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It's not exactly controversial to argue that Chapter 5 of Deltarune was the weakest thus far, doing very little to progress the overarching story and prioritizing gimmicks and jokes over serious plot threads. However, I would like to go a step further and argue that every major issue with Chapter 5 was present in the story long before and was merely made more obvious rather than came to be just recently.

Before we proceed with the actual criticism of Deltarune, allow me to ask you a question: is it fair to scrutinize an unfinished story over its flaws that could very well be rectified or explained later on? After all, should some minor inconsistencies and vague contradictions detract from the larger narrative? And even if they should, can’t they be excused for the sake of the story that is much more important than, for example, logistics of certain characters acting outside of the Player’s view or optional scenes seemingly contradicting established characterizations?

Perhaps I will surprise you with my answer, but I do believe that minor issues could indeed be discarded for the sake of the story. For example, there is not a single person who would perfectly fit the armor of the Knight without at least a few hiccups, and it’s up to the story to argue why its chosen candidate works so well within the narrative, a few minor contradictions should not really matter. However, this argument could no longer be applied when the story at its core suffers from issues far more persistent than minor inconveniences. In that case, it is not only perfectly valid but even desirable to properly uncover them.

Now, allow me to establish what flaws I believe to be fundamental for Deltarune’s writing and, while obvious in hindsight, especially prominent and blatant in Chapter 5:

1. The game prioritizes jokes over competent storytelling. Likewise, tobyfox allows the players to overcome his writing.

2. The writing suffers from inconsistent characterizations and stagnant character arcs, going as far as reiterating the very same story threads instead of meaningfully exploring existing conflicts or creating unique ones.

3. The story refuses to engage with the players, always promising grand revelations in the future yet never delivering on them.

4. The story of Deltarune was re-written during the development, but instead of acknowledging the growing divide, the writing prefers to ignore it completely.

Before we examine each of these supposed flaws in the details, I want to affirm that the issues with Deltarune’s writing have absolutely nothing to do with fan theories or a personal dissatisfaction. For the purposes of this criticism, it is completely irrelevant whether Deltarune would have committed to the answers one would believe to be insulting or satisfying. In fact, I believe all of these issues to be prominent even considering my personal theories about the story.

Without further ado, let us begin.

1. Quips over Substance.

Deltarune is universally celebrated for its unique sense of humor, and I myself would admit that even Chapter 5 had many genuinely funny jokes working within the story. However, sometimes supposedly amusing scenes are creating a massive tonal whiplash between what is happening in a given moment and what the story at large is trying to tell.

The most obvious example for me is Susie’s self-aware joke about the Weird Route: an alternate paths of the story dealing with the themes of abuse, gaslighting, mutually uncomfortable relationships and an actual murder is being infantilized by a tasteless joke serving as a cheap nod to the audience – so much so, this line of dialogue turned into a meme and became completely divorced from its context. This joke serves absolutely no purpose within the story, reveals no hidden depths of the characters and isn’t even funny unless you are aware of the meta-elements of the game, which would actively harm your immersion. However, revealing nothing of value about characters involved is the least serious issue here, and some other jokes do actively contradict the established characterization.

Take a look at the Berdly’s phone call to Noelle during Chapter 4, with the entire scene initially being played out as a serious moment for Noelle to stand up against her supposed friend. After Susie throws her phone away, however, Kris could pick it up and talk to Berdly, and this little exchange destroys what little characterization of his survived thus far. In Chapter 2, Berdly openly admits that he does not see Noelle romantically and is just ‘leading her on’ because he is afraid of hurting her feelings – and yet in this scene he openly proclaims that he wants Noelle, Susie and Kris to compete for his affection. Once again, we have a precedent of a joke overruling serious characterization and openly contradicting information established before.

Amusingly, the game did recognize this phone call as a blunder and decided to overly-correct itself by making Berdly in Chapter 5 not only understanding of Noelle’s feelings but even willing to support her in pursing Susie, a person he was supposed to have a crush on. Needless to say, Berdly’s actual characterization was lost because of the joke that served absolutely no purpose in the story and had to be corrected to such a degree, his actual flaws disappeared along the way. With that being said, the joke can be read as a Krerdly moment, giving it at least some relevance.

