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Nightmare Fuel / Deltarune Chapter 2: A Cyber's World

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Return to the main Nightmare Fuel page for Deltarune here.

    open/close all folders 
    Normal Route 
  • Kris's descriptions (in the real world, at least) had already been darker and more cynic than Frisk's, but Chapter 2 ups the ante on creepiness. Checking out the mirror on Kris's home brings this charming jewel.
    * It's what they call 'you'.
  • Examining Lancer's or Rouxls' cards in the light world makes the narration comment on how flimsy they feel in your hands.
  • Susie and Kris see a strange portal in the library, where Noelle and Berdly were supposed to be and Susie notes that It's Quiet… Too Quiet. She's right; there is usually a crowd of people in the library. While Kris can suggest that they use the Dremurr computer at home, Susie says that she's not going to skive off on an adventure. They then see Werewires being forcibly assimilated... and Noelle calling for help. Cue a floating cage capturing her and spiriting her off. You can't blame Susie for screaming after Noelle in alarm.
    • One small detail: you find Noelle in what seems to be a minefield, and she's exhausted when you meet her. Did she escape a bombing raid... or did she cause it herself in self-defense, not knowing what she did? Also, the Werewires are terrified of a female individual whom they think she's gonna do something to them... Is this the reason why Queen believes Noelle is strong?
  • The Werewire enemy. It's one of the pink citizens seen throughout Chapter 2, but with one of The Queen's face wires attached to it... turning it into a tall, lanky, humanoid creature. What do those things do!?
    • In one room, a pink citizen claims that they're probably safe from being converted into a Werewire since they're already loyal to the Queen. Go to the right side of the room. There's a newly-made Werewire there (so fresh it doesn't even attack you and just dangles there) wearing the same hat as the earlier pink citizen... and if you go back to the left side of the room, the original pink citizen is missing.
    • ...but this doesn't count. The pink citizen WANTED to be a Werewire.
  • Queen reveals that if Noelle continues being this stubborn, she'll robotize her and make her face metal. This revelation, along with Queen turning on him, is enough for Berdly to switch sides and admit that he was a fool to believe in Queen's promise of a new world.
  • Berdly comes up with a plan that if the others distract Queen, he can evacuate Noelle to a safe place. Susie reluctantly admits that's the best option they have, since Berdly is the weakest fighter of the four of them owing to his arrogance. Just as the party members confront Queen, she gives an Evil Laugh and reveals an assimilated Berdly. It turns out she heard Noelle screaming at Berdly and shaking him, and broke up the "happy reunion". Susie is horrified when Queen says that Noelle is next.
  • If you ACT against Queen by knocking Berdly's wires loose, he escapes completely exhausted, but unharmed. However, if you FIGHT Queen instead without knocking any wires loose, or if you FIGHT Berdly earlier in the chapter, Berdly escapes by tearing the wire off his own face... while it graphically and painfully electrocutes him. When Berdly is free, he immediately collapses, and while his injured arm is mostly hidden behind his body, the parts you can see are charred and blackened.
    • What's worse: when you wake up in the Light World again, Berdly tries to pick up his books, only to find that his arm is completely paralyzed. Even his walk cycle has changed, as his right arm hangs limp by his side, and doesn't swing anymore when he walks. For a game that hammers in how little your choices matter, it's jarring to realize that, by making the wrong choices, you've likely given a teenager permanent nerve damage.
    • The implications of Berdly being ensnared by the wire are themselves disturbing when you recall that it's the same type of wire the Queen used to transform the Werewires, meaning Berdly had a giant two-pronged plug inserted into his face.
  • The sequence explaining "the Roaring". Ralsei is uncharacteristically serious when he tells the monsters in the group to knock it off with the notion of creating more dark fountains, and explains why — with a chilling Dark Reprise of "The Legend," another sepia sequence elaborating more on the prophecy is shown, and it's a multi-layered whammy.
    • The Titans are massive, towering over the landscape, and certainly look like they could bring profound devastation. The central Titan's chest features the same eyes from the very first area the player ever visits in the Dark World. Which makes one wonder — is the area to the west of Ralsei's castle a Titan graveyard, or even one big dormant Titan?
    • The surviving Darkners will all turn to stone, meaning any Darkner who aids the Knight in their goals will inevitably be bringing their own demise. The surviving Lightners will be lost eternally in an endless night, with no light left, period, meaning basically the death of all life on Earth. This is essentially what happens in Dark Souls if the Age of Dark is brought about, except possibly worse, because there won't be another world to replace the one that dies.
    • Ralsei ends the sequence with a cold and stern "is that your idea of paradise?" He's deadly serious about this.
    • Despite the immediate Mood Whiplash afterwards, even the Queen is horrified by this — she just wanted to make a better world for everyone, not cause the apocalypse. This horrifying revelation basically immediately triggers her Heel–Face Turn, since until that moment, an overabundance of Darkness was an exclusively and universally good thing with no downsides, from her perspective.
    • This also puts the Game Over text mentioned above into a new perspective — because you chose not to continue, the Roaring happens.
