Video Games: ‘DELTARUNE’ Chapter 2

Hey! Hallie here!

This post is coming really late, but that’s because I spent all day trapped in the world of ‘DELTARUNE’. It’s been a while since the first chapter of this game came out, which meant I had to refresh on what happened, but the wait was definitely worth it. I’m a huge fan of ‘UNDERTALE’, which is what brought me to this game, and every chapter of ‘DELTARTUNE’ makes me fall in love with Toby Fox’s work even more. I love his character writing, his crazy plot twists, and his light sense of humor and story beats that cover up some really dark, meaningful messages. This new chapter had plenty of all of those to keep me engaged. Plus, Ralsei has completely stolen my heart at this point. I’m going to recap a bit of the first chapter before I get into what we saw in chapter two, so you can expect major SPOILERS for this entire game so far. Let’s go!

Chapter 1:

In chapter one we were introduced to Kris, our gender-nonconforming main character who is, as many ‘UNDERTALE’ fans are familiar with, a human living in a world of monsters. This world isn’t so much like the realm we see in ‘UNDERTALE’, however. It instead resembles our world, just filled with monster inhabitants. Kris is the child of Toriel and Asgore, although the two seem to be separated, or at least on shaky terms, during this story. Kris is also the sibling of Asriel, who has been at college during the events of ‘DELTARUNE” so far, although the game promises that we’ll see him at some point. In any case, Toriel is still a school teacher in this reality and Kris attends the school she works at. They’re in Alphys class and they’re known for being shy and reserved. They’re also known for being late, prompting Kris to get stuck with Susie, a known delinquent, on a class group project. Kris and Susie are sent to retrieve chalk for Alyphys when she claims she can’t start the class without it. When the two enter the school closet, though, they fall into the world of ‘DELTARUNE’. Fairly quickly they stumble on Ralsei, an extremely kind prince who has been waiting for two people of Kris and Susie’s description to arrive. There’s a prophesy that a human, a monster, and a prince will shut down the dark fountains that appear in this world. Doing so will restore the balance between light and darkness and save the world from being destroyed. Susie initially isn’t fond of either Kris or Ralsei, prompting her to join Lancer, a charmingly unintelligent kid who has been told to stop them. The two groups fight each other for a while, but eventually Kris and Ralsei manage to win Susie back, who’s friendship with Lancer also turns him to their side. Together they face off against Lancer’s father, the person who created the first of the dark fountains they must destroy, and Lancer takes over his father’s throne. With this mission accomplished, Kris and Susie return to their world as friends. However, something very strange is going on with Kris. At night, they tear out their own heart, lock it in a cage, and take out a knife. That’s where we left off.

Chapter 2:

Chapter two gets very quickly into its story. The opening is short and doesn’t do much. We do know that, for whatever reason, Kris ate the entire pie their mother made while they were in their heartless state. Another important piece of information is given when Kris goes to school and Alyphs comments that the internet hasn’t been working for a while. After this, Kris and Susie find the first excuse to go back into the school closet and return to what they are now calling the “Dark World”. But not before Noelle comes up to Susie and acts flustered, pretty quickly confirming that she has a crush on her. Adorable. When the two arrive, Ralsei has decided to permanently stay in his hatless form! Yay! We also get to see that all of the characters spared during chapter one, (No, I’m not one of those people who’s killing characters just to see what happens,) have created a city around Ralsei’s castle. This is where the recruitment mechanic comes into play. Essentially, if you spare a character who’s attacking you, they move into this city and start working for you. I like this mechanic a lot and putting all of the characters in one place makes everything much easier. And they do put EVERY character from the Dark World into this city. Including Lancer, who seems to have given up his throne in favor of just letting Ralsei rule as prince. He even moved his father into Ralsei’s prisons. Makes sense. Ralsei also reveals that he’s been renovating his castle to accommodate his new friends. Both Kris and Susie have their own rooms, filled with their belongings and space for more things they might pick up as the story continues. Lancer’s room from his old castle has also been moved into this one. After all of this is established, Ralsei makes Kris and Susie leave so they can work on their group project. Both Lancer and Rouxls attempt to sneak their way into Kris’ pockets before they can.

When Kris and Susie return to their world they find it worryingly empty. They make their way to the “Librarby” at Noelle’s invitation. She absolutely invited them so she could spend more time with Susie. But when Kris and Susie approach the computer room (Where the Toby dog was last spotted working on the game,) they find that it feels the same as the closet at their school. Sure enough, the two fall back into the Dark World, although in a very unfamiliar and mechanical city. Here they meet Queen, a computer program who has decided she wants to take over the world by creating multiple dark fountains. To help her do this she’s captured Noelle, who she hopes will lend her more power. Luckily, Ralsei’s able to travel from his kingdom to the city at the first sign of distress. The three try to rescue Noelle but it doesn’t seem to go in their favor much. Nor does it really seem to be going in Queen’s favor. Noelle isn’t willing to help Queen out with anything and she’s mostly confused about what’s going on. Meanwhile, Queen is odd, unpredictable, and disappears a lot. The three also discover that Berdly, an extremely uptight and annoying kid from their school, has also been sucked into the Dark World because, as Noelle’s study partner, he was with her when the computer room transformed. He also decided that Queen’s idea to take over the world sounded like a good idea, so he’s a bad guy now. While exploring the city, Susie decides she wants to get to know Ralsei better and Kris is left to explore on their own. They run into Noelle while she’s attempting to escape Queen and the two end up making a really fun team. Noelle is scared by every fight, and who wouldn’t be, but she’s an extremely helpful and intelligent character who I loved having around. After a few strange run ins with Queen, all four of the main characters reunite. But only for a short while before Queen finally manages to recapture Noelle. And everyone else, for that matter.

