consider, taking chapter 2's ending into account of WHY, cuz it would imply that one part of kris is waiting for Asriel to return and one part is searching for him/ forcing him out by creating more darkworlds until they converge. Who knows.-
I think the number of the save files you can have is based on the soul power you have, in undertale we have 1 soul that we have 1 slot, but omega flowey has multiple slots which he had 6 souls at that moment, though i cant think of a good explaination to how flowey used saving and loading at the first place he mightve just commit suicide everytime since he didnt have any slots (also he said he tried to commit suicide once but ended up at the place where he started, which is asgores garden where asriel died), in deltarune toby named a music file as anotherhim which could mean there is 2 gasters and with you it gets to 3
I think that undertales ending is actually one very long ending. for example; a players blind experience with the game will inevitably lead them not to backtrack or not understand that they can spare certain enemies resulting in a neutral ending which means flowey will encourage and suggest that they can do more. from there they might aim for the pacifist ending getting the warning from flowey not to reset again as its the best possible outcome, then over time they might think "but... what would happen if I do the opposite.". they go through the grueling task of the genocide route only to regret it and either quit or finish out of pure curiosity. from there the player learns their options this is where undertales true ending is which is where out of fear of loosing their save or out of the urge to see more they decide to assist chara in destorying every world. meaning now after every ending we are actually doing the continuation of the genocide route even after a pure pacifist route. so that even if the player regretted their actions they'll always be reminded of what they did. thats undertale's true ending. meanwhile deltarune has so many factors to consider here so many characters and personal archs that could change the course of the ending. either that or these extreme changes in the story are implying that certain characters and even the attitude of other characters toward kris are irrelevant as either they won't be involved later on or they'll do the same thing later on regardless of how they feel- which is way too dark for toby fox. I feel like the one thing that is irrelevant is fighting or choosing the evil route because if you don't recruit enemies they don't come to your dark world meaning they'll turn to stone anyway. so theres the possibility for 3 endings in deltarune which I'll call the Recruit/freedom route, the Abandon/fail Route and the Consequence/Dark Route. maybe the secret bosses are there to provide the player with a secret weapon that you specifically can't get in the consequence route but can only get before a specific boss fight idk. the consequence route revolves around how your actions have harmed everyone else around you and made even your own team turn against you. obviously in all routes you will likely have to stop or face off against the roaring.
I make same wonder about the line "Your choices don't matterZ". the narrative keeps hammering it into us so i wonder if there will be a way to force the world to bend so our choices do matter. Like what if to get the very good ending for everyone you need to meddle with the saves. Our ending will be the same but the outcome will be different.
![[FLASHING LIGHTS] ODE TO A FRIEND (Deltarune animation)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/OTANt6yb_oc/mqdefault.jpg)
My personal theory before this video was that a bad ending save is an "angel's heaven" and a good ending is the only way to fix it, "banishing" the bad data. Remember, a bad undertale ending was a permanent corruption of your file. We now have 3 different files so we can fix files using different files.
Ooooh I like this theory as it implies that your choices don't matter in the timeline your playing in, but do matter in the other timelines your not playing in!
Furthermore,
3 files, 3 Heroes.
What if the 3 heroes that appear at World's edge is actually 1 hero appears in each file and you Gotta smh reunite them to save the World ?
@@laguet93 ooooo
That's a good one but that would mean we either get 3 Kris or 3 Susie or....
Unless, it's something like Kris Susie Ralsei BUT they all have a copy of the soul from each file, meaning technically one hero
@@laguet93 beacuse of different routes i can imagine the 3 heroes: first a pacifist, second a wannabe killer but everyone escapes, third instane manipulator of weird route
we used the files to fix the files
I'd like to note that it specifically uses "Erase" rather than "Delete", and in Undertale's Genocide Route, we're given the choice of "Erase" the world or "Do Not"
I personally think that "erase" is similar to erasing a drawing using an eraser. While "delete" means to OBLITERATE completely
@@Rudxain that's what im saying
I think to answer the question of why we get three save files, we could look at it through the lens of 'what sort of player behavior does this encourage?' Having only a single save forced players to view the world and story of UT in a very specific way.
DR's multiple saves however allow players to easily switch between the normal route where they've done nothing wrong and the weird route in which they've deliberately tried to enact as much harm as possible while keeping both 'timelines' simultaneously intact.
I think that ability would open up the venue for some kind of meta critique of the type of player who switches between murder-hobo and goody-two-shoes with a flick a button and who holds no commitment to either mode.
edit: clarity
Oooo, that's interesting. Maybe there's some dialogue later in the game where, depending on if you did snowgrave on other save files or if you're on snowgrave now but the other files you're normal, they talk about what it could have been, or the lengths the player will go to see as many sides of the game as possible
this was my first thought as well ^^
Yup, i 100% sure that doing Snowgrave in other save file will affect other save files. It's already kinda implied since you can acquire Jevil items without fighting him if you beat him in other save file
@@marsh3535Really good point about the jevil items, I wonder what other cross-save interactions we'll see as the game progresses
that was my first thought when I saw there are multiple save files. Like "yeah toby I see what you did here, and I'm not buying it. I won't do any f-ed up things even in other save files, knowing how in UT genocide f-ed up even resets".
Didn't even know about Jevil items. This implies Jevil is some kind of entity that goes beyond timeline, just like the player? yet it doesn't work with spamton, am I correct? So it's not that shadow crystal doings?
Though the thign that kinda doesn't add up for me is how these save files work. You can jump into "another" save file at any point in the game, like for example to go back and forth in time, these aren't exactlty separated entities. You can play some section of the game, then save in a second file, play further and rewrite data back on the first one. Basically your normal save file stuff. so... thoughts?
In fact, since Toby is really good at misleading us, I really wonder whether the "your choices don't matter" is referring to us, since in the two chapters, things Kris does don't matter, while our decision changes something (what machine Rouxls used to fight us and we use to fight Giga Queen, and even if we killed Berdly and nearly everyone in the Cyber World) That's also the reason I suspect the three heroes may in fact be the player (human), Noelle (monster) and Lancer (dark world prince), as these three are who's choices matters
Maybe it is about the fact that whatever choice we would not make, the result will be the same.
But isn't it Susie who we see make more choices than anyone else, going even against our -the player- wishes? And Noelle in the other hand it's been use by Queen and, in a weird route, by the player.
So if you're theory is right, the monster shouldn't be Susie?
Bravo.
If you see Steins Gate, it would be the same thing, where there's different timelines, but as long those timelines are in the same attractor field, they will have the same results in the big factor of events.
The problem with this is that there are times where the Player isn't given a chance to respond. Like when Susie is bullying Kris in the hallway in Chapter 1 and asks us a question and interrupts before we can answer with 'your choices don't matter' or when Ralsei asks Kris and Susie which one he should go with and Susie cuts in saying "Why does Kris always get to decide?" and drags Ralsei with her.
Both scenarios don't account for player input as far as I know because it doesn't give us time to decide. There's also the fact that the routes themselves don't change as far as outcome, no matter what you do within the game. You can kill as many enemies as you want or either help or hurt Noelle during the weird route and it changes virtually nothing in regards to the chapter endings.
If Toby was trying to convey that the Player's choice is what matters then why are there things that are programmed in the game that hinder those choices?
