nablarune

(This will be on every officsnail post until it happens) At the end of this month/beginning of next month there will be a small (bit over a week) officsnail hiatus and a few other days that will change to asks only do to my dance studio beginning choreography and me starting to burn myself out a little

Deltarune looks like it's following Undertale, but backwards, which explains why both Spamton and Tenna have elements of Mettaton - Mettaton is the boss of two different areas in Undertale: Hotland and the CORE.

More specifically:

- Chapter 1: Card Kingdom = New Home (King's palace and King is final boss)

- Chapter 2: Cyber's World = CORE (Heavy focus on energy/electricity, sick blue aesthetic, final boss is a robot, who is replaced by a NEO if you start mass murdering people, use of yellow soul mode)

- Chapter 3: TV World = Hotland (You're on a gameshow and most of the puzzles are replaced with gameshow stuff, heavy red aesthetic, flamboyant and slightly unhinged gameshow host seems to be your enemy but there's actually somebody else pulling the strings)

- Chapter 4: The Sanctuaries = Waterfall (Learning details of the prophecy and other historical stuff through floating words on the wall, lots of water related imagery (see: Mizzles everywhere), Gerson is there for some reason, some rooms are so dark you can't see anything and have to use weird lantern nonsense, miniboss uses a ghost leitmotif, green soul mode)

yeah that wasn’t snowdin

It’s easy to force comparisons between the two (boy, Flowery sure does remind you of Papyrus, huh?), but the truth is that the parallels there can be drawn between just about any two things. There’s something else going on here.

One of the keys to this theory was the SOUL modes (Red, Yellow, and Green). In Chapter 5 we get two SOUL modes that aren’t used by any major boss in Undertale: Purple (only appears in the Kickstarter Muffet miniboss fight) and Orange.

Pink/Mad Mew Mew overlaps with Papyrus in several ways—most notably, her dating sim aspect is largely carried over from the UI used in your date with Papyrus—and her not using the Blue SOUL mode could theoretically be explained by Papyrus not fighting during the Genocide Route, meaning there is no Snowdin boss battle. (Technically yeah there’s no fight with Mettaton NEO, but he still makes an effort.)

I think the previously noted overlap isn’t ignorable, though. With that in mind, I’m gonna run through a few new ideas and hopefully figure something out along the way.

IDEA 1: CHAPTER FIVE IS ALSO WATERFALL

…what?

Okay, hear me out. Remember how I divided Hotland and the CORE into two separate chapters? Even though they’re technically the same area, there’s a clear style shift between them. Waterfall has a similar phenomenon. The first half of the area (before the Mad Dummy fight) does feel different from the latter half. Puzzles in this half revolve mostly around getting flowers in the right locations to walk across, similar to the watering can puzzles in Chapter 5, while the latter half introduces the darkness mechanics that are present throughout Chapter 4. The theme of talking flowers is also at its strongest in this portion of the area. Typically this is also the point in the game where players backtrack to hang out with Sans, where he also asks the protagonist about a talking flower.

As mentioned before, this half of Waterfall can be defined by a termination point with the Mad Dummy fight. In the Genocide Route, you rather ironically help Mad Dummy fuse with their body to become Glad Dummy so that you can kill them just like how in Chapter 5 you beat the exact same character by helping Mad Mew Mew mesh with her body. The dating sim portion of the Pink fight only has its parallel in the Pacifist Route, but that too often occurs at this point of the game, when the player is incentivized to backtrack just after beating Papyrus.

(And yeah, I already used Mad Dummy as evidence for Chapter 4 being Waterfall, based on Jackenstein’s use of the Spooktune motif. In fact, though, this motif doesn’t show up until after the Mad Dummy fight, in Napstablook’s house.)

Flowery, then, might be read as a parallel to Undyne? WRONG. Flowery is… Papyrus! (yeah i made fun of that idea earlier what about it) The first half of Waterfall features Papyrus’ constant interference as he tries to “help” Undyne (paralleled by Asgore) impede the human’s progress towards Asgore (also… paralleled by Asgore?). The other six flowers, then, also double as little Papyruses (Papyrii?) in their incompetent efforts to stop our hero from advancing.

IDEA 2: WE’RE THINKING ABOUT SNOWDIN THE WRONG WAY

See, the seven flowers certainly feel like the Royal Guard in both their motivation and their incompetence. Maybe, then, they’re meant to parallel the Snowdin Canine Unit, and Flowery is… still Papyrus. I’m not quite as convinced by this one, but I still want to put it out there.

touch my keys

hear my tunes

scream my name

hOi!!!1!1 i'M tEmmie!!

