vercy ! 👾

okay so i played through almost all of the chapter instead of the endings because omg flowery's boss fight is genuinely tough as nails but my overall thoughts: another tricky toby banger!!! i liked it!!

i think if you go into chapter 5 thinking its a super heavy lore dump kind of chapter like 4 was, you will be disappointed. this is definitely another nice and calm chapter but it does come with it's challenges.

i think gameplay-wise: this is the most fun and challenging deltarune has ever felt. the new feather mechanic with the dead cells style movement was so fun... i love dead cells this game reminded me to play dead cells lowkey. please play dead cells its like 20 usd on steam

i also think that the regular bullet hell gameplay got really tough this time around. and i mean it! i'm not the best at bullet hell games in general, but man i thought aqua was gonna be the secret boss until i realized i NEEDED to beat her so i can progress the game.

speaking of aqua, the seven flowers is such a cool idea to revitalize the seven human souls. they all have such unique personalities, designs, and presentations in game and i loved all of them. i enjoy that they all got some form of spotlight throughout the chapter because with such a huge ensemble it can sometimes be hard to give equal focus to everyone. even with that said i kinda wish we had more time with all of them though, i understand why we had to speed through them because damn thats a whole six characters we gotta run through but i want to know more about them. i feel like a ton of people managed to get attached to other previous characters such as gerson, tenna, queen, spamton, and lancer was because there weren't so many characters to get used to in one chapter and toby & the writers could give them more time to flesh them out, which wasn't the chance here.

okay let's talk about flowery

to say that i GENUINELY did not expect for the deltarune equivalent of FLOWEY THE FLOWER to look like a 15 year old's design for a bill cipher gijinka is an understatement. i thought i was playing persona 5 when the cutscene hit my switch screen. he looks so fucking ugly and one dimensional and i kinda love it. in a way, that is peak character design and speaks to the themes of the chapter. he is so nothingburger and everyone hates him, i'm glad the ut/dr community is passed the basic-twink phase so we can all burn this thing alive <3

the fun gang is always as fun as ever, ralsei was a clear standout and i think this might be the best chapter he's been in? i'm so obsessed with this little guy and his relationship with flowery. ralsei could never come to hate anything and yet he hates this twink for being the thing he is trying to stop being since chapter 4. ralsei hating things is always so funny to me. he didn't hate susie throughout chapter 1, he didn't hate berdly, he didn't hate roulxs but the TWINK is what finally gets him to be really pissy (besides the knight obviously). i thought it was a really great subversion od expectations. i feel like this is ralsei's chapter akin to like how chapter 4 feels like susie's chapter in many ways.

also you fight mew mew kissy cutie and she has muffet mechanics. the last shadow crystal belongs to the ut/dr equivalent of hatsune miku. god i love you toby fox i hope you donate your brain to science

weird route is also cool!! a lot of the deltarune community has a massive focus on weird route but personally, i've always considered it as it was intended: a side b to the original deltarune story. i think its crazy how the final bit of weird route we're gonna see is in chapter 7 and we skip a whole chapter for any weird route content. but man weird route is thoroughly strange and creepy this chapter and they went all out on the creepypasta vibes.

i think my favorite part of the chapter is the overall message of the entire chapter. kris, susie, and ralsei are at a point in their journey where they can't exactly be messing around and having silly and fun adventures like they used to in earlier chapters and chapter 4 was a breaking point for everybody. the people they love in their lives are getting involved and this "roaring" thing seems to dawn on them closer and closer as time encroaches in on itself. flowery and the seven flowers are a representation of what would happen if kris and susie decided to settle down in the dark world, if ralsei never became so dedicated to preventing the roaring from ever happening and just did everything to make kris and susie happy. an echo chamber of yes-men will never get anyone to stop the knight or save the people they love or end the existence of everyone. and i think the fun gang's attitude towards this sentiment will be a heavy player in chapter 6 (which might be sooner than we think??? i checked the steam page toby)

overall, this was a good chapter! a lot of good fun until the eventual hard hitting chapters 6 & 7 that will follow. this chapter has the vibe of it not existing. like this doesn't feel real to me and its a dream (ironically because this chapter was the dream that inspired toby to make deltarune in general!). i can't wait for more and hopefully some day we get to see more of the seven flowers. i miss them <3

my chapter ranking:

chapter 4

chapter 2

chapter 3

chapter 5

chapter 1