Asriel's drawer is a tiny change _now._ But the next dark world takes place in the Dreemurr household, and we know that its scope reaches to Kris and Asriel's room thanks to the Green Room.
@@clourenskidmore9190 its not proven hes talking out of his ass
@@clourenskidmore9190 it has features from their room. Mouse, cobwebs etc
@@seraphic_sephirah ze couches
Oh man, that could really be interesting depending on a few things, I wonder what the objects could become.
I wonder how that bird cage gonna turn out in the dark world....
I can't believe you didn't mention possibly the most interesting bit of dialogue in the menu dialogue - that when you make every slot have the same file, he says "Preparations are complete." That has some huge implications for how the end of the game might function depending on your different saves.
I dont wanna replay the whole game three times to get some alternate dialogue where lancer says "OOGA BOOGA HAHA YOU JUST GOT
*LANCERED"*
@@leedlelel2373 no it just means you need to play it one time and COPY that specific save into all the files. All actions encompass all timelines. -
Maybe what toby meant by "there's something more important than reaching the end" may just be that we can either choose to help the characters feel better about themselves, and not help. Even if the ending will be the same, we can end the game with a clear mind that the characters now feel ok (because at least for me, if pixels are feeling good im feeling good).
You see, on snowgrave route you just make noelle feel worse about everything, but in normal routes she feels better about herself. I think that even if the end is the same, what's important is helping the troubled characters, not finishing the game.
It's not about the end, but the journey you make towards that one ending. I fully agree with you
@@zigazav1 something i also forgot to add is that this is why there's always the more rude options to tell a character, which could prove more this theory!
@@sofianesk3050 My thoughts exactly.
You die in the end no matter what so nothing will change, all that matters is the things you do along the way
I think that erasing a save file destroys the timeline though, because it has the same ERASE/DO NOT options as destroying the timeline in Undertale's genocide route
i think it's worth mentioning that the designs for the titans shown in the roaring cutscene bear a striking resemblance to the save point
i was gonna say! 3 files... 3 titans... i wonder if the design of the titans depends on where those files have been saved
They look like the eyes at the beggining of the CH1 darkworld
I dont think anyone ever thinks "maybe the three save files come from the three heroes and the three titans"
And by extension the three deltas in the delta rune
In all three situations i described, its always the same thing, two identical ones and a single different one
Two triangles pointing upwards, one pointing downwards
Two slender titans, one chunkier, more elaborate titan
Two lightners, one darkner
My idea?
Something something "determination of the three" idk
Jaru Jaru's theory of a time loop may actually lead to a cool true ending. What you do doesnt matter. Well, maybe that only applies to any one save. Maybe by completing all 3 saves, or doing something specific in all 3 saves, you could end up breaking the loop.
actually maybe the "one ending" applies to there only being one true ending, and the other three "endings" are just pieces of the puzzle needed to reach the true ending
my theory about the differing contents of the drawer is that asriel might be a completely different person depending on which save file you choose. so in the first save file, he's a jock (cuz of the cross country uniform), in the second one he's maybe more bookish (not sure about this one) and in the third maybe he's a stoner/slacker type (cuz of the pizza coupons). just a thought
edit: i just realized the stoner/slacker personality would kinda go against all the trophies in his room though. it's not a perfect theory lol
He could just be very very talented for the stoner/slacker personality and get what he wants whenever he wants through raw talent
i think it means that Asriel was either a party person like that one dude implied or that Asriel is popular but a loner or something alone those lines. Its hard to decide if the coupons are expired because he hasnt been using them since he's absent for so long, or if he had them and never had a chance to use them (you can have pizza whenever but usually you'd share them with friends or at parties. his family clearly homecooks so pizza wouldnt be a need to have unless he were living alone as well.) -
I just thought of something that could be a potential clue. There are 3 save files, each with slight differences... and also chapters 3-5 (a total of 3 chapters) all come out at the same time. I wonder if each of the upcoming chapters will have something to do (even as a B-plot) with one of the things in Asriel's desk drawer.
The expired pizza coupons are connected to Ice-E, and by extension Noelle, easter egg hunting, etc. Possibly more Weird Route shenanigans?
The picture with the embarrassing haircut is specifically not worded to say which kid it belonged to. It could technically be anyone, but given that Asriel would be most likely to have either their own or Kris's, and it was referred to as embarrassing, I'm going to guess Kris. So, more backstory for Kris as a character, possibly including bullying, since bad haircuts often lead to that and Kris is a loner type.
Finally, the cross-country shirt brings sports into the mix. Yes, Asriel has a lot of trophies, which often implies sports, but all they technically mean is that he's good at winning SOME kind of competition, which could be academic, or game related, or sports, or heck, even beauty pageants. So sports will probably come up as a side plot, probably meaning Jockington will get more spotlight
Wasn’t the original plan to release chapters 2-5 at the same time and Toby changed his mind because he wanted to cheer people up in tough times?
@@stwbmc98 yeah, toby is a saint
@@stwbmc98 It went back and forth. First was that it was going to be chapter by chapter and there would be 5 chapters, then it got switched to 2-5 (aka rest of the game) at once. Then he surprise-dropped Ch 2 on us, and the fact it would be actually 7 chapters was revealed in the menu. Within a short time after that he said it'd be 3-5 at once, but no info on 6 and 7.
@@Makoto0729 Im pretty sure he said that 6 and 7 were going to be released at the same time though? not fully sure though
i see the difference in the contents of asriel's drawer being a hint that asriel might be exempt from the theme of peoples' choices not mattering. which normally wouldn't be a huge deal, since plenty of characters have the ability to make plot-altering decisions... but only in the dark world.
asriel has made an alteration to the light world.
i think this is especially important given that the light world seems to feel a lot more restrictive than the dark worlds. noelle feels powerless to help her dad. asgore is stuck separated from his family and facing financial issues. susie feels so alienated in the light world that she'd rather continually escape into the dark fountains. among all of this, only asriel seems free...
...unless you also count the player.
There actually one more very, very interesting line when you mess around with the save files. If you copy a save to all three slots so that they are all identical, the voice says "PREPARATIONS ARE COMPLETE." Also when you start chapter two the weird all caps Gasterlike voice is replaced with a much closer to normal writing style and copy/erase lines.
Not when you start, But when you finish chapter 1, or im an idiot
Honestly the ending of a chapter being a reset although a bit far fetched does still make a lot of sense when you think about it. It makes it more easier to understand the save files' purpose. For the player's convenience and entertainment
Oh god my siblings and I use the 3 save files so we all have our own personal experiences when a new chapter comes out. I’m extremely interested to see where this goes.
lol
Someone on tumblr found that, if you copy your save data in that screen into all three save slots, the text is "THE PREPARATIONS ARE COMPLETE". I think whatever's going on, we'll need to have three different saves to accomplish it. That might not mean playing the game three whole times either, as it's part of the lore as well that what you do in one save file can affect another - if you fight the secret bosses in one save for example, you get their items in the other saves, and Seam even references that in-game.
Something I could totally see Toby doing is if you want to get the “True Ending”, then you will need to have played all 3 save files in specific ways that somehow affects things within the other save files.
That would be Boring to make the story 2 times again.
@@StarPlatinum-ch3gi All I know is that people did play Undertale over and over again to get all of the endings.
If Toby does things correctly, I don't think this will be an issue.
I mean, we already have the Weird Route stuff, which for the vast majority of the playthrough is exactly the same.
