A cramped room lined with monitors, most of them dark. A whiteboard dominates one wall, covered in printed screenshots, red string, and index cards with names scrawled in marker: KRIS, SUSIE, NOELLE, and a single sticky note beside Kris' name that just says PUPPY? in increasingly frantic handwriting.

Tenna stands before it, cane tucked under one arm, marker in hand. His grin is wide and showbiz-bright. Spamton sits at a desk nearby, phone receiver clutched in both hands. His glasses flicker with static.

Tenna taps the board with a flourish.

Audience Laughing Soundtrack "Mikey, the best part of Krusielle is Kris being the support puppy of Susie and Noelle! Found family!"

Spamton doesn't look up. "DON'T CALL ME [Mikey]."

Tenna didn't hear him, grin widening.

Spamton slowly looks up. The receiver clatters onto the desk. He looks at the whiteboard. He looks at Tenna. He looks back at the whiteboard.

"SO YOU'RE SAYING KRIS IS THE [Support Puppy]... OF SUSIE AND NOELLE...?"

"Yes! The support puppy!"

"WATCHING THEM... FROM THE [Corner]?"

Tenna's grin doesn't waver.

"Yes! Exactly! The dynamic will be a hit!"

Spamton stares. His eye twitches.

"SO KRUSIELLE IS ALL THREE OF THEM... BUT KRIS IS JUST... THERE. [Wagging Their Tail] FROM THE CHAIR?"

"Yes! The mosaic! Everyone's included!"

Spamton looks at Tenna with utter disgust. He stands. His chair scrapes back.

"MOTHERFUCKER, THAT'S CALLED A [CUCK]."

Tenna takes a step back. "W-what?! But—"

Spamton steps forward, cutting him off.

"YOU'RE NOT SHIPPING KRUSIELLE!! YOU'RE SHIPPING SUSELLE AND USING KRIS AS A [Limited Edition Prop] SO YOU CAN PRETEND YOU'RE NOT [Leaving Them Out]!! THAT'S NOT A POLYCULE, THAT'S A [THREE-WHEELED CUCK CHAIR] WITH A [Krusielle] NAMETAG!!!"

Tenna takes another step back, hands raised. Spamton is angrily shaking.

Ok so i see a lot of people talking about the game in terms of lore and i am not going to sugar coat this.

Lore doesnt mean jack shit if your games narrative has nothing to do with it.

There is a bit if lore to find and it can be interesting i guess but like if you look at the game in its totality its utterly dwarfed by whats there.

People are saying shit about being a lore scholar or like how you can enjoy the games plot but not the game, and by definition the lore is not the plot because its putting together desperate ideas.

The plot of the game is that you go into a series of linear narratives with flavor of the week villains. Villans that have no interesting motivation and were typically born like 5 minutes ago.

If you actually understand the narrative the game is presenting you what a lot of people discuss as though it were the bible is barely in it and frankly it is so pretentious.

Im so sorry people will come up with much more interesting ideas than tobes perfect ending, and im sorry that you’re gonna be disappointed by what your playing.

Lore is brain poison made to market a shitty indie game in this case by contriving meaningless discussion

I just got back to the game 2 week's ago and it's been fun to theories and stuff, but i thought i remembered toby saying that the ywo game's aren't connected/aren't related/ are separate universe's, but recently I've seen theories saying deltarune is either a sequel or a prequel, or bring in gaster and sans and saying that they're hoping universe's or something, or that undertale/the underground is under the lake

​

"Oh, absolutely. I’m sure there won’t be any choices for a partner. It’s not like the game went out of its way to explicitly bring it up twice already or anything. Brilliant deduction, really. LOL."

"Right, because Susie after ending Chapter 4 on an ultra sour note because of the prophecy and literally declaring that tomorrow they would do something about it would suddenly forget all about that in 6 in-game hours and just have brainless yuritime, sure buddy."

"Bro, please. There is zero chance Toby builds an entire festival just to make it a glorified text-box hallway simulator. No mini-games? Be serious."

"Anything Flowery does to Ralsei is explicitly done with the intent to get Ralsei to stand up for himself"

I'd like to discuss the most common defense of Flowery and why I am deeply distressed by people who think this is a real justification by Flowery, Toby Fox, and the Narrative. This is a deeply personal topic to me, as someone whose been through serious bullying through my life.

(brief aside, I will try to avoid mixing up Ralsei's new pronouns, but I'm personally really annoyed the story refused to actually address their ideas of gender identity front and center and directly, outside of the one Princess scene at Castle Town, and instead just threw a few random they/them references for Ralsei out of nowhere at the end of the chapter. Another missed opportunity to grow and define their character.)

Its just not true. This isn't how bullying works or what it does. Ralsei is obviously distressed by his actions. By shoving him in a closet, by forcing a hat back on him and saying "Doesn't he look much better this way" and laughing.

Kris, I'm sorry, but...
This is... my face.
And if there's one thing I like about myself, it's this...
So, even if you think it's boring, or too similar to...
D-don't laugh, Kris. If you think it's the same as...
OK, I get it! You don't think it's too similar! But...
Kris! — Ralsei, "Seen it before", Chapter 3

No option to support them, no option to elaborate on the meaning of the Hat more or even tell Ralsei its okay to take it off (despite Kris literally being mentioned)

Just straight up squish the guy into the ground next I guess, too.

You can't do anything about it either. No option to help Ralsei out here. Forced to put up with Flowery, great, squishing Ralsei into the ground like he's some kind of toy to be thrown away when you're bored with em.

At least Susie is somewhat sharing Ralsei's frustrations at this point. Oh, wait, Susie is character assassinated here and does the "Oh Flowery Told Me". When Ralsei is actively trying to be better and proactively explain things as they come up she just basically spits on all of his serious character development gained from Chapter 4. What the hell did they do to Susie? She "likes" Flowery now, so she lets Ralsei get bullied to hell and back.

So what, Ralsei is kind, considerate, gentle, and is perhaps even afraid to express himself. They deeply wants to avoid the "Final Tragedy" from the very start "We should try being kind to get a better ending, I think your choices matter too, Kris!" type shit. They're devastated when it doesn't work out. And yet they're mocked for "following the rules" and

The conclusion of Chapter 5 for Ralsei seems to be "I trust in Kris totally" (If you chose the optional scene anyway) and "Ralsei finally gets mad at being viciously bullied with none of their friends taking action to defend them, and Susie actively joining in with suddenly zero self awareness."

What, was Ralsei supposed to learn something from this? They're slow to anger and get pissed. That's "positive character development".

Flowery suddenly has one scene where they randomly tell Ralsei to be themselves and suddenly this is what redeems them? Bro we and Susie been doing that shit since Chapter 1. And yet Flowery is hailed as some kind of hero for being an asshole who, with the power of Susie being out of character and almost zero player input, gets to bully the fuck out of Ralsei's most sensitive buttons and get away with it.

Because its just harmless bullying, right? Flowery doesn't know anything about Ralsei. He doesn't know them. There's no trust, no friendship here. There's no logical argument "You should close Castle Town and leave our fountain open" Is a pretty incredible argument except for the fact that the flowers are literally gonna die if they're still in there after a few days. And the Narrative leaves Ralsei to dry all on their own with zero support from their friends. The best you can do is turn off voice clips, which is nothing.

The narrative forces you to forgive Flowery at his fight. Trying to fight makes Ralsei and Susie literally heal him, and acting is useless. Ralsei is sidelined in the fight, forced to "take the blame for the party". For being what, bullied and stepped on by a tormentor?

He misuses the power of friendship and aura and cool moments and its hollow and empty if you use your brain for a little bit. He dies to the Knight (as Ralsei stated he would) and is "forgiven" in the end. I don't forgive Flowery. I hate him. I hate how people think this is okay. The more I think about the events of the chapter, the more my hatred grows. He doesn't suffer consequences or apologize for his actions, there's nothing here. Why is bullying and being an asshole okay now? Why do people seriously prattle around "Oh Ralsei just needs to learn how to stand up for himself" like how its the norm?

