Started playing through Chapter 5! I’ll post my thoughts under the cut as I go along. Spoilers ahoy!
Such a foreboding opening…
At least Toriel recognized Kris’s feelings to an extent. They have a right to be upset with her.
Asgore is hoping to get his old job back? Hmm…
Back to Castle Town!
It’s getting crowded, wow.
I still love the Mike Trio. I want a whole Mike Trio-themed game, Tobyyyyy
Seam is getting more suspicious as this goes on, especially with each Shadow Crystal I give him…
QUEEN, hilarious as always. The printing scene had me on the floor.
I gave Tenna to Mettaton in Ch. 4, so now his room is a basketball court??? Lol
Love to see Ralsei’s room looking more filled out. Good for him.
The Trashy Trio fight was surprisingly difficult?!?! It took me four tries?!?!?! Worth it for the Mike Trio cameo, though.
The Festival!
Noelle joins the party!
Good to see the letter reached Father Alvin and that he doesn’t doubt the sincerity of it. Lovely scene.
Poor Catti…
RIP ONIONSAN??? Damn…
Sans has like three different jobs in this Festival, lol.
Looks like Tenna’s doing well (I think).
Voted for King Susie and Queen Noelle.
Got secondhand embarrassment from the Burgerpants scene. Geez…
GAH, the Suselle lake scene. 😭 So adorable! The spritework is gorgeous, too.
Rudy, oh no. 😟
On a personal note, Rudy’s situation reminds me of how my own dad’s was. Near the end, as Dad’s health deteriorated, he had a lot of falls and frequent hospital visits. Eventually he was bedridden. It was hard watching him go from being active and doing what he loved to do (yardwork, woodworking, visiting flea markets) to being stuck in bed. It hurt. So I really empathize with Noelle here. Having a parent facing a chronic illness is a painful situation filled with so much uncertainty.
KRIS NO-
Dark World time…
ANIME CUTSCENE???
HIS NAME IS FLOWERY?!?!?!
The voice clips are hilarious, I’m sorry. I’m keeping them for now, Ralsei.
Ralsei and Flowery have some kind of beef going on. Hmm…
I’m glad to see Ralsei being more open about his feelings, even negative ones. It’s definitely a good carry-over from the events of Ch. 4. Seeing him be jealous/annoyed over something is kinda refreshing and humanizes him a lot.
So Flowery has a crush on Asgore, right?
LOTS of Ch. 1 call-backs. The music, Ralsei’s sprites, the puzzles…
A watering can mechanic? Don’t worry, I’ve played “A Year at Pooh Corner” for the Sega Pico, I’ve got this-
The green chef seems nice.
WOODY?!?!
Starting to feel very Hollow Knight-y. I love HK, though, so no complaints!
Flowery, I’m not trusting you…
The cyan flower kid’s battle was surprisingly difficult. Not so much from the bullet hell attacks, but from the Omega Flowey callback attack which deals a lot of damage if you get hit. I was never good at evading that attack when I played Undertale, so I barely survived it here, lol. Also, the battle music is amazing. Think it’s stuck in my head now.
THE FEATHER MECHANIC, OMG
We platforming now!
It’s Hollow Knight all over again…
Cliffs are challenging. I’m in survival mode now…
I think this is the first time in any Deltarune chapter that I’m not even focused on exploring; I’m just trying to make it to the next save point.
Seth x Berdly??!?
Kinda wish there were more keyboard customization options for the feather mechanic. I usually use my space bar for jumping and X for attacking in other games, but I’m stuck with using X and Z. Oh well…
Liking the Castle farrrr more than the Cliffs. Gorgeous location with some fun puzzles.
Orange and Green are my fav flowers so far!
I ran FOR MY LIFE for that one pink coin. (Darn fox.)
Ralsei, you okay?
Okay, met Yellow!
Poor Yellow…I feel kinda bad deceiving him.
Those two beetle-like darkners in the quicksand, oh noooo
Pogoing off the flowers? It’s okay, I survived Hollow Knight’s Path of Pain. I got this.
Blue is awesome.
The trial-themed battle was a lot of fun.
I think Ralsei needs to be careful about putting too much faith into Kris, considering we don’t know whether Kris’s intentions with creating the Dark Fountains are malicious or not.
Got 17 pink coins so far…
Got to say, Flowery brings up a good point. What makes Flowery’s Dark World any less meaningful of a Dark World than Castle Town?
Ralsei arguing that Flowery needs to follow his purpose, yet Ralsei’s the one who’s beginning to slowly deviate from the original rules he set for himself (that he didn’t matter, and his only purpose was to serve Lightners and his role in the Prophecy, etc.). Hmm…
Green is the GOAT. Definitely my favorite of the flowers.