For all we know, the Weird Route Save File might be a completely different experience from the Normal Route Save File, add a Third route variant on top of that, and I don't think replaying the game 3 times will be a problem for most people.
We can also use the three saves to our advantage to cut down as much needless replaying as possible.
@@StarPlatinum-ch3gi you can still copy an existing file
The mechanics behind it and exact canonicity of it are rather unclear, but this time youre also able skip right to certain chapters
@@HiddenForbidden2 you have a point.
The idea that the ending is a reset makes a ton of sense. It plays perfectly into the meta of Under-rune. It explains the save files. It sounds like an extreme Toby would go for. And even if it isn't exactly a reset, I think the effect will be similar. Whatever happens, we'll feel something along the lines of "well, it's over, nothing mattered, but it was fun." This, of course, is the same as any game we play, since the ending never really matters, but because it's Under-rune we notice it, and it weighs on us. It means something. And doesn't that fit with the way Toby wrote Undertale? Calling out the players' tendancies in how they play games?
I like having 3 save files because i use one for full pacifist/recruiting everyone and the second one for attacking everyone and getting stronger
And third one is for experimenting
Lol same
Didn't finish watching yet so Im not sure if you mention this bUT, I think Deltarune having 3 save files also works just from a game design standpoint.
It seems like, despite having one ending, Deltarune will have 3 different routes. One being recruiting everyone, the other being failing to recruit everyone and fighting enemies, and the last being the weird route. (You can tell because of how much Berdly's fate changes by the end of chapter 2. One has him being fine, another has him frying his arm, and in the last has him presumably DIE.)
The difference between Deltarune and Undertale, however, is that Deltarune is much longer and has a much more complicated chapter system. So having 3 save files just makes it much more convenient for the player to keep track of which chapters they're doing and in which routes.
It'd be a nightmare to try the different routes across every chapter without an extra save file.
So while there absolutely can be a lore reason, I just think it's worth mentioning that it also makes sense non-lore-wise.
Its very possible that the timeline is being erased with how the options are parallel to Chara's options. "Erase" and "Do not"
You also have to look at this from the other aspect of the save files: One per soul. Flowey wound up with 6 save files or so when he became Omega Flowey, so the idea of us having 3 save files would imply the presence of two other souls in our control. If we're counting us and Kris as having two separate files, then who is the third? It's not like we can just wave them off as purely for convenience of the player, Asriel's drawer contents change depending on which you use.
Ah that's a good point, I didn't really focus on the soul aspect of it and looked at it more from a gameplay perspective when writing the script. However I think the soul aspect of it being confusing is a large reason why I didn't look at it from that perspective in this video. I've always had some gripes with the Third Entity esque theories because it never made a ton of sense from a narrative perspective imo and I still don't think there's a good candidate for who the third entity would even be. But I agree that I should've at least addressed the soul aspect of it in the video.
If there's a file per a soul, then how did flowey save/load his files before Frisk's appearance?
@@ovtkm i believe he specifically says that he would get close to dying to go back, not that he had some sort of menu
@@WhoStoleKirya73 He also refers to that process as going back to his "save point".
Well if Kris has their own soul, where is it? It can't possibly be in Kris' body since if the player's soul shatters Kris will die, and that would also prevent the possibility of a third soul too.
Before I watch it I remember a one thing: flowey having 6 human souls was able to save and load like 7 save files. This shown that a powerful enough creature is able to have multiple save files
I'd like to think that Sans' line about "timelines jumping left and right, stopping and starting... until suddenly, everything just ends"
Has a lot more weight than just Undertale. In fact, I doubt it has much to do with Undertale at all.
If we consider Save Files to be the start of Timelines, as in Resetting the Save File means Resetting the Timeline, it wouldn't make much sense if Sans was referring to our Timeline in Undertale.
If we consider Sans to be the same as himself in Deltarune, then he may be referring to our soul, which remains in BOTH Undertale and Deltarune.
The line about timelines "jumping left and right" could refer to us switching between save files in Deltarune. The line about "stopping and starting" could also refer to us erasing and starting the save files.
The line about "until suddenly, everything just ends" could directly refer to the fact that all of the save files are intertwined, and despite those timelines being different with choices made in them...
Those choices don't matter. Everything ends. Everything ends the exact same way. Nothing comes after. That's why your choices don't matter.
Sans probably knows even more about Deltarune than we know he does. I'm going to examine all of his dialogue to see if it matches with this theory, byee!
heya! did you manage to find anything these past 4 months?
One thing that is interesting is that Sans' dialogue makes literally 0 sense in UT.
UT's variant of time travel is imperfect time rewinding. It leaves deja vu in a ton of chracters & Flowey is determined enough to just remember fully. This doesn't make sense if each load or reset was a seperate timeline.
everytime i think the DR fandom brainrot in my mind is winding down i find another theory video to feed it
Regarding the save file screen, did you notice how it's a green Interface on a black screen ? Exactly like the screens in the true lab ! You also hear the DRONE sound effect, just like at the beginning of Ch1 before The Doctor turns on the GONER MAKER device AND when you select a chapter. I'm actually convinced all these sequences take place in the Doctor's lab which would be the Bunker (notice how the slowed down smile.ogg sounds like a machine of some sort). It's actually pretty huge because that means we (the player) may have been in the Bunker.
As for the ERASE feature, it's pretty obvious to me that, unlike in undertale, we don't have the RESET/SAVE power. Someone else has it and manages the files for us. Obviously, from the file screen dialogues we Can assume it's The Doctor. It would make sense that HE owns more than 1 file and Can erase at any time : he would be much more knowledgeable about the save/reset stuff than us, puny undertale players. That puts him in a whole other power tier
speaking of the true lab... theres something i realized recently. go and take a look at the generator that alphys turns on at the end the area. it has a creepy smile and a red heart-shape on the front of it.
now this machine never got a proper explanation in undertale and many theorists at the time speculated that the heart might actually be chara's soul, but in hindsight-that doesnt really make a lot of sense. chara's soul was absorbed by asriel and disappeared along with his when he died, leaving chara as a souless being much like flowey. (this is why chara is able to hitch a ride on frisk's soul later on because frisk is essentially a "vessel with determination" just like asriel's flower after alphys injected it with DT.)
soo if it's not chara's soul, then...what if its kris's?
the machine with the heart is referred to as a "generator" and gaster supposedly disappeared after falling into his invention, the core that powers the underground. what if gaster somehow summoned kris's soul to the undertale universe in his attempts to escape the barrier and eventually went off the deep end as he began experimenting more and more on kris and the other universe he discovered, ultimately leading to him disappearing from his own.
considering how meta these games are, maybe during his research on interdimensional travel he accidentally learned that his whole world existed inside a videogame and this is what actually caused him to go insane. afterall jevil and spamton who have likely been corrupted by gaster seem to hold similar sentiments on the true nature of the reality they live in
@@gristenVery compelling stuff to think about! Very possible! Just a minor correction though: Gaster WAS said to have fallen into his creation... But they never said which one. Popularly, players assume it's The Core. But, Gaster may have invented many other things. Perhaps the Determination Extractor (Alphys said she built this one using already existing blueprints), perhaps the machine in Sans's basement (which he & another person, perhaps Alphys or perhaps Papyrus, tried in vain to fix, which Toby actively pointed out at some point), maybe that generator. Who knows what else it could be?
