Deacon

I'm just gonna post my entire word slopage here about some of my thoughts on Deltarune and No One Will Notice --- I do have some conflicting feelings towards Deltarune at the moment. I don't like the dialogue options you have with Ralsei that isn't just giving him immediate positive gratification is just comically cruel. I can see the point of it, and I think that point is not interesting enough for it to be the sole reason why it's like this. Also, i'd argue that we never really get to see the revelation when he realizes that sometimes "being good" isn't necessary at least not nearly to the same attention with Susie's developments. It's almost like it's something that the player will just have to assume happened without question and move on despite never actually happening. It didn't even matter much with how he felt about fighting, since he can be commanded to to fight with no resistance regardless of how he feels. It doesn't really have tangible impact in the same way you legitimately had no control over Susie untill her hasty development. This part of Ralsei's development felt completely hollow compared to Susie with the way Toby decided to present it as directly between character interactions and "how much he's grown" despite only being with them for two days. The game itself doesn't actually have friction that made Ralsei's "growth," as if has simply rubbed off Susie passively instead of any actual conflict and challenges directed towards Ralsei that made him internalized this change. This makes their comparison of "growth" fundamentally inequivalent and functionality doesn't add much of anything for Ralsei from this acknowledgement, even when compaired to Susie's basic progression. I'd argue that Ralsei in Chapter 1 was ironiclly much more well-rounded as a person than chapter two and onwards, not being afraid to butt-heads with Susie and other characters without hesitation about what he thinks should be the best way going with things, with sarcasm and sass to go along with it, yet when it counts, still realistically fall under his nature's of giving mercy that isn't soley due to personal motivation. And this, was enabled by the direct conflict present in Chapter 1 between Susie/Lancer and him. It also brings up the questionable dilemma of him apparently knowing what's going to happen in the prophecy, and his motive partly for being so strict with being good was from adherence to what he believed to best achieve it, while also simultaneously not just being aware of vague key points of the prophecy, but having knowledge over extremely specific and context specific states step by step, as well as knowledge over many other out-of-bounds concepts, systems, and mechanics he would not have if he was simply following a prophecy or even just knowing the "rules" of the world for how specifc some steps he knows should be taken. And it's even due to this introduced horrible prediction in Chapter 4 that will apparently happen later in the prophecy that was so heart wrenching to the point when he breaks down crying over Susie simply learning it makes his previous actions over focusing on following the prophecy make lesser sense when taking everything into consideration. The excuse is that "he knows too much and doesn't have it in him to disclose it" does not logically match his previous demeanor relating to the topic of even going through this entire journey with the deadset determination to Banish the Angel's Heaven to save the worlds back in Chapter 1. He was willing to be rigid and directive about following the prophecy's dictates, to the point of frustrating other characters, but was simultaneously so overwhelmed by its contents being known that he couldn't discuss them openly. This elevated knowledge level should also logically inform his decision-making in ways that manifest through his behavior and choices much more substantially and practically encompass him as a character and reflect it than more than "believing he has no purpose as a darkner" and frame his knowledge as something he's simply been cursed by the entire time. Some of that exists in traces, but it is not developed with the consistency or depth that his knowledge level demands. Instead, the emotional weight of his position gets condensed into a singular theme of purposelessness, which, while not irrelevant, is far too narrow a lens for a character whose relationship to information is this unusual. The narrative flip-flops back and forth in treating his prophecy adherence and general protrayal as a character if it operates from the same informational foundation other characters possess, and making the information he would actually have arbitrary, from being able to know a solution to a piano puzzle beforehand to mistakenly assuming Queen's agenda, conflating the stated purpose in the prophecy for why someone would create a Dark Fountain. This constantly happens through the game. Ralsei's knowledge is never given firm boundaries that the player can track, which means there is no stable framework against which to measure when he is operating as a normal companion and when he is operating from his elevated position. It's due to this that Ralsei as a whole can feel incoherent to really evaluate as a character due to the vagueness of it, and even what's there is not much, and standard forwhat it is. I wouldn't be surprised if these aspects of Ralsei wasn't established untill later chapters, since despite what Toby had stated, it's obvious he's writing and adding majority of the game as he goes. This just honestly goes into my main annoyance with just the way character's personalities are. I think Susie and Ralsei, alongside most other characters are just generic archetypes, and they can be boring and predicable because of it. It makes it harder to really appreciate these developments to the characters. This is mainly the reason why many people are more enamored by specifically the character interactions and the scenario they're in, and less about the pure characters themselves, even if that's not much more interesting. When a character's foundation is a recognizable archetype, their growth would need to move them