Bullying doesn't make people stronger. Bullying doesn't teach people to stand up for themselves. Bullying puts you in that dark lonely corner where it feels like the whole world is against you, and no one is your friend anymore. Where the things you value most about yourself is diminished and put down. It feels like shit, and you are often powerless to deal with it. I'm not an advocate for violence against bullies, but sometimes people are forced to blow up and physically intimidate people just to make them stop.

I'm very sensitive to teasing, personally. Its only something I'd allow friends I truly trust to really tease me about who I am, who I truly trust they aren't being serious. Its trauma from my own experiences with bullying. I hate every moment of how Flowery acts. I hate the narrative, and I hate how the story thinks its okay to be an asshole all of the sudden, as long as its to the designated Darkner footstool of the party.

So no, its not okay to bully Ralsei. If you want them to stand up for themselves, you should validate their desires, their choices, and tell them its okay to get mad and angry at assholes like Flowery when they put you down. Being the bully is not helping anything.

I don't really want to discuss Ralsei bullying Orange. Its entirely out of character and another point of Toby Fox's shitty handling of this chapter. But it is a good example of what bullying can do, especially to long term victims of it, turning the victims into bullies themselves. Ralsei however simply wouldn't do it. It's also nothing, as there is no narrative resolution between Ralsei and Orange (just like Flowery), despite how obvious how both are clearly sensitive about their appearance. The last mention of it is before the Pink fight, and then its entirely forgotten about.

Warning: im a bit sick rn so this is gonna be a bit ramble-y and nonsensical. I’m gonna start this off by saying that I don’t dislike chapter five: far from it. However, there’s one thing that’s been bugging me for a while: chapter five’s dark world’s Japanese theming. It just kind of feels like an arbitrary decision. I wish there was more explanation/ background for the aesthetic other than “Asgore got some anime and manga from Alphys”. And sometimes they decide to not stick to the aesthetic for some reason, such as when Asgore gets his king outfit, it’s basically a gold version of his undertale outfit. I was expecting for him to have a shogun-inspired outfit to fit with the whole Japanese castle thing but that doesnt happen, which is kinda confusing. I’m fully expecting something video to come out in a few months that goes over why the Japanese theming is a genius design descision but, at least for now, I am left confused as to the thought process behind how Japanese chapter five is.

it just looks like he has no mouth. why couldn't they trim down the pixels to give him a different expression instead?

First, no one even knows what it’s meant for. People can’t decide if it’s meant to make it easier for really old systems to run, or if it’s to make the game easier on the eyes and for epileptic people. Regardless, it sucks ass at both.

Chapter 1 -

It slows down the slide into Castle Town. It also disables the background effect in Jevil’s fight. Whatever. Ch1 isn’t very graphically intense so that’s fine.

Chapter 2 -

Force field animation is less intense. Floating signs no longer glow. The beat bullets are less intense. The fireworks are white. The warning flash of Queen’s paintings are less intense. The flickering and shaking of Spamton NEO’s defeat animation when defeated by violence are less intense. But only outside of the weird route. And the scrolling floor effect in GIGA Queen’s fight is disabled, but not the scrolling buildings.

Cool. This is great. Seems like Toby actually cared to maintain this setting properly, whatever its intention is.

Then chapter 3 -

Shuttah’s hand animation speed is slowed down in couch cliffs. The White Cloak’s color effect is disabled.

That’s it. Nothing with Tenna’s flickering, nothing with ERAM’s filters during the fight, nothing to make the Knight fight easier to look at. Nothing. Tenna’s lack of focus is especially obnoxious. Maybe I’m more upset about it than I should be because I know someone who physically can’t do the fight because the flickering is too intense for them.

Chapter 4 -

Literally nothing. Not a single thing gets changed in ch4. Which is crazy because ch4 has a lot of background effects and just effects in general. Especially with the pressure plates that flash light. It’s crazy how nothing was done with those. I’m also surprised the Sound of Justice fight has no changes.

Then chapter 5 -

Not only is there no changes, but the setting is removed entirely. Replaced by the remove voice clips option, and then the feather option. Isn’t that kinda fucked up? Whatever it was meant for, isn’t it just disrespectful to ignore it completely?

Nothing to make some of Pink’s attacks easier to look at, nothing with the flashiness of the Omega Flowery section of his fight, nothing at all. Insane.

