r/Deltacriticism

Susie's character was originally built on the idea that she had been socially forced into the role of 'bully' due to her rough exterior, which caused her to recede into herself and embrace that title. In Chapter 1, this made a lot of sense, considering she carried a genuinely dangerous aura even after hre development at the end of the chapter. But ever since she shed that exterior and became more personable, she is so overwhelmingly liked by the rest of the cast that it makes you question why she was ever othered in the first place, and it removes almost every element of conflict to her character.

Every Chapter after 1 has been a rogues gallery of goobers falling absolutely head over heels for Susie. I can excuse Ralsei for liking Susie, considering liking the Lightners is pretty much his whole deal. And Noelle can maybe get a pass her character is rich enough where "why does Noelle like Susie?" is an interesting question to ask with an answer you can conclude. Whereas in most other instances, the answer is "because Susie is just too awesome and cool and Hope and stuff". Pretend I also said something about Lancer in this section.

And sure, these are Susie's friends. It would be weird if her friends didn't like her. The much more damaging thing is all of the villains liking her just as much. Berdly, the closest thing Susie has to a rival, pretty much immediately starts pining after her once she gives him 'character development'. Queen doesn't have much of a distaste for Susie, which is really, really weird when Queen's whole thing was kidnapping Noelle, the girl Susie is supposed to be homoerotically rescuing. Of course the reveal is that Queen is actually chill asf, which is its own thing but leaves Susie without a real conflict in Chapter 2. Tenna's big character turnaround comes when Susie gives him a big emotional speach which is so good that Tenna does a completely 180 and begins worshipping the ground Susie walks on. In Chapter 5, Flowery has beef with all of the Fun Gang *except* Susie, who he can't get enough of. And none of the other flowers have a single bad word to say about her. In all three Chapters, Susie is robbed of emotional conflict with the main antagonists and is left feeling flat, all for the sake of making Susie look good-natured and emotionally intelligent. But if Susie is so incredibly likeable, why did she have problems with people before? Why did people always assume she was trouble if she's so damn nice? You could say its because of the growth she's undergone in-game, but A: the game takes place over a few days. And B: that growth was simply the removal of the mask she had put up. Hypothetically, she should be revealing the "true self" hiding underneath her facade, and that true self is functionally a saint.

The only remaining forces who don't want to kiss the ground Susie walks on are Carol (who does not have a single positive character trait so far), and the Knight (who is not a character yet). These two are for all intents and purposes strawmen there to make Susie look better and cooler. So now every single facet of the game, both positive and negative, exist to reinforce how much you the player should like and admire Susie, to the point where its beginning to come across as desperate, and sanitizes Susie of every single rough edge she ever had.

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Let's talking about the Chapter 5 Dark World.

Obviously, it made sense that the Dark World would be in Asgore's store.

But this part of the chapter has too many problems.

Why is the Dark World so...feudal Japan?

At no point in the game is it shown or stated that Asgore was a fan of Japan.

On the contrary, Asgore says he likes superhero comics and that he used to watch a cowboy show with Kris, but the show was cancelled.

So WHY NOT have included one or more superhero Darkners or a flowers and superhero themed Dark World? It would have made more sense than... Japan.

Weirdly enough, spending a bit of time combing through the sub, it feels like a good amount of this sub's posts are always hit with a wave of dismissal. This isn't just like one or two posts, this seems to be common with a significant amount of posts here.

I feel like some people in here lack the self-awareness to realise they're the ones being talked about in the rules and sub description.

A criticism, no matter how educated or perhaps silly to an outsider or to someone other than the OP, is still a criticism. Unless they are straight up just wrong (No, it not lining up with your headcanon or personal experience doesn't make it wrong inherently) provably, I feel like the negativity is unwarranted.

Or maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places here, idk. This fandom makes me wanna bash my head into a desk sometimes.

Toby=no traduzco el español latino porque no me se el español y si no me se español, entonces no puedo confiar le a nadie que respete 100%mi vision

Latam(como nos sentimos)=Flojo fox, hay más de mil personas que SI respetan tu visión y SABEN Inglés, de seguro eres un xenofobo o racista y también un egocéntrico OTAKU

Toby si escuchara semejantes facto=¡¡¡¡¡¡AVISO IMPORTANTE:ME FUBARON BIEN FUERTE, POR LO TANTO, LES PIDO DE FAVOR QUE RESPETEN MI VISIÓN Y ENTIENDAN COMO MANEJO EL DESARROLLO DE MI VIDEOJUEGO, SI NO LO RESPETAN Y VEO QUE USTEDES, FANÁTICOS/FANDOM SE VUELVEN CADA VEZ MÁS TÓXICOS, ME VERÉ EN LA OBLIGACIÓN DE HACER UN FINAL TAN MALO QUE HASTA CONSIDERARÁN DESCANONIZAR AL CAPITULO 7!!!!!