All I know is that, when we join Deltarune to create our Vessel, the code references it as Goner Maker, & Device.
@@ZaCloud-Animations___she-her that is true but the core has always been the most popular theory and i didnt want the theory to get too complicated by adding speculation on what the invention is. the goners tell us about the core specifically so unless its just a red herring, i think thats the conclusion the game wants us to make. i also think its interesting to note that when alphys talks to us about how the core works she suddenly cuts herself off and changes the subject. could mean nothing but i always found that to be really suspicious
@@gristen Oooh, good points! 😃
It would be such interesting outcome, if 3 save files represent 3 way of ending.
Maybe it would be standart run, "weird" rout and for secret bosses, which could "destroy" the game.
Yeah, maybe the final cutscene of each run can not be changed, but final battle - can.
Eyy, thanks for the shoutout! I've been so busy that I hadn't checked this out yet. Great video! The three save files are definitely a persistent mystery, and one that I'm only slowly beginning to wrap my head around.
I've had my own theory/thoughts for a while that having different save files where you behave differently (like going Pacifist in one and Weird in another) will affect other files in certain ways.
We already know that there's some weird save file stuff going on as if you defeat Jevil in Chapter 1 but continue on a separate save file into Chapter 2, the game acknowledges this and you can find his rewards in the cliffs' hole in Castle Town, meaning that what you do in previous save files in the past still has an effect in future files.
So going off of this I believe it is entirely possible that if you follow the Weird Route across several chapters, certain changes or effects could take place on other Pacifist save files in future chapters from then on. Or maybe once you progress far enough into a Pacifist save file, maybe even close to the end, a character in-game will recognize that you're not actually completely clean and somehow, somewhere, you did something really bad, referencing your Weird Route saves in other save files and locking you out of a potential 'True Pacifist' ending if there's such a thing, like a sort of punishment for treating their other selves from other saves as mere test subjects or playthings.
9:47 THe ending might be the same, the one from the 2011 fever dream, but what's around the ending could be very different. You can see this in some of the old Fire Emblem games, where each character meets a specific fate even with the same ending playing out, but you know a game which I remember exemplifying this? The Red Strings Club. The game opens with a guy you don't know falling out of Supercontinent's tower, talking to someone. You know what that is? That's the last node in the web of narrative that's the game. It will always happen. The game is all about playing a different take on VA-11 HALL-A to see what path and which people take you to it, altering the patron's emotions and memorizing valuable intel and deep questions. But one thing always remains, in the red strings screen. The last node: "Brandeis fell out of Supercontinent's tower". And you can leave those lives in VERY different spots, your knowledge night and day, but Brandeis will always fall out of Supercontinent's tower. I think Toby will take the game in that direction, especially if the Weird Route has literally any presence in the game at large. I'm pretty sure Kris will be there, we will be there (for a while, at least), maybe even Susie will be guaranteed to survive to that point. And it's gonna be a hell of an Ending, given the two and a half games it took to make it, but I just wonder... Does that mean Noelle's quest to save Kris is doomed to fail? What hope or tragedy will await us there? We have not seen Brandeis fall out of Supercontinent's tower, but damn ain't this gonna be the Neon Genesis Evangelion of indie games for me, at least.
I have a pet theory in my head that the song "Don't forget" will later be sung by a male singer [Gaster, Asriel, Ralsie, Asgore, Rudy, Father alvin, ect] somewhere in chapters 3-5, and eventually it will be sung as a duet between the male and female singers. This could symbolize the parental assurance of Toriel and Asgore to Kris, or the lost love between Dess and Asriel, or some other "greater than the some of its parts" revelation in the story.
I partially get the idea from elsewhere in gaming [Spoilers ahead]. Bastion's "Setting sail, coming home" re-contextualizes 2 separate songs as part of a single duet between a mother and son. In "Want to be free" by sea power, which is featured in an altered way in the game "Disco Elysium", what first appears to be a solo is actually a duet with a female voice if you listen closely enough and you hear the female vocals isolated in a boat ride to the game's final area, and the motif is meant to symbolize the main character's lingering memories of his ex-wife. [Spoilers end]
I also think the don't forget motif will appear in the final battle theme/sequence.
>Talks about Gaster save file dialogues
> Doesn't mention "PREPARATIONS ARE COMPLETE" at all, or the "kris" named save file when interacting with a save point for the very first time (across ALL runs)
lmao, good job.
Seriously through, there's a VERY specific dialogue during that save file screen that's triggered by coping one save file and then pasting it on the other two (which MUST be different from the first one you just copied), upon doing that Gaster (?) will says "PREPARATIONS ARE COMPLETE". So could this imply there might be a point where you NEED all 3 save files for something?
Regarding the second point, the very first time you interact with a save point, the file will be named "kris", then upon saving yourself, it will be erased on all subsequent runs.
This is currently the holy grail for theories that are about Deltarune being "post-reset" or simply the "reset" and save files being contextualized into the game's world, just like Undertale.
I actually did mention the Kris save file thing in a prior video I believe. However I think the point still stands since it seems like the save files belong to us now and not Kris, and bringing up that point would just overall muddy the point I was trying to make but maybe I could've found a way to bring it up in a clear way with a bit more time. I did miss the "preparations are complete" thing though
@@MysticSlime Check the "SAVE" page on the Deltarune wiki, there should be all the info regarding that.
@@MysticSlime You missed another super compelling detail too: What the voice says if you repeatedly threaten to erase a file, then spare it, over & over (I forget how many times). The voice then says something like "WHAT AN INTERESTING BEHAVIOR." 😨
I mean you bring up a good point, but you don't need to be rude about it.
The wording of the pre-chapter 1 file management stuff actually makes me think about the vessels. If copying a file is creating a reflection, then there has to be something to reflect. Cancelling a file deletion being referred to as sparing it also suddenly makes more sense.
If deleting save files in this game kills everyone in that timeline I have a lot of blood on my hands
Me too
I'm thinking Seam will be an important part of this equation. We might be able to travel between chapters & influence certain things retroactively or concurrently... & maybe even save slots too. Seam already displays the ability to know between both cases!
I think that might be why Toby is specifically releasing several chapters in one package.
The main bulk of the current chapters don't work that way (As far as I know, if you trigger most of certain events in Chapter 1 that affect Chapter 2, experience those effects in Ch2, then reload Chapter 1 & change what you do... you won't suddenly have that item or that dialogue availability if you go back to Chapter 2. [IIRC, please correct me if I'm wrong])... BUT, an exception is Seam knowing if we haven't beaten Jevil in Chapter 2. Then with us going back to Ch 1 & beating him (even if we don't save afterwards), then returning, Seam acknowledges what we did & can proceed to discuss the next steps.
Seam might be our emissary between time & space. They seem to be the character concept that became Sans when Toby decided to make Undertale instead of Deltarune; a nihilist who knows a bit too much (including that the world is on the way to ending), uses humor to shrug off the depression, who knows about other timelines (Seam even knows if you beat Jevil in another save file altogether, IIRC), who is able to exist outside of the normal plane (their shop [seap, hehe] seems to be stitched into the darkness of the background, rather than properly standing on the open ground like the rest), & they know who we're up against next.
