Undertale Fan

I have written up a longer review below, but for now I will just focus on these pieces before moving on to my impressions of the new chapter. It was almost too hard to choose which moments I wanted to re-envision in 3D, so I decided to pick these few for now with the current character models that I have made so far, based on the normal route (at the time of making these I haven't played the weird route for this chapter yet… But rest assured that dreams shall be crushed soon).

I used Eevee Next in Blender 5 this time just to see if I should finally move on from the old version lol (and also to go along with the number 5 of the chapter... I just thought that would be funny... using Blender 5 for Chapter 5... I'll let myself out). I usually work with Blender 3.6 since the old Eevee look has a unique, video-gamey charm that I really adore. I've already used the new Eevee before in my art but whenever I try to make something with it it just always feels a bit odd to work with for me. I often encounter myself thinking that the shadows look TOO accurate to the point it might look uncanny for the type of stylized work that I want to make without a bunch of workarounds, but I think it works really well in those moody, lighting-heavy shots like the first render here for example. And maybe it might just end up making things more cinematic too.

Now to go over each render and why I chose this particular moment. The new dark world in chapter 5 was simply beautiful, there were multiple times were the pixel art had me just pause and admire the game's scenery. The sunset areas in particular carried such an intense mood that I really wanted to try and recapture in three dimensions. I also wanted to call back to some common enemies from the game, so I threw in Kawkaw and Leafling. Kawkaw did remind me a little of a cute version of Ruby's big crow beast form, so I appreciated that cute little fella in particular haha!

The beginning scene with Toriel was both hilarious and also very telling of her flaws, I really enjoy how each character feels rounded out in that way. I loved the sprite of her all curled up like a ball on the couch, being a total mess with Kris making her honey toast and acting like a huge baby, so I tried to recapture that same energy of the sprite. And you bet Kris is not amused at all :'D

The third render... that sweet moment at the lake with Susie and Noelle had me kicking my legs so much. Susie finally taking the first step with Noelle, showing that she can be heartfelt and vulnerable too was so precious and cute, the music... the ambience... the way they interacted together, it warmed my heart. I have a few more thoughts on this, which you can read in the review way below lol. I still think I couldn't fully do it full justice here in my render but I tried my best, I re-rendered that imagine so many times with different lighting scenarios and also tweaked Noelle's hair to resemble her sprite in that moment. I tried to set-dress the whole lake environment based on old assets from animations like "Hometown Fall Studies", which worked quite well (even though it lagged pretty hard because of those trees, oop). I also reused the water shader from my render "Consumed By The Hat".

I played both variants of Chapter 5, one without Tenna and one with Tenna in castle town. The version with Tenna had me crack up so much when Susie tells him that Noelle has a flat screen at home, and for some reason I had to think of him doing that one Sonic adventure pose while he is saying it (which was pretty tricky to manage in 3D lol). I experimented with noise and chromatic aberration filters to make the render appear like you're looking at an old camera or a screen.

The render after this one featuring the fun gang being silly in Susie's room was another small moment that was both funny and endearing. I picked this moment too because I really enjoy those bits with the three of them just being friends and hanging out. I ended up modeling Susie's whole dark world room for this one and also her little plush which Kris and Ralsei are nuzzling. I accidentally modeled her old room instead the first time around, so I had to remodel it again with the updated furniture from the new chapter. And of course, the statue returns! :D maybe some of you still remember! I ended up changing the lighting a billion times with this one since the shadows just ended up looking too dramatic and realistic on older versions, so I am hoping it looks more flat and suitable for simple sillies now.

The moment with Ralsei and Kris relaxing in the onsen while talking about really serious things is the route that I first went with, but I actually ended up reloading that moment a bunch of times to see all possibilities. I was also considering making a render with Kris and Susie's route, but I decided to feature them in another render together instead (the last one). All of these conversations were super interesting and definitely revealed new aspects of each character. I wanted to focus on how much of a burden Ralsei is shouldering, carrying the knowledge of what is believed to be irrevocable doom, so I kinda tried to put that in a more or less humorous spin here. I also brought back the text box from older animations and tried to show Ralsei with fogged up glasses. I loved Ralsei's layered growth in the whole chapter as a whole and seeing the hat form return was such a great surprise too.

