Fallen Down
What a terrible creature, torturing such a poor, innocent youth...
Toriel after warding Flowey off from the protagonist
Fallen Down is the 4th track in the UNDERTALE Soundtrack and the Undertale Demo OST. It plays whenever Toriel is interacting with the protagonist in the Ruins.
It plays at 0.86 speed during the early interactions with Toriel, then at 0.75 speed after Toriel's battle if she is spared and is saying goodbye to the protagonist. In the soundtrack, it plays at a lower pitch (-3 semitones) and a slower speed (approx. 0.924x) along with replaying the first eight bars once.
The track was originally a contribution to I Miss You - EarthBound 2012. The original version is sped up at the same speed as in the game files. It was composed as a "Game Over" theme, similar to that in The Legend of Zelda.[2]
It was directly mentioned in an interview with Toby Fox, as one of the songs originally composed for other projects. The others being Ghost Fight, Heartache, sans., Nyeh Heh Heh!, Bonetrousle, Another Medium, and MEGALOVANIA.[3][4]
This melody appears briefly in Chapter 3 of Deltarune, as one of Tenna's speech effects when mentioning Toriel.
- This track's title could refer to the seven humans who had "fallen down" into the underground. When applied to monsters, the term refers to a comatose state they enter shortly before death.[5]
- In the Undertale Demo OST, this track plays at the in-game speed and has a unique loop.
- There are two unique variants of this track:
- Empty House is a slow-paced track that plays after killing Toriel and wandering through Toriel's Home.
- Fallen Down (Reprise) is an extended track that plays near the end of the True Pacifist Route.
- This track, along with its reprise, is tuned at A=431Hz.
- This track, Ghost Fight, and Amalgam are the only songs where the EarthBound soundfont constitutes the entirety of the instrumentation.[6]
- ↑ "Note: Master is detuned -42 cents." — Undertale + Deltarune 3-4 Sample Spreadsheet
- ↑
Toriel’s theme song, “Fallen Down” was actually created a year before UNDERTALE for an EarthBound soundfont collaboration album.
— Toby Fox, UNDERTALE Art Book, pg. 77
It was intended as a Game Over theme similar to the original Zelda’s, but it works well as a theme for her, too, doesn’t it? - ↑ UNDERTALE 10th Anniversary Stream - Day 1 (01:17:14) on YouTube
- ↑
This song wasn't made for Undertale either. It (and bonetrousle) were the main battle themes of an RPG game I was working on before Undertale, based off a dream I had. However, I didn't plan it very well, so the project fell apart before I accomplished a single room. "Sans" was also a song in the game called "Muscles," and "Heartache" was a song called "Joker Battle." Anyway, I always mess up playing this song on the piano, so if you can't play it, it's not a big deal. Since it's Papyrus, it's OK as long as you try your best.
— @dailytobyfoxtrivia on Twitter, March 08, 2024. - ↑
ASGORE asked everyone outside the city for monsters that had "fallen down."
— ENTRY NUMBER 6, True Lab
Their bodies came in today.
They're still comatose... And soon, they'll all turn into dust. - ↑ The UNDERTALE Music Sample List