I am a little bit hesitant to declare Krerdly to be a half-serious nod to the audience in itself, since Berdly did share some affection for Kris in Chapter 2 and some cut content, as well as Kris’ title in Chapter 5, implies that he could have been considered a potential romantic partner in the game. The thing is, Krerdly abruptly rose to popularity in the community following Chapter 2 (not least because people desperately searched for a shipping to replace Kralsei, which was unjustly shunned for three whole years), and some Krerdly moments do intrude on the story-relevant scenes. For example, Ralsei’s dialogue with Kris regarding the festival that was meant to reaffirm his feelings for his friends and highlight the predicaments of the Darkners is being completely derailed by the inclusion of Berdly, which has absolutely nothing to offer in that particular scene and completely ruins its theme. Compare that, for example, to the ending of Chapter 2, where the similar question was meant to affirm Kris’ affection towards Susie and highlight their uncertainty about progressing their relationship with Noelle and Ralsei.

Nevertheless, Berdly was not the only character who was reduced to a joke and robbed of any interesting characterization. Case in point, the King of Spades.

Even though King was praised as ‘refreshingly irredeemable’ antagonist in his time, he was pursuing a noble goal of setting his people free from the authority of their neglectful overlords, and even if he committed to truly immoral acts in the end, he still believed that he was doing the right thing for the Darkners as a whole. However, the Pacifist Route of Chapter 2 reduces him to a joke that simply never ends, turning the most interesting antagonist the game had thus far into a literal pet.

It’s worth pointing out that King’s character regression was one of the reasons I initially considered Deltarune to be worthy of criticism even in its incomplete state. You see, back in the Chapter 2 era I would have argued that King will eventually return as a prominent character, and the actions of the Player would shape his morals going forward. Would he realize that he was mistaken about the Lightners on the Pacifist Route or embrace his cruel outlook wholeheartedly after seeing his jailers proving his very point? However, nothing of sorts happened or was ever implied past Chapter 2.

Interestingly enough, King perfectly showcases every core issue of the Deltarune’s writing, and it’s certainly not the last time we will return to him during this essay.

Back to the main point, Chapter 2 introduced Queen as the main antagonist. While she was rather threatening and certainly had presence, it was undeniable that, compared to King, she enjoyed a more goofy, laid back personality, constantly generating a joke after a joke. Likewise, Tenna was an even more humorous antagonist trading quips and threatening the main characters within the same sentence. And while I would argue that both of their characters are indeed quite good, the pattern of Deltarune introducing progressively less serious antagonists culminated in Chapter 5’s Flowery.

Unlike Queen and Tenna, who both were controlling authority figures presiding over their subjects and willing to use Lightners for their own gain, Flowery is simply obnoxious. He constantly irritates the main characters without posing a shadow of a serious threat until the very end, cannibalizes every scene he is present in and his attempts at offering the heroes a moral dilemma or challenging their outlook come crashing down under the least scrutiny the characters do not entertain, for some reason. Perhaps the most insulting aspect is that there was an actual character buried beneath his exterior that never got explored. What past did Flowery share with Ralsei? Why did Flowery grow to resent and mistrust Kris?

The story does not bother to even imply an answer, instead giving Flowery memorable quirks to make him more popular with the online communities and hint at his romantic affection towards Asgore, not too dissimilar to Tenna sharing a few memorable quirks and an implied romantic affection towards Spamton, another character that got degraded by attempts at humor; in his case luckily, most of them involve content found outside of the game.

The final boss of Chapter 4 was a Titan, a being of pure darkness and destruction that would be directly responsible for harboring the Roaring, a terrible calamity foreshadowed since Chapter 1. At the same time, the final boss of Chapter 5 is a funny anime protagonist who fights the heroes with the power of friendship and stylish poses while indulging them in insultingly patronizing speeches as if he was the good guy for threatening the end of the world. This fight would have been impossible to treat seriously in any other chapter, and especially so after the horrors of Chapter 4 – the disconnect between the two of them was so severe, it won’t be unreasonable to believe that you were playing a mockery of Deltarune.

Perhaps you might argue that Flowery’s entire point was about being an obvious parody of an annoying anime protagonist, but that would prove my argument exactly: instead of committing to a serious antagonist, the writing decided to introduce an obnoxious joke that actively diminishes the stakes, obscures few pieces of genuine characterization there were and continues to insist upon itself long after its façade should have been broken.

