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.