Reviews from

in the past


YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

this full game is gonna rock when it comes out in 16 years

This review contains spoilers

This review is about the snowgrave route, so if you werent already warned for spoilers, this is your last chance.



I knew that the snowgrave was gonna be depressing but holy shit dude. I think the thing that makes me feel worse on this run more than genocide, is the fact that in undertale, it was your choice, whether you liked it or not it was YOUR decision, but here, you manipulate Noelle into doing what YOU want to do, you force her to freeze all of the enimes and her friend since childhood, and to complete all the puzzles, and to get the freeze ring for her. It really left me feeling empty, in a good way, especially with the cliffhanger, really giving me a chance to think about what I did while I wait for chapter 3. I feel like Toby Fox really outdid himself on this run in terms of emotional storytelling, and that final fight with spamton and his buildup to that fight, both amazing, and hard as BALLS too.

Noelle would've loved hitting all these cars

Oops, I meant to rate and review this earlier but I wanted to watch the bonus boss and the secret route first because I’m either bad at video games or too much of a weenie to be mean to fictional characters respectively. Also it feels like everything that can be said about this game has been, pretty much, but it probably actually hasn’t, since I tried to avoid the spoiler reviews.

Anyway, Toby Fox remains funny as heck. I found myself snort giggling pretty much constantly throughout the playthrough, and it’s great that the comedy is balanced by some unsettling stuff lurking under the surface. It’s more present in the secret route, of course, which almost feels like a creepypasta at times, but even in the more lighthearted standard route, there’s a lot… off. Dysfunctional family dynamics, familiar characters used in new ways… the protagonist themselves is a mystery in their own right, even. And of course there’s Spamton, whatever the fuck is going on with him!

Speaking of, god, I can’t believe there’s a weird little freak in this game who’s somehow weirdly tragic, unsettling, and hilarious with a banger theme song who’s based on spam email. What the heck.

Anyway, the gameplay’s really creative and interesting! It’s pretty cool to see the fundamentals established in Undertale expanded upon in new ways. I kind of hope to see the party system tweaked a little bit more in each chapter, because it’s fun to see it evolve and give you access to more strategies and options for how you play the game. I’m admittedly pretty bad at dodging the bullets and grazing, but I appreciate it for being different! I’m excited to see where this game goes in its next installments, no matter how long it takes. No matter what happens the soundtrack will be great. Even if everything else was actually bad instead of good, I would feel compelled to give this four stars for the inclusion of a sound test at the end of the game.


Huh...
I may have hyped myself up too much.
The majority of the writing of this chapter reminds me more of modern saturday morning cartoon shows (Adventure Time, Gumball, etc.) than of the first chapter and Undertale. It's not bad for what it is... just different, and for me unexpected.
I felt the first chapter killed it in terms of meshing whimsical and sometimes wholesome moments with an underlying sense of foreboding, but here they clearly just wanted to find a chapter theme that allows them to just blast you with one crazy idea after the other. I don't think it's gonna age as well, as the first chapter, especially with jokes about blue checkmarks and such.

Enough underhanded complaining now, let's get to what is awesome:
-The gameplay tweaks, just brilliant quality of life stuff, that makes the pacing of a fight feel buttery smooth
-The music, I mean duh, it's a Toby Fox game. The overworld songs all sadly didn't do much for me, but a lot of the little character themes are killer (the DJ robot tunes give me Toejam & Earl vibes)
-All the gameplay switchups, be it how one must dodge an enemy or some of the "arcade sections"
-The new dynamic Susie has, where she is weirdly nice and willing to show affection. I was a sucker for this with Prince Zuko, and I still am.

I don't say this about basically any game nowadays, but when the rest of the chapters drop, I will not hesitate to buy it at full price. Toby Fox is a real deal renaissance man, who keeps making games even though he has chronic hand pains. You may not like his games, but one cannot forego having respect for this man.

Pouring milk on my Spamton plush and sucking the milk out of it it makes a loud thud when I throw it against a wall

This may very well be my favorite game released last year, which is odd even to me, because it’s not even a full game. Even as someone who greatly enjoys Undertale, Chapter 1 of Deltarune did not really strike me as much. It was a great time of course, but I didn’t think much of it after putting it down. And generally Chapter 2 follows the same formula as the previous chapter, you arrive in the new dark world, progress through two unique areas, which culminates in a third, final area serving as the main villain’s lair, where you proceed to seal the fountain and make your way home for another day. So what makes Chapter 2 different?

Perhaps I’m just a sucker for dumb fun, but if there’s one big thing Chapter 2 excels at, it’s being entertaining as hell. Admittedly, if you’re looking for the hard-hitting moments that Undertale or even to an extent, Chapter 1 brought, you won’t exactly find them here. (minus the alternative route, which I think warrants a whole other log honestly.) But while I would appreciate that the game gets “more to the point”, for lack of a better term, it’s impossible to understate just how much of a good time it is. The combat is vastly expanded from the previous chapter, you now have a “mercy meter” which gives you a better indication of when you can spare an enemy rather than talking aimlessly, bullet patterns are improved, naturally being more challenging but taking on more interesting forms, especially shining in the boss fights, which by the way are really fun and I wish that there was a proper way to refight them because they’re just that good.