  • If you talk to Onion-san in the epilogue (after befriending them in Ch 1), they confess to you that they've been hearing a song coming from underwater at night. They've heard the same song coming from the sea. It's not a new song, but they can't remember where they've heard it before…
  • Chapter 2's ending manages to one-up the ending of Chapter 1. Toriel asks you to wash your hands. Simple enough, but you aren't able to use the kitchen sink, simply because "The bathroom sink is so much better". Odd, but you can just use the bathroom sink. You turn it on… and then the music cuts out, as Kris starts shaking again. Once more, they tear out their SOUL, and then crawl out the window after trapping it in the bathroom cabinet. After a bit of chatter from Toriel and Susie (during which Toriel implies that Kris being unresponsive for a few minutes is a regular occurence), Kris returns, reinserts their SOUL, and leaves the bathroom. For a few more minutes, things go as normal, leaving what Kris was doing outside a mystery, until Susie and Kris fall asleep. Toriel starts calling the cops, revealing that Kris had slashed Toriel's tires. Then, once Toriel falls asleep, Kris wakes up, tearing their SOUL out again, opens the door, puts the TV back on, then jumps into the air and strikes the ground with their knife, releasing tons of black gas over the house. Then they hold out their SOUL once more, not to put it back into their body, but to raise it into the air and let the gas consume it. It's heavily impliednote  that this is them opening another Dark Fountain.

    Weird Route 
The "Weird Route"note  may very well qualify for being the darkest thing Toby Fox has created to date (and mind you, his previous game had a route that involved the mass murder of innocent monsters). Once Noelle joins as a Guest-Star Party Member, you can make her freeze every enemy you come across using IceShock, the only move that will physically kill the enemies you encounter (since defeating enemies with the FIGHT command will just make them run away). But since Noelle won't follow your orders right away, a little emotional abuse, mental manipulation, and gaslighting is necessary to make her obedient.

The entire route is Nightmare Fuel, not only for the idea of freezing someone to death, but how disturbingly realistically and how perfectly straight the emotional abuse of Noelle is played.

On a side note, most information revolving around Spamton can be found in his folder, unless they're worthy/important enough to get a mention here as well.
  • Many fans have stated that despite it obviously existing in-game and being able to be initiated by the player, there's something incredibly surreal and almost unbelievable about this whole route's existence, not at all feeling like an actual story mode and more like a creepypasta. In fact, when the route was first discovered by an extremely contrived stroke of luck (with it being documented in this Google Doc), many fans didn't think it was real due to how both contrived and dark it seemed. Other fans have stated that it feels more like something out of a Psychological Horror game like Doki Doki Literature Club! or OMORI (which also feature similar elements, such as realistic portrayals of abuse, a character's psyche dramatically degrading over time, and lots of Breaking The Cutie) than it does anything from Undertale or the rest of Deltarune.
  • You'll first notice it whenever you have Noelle kill a group of enemies, but each time you fulfill one of the criteria to continue the Weird Route, the game plays a short, creepy jingle. While it serves as an Anti-Frustration Feature (as it can be difficult to tell if you're on the right path without a guide), it's also incredibly ominous, as if the game itself is warning you that something terrible will happen if you continue.note 
  • At one point, you'll encounter the Pink Addison, who will ask you if Kris and Noelle are friends or if you're something else. If you froze every enemy, selecting the latter will allow you to get the FreezeRing, which increases Noelle's attack and allows her to freeze enemies in one hit. The way you get this ring isn't pretty. The Addison always asks for the amount of money you have plus one Dark Dollar, so you'll never have enough. If you ask Noelle to "Get It", she'll act confused, restating that you don't have the money for the ring. If you keep asking her to "Get It", she'll become scared, asking you what you mean. Then, the screen turns black, there's the sound of her casting a spell, you get the FreezeRing, and the Addison is just... gone.
  • Directly after this comes the puzzle where the switch has to be stepped on to disable a lightning barrier. Unlike in the normal route, Noelle suggests she stands on the first switch while you go and press the second. After you pass it, Noelle mumbles to herself that getting the ring was a good thing, and that she needs to stop thinking about stepping off the switch and letting Kris get electrocuted. In fact, if you walk slowly enough over to the other switch, you can see Noelle suddenly begin fidgeting as you pass where the lightning would be, showing just how close she came to following through on this train of thought. She berates herself for thinking of something so horrible, and one of the options you can pick in the upcoming dialogue tree is to tell Noelle such thoughts are natural. It's the first bit of mental manipulation that you can put Noelle through, which starts her down the path of Gaining the Will to Kill. At this point, enemies actually run away from you on the overworld once they notice you, overworld NPCs disappear, and certain parts of the map are frozen over, automatically disabling certain puzzles.
  • You force Noelle to complete a puzzle by pushing her closer to a lightning barrier until she freezes the whole thing. The command to do this is just one word: "Proceed". After that, when coming across the next puzzle, Noelle will think to herself that she just needs to listen to Kris, as they clearly know what's best for her because she's getting stronger every time she obeys them. At that point, Noelle has become Kris's puppet. Or more accurately, they've both become your puppets.