Since we did bring up Tenna before, the Ralsei’s plushy being repeatedly showcased during Chapter 3 is yet another example of an immersion shattering joke that makes less sense the more you think about it. Moreover, you could argue that both Tenna and Flowery were developed with the idea of marketability in mind so that funny, quirky characters would naturally attract large following to buy their merchandise. And before you argue that I am openly insulting tobyfox here, remember that he decided to put the Ralsei plush into his game at least four separate times.

In general, Deltarune is no stranger to giving occasional nods to its audience, and we can observe it as far back as during Chapter 2, with Ralsei claiming that he was waiting for Kris and Susie for what felt like years. While that joke was innocent enough by itself, later on we saw the inclusion of the Ralsei plush and the scene between Tenna and Spamton in Chapter 3, the Weird Route jokes in Chapters 4&5 and so on. The worst offenders by far, however, are the Mikes.

These characters were explicitly created to reference popular Deltarune theories, have absolutely zero connection to the larger themes of the story or any characters besides Tenna, offer nothing insightful about the narrative at large and claim a truly obscene amount of resources from the development team by introducing a battle with unique mechanics and multiple mini-games. In other words, instead of properly working on the game that has been in development for almost ten years now, the team behind Deltarune spent unspecified amount of time on joke characters that never existed before the game grew as popular as it did. Not only that, the community decided that the Mike these characters are referencing is somehow a very important character, which was only fueled by the utterly embarrassing Tenna’s recollection of Mike during Chapter 5. Once again, that scene served no purpose but to play around with the community over a mystery that never existed in the first place and, considering how little time there is left to conclude the story, would never be resolved.

To a lesser degree, Jackenstein is another example of a joke insisting upon the story. Not only this character remains as one of the very few important Darkners in the Dark Sanctuary, his battle is completely unavoidable and serves to prepare the players before the Titan. However, Jackenstein’s character is tonally deaf to pretty much everything about the Titan (and to the Sanctuary itself, for the most parts), and his quirky speech pattern and random jokes exist only for their own sake, considering that absolutely nothing would have precluded a completely different character from making them.

But perhaps the most disgusting of all, the moment of Ralsei finally opening up to Susie about the control options he had been mentioning since Chapter 1 was immediately degraded to be a joke at his expense. The scene in question also featured Susie acting vehemently out of character, but that is something we will discuss a bit later.

Since we returned to Chapter 5 again, let us not forget about a truly sickening amount of Jevil references that meant absolutely nothing and existed only for the sake of it – unless, of course, they were not spiteful quips aimed at the players who criticized the story for not giving Jevil’s character enough relevance.

Now, I do not argue that Deltarune should have played its cards completely straight or deny any humor even in more important moments. Rather, I claim that the game often uses jokes to intrude on inherently serious plot threads, damage established characters or give a nod to the community, thus completely breaking any immersion the players might have had.

And while we were discussing jokes thus far, there are other ways the community could be responsible for changing the story. The original animation during the Weird Route in Chapter 4 showcased a flower losing its petals, with such beautifully haunting imagery being perfectly appropriate for the route that evoked the theme of abusive relationship. However, due to the polarizing reactions within the community, it was replaced by an inferior version that clearly did not represent the original intent.

Thus, we saw that even a major, plot-relevant scene could be altered because of the community, which might prove to be even more damaging for the story going forward than referencing fan theories and substituting serious plot threads with jokes.

2. Inconsistent Character Work.

Despite the characters being the primarily focus of Deltarune, it is evident that the most of the characterization thus far has been stagnant. As such, it's not uncommon for characters to re-learn the very same moral lessons over and over again, until the same old character arc becomes completely redundant and actively damages the narrative. Once again, Berdly is a notable example here, since his character development in Chapter 2 was reversed in Chapter 4 (to the point he became an even worse person) and then suddenly reinstalled in Chapter 5 so that he could be a better friend to Noelle than ever before.

Despite my personal dislike of this idea, you could perhaps argue that Berdly is a secondary character and thus could be sacrificed for the comedy’s sake. However, the issue of inconsistent character arcs is not exactly exclusive to Berdly, and one might argue that he did not suffer that drastically compared to someone else.

