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+ <h3 class="blog-title">Despite Everything, It's Still You.</h3>
+ <h3 class="datestamp">15/09/2025</h3>
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+ <p>
+ It's 2015. December 23rd, to be exact. I'm sat in front of my
+ PC with my parents in the other room. And I'm crying.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It's 2016. Sometime in May. I'm sitting on the bed with my
+ girlfriend in her flat in Sheffield. And I'm crying.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It's 2017. I'm sitting in my partner's front room. We're
+ eating pizza. And I'm crying.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It's 2022. I'm jumping up and down in the Bodega in
+ Nottingham. Anamanaguchi are playing their last song before
+ the encore. And I'm crying.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It's 2025. I'm sat in a very hot concert hall the day before
+ I'm due to start back at work, two months after major surgery.
+ And I'm crying.
+ </p>
+ <p>All of these events have one thing in common: Undertale.</p>
+ <p>
+ Undertale came out ten years ago today. One of the last smash
+ hit indies that would be released before the entire market
+ fractured and changed. It is unlike anything else released
+ that year. Or the previous year, or the next year. The only
+ game that will come close to Undertale is its
+ sequel/prequel/sidequel/something else Deltarune, but even
+ that isn't quite Undertale. Undertale both stands alone and
+ yet will also influence hundreds, if not thousands of games to
+ be released in the next decade.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Undertale is something of a rosetta stone for the last decade
+ of video games. I think if you have any interest in the medium
+ it is a must-play. If you haven't, please stop reading now, as
+ I will be talking in less generic terms after the screenshot
+ here.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <img
+ class="blog-img-lrg"
+ src="../img/entries/undertale.jpg"
+ alt="A screenshot of Undertale, from early game area Ruins. Napstablook and the player character are on screen."
+ />
+ <hr />
+ <p>Ok, are they gone?</p>
+ <p>
+ The common thread in those events is Undertale, yeah. But it's
+ more specifically Hopes and Dreams. What a track, huh? I can
+ only really think of two songs that equal it - one from
+ Stormblood, and one from Deltarune, of course. It's a track
+ that really captures the hype of the finale, but it's also
+ melancholic - the main melody, of course, is His Theme. The
+ fight itself at this point is bittersweet. You've SAVEd your
+ friends, you've perservered and stayed determined. The earth
+ refused to die. And all that's left, at the end of everything,
+ is a crying little boy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I've never replayed Undertale myself. I played it through once
+ in 2015 and then kept the save, safe and backed up on my
+ desktop, for <i>years.</i> But I have watched two partners
+ play through it, and cried at the same points every time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I can't even listen to the title track without crying. That
+ walk through New Home... there's nothing else like it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It's bizarre to say, maybe, but I think Toby Fox is a
+ generational talent. One day he'll be spoken of in the same
+ breath as people like Stephen King, David Lynch, Hideo Kojima
+ - incredibly impressive, omni-talented indivduals with
+ singular, totemic vision. I guess that would make Deltarune
+ Fox's Twin Peaks, his MGS3? It's only half-finished and it's
+ far beyond most works in the form. One can only imagine what
+ chapter 5 and on can bring.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But, yeah. Only played once. It feels... kinda wrong to play
+ it again? I never did a No Mercy route either. How could I
+ hurt all these characters I'd grown to love?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And then Deltarune arrived. And one of its many themes is the
+ horror of getting lost in escapism. Why do you care about
+ these characters? Why should you? They're not real, after all.
+ Ralsei even says it to camera.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It's a rarity to see in games, a follow-up so in conversation
+ with its predecessor and with its fanbase. Deltarune chapter 1
+ retells Undertale, asks why you care, and then, after it's
+ broken you down, dares to ask: "after all that, is it still
+ you?" and plunges you into a new story about finding things
+ long thought lost in the dark.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It's magical. And it wouldn't be possible at all without
+ Undertale; the game would not be able to deliver its gut punch
+ in even close to the same fashion if Undertale hadn't laid all
+ that ground work.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Deltarune, impossibly, makes a once-in-a-generation game even
+ better. If, for some reason, you haven't played Deltarune,
+ this is your sign to do so. It will make Undertale even better
+ for you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And if you kept reading anyway, despite my warning above:
+ please. Play Undertale. Then play Deltarune. Then DM me so we
+ can go insane together.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <br />
+ <p>
+ At the end of New Home, you reach a house. And in that house,
+ is a mirror. And you look in that mirror, at the end of your
+ journey. And it drops a line that has reverberated through
+ culture ever since.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It's been a decade. But despite everything, it's still you.
+ </p>
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