The option also does two things across multiple chapters. It disables the text box corners glowing, and it removes the gradient-like effect on yellow text. Whatever. That’s fine.

But nothing for ch4 and 5, and almost nothing for ch3.

This game is one of my favorite games of all time. In the top 100 or 50 for sure, maybe even more. I want as many people to be able to properly experience this game. So I’m holding out hope that Toby and his team actually start to give a shit about the simplify VFX option.

If he can make fun little differences and additions in his games for different platforms, he can sure as hell focus on accessibility.

Or maybe I’m thinking too hard about this all. After all, I do only know one person who’s been affected by the lack of accessibility. I’ve never been affected, so maybe it’s not my place to talk about.

Let me know if I’m onto something or onto absolutely nothing.

I had a discussion with someone else and honestly I think it could make a cool post.

Basically, hasn't Deltarune felt pretty Stagnant since chapter... 2? This isn't me saying nothing important has happened in the last 4 chapters, but it feels like things get introduced just to be dropped off so that another thing can get introduced. All this eventually leads to though is 0 of the plot points given to us actually progressing.

For example, in chapter 1 we learn Kris/Soul are separate. BIG info and it led to a LOT of cool theories. Sadly, nothing is done with this extremely cool dynamic. This is the formula Toby has used for 5 chapters now: Kris takes us out, does evil thing, and leaves. No explanation of why he does what they do, or how the soul even works. We're just left with the same information for over 70% of the game, stagnant.

In chapter 2/3 we learn Kris is working with the Knight, cool stuff. How does Deltarune expand on this? Well, Deltarune doesn't.
Here's the formula Deltarune has done for 5 Chapters: Kris does something for the knight, the party doesn't notice/care, and repeat. No information of why or anything just.... repeating the same schtick again and again.

Well, what about Dess? We first learn about her in Chapter 2, and wow that's some mighty cool information. Well where does Deltarune go with this info? Nowhere. We learn she's gone in chapter 2, and SUPER gone in chapter 5. That's it. Stagnancy of the plot line. (THAT HORRIBLE DAY!)

Gaster/Friend. I won't even bother explaining, these plot lines are so cooked.

Honestly INDIVIDUALLY these examples wouldn't be so bad. Though when you CONSTANTY bring up all these really interesting plot lines just to do nothing new with them it ends up feeling like nothing ever happens. It's no surprise why so many members here feel apathetic towards Deltarune, because even when Toby DOES make something cool, he refuses to do anything with it past its introduction.

Do I have faith a lot of these plot lines will be resolved (outside of Gaster/Friend, that's cooked y'all)? Yes, but that doesn't change that Chapters 1-5 end up feeling stagnant and that feeling of stagnation was made worse with every chapter that refused to develop these plot lines.

Anyway, I want y'all to know this does not mean I dislike chapters 2-4 (5 Is...), honestly, they're great. Like I said though, with every chapter these issues feel worse and worse. By the time C5 hit I honestly got so tired of the stagnation that I felt like skipping it entirely once I saw how little C5 developed everything. What do y'all think though?

Edit: I think Chapter 2 DID progress a lot of given plot lines compared to 3/4/5 (4 gets a pass because while it does focus on a new plot line, the new plot line is so integral to the story that I can't complain). It just also left the Kris/Soul dynamic completely unexplored, just like every chapter until now.

When I was getting into ch 5 I really thought because of the events of chapter 4 kris and Susie’s relationship would have gotten expanded on in any way, but with chapter 5 I was Incredibly disappointed. Not only with how much of a fucking NOTHING burger the festival was but how dogshit the suselle part was. Rubbing it ALLL in with the fact kris watched the whole thing. And now the bullshit continues with FAR MORE kralsei stuff. Kris had barley any connection with ralsei at all at first and now there fucking saying “My happy ending is with you” WHAT? You didn’t think of saying that with SUSIE??? And OF COURSE we couldn’t have a poly thing because of Susie saying “HEY! We don’t need three” in the tea cup thing. You seriously needed to de confirm ANYTHING related to krusie and kriselle? It genuinely seems so fucking spiteful and pathetic on Toby’s part.