  • Eventually, you'll come across a dumpster with Spamton in it. In case you haven't figured out what you're doing, he'll give you a chilling reminder:
    (X) LEFT
  • Once you've killed all the enemies that Spamton instructs you to, upon speaking to him again, he will offer you the ThornRing, which halves the TP cost of spells at the cost of draining the user's HP. To progress with the Weird Route, you have to equip this ring to Noelle. note
    • If you check the stats screen around this point, you'll find some disturbing description updates: Noelle's is now "Receives pain to become stronger", and Kris's description throughout the route is just "Commands."
    • Hell, the very fact Spamton has what is described by Susie to be a torture device.
  • When you meet up with Berdly, Noelle doesn't even recognize him at first. All she says is "Kris, it looks like another enemy. Shall I freeze them?" Which means by now, she just thinks of freezing people to death and Kris ordering her to kill people is totally normal. Before the battle starts, after Noelle recognizes Berdly, she screams at him that he needs to run. Noelle is just lucid enough to know that if Kris orders her to kill Berdly, she won't be able to resist the order. She's right.
  • In this battle, Noelle gains an ability named SnowGrave, a spell that instantly kills the target. Its description is as succinct as it is horrifying.
    SnowGrave - Fatal
  • In the battle proper, once you get enough Tension to use SnowGrave, Noelle tries to get out of using it by repeatedly insisting she doesn't know that spell. When you press the option enough, Noelle finally snaps and uses the spell... which traps Berdly in a gigantic, crystal-shaped block of ice. Noelle, horrified at what she's done, simply walks away in a daze, and is never seen on-screen again until you all wake up in the Light World again.
    • The animation for the SnowGrave itself. Noelle's eyes start glowing pure white as she slowly floats to the middle of the screen, followed by a massive blizzard washing over the entire screen (including the battle menu). Then the target is swathed in a gigantic double-helix of rushing snow with a ghostly warbling noise. The magnitude of the attack makes us realize why SnowGrave is described as "fatal".
    • During the fight, if Kris is down but Noelle is not, Berdly will plead to her to come back to his side. Noelle’s response is that she's Hearing Voices. Is it that the emotional abuse has taken such a heavy toll that Noelle literally can't bring herself to disobey Kris, even if they're not directly giving her an order? Or is she hearing the voice of the player, telling her to act for their amusement because they just want to see what happens to Berdly? The implications are unpleasant, either way.
      Noelle: (I can… still… hear… their voice…)
    • And then there's the aftermath. Overlaps with Tear Jerker. After Berdly has been frozen solid, Noelle falls to the ground on her knees. She looks completely and utterly broken.
      Noelle: What... What happened? There was so much snow... I couldn't see anything... I... I don't feel so good. I think... I'm going to go home.
  • Even worse… After returning to the Light World, Noelle wakes up no worse for wear, convinced everything she experienced was just a bad dream... But Berdly doesn't wake up. Whether he's dead or comatose is left ambiguous, but considering the spell is labelled "Fatal", the implication is obvious.
    • Worse still, examining the graveyard in the light world reveals that objects related to the deceased are buried in the graves, implicitly because (as in Undertale) monsters' bodies turn to dust when killed and can't be buried. Berdly hasn't turned to dust, implying that his body may still be alive, but his SOUL is gone.
    • The flavor text has some disturbing implications about Berdly's fate. Checking the supply closet nets you the remark that "a large person could easily fit inside", and as you leave the room, the dialogue box informs you that you "gathered up everything in the room" before leaving... with the implication being that you stuffed what could easily be your murdered classmate's corpse into the supply closet.
    • The way Noelle seems to brush off Berdly's fate and pass him off as just still being asleep, and then quickly leaving seems to suggest that Noelle did actually realize at that moment that everything that happened was no dream and is trying to deny it and put on a brave face for Kris and Susie (and later her father). Taking this into account makes you twisting the knife by revealing to her that it wasn't a dream even crueler than it already is, because it only confirms Noelle's worries that she quite possibly just killed her own classmate and forces her to have to live with that knowledge.
  • Before the version 1.0.5 patch, if you carried a Weird Route run up until you confronted Berdly, and then spared him, you could keep Noelle on your party with SnowGrave, allowing you to backtrack with her and use SnowGrave on a normal enemy, which plays a unique animation: They outright DIE on-screen, dissolving in a blood-red haze. If you're used to them running away when their HP hits zero or simply freezing over in a non-violent fashion, seeing them fly apart in a more Undertale-esque manner will shock you, all the more so since at least the death dust they turned into before was white, unlike how very evocative of blood this is.
  • Kris's player-driven manipulation of Noelle is horrifying in its realism towards actual abusive behavior — the key moment of starting this path is to invite Noelle to ride the Ferris wheel with Kris, then tell a nearby storeowner that they're more than just friends... after which Kris pressures Noelle into getting the overpriced ring until she snaps, blanks out, and is implied to be killing the storeowner. This traps the two of them into a false relationship, with you being the puppeteer controlling them both. Special mention goes to the second mouse gate puzzle, where instead of doing it the proper way, Kris forces Noelle to cheat to solve it while she clearly doesn't want to with a curt, one-word "proceed" over and over while Noelle begs them to stop pressuring her, all the while they're getting more and more into her personal space until she gives in and freezes the puzzle. From that point on, all the puzzles will be pre-frozen similar to Flowey's vines solving them in Undertale's genocide route, removing their comedic aspects from the run. It hits all the beats of an abusive relationship — possessiveness, coercion, conditioning, and Noelle's attitude towards Kris flip-flopping from idolization to fear.
