How did you get here?

Often when you see Deltarune discussed on here, they're only talking about the characters. It's understandable, since they're good characters, but what about the gameplay? What's the GAME like?

Well, there's a bit of a trick there. The gameplay and the characters intertwine very frequently, to the point where they are often one and the same. Even from the very beginning, when you first save the game:

You steal Kris' save file from them. This is part of an ongoing battle between yourself and Kris that only escalates in future chapters, but this post will only focus on Chapter 1.

In terms of regular gameplay, it's mostly fairly easy bullet hells. Deltarune's first distinction from Undertale is having some of these in the overworld.

However, in the more standard battles, the main distinction is the addition of party members, whose personalities are reflected in the gameplay. Your first party member is Susie, who talks last and Axes questions sooner. As in Undertale, there are both violent and non-violent solutions to battles, but Susie is already choosing violence for you, so you have to stop her first if you want to stay pacifist.

Of course, each enemy has unique attack patterns that reflect their distinct roles and origins. Many of the characters are real-world objects given life, such as playing cards of each suit, so their attacks resemble those objects as well.

These attack patterns also reflect on other characters. Notice how the diamond bullets are both on their own with the diamond guy, and paired with a heart ring with the hearts girl? Well, what if someone brought only hearts?

This uses gameplay to show how Lancer is an idiot. The gameplay and the characters are intertwined.

Even the easy overworld puzzles are used for character purposes. This simple switch puzzle uses the way JRPG party members follow directly behind you, but it also is impossible with your incomplete party.

You need Susie, and Susie needs you. As much as she doesn't want to.

This doesn't mean she's cooperative, though. Susie's personality is even reflected in the equipment menu.

Ralsei will wear the White Ribbon, but Susie refuses, because she thinks it's juvenile. Even though it's the strongest equipment available at this point, you're not able to give it to her.

She'll take the weaker Amber Card armor, but even here, her personality continues to show. Once you give Susie armor, you can't take it back if you don't give her something else.

Naturally, a party member this uncooperative would have some kind of falling out with the group. She straight up leaves and becomes an enemy.

Once again, gameplay is being used to reflect on character. Susie is also an idiot and can't do this simple symbol matching puzzle, so she needs you to cover for her.

Then when she actually does solve one herself, she refuses to admit it, because she doesn't want to be seen as a nerd.

At this point in the chapter, Susie has gone through character development, but that's a CHARACTER kind of thing, and we're just here for the GAMEPLAY, so we're skipping over all of that lame crap like the unlosable Vs. Susie boss fight. It's just a glorified cutscene, nobody wants to talk about those. All that matters is this:

Oh and also this is when the JEVIL boss fight comes in with WAY HARDER BULLET PATTERNS than anyone else in the chapter and it's SO COOL

Oh, and whether you beat him with violence or pacifism determines which piece of OP equipment he gives you. I chose violence to give Susie the Devilsknife, because it shows yet another character interaction:

Susie refuses to re-equip her own starting weapon, because it's obviously worse than what you can give her later and she doesn't want it anymore.

Anyway here's what happens when Susie decides to act kind.

I mean, it's not her axe, right? This is better.

Anyway, this entire thing is a CALLOUT POST. I am calling out /u/Hexxas, user flair Head Trauma Enthusiast, on /r/CuratedTumblr. This entire post exists to get YOU SPECIFICALLY to SHUT UP about DELTARUNE. Every goddamn Deltarune post I see on there, you're ready in the comments to bitch about how nobody ever talks about the gameplay. Do you see now? Do you see how unnatural it is to focus only on this element when making a tumblr post? The people talk about the characters because it's BLORBO FROM THEIR SHOWS. That is the CORE of Tumblr. What the fuck is it with THIS SPECIFIC GAME that suddenly makes you so invested in ONLY hearing about the goddamn gameplay? ENOUGH!