Latam(en dicho hipotética caso)=exagerado, mayormente lo decíamos por meme y tbien te criticamos con fundamentos Sólidos, no exageres y deja atrás tu ego, perro molestoso

Half of this SubReddit is either a combination of entitlement and subjective preferences masquerading as criticism, or it’s just straight up logically wrong and misses the point entirely; while in the other half, you have genuinely good criticism that needs to be talked about more… How did this even happen? I mean I am a fan of Deltarune but I have also held the view for a while now, that the game is like an 8.5/10 at best and not some kind of masterpiece (like many fans seem to think); yet somehow there are some on this sub who effectively make me look like Tony’s strongest soldier, just in comparison to them and their views.

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Since chapter 1, the festival has been hyped and has excellent foreshadowing, especially since it is also mentioned in chapters 2 and 4 (I don't remember if it's mentioned in chapter 3, though.) But what we got was very short, even uninteresting.

Speaking of the festival, I must talk about the romantic relationship between Susie and Noelle.

The romantic relationship between Susie and Noelle (or Suselle) is EXTREMELY forced.

In chapter 1, Noelle doesn't really seem to have romantic feelings for Susie, and Susie hardly ever mentions Noelle in that chapter.

But it was retconned in chapter 2 and that's where it starts to become a problem.

Note: I only played the Snowgrave route to get past the puzzle section of Queen's Castle, so expect me to barely mention any elements of the normal route.

The only interaction Susie and Noelle have in Chapter 2 is ONE interaction where Noelle asks Susie if she has a tail (which is EXTREMELY strange as a way to approach a girl/boy). Shocked by Noelle's very indiscreet remarks, Susie tells her she doesn't have a tail. Noelle immediately gathers her things and leaves the computer room.

What was that stupid interaction? Since when do you ask your crush if they have a tail??? I'm sorry, that literally makes no sense from a flirting point of view. ( Unless it's supposed to be a joke and I didn't get it.)

In chapter 3 they have no interaction (which makes sense since Noelle wasn't at Kris's house when he created the Dark Fountain).

From chapter 4 onwards, that's where it becomes more or less interesting to discuss.

For context, Noelle invites Kris and Susie to study at her house.

There are Suselle moments, for example, when they're two points away from discovering the player's soul.

Knowing that they've only been talking for like one or two days at that point in the game (it's too short a time for a amourous relation)

Especially since there's a moment when they're about to hug (EVEN THOUGH THEY'VE ONLY BEEN TALKING FOR 1 OR 2 DAYS)

It is canonically known that Deltarune takes place over one week. This makes the relationship even more inconsistent.

TAKING ABOUT CHAPTER 5 ( i will kinda ignore the Suselle ship since i accidentally hold the C button)

Like I said at the beginning regarding the festival, we were expecting something amazing, but the game really hyped us up on it... so that we have two or three obligatory interactions and of course the famous Suselle moment which makes no sense.

In chapter 5, Susie and Noelle declare their love for each other, but the problem is that it happens way too fast and it's way too forced.

In conclusion, I find that Suselle is a ship that doesn't take its time, and the romantic relationship between Susie and Noelle doesn't seem natural and is very forced (You don't just get into a relationship in two or three days)

The problem with subversive accessible media is that eventually (SOME) of your fans are going to be people who have no fondness for the genre you were trying to innovate on to begin with

The number of undertale fans who legit not only have not played but refuse to play any other rpg that isn't Pokemon/Mario/Persona/Earthbound AND have the courage to shut down any gameplay criticism is not only at this point absurd but also bad for Deltarune as a game

Thematic cleverness isn't mechanical depth! Shallow rpg battles have IMMENSE meaning to the deltarune story, but this is not a black and white thing. At a certain point you are getting a worse deal by having worse gameplay for the sake of something that just reiterates the narrative.

Not liking the genre is OK! But you don't have to act like Undertale is how all RPGs should be designed!!!

https://preview.redd.it/xkadoslqu4kh1.png?width=561&format=png&auto=webp&s=7e8a32e1db4a44d14f8de353addbf0121e8321d5

Basically, the title. I left r/Deltarune and adjacent subreddits because of what I felt was toxic positivity, where everyone would downvote you into oblivion if you had any constructive criticisim of Deltarune (the abandoned mechanics, pacing issues, the fact that it's episodic when it wasn't written to be which makes the wait for the payoff of the copiuous setup feel like filler, the complete ignorance for Chapter 4 that seems to plague Susie...) or Toby Fox (may it be his senseless refusal to allow official translations (Ive got an entire post on this issue on my account so Im not arguing here, if you want to debate do it there), the obvious product placement with the Ralsei plush that can break immersion (was it really necessary to highlight the 32 dollars it costs TWICE in the game, in the quiz and the bromide?), etc).

But I don't think having an entire subreddit for this type of criticism is good. If I have these thoughts about Deltarune is because I have enough love for this game to think about it endlessly. I feel that having a space dedicated entirely to it can lead to toxicity and circlejerky behaviour that makes the people involved with it forget why they care about the media in the first place, and perhaps even the feeling of superiority over fans that don't share those criticisms.

TLDR: I think we need a space in which we can criticize Deltarune and also show our love for it without one part over the other, not specific subreddits for haters and glazers respectively. But in the meantime, please don't let this turn into a hate sub.

one of the biggest complaints I've heard about undertale is that the encounters are random and do not have any warning. deltarune fixed this, and with it brought the ability to dodge an enemy. these two games are bullet hells, so the gameplay revolves around dodging things. does toby want us to follow this and avoid encounters?

well evidently, yes. most non-mandatory encounters present dodging as favorable. for example, in chapter 2, there's a section where swatches patrol a path with pottery, and there are crevices for you to hide in periodically. a similar section in chapter 4 has guei instead of swatches. avoiding these fights feel like a minigame. more on-the-nose still is the cheese maze in chapter 2:

https://preview.redd.it/0c9pprx305kh1.png?width=436&format=png&auto=webp&s=79a6492a3a34d47bb1f19f9ffeb255a5017034d3

In all these examples, hiding from the encounter is presented as a challenge. engaging in the fight causes disappointment, and avoiding it causes a sense of achievement and skill. even in less obvious examples, many people still treat encounters like overworld bullet patterns. also, many people do not want to engage in minor fights because they might seem repetitive.

so if toby clearly intends you to dodge in many of these situations, what do you get when you follow him? secret dialogue? an item?

https://preview.redd.it/matu66io35kh1.png?width=286&format=png&auto=webp&s=5804d1b8189378793b6751e15de73c64e339b9b3

WAIT. dodging too much gets a sympathetic character killed, and potentially locks you out of the good ending of the game??? the world can end because i didn't fight a ribbick back in chapter 1?

i'm aware that simply avoiding a fight does not make it impossible for you to get recruits, but it in any way toby intended you to certainly makes it infinitely harder and require a lot of backtracking.

TLDR: You are encouraged to dodge enemies in the overworld but then punished for not fighting and recruiting them.

I didn't really mind it being vague honestly. I already expected that everything would only be revealed to us all at once in Chapter 7

But I thought it was a very redundant chapter. All this "calm before the storm" and "last fun adventure" stuff is something Chapter 3 already seemed to be, narrative role of Chapter 5 is very similar to Chapter 3's, and even some narrative elements are similar like the Knight appearing at the end and injuring the chapter's antagonist, and even having a kidnapping at the end. I didn't necessarily think the chapter was bad, but I wish it had been a little more different

I'm not saying all posts on here suck, some of them are valid criticisms, But there's such a high amount of general hate on stupid topics. I've seen someone say that Susie and Noelle's relationship doesn't make any sense, and they don't work together at all, but then go on to say they not only skipped chapter 2 susie and noelle dark world interactions (You know, the big things that develop their relationship), but they also skipped through all the dialogue (They literally say that they mashed through it all).

Then there was someone who suggested changes to Susie and Ralsei's character. One of the changes was "Make Ralsei not need to discover who he is because of the prophecy". So just remove any and all character development, and make him a boring and bland character that never changes then?

Then I saw someone say that the characters don't change at all throughout the story. Their example was "Susie is scared when fighting K.Round. Susie is scared when fighting the titan. Susie doesn't know how to flirt with Hathy. Susie doesn't know how to flirt with Floradinn". Oh yeah, cause she can just learn to never be scared ever in her life, and also learn how to flirt within a span of 4 days. Do you realise how stupid that sounds? They must not have finished chapter 1, because we can literally see her change throughout that chapter.

I swear, media literacy is dead, people have become illiterate, and any opinion other than your own is wrong and stupid. Criticism is fine. But these aren't criticisms, they're just stupid blind hate from people who don't know what they're talking about.

You can also explain why it shouldn't have been vagueposted or when to reveal it.

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I love deltarune undertale, I really do. They're fun adventure romps with deeper emotional elements and a very interesting meta plot about our enjoyment of videogames packaged with a unique writing element of personifying the mentality of a person playing an RPG. Despite this, Toby fox seems to be uninterested in creating interesting RPG dynamics during deltarune and more interested in providing gimmicks throughout the story.

Undertale was a very successful experiment. It is a passion project that draws from all of its inspirations very well - it is a quirky RPG like mother, it is a bullet hell, it is a meta story like Homestuck, among many other stories many other people have spoke about. A revolution in the indie space, I suppose you could say. It presents itself as an RPG with multiple paths depending on actions used in combat, however in actuality it is a meta narrative about how you approach RPGs. There's different routes in the game that have different morality to them, however these play audience to very interesting and abstract stories about resetting and digging "too" deep into a videogame. It's very well done, and while its light on RPG elements, it's done intentionally to allow for players to explore it!

Deltarune during chapter one appeared to lean a lot more into being an RPG. We now have a mana system, an in depth stat menu and even archetypical party members! We have our black mage turned paladin (cecil, i see you) in Susie, and we have our dark mage looking white mage in Ralsei! The typical undertale elements of a whacky 'doesnt take itself too seriously' are still present, but already in the jevil fight we are shown that this game will take a lot more party management and mana management found in a more traditional RPG. We are even told - perhaps explicitly - that this isn't a story about us making many different decisions and absorbing a well crafted metanarrative through these decisions. This is an RPG that explores escapism and the coming of age for a team of scrappy youths (something quite common in RPG s.)

This is great - I love RPGs for the strategy involved in building parties, and Deltarune has this to an extent. There's plenty of equipment that all does different things, and there are different ways to build our characters to be better or worse at different things. Between ribbons, specific elemental resistances, magic and attack boosting items, and weapons that buff different stats making them soft side grades, there is definitely thought put into what items our heroes can obtain to let build variety flourish.

However, despite how the game presents itself, Toby fox does not seem to be interested in the RPG elements of Deltarune. Using elements to tell a story - like we see in the weird route, or with Susie's magic - sure. But never actually in implementing elements you'd see in an rpg. We never get to see our stats go up outside of scripted points where the enemies also get stronger, we are given VERY few new interactable in combat, we are actively encouraged to not use any of our damaging abilities and instead use the same 1/2 acts per type of enemy. I previously spoke about build variety, and while there's a few different armours and weapons to throw on each character, ultimately they all do the same thing regardless of what they wear - you pick the act the game wants you to, or you use the one damaging spell you're given the entire game.

Ralsei and Susie are initially presented as subversions on their archtypes: Susie is a knight who is a woman and uses 'rude' magic, and ralsei is a fluffy goat man who uses healing. However, they never actually get more into these archtypes than this surface level subversion. Susie learning healing feels like this at first, until you realise a knight/big tank character learning to heal is a VERY common trope among jrpgs anyway. In general, we have had 2 entire chapters (chapter 2 to chapter 5) where our party has not gained a single new spell or interaction in combat. It's disappointing that the game doesn't want to lean into the established genre more despite trying to subvert it.

The only fights i can remember actually picking my options of who to heal and who to do what with was in the jevil fight and knight fight respectively. Aside from that, pretty much every fight is picking an act that involves kris and a party member, and using items with the other guy. I understand its a genremash, but recently the game has felt a lot more like a bullet hell with rpg elements than an rpg bullet hell mixup.

It has felt like the game has become less of an RPG and more of a "what does Toby Fox like" as the game has progressed. The focus is a bit odd. Instead of designing unique encounters or challenges that involve strategy, instead we need the zelda section, or a new climbing gimmick, or a platformer! It feels very devoid of the package of chapters 1 and 2, which very much was in line with the established theme of "rpgs and how we interact with them."

I suppose it's fine that it went like this. After all, I still think what we have is high quality and is telling a good narrative, but I feel like toby fox is either uninterested in creating a full fledged rpg, or has lost interest in favour of a more episodic gimmick based gameflow.