  • Each time you manage to kill Darkners with Noelle's magic, it notes that she is "getting stronger", a recurring motif throughout the rest of the route... and a reference to a line from Undertale: "We will eradicate the enemy and become strong". Noelle's post-battle animation also goes from her sighing in relief to her surrounding herself in a sphere of snow with a focused look on her face, implying she only looks forward to the next battle and nothing else. There may not be copious amounts of dust involved, but you're certainly leveling her up. Her LV (level of violence, for those who remember) even goes up, after starting out at 1 beneath everyone else's!
    • Even worse, pay attention to her HP when it drains in the fight with Berdly, as the ThornRing automatically does. It stops at 55, at which point she is functionally stuck as Berdly can't hit her and nothing changes until you either spare him or order her to cast SnowGrave. What does 55 mean in Roman Numerals? LV. Even remotely understanding this puts an extra layer of horror, as you have manipulated Noelle into all but becoming violence itself — and you're just pushing her over the edge.
  • Following this route also changes the final boss. Since Ralsei explains the Roaring to Queen, she gives up without a fight. Instead, Spamton NEO ambushes you at the Fountain and you have to face him with only Kris. Given that Spamton literally has an entire folder dedicated to himself, it's no surprise he's terrifying here, too. More information can be found in the previously mentioned folder.
  • The optional hospital scene changes on this route to Noelle wondering to herself about how there was a Compelling Voice telling her to do all these horrible things, something that chills her to her very core, but she's glad that it was All Just a Dream. Then Kris sneaks up on her and has the option to tell her That Was Not a Dream as if attempting to snap her mind further, though Susie cuts the conversation off before she can react. Even worse, it implies that this isn't Kris speaking with the "terrifying voice", but you.
    • If the player has taken away Noelle's watch in the Dark World and made Kris wear it, Noelle will notice it and freak out, her speech text quivering with terror.
    • It's also possible to make Kris creepily walk closer and closer to Noelle during the hospital scene, likely traumatizing the poor girl even further: when you regain control of Kris, they are close to a wall, implying that they didn't only walk in Noelle's direction, but also tried to sexually abuse her by pinning her into the wall.
    • Throughout this scene, we have the song "Flashback", which is probably one of the creepiest songs in the whole series, sounding like an unholy combination of "Small Shock", "THE HOLY", and Gaster's theme, played on a broken music box and complete with a heavy Twisted Christmas vibe. Unlike a lot of the creepy songs from Undertale's Genocide Route and Deltarune's Weird Route, it's an entirely original piece rather than being a distorted or slowed-down version of a preexisting song, making it all the more terrifying. In case what you did to Noelle wasn't evident enough already, the song definitely has the vibes of horror, trauma, and corrupted innocence. The pitch-black screen makes the whole scene even more terrifying. Then the song suddenly cuts during the climax of the conversation.
    • What's worse is considering the scene in a Cosmic Horror sense. To Noelle, she's been gaslit, abused, and turned into a murderer by her childhood friend in a dream, only for said friend to show up in the place she's most emotionally vulnerable and tell her that it wasn't a dream in a voice implied to not be theirs. The trauma she suffers is implied to not only be the result of learning this fact, but the horror of seeing Kris acting and sounding unlike themselves because some unknowable, uncaring murderous thing is wearing her friend's skin, using them like a puppet.
  • To hammer it in that this is you doing this, when you meet up with Ralsei and Susie, they both note that Kris looks visibly distressed. This is heavily implying that, yes, killing Berdly was all on you, and Kris themself is reeling from the revelation of what just happened. Bear in mind that Kris without you is a shambling child who pulls knives out of thin air and almost everyone finds creepy, but even they think you're a monster.
  • Doubles as a Tear Jerker. The Weird Route of Chapter 2 is completely antithetical to the normal ending: whereas Noelle would grow stronger as a person and make her own decisions, you essentially take away her ability to choose and turn her into a weapon.
  • Even worse, all of this is hinted at when Ralsei edits the Cyberpedia in the Cyber Field at the start of the quest:
    Cyberpedia: "From now on, defeating enemies with violence will make them LOST. LOST enemies cannot become RECRUITs ever again. But, the bonds you break may make you stronger..."
  • Compared to the Genocide run in Undertale, where your requirements are simply to kill everyone, you need to be actively going for the Weird Route in order to complete it. Besides killing every enemy, you must also backtrack to all the requisite locations, buy or take the necessary items, choose the correct dialogue options — if at any point you decide to relent and pick the kinder option, you get booted back onto the normal route. In fact, you get booted back onto the normal route if you defeat any enemy through melee attacks or sparing; Noelle must be the one to kill everyone and freeze every enemy to death. It drives in the point that you are purposefully inflicting emotional torture on both Kris and Noelle, and that there's no possible justification for your actions.