They said we can't defeat the next secret boss without the Shadow Mantle. Well... what if we indeed have to move on & NOT battle them in Chapter 3 (perhaps futility dying tons of times to drive the point home, or they'll basically zap us out of the area, or have an aura so powerful we can't approach), & so beat it normally & move on to Chapter 4... But then find the Shadow Mantle there, & can then take it to Seam who may give us some knowledge, before we go back to Chapter 3 specifically to finish the fight! 😮
I wouldn't be surprised if that tattered cat will also continue knowing things between Save slots as well, revealing it more cryptically or subtly... I guess time (& space) will tell...
Very interesting.
9:43
anyone else's heart sunk after hearing this?
really hoping the game doesn't have a mother 3 type ending.
i for the love of god hope the time loop theory isn't true.
like god call me romantic or whatever, but i just cannot stand unsatisfying endings.
A thought about “Deltarune’s Ending Will Be A Reset”… I don’t believe that Resetting is the Ending, especially considering Toby’s ? on the store page. What I do believe is that the final confrontation will have two outcomes, the Ending, and the Reset.
Through some nigh unknowable chain of events that we will need to play through dozens upon dozens of times to find, we will eventually find a method to prevent the Reset. Until then, upon victory or defeat, we’re reset to the beginning, waking up as Kris once more on the first day, retracing our steps to see where we went wrong. A miscalculation, a choice made incorrectly, a boss not fought, those kinds of minute decisions eventually stack up to what’s needed to prevent the Reset. And something tells me such an ending may not be so happy for many characters.
My main problem with this theory is that UNDERTALE already did this.
@@atrebuchet5267 not really? every ending is actually an ending. the reset is something you, the player, are doing, despite getting the ending.
@@whomstthehecc3028 ? I mean, the first ending you get is the neutral ending, and then everything is reset, and you go on the date with papyrus, befriend undyne, and then go on the date with alphys and traverse the true lab, so everything falls into place for the true pacifist ending.
@@atrebuchet5267 you can also get the genocide ending first, so, that point kinda goes out of the window. Though, yeah, Flowey DOES kinda reset for you, before letting you go and befriend Alphys, huh.
@@whomstthehecc3028 first off, getting the genocide ending first blind is unrealistic. Also my point isn't thrown out the window. My point that reaching an unsatisfying conclusion and then going back to change things or do things differently to get a better conclusion is something Undertale already did and it would be a bit repetitive for Deltarune to do it so that's why I perceive it as unlikely.
I personally believe that instead of the timeline being reset in the ending, Kris is the one who erases our connection to the timeline, making it to where we cannot control them anymore. There will be different endings to a extent, but we will always be disconnected from the timeline by Kris, no matter what we do.
There are two things you forgot
like first you can erase the files that holds those timelines thus yes you can erase the files in undertale
But then i want to mention that you can copy the pacifist and put it in a folder in which that folder literally holds all the characters in the pacifist endings so if you reset in the game it’s not much because you literally made a direct copy of the pacifist run that life’s inside that folder outside of the game
What I find odd is all three items in the drawer are abandoned in a sense. As we know secret bosses are abandoned things, the joker card and a scam email. So this could mean the secret boss might be different for each file. Though this is unlikely and I'm probably digging into too deeply.
Another reason for it to be three save files and one ending is to give the players a feeling of helplessness. Showing that no matter what you do, *your choices don't matter.* No matter whether you do the weird routes, abandon them or not even start them, nothing will change
I think it will be a part of an elaborate, or convoluted mechanic, later in the game that's going to let player retroactively influence earlier chapters.
Toby Fox after he makes 3 save files for convenience purposes and people make a conspiracy theory about it
I think the "ending" is the dark world will end and it's inevitable and unpreventable. Does anything say there is specifically one "game" ending or one "Deltarune" ending? I think something else will end and it's going to be big.
The 3 save files tie into this: in order to save everyone, you have to save all the heroes, in each save file (it might be a choice, Asriel, Noelle and Yourselves, or tied to the save slot which hero you can rescue; the 3 heroes might be different characters). With the 3 heroes together, you can bring everyone out of the dark world into the light world before the dark world ends, getting the true ending is supposed to be a puzzle and your reward is saving everyone. The failure state is the game resets to the start of chapter one, and the characters keep saying "Your choices don't matter" because some characters remember going through the loop over and over again, and Kris and the characters who remember everything have experienced this countless times.
Wouldn’t it be funny if chapter 4 tool place in Ice-e’s? To be honest that would be very silly wacky goobish even.
*toof
*toop
*tood
*toob
Minor spelling mistake aughhh
Remember that in undertale theres actually at least 6 save files, that are seen in omega flowey fight, he uses file 2 to save and load attacks, file 3 at the start of the battle and 6 at the end to prevent you from dying from the pellets while hes speaking, my little theory is that if you have more than 1 soul you get 1 extra save file for each soul , omega has 6 souls so he has 6 files including yours
"Deleting timelines with three button presses may be a tad extreme"
Well Ralsei does state that Kris's Soul does contain their Will, Compassion and most importantly the Fate of the World. Which at first sounds like goat boy is hyping them up (and part of him probably is) but in actuality, if Kris dies and the player refuses to persist, by simply pressing no, the world is covered by darkness. Which could fit into the whole "as if it was never there thing" because you can't really see it. Versus if we press yes, Gaster (?) will instead tell us the future is in our hands. Now that's extreme.
Like why should the world be "covered in darkness" just because Kris died and the player chose not to playball but hey that's how it is. Admittedly, the exact details are vague but we know it's not anything good obvi. Looping this back to your theory, by us erasing the world, while it is vague what it is were erasing, a case could be made, by us erasing our save file we are effectively severing our connection to that world but by extension dooming it. Whether you view that by deleting the timeline all together or essentially covering a world into darkness (whatever that means besides "BAD ENDING" vibes) for a timeline I'll leave for you to decide.
Wow, great point! That could indeed be the case either way. Why "THEN IT WILL BE DESTROYED" seeming like such a dire warming in red. World itself or just the connection, either way, it falls into darkness without you there to save it.
That Was The Highest Quality Subscribe Request I've Ever Seen... And Also The Only One To Ever Convince Me! Congrats For Being Great!
I always went with "well in Deltarune, you play with 3 characters so you get 3 saves. In Undertale, you play only as Frisk so you get 1 save"
Okay analysis video! Thanks for uploading!
What if all 3 save files actually play into the 1 true ending? Think along the lines of the Dark and Light stories from Sonic Adventure 2, where the ending is only unlocked once both have been completed. That would explain why you can go down such wildly varying paths in the story without affecting the ending- because ALL endings are part of 3 distinct timeliness which will inevitably collide with each-other, revealing one final battle to set everyone free from your connection to the game. After all, the original Deltarune Prophecy never discussed that kind of freedom- it's two types were freedom from their imprisonment, and freedom from the mortal plane. But what about freedom from control? The control that characters like Jevil and Spamton seek to become detached from? The freedom that the man who spoke to them had told them about.. my idea is that the 3 "endings" of Deltarune are the Darkners are set free from their worlds, the Darkners are set free from life, and the Darkners, or really EVERYONE, is set free from the control of YOU, the player. The one true ending to the Deltarune Prophecy must compete ALL of these to be satisfied.
I think you're right!