somewhere genuinely surprising or nuanced to feel significant. Susie's arc moves her from hostile to caring, which is the single most predictable trajectory for her archetype that starts and ends at what is essentially the prelude of the game (which has stayed stagnant). The execution has moments of genuine warmth, but the destination was visible from the beginning and ended there. Ralsei's apparent development lacks even that basic mechanical reinforcement that would justify the framing it's shown in the game. When the archetypes are standard and the developments are either predictable or poorly substantiated, it becomes difficult to credit the characterization as a particular strength of the work, even if the moment-to-moment writing has an undeniable surface-level appeal. And that's more than apparent for what the game focuses on in the moment to moment overworld gameplay. Mainly gags and humor orchestrated by external characters and narration flavor text, with the main characters occasionally reacting and commenting to what is present according to their personalities in a formulaic fashion. The tone of these interactions outside the cutscenes generally have the same tone and structure. The comedy and charm come from the external material, and the main characters serve as a consistent but largely static lens through which the player receives it. That formula works well enough to sustain moment-to-moment engagement, and it is genuinely entertaining in many instances. But the structure can fundemetally be limiting for character-driven storytelling. The result is that the cutscenes bear the entire burden of making these characters feel dimensional, and it doesn't always succeed at that under scrutiny due to problems. While cutscenes are much more varied in tone, the serious ones that I'm going to focus on here, (since many of the cutscenes still maintain the same humor and tone as overworld interactions, with a moreso general focus of overall story progression) mainly struggle to really serve a lasting purpose partly due to a lack of real character resistance/conflict, and also because of the rigid structure that only Kris is able to interact in specific ways, and most of the cutscenes always have to revolve around them. Which leads into the game's lack of commitment on said conflict. The ultimate revelation with Ralsei in Chapter 4. After Susie finally asked a question and demanded him to be honest with her. After all of this time, he suddenly realizes and that he is sorry for doing it, and he will be more honest going forward. And that's it. Something that has been built for supposivly the past 4 chapters. Susie's anger in this scene is the single most direct confrontation Ralsei receives about his secrecy across the entire game to this point. It is genuine, it is warranted, and it lasts approximately four lines before it begins transitioning into sympathy. The shift from "What's wrong with you" to reassurance happens within a single unbroken conversation. There is no period where the tension is unresolved. There is no scene where Susie remains frustrated and Ralsei has to deal with the consequences of his choices over time. The conflict is raised, acknowledged, emotionally diffused, and closed with a promise of future honesty, all before the characters leave the room while Kris awkwardly watches in the left side of the screen, basically invisible for the entire conversation. The result is that nothing fundamentally changes in the group dynamic. Susie was upset, now she is supportive. Ralsei was secretive, now he has promised to be less so. Kris is not a factor in this conversation, as per usual. The emotional arc of the conversation is satisfying in isolation as a moment of vulnerability and connection between characters people are invested in, but it's thin for a resolution to a problem that spans multiple chapters and touches the foundational logic of a central character. This is basically how almost every serious cutscene functions in the story. The lack of real weight and consequences that comes from these interactions. (at least not to a substantial degree) The emotional vulnerability is introduced, it builds to a moment of genuine feeling, and then it resolves through warmth, humor, and mutual reassurance within the same interaction. There's scene leaves lasting tension, but none produces a change in dynamic that carries forward as unresolved friction. Every emotional beat is raised and settled before the characters move on (it doesn't help that these emotional beats and interactions are also aren't that unique to being with). What these scenes demonstrate is that Deltarune's serious character moments operate within an extremely narrow emotional range. Characters are able to be vulnerable, they can express longing or sadness or frustration, but the scene returns to a state of warmth and safety before it concludes. Susie's confrontation with Ralsei resolves into a state indistinguishable from how they functionally were before Chapter 4. Ralsei's duck ride conversation with Kris is gentle throughout and ends on quiet affirmation. Noelle and Susie's Ferris Wheel sequence builds toward something genuinely tender and then trails off at precisely the point where it might require either character to sit with something uncomfortable. The Ralsei conversation about the festival and the Light World touches on his existential situation but presents it inside his characteristic selflessness without ever forcing him or you to confront what that situation actually costs him in a way that resists easy consolation. The result is that these scenes feel pleasant and emotionally warm in the moment, but they do not accumulate. Each one resets to equilibrium. The characters are not measurably different after these conversations than they were before them, because nothing in the exchange was allowed to remain difficult long enough to require genuine adaptation, even literally and blatantly like Susie convincing Noelle that their entire interaction is just a dream. Obviously information, thoughts, and feelings do persist pass conversation, but the emotional weight does not persist in a way that