The main trio returns in all their glory, still the best part of the game but the new set of characters are genuinely fantastic - they’re silly, yes but still characters, with flaws, emotions, and motives. The fourth party member introduced especially, while not very interesting on the surface, is turned into perhaps the most complex character in the game when looking at the unending heaps of flavor text sprinkled across Deltarune’s rooms, a staple of these games, it seems. Berdly… definitely isn’t great and is a pretty consistent weak link throughout but I suppose being immensely annoying was on the checklist when making him, regardless that gimmick doesn't really work for me, even as comic relief and I do wish he was more than that. You get some background on him later on but it just feels like too little too late. But the game is unfinished, and he may make a return (though I have my doubts because of well - if you know you know.) so we'll see. The dynamic of him and the antagonist trying to take control of Noelle is very well executed though, and brings a power struggle that's fascinating to see unravel.

And you may ask yourself after going through the game, where exactly is Deltarune heading? I thought the same thing and I can’t say for sure. Honestly, besides some lore found throughout the game this chapter doesn’t really do much to answer that question, we can only rely on loose speculation and I can understand not liking it or finding it redundant for that reason. But I can say for sure now that I have gone through Chapter 2 in its entirety, I’ll definitely be sticking around to see it to the end, because if the filler is this good, then I cannot wait to see what comes next.


Queen Deltarune has had a permanent impact on my psyche.

its like omori but with lesbians and actually funny flavor text

Better than Chapter 1 imo. Can't wait for 3,4,5.

as much as i loved chapter 1, this recreates that magical, emotional pulse that drew me so deeply into undertale in the first place - along with a lot of quality of life and gameplay improvements. i adore this universe and these characters so much, and i can't wait to come back to them.

An incredible follow-up to chapter 1, Deltarune is the gift that just keeps on giving. Without getting into spoilers, Chapter 2 expands the plot in some funny, interesting, and just plain cool directions while maintaining the great new party combat system. I really continue to look forward to the rest of the game as it releases.

The Yiik rip-off somehow got a sequel

god dang it toby youve done it again

This review contains spoilers

So I have to say I really am more lukewarm on this one than it seems most people are. Let me clarify that I loved Chapter 1 when it came out, and still think it's great. The problem I find with 2, comparatively, is that it cuts out a lot of the genuine heart and pathos from the first game to squeeze in more jokeyjokes.

Noelle's 'arc', such as it is, is the largest casualty. It seems like her biggest character flaw is SUPPOSED to be that she's some flavour of coward or nervous scaredy cat? It's the one, blunt piece of characterization she gets in the first chapter, with her father outright spelling this out to you. It seems like she's supposed to be portrayed as someone who doesn't like doing things that are scary or harmful, but all the challenges she's faced with are things that would be completely reasonable to fear. Her fear of mice feels like it's supposed to be synecdoche for her generalized fear of the unknown but it is, at worst, a mild phobia? She also just ends up being kind of a woobie for comedy jokes for 95% of the game until she's supposed to suddenly have pathos? but when that happens the game's almost over and it's spent so much time treating everything as humorous I'm not sure exactly when I'm supposed to care. Her home troubles are, at most, vaguely alluded to, and they're all just the most maudlin thing imaginable (sick dad, dead sister, overbearing mother) it's very hard to connect to it emotionally at all.

I also don't know what the fuck is going on with Berdly? It feels like he's just a pathetic comedy nerd guy until they suddenly give him backstory pathos. Except...It doesn't matter at all? He doesn't change or grow or anything, he's still a jackass.

Most of the game's emotional core seems to be resting on the utterly inane love quadrangle between the main characters. It was SUPREMELY strange to me when I, as a 27 year old, was suddenly accosted by every major character in the game and given the opportunity to allude to some kind of romantic interest in any or all of these teenagers. Toby seems to be attempting to create a delineation between Kris, the character, and the player, and asking you to roleplay these decisions, but unfortunately Kris is still so much of a blank slate that I can't engage in that degree of separation. Even this, though, is so often treated as a punchline that I really can't tell how seriously I'm supposed to take it.

I also don't really know why we're suddenly walking back on some of the metatheming of the first chapter; the illusion of choice was such a big Thing in the first one but now all of a sudden sparing people actually does change story content, and you can do a whole different route based on your choices? I sincerely hope this isn't Toby capitulating on his own thematic choices just because people complained. Speaking of capitulation based on public complaints; I realize it's a small thing, but holy shit is Alphys's dialogue about how Undyne being a cop is actually super okay and totally fine and not Unwoke is so embarrassing, he really might as well have not even tried to justify it and just left it unspoken.

I don't think Chapter 2 is a BAD game, but I'm supremely disappointed by how poorly it works as a standalone project. It truly feels like this is a six~ hour prologue for whatever the rest of the story is, which is a shame when Chapter 1 felt like such a tidy, self-contained narrative. The complete emotional arc of Susie within the first chapter is far more substatiative than anything in this one, and if the quality for every single one of these chapters fluctuates this wildly I really don't know if I can justify waiting several years and having to spend real, actual money just to roll the dice on whether I'm going to get something great, or something merely okay.

It truly is a nice gesture of Toby to release this one for free out of the goodness of his heart (I assume), but honestly I'd be a little peeved if I ended up having to spend money for this.

Tobias Foxworth is going to struggle to find random cartoon voice samples to base his soundtrack off of

Absolutely incredible game that builds on Deltarune: Chapter 1 in every aspect. Characters that I thought I'd hate quickly became some of my favorite of any Toby Fox game, and ones that I hope to see so much more of in the future. The combat system has also been refined to the ideal level of complexity. Even the easiest battles kept me focused with positioning myself perfectly for extra charge. The soundtrack is one of the best I've heard in recent memory, and is so good that I would spend as long as possible exploring each part of the world just to listen to as much of it as possible. On top of that, there's so many creative details and unexpected funny moments throughout that I was motivated to experience everything the game had to offer. Although it might not have the complete story that Undertale has, Chapter 2 of Deltarune is a phenomenal sign for things to come.

my fucking god! these bitches gay! good for them! good for them.

The darkness is closer to home this time, more familiar. An SNES-length JRPG about the quiet desperation of suburban kids is a hell of a concept, and if you grew up within 30 minutes of a strip mall, you’ll immediately recognize the types. Maybe you were one of them.

If anyone can create an anti-escapism work of art using an inherently escapist medium, it’s probably Toby Fox, and while I’m not sure he’ll manage to perfectly square that circle, this still looks an awful lot like it’s going to take Undertale's place as the most well-executed JRPG since Chrono Trigger. Sign me up.

TOBYYYY I THOUGHT YOU SAID OUR CHOICES DIDNT MATTER??? 🤨

Sure, this game is a banger but at the end of the day, its still an unfinished game and this prevents me from putting it higher

99% of video games are not intentionally funny, and I think that's why Toby Fox's games stick out so much amongst a sea of MCU quip tier writing. Yes, he writes strong characters, makes amazing music, and does things to subvert your expectations of the medium, but above all his games are just funny as hell.

Deltarune: Chapter 2 might be his funniest yet, because I was legit LMAOing every 5 minutes, and it's not cringe for me to say LMAO because the funniest character in this thing says it constantly. It's cool to say LMAO again.

Hope to see this game be finished sometime before I'm in a retirement home LMAOing at the orderlies when they tell me to take my medicine.

It's not bad, but it feels like a downgrade from Chapter 1 and that's probably primarily because Chapter 1 of Deltarune felt like something fresh and new compared to Undertale whereas this felt like more of the same. I liked it, don't get me wrong, but if I said it was worth the wait I'd be lying. Hoping for improvements in the future chapters though

Edit: Didn't think the review would get any traction whatsoever, but people are asking me to elaborate so. Undertale and Deltarune are extremely different games that both have a unique identity. When Deltarune Chapter 1 came out it felt so cool and worth the wait because not only do you see the characters and world that you missed, but the game also feels like a new experience that is completely separate from Undertale. As far as Deltarune CH2 goes, I didn't feel that at all, it just felt as though I waited 3 years for a patch to Deltarune. That's because Deltarune was released as an unfinished game, and that remains the case here. When Chapter 1 was released Toby said that the next release was going to be the full game, which obviously was not true. Is this preferable to getting a full game release in 2036? Maybe, but it still feels like a letdown when you think about it that way.

Again, the game is not bad, by any means (although I do think that the writing is worse than in Ch1 and significantly worse than in Undertale) it is a nice little game that is fun to play but that's it. The lasting impact that was left from Undertale in particular is not there.

Edit 2: Undertale/Deltarune fandom is insufferable so just gonna delete the annoying comments and disable commenting. Some people cannot accept an opinion that doesn't align with their own unfortunately. It's crazy because I literally LIKE THIS GAME and am a huge fan of Undertale, but because I didn't give this game a 5/5 stars rating I get mauled by rabid obsessed fans. Yes I know about the "Pipis Route" btw


This review contains spoilers

Great chapter because I get to manipulate women in it

I laughed a lot. And then, I discovered the second route. Oh boy, it is really messed up. Btw, a really good game.

I'll be collecting social security by the time this game is done Jesus Christ

This review contains spoilers

copypasted from discord, please excuse grammatical issues

"it [snowgrave] had one of the most devastating and emotionally eviscerating depictions of domestic abuse i've seen in media, so much so that i broke down crying out of guilt for causing it, and then that plotline disappears as soon as the relevant character does and you fight a meme boss and then all is magically forgiven with nothing being truly resolved at the end
i really don't care about spamton as a character regardless of whatever ties he may have to gaster (i haven't done the reading on this because i frankly don't care) and it just left me feeling awful. which may have been the point? but i wish something came of it. it just feels like toby didn't understand how terrifying the route he made truly is
it's like the UT genocide route without the payoff of chara making you pay for your sins. it just ends."

no rating given this isn't a finished game