Festival Day – Deltarune Chapter 5 Review

After a much shorter waiting period than I thought, Deltarune Chapter 5 came out, and I wanna share my thoughts about it, but I should probably clarify some things first.

I used to be a bit more serious about it when the game (or at least Chapter 1) first came out, but I am pretty much a simpleton when it comes to Deltarune now, a normie, if you will. I am not playing through the weird route, and I don't actively hunt for every single easter egg there is. I do like exploring, so I sometimes come across secrets, but I don't go out of my way to look behind every nook and cranny for a possible easter egg.

Also, I am writing this pretty much as soon as I've completed it. I have not looked up any of the secrets, easter eggs, or stuff about the weird route, so if I did not see something for myself I won't mention it here. I am really taking advantage of that for this post, as I'll be able to get my wholly unfettered thoughts on it.

Anyways, onto the actual review. It won't contain any big direct story spoilers, but I will be mentioning stuff that happens and showing screenshots containing locations and characters, so take that into account when reading if that matters to you.

Deltarune Chapter 5 took me about 8 hours to beat, so it's definitely on the lengthier side of the chapters, but I do think that all of it was well-spent! It's definitely my favourite chapter of the game since Chapter 2, and honestly I might even prefer it to Chapter 2, though I haven't fully settled my opinion on that yet.

To quote Yahtzee, I will say that Chapter 5 definitely feels like one of the middle children of Deltarune, as it set up and wraps up very little. We do get some big developments with Noelle and Susie's storyline at the start, but then something happens that halts it and it isn't developed, alluded to, or even mentioned at all for the rest of the chapter, even in the ending.

The actual main bit of the chapter revolves around Asgore, whose flower shop ends up being the Dark World of this chapter. Just like with Noelle and Susie, we do get some very big developments into Asgore's storyline, but it doesn't clarify everything yet, and it probably won't be truly resolved until the finale.

As expected, the main characters from this Dark World are based on the seven flowers he takes care of in the shop, which we all knew since Chapter 1 would parallel Flowey and the (Neutral) boss fight from Undertale, Toby's previous game. These parallels were almost too much for me, with the specific characteristics and weapons each character had, and — most outrageously — them calling their largest attacks "Omega". To be fair, it might've been unsatisfying to not have these referenced at all, so even though I think it would've been more effective if it were subtler, I at least prefer them being cheeky to them not being there at all.

All that being said, while it might not be the best story-wise, it is definitely my favourite chapter so far when it comes to location and especially gameplay.

Since the chapter takes place in the Dark World version of the flower shop, it has a general theme of flowers and gardening. The start takes place in these gardens of pink grass, which are quite fun, albeit very similar to Chapter 1's starting area (though it's 100% on purpose), but there are some sections where it's darker (as seen in the second image of this post), which I find absolutely beautiful. There's something about the dark grass, the plants and other things outside the paths, and especially the ambient sounds and music that really works for me put together.

The cliffside section is amazing as well, and contains probably my favourite bit of imagery of the chapter (and the game as a whole so far), the cliff shop, though I think that's just a byproduct of it taking place during the sunset.

Later on, the second half of the game takes place in a castle, which actually has two different looks to it! The main section is like any standard video game "Japanese" red castle, but I actually prefer the other section of it, which is mostly green and pink, and actually resembles a zen garden, with there being surfaces of patterned sand throughout it. There's also a lot of hot springs around the entire area, and lots of windows to see the beautiful sunset.

The most important thing about any game, though, is the gameplay, and this chapter definitely contains my favourite mechanic of the game so far, which is that you can change the perspective of the game, and move like a standard 2D platformer!

These sections are probably my favourite bits of gameplay of all five chapters so far, as you move much faster, and are able to find a lot of secrets using it, such as the pink bells which reveal the secret boss (or at least who I think is the secret boss?). You can also use special moves from Ralsei and Susie which allow you to use Ralsei as a platform, and attack things at a further distance. There's still some form of combat in these sections, unlike standard fight encounters there's "bullet patterns" around the map that you can avoid, and in some cases defeat. There's a simplicity to these bits of the game compared to the rest that I really appreciate, as I am a massive fan of platformers, and they're fully focused on the platforming and generally very fun traversal.

As for the standard fights, a few had some annoying bits to figure out, and I found the mechanics of the new orange heart used in the final fight to be a bit janky, but they were quite fun after getting used to them and finding the optimal strategies! Also, they finally reused Undertale's purple hearts for the secret boss, which is quite fun, but very hard, of course.

And that's it for what I thought about the chapter!

Frankly, this was slightly harder to write than I thought. Deltarune is definitely a game that benefits from a lot of external factors, like not being spoiled, being vaguely familiar with Undertale, and being fine with theorizing about things that will eventually be revealed, or might never be.

Every person will take different things from the game as a whole, and each chapter specifically. Some people — I suspect most — are into these games for the story and theorizing, but for me the gameplay is the most important part of any game, and this chapter excels at that.

Despite definitely being "a middle child" in terms of story, the gameplay, plus the amazing set pieces and cheeky characters, make this one of the best chapters of the game for me, and one of the most fun things I've played this year so far.

Hopefully Chapters 6 and 7 are worth the wait as well!