"Only then, shining with hope, Three heroes appear at World's edge."
yep thats what ive been thinking too. the game already kind of has 3 different routes possible too: the normal route, the weird route, and the normal route where the best circumstances werent met (ie. lost recruits, berdly hurting his arm)
@@gristen yeah, and not to mention whether or not you try to get the Shadow Crystals.
i also believe that the "angel's heaven" refers to us the players. noelle is obviously the angel here and were the "heaven" that commands her. the biggest clue about this i feel is when spamton says "are you watching heaven?" when theres no one else around but kris and us watching from behind the screen. the strings attached to him during his fight are the same green color often using in computer coding, which adds to the feeling that what spamton really wants is to escape from the predetermined path that has been coded for him. spamton seems to want kris's soul in order to be closer to the "heaven" that he reveres, the players outside the game.
@@gristen that's definitely not an approach I've heard to explaining Heaven, but an interesting one. My assumption was that Heaven referred to the dark worlds in some way, as we see the sigil embedded in a dark fountain during the legend, and it's also specifically referred to as the ANGEL'S Heaven. Well, we the player obviously don't belong to Noelle, but a dark world technically could if she creates one, like all Lightners supposedly can. And, given the health condition of her father, her missing sister, and neglectful mother, she would be a prime candidate to open a dark world in the image of her own "Heaven". A dark world that could result in the disruption of the balance of light and dark, causing the roaring, and requiring it be banished.
However, I do agree that it would be a more satisfying ending if the 3 heroes banished YOU from the story, rather than simply closing a dark world.
Another thing to note is that the fountain containing the Angel's Heaven is notably bright for a dark fountain, though. Perhaps it ISN'T a dark fountain? Maybe instead it's a LIGHT FOUNTAIN? As a result you could say the fountains are effectively "elevators". Taking one in the dark directions sends you further intro the game, and more under someone else's control. But using a light fountain would be equivalent to traveling UP the chain of reality, bringing you closer to Heaven, who could be the player like you say. That would mean that banishing the Angel's Heaven is to banish the connection established with the player at the start of the game, returning the balance of the world. Thinking about it, the opening of the game at the character creator says "Nobody can choose who they are in this world. Your name is..." with a fade to white. That fade to white could symbolize the creation of the light fountain, establishing your connection to the layer below- to Kris. A similar white fade is used whenever sealing a dark fountain, which makes sense, as the only way to neutralize darkness is with light.
If the coupons expired before the book was printed, that means no one would have a 'good' reason to put them there rather than throw them away. Perhaps it's a memento of someone or some day.
"Neutrality, Unity, and Depravity. 3 parallel universes all destined to meet the same fate. One cannot exist without the other, all born from the same beginning, and connected through the one CONDUCTOR.
Despite the necessary depravity, true unity will be born from it's knowledge, tempered with the balance of neutrality."
I wrote this up in the style of what I think a lore drop would sound like in-game, explaining how all 3 Endings are needed to exist at once, in order to create the 4th True Ending, only possible through the combined knowledge that the Player gained from each save file.
An experiment by Gaster to see if he can achieve a good ending for three realities at once, by overcoming an otherwise impossible problem baked into the world.
If anyone here is a Zero Escape fan, this should all sound very familiar. Try viewing all of Deltarune through the lense of a Zero Escape story, and you might be surprised. ;3
I've found this video quite interesting! Nice work!
Well, I think that there are three save files from a lore perspective because there may be three souls in Deltarune. Kris’ soul, rhe player’s soul, and someone else’s.
The reason I believe this is because during the Photoshop Flowey fight in Undertale, since there are 6 human souls, Flowey gets access to 6 save files. We know this because of the file saved thing in the bottom left.
So yeah, I think that there are three souls that could explain the save files
Every time someone brings up the number of save files, I dearly hope they won't say that Undertale only had 'one'... If we are looking at it from the /narrative/ perspective, Undertale had a whopping NINE (9) save files! Photoshop Flowey seemingly has a save file from each human soul he absorbed, as well as previously being able to save and load prior to the latest human's arrival, thus Flowey alone brings the count up to 7. After that, what people tend to overlook alot is that the player themselves has TWO save files: The one used at all the save points throughout Undertale... and the 'Reset' save. How else could the player canonically have the ability to go back to two different points? The obvious answer is that they have two save files, one for Frisk and one for Chara.
So, /whose/ saves are being used in Deltarune? Kris, the possesing-player, and...?
Ralsei? G-?
It could be possible that there’s only one ending because the main events take place in the dark world, while each chapter ends in the light world. So even if you commit mass genocide everything will be fine in the light world and thus lead to the same ending. “But what if lightners go into the dark world and you kill them there?” Well there’s only gonna be 7 chapters so only a handful of people could actually die. Other than lightners believing several people went ‘missing’ everything is gonna end up working the same.
It would be interesting if the key difference between the three timelines in the save slots was Asriel himself and what kind of person he is in each timeline.
finally someone makes a video about this! ive been leaving comments on youtube videos everywhere about the three save files theory because no one's been talking about it 😅
one thing you didnt mention is the fact that the 3 titans in ralsei's story all have faces that resemble save points and i dont think this is a meaningless coincidence. plus chapter 2 kind of already brought us 3 different endings we can achieve: the normal route, the weird route with noelle, and the normal route where berdly breaks his arm. i think the game is going to want us to achieve all these possible endings on the 3 save files in order to unlock the one true ending
What if the changing of asriels drawer would change enemies in the next dark world
Toby: *Adds a new quality of life feature or changes UI*
Everyone on the heckin' planet: THERE'S A HIDDEN LORE, WE NEED MORE THEORIES!111!!11!!1!!!
I kinda hate that. I created one save file for almost full almost 100% pacifist route and another save file for the rudest no-talk genocide route. AND I DON'T WANT SOME HIDDEN LORE FEATURE OF CORRUPTING SAVE FILES TO AFFECT MY WALKTHROUGHS
Almost every fandom I've been in has a time loop theory and I've honestly always hated them because they provide nothing but shock value.
Yeah, I've seen stories that end that way. They're almost all trash, no matter how good the story had been up until that point. Sans' dialogue during his fight in Undertale is pretty much a negative review of those stories.
My thought is that if the player is unhappy with the way a timeline goes for Kris or anyone else (aka the Snowgrave route) that can choose a new one to start to make sure everything goes right and according to plan
Just throwing this out there for the youngins out there.
Back when we played RPGs on nes/SNES, there was only enough room for a few save files on the battery backed up cartridge. Their original purpose was to allow one household to share one copy of a game over siblings/parents/etc. Also, most commonly there are 3 save files (Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy 5/6(ff4 has 4 saves), Dragon Warrior). Later on, separate save meduims were used, like save cards with the PSX onto simply saving onto a hard drive like we do today.
I feel like a grampa now
With the new music video: “skies forever blue”, I think I can make a theory myself.
So, you know how toby dreamed about the deltarune’s ending? And how he really wants to put it in a game?
What if that desire affected the “skies forever blue” without toby himself realising it? Or maybe he realised it but didn’t think we would catch on.
Now, I don’t wanna be the type who tries to find some connection in everything, as I really liked that music(which is the main reason why I’m making this, I am just trying to cope lol) but I think it could make sense + it’s just a theory, so who cares?
If that is true, then we can go backwards to try and guess what will happen.
So, in that music video, the main girl has a unfinished job(confessing), but the game ends without her being able to do it. As the game resets, she gains awareness and tries to finish her job before the reset. She succeeds. Then, knowing that she did what she wanted to do, she smiles as the world resets.