The final render was a moment that ruined me a little and tugged pretty strongly at my heartstrings. Kris walking Susie home, no matter what the player chooses, felt really precious and shows how strong and layered their friendship is. Susie showing vulnerability and trusting Kris with laying out her own fears, feeling that they are a safe person who she can rely on, then calling what they both have been building together with Ralsei in Castle Town her home definitely hit right in the feels. I love their bond after going through so many messy, rocky patches and I am really curious how Susie will react once she finds out about what is actually going on with Kris. I also really enjoyed Kris getting more explicitly emotive in the last few chapters by trying to resist the player more when they choose some bullshit they don't agree with. For this piece I reused some assets from older animations featuring the school and modeled the closet door (I can't believe I actually haven't modeled it yet lol). I also went and modeled the balloon, fiddling with the shader a billion times until the translucency was just right. The broken soul represents how strongly that final line at the end hit me in the feels lol. It was also nice to attempt a more emotional expression on Susie.

So yeah, that's as far as the renders go! Hope you enjoy these! If you wanna read my thoughts on the new chapter, feel free to check out another big wall of text below lol (or don't because you bet it's gonna be tAkiNg ToO LoNg!)

✨A Very Disjointed Review of Deltarune Chapter 5!✨

🌼World and NPCs🌼

I absolutely loved the ideas and aesthetics of the new dark world, with so many aspects of it seemingly heavily inspired by Japanese culture and Shinto, which I felt was really beautifully incorporated with its own spin to it. This was such a nice coincidence too since I have just finished playing chapter 1 in Japanese the other month. It felt really refreshing to see more cultures being represented in the game since its main setting seems to be mostly American-coded. I also really appreciated how some of the NPCs/enemies resembled Yokai, for example Aqua and the classic Kitsune and Kasa Obake darkner. The earlier bits of the flower shop world with the watering can were really cute too and reminded me a lot of the coziness from Stardew Valley, the world felt really comfortable for the most part, which was a nice contrast to how intense and serious Chapter 4 was. The music and ambience first resembling Chapter 1 before transitioning into those beautiful sunsets and deep forests really kicked in the adrenaline for me. As someone who understands an intermediate level of Japanese, some of the item names like "Shikacola" made me a laugh a lot. I am also fluent in German, so that tree cake NPC using the most unhinged butchered German was both hilarious and painful to read, but in a way that worked perfectly for Deltarune, similarly to how Top Chef says "mama miba". I am still a little salty that NPC didn't use "mein" instead of "my" for even more punch, but they did make up with way more cursed word-combos so I will let it slide. :'D I kind of want that NPC to meet Top Chef one day, I think they'd get along pretty well (either that or become rivals... or get married. One of which.). FREUDENJUMPEN!

🌼Music🌼

As always this chapter didn't disappoint in the musical department, Toby and the co-collaborators were sure to deliver many bangers that I've enjoyed listening to a lot. The music collabs were really awesome to see too, especially with absolute banger titles like Cutie Mew Mew Magic and Flower Man both by the insanely talented Camellia. The more ambient soundtracks for the flower shop world, especially during those sunset bits, really evoked a sense of freedom and awe.

🌼Story and Characters🌼

I loved that this chapter focused more on interpersonal relationships and individual growth, building on so many things that have slowly been established in the previous chapters.

One thing I really enjoyed was watching Ralsei exploring things like identity and getting more comfortable with showing boundaries and emotions. The rivalry with flowery was both hilarious and really interesting to watch (that's why I made that silly cat drawing the other day lol). Flowery often teased Ralsei, but also dropped a lot of really thought-provoking and interesting comments. I also thought it was really interesting how similar Rudy and Flowery were. It kind of felt like Flowery tried to give all the things Asgore did for him back by projecting Rudy onto himself for nostalgia comfort escapism.

Another aspect I appreciated was learning more about Asgore's motives and him eventually growing as a person. It really makes me hyped to find out more about what actually happened on that tragic day he mentioned.

There were many little interpersonal details in Hometown that were fun to follow along too, like the whole drama with Pizzapants and his fake girlfriend, Berdly maturing as a person, being a true friend to Noelle and respecting her boundaries as a wavedashing wingman, QC gossiping about Asgore and Sans just teleporting everywhere operating multiple stands. Also Susie avoiding Toriel now that she has seen her drunk and unhinged, possibly triggering some sort of trauma in her, potentially with whoever is her legal "caretaker", if there is one at all. Not to mention the falling out between Noelle and Catti because of the eye ball candy thing and Alphys working at the horror booth lol. It made the town feel alive and interesting. I still want to know what the heck is going on with Papyrus though. The moment with Rudy collapsing definitely made my heart sink, that man feels definitely pretty doomed to me just like how doomed he was in the Undertale universe. I am looking forward to more of that potentially tragic storyline in the next chapters.