While Kris is captured, Lancer makes himself known in Kris’s pocket and manages to release Kris. But then he begins to feel cold. So Kris, Susie, and Berdly, who was captured too despite the fact that he thought he was on better terms with Queen, quickly try to find Ralsei, who has the best healing abilities of the group. While they do this, Berdly gets embarrassed that he can’t solve any of the puzzles in their way and admits that he isn’t as smart as he claims to be. He says he wants to change his ways but…it’s Berdly. They get to Ralsei, who was made a butler because Queen didn’t make enough cages to imprison Ralsei, and Ralsei reveals that most monsters in the Dark World can only stay within a certain area. If they leave that area, they turn to stone. Luckily, if they get moved back into that area, even after they’re turned to stone, they’re revived. So they let Lancer turn to stone and move on in the hopes of reviving him later. Berdly and Susie go to rescue Noelle, who is still Queen’s main focus, while Ralsei and Kris decide to be a distraction. The thing that caught me off guard with Kris and Ralsei’s storyline, was that the player could decide that Kris and Ralsei might have romantic feelings for one another. Ralsei confesses that he’s grateful to have Kris in his life and Kris can instantly start flirting with him. Later in the game, Kris can even tell Susie that they would want to take Ralsei to the festival their town is preparing for. I don’t know if that will actually grow into a full relationship the player can choose to pursue, but it’s cute nonetheless. Meanwhile, Susie saves Noelle and Noelle decides that everything she’s experiencing is a dream. That doesn’t stop her from getting flustered and making Susie flustered in return, though. They succeed in their rescue mission and go to find Queen, but Queen gets Noelle back and takes control of Berdly, forcing him to fight the others. The others defeat her and Berdly gives them the resources for one final standoff against Queen. It involves a familiar duck.

After she’s defeated, a good chunk of our main characters start to question whether or not Queen’s idea of creating a different world with a dark fountain is possible. They even start to like the idea, themselves. At which point Ralsei actually explains what the presence of the dark fountains does. If they spread, they cast everything in darkness and completely destroy all of the people living in the Dark World, leaving only those from the light realm to fend for themselves. Everyone, including Queen, decides that sounds really bad and they all return to their realms. We see a few interesting things when we’re given full reign to explore again. Queen and Lancer have formed a friendship and it seems that Queen might be getting her own room in Ralsei’s castle. Undyne and Alphys have finally met and are already starting to have feelings for one another. Napstablook is an officer who works with Undyne. Metaton might come out of his house eventually. Sans STILL won’t let us see Papyrus (I’m really sad about it). Noelle’s father seems to be struggling more with his illness. And Susie gets to sleep over! Most of this is really happy news, which makes up for some of the really shocking ending scenes. Kris rips out their heart twice towards the end. First they do so while washing their hands in the bathroom, prompting them to jump out the window and slash their mother’s tires. Toriel sees this and calls Undyne to report the event, though Toriel doesn’t see that it’s Kris who did this. Then, in the middle of the night, Kris rips out their heart again and uses the knife to create a dark fountain in the light realm. That can’t be good.

I loved this chapter. I think my only big disappointment is the fact that Papyrus was clearly set up for an appearance in chapter two, but has now been pushed off until whenever Asriel appears. Still, I understand that his appearance wasn’t intended to be the main focus here. And the story is really good. Queen is a very likable character. She’s very intelligent, but also crazy in an amusing way. I’m glad it seems she’s more likely to join the ranks of the good guys than getting shoved in the prisons with some of the bad guys. I also loved her final battle. The mix between the regular bullet-style fighting and the fighting mini-game was addicting. The involvement of Noelle was another standout of this chapter. It still seems unclear why Queen was obsessed with Noelle in particular, but Noelle seems to possess a power we haven’t fully explored yet. That and her relationship with Susie makes me excited for her character going forward. And, as always, Ralsei stole the show for me. I understand all of the high-pitched screeching Ralsei got when he was dressed as a butler. Chapter three won’t come around for a while but I’m still excited for it! From this point on fans will have to pay for the chapters that are released, but who could possibly claim it isn’t worth the money? ‘DELTARUNE’ isn’t even finished and it’s already one of my favorite games.

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie