By Amelia Williams, Contributing Writer
Back in 2015, Toby Fox released his breakout indie RPG Undertale, and has since gone on to do many other publicity stunts such as playing Super Smash Bros with the series’ creator Masahiro Sakurai to covering himself in foam for April Fool’s Day. However, something he is less known for is creating and developing Deltarune – an RPG that he advertised as being Undertale’s “parallel story.”
Although Deltarune is still not fully complete as it currently has only four out of the planned seven chapters, it’s still an amazing game worthy of a playthrough, even in its unfinished state.
A Brief Overview of the Game
At the beginning of the game, players take control of Kris, a human teenager in a town full of monsters, with the player themselves existing in the story as a wholly separate entity that possesses him. Kris is a normal student at the only school in town who quickly gains access to another world via the school’s supply closet with his reptilian classmate, Susie.From there, they team up with the adorable prince of darkness Ralsei to seal off various dark worlds like the one in the school closet.
Along the way, Kris teams up with Noelle, a deer classmate, and Berdly, a rather annoying bird monster who doesn’t ever actually join the party. Each dark world is themed similarly to where they are in the light world; for example, chapter 2’s dark world is themed around technology because it’s found in the town library’s computer lab.
Due to the several years gap between the chapter releases (three years between the first two, for instance), I find it hard to feel like chapter 1 and some of chapter 2 are on the same level of quality as the following few installments. For example, a character in chapter 3 is a pixelated 3D model using animations from the freeware software Mixamo (a newer and more capable software than was used in previous chapters), and the chapter introduces new shooting and rhythm minigames that make for a fuller experience for the player.
The Verdict
Overall, Deltarune is a fantastic game with an amazing story and incredible music written by Toby Fox himself and guest artists such as Lena Raine and Plants Vs. Zombies composer Laura Shigihara. With intuitive gameplay that incorporates RPG and bullet hell elements from Undertale, Deltarune builds on the series’ gameplay by including multiple party members and combo attacks. Additionally, each character has unique actions/abilities: Kris can perform various actions via the ACT menu, Susie can use her powerful Rude Buster attack, and Ralsei can use his Pacify spell to spare tired enemies, with more on the way in upcoming chapters.
While development on the game has taken over a decade since it was first conceived in Fox’s fever dream in 2012, the quality of the chapters out so far prove that the game isn’t stuck in development hell – it’s residing in development heaven. For gamers interested in giving it a try, Deltarune is available on Steam for both Windows and Mac operating systems, Switch 1 and 2, and PlayStation 4 and 5, with the first two chapters available for free as a demo.
