Undertale is a game that is easily one of my favorite games ever, but when I played the first chapter of the companion piece/follow-up (but not a sequel) Deltarune a few years ago, I thought it was…fine. I certainly enjoyed the characters and Toby’s trademark humor, but I didn’t quite understand why this game needed to exist separate from Undertale. But now, with Chapter 2, I finally get it. And I’m incredibly fascinated to see where things go from here.
Part of what made Undertale work so well is that it defied genre conventions by having you, as the player, truly influence every aspect of the story in a way that most games didn’t even try to attempt. One would assume that a sequel or follow up would follow suit, but instead, Deltarune actively does not want the player to make choices for the main character, Kris (and in some cases, tries to prevent you from doing so). Deltarune is Kris’s story, not yours. This reversal succeeds in making the player feel helpless at times, and provides the other side of the coin to Undertale’s themes — while there are many times in life where your choices have consequences, there’s also times where you can’t change much of anything, and those moments matter too.
Having said all that, this is only chapter 2 of 7 (????), so maybe later chapters will be different. But every aspect of Deltarune’s design feels made to tell the player that they’re not in charge this time. And that’s an inspired decision that now makes me glad this game isn’t Undertale 2.
Also, Queen and Spamton are two of the funniest video game characters in years and it amazes me how constantly Toby Fox can leave me cackling like a doofus through constant uses of stock explosion and splat sounds.
Part of what made Undertale work so well is that it defied genre conventions by having you, as the player, truly influence every aspect of the story in a way that most games didn’t even try to attempt. One would assume that a sequel or follow up would follow suit, but instead, Deltarune actively does not want the player to make choices for the main character, Kris (and in some cases, tries to prevent you from doing so). Deltarune is Kris’s story, not yours. This reversal succeeds in making the player feel helpless at times, and provides the other side of the coin to Undertale’s themes — while there are many times in life where your choices have consequences, there’s also times where you can’t change much of anything, and those moments matter too.
Having said all that, this is only chapter 2 of 7 (????), so maybe later chapters will be different. But every aspect of Deltarune’s design feels made to tell the player that they’re not in charge this time. And that’s an inspired decision that now makes me glad this game isn’t Undertale 2.
Also, Queen and Spamton are two of the funniest video game characters in years and it amazes me how constantly Toby Fox can leave me cackling like a doofus through constant uses of stock explosion and splat sounds.