Ralsei’s story arc past Chapter 1 was a subject of criticism for quite a while, not least because the players argued that Chapter 2 stripped Ralsei of his personality and introduced a completely separate characterization for him. While I don’t exactly agree with that statement, it is not incorrect to argue that Ralsei’s character did suffer over the course of the story. That becomes abundantly clear when we look at each chapter and gather what development Ralsei went through.

1. In Chapter 1, Ralsei learned that unconditional kindness does not necessarily triumph over evil and that sometimes people are better to figure out things at their own pace instead of being pressured, even with good intentions.

2. In Chapter 2, Ralsei began discovering his own identity and recognizing that the Darkners might have their own lives irrelevant of serving the Lighteners.

3. In Chapter 3, Ralsei continued to recognize that Darkners should not exist only for supporting Lightners and had his bonds with both Kris and especially Susie affirmed.

4. In Chapter 4, Ralsei recognized that he should be honest with his friends, even if the truth might hurt them, and that people should figure out things at their own pace instead of being pressured, even with good intentions.

I appreciate that this might be an oversimplification, but this helps us understand that by Chapter 4 Ralsei already recognized that he could be a person and should reconsider his morals to become a better friend as well. And so, Chapter 5 comes along and attempts to reshuffle the very same idea.

Ralsei appears to be borderline disgusted with Flowery’s carefree attitude, time and time again reinforcing that he will never become a human and should surrender his Dark World to help prevent the Roaring. In fact, Ralsei acts uncharacteristically aggressive throughout Chapter 5, with his sprites becoming more and more crude, which is rather a cheap attempt at replicating the charm of Chapter 1. It seems like Ralsei genuinely can’t fathom the idea of a person transcending their boundaries and becoming something else, not unlike how Ralsei does not recognize himself to be a living being. Now, I explicitly stated that Chapter 5 ‘attempted’ to reshuffle his old conflicts, and perhaps you already recognized what’s wrong with this narrative. Well, pretty much everything.

1. Ralsei’s disgust with Flowery comes not just from him trying to defy his boundaries, but also with Flowery being an entitled, self-absorbed person constantly pushing Ralsei around and deliberately isolating him from his friends. Not to mention the shared history between the two of them that never got revealed.

2. Despite all the claims of becoming human beings, the Flowers were all revolving around making Asgore, a Lightner, happy, and were willing to whither away for that goal, which greatly diminishes the supposed moral.

3. Ralsei has never disliked Darkners or believed them to be unworthy beings. In fact, he is very accommodating to the Darkners of Castle Town and genuinely wants to see them happy. As misguided as it was, his speech to Tenna was meant to bring a closure to a man he knew would be killed very soon.

4. Flowery is a bad person, and there is absolutely nothing in him to envy despite the writing’s best effort to argue otherwise. Flowery is not truly free, he is still bound by his duties to Asgore, and I would even argue that he is more restricted by the rules than Ralsei.

On a somewhat related note, I do want to bring up Flowery berating the heroes for the supposed hypocrisy of leaving the Grand Fountain open while aiming to seal the Flower Kingdom. Despite the fact how poor this equivalency is, both Ralsei and Susie for some reason refuse to call it out, and the story frames this as a genuinely worthy point meant to highlight the alleged contradictions in their morals. But what makes his already subpar statement truly farcical is that later it is revealed that the Flowers wouldn’t have survived in the darkness for long anyway, making the initial argument a complete moot.

If we are willing to be charitable here, Flowery’s line about sealing the Grand Fountain could be declared to be a thought experiment rather than a call to action. Why should their adventure come to a close while the Hero are having one of their own? But even if Susie and Ralsei do view Castle Town as a place to hang out with friends instead of the sanctuary for Darkners, their outlook does not diminish the latter point. Also, would it be possible to seal the Grand Fountain, at all? The story does not answer this question, which shouldn’t really come as a surprise by this point.

But even entertaining this argument in regards to a generic Dark Fountain revealed at any unspecified location, Flowery’s dilemma still holds no water. The Grand Fountain would allow every Darkner to persist and live their lives, with minimal and very specific exceptions, while any other Dark World would petrify Darkners that do not fit its arbitrary rules. From that perspective, it’s actually Ralsei who breaks rules and strives to adopt as many Darkners as possible while Flowery selfishly wants his own Darkners to prevail and follow the unbreakable rules of the Flower Kingdom, even if they threat the end of the world.