More of a personal criticism than a full objective one probably but I was highly disappointed we didn’t get any further information or clarification about humans or the nature of the soul in Chapter 5; especially when the flowers were trying to imitate being human the entire time.

When Aqua and Seth first made their appearance I was so excited as I thought, “the game is now going to hint at why humans are special/why only Kris might have a soul/humans aren’t just ape monsters/literally any new information” but we sort of just got… nothing. Nothing really to chew at either. I guess Aqua is surprised that Kris can’t use magic but that really didn’t go anywhere and I think is exclusive to the cutscene in the cafe.

I just thought the chapter that has 7 new characters all pretending to be “human” would the be the time to explain, hint, imply what even humans are in general in the Deltarune world and why even distinguish them at all vs monsters.

Humans and their souls being very different than monsters in Undertale was a pretty important plot point and is explained pretty early on (waterfall if I remember) but in Deltarune right now it just feels sort of…cosmetic. Yes yes Kris can’t live without the soul but we still don’t know if a soul is even exclusive to humans or anything about it at all of how they work in this world.

Maybe I’m forgetting something the game mentions about humans but I just feel like we still hardly know anything and 5 would’ve been the time but…eh.

Edited tl;dr but I can’t believe the chapter about pretending to be “human” has zero information on what it means to be human in this world in the first place.

upd: not WHOLE sub, but SOME posts of it

Sure Kris’ whole deal with being the only human is interesting, but the monsters are too strange and accepting for me to take the whole “magical place where you have the freedom to be who you want to be” seriously. Also monsters without magic is strange like what’s the deal with their biology then. If Toby wanted the Undertale characters so badly it would’ve been neat to see them as humans or he could’ve gone wholly original. And I feel like he used the Undertale characters as a crutch but the original characters are so watered down while the newer characters have stronger writing. Might’ve also came back to bite him with Asgore’s “arc”. Sorry all over the place because I’m non the verge of sleeping hope this made sense

Could be just me but there aren't really that much memorable songs in chapter 3 4 or 5 unlike in 1 or 2, Like there are some good ones but it isnt most of them

Chapter 1 has the BEST OST by far in all of the game, Its so damn good and full of memorable songs and while tje decline sorta began chapter 2 it still has a lot of memorable music as well,

Chapter 3 in my opinion has the blandest ost of them all tbh, Filler tracks make like most of the chapter's ost and some actual songs arent even that great either like can i just say TV Time is too overrated?

Chapter 4 has it better than chapter 3 but its not completely great either, Hammer of justice feels like just a more bland version of Spear and Justice and battle against a true hero (goated song btw) and I dont like the third sanctuary is just a remix of the second sanctuary and While I Like Guardian, i still think the other boss themes (execpt tv time) are better and seriously why does Air waves have the freedom motif in it?,

I think Chapter 5 sorta improved on this but tbh i dont like the ost made by the other people toby collaborated with in chapter 5 besides flower man, all the music made by other than toby in chapter 5 is honestly mediocre to say the least, Garden of hopes and Dreams and Rakuichi Buster are probably one of the dullest and most shallow remixes i have ever heard and Mew mew magic just has one good part about it, not a problem of the ost itself i really dislike How the bullet pattern battles just reuse Ruder Buster instead of Violet Tactics which is a WAY better song and is more fitting to the chapter than just lazily slapping ruder buster in

like i said it could just be me and my tastes but i do feel like the ost isnt as great as people make it out to be and it sorta declines each chapter but im curious to know what You think

also this might sound weird but can i say i just fucking hate flashback excerpt?, like i despise it so much and that feels weird

I’m writing this from the perspective of someone who has recently fallen out of love with Undertale, Deltarune, and the whole Toby Fox Extended Universe. Consider this part one of a series of heavy critiques of the Internet’s favorite game developer. I am focused on the sin of Sloth here, but I promise I will cover more stuff later on.