    • In what could possibly be one of the most twisted Author's Saving Throws ever, one of criticisms against Undertale was how the Pacifist Run often required you to not defend yourself against creatures intent on murdering you, and the game treating killing in self-defense as just as bad as killing for sport. This route completely eliminates both those arguments, as there is no way to justify backtracking to initiate the route and committing to it other than fulfilling whatever desires you want; meanwhile, all the characters are utterly powerless to stop you

    Spamton 
Everybody's favorite Number 1 Rated Salesman1997, the insane Spamton G. Spamton, is by far the most terrifying character Toby has made since Photoshop Flowey, and some might argue he's just as creepy as Flowey, if not even worse.

Normal

  • What initially might seem like a completely absurd parody of bad spam emails and obvious scams who quite literally crawls out of a dumpster while Kris is in the middle of something and disappears as soon as he appears, to the point you can't be blamed for thinking he's a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment, all while laden in Stylistic Suck, quickly unravels into something deeply disturbing when you interact with him at the shop.
  • His looks are unnerving in itself. He's an overanimated puppet reminiscent of ​Billy, that glitches out all the time when you talk with him in the shop.
  • While the tone in his fight is largely comical, there are unnerving things about him.
    There's nothing wrong. There's NOTHING WRONG. THERE'S NOTHING WRONG.
    • If you defeat him by violence, Spamton claims that, if you did all the violence, you might have been given a "Commemorative Ring" - As in, a ThornRing. You know, the one he sells you during the Weird Route. Spamton isn't just an Opportunistic Bastard who saw a chance to be a big shot and took it. He had it planned out for God knows how long.
  • What's scarier than this, however, is the interactions with him after the fight. He asks Kris to come alone to his store in the trash area and IF you do, not only do you see his jerkily animated movement and up-close appearance translate to being very, very off next to any other shopkeep throughout the two games, but you may quickly notice his shop theme incorporates part of the melody of "THE WORLD REVOLVING"... Jevil's theme.
    • Spamton's shop actually warps the regular game design. Instead of the leaving text saying 'Exit' it instead reads 'ESCAPE', and when you look into his inventory the option to go back is labelled 'RUN AWAY' in much bigger text than normal. The prices of his items also change every second, and most of what he sells is absolute garbage.
    • When you talk to him about the "KNIGHT", he opens as if he's about to inform them of some kind of new information on them... only for his dialogue to turn into properly typed, profuse apologizing and pleading, as-if he just stepped out of line with some kind of higher power, with the conversation ending shortly after, replacing the option to discuss the matter permanently.
    *SPEAKING OF [[Communnion]]. KRIS, DID YOU KNOW THAT THE KNIGHT... No! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to — TOO MANY EXCESS VACATION DAYS?? TAKE A GOD DAMN VACATION STRAIGHT TO HELL
    * I USED TO BE NOTHING BUT THE E_MAIL GUY, NOW I'M THE [[It Burns! Ow! Stop! Help Me! It Burns!]] GUY!
    * [[Amazed at thi5 amazing transformation? You too can]] HAVE A [[Communion]] WITH [[Unintelligble Laughter]]
    * SOON I'LL EVEN SURPASS THAT DAMNED [[Clown Around Town!]]
    * BUT UNLIKE HIM I'M GONNA [[Shoot For the Sky!]] AND GET ON THE PATH TO ...
    * [[The Big One]]
    * I'LL GET SO. I'LL GET SO. I'LL GET SO. I'LL GET SO. I'LL GET SO. I'LL GET SO.note 
    *[[Hyperlink blocked.]]
  • Part of what makes Spamton so disturbing is that, unlike Jevil, who was so far gone that he revelled in his insanity, Spamton is clearly tortured by his madness and is desperately trying to hold on to whatever shred of sanity he has left. Except whenever he tries to remain lucid, whatever sent him mad in the first place intervenes to ensure he keeps quiet.
  • In Undertale, there is an Easter Egg where you get the "Wrong Number Song!", where someone tries to speak to "G", but then realises it's the wrong number. It's been speculated for years that "G" is none other than Gaster himself, but with Chapter 2's release, it might not be him, but Spamton, who has connections to phones and has his second name begin with G. Well, either that, or Spamton made a call to another universe just to contact his Mysterious Benefactor again.
  • Spamton's scenes actually harken back to Undertale more explicitly than King, Queen, Jevil, or anything else for that matter. Yeah, you can draw all sorts of comparisons between the cast from the two games, and you can find a few references here and there, but here we have Mettaton's NEO body, a boss theme that mixes of familiar boss themes from this game, way too many hidden-but-visible connections to Papyrus (who just so happens to be The Ghost) and "But nobody came" making a horrid comeback, even a cheeky nod to NEO's "durability" in a 1-on-1. Having so many reminders of the previous game should be fun, but it just feels... wrong. It all just seems to reinforce that something is off about this game's setting and Spamton himself. For all we know, some remnants from the previous world are still around.
  • The horror factor is even worse when you consider that Spamton, as an anthropomorphic version of spambots, acts like a real scammer, even in the Normal Route. His complicity with Kris is only made by meeting them alone, forcing them to accept his offer, and isolating the lonely teenager from their real friends. Sincere or not, it still happens to be a way to reach his own goals by (as any good salesman knows) making them desire it, and he always expects more and more to Kris by making them risk their life in a theft, then killing the teenager when they have reached their usefulness. If that hopefully doesn't happen, even the NEO fight can be seen as a last chance Spamton lets Kris to join him for good by making his last appeals to pity and threatening Susie and Ralsei to make his choice the most "reasonable" for all.