Moreover, the entire conflict of Ralsei, supposedly, obeying the rules for the greater good contradicts what we knew about his character since the very beginning, though that’s something to bring up a little bit later.

It’s also interesting that Flowery tries to imply that the Squad does not care about the dreams and ambitions of the Darkners by sealing their worlds… despite the fact that Darkners are thriving in Castle Town while their respective worlds were ruled by oppressive sovereigns. So, this supposed dilemma falls flat when applied to any Dark World, since recruited Darkners are much better off in Castle Town, and it also can’t be applied specifically to the Flower Kingdom, since the Flowers would wither away regardless. Even the idea of Ralsei hypocritically allowing Kris to reveal Dark Worlds is being contradicted by Ralsei openly stating that he does not appreciate them doing so and would like for them to stop.

In other words, there is a massive chasm between the story that the game is trying to tell and the story that actually happens in the game. Flowery calls Ralsei out on his non-existent hypocrisy (while actively abusing him), Ralsei acts massively out of character to shun him and the game pretends that he learned a valuable lesson about his identity, which had been taught to him by his actual friends, who genuinely wanted to help him throughout the previous chapters, in a much more healthier and natural manner.

Most peculiarly though, the game continues to push Ralsei into these self-sacrificing situations despite the fact that his character arc has been moving in the completely opposite direction. In Chapter 5 alone, Ralsei serves as a literal stepping stone for Kris and Susie during the platforming sequences, and during the final battle with Flowery he sacrifices himself for their sake.

Now, allow me to ask you a simple question: does Ralsei want the Legend to be fulfilled? While Chapter 4 makes it abundantly clear that he does not, I can understand the confusion: so much of Ralsei’s character is built on him rebelling against arbitrary boundaries placed upon Darkners, it would be natural to assume that he also must finally defy the Legend as well. The problem being, these two issues are completely separate, and the game did not bother to even hint to us as to why would Ralsei, despite working against the Legend since the very beginning and rejecting his fate, would try attending to these rules.

If that something coming from his duties as a headband, perhaps his relationship with Kris helped him to finally recognize that he shouldn’t be contained by a long-abandoned dream; although, the game already missed its perfect opportunity for this reveal. On the other hand, his submissiveness being related to his upbringing as the guardian of the Legend simply does not work: considering how against the Legend he was, that option should be discarded.

Be that as it may, Ralsei’s character arc is very confusing and redundant, to the point it creates a false impression that he does not oppose the Legend he has been working against since the very beginning. However, we were not given any reason for Ralsei’s attitude otherwise, and I am not sure the story has any time left to properly set it up. Gaster passing down these ideas unto Ralsei might serve as an answer with at least some foreshadowing, but then we once again have the issue of the Legend being whispered by ‘time and space’, which clearly alludes to Gaster. So, Ralsei decided to rebel against the Legend while still subscribing to the morals its creator taught him?

I am starting to suspect that tobyfox simply does not know what to do with Ralsei’s character anymore and what was the original intent behind him. Perhaps during the writing process, he found out that Ralsei rebelling against the Legend since the beginning would work better in the story, yet couldn’t change his arc that drastically, which resulted in the current state of affairs. Or perhaps he does have a great explanation for clinging to his ideas of the Darkners despite rebelling against the Legend, but that is a revelation so intricately tied to the more clandestine themes of the game, it cannot be possibly brought up until the very end. Thus, Ralsei is forced to awkwardly learn the same old lesson until his actual development would happen later in the story.

Now, contradictory characterization can benefit the writing: for example, Kris both likes their friends and their family yet is working with the Knight who puts them in danger, they both orchestrated Toriel’s abduction yet did everything in their power to sabotage it (by bringing Undyne to their house and Susie to the church respectively), they care about Noelle yet push her away. However, the idea of Ralsei attempting to subvert his fate yet fully embracing his purpose, to the point that rejecting it becomes his character arc up until Chapter 5, is not just contradictory, it's inconsistent with both his story and the basic logic.

Frustratingly enough, there was another idea of his character that never got properly explored again. In both Chapter 1 and Chapter 4, Ralsei claimed that he wanted to avert the Legend by being kind to his enemies, and Chapter 1 in particular argues that being kind is not necessarily a universal solution. Compared to his struggles with self-worth, that were also foreshadowed since Chapter 1, Ralsei’s opinion on pacifism got completely neglected. Flowery would have been the perfect character for him to defeat with violence, but, once again, the game so desperately tries to make the players love him, Ralsei would refuse to attack Flowery outright… only for him to then berate Kris for not doing enough to beat Flowery up with mercy?

