A crackpot Deltarune theory I had in the middle of my lecture was that in order to get the superduper true good ending of Deltarune, you WON'T get it by recruiting everyone. But you'll get it by completing the shadow crystal questline; this will be the plotline that gives Susie her HOPE, and causes her to create chapter7

This sounds weird right? I mean that's like the entire point of the Undertale right? That you don't have to play like a traditional RPG and you can just spare people and become friends! And yes I would agree if this was Undertale but it's not, this is Deltarune

Although recruiting people gives you unique cutscenes and seems to subvert the prophecy (Tenna gets slimed for realsies if you don't recruit everyone in TV world), they don't ACTUALLY give you anything storywise wise. Actually think about it for 5 seconds, what does recruiting actually give you apart from quirky banter and an alive castle town?

That's right, NOTHING

Meanwhile the shadow crystal quest line actively contributes to the plot and character arcs, as well as giving the player an incentive for doing so (super OP loot)

>Jevil introduces the secret boss concept, as well as having meta knowledge and foreshadowing the future. (Although Jevil's items aren't really that good and get powercrept by chapter2, they're still good to have. And the Devilsknife is actually very helpful for the Knight fight in chapter3. You can actually beat them in 7 turns if you hit your crits!)

>Spamton acts as a mirror to Kris with the whole "Puppet on strings" concept. He also blatantly hints at LOVE with Hyperlink Blocked, which could become important later based on the prophecy we saw in chapter4. Not to mention that the DealMaker is THE best item in the game like holy crap it's just a WinMore item (as well as enabling the snowgrave route if you want to go down that route)

>Eram is actually the secret boss of chapter3, but the shadow crystal comes from the Knight. Whilst it's COMPLETELY possible to beat the Knight without the mantle, it's kinda worthless. Not only is the shadow mantle just good loot to have (it scales every chapter), the average player is not a God Gamer; they're not going to no-hit the Knight. So you're expected to get the mantle to even handle the Knight lol. Anyways beating the Knight makes it obvious that Kris is tied to/working for them in the plot. Not to mention this feels like one of the first real times the Fun Gang have actively defied destiny; since the entire fight is written like a scripted loss where their defeat is all but certain. Even though the "lose", it still instills hope that they CAN win in the future. (and if you believe in Kris Cross theory like I do, then that just makes this fight even more important. Since Kris gets their endgame loot: the Black Shard)

>Gerson acts as a mentor to Susie and introduces the whole idea of defying the prophecy and changing fate. As well as giving Susie her own endgame look: The Justice Axe

So as you can see, there's a whole interconnected narrative with the shadow crystal plotline. Which is why alot of people believe Ralsei will have his own solo fight that gives him crucial character development and endgame loot

This is also why i personally theorize that chapter5's shadow crystal is going to be a mandatory fight. This is because it's very possible for a casual player to just play the game, never explore, never spam all the dialogue, take the scripted loss in chapter3 to the Knight, and keep playing the game without the secret bosses. Just like how FRIEND and Dess started getting shoved into the front during chapter 3&4, I believe the shadow crystal plotline will be shoved to the front as well, to catch casuals up to speed and try to incentivize them to backtrack and get all the crystals

The fact there's a "backtrack" method for the crystals in castle-town just proves this to me (if you get a shadow crystal in another save file, it'll mysteriously show up in that black tar section of castle town. This is clearly Toby's way of letting you backtrack without replaying The Entire Game)

Because to me, the fact you can still get the shadow crystals in a Violent playthrough means that above all else, the crystals are what will be used to defy the prophecy and actually change the game. And honestly it would be kinda dumb if you put in all the legwork to fight the secret bosses, grind all the loot, only for you to not get the Superduper True Ending because you forgot to recruit Scringus Bingus in chapter4

If anything, getting all the recruits will just give you some extra cutscenes but that's about it. In a pacifist NoCrystal ending, I imagine the game ends at chapter6 like it's destined to, but it's just super depressing as everyone gets turned to stone from The Roaring. With Ralsei being like "If only there's was some way... something different we could do to change of fates..."

Alot like how Flowey hints at a way to get the True Pacifist ending only after you've beaten the Neutral Route

Side-tangent but the fact you can get shadow crystals in the Snowgrave route just makes me believe this is what's really important to change the prophecy. Since Malleus has a crafting recipe for the twisted sword (thorn ring+pure crystal). people theorize the pure crystal will be what we get when we get all the crystals

And to me, the reason why this recipe is here is so that if a person actually aborts the snowgrave route (which is VERY possible in chapter4), you at least have the thorn ring and can craft the Twisted Sword if you get all the crystals. The fact it deals as much damage as the Black Shard and has a trance down effect means it could possibly be superduper effective against the Knight; who we're obviously going to face in the future

A superduper crackpot theory is that this is actually what will give you the best ending

"The forbidden path began with Ice Magic"

It doesn't necessarily mean you need to go all the way yknow! But that's a theory for another day

What do you two think?