Spamton NEO

  • The basement floor of the Queen's mansion, only accessible through the KeyGen sold by Spamton. The music is simply an ominous, low droning track,note  and the area itself looks like a dark, decrepit ruin with wires hanging like vines, a deadly series of traps that will very likely bring to mind Sans's opening attack pattern, and a long, empty area with a set of railroad tracks that seem to fade into an abyss. Throughout the entire area, you'll almost certainly be expecting to find a superboss of some kind like Jevil with the way the area is framed... but the only thing you'll find here is an empty disk sparkling in what looks like a worn-down robot body.
  • There's a particularly odd Easter Egg in Queen's Basement. Staying still for a while near any of the strange blue claw enemies that jump out at you will result in their "eyes" slowly moving up from being black dots at the bottom of their sprite to looking straight at the player. Then after a moment, they gain a strange pure black smile, one that, just like the smile on the TV at the end of the chapter, looks very familiar...
  • When you first enter the room connected to the saucer ride and go to the end, there's nothing but empty blackness below you. You then might think you've gone to the wrong room and try to leave, but when you go to the entrance, there's no longer a door there. Run back to the end of the room quickly enough, and right before the saucer ride actually appears, there's a blink and you'll miss it Jump Scare of a face with one hell of a Slasher Smile and mismatched colored eyes on the edge of the screen before it vanishes in an instant. It is only referred to as "IMAGE_FRIEND" in the files...
    • Spamton is back at his shop when this happens, and he explicitly states that he is barred from the mansion and cannot sneak in there… so what the hell is that?!
    • Even creepier, another instance of it can be found in the files (likely to be used in an unused phase of Berdly's battle), and is only referred to as "spr_coaster_barricade_alt".
  • How Spamton transfers himself into the disk. He uploads himself into the disk and you watch as the background and himself disappear line by line until all that's left is a grey, lifeless background with heavily distorted audio and a completely empty text box. Additionally in the line of dialogue confirming the transfer the "TRANSFER" option is huge, taking up roughly two-thirds of the dialogue box, and the "DO NOT" option is crammed in the corner in very tiny text.
    • Disturbingly enough, if you go back to the shop at any time after Spamton is uploaded into the disk, even if he's already been defeated, the shop will still be lifeless and empty... but you can very briefly hear Spamton's voice right as the room loads. This is never explained.
    • Hell, his dialogue during this scene is creepy.
    * ... NOW KRIS. DON'T BE GREEDY. HAND OVER. THE DISK.
    * THEN WE WILL TRANSFER.
    * MY [[Hyperlink Blocked]].
    * THEN. KRIS. AFTER. THIS IS VERY, VERY IMPORTANT.
    * GO BACK. AND PUT. THE DISK. BACK. WHERE YOU GOT IT.
  • Insert the Loaded Disk with Spamton into the machine... and nothing happens. Not even if you shake, hit, or kick the broken-down mechanism. The only thing to do is leave the area again, and when you try, a giant, jerky silhouette with a familiar shape bursts through the ceiling, dangling from wires like a puppet. This is Spamton NEO, who, much like Jevil, is overjoyed to have FREEDOM... at least until he realizes he's still on strings, lamenting how "It's still DARK... SO DARK!!!".
  • In an uncharacteristically disturbing moment that quickly sets the tone of the scene and subsequent battle, once he pulls himself together, Spamton NEO lurches forwards towards Kris, chanting their name over and over again with each lurch, pushing them back into a corner and insisting he needs their SOUL, so they can become "SO BIG WE'LL STAND UP TALL AND SEE PAST THE DARK". Thank goodness Susie and Ralsei arrive just in time.
  • The party battles Spamton on rollercoasters as the railroad tracks of the area expand seemingly endlessly into a city. The battle text describes him begging and praying to an audience that isn't there. His attacks do things like expose his hearts (yes, plural), morph his body, turn his arms into phones, and blast you with lasers from his giant head. Throughout it all, he's constantly still trying to convince Kris to give him their SOUL by telling them that they'll be a BIG SHOT.
    • Also, the "turn his arms into phones" is already creepy, but the attack becomes even darker when you remember something the Riverperson said back in Undertale...
    Beware the man who speaks in hands.
  • Spamton NEO's idle animation in itself. His body parts just move around completely on their own, as if Spamton didn't even control them, while the salesman's head is looking either down, at Kris, or straight at you.
  • Even the background during the fight is creepy! As they fight the mad salesman, the fight seems to be rolling through a ruined city with visages of Spamton in the back. Not to mention the cars the gang are riding on also have his gawking face on them. Is Spamton warping reality?!
    • Well, either that, or Spamton had his own city back when he was a big shot. Which brings up some Fridge Horror regaring just how powerful Spamton was before going Riches to Rags. He might have even been second to only Queen in terms of power.
  • A chilling series of sentences from the flavor text, which at first seems like a simple callback to Mettaton's showman personality but gradually veers into absolute madness:
    Spamton turns to the audience and laughs.
    Spamton appeals to the audience with a festive jig!
    Spamton begs to the audience, Spamton prays to the audience.
    There is no audience.