Flowery was a self-proclaimed hero who wanted to keep Asgore happy by keeping him oblivious to the greater picture, more often than not obnoxiously intruding into the heroes figuring things out at their own pace, offering empty compliments and suffocating praises (that he perhaps believes to be sincere), putting other people down in his misguided attempt to teach them a moral lesson, sacrificing his very life for the sake of the Lightners and sprouting platitudes that were proved wrong in the end. He was such an uncanny parallel to Ralsei and represented the worst of his character traits, yet the story frames Ralsei’s irritation with him as hypocrisy or even jealousy, considering the main theme of the chapter.

You might argue that his refusal to hurt Flowery would have also complimented Ralsei’s character arc, with him accepting his worst qualities and forgiving them. And, yes, I wholeheartedly agree with that idea. The problem being, Ralsei explicitly removes himself from the final battle so that Kris could defeat Flowery, but Flowery’s antagonism towards Kris was never elaborated upon, not to mention that it wasn’t nearly as prominent as his attitude towards Ralsei. In the end, the fight that should have empathized Ralsei went to Kris instead.

Furthermore, Flowery was undeniably framed as a heroic character by the narrative. Instead of acknowledging that he emanates the worst traits of Ralsei, the story pretends that he is a mentor character capable of teaching him some morals lessons, which, I won’t stop repeating myself, was already taught to him multiple times.

To underline my point one more time, Ralsei’s character arc in Chapter 5 falls flat for multiple different reasons:

1. Ralsei is made to re-learn the very same lesson he was already taught.

2. Ralsei acts massively out of character so that his eventual development would be seen as more impressive and earned.

3. Ralsei’s conflict with his identity as a Darkner contradicts his desire to subvert the will of the Legend (thus breaking the rules he was supposed to follow), and this discrepancy was never given a proper explanation.

4. Ralsei and Flowery undeniably share history together, yet the game offers absolutely nothing to contextualize this relationship that is guiding most of the story.

5. Flowery is a terrible, deeply hypocritical person representing Ralsei at his worst, but the game desperately tries to frame him as a sympathetic figure who ultimately has a point.

Another example of a rather strange character arc comes from Susie’s example. During the Chapter 2 era, I stated that her character development was not as sudden as some critics might believe, arguing that her crude side would definitely be revisited in the future and that the story would certainly address her less than savory tendencies in a meaningful way. However, nothing of the sort happened, and, if anything, her character only grew more softer and less confrontational, with the story going out of its way to promote her.

It's truly baffling that Deltarune wants to parade Susie as the paragon of virtue deprived of any meaningful flaws, and even her lie to Noelle, which I myself considered not that significant of an issue in itself, is being resolved in such an amicable manner, we won’t know whether the story would offer her any criticism over it for at least another year.

In general, every character with any significance likes Susie while characters who were shown to dislike her were intentionally degraded by the writing, with Catti’s mistrust of her being re-contextualized as petty jealousy and Snowdrake straight up turning into a racist. The story is so utterly terrified of offering Susie any actual criticism that even Carol, an undeniably antagonistic character, says absolutely nothing of substance in that regard. At the same time, Kris, Ralsei, Noelle and Berdly love her wholeheartedly and share, at the very least, hints of romantic affection towards her while adult characters like Toriel, Alvin, QC, Tenna and Gerson can’t help but promote Susie. Even Alphys’ fear of Susie was re-contextualized as mild embarrassment while Carol and King, the only two adults shown to dislike her, are depicted as antagonists.

There is a conversation to be held whether Susie’s character was retconned since Chapter 1, but that is not the notion I fully support nor intend to examine here in further details. However, it is undeniable that the story has no interest of actually exploring her flaws or calling out her objectively bad decisions or destructive tendencies. Rather, she is being presented as that rough yet ultimately kind tomboy always ready to stand by her friends and carry on with a sacred mission to protect the world that mistreated her so harshly, for no fault of her own. But, amusingly, Chapter 5 couldn’t even commit to this characterization.

