There are very few things in life as fucking awesome as Deltarune's surprise release on Halloween 2018. I remember dropping everything I was doing just to download it, that way I could have it on my computer already when I got home from a Halloween party and some trick-or-treating. The moment I started playing it and that cryptic, mysterious intro crawled across the screen, it occurred to me that perhaps I was watching internet history unfold before my very eyes. That character creation intro has such an odd yet distinctly Undertale feel to it - it's spooky and cold, dominated by swirling storm clouds and a disembodied text-box narrator that may or may not totally be Dr. Gaster actively discarding the character you create, forcing you into the shoes of this random high schooler instead and asserting that your choices never have, and never will, matter. It's such a surprising tonal detour from Undertale and yet it still felt very distinctly 'Toby Fox', and I couldn't help but think to myself: for the first time, I'm watching internet history as it happens before my very eyes. I was already aware of a lot of the Undertale twists, turns, and topical memes before I actually bothered to play it - the most surprising thing about Undertale was how it managed to tug on my heartstrings and shock me even after knowing all of its' ins and outs already. But this time, I was afforded the luxury of going in completely blind, and I actually couldn't wait to see what surprises awaited me in the mysteriously-titled Deltarune.
Well, the rest of Chapter 1 wasn't quite as compelling and eye-catching as its intro would have led you to believe; for the rest of the chapter, save for exactly one climactic moment at the very end, Deltarune mellows out into "Undertale 1.5" and stays under that cozy safety net for the entirety of its runtime. That being said, Undertale is one of my favorite games of all time, so even though Deltarune wound up being "basically just another version of Undertale", that wound up working really well for me. After all, "if it ain't broke, then..."
Toby Fox even brought some quality-of-life improvements to the table. If anything, Deltarune plays better than Undertale ever did, even if its' narrative & cast never reach the heights of its emotionally-resonant predecessor. There's a run button now! A-- a run button! And you have no idea how good a run button feels in Deltarune; it makes Undertale feel slow and sluggish by comparison. The party-member system initially raised an eyebrow from me - it seemed more generically 'RPG'-like and seemed like it would clash with the bullet hell shenanigans - but it actually winds up repurposing and recontextualizing the lone-wolf gameplay from Undertale into something more meaningful and complex. You have to time your attacks, everyone can spare/pacify enemies in different ways, everyone takes damage if you get hit so dodging is even more of a priority now, and there's a brand new meter that not only charges up over time, but there's a mechanic where you get more meter points if you narrowly dodge / graze against of the enemy's attacks. I like this grazing feature a lot - it directly rewards the player for playing riskier and making bolder moves in combat, and you can actively choose whether to build up meter at the cost of potentially getting hit, or play it safe, slow, and steady the entire match. Combat feels more intense and engaging than it did in Undertale, so I gotta give Toby Fox credit for not only keeping what absolutely worked about Undertale's RPG-shmup hybrid system, but finding ways to change and contort it into something altogether new and fresh-feeling.
Everything outside of the combat is merely enjoyable apart from the graphics, an across-the-board, undeniable improvement from Undertale's somewhat rugged and at-times charmingly unattractive look. The new locales pop and grab your attention in ways that Undertale simply didn't (the twisted, Halloween-y buildings and blue lanterns of Castle Town are a personal favorite of mine), and both the characters and the overall HUD / GUI are much more lively and animated than Undertale's was. Apart from the obvious graphical overhaul, everything is... still good, just lesser than it was in Undertale (apart from the stellar humor, which is pretty one-to-one). The story is fine enough, and there's plenty of intriguing lore bits and mysterious plot points to sink your teeth into, but the narrative as a whole winds up feeling pretty subpar given that it simply doesn't have the time. The characters are a colorful, cartoonish menagerie of likable people, but apart from Susie, they don't get a whole lot of room to really do or say anything all that meaningful (the villain is pretty underwhelming, all things considered). The locations are nice to look at, but you blaze through them pretty quickly and they lack the nook-and-cranny depth present in Undertale's landmarks and setpieces. And there's plenty of Toby Fox-trademark banger music here in spades - Rude Buster is one of the best, spikiest tracks in the entire series and some tracks, like the lush, sprightly Field of Hopes & Dreams, the maniacal World Revolving, or the jazzy, goofy theatrics of Lancer's Theme, just worm their way into your ear and never escape - but I wound up preferring a lot of the highlights I heard from Undertale's first couple of hours compared to this chapter's roughly-similarly-timed OST. OST's still one of the strong suits of the game, though, so that isn't much of a net loss at the end of the day.