    Spamton begs the audience to stop taking the furniture out of his room.
  • There's another flavor text that stands out. His strings aren't just symbolic or attached to the ceiling — there's something just outside the screen:
    It pulls the strings and makes them ring.
  • The first time you check Spamton NEO, it has the salesman taking over the text box to give his own description. The first part is him giving a Badass Boast and a Brick Joke. The very end of the flavor text, however...
    WAKE UP AND TASTE THE PAIN.
  • The song that plays throughout the battle, BIG SHOT, is one hell of a banger. In the middle of the song, however, the backing track of Spamton's leitmotif is suddenly replaced with "Power of NEO", Mettaton NEO's "battle" theme from Undertale; the sudden shift in tone and instrumentation can be rather disconcerting. On top of this, the whole tune is overlaid by a heavy, bleak-sounding string remix of "THE WORLD REVOLVING", Jevil's theme, adding a strangely depressing tone to this portion of the song, which fits well with Spamton's backstory. As the tune repeats itself, a strange muttering voice can be heard over the lyrics; exactly what it's saying remains inconclusive, with the only widely agreed-upon lyric being "It pulls the strings and makes them ring". Then near the end, the intense music suddenly phases into the disconcertingly calm Dummy! track. No matter how powerful Spamton NEO is, he's still just a mad dummy that can't choose who he is in this world.
  • On top of turning Kris's SOUL yellow, Spamton NEO's body from the neck down is almost identical to Mettaton NEO. Which is rather unnerving by itself, because where the hell did it come from, and why does it even exist if Alphys supposedly didn't build a robot body for anyone? The worn mechanism you get the disk from to begin with bears a resemblance to Mettaton's body without a head, which is incredibly unsettling in itself and only adds to both the questions and horror surrounding the entire area. This isn't helped by the way the boss music very blatantly samples battle tracks directly from the previous game, most noticeably "Dummy!" and of course "Power Of NEO", which comes together to make the entire boss feel... very wrong.
    • That detail turns into a Tear Jerker if you talk to Swatch after the fight. From the conversation, it's heavily implied that the body Spamton hijacked is the design made by the equivalent to Mettaton in Undertale for their dream body in the Deltarune universe — drawn up in the computer lab, only to be forgotten and left to rot… which raises the question of how the hell Spamton learned about it.
  • One of the Swatchlings back in Queen's Mansion can talk about Spamton and reveal that Catty's room once belonged to him. However, he reveals that he never actually used it. Why?
    Eventually, he just spent all his time in the basement... praying. When things went downhill, he became obsessed with that artifact.
  • The end of the fight brings a Hope Spot if you manage to cut his cables loose rather than fight him directly, as it seems like Spamton might actually achieve true freedom for himself instead of this tortured existence. Then the background turns black as he collapses to the ground, a puppet with the strings cut loose. It just lingers like this for several seconds with no sounds, no movement, nothing. Sure, you get to actually prop him up and hear some proper last words, but with how creepy he's been so far, this scene is almost a Jump Scare.
  • After the battle with Spamton NEO, everyone is notably unnerved by the experience. Ralsei says that the events meant nothing, but when even Kris is explicitly scared about what they just witnessed (to the point where they are apparently yelling), you know that it was terrifying.
    • Kris's terror makes even more sense when you realize that they're a puppet to the SOUL. Deltarune makes it far more apparent than Undertale that the player and the 'playable character' are separate beings. Kris is horrified because they probably see a lot of similarities between their situation and Spamton's, and seeing him die as soon as the strings controlling him are cut has some scary implications.
    • Even Susie gets in on this. You can practically hear her shuddering as she talks about the fight.
      And the way he [Spamton NEO] just… broke.
    • Also, Ralsei seems to be in complete denial of the events: he tries to comfort Kris only after Susie does, and even after that, he tries to change the subject as soon as possible. Many elements in this chapter (and this gem in the previous one) imply that Ralsei is conscious of something, but doesn't want his friends to know... or maybe the player.

Weird Route

  • Eventually, you'll come across a dumpster with Spamton in it. In case you haven't figured out what you're doing, he'll give you a chilling reminder:
    (X) LEFT
  • Once you've killed all the enemies that Spamton instructs you to, upon speaking to him again, he will offer you the ThornRing, which halves the TP cost of spells at the cost of draining the user's HP. To progress with the Weird Route, you HAVE to equip this ring to Noelle note .
    • If you check the stats screen around this point, you'll find some disturbing description updates: Noelle's is now "Receives pain to become stronger", and Kris's description throughout the route is just "Commands."
    • Hell, the very fact Spamton has what is described by Susie to be a torture device.
  • If you gain the ThornRing but then leave the Weird Route by sparing Berdly, only to defeat Spamton by violence, he says that buying the ring from him doesn't give Kris the right to kick his ass... they could've at least bought two. The fact that he owns more than one is supported even further if you've never gone for the Weird Route and still defeated Spamton by violence, claiming you will be the first to own his ThornRing. With his wording implying that there is more than one and he plans on selling them to other people in the future, as he directly states "the first", and not "the one".
  • Following this route also changes the final boss. Since Ralsei explains the Roaring to Queen, she gives up without a fight. Instead, Spamton NEO ambushes you at the Fountain and you have to face him with only Kris. Given that Spamton literally has an entire folder dedicated to himself, it's no surprise he's terrifying here, too.