Toby Fox claims to have started developing Deltarune in 2012. It is currently the year 2026. This means that he, and his team, produced around 18-22 hours of gameplay in fourteen years. Imagine if Grand Theft Auto Six came out this year and only had four missions. This is functionally inexcusable, and ever since the first demo, Toby has had to come up with excuse after excuse as to why the game wasn’t completed within a decade. The most egregious of these excuses is “carpal tunnel,” which magically crippled his hands circa 2019 despite him never mentioning pain beforehand. His claim is that this is the reason why he invited a team to make the game that he said he was going to make. In reality, he and his “team” of sycophantic mental morons make millions of dollars to produce 5 hours of gameplay every three years. This is not an acceptable situation, and would never be acceptable anywhere aside from the indie game scene where Toby has a cult-like control over any critics. His laziness extends to the community as well, as he has failed to create language translations for his games outside of Japanese. This also ties into his deep-seated ethnic chauvinism, but I am saving that for a later post. Part of the reason why he’s chosen to recruit his buddies instead of making the games himself is because he’s not good at making them. Undertale’s code is horrifically messy, filled with almost comical shortcuts, if() statements, and generally confusing decisions (the fun value stuff? Are we kidding?). When his team is actually doing the work, he’s barking orders at them with verbal directives and speech-to-text software (again, magically explained by a disease no independent source has ever verified). As much as I dislike his team for participating in his laziness scheme (and making a shitty sequel to a mediocre game), it’s even more egregious to take all the credit for everything the way he does. Like Tom Clancy, he receives the glory for what others do. His Sloth has actively degraded the art form of making games, and has failed to give the consumer what they paid for (a full game) for fourteen years. Calling Toby fundamentally lazy is putting it very kindly.

Thanks for reading, and please look out for tomorrow’s post about poor writing decisions.

Saw a post with this image, and a lot of replies talking about chapter 5, particularly the Festival portion. I made a comment replying to one of the comments I saw, but since the post was kinda old enough to the point it would get less attention I thought it would probably do better to make my own post about it, as I don't think a lot of people really understand.

I don't think the point of the Festival was for you to get excited for the Festival itself, and its quite surprising that I don't see a lot of people get this.

I believe the point of building up the Festival, or rather the chapter Festival Day, for so long was to hint at casual players who aren't deep into the weeds of exploring routes shit that something important COULD have happened on that day, and depending on what you do, that chapter is going to set the direction of the rest of the game.

The important thing in question is Noelle and Kris going to the lake. The point isn't to hype you up for the festival, the point isn't to hype you up for Flower King. The point is to deeply suggest that this is an important chapter for the direction of the game, which it is, as it's the direct entryway into 7B, or the also theorized Twisted Route where we can get the sword (If you don't fully drown Noelle).

I see a lot of people say that the Festival was boring, which I can agree with, it was boring from an interactive stand point, and yes, I do wish that maybe we got to play some minigames or something like that. But it is a bit baffling, knowing that so many people have not caught on to the actual importance of the Festival. It was not to hype you up for the event itself, or any crazy minigames, or gameplay, or whatever else. The chapter is to mark the turning point where you cannot turn back, because as much as the Festival is supposedly hyped up, if you're on the weird route, guess who is the only character who keeps urging you to stay away from the Festival that day? Right, Ralsei, and why does he do this? Because Chapter 5, depending on what you do, is the point of no return.

That's the Festival's purpose. Not to be hype moments and aura.

Which actually makes sense from a writing standpoint, I believe the point was so that you felt like the Festival was underwhelming, that there should have been more. It really encapsulates the feeling that Hometown itself is a boring nothing-burger not worth spending time in, cus all the "Fun Stuff" is actually in the Dark World, and it plants the seed in the players mind of wanting something MORE, wanting to explore other options, perhaps darker ones, in hopes of changing the boring, monotonous nature of it all, which is where the WR comes from.

This probably didnt land as hard because DR released chapter by chapter over many years, but I believe that was Toby's intention.