Oh no, I think I found the secret boss, oh God-
There they are: Mew Mew, AKA Pink…
I’M PURPLE NOW?!?!?!?!
Oh no, it’s Muffet all over again-
Update: haven’t beaten her yet, but I’ve made it up to the third phase. Pretty fun battle so far! Really catchy music, too.
3 HOURS. IT TOOK ME 3 HOURS TO BEAT PINK. But it’s absolutely worth it.
I had the hardest time choosing only 3 items. In the end, I settled for SethSpecs, GreenApron, and YellowHat.
Side note: NetskieHat has been a really good item in this chapter. Really versatile.
Okay, final boss ahoy…
I feel legitimately bad for Flowery now, wtf…
Fun battle, but Seth’s part of the battle killed me so many times, lol.
I’m getting emotional saying goodbye to these flowers… 😭
WAIT WHAT-
I’M FLOWERY NOW?!?!?!
FLOWERY VS. KNIGHT???
SO COOL!!
Wait-
FLOWERY NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I’m crying now, oh my God…
I feel like I need to hug the rose bushes in my backyard now, wtf…
Seeds…and a shelter code…
I don’t like how ominously this scene is playing out…
Undertale’s release date…
So, Susie considers Castle Town her new home? That’s…kinda concerning, actually. How bad is her homelife that she feels she needs to live in the Dark World? And that also kinda lends itself to the idea that Susie’s falling into escapism, which may not be a good thing.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve gotten the impression, based off this chapter, that Kris may have a crush on Susie? If that’s the case, I can’t even begin to IMAGINE what Kris was thinking when Susie suggested they let Noelle in on the group. The inner turmoil…
On top of that, Kris seemed to have tried to rip the paper with the code, but failed. Now Susie has it. So, whatever plan Kris has got going on has been met with some kind of a setback…
Cute final montage in the town…
And, that’s a wrap!
Chapter 5 is done! Wow... Short review under the cut:
Quick review: Incredible chapter. The highlight from Chapter 5 for me was the gameplay: LOVED the platforming mechanics. Loved that the battles leveled up as far as how challenging they were. Loved how fun the secret boss was. As far as gameplay mechanics go, this is probably my favorite of the five chapters so far.
Regarding the story: something I noticed back when I played Chapters 3 and 4 was how the writing (both narrative and character) started out good/okay, and strengthened as the chapters progressed, with both chapters' stories culminating in very well-written, emotional high or low notes by their ends. Chapter 5 follows the same pattern; I got more and more invested the further along I progressed, and by the end of the chapter, I was tearing up. Loved the flowers a whole lot (Green is my fav!). Flowery is a really intriguing character with a lot of depth. Super funny, too. "Jarona!" "Here I come San Francisco!" and "Hey guys! I think I found a c/glue!" will be stuck in my head for the foreseeable future. Loved to see Ralsei becoming more comfortable with expressing a wider range of feelings, even negative ones like jealousy. It humanizes him/her/they. Kris just gets more mysterious as Deltarune goes on... And I'm happy for Susie and Noelle getting closer romantically, though I can't help but feel bad for Kris. I do worry about Susie falling into a dependence on escapism, though. I hope that won't come back to hurt her (or Noelle)... Interesting to see Asgore written here somewhat similarly to how he was in Undertale: a character compelled by circumstance to follow a somewhat self-destructive path, in the hopes that he can rectify a wrong. It was good there, and it was good here.
I do have some minor criticisms that didn't detract from how much I enjoyed the chapter, but are worth noting.
The Festival did feel like it dragged on a bit longer than it needed to. Sure, there's plenty of funny dialogue and fun sprite work, but it did feel monotonous after a while. I think I would have liked to see more of a variety of activities to see and do. Maybe a few more minigames and cutscenes...
The Garden portion of the Dark World felt kinda empty? There was a lot of replayability in the later portions of the game, but the Garden just didn't feel as interesting.
Loved the flowers, but I would have liked to see more scenes with them and Asgore, just to really sell the relationship they had with him. Honestly, I would have loved to see more of them in general. They get introduced in the middle of the chapter and really only get to shine as the chapter comes to a close, which made me feel kinda disappointed that we didn't get to see more of their characters and camaraderie with one another earlier on.
Overall, the music in this chapter was good, but it's probably the weakest soundtrack of all five chapters so far. Aside from maybe a handful of tracks, nothing really stood out to me here.
Final score for me: 8.5/10
My Deltarune Chapter Rankings:
Chapter 2 (9.2/10) (Tie with Ch. 4, but I give the edge to Ch. 2 because QUEEN and Spamton are in it.)
Chapter 4 (9.2/10)
Chapter 3 (9.0/10)
Chapter 5 (8.5/10)
Chapter 1 (8.0/10)
