DELTARUNE – More Album Than Game

Almost ten years on from UNDERTALE, Toby Fox has graced us with chapters 3 and 4 of DELTARUNE, unlocking full access to the first half of his seven-episode saga. He’s back. It’s a sublimity to return to Toby’s mind. Though I have to admit, I know I’m a tourist here.

I never finished Homestuck, which I started reading in 2020. I played UNDERTALE pretty late, sometime in 2018, but loved it all the same. I played chapter 1 of DELTARUNE in early 2019, a few months after its release, and decided to wait for the whole game to release before continuing. After having fully gulped down four full fat chapters I think it might’ve been better to pace myself.

From the very beginning, Toby reminds you whose hands you're in. He asks you to design a character, to name them, to invest, then immediately discards them. You're not playing your game. You're playing his. This is a designer who’s always loved playing with your assumptions, but here the trick feels more pointed. DELTARUNE isn't about your power. It’s about the illusion of it.

You get dropped into a Saturday morning cartoon town full of all your favourite UNDERTALE characters. Toriel even drives you to school. All your friends wave as you cruise slowly through an unfamiliar picture. It’s here that DELTARUNE reveals itself as connected to UNDERTALE, and I’ll admit, I felt a twinge of disappointment. UNDERTALE felt so complete. I didn’t want to see these characters again outside of that good ending, I didn’t want them to lose the happiness we’d earnt together.

But I do know what it’s like to want more. To crave the marrow of an artist’s world. To want to live inside it a little longer because it fits you just right. So I get it. I'm happy for the people who never left.

The game quickly reverts to familiar shapes: you enter the dark world and suddenly it looks like UNDERTALE again. You can run now, as if being told, you’ve done this before, go ahead and skip a little. You’re funneled through a corridor, dropping into pits, chasing the ghost of a game you've seen before. The big difference is that this time, you have a party. 

Susie and Ralsei are a perfect angel and devil on your shoulder. Susie seeks validation through force. Ralsei just wants everyone to have a good time. And yeah, I also want to have a good time. So when Ralsei asks me not to kill anyone, I agree. Let’s be chill guys with these freakazoid monsters. I didn’t kill anyone in UNDERTALE, and I wouldn’t ignore the lessons in mercy I learned there.

I’m not even sure if there's a true pacifist route this time, but I still can't bring myself to risk it. I show everyone mercy. Even when it takes longer. Even when it gets tedious. Because DELTARUNE treats enemies not as obstacles, but as people. And it’s hard to keep seeing people as people when the game makes you fight them ten times.

I wonder sometimes if it's a mistake to be merciful in a world that doesn’t reward it. But maybe that’s the point. Why should I need a reward for doing the right thing?

Still, the combat begins to drag. Unlike traditional JRPGs, where grinding makes you stronger, DELTARUNE keeps things flat. Every enemy takes the same steps to spare. It’s charming in Chapter 1, but by Chapter 4 it becomes rote. Mercy turns into a chore. You’re not being challenged anymore, you're being tested for patience. And that’s the tension: the system asks me to keep being kind, but makes kindness feel mechanical.

Then Chapter 2 hits, and everything comes alive.

From the moment you enter the Cyber World, you can feel it. The punchlines start landing quicker. The mechanics shift constantly. Toby never lets a gimmick linger long enough to wear out its welcome. It’s a magic trick built entirely out of punchlines. The whole thing moves with the rhythm of a great comedy set setup, payoff, transition, escalation. And I’m a big Berdley fan.

And yet, even as I was laughing,I could feel the fatigue building in the background. The combat didn’t evolve. Often I didn’t need all three party members to act. I was still enjoying myself, but I was starting to see the bones under the costume.

Then Chapter 3 arrived and to go against what seems to be public opinion this one was my favourite. It did constantly switch up the game play, nothing lingered too long and remained pleasantly  But I loved it. Tenna is a perfect one-episode monster. His story is lovingly tragic. If not a little Cartoon Network. The whole chapter plays like a breather. And maybe that’s because I’d stopped caring about the overarching drama.

By the time I hit Chapter 4, I just didn’t want to go back. Days passed. I lingered looking at the launch page on steam. Not because the game was bad but because I was full. DELTARUNE had become a game to finish rather than a treat to savor. It felt like I’d overdosed. I wanted Toby to pace me. To hold something back. To make me wait. But he gave me more than I could eat, and I crammed it all down. And now I feel a little sick.

And going into chapter 4 the game slowed right down. The humour takes a back seat here though never fully disappears and without the humour the game begins to feel much more sombre and it doesn’t work as well. The game works with its reverence in the face of darkness and when it's just darkness it certainly lost me.

The truth is, DELTARUNE excels in its music more than anything else. Just listen to Hip Shop. Or Field of Hopes and Dreams. Or Cyber Battle. UNDERTALE’s story was brilliant, yes, but what lingers, what haunts, is the music. Bergentruckung into ASGORE. MEGALOVANIA. It’s not just background. There's more feeling in any bar in this soundtrack than in any text box. That’s why I say this is more of an album than a game. That makes it unique. How many games are so soundtrack-forward that aren’t rhythm games? The masterful use of leit-motif conjures subconscious memories you didn’t know you had.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: the game’s emotional tone often feels adolescent. Not immature, but distinctly adolescent. A Tumblr-aged melodrama of softboys and pastel trauma. Stylised sadness. Beautiful suffering. It feels trapped in tropes loved by fourteen-year-olds that teenage horror of realizing your parents don’t understand you, and maybe no one does. The sentimental gothic of childhood objects being creepy that seems to have been the fashion of those slightly younger than myself.

For some, that aesthetic is catharsis. For me, it’s trite. And maybe that says more about me than the game. But I worry this story might not grow up before I outgrow it.

That said, there are flashes of something deeper. Themes of powerlessness. About being a co-pilot, or a stowaway, inside someone else’s life. About showing mercy not because it’s rewarded, but because you should. About trying to matter in a story that keeps telling you you don’t. A theme that I'm sure will be properly fleshed out in the final product once every component chapter is released.

I’m not an UNDERTALE guy. I’m a visitor. A grateful guest. I won’t be replaying the routes or chasing the super bosses. I don’t want to dissect the timeline or theorycraft Kris's soul. I just want to say thanks. For the ride. For the melodies. For the strange, sad, hilarious dream.

It’s a deep shame how much I’ve mentioned UNDERTALE in a review of a different game but from the name alone, DELTARUNE is built as its anagrammatic sibling. Its alternate universe. It will always live in its shadow. Maybe one day they’ll be seen as a pair. But for now, we’re stuck in the present—where one came first and defined the other.

Toby Fox is a great designer. A sharp writer. A megalithic composer. And most of all a person with a pure heart.

I just wish he’d hire a battle designer.