That we have deltarune, which says that our choices don’t matter. I have 2 possible theories:
The first one is the game ending in a reset. The world resets, but depending on our route, our characters feel like they have accomplished everything they wanted. It may be ending, but they are satisfied, and that is what matters.
The other one is the world ending. Actually, this one may be a reset too, but it could also not be, so… whatever, let’s continue. So, the world ends, but we still have unfinished business, unanswered questiıns etc. So, what if when we start in another save file or reset after the ending, the game changes? The world may end again, maybe not, I don’t know. But we will be able to close every open door with this playtrough.
So, what about it? I really didn’t think much on this theory, so I understand if it’s garbage, Lol
Trust your theory, reality is bending
I'm pretty sure the "running away" line is just like, Kris gets bullied.
I think the reason for 3 save files is so players can experiment with the outcomes of their actions. Remeber how many fresh neutral run outcomes there were, and yet people enjoyed only pacyfist? I think toby wants to avoid it this time, and give us the power to enjoy both neutral runs and perfect pacyfist, even though there will be one ending...
Every single game ever has the same ending: the player choosing not to play anymore. No matter what, Deltarune’s world won’t continue without you playing through it. Even if you get an ending that allows everyone to live happy lives, they will never live those lives because the game is over.
8:35
Flowey begs Chara, not "you" you
I just had a flash of genius, your idea of the only ending being a reset is interesting, but I want to play the devil's advocate and ask you a question: wouldn't the "game over" screen count as an ending? as "then the world shall be covered in darkness" being an ending? I think the reason the true ending is going to be a reset is because the whole world is going to be covered in darkness by one mean or another and that's how the story would go full circle.
Technically undertale does have two saves you can use file 0 is the one that you save to manually while file 9 is saved automatically
I find that the only thing that changes between saves is belonging to asriel very very interesting
I dunno. I still think deltarune could be after undertale genocide run. Maybe we got ability to erase worlds after Chara encounter?
True reset is basically full erasing a timeline to, and you can Always go to the files and erase the world.
I don’t think so, Toby came up with the idea of Deltarune before Undertale, and says that he wants the 2 games to be separate things. I think there’ll definitely be a connection, through Sans or Gaster or something, but it being based on Undertale’s story just seems unlikely and to be honest, kinda disappointing.
Definitely not the same world. In Undertale, Rudy has died probably before Frisk enters Underground
@@AshenDust_ he wanted to make a game with ending he imagined, he didn't work at deltarune before undertale.
@@rihard999 that still doesn’t address the issue of him wanting people to consider Deltarune and Undertale to be separate things. He tweeted about how he was grateful that people were talking about Deltarune on it’s own, not in relation to Undertale.
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4:45 You can actually do a true reset after the pacifist route, and you still can't destroy the timeline since Chara still remembers the other one where you did Genocide.
Oh yeah in 7:48 (before probably) the fate of Berdly in Chapter 2 (assuming he's dead in Snowgrave) is different if you wanna go crazy Captain Freezer.
apologies if this has been mentioned already, as I haven't read all the comments -
but the idea you discussed of the save files being erased is your connection to that world being erased, I immediately thought of Goner Kid's dialogue in undertale: "Have you ever thought about a world where everything is exactly the same... Except you don't exist?"
I think Toby as an artist/creator is clearly very interested in the concept of how game worlds and characters are shaped by player action/inaction, and this is another example of how that is shown in deltarune. In this case, going back to Goner Kid's line, it makes you think - do the other save files (worlds) exist if the player doesn't use them? and further, if we acknowledge that they do exist regardless (because some other player somewhere is using them), what are those worlds like - exactly the same, but "you" (an individual player) don't exist? does it matter if there is ever a player at all, because the worlds will exist in the form of code anyway?
You can really end up going down a big spiral with this line of questioning (especially once you factor in timeloop/time travel theories)!
It's probably just because you have 1 for the normal route, 1 for weird, and a third for if you don't want to delete those just to fuck around in a chapter
Hope we get some epic Save file jumping before it morphs into a single file that has the penultimate ending we want
I think that deltarune will do something similiar like off did in the room, where you can choose between 3 (fake) save files with a different outcome.
I believe you missed some details about the copying and erasing text. You can try to Erase an already empty save fuels, but it will say “it was already barren”. Your connection to a world being barren doesn’t really make sense, but a world being barren does.
1:52 you’re fooling nobody mystic slime, that’s clearly an 86.9%, not a 90%
Your choices won't matter since kris will always eat the pie in the end 😔
everything JEVIL says is in all caps
including his name.
my personal theory as to why toby fox stated there is "only one ending (.....?)" right before releasing chapter 2 with its entire alternate storyline that ends with an entire major character death that cannot possibly avoid having major light AND dark world implications going forward, is that: building from JaruJaruJ's time loop theory, the Pipis route (i still refuse to call it anything else im sorry we had a perfect name already why must we deviate from it) is the FIRST iteration of the timeline and culminates in Noelle increasing her power and ascending to godhood, becoming the "Angel" so often talked about, who Jaru believes is the one to reset the timeline for whatever reason. So your save file that completed the Pipis route in chapter 2 will continue and be likely set on that path in chapter 3 and onwards, eventually permanently locking you into that path with no way to abort. (assuming of course that that hasn't ALREADY happened, given said main character's death. this is also why i believe chapters 3-5 are being developed and released all at once, because they Need to be released together. chapter 3 seems to be starting immediately in a dark world and noelle seems unlikely to be in it so maybe differences between carried over save files won't be immediately apparent until you finally return to the light world and can be informed about your classmate.) Your save file that maintained the pacifist/neutral/"regular" storyline is intended as the main "true" story, where the timeloop is finally brought to an end, whether by the angel being defeated/killed/pacified/etc. or by any other sort of means. That's why Toby states there is only one ending while implying there may or may not soooort of be other endings as well. it's not that there are other possible endings that simply aren't canon or "true" in any sense, but that there are a lot of what TECHNICALLY count as "endings" because they end with time being reset once again, and the only "one" ending, the actual TRUE ending, is the "pacifist" ending you can get by simply playing normally and doing whatever you usually would.
It did occur to me that this would only necessitate the existence of Two save slots in that case, however. So perhaps the third ending is one that occurs sometime between the other two? Perhaps one even more deeply buried and with even more well hidden criteria to uncover and access than the Pipis route, perhaps focused on giving more insight to Ralsei and his character, and learning about how he seems to know so much, why he looks like Asriel, etc. (in other words an iteration of the time loop that ends with the reveal of Ralsei's origin/existence, potentially as depicted in Jaru's other video about Ralsei :P) Perhaps the third save slot could be for the secret Ralsei route that serves for being filled with even more explanations, hints and implications about Ralsei, (Gaster? perhaps?? please???) Asriel and the game world's lore in general that couldn't be touched on in the first two routes for one reason or another.
SO: even on the occasions when your choices sure SEEM to matter a WHOLE GREAT FUCKIN LOT, such as the Pipis route... Ultimately they won't end up mattering anyway, because the ending of that route isn't the ending of the story anyway. as you said, no choices you make actually end up mattering when you're in a timeloop. your choices only matter insofar as they provide more lore. there's only one real ending, and YOUR choices can't affect that. Kris, Susie, Ralsei, and everyone else will get there eventually, regardless of what you do. whether they understand what's going on by the time they're there or not. whether they even care enough to find out or not. it's their lives, not ours.
we were allowed to choose whatever path we like in Undertale, but we were only given one save file to do so, and so we were expected to live with those choices and accept the outcome and consequences whether we liked them or not. deltarune is giving us More than one save file and full permission to do whatever the hell we want multiple times over, because whatever we do won't really matter in the end. our choices matter in undertale. they don't matter in deltarune.