Susie leaving Kris and Ralsei behind so that she could hang around with Flowery was revoltingly out of character, for numerous reasons. She saw that Flowery was constantly mistreating Ralsei, but completely glossed over it? She repeatedly called out Queen and Tenna for their antics yet had no issues with Flowery acting even more intrusive and obnoxious? And in what world Susie, who proclaimed her dislike of liars and was acutely familiar with fake friends, would be swayed by a person like Flowery in the first place?

The worst offender in that regards is Susie interrupting Ralsei’s explanation of the user interface. I already mentioned that this scene sacrifices both a genuine moment and some lore in favor of a cheap joke, but it also makes a horrible disservice to Susie’s character, for the very next day after Ralsei proclaimed that he would be more honest with Susie, she decided to shun him confessing a very important secret that had been weighting on him since the day they met. It’s truly amazing how Susie is simultaneously very perceptive of other’s feelings and can empathize with her enemies and yet so comically dense, she won’t allow her friend to speak his mind. Remember here that Susie also spent the night in Castle Town and had quite some time to share a few conversations with Ralsei, which makes her neglecting him in that moment even more ludicrous.

Regardless, Susie proclaiming Castle Town to be her real home in Chapter 5 was a truly beautiful moment, proving that Darkners, seemingly nothing more but objects to be discarded, can be more real to Susie than her very family. And while her farewell to Kris was a good scene in itself, the surrounding context makes it a bit trickier. Think about it for a moment, what Darkners are Susie’s actual friends? Not in a way that she had fun fighting them, but in way that she could hold a genuinely conversation with them. That would be only Lancer, Ralsei and Gerson, with the latter being absent from the Castle Town. For a story that wants us to believe that Darkners are the Susie’s found family, there are conspicuously few of them to be found.

Some players might argue that Susie did have some development after all, for Chapter 5 repeatedly tried to argue that Kris’ friends should act independently of them. In case of Ralsei, however, that the lesson Susie taught to him in Chapters 2&3 while in case of Susie it's the lesson that shouldn’t have been taught to her to begin with. Now, Susie growing too reliant on Kris in contrast to Chapters 1&2 would have been an interesting point to consider, but it was never established as an issue. Chapter 4 ended with Susie being reinforced as a hero with unshakable will that could never surrender her agency, so I genuinely do not understand where did the idea that Susie needed to learn to be more independent comes from.

Finally, remember that Susie was supposed to defy the Legend, with her refusal to wear ribbons being one of the very few things it did not predict correctly? Chapter 5 Susie does not.

Admittedly, Kris’ characterization thus far fares the best out of the three. Chapters 3&4 introduced a very intriguing idea of them struggling between their loyalties to the Knight’s cause and their genuine affection towards their friends. Moreover, there were many scenes in Chapters 3&4 showcasing Susie and Ralsei having friendly time together while Kris was explicitly left in the shadows, implying that they feel alienated from their friends. But as fascinating as these potential developments could be, Kris’ relationship with the Soul had been stagnating for five entire chapters.

What was initially presented as perhaps the most interesting and crucial story thread in Deltarune – a playable character being a separate person from the Player – was ultimately forgotten. On the Normal Route, there is absolutely no meaningful changes in the dynamic between Kris and the Soul, and you can easily proclaim it to be a completely separate character from the Player without any changes to the writing. And while it could certainly be argued that a resolution for it would be kept until the very end, absolutely nothing would have precluded both Kris and the Player from exploring their predicaments beforehand, and even if Kris was thoroughly antagonistic towards this very idea, there should have been an option for the Player to at least try. If Kris can rebel against the Soul so frequently, why can’t the Player rebel against Kris on the Normal Route?

I never subscribed to the idea that limitations breed creativity, but perhaps if Deltarune was more confided in scope, the story could have offered more substance in less time and, ideally, stop reiterating the same exact plot threads meandering through all five chapters.

Lastly, I do want to bring up Flowery here, for his character manages to be a touch inconsistent within the only chapter he appears in. On the one hand, Flowery mistrusts and dislikes Kris, perfectly aware that they revealed the Flower Kingdom and wary that they might have some ulterior motives when it comes to Asgore. However, none of these threads were examined at all, and by the end of the story Flowery is completely fine with letting Kris proceed with their mission despite them doing absolutely nothing to change his mind. But hey, they had an anime battle, so that’s probably fine!