And to mention the big elephant in the room, Susie growing closer to Noelle at the lake and taking the first step, then constantly pining for her in the Flower World just made me so immensely happy. That whole segment felt so precious and sweet, and it also highlighted a new side of Susie that I feel like many fans have misinterpreted about her character. It was such a nice twist to see that Susie is actually a hopeless roar-mantic (pun intended), that she is actually really cheesy and thoughtful when it comes to romance, like wanting to watch sunsets together and give Noelle flowers that she likes (without eating them). It made her feel more layered and I think also sends out a pretty thoughtful message about bringing out new sides of people if you treat them with compassion. The mess of feelings of jealousy when she told Kris that she thought them and Noelle were a thing, and the whole jumble of Susie coming clean about her crush on Noelle to Kris felt very high school chaos tm but in a way that felt real and grounded. I just think there is so much potential for an dynamic between them that could potentially send out good and interesting messages, like both coming from vastly different backgrounds but experiencing neglect at home in different ways and understanding that, with Noelle getting more comfortable with being assertive while Susie gets more comfortable being in touch with her softer side, and of course the knowledge of what the dark world could add, possibly serving as escapism of that. I don't usually like to focus on this but on both Tiktok and Youtube I would get a series of comments on my Noelle/Susie centric animations of people denying that Susie had a crush on Noelle and that it was 100% one-sided, so I was really happy to see that wasn't the case at all.

Seeing her get startled at the horror booth during the festival while horror-movie-nut Noelle and Kris were both unfazed was another detail I enjoyed. I mentioned this earlier already but her showing emotional vulnerability at the end of the chapter when Kris walked her home really punched me in the gut. I also appreciated Noelle talking back to her mom, which was a great parallel to how she would talk back to Queen in chapter 2 eventually, that she gets more comfortable with setting boundaries and saying no. I used to struggle a lot with this myself when I was younger so I related to that part a lot. Her telling Susie that she feels like she wants to run away from home felt pretty dark and I am really excited for her to show up more in the next chapter and especially in the Dark World (speaking about the normal route here... just to be clear 😂).

Overall, the parallels to Undertale in this chapter felt pretty poetic, with so many nods and references to it which were both bittersweet, heartwarming and sometimes dark (for example that buttercup pie in the shelf).

The characters who really took the cake here though were the flowers, each having their own individual personality and clearly written with a lot of love and care by Toby and the team. Aqua and Seth were really funny and chaotic, Blue and Yellow were so stupidly adorable and precious, Green is obviously the goat and Orange had so many fun interactions with the rest of the gang. Flowery felt like Toby tried to create the perfect Tumblr sexyman (which, funnily enough, Tenna won this year. Congrats to Tenna!) but I appreciated how, while being a huge troll, he was also really thought-provoking in many ways, with his own intentions to repay Asgore's kindness to the flowers. The beautifully animated intro animation by Studio Khara killed me, I genuinely thought I accidentally opened my browser instead of Deltarune or something.

The way how other living beings like plants being turned to darkners is handled was something I have been wondering about, and getting more information on that was a really neat bit of worldbuilding.

The last part of the game with saying farewell to the flowers actually made me pretty emotional too. The whole idea of a fleeting dream, a shortlived fantasy that the flowers wanted to have for just a moment felt really poetic and bittersweet, and worked so well with the whole theme of flowers only blooming for a short time. Asgore learning to move on and respect boundaries was another thing that really hooked me and made me appreciate him more, especially after being so persistent with Toriel.

🌼Gameplay🌼

The fact that this chapter had entire parts of switchable platforming segments felt extremely impressive to me! It really makes me wonder how these parts were coded and designed, it seems like a lot of work and planning. The idea felt really unique and creative to me, and since the game I finished before Deltarune was Silksong, it was such a pleasant surprise to get to play in this play style again. I had to get a bit used to the controls first but after that it felt quite smooth (although I do wish the platforming parts had more button remapping options than just 2). It's really awesome to see Deltarune get more experimental with the gameplay, which already impressed me a good deal starting with Chapter 3 with the pixel video game and the Tenna boards, and which also continued into Chapter 4 with the organ/piano segments and the parts where you have to walk through complete darkness. It really feels like each chapter is getting more and more ambitious with how far it can go and that makes each of them really fun and refreshing in my eyes.

The battles were pretty fun too. Pink was really hard (I played the version after she got nerfed once) but the music was so good I didn't mind reloading a bunch of times lol. It made me really happy we got to see her again in Deltarune though. I never played the switch fight with her since I played Undertale on PC so it was really cool to get to know her counterpart more here. The design of that battle felt dynamic and unique with the dating sim built into it. The Ace Attorney-like battle with Blue and Yellow was another battle I really liked design-wise with the evidence system. Flowery's battle was a nice reference to Asriel's battle in Undertale. Him always saying things like "glue" feels a lot darker now after finishing the ending (I know it probably means "clue" but I was also thinking about him getting patched up with "glue" after he got attacked by the Knight).