(also: maybe the differing contents of asriel's desk drawer could possibly connect each save slot to each timeline in some way??? maybe the pizza coupons book means the third slot is "The Pipis Route" slot because of Noelle or smth like that? that's probly a stretch ofc lol but. idk maybe toby had some kind of "intended" specific use in this regard for each slot in a specific order or smth) (i probly could have summed up all of this in far fewer words than i did lmao sorry)
I don't mind a long post but it needs line breaks so reading it isn't a pain.
also in undertale it says "reset" but in both undertale genocide and deltarune it says "erase" and like you said, the only time u can truly reset the timeline is in the undertale genocide route. maybe its connected
I can't wait for some Doki Doki Literature Club sh*t where we have to do different things in each save file or delete one to affect the other.
@MysticSlime yo is that you in the short!? Lol. Pretty funny, I love their soundtrack too
Hm, how very interesting, I guess we’ll see eventually.
Also, about Deltarune being in a Time-loop, it’s funny you brought it up, ‘cause I have been thinking for the longest time that Undertale is in a Time-loop.
I'm pretty sure you said this in the noelle v ralsei video, but it's possible the save files could be one per route. One could be the main pacifist route where you don't kill anyone. Another could be the full snowgrave like routes in all future chapters. (if that happens) and the last could be a full fighting only approach. No snowgrave or anything, JUST fighting with kris. Obviously there aren't many major differences so far in the chapters if you only fight, but I feel like it'll be mentioned again somewhere if you DID choose to fight
technically, Undertale _does_ have multiple save files. Specifically, the save files in the games folder. When you save the game, it stores your progress in a file named file0, and during certain moments, like before bosses and such, the game autosaves to file9. The obvious question, then, is why file9 and not file1? why don't file1 through file8 exist?
well, one clue to this is that the file8 slot actually does get used: when flowey sizes control, he creates file8. given that flowey had the ability to save right up until frisk's arrival it wpuld make sense if his file comes right before theirs.
But if frisk's file is file9, why does the player have control over file0 instead? if the files are numbered based on who had access to SAVEing in order, then file0 would be the very first person capable of making a file: chara/the first human. This makes sense, the file _does_ have their name on it, after all, and it's very heavily implied that they are somehow present for frisk's journey.
All of this begs the question of who exactly files 1-7 belonged to. 1-6 are pretty obvious: the six human souls. Asgore's reaction to being told that he's killed you before suggests that at least one of the previous humans had the ability, and presumably died permanently only because they gave up. It's not a stretch to imagine that all of them could manage it at least once.
That just leaves file7. based on what we've established, it belongs to someone with more determination than a monster can properly contain, who appeared some time after the last of the six humans, but either they died for good before flowey showed up or flowey had even more of it. I think this file belongs to the amalgamates, either as a shared file for the group or for lemon bread specifically. When we encounter lemon bread, they're disguised as a _save point._ it seems as if the only people who can see save points are those that can use them, and how would lemon bread know what that looked like unless they'd seen it before?
It's not clear what, if anything, this means for deltarune though.
also, disclaimer: I got a lot of this theory from a half-remembered Tumblr post (though I did fact-check it) I don't remember who made it though. If anyone knows the post, let me know and I'll add the link in an edit.
It might be a stretch but i think the implication is Asriel having some ability to cause timelines to shift just slightly, as his previous incarnation (when he wasnt sweet and innocent- this part has been imparted to ralsei) was to be a save-scumming flower or an all powerful being. And we KNOW how THAT went.
I'd like to add that in the mansion, everyone has rooms when they were captive, INCLUDING ASRIEL. Not Ralsei. It's crazy enough to think that he's been in the dark world, being his own player, but that he's left a trace in it as well. As himself, not Kris' interpretation of him (Ralsei, if we go with the imagination theory, which is getting harder to work with if not flatout dismissed at this point. Maybe it still works but its "complicated") So he has both awareness And power in Deltarune too.
Maybe that's the real reason he's absent, he's not in college, he's just jumping timelines and causing disturbances. Which is already crazy to consider, taking chapter 2's ending into account of WHY, cuz it would imply that one part of kris is waiting for Asriel to return and one part is searching for him/ forcing him out by creating more darkworlds until they converge. Who knows.-
I always thought the "running away" line was alluding to Kris running away from their human family
I think the thing in the drawer is going to have some big implications for reaching a secret in the end of the game
I think the number of the save files you can have is based on the soul power you have, in undertale we have 1 soul that we have 1 slot, but omega flowey has multiple slots which he had 6 souls at that moment, though i cant think of a good explaination to how flowey used saving and loading at the first place he mightve just commit suicide everytime since he didnt have any slots (also he said he tried to commit suicide once but ended up at the place where he started, which is asgores garden where asriel died), in deltarune toby named a music file as anotherhim which could mean there is 2 gasters and with you it gets to 3
I thought that in Undertale you get a save file per human soul, so I think in deltarune souls and save files are just different all together
There is another change of text of save files
when you interact with the computer in the player room
Sure there is "one ending" but we need to talk about the snow grave route. Is this a timeline glitch? If so how are able to do this?
I think that undertales ending is actually one very long ending. for example; a players blind experience with the game will inevitably lead them not to backtrack or not understand that they can spare certain enemies resulting in a neutral ending which means flowey will encourage and suggest that they can do more. from there they might aim for the pacifist ending getting the warning from flowey not to reset again as its the best possible outcome, then over time they might think "but... what would happen if I do the opposite.". they go through the grueling task of the genocide route only to regret it and either quit or finish out of pure curiosity. from there the player learns their options this is where undertales true ending is which is where out of fear of loosing their save or out of the urge to see more they decide to assist chara in destorying every world. meaning now after every ending we are actually doing the continuation of the genocide route even after a pure pacifist route. so that even if the player regretted their actions they'll always be reminded of what they did. thats undertale's true ending.
meanwhile deltarune has so many factors to consider here so many characters and personal archs that could change the course of the ending. either that or these extreme changes in the story are implying that certain characters and even the attitude of other characters toward kris are irrelevant as either they won't be involved later on or they'll do the same thing later on regardless of how they feel- which is way too dark for toby fox. I feel like the one thing that is irrelevant is fighting or choosing the evil route because if you don't recruit enemies they don't come to your dark world meaning they'll turn to stone anyway.
so theres the possibility for 3 endings in deltarune which I'll call the Recruit/freedom route, the Abandon/fail Route and the Consequence/Dark Route. maybe the secret bosses are there to provide the player with a secret weapon that you specifically can't get in the consequence route but can only get before a specific boss fight idk. the consequence route revolves around how your actions have harmed everyone else around you and made even your own team turn against you. obviously in all routes you will likely have to stop or face off against the roaring.
I make same wonder about the line "Your choices don't matterZ". the narrative keeps hammering it into us so i wonder if there will be a way to force the world to bend so our choices do matter. Like what if to get the very good ending for everyone you need to meddle with the saves. Our ending will be the same but the outcome will be different.