Thoughts on Deltarune Chapter 5

Deltarune chapter 5 is out! Let’s talk about it!

SPOILERS AHEAD!

I very much loved this chapter. Not a lot of new lore reveals, but that’s fine. Not every chapter needs a big lore dump. What this chapter brought instead was confirming a few things we could already reasonably guess but weren’t yet known to be true.

• Asgore was involved in a Dark World
• Asgore was involved in Dess’s disappearance (still technically not confirmed but what else could it be)
• Asgore’s obsession with proving what happened is what lost him his job and his family

We also saw a lot of good character writing and moving people into place for whatever tragedy is going to hit in chapter 6.

Light World

Susie and Noelle’s date was genuinely beautiful, I was crying at what a sweet and perfect first date they had. Toby knocked it out of the park there, I am thoroughly impressed.

Realizing early on that Susie is now effectively living in Castle Town Dark World… primarily by noticing her hair on Kris’s bed… that hurt a lot. I’m not a believer that Susie has an abusive family. I think, given her tendency towards pica, it is far more likely that she is more extremely impoverished. Single parent working 80 hour weeks to barely pay rent and not even buy food. Quite likely some alcohol addiction in her parent(s) given her reaction to Toriel’s date. Neglect seems highly likely. I don’t want to picture abuse. I’m not saying that can’t be what’s happening or that it would be “bad” writing, I just don’t like imagining Susie in that situation!

Whatever is going on at Susie’s home, it is bad enough that she sees living in a closet at school as preferable. Yes, the closet is turned into a whole Dark World full of Darkners who love her and care for her, so it does make a lot of sense, but also on a literal level she is choosing to live in a closet at school. So that was a brutal realization.

The end of the date was terrifying. For much of the time at the lake, Kris was off screen. Any time Kris goes off screen, I am scared. I do not trust them. They have plenty of reason to not like us, especially if you’re one of those sickos (non-derogatory but also just a little side-eye your way) who is doing Weird Route. But also they are clearly probably working with the Knight. The game has typically given the impression that whatever the player sees is what the SOUL is seeing. If Kris is off-screen, the SOUL is not watching Kris. Kris can be doing whatever they want.

Still, Kris does seem to have been sleeping that whole time given the pineapple face. So maybe it’s fine?

And then Noelle was called away because Rudy “fell down”. There’s ongoing debate to whether that means he fell off the ladder or if it’s the Undertale euphemism to mean he is comatose and about to die. I don’t think it particularly matters? Given his health issues, falling off the ladder would still be serious. The important thing is Noelle’s father’s life is in danger. Not from anything magical or mysterious, but from plain old natural causes. Noelle is not going to be in an emotionally well-off state. Depending on how bad it is, she could be desperate.

And then Kris refuses to let us go visit Noelle. They take a huge risk and make a Dark Fountain almost in front of Susie, knowing Susie won’t be able to help herself. And then they wait to put the SOUL back in their body until they are positioned to fall into the Dark World with no way out. Kris does NOT want us checking on Noelle. I fear that means that whatever Kris and the Knight are planning, it involves whatever is happening at that hospital.

In the Dark World, magic exists. Spells exist. Healing magic exists.

At the end of chapter 5, Susie wants to invite Noelle to join the party.

Susie is unaware of Noelle’s current fragile, potentially desperate state.

Noelle, on learning of the Dark Worlds and of magic, may get an idea on how to save her father…

I’m scared that Noelle is going to cause the Roaring. And I think this chapter did a fantastic job of putting all the pieces in place for this to happen, especially during the Light World segments.

Dark World

Now let’s talk about the Dark World!

Another very good Dark World. I have a weird problem with narrative games where I really want to see what happens next in the story even at the expense of gameplay, so longer gameplay segments make me impatient. That’s not the game’s fault, that’s a me issue. I definitely felt it a lot here.

The Flowers were all an absolute delight. I love all of them (except Flowery) and want to give them all hugs (except Flowery). Flowery is an asshole. Except he isn’t. He’s… too perfect. Not in a bad way. But in that way that gives really, really bad vibes. The lack of any issues being a red flag not to trust him. It was actually so bad that early in the Dark World, when Susie went to hang out with Flowery and not us, it was mildly triggering to me.

I don’t know why my brain believes this to be a “person archetype” that exists (it’s probably a known trope), but there’s a type of character or person who comes across as extremely perfect to the point that they start “stealing” friends away until those friends end up abandoning you entirely. “Oh Flowery is so much better than you, why would we ever hang out with you.” I have abandonment issues. Flowery fell right into that archetype and it had me Not Doing Well for a minute.

Aqua is a delightful little gremlin, I want to give her everything. Seth needs to work on their self confidence a bit but I love them as well. Yellow is… hysterical, but also extremely depressing. Poor guy needs help. Blue and Green are probably my favorites.

I did find the secret boss against Pink fairly easily. Beat her first try, didn’t find her particularly hard but she did give a good level of stress that made the fight enjoyable. The bomb mechanic was fairly easy, but there were other mechanics that got rough for me.

FLOWERY’S FIGHT. IS. BULLSHIT. I can claim to be a member of the “beat him before the nerf” club, but my god do I wish I had waited for the nerf. I was about ready to throw my controller. The team-up of Orange and Green in particular was a nightmare to deal with. Specifically the attack where Orange and Flowery take turns dashing at you. That attack was impossible to time my dashes correctly. Terrible controls and not enough time to react. I can’t wait to circle back around and see how the nerf has improved the fight (though I know the nerf only takes effect after dying).

The platforming gimmick was very enjoyable. The challenge where your party had to start ACTing on their own stood out to me as a highlight of the gimmick. I do wonder if that’ll start to come into play narratively in chapters 6 and 7…

The Blue and Yellow fight where you had to hold a trial while the Fun Gang dressed in Ace Attorney cosplay was also wonderful.

Weird Route

Finally, the Weird Route. As usual I watched other people do it. Holy shit. Uh. I was already disinclined to play the Weird Route. I don’t think I am ever going to touch that thing now. The ending of the Weird Route will need to be very good to bring me over to playing it myself.

Anyways, excellent chapter. It kinda feels weird to me that people are ranking chapters, it makes me think of ranking chapters in a chapter book which just feels so strange, so I’m not going to do that.