materially changes how characters relate to one another or how scenes function. These scenes also illustrate concretely how the Kris-centric structure constrains character development. In nearly every interaction, the other character is performing vulnerability directed at Kris while Kris responds through limited dialogue selections that are either affirming or deflecting. The other character does most of the emotional work, and Kris's responses function more as prompts to continue than as contributions that shape the conversation's direction in meaningful ways. This means the scenes are essentially monologues of feeling delivered to a largely passive recipient, which limits how complex or confrontational the interactions can become. Look, I understand the aspects of what Kris can bring into the equation, but there are genuine limitations that can negatively impact the general narrative structure of this game with how it's framed that Undertale could more easily get away with more naturally. But despite how much the game frames it to being, Kris is functionally not a character in the same way any other person in this game is. The game invests enormous effort into framing Kris as a character. They have a history, relationships, a family, established personality traits that other characters reference, and an increasingly emphasized inner life that exists independent of and sometimes in opposition to the player's control. Narratively, Kris is treated as perhaps the most important character in the story. But functionally, in terms of how the game actually operates moment to moment, Kris is a vessel through which other characters express themselves. They do not initiate conflict. They do not challenge other characters unprompted. They do not introduce friction into conversations. Their dialogue options, as the scenes I've mentioned, are largely binary choices, neither of which substantially alters the trajectory of any given interaction beyond it. If the central character through whom every significant interaction must pass cannot meaningfully push back, disagree, or introduce complications into a conversation, then the ceiling for how complex any character interaction can become is severely limited regardless of how well the surrounding cast is written when Kris is present, due to Eeerything has to be sounded out to describe Kris' actions, expression, and demeanor just for you, the player, to understand what's actually happening. What none of these scenes contain is genuine sustained disagreement, a moment where characters want incompatible things and the narrative allows that incompatibility to persist beyond a single exchange. No one says something that damages a relationship in a way that takes time to repair. No one makes a choice that another character fundamentally cannot accept. The closest the game comes is Susie's brief anger at Ralsei, and that dissolves within the same conversation. Without that kind of durable friction, the characters exist in a state of perpetual mutual support that is appealing on a surface level but prevents the relationships from developing the kind of complexity that would make the audience invest in them as something more than pleasant interactions between recognizable archetypes. This is the spice I've been talking about. This is what I feel is generally missing in Deltarune. While the initial fight with the King, his betrayal, and Susie's retaliation right after Kris protected her while referring to Kris as her friend is pretty good and emotionally resonate. That's the most the game is really ever going to give, and this is the only kind it has to show. The King being regressed into actually being not that agonistic, locked up like a hamster, and treated as a joke. Everything that Queen has done was built ontop of a missunderstanding that abruptly ended the conflict and was never actually malicious to begin with. Tenna and Spamton follow variations of the same arc where opposition is introduced and then neutralized through compromise or recontextualization rather than through confrontation that produces lasting consequences for anyone involved. The Roaring Knight, while could be interesting, functionally more of a physical wall than since it doesn't even speak, and we know nothing about it and too abstract to have any conflict at the current moment. It really feels like, overall, Toby is just scared on writing consequences and conflict. ... Or moreso obsession de-escalation and sanitization. The weird route could possibly be interesting and sort of address this one aspect that won't be de-escalated and affects character interactions to a major degree. Unlike many of the points I've listed here being hinged on foundational patterns that aren't hinged on the amount of game there is, this could bring a heavily different outcome depending on how it's tackled and progressed. But the reason why I say sorta is that large portions of the game remains unchanged so far even within the weird route since it's the points when Noelle is obviously not present. Also, just because any of what I said is intentional does not mean I suddenly have to think it's good now. Also this critique isn't even going into detail about internal inconsistencies of the game Like how does the Soul getting hurt directly affect multiple other party members when it's just Kris' soul? Why does it have to be this way? Why does the Soul suddenly transform into yellow soul mode for the Spamton fight? Why does other party members need Kris' Soul to battle when the owner is not present? How does the Soul getting hit, therefore hurting targeted party members relate to cutscenes when we see the party members individually get hurt by attacks? How about that entire Noelle scene in the weird route, when the Soul literally uses the dialogue box prompt to teleport into the room after picking an option? The wind blowing and the colors shifting in a contained room? How do you even begin to logically evaluate what this entire thing was if you actually think about it for more than 5 seconds? But eh that's too long and could probably be outdated possibly so I'll just leave it for now.

Question of the day