DeltaRune(Spoliers Within)

[Dalisclock]

I'm kinda surprised this hasn't had a thread pop up yet since I know there's at least a couple other people on this board who liked Undertale. And there's the fact it's 3 hours long and came out last week, so at least a couple of us had to have played through it by now.

So yeah, I was surprised as pretty much anyone else probably was. I didn't expect to see anything else Undertale related, at least not from the original designer, produced so when DeltaRune popped up all over my gaming news feed I was quite suprised. Especially since it's maybe a little shorter then the original game and yet it's "Chapter 1" of presumably a much larger work.

So that out of the way, my thoughts:

-Technically an improvement on the original on a couple of ways, including the party based combat and multi-person attacks/techniques, not to mention some of the out of combat action sequences. Some of the battles, especially boss enemies, were nicely done as puzzles, especially Lancer and Susie's attempt to stop you. Assuming you weren't just trying to murder things.

-I played the pacisific route from the start and I was kind of suprised to find out afterwards it really doesn't matter much. The fate of the King changes a bit depending on how you played but the "Your choices don't matter" thing wasn't a joke, it seems. Of course, reaching the end kinda explains that a bit.

-From the moment I heard the story about the delta knights I kept expecting some sort of twist to pop up, and in a way, I'm still expecting it. The fountains of darkness/Dark Prince thing was interesting and felt like there was more to be said and the fact that the Royal Crest from the first game shows up all over the place in the Dark World didn't escape my notice either. And at one point, there's mention of a Knight and an Angel, though neither of those really made a repeat appearance unless I missed something in a side area.

-On a related note, I noticed the black doors act as a fast travel system but I never felt the need to go back, unlike undertale where I occasionally went back to Snowden to find extra side stuff or earn more money for healing items. I suspect I missed something back there in my urge to push onwards.

-There was a lot of mirroring of the original game, but in a different way. Honestly, I could write an entire essay comparing the two and I've seen people have already started online. It does make me wonder just where this is all going, because some things feel so connected to the original game and some strangely different(characters and how they relate to each other). Sans being out of the loop, apparently, is one of the notable ones, when he was seemingly fully aware, much like flowery in the original game.

-So, the ending. Yeah. So I'm guessing I'm not alone in imagining the Pacifist after Genocide Route ending is canon? Maybe? I mean, that looked an awful lot like Chara, but on the other hand, everything else is so out of whack and wierd. The inferences one could draw from the town bits alone just make it more confusing. I mean, if you're the only human in a town full of monsters, where are all the other humans? And Asriel is apparently still alive? What's the deal with the suspiciously colored flowers that Asgore has in his shop? Toriel and Asgore are separated/Divorced? Sans doesn't know what's going on? Undyne has both her eyes but doesn't know Alphies? I know this is all a separate timeline but then why is Frisk/Kris/Chara there and adopted by Toriel?

Yeah, I really hope Chapter 2(and however many more chapters) gets made, because I want to know where this is all going.

 

[PFCboom]

I didn't see DeltaRune coming, either. It didn't pop up on my Steam news, and since I don't follow gaming news in general, my first exposure was when a lets-player uploaded the first segment of when they'd live-streamed it.
I also like what was done with combat. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense from different perspectives. We know that Undertale's combat is similar to Earthbound meets bullet hell; now it's one part Final Fantasy, one part Chrono Trigger team attacks, plus one part familiar bullet hell fun. It's a legitimately well-done step forward.

A few of my own thoughts:

It's not surprising in the least that DeltaRune ch.1 was released for free. At the moment, Undertale is only $10, and ~3.5 million people bought it, so Toby Fox is set for... life, maybe. I did raise an eyebrow at how DeltaRune isn't on Steam, as that would've almost certainly made it more wide-spread, but it seems word-of-mouth is still alive and well.

The fandom is still pretty awful. A few of my favorite lets-players and streamers have figured that out the hard way. Actually, recent events have reminded me that some fans in general can really poison the well, to the point where I actively avoid fandoms.

I'm not the kind of person who stops and speculates about what may or may not happen later in the game. I don't get halfway through and go "okay, I think what's going to happen is..." because, well, I'm going to get there eventually, there's no need to wonder. As such, I was shocked by the twists towards the end. Even Ralsei's reveal was something of a surprise, one which made me NOPE on outta there, because I just wasn't ready to be put through an emotional wringer again. And then the actual ending happened...

Again, I'm not a person who likes to speculate; the more I'm surprised by a turn of events, the better. Annoyingly, this means I'm going to be thin on YouTube content for a long time while the theory machines churn out endless variations of "THE STORY OF DELTARUNE EXPLAINED!! THE OTHER CHAPTERS WILL LOOK LIKE THIS!!" which inevitably turn out to be inaccurate.

I'm looking forward to more DeltaRune. Even though I have to put up with the rest of the Internet being inevitably awful for a while, it'll be worth it, I'm sure.
Probably.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

It was the best kind of good, that is, unexpectedly good. Not that I didn't think Toby Fox had another good game in him, the guy's pretty talented, I just didn't think he was gonna make it any time soon. Maybe that's just me but if I had a success like Undertale under my belt I'd probably coast on it, if not for the rest of my life, than at least for about a decade, depending on how much money I've actually made from it. And I imagine he made enough of it to never have to work ever again.

Anyway, Deltarune came out of nowhere and proved to be very enjoyable. Essentially it's obviously more Undertale, the combat is now party based, which is pretty gimmicky, but then, combat in Undertale in general has always been gimmicky. The characters are still cute and likeable, the writing is still razor sharp and the humour managed to get a few laughs out of me. What am I supposed to say? It's more Undertale.

I can't pretend to guess where the story of the full game, if and whenever it's gonna come out, is gonna play out. Deltarune sure has a few interesting enough hooks and made me care about its characters enough to make me wonder where it's going. Ralsei, Suzy and Lancer have that classic undertalian "shallow as a puddle but inexplicably endearing" quality to them that everyone in Undertale had and which Fox seems to have down to a science. You know, if both of these games serve to prove anything it's that, when it comes to writing, depth and quality don't necessarily require each other.

Well, let's see if anything more is ever gonna come from it. If Toby Fox isn't being disingenous, he hasn't worked on Deltarune past the part we've seen so far and finishing it might take him up to 7 years so as of this point I'm not exactly holding my breath for the followup. According to him he doesn't trust himself to do the whole thing alone but I'm sure there's no shortage of people who'd be ready to help him. Wonder how he handles it. I mean, it's pretty clear where the guys talents are, writing and making music, managing a larger project requires a different skillset entirely. It's on him to prove that he has that skillset.

 

[CaitSeith]

I heard that something was going on Undertale's twitter account, and it had some weird thread that ended with a link to the DeltaRune website and to download the game; and the next day things got cleared up. I already finished it in a pacifist run (except for the optional boss fight, which is as hard as Undyne in the genocide run), but I don't know if to try a neutral or a genocide run. Undertale in Wonderland doesn't look as interesting to explore as the original game.

 

[Dalisclock]

I heard that something was going on Undertale's twitter account, and it had some weird thread that ended with a link to the DeltaRune website and to download the game; and the next day things got cleared up. I already finished it in a pacifist run (except for the optional boss fight, which is as hard as Undyne in the genocide run), but I don't know if to try a neutral or a genocide run. Undertale in Wonderland doesn't look as interesting to explore as the original game.

Apparently which run you do doesn't matter much at all. You can't actually kill them if you fight because they run away and the ending is the same regardless. As far as I can tell, the only thing that changes is what happens to the King during the final boss battle.

 

[Asita]

Honestly, my mind's spinning with everything it's processing from the denouement. I know that the creator's on record saying that this isn't a sequel and that it has no effect on Undertale, but there's a certain 'wrongness' to what you experience as you go around the town afterwards.

And it's not that these characters are different, it's how characters that were once best friends now hate each other for exactly the same reason their counterparts loved each other. It's how the game baits you a few times into touching on a connection that you simply wouldn't make without familiarity with the prior game (eg. broaching the topic of Alphys with Undyne, uniquely having the opportunity to tell Sans (who unbeknownst to you is a complete stranger) that it's great to see him again), only to [understandably] confuse the characters you're talking to.

It's how the characters comment about Kris seeming out of character (usually quiet, creepy, a talented pianist...), it's that final scene, and in retrospect the question of "Why are we in control during the game?" Unlike in Undertale, there's no obvious catalyst, but the same dynamic has resurfaced.

Now could this just be an elseworld? Sure. But there's enough that feels 'off' to keep me theorizing for the time being.

 

[Worgen]

I was really impressed with it. I was wondering how Toby's next game would go. I mean how often do you make something that ends up exploding in popularity and manage to make a really good follow up?

At first I was thinking it took place after the pacifist run in Undertale but it really seems more like its an alt universe. I'm really curious to see where things go, hopefully it won't take too long for more of it to come out. I'm assuming Chara comes out at the end no matter what, I did a pacifist run and he popped so I would imagine killing everything would yield the same results.

I'm really tempted to try a kill run but that would probably make Ralsei sad and hes so damn cute, I don't think I can bring myself to do it. I'll probably look up how it changes the game, I would assume it would make Ralsei join Lancer and Susie would stay with you since shes still in her violent mood at that point in the game.

 

[Dalisclock]

Again, I'm not a person who likes to speculate; the more I'm surprised by a turn of events, the better. Annoyingly, this means I'm going to be thin on YouTube content for a long time while the theory machines churn out endless variations of "THE STORY OF DELTARUNE EXPLAINED!! THE OTHER CHAPTERS WILL LOOK LIKE THIS!!" which inevitably turn out to be inaccurate.

I've seen one or two of those videos, though I'm gonna leave them be for the most part because we have years before Fox finishes the rest of it, if he ever does and a lot could change.

The other issue is that a lot of them seem to revovle around Gaster, who might as well be an Easter Egg. Yes, he exists within the universe, but not so much within the games themselves, but rather as this big meta, Alt-Reality type concept. Maybe Undertale has since changed to reflect but when I played it the only way to even know Gaster existed was either go datamining the system files or find out from the internet he even "exists", though apparently you can get hints from a particular scene in the game when you get into Sans Workshop, which itself requires some doing to access. That's up there with having to dig around the side materials to a work or scour the wiki.

So trying to build this central narrative around Gaster when we have no proof it's ever going to become part of the main narrative feels like a lot of fanwank at best. Maybe it's all part of Toby Fox's master plan but I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Asita]

Again, I'm not a person who likes to speculate; the more I'm surprised by a turn of events, the better. Annoyingly, this means I'm going to be thin on YouTube content for a long time while the theory machines churn out endless variations of "THE STORY OF DELTARUNE EXPLAINED!! THE OTHER CHAPTERS WILL LOOK LIKE THIS!!" which inevitably turn out to be inaccurate.

I've seen one or two of those videos, though I'm gonna leave them be for the most part because we have years before Fox finishes the rest of it, if he ever does and a lot could change.

The other issue is that a lot of them seem to revovle around Gaster, who might as well be an Easter Egg. Yes, he exists within the universe, but not so much within the games themselves, but rather as this big meta, Alt-Reality type concept. Maybe Undertale has since changed to reflect but when I played it the only way to even know Gaster existed was either go datamining the system files or find out from the internet he even "exists", though apparently you can get hints from a particular scene in the game when you get into Sans Workshop, which itself requires some doing to access. That's up there with having to dig around the side materials to a work or scour the wiki.

So trying to build this central narrative around Gaster when we have no proof it's ever going to become part of the main narrative feels like a lot of fanwank at best. Maybe it's all part of Toby Fox's master plan but I'll believe it when I see it.

Small tweak since then. Originally it was impossible to know anything about Gaster without datamining because part of the code was broken, precluding the easter eggs from showing up at all. Now it's just improbable due to the "fun" value assigned at the start of the game needing to be in a specific range to get particular events (ie, what easter eggs you can find are randomly determined at the start of the game).