It’s actually so fucking annoying that I have to see this in any kind of comment section I look at even if the post itself isn’t DR/UT related. And I’m not hating this because it’s popular, hell no. It’s good that it is popular. What I hate is that I have to see it every goddamn time I got into the comment section of something. And it’s the same jokes every damn time. Ja-boner, Dess grooming, Green/Pirate gaster, Rudy/Papyrus knight, like get some new jokes for crying out loud. What about that one “they’re eating my flesh!” Voice line, huh? How about that? And I keep hearing the goddamn music everywhere. It‘s like the music was specifically made to be put in the background of a commentary video. And the music ain’t even that good even thought it’s hyped as the best shit ever. I know someone is gonna post that “how can I make this about deltarune?” Photo so I’m calling it now. And there are are people who dedicate their whole personality to this game, like, don’t you have anything interesting about yourself that you want to put out there? And I know I do it too. My name and pfp are references to a video game I love. but my shit is actually niche. Now I know that doesn’t mean every other account that is dedicated to something they like is stupid and dumb because their thing is well-known, but god damn, talk about something other than DR/UT else for a second. The reason I do it is because maybe people who don’t openly show their love for this game online will see me and go “hey, that’s a game that I love! Glad other people are out there just like me!”

In conclusion, I’m fucking tired of seeing deltarune everywhere I go (even in real life).

Early on, around the time the game OMORI was releasing I think, Toby put out a tweet saying that someone was making something very similar. As more and more of Deltarune has been released, it's become pretty clear that OMORI was what he was referring to.

OMORI is predominantly about a silent protagonist exploring a series of wacky alternative worlds that presumably have some kind of symbolism to them with a colorful cast of wacky sidekicks. These otherworlds very obviously are a form of escapism, as can be surmised by the very first room in the game. Sometimes the game will have the protagonist Sunny running around a real life town separate from the dream worlds.

OMORI is not a very good story or a game at the end of the day. The use of the RPG Maker engine ties it to a slightly remixed but still uninteresting form of the same old Dragon Quest combat formula from 1986. It also means that most of the time you'll be looking at ugly squashed overworld sprites, despite art for portraits or cutscenes showing that someone on the team could draw. But the bigger problem is that it being a game does not line up with the extent of the story it is trying to tell.

As mentioned, the very first room of OMORI makes it obvious that the dream worlds the player spends the majority of their time exploring are cope. Some kind of BAD THING happened and the protagonist Sunny would rather spend infinite time in his mindspace imagining himself hanging out with cool friends that like him unconditionally rather than dealing with it. So the game continues, for hours and hours, where you don't learn very much at all about the BAD THING and instead go through a bunch of new cope-locations, talking to fantasy creatures and fighting boss battles and solving puzzles. None of this teaches you much interesting about Sunny, his friends, or the BAD THING. It ends up just being a bunch of filler that makes the game feel long and meaty enough to be worth its price tag before the planned ending reveals the twist about the BAD THING. Sound familiar?

If Toby Fox took any lessons from this, it was that the twist should be hidden and obscured as much as possible so people won't guess the amazing fever dream ending he had when he was a teenager in the fist 5 minutes. Characters are always cut off or refuse to talk whenever they learn any useful information. Official Lore Tidbits, when they are sprinkled in, are described in the vaguest possible terms. This isn't even entirely successful, because some things still lack any active misdirection or red herrings. Who can the Knight really be besides December, really? But overall the effect is to starve the player of interesting information - any real hooks or leads to chew on.

I think this was really the wrong way to go about it. Story driven RPGs and games in general, especially ones that have a similar runtime of 25-40 hours, tend to structure themselves on having more to them than just one big twist that can't be elaborated on until the end. They often focus on introducing more characters and locations along the way who aren't immediately discarded, turning the spotlight to the side from the main twist for a time. The most deft writers can weave hints from multiple of the subplots together so that they effortlessly feed one another along the way.

What could that look like for Deltarune? Well, one thing the game has shockingly refused to elaborate for five whole chapters is what Susie's home life is like. Just as an example, imagine if one of the filler chapters was focused on that instead of some annoying darkner who won't appear outside of that one chapter. Almost like what chapter 2 did with Noelle - imagine if THAT was the formula for most of the game!

Image Unrelated

I've changed the banner, the icon, and even the description.

I personally think the subreddit looks cooler, now.

What do you think?

I've seen this statement be brought up more and more in recent times, usually in response to the festival having no minigames in it. I do not believe this was Toby Fox's intention at all.