TeM diDs da mOOsicaL 4 dELtaRunE, yAyA!! with,,,EG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Deltarune looks like it's following Undertale, but backwards, which explains why both Spamton and Tenna have elements of Mettaton - Mettaton is the boss of two different areas in Undertale: Hotland and the CORE.

More specifically:

- Chapter 1: Card Kingdom = New Home (King's palace and King is final boss)

- Chapter 2: Cyber's World = CORE (Heavy focus on energy/electricity, sick blue aesthetic, final boss is a robot, who is replaced by a NEO if you start mass murdering people, use of yellow soul mode)

- Chapter 3: TV World = Hotland (You're on a gameshow and most of the puzzles are replaced with gameshow stuff, heavy red aesthetic, flamboyant and slightly unhinged gameshow host seems to be your enemy but there's actually somebody else pulling the strings)

- Chapter 4: The Sanctuaries = Waterfall (Learning details of the prophecy and other historical stuff through floating words on the wall, lots of water related imagery (see: Mizzles everywhere), Gerson is there for some reason, some rooms are so dark you can't see anything and have to use weird lantern nonsense, miniboss uses a ghost leitmotif, green soul mode)

yeah that wasn’t snowdin

It’s easy to force comparisons between the two (boy, Flowery sure does remind you of Papyrus, huh?), but the truth is that the parallels there can be drawn between just about any two things. There’s something else going on here.

One of the keys to this theory was the SOUL modes (Red, Yellow, and Green). In Chapter 5 we get two SOUL modes that aren’t used by any major boss in Undertale: Purple (only appears in the Kickstarter Muffet miniboss fight) and Orange.

Pink/Mad Mew Mew overlaps with Papyrus in several ways—most notably, her dating sim aspect is largely carried over from the UI used in your date with Papyrus—and her not using the Blue SOUL mode could theoretically be explained by Papyrus not fighting during the Genocide Route, meaning there is no Snowdin boss battle. (Technically yeah there’s no fight with Mettaton NEO, but he still makes an effort.)

I think the previously noted overlap isn’t ignorable, though. With that in mind, I’m gonna run through a few new ideas and hopefully figure something out along the way.

IDEA 1: CHAPTER FIVE IS ALSO WATERFALL

…what?

Okay, hear me out. Remember how I divided Hotland and the CORE into two separate chapters? Even though they’re technically the same area, there’s a clear style shift between them. Waterfall has a similar phenomenon. The first half of the area (before the Mad Dummy fight) does feel different from the latter half. Puzzles in this half revolve mostly around getting flowers in the right locations to walk across, similar to the watering can puzzles in Chapter 5, while the latter half introduces the darkness mechanics that are present throughout Chapter 4. The theme of talking flowers is also at its strongest in this portion of the area. Typically this is also the point in the game where players backtrack to hang out with Sans, where he also asks the protagonist about a talking flower.

As mentioned before, this half of Waterfall can be defined by a termination point with the Mad Dummy fight. In the Genocide Route, you rather ironically help Mad Dummy fuse with their body to become Glad Dummy so that you can kill them just like how in Chapter 5 you beat the exact same character by helping Mad Mew Mew mesh with her body. The dating sim portion of the Pink fight only has its parallel in the Pacifist Route, but that too often occurs at this point of the game, when the player is incentivized to backtrack just after beating Papyrus.

(And yeah, I already used Mad Dummy as evidence for Chapter 4 being Waterfall, based on Jackenstein’s use of the Spooktune motif. In fact, though, this motif doesn’t show up until after the Mad Dummy fight, in Napstablook’s house.)

Flowery, then, might be read as a parallel to Undyne? WRONG. Flowery is… Papyrus! (yeah i made fun of that idea earlier what about it) The first half of Waterfall features Papyrus’ constant interference as he tries to “help” Undyne (paralleled by Asgore) impede the human’s progress towards Asgore (also… paralleled by Asgore?). The other six flowers, then, also double as little Papyruses (Papyrii?) in their incompetent efforts to stop our hero from advancing.

IDEA 2: WE’RE THINKING ABOUT SNOWDIN THE WRONG WAY

See, the seven flowers certainly feel like the Royal Guard in both their motivation and their incompetence. Maybe, then, they’re meant to parallel the Snowdin Canine Unit, and Flowery is… still Papyrus. I’m not quite as convinced by this one, but I still want to put it out there.