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  43               <h3 class="blog-title">Despite Everything, It's Still You.</h3>
  44               <h3 class="datestamp">15/09/2025</h3>
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  48                 <p>
  49                   It's 2015. December 23rd, to be exact. I'm sat in front of my
  50                   PC with my parents in the other room. And I'm crying.
  51                 </p>
  52                 <p>
  53                   It's 2016. Sometime in May. I'm sitting on the bed with my
  54                   girlfriend in her flat in Sheffield. And I'm crying.
  55                 </p>
  56                 <p>
  57                   It's 2017. I'm sitting in my partner's front room. We're
  58                   eating pizza. And I'm crying.
  59                 </p>
  60                 <p>
  61                   It's 2022. I'm jumping up and down in the Bodega in
  62                   Nottingham. Anamanaguchi are playing their last song before
  63                   the encore. And I'm crying.
  64                 </p>
  65                 <p>
  66                   It's 2025. I'm sat in a very hot concert hall the day before
  67                   I'm due to start back at work, two months after major surgery.
  68                   And I'm crying.
  69                 </p>
  70                 <p>All of these events have one thing in common: Undertale.</p>
  71                 <p>
  72                   Undertale came out ten years ago today. One of the last smash
  73                   hit indies that would be released before the entire market
  74                   fractured and changed. It is unlike anything else released
  75                   that year. Or the previous year, or the next year. The only
  76                   game that will come close to Undertale is its
  77                   sequel/prequel/sidequel/something else Deltarune, but even
  78                   that isn't quite Undertale. Undertale both stands alone and
  79                   yet will also influence hundreds, if not thousands of games to
  80                   be released in the next decade.
  81                 </p>
  82                 <p>
  83                   Undertale is something of a rosetta stone for the last decade
  84                   of video games. I think if you have any interest in the medium
  85                   it is a must-play. If you haven't, please stop reading now, as
  86                   I will be talking in less generic terms after the screenshot
  87                   here.
  88                 </p>
  89                 <hr />
  90                 <img
  91                   class="blog-img-lrg"
  92                   src="../img/entries/undertale.jpg"
  93                   alt="A screenshot of Undertale, from early game area Ruins. Napstablook and the player character are on screen."
  94                 />
  95                 <hr />
  96                 <p>Ok, are they gone?</p>
  97                 <p>
  98                   The common thread in those events is Undertale, yeah. But it's
  99                   more specifically Hopes and Dreams. What a track, huh? I can
 100                   only really think of two songs that equal it - one from
 101                   Stormblood, and one from Deltarune, of course. It's a track
 102                   that really captures the hype of the finale, but it's also
 103                   melancholic - the main melody, of course, is His Theme. The
 104                   fight itself at this point is bittersweet. You've SAVEd your
 105                   friends, you've perservered and stayed determined. The earth
 106                   refused to die. And all that's left, at the end of everything,
 107                   is a crying little boy.
 108                 </p>
 109                 <p>
 110                   I've never replayed Undertale myself. I played it through once
 111                   in 2015 and then kept the save, safe and backed up on my
 112                   desktop, for <i>years.</i> But I have watched two partners
 113                   play through it, and cried at the same points every time.
 114                 </p>
 115                 <p>
 116                   I can't even listen to the title track without crying. That
 117                   walk through New Home... there's nothing else like it.
 118                 </p>
 119                 <p>
 120                   It's bizarre to say, maybe, but I think Toby Fox is a
 121                   generational talent. One day he'll be spoken of in the same
 122                   breath as people like Stephen King, David Lynch, Hideo Kojima
 123                   - incredibly impressive, omni-talented indivduals with
 124                   singular, totemic vision. I guess that would make Deltarune
 125                   Fox's Twin Peaks, his MGS3? It's only half-finished and it's
 126                   far beyond most works in the form. One can only imagine what
 127                   chapter 5 and on can bring.
 128                 </p>
 129                 <p>
 130                   But, yeah. Only played once. It feels... kinda wrong to play
 131                   it again? I never did a No Mercy route either. How could I
 132                   hurt all these characters I'd grown to love?
 133                 </p>
 134                 <p>
 135                   And then Deltarune arrived. And one of its many themes is the
 136                   horror of getting lost in escapism. Why do you care about
 137                   these characters? Why should you? They're not real, after all.
 138                   Ralsei even says it to camera.
 139                 </p>
 140                 <p>
 141                   It's a rarity to see in games, a follow-up so in conversation
 142                   with its predecessor and with its fanbase. Deltarune chapter 1
 143                   retells Undertale, asks why you care, and then, after it's
 144                   broken you down, dares to ask: "after all that, is it still
 145                   you?" and plunges you into a new story about finding things
 146                   long thought lost in the dark.
 147                 </p>
 148                 <p>
 149                   It's magical. And it wouldn't be possible at all without
 150                   Undertale; the game would not be able to deliver its gut punch
 151                   in even close to the same fashion if Undertale hadn't laid all
 152                   that ground work.
 153                 </p>
 154                 <p>
 155                   Deltarune, impossibly, makes a once-in-a-generation game even
 156                   better. If, for some reason, you haven't played Deltarune,
 157                   this is your sign to do so. It will make Undertale even better
 158                   for you.
 159                 </p>
 160                 <p>
 161                   And if you kept reading anyway, despite my warning above:
 162                   please. Play Undertale. Then play Deltarune. Then DM me so we
 163                   can go insane together.
 164                 </p>
 165                 <hr />
 166                 <br />
 167                 <p>
 168                   At the end of New Home, you reach a house. And in that house,
 169                   is a mirror. And you look in that mirror, at the end of your
 170                   journey. And it drops a line that has reverberated through
 171                   culture ever since.
 172                 </p>
 173                 <p>
 174                   It's been a decade. But despite everything, it's still you.
 175                 </p>
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