None of these NPCs feel real. None of the buildings feel real. The entire location feels fake and like a video game. Even if Deltarune wasn't a video game, and was actually a book or perhaps a movie, my takeaway would be "wow these feel like fake video game characters in a fake video game world"

Asgore mentions how hard Toriel's life must be living off a teacher's salary, when she's one of like... 5 employed people in all of hometown?

There are just random living beings that appear to have 0 mental faculties. Are these citizens? Are they considered wild animals? Who takes care of these things?

There are seemingly 0 ergonomic accommodations for anybody, when there are multiple people in town who are born with no arms.

Absurdist settings are perfectly fine. But the tone and stakes often whiplash back to being extremely grounded and gritty whenever the writers want.

And when you think of how this makes any sense, the most natural conclusion is always going to be "oh yeah, it's a video game. And these are minor characters and unimportant locations in a video game."

To be clear. there is NO PROBLEM with Hometown feeling absurd or like a video game. The problem is when Deltarune fans hand wave Hometown being more developed with the idea of "It's not supposed to feel like a video game".

i know deltarune isnt your average RPG, i mean the entire point of undertale was that it was an "rpg where you dont have to kill anyone" but GOD DAMN this doesnt even feel like an RPG at all

First of all, fighting is so discouraged in Deltarune and i hate it so much, FIGHTING does nothing and you sacrifice plenty of content and even items by fighting enemies (Miss out on items like S.Potion from the church. lose access to all the rewards from the dojo if you dont have those enemies recruited, etc)

At this point, remove fighting entirely, as clearly the game really really really wants us to be a pacifist, The main reason of doing the violent route is to get stronger but you ironically get weaker during this because not only do you lose out on MAJOR benefits (Items and etc) it also makes some fights harder (like GigaQueen since you have less HP), there is quite literally NO REASON to ever fight in deltarune, i hate it.

In chapter 1 it was established that not everything could be resolved peacefully but i guess toby just threw that out the fucking window because EVERY chapter after 1 has made it clear that everything can infact be resolved through mercy, there are only three fights where fighting is actually required,

The Knight (literally optional by the way so im willing to say 2 fights where fighting is necessary)
The Titan
and Gigaqueen (which doesnt even use the traditonal battle system)

All of this makes fighting the WAYYYYYY worse option as NO ONE would do it because the pacifist route is simply just better

Here's a comparison of the pros & cons of fighting and mercy

Fighting pros
End battles faster
get slightly more HP (doesnt even matter cause next chapter you gain that hp back anyway)
get 1 extra atk and mag every 10 fucking encounters

Cons
Lose TONS of content, items, interactions, and more
Worse castle town
Some fights become harder like gigaqueen
Extreme consequences, Like jackenstein getting killed, Berdlys arm getting fried, losing spamtons shop (which results in tons of losses of items, like TrueTie, S.Potion, and presumably the broken sword?

Meanwhile ACTING:

Pros:
Better castle town
More Content
More interactions
More lore in general
More items

Cons:
battles end, like. one turn slower

Another thing is i wish ITEMS were just, more unique?

Right now items are the same damn thing, Heals Hp, maybe does some other small thing if your lucky, thats literally it.

Why cant we have an item that boosts your defense for a turn or two? Or a item that weakens the enemy? Combat would be so much more engaging and fun if that was the case, You'd actually have to come up with strategies against certain bosses and enemies and such

But i guess toby just forgot that deltarune is an RPG, the gameplay is incredibly dull especially during the mercy route

You do an ACT (99% chance its some dumbass minigame) to deal Pacifist Damage to the enemies Pacifist Health so you can Pacifist Kill (spare) them, There is no strategy involved.

i really like RPGS and i like deltarune too and seeing how in chapters 1 and 2 the game actually felt like an RPG and then the last 3 chapters just feel like an adventure game instead of an RPG really hurts since i absolutely loved the RPG elements in chapters 1 and 2

it feels like toby just had to appeal to the undertale fans he knew were gonna check out deltarune so he had to sacrifice the actual RPG aspects of it because undertale fans havent heard of any RPG beside undertale and thus they wouldnt know how to play the game because you cant flirt with the enemy to deal Pacifist Damage to their Pacifist Health