    • At the very beginning of the fight, Spamton responds to the narrator. This hasn't been done by anyone else,note  not even Flowey or Sans. Just how much does he know and how aware is he?
    • Throughout the entire fight, Spamton isn't himself. He all but completely drops the insanity and the affability, true or fake, and even the things he says in brackets are coherent sentences that actually fit with what he's trying to say without any semblance of Word-Salad Horror/Non Sequitur like he usually does. He also doesn't care about the strings at all. Just what did happen to Spamton? Did he gain his sanity back at the cost of him crossing the Moral Event Horizon for good? Or is it something else entirely?
    • This one bit during the fight is actually pretty damn creepy and shows just how evil Spamton is during the Weird Route.
      BUT DON'T BLAME ME WHEN YOU'RE [Crying] IN A [Broken Home] WISHING YOU LET YOUR OLD PAL SPAMTON [Kill You]
      • Alternatively, this line could be equivalent to Sans' "don't say i didn't warn you" back in Undertale — that is, foreshadowing for something even worse further down the line.
    • Note that during the entire fight, Spamton doesn't call Kris by their name. Not even once. He just keeps saying "YOU", and, at one point, "MY ESTEEM CUSTOMER" and "KID". Plus, some of the things he says, like "trying to see too far", doesn't exactly fit with what Kris is doing. Is Spamton talking to us?
    • At the end of the fight, when you realize you can't get past Spamton NEO's defences, you start calling out for your friends to help. But nobody came… until you call for Noelle…
      *You whispered Noelle's name...
      Spamton NEO: ...HER? YOU'RE STILL TRYING TO [Use] HER!? HA HA HA HA!! YOU THINK SHE CAN [Hear] YOU NOW, MUTTERING HER NAME!? WHAT SHE'S GONNA DO, MAKE ME AN [Ice Cream]!?
      (Goes Laughing Mad before suddenly stopping.)
      Spamton NEO: HEY, IS IT COLD IN HERE OR IS IT JUST ME?
      (The screen turns black, followed by Noelle's IceShock sound effect and massive damage numbers.)
      Spamton NEO: WHAT?! YOU'RE CALLING FRIENDS?! YOU THINK YOU CAN BEAT ME WITH YOUR FRIENDS' [Magic]? GO AHEAD, [Kid]... CALL ALL YOU WANT! NO ONE WILL EVER PICK UP.
      Spamton NEO: GO AHEAD AND [Scream] INTO THE [Receiver]. THE [Voice] RUNS OUT EVENTUALLY. YOUR [Voice]. THEIR [Voice]. UNTIL YOU REALIZE YOU ARE ALL ALONE. THERE WILL BE NO MORE [Miracles]. NO MORE [Magic]. YOU LOST IT WHEN YOU TRIED TO SEE TOO FAR... YOU LOST IT... YOU MAKE ME [Sick]! MUTTERING YOUR [Lost Friends] NAMES AT THE BOTTOM OF A [Dumpster]! NO ONE'S GONNA HELP YOU!!! GET THAT THROUGH YOUR [Beautiful Head], YOU LITTLE [Worm]!
    • An easy detail to miss during this segment of the battle is the narration specifically stating that Kris called out for Susie and Ralsei, who didn't come to help them; but you, yes you, the player, whispered Noelle's name and she appeared immediately.
  • In general, Spamton's entire role in the Weird Route just doesn't feel right. The guy that is meant to be, depending on your choices, either a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment or the Superboss suddenly gets promoted to Big Bad and Final Boss status with little to no fanfare, and loses his Laughably Evil and Jerkass Woobie qualities to become a Faux Affably Evil, Moral Event Horizon-crossing Asshole Victim with no redeeming qualities. It feels like the game knows that the first Queen fight can't happen with Berdly being dead, and that Noelle might kill Queen if she goes into her Humongous Mecha and starts threatening Kris, but she needs to survive to pull off her Heel–Face Turn and be recruited into Castle Town. So, as the next best thing, it replaces Queen with Spamton, changes his motivation from "Achieve freedom" to "Take Over the World", erases any redeeming qualities and shoves him into the story at the last second, so there would be even a slightly understandable plot in this story-ruining shitshow of a route. And if you abort the Weird Route at the last second, the game will make one off-hand reference to buying the ThornRing from him just to point out this all really happened. Well, either that, or apparently Spamton has enough Medium Awareness to quite literally force himself into the plot just to get what he wants; and if this is so, then he's also willing to throw himself away as he exists in the normal route just for this chance at greatness even if it's as a straight-up villain.
    • At first sight, it can be really jarring to see him, of all people, as the Final Boss in a plot where Realism-Induced Horror is firmly in play, but it's actually really fitting. Spamton acted like a professional scammer in the Normal Route, creating a fake complicity with Kris to reach his goal, and expecting more and more until he got what he wanted. There, he found a way to get more than he could ever dream of, and so acts like a first-class criminal who reveals a more menacing side when his partner, Kris, reveals to be more ambitious than he expected, just like a powerful gang leader would act whenever a hoodlum they raised starts to walk on their toes.

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