And honestly, none of this wound up even bothering me all that much. The story didn't trigger my tear ducts at all, but it's a colorful and interesting-enough romp that held my interest all the same. The characters aren't as three-dimensional as their predecessors just yet, but they're fun and well-characterized even so, anchored by just enough mystery to keep me invested. And sure, none of the locations & open zones here came close to matching the highs of Waterfall or The True Lab or anything, but the vastly-improved mobility and the spicy new combat features more than make up for the lack of strong overworld intrigue. Deltarune is enjoyable in ways that its' masterful-but-messy forerunner kind of wasn't, and that alone validates its existence, even if it winds up feeling too tonally indebted to that forerunner to really feel like its own thing. (Apart from that amazing intro, of course, but that intro winds up feeling like kind of an anomaly in the grand scheme of Chapter 1, given that Chapter 1 is rarely ever so cryptic and sterile-feeling after all that.) At this point in time, Deltarune hasn't really taken on an identity of its own, but it plays like a very good version of the game that came before it, and that alone was enough to make me want more as the months ticked onward.
Well, the rest of Chapter 1 wasn't quite as compelling and eye-catching as its intro would have led you to believe; for the rest of the chapter, save for exactly one climactic moment at the very end, Deltarune mellows out into "Undertale 1.5" and stays under that cozy safety net for the entirety of its runtime. That being said, Undertale is one of my favorite games of all time, so even though Deltarune wound up being "basically just another version of Undertale", that wound up working really well for me. After all, "if it ain't broke, then..."
Toby Fox even brought some quality-of-life improvements to the table. If anything, Deltarune plays better than Undertale ever did, even if its' narrative & cast never reach the heights of its emotionally-resonant predecessor. There's a run button now! A-- a run button! And you have no idea how good a run button feels in Deltarune; it makes Undertale feel slow and sluggish by comparison. The party-member system initially raised an eyebrow from me - it seemed more generically 'RPG'-like and seemed like it would clash with the bullet hell shenanigans - but it actually winds up repurposing and recontextualizing the lone-wolf gameplay from Undertale into something more meaningful and complex. You have to time your attacks, everyone can spare/pacify enemies in different ways, everyone takes damage if you get hit so dodging is even more of a priority now, and there's a brand new meter that not only charges up over time, but there's a mechanic where you get more meter points if you narrowly dodge / graze against of the enemy's attacks. I like this grazing feature a lot - it directly rewards the player for playing riskier and making bolder moves in combat, and you can actively choose whether to build up meter at the cost of potentially getting hit, or play it safe, slow, and steady the entire match. Combat feels more intense and engaging than it did in Undertale, so I gotta give Toby Fox credit for not only keeping what absolutely worked about Undertale's RPG-shmup hybrid system, but finding ways to change and contort it into something altogether new and fresh-feeling.
Everything outside of the combat is merely enjoyable apart from the graphics, an across-the-board, undeniable improvement from Undertale's somewhat rugged and at-times charmingly unattractive look. The new locales pop and grab your attention in ways that Undertale simply didn't (the twisted, Halloween-y buildings and blue lanterns of Castle Town are a personal favorite of mine), and both the characters and the overall HUD / GUI are much more lively and animated than Undertale's was. Apart from the obvious graphical overhaul, everything is... still good, just lesser than it was in Undertale (apart from the stellar humor, which is pretty one-to-one). The story is fine enough, and there's plenty of intriguing lore bits and mysterious plot points to sink your teeth into, but the narrative as a whole winds up feeling pretty subpar given that it simply doesn't have the time. The characters are a colorful, cartoonish menagerie of likable people, but apart from Susie, they don't get a whole lot of room to really do or say anything all that meaningful (the villain is pretty underwhelming, all things considered). The locations are nice to look at, but you blaze through them pretty quickly and they lack the nook-and-cranny depth present in Undertale's landmarks and setpieces. And there's plenty of Toby Fox-trademark banger music here in spades - Rude Buster is one of the best, spikiest tracks in the entire series and some tracks, like the lush, sprightly Field of Hopes & Dreams, the maniacal World Revolving, or the jazzy, goofy theatrics of Lancer's Theme, just worm their way into your ear and never escape - but I wound up preferring a lot of the highlights I heard from Undertale's first couple of hours compared to this chapter's roughly-similarly-timed OST. OST's still one of the strong suits of the game, though, so that isn't much of a net loss at the end of the day.
And honestly, none of this wound up even bothering me all that much. The story didn't trigger my tear ducts at all, but it's a colorful and interesting-enough romp that held my interest all the same. The characters aren't as three-dimensional as their predecessors just yet, but they're fun and well-characterized even so, anchored by just enough mystery to keep me invested. And sure, none of the locations & open zones here came close to matching the highs of Waterfall or The True Lab or anything, but the vastly-improved mobility and the spicy new combat features more than make up for the lack of strong overworld intrigue. Deltarune is enjoyable in ways that its' masterful-but-messy forerunner kind of wasn't, and that alone validates its existence, even if it winds up feeling too tonally indebted to that forerunner to really feel like its own thing. (Apart from that amazing intro, of course, but that intro winds up feeling like kind of an anomaly in the grand scheme of Chapter 1, given that Chapter 1 is rarely ever so cryptic and sterile-feeling after all that.) At this point in time, Deltarune hasn't really taken on an identity of its own, but it plays like a very good version of the game that came before it, and that alone was enough to make me want more as the months ticked onward.