In general, the story seems to be rather contradictory on the subject of the Darkners and their identities.

Since the very first chapter of the game, Deltarune was hammering home one rather simple idea: Darkners are people with their own agency. Not only Ralsei’s character arc was built around him overcoming his preconceived notions about Darkners’ purpose, all antagonists thus far were characterized by their unhealthy obsession with Lightners. King’s devotion turned to cruel bitterness that nearly led the world into chaos, Queen’s desire to help Noelle nearly triggered the Roaring, Tenna’s yearning for attention contributed to the Knight’s plan and almost got him killed, Flowery’s scheme to keep Asgore trapped in the Dark World would have eventually led to their death. In other words, Darkners’ attachment to the Lightners was repeatedly proved to be disastrous for them both.

For all these platitudes about being alive and free, Flowery perfectly understood that he would not survive in the darkness and was willing to sacrifice himself for Asgore’s sake. However, the story does not seem to resolve this contradiction, pretending that these two ideas can co-exist, and that rings true for the most of the Darkners we encounter during the main story. Gerson’s entire character was revolving around making amends with Alvin and promoting Susie, Ramb and the Shadow Mantle Holder wanted to support Kris in their own way, Flowers were willing to sacrifice themselves to support Asgore. Even a character like Spamton, who wanted to achieve his goals at the expense of the Lightners, was initially driven mad by his hopeless desire to appeal to them.

Jevil and Seam are the only prominent Darkner characters that are not contextualized by their relationship with the Lightners. While it's true that there are plenty of Darkners that prefer to do their own thing in Castle Town and have the relationship between themselves rather than with the Lightners, they all are just nameless recruits with simple personalities and even simpler goals. Let me put it this way: barring very few exceptions, there is not a single Darkner character with a story that did not revolve around Lightners.

Contrary to the popular belief, Ralsei’s idea of a Darkner’s purpose is not somehow fringe or unpopular but perfectly representative of the vast majority of the prominent Darkner characters.

So, the characters often experience stagnant, redundant or contradictory story arcs, with even the most blatant morals of the game being dragged down by its inconsistent writing.

3. Clandestine Story.

As was mentioned before, Deltarune has a persistent problem with stroking the flames of the ongoing mysteries without providing any hints, let alone answers, towards them. The Dess’ disappearance, for example, is implied to be the most crucial event in the past of Hometown that, among other things, influenced numerous key characters and directly led to the events of the story. However, we have absolutely no information surrounding it, not even in hints.

While it is neat that Dess’ fate could be mostly discovered through implications rather than concrete confirmations, the larger context surrounding it is very messy. We know that she vanished many years ago, that Kris blames themselves over it and that the Knight’s conspiracy, at least on some level, is connected to this whole ordeal. That is not insignificant, don’t get me wrong, but the issue arises from the fact that none of these plot threads progressed in any way, nor were even giving solid confirmations. We don’t know the Knight’s identity, we are uncertain of the Carol’s role and her connections, we understand absolutely nothing of the greater plan and we can’t even be sure whether the Conspiracy wants to bring Dess back in the first place. In fact, it still would be technically possible for the Knight to never care about Dess to begin with.

Chapter 5, which should have confirm at least something in relation to the larger mysteries, did nothing but affirm story threads that were largely implied before, like Asgore never truly working under Carol, Asgore sacrificing his life to his obsession, Asriel and Dess dating or Ralsei knowing fire magic. Not only that, this chapter introduced only more confusion, implying that Carol isn’t as involved with the Conspiracy due to Asgore’s desire to inform her and thus putting into question information that was everything but stated beforehand.

Now, sometimes a hint of vagueness is not a bad thing, and I would argue that obscuring Susie’s home life is a much more efficient way of making the players empathize with her predicaments rather than singling out specific issues of her family. However, the details of her horrible life are completely irrelevant from the narrative’s standpoint while uncovering the truth behind the Knight’s Conspiracy is crucial for understanding the themes of the story.

Does the Conspiracy want to bring Dess back, with its members being grieving parents incapable of letting go? Does it strive to unleash the Roaring and remade the world in its perfect image? Is it connected to the Goner Maker Voice and the Deltarune experiment as a whole? Each of these options would drastically change core themes behind the story. Likewise, the Knight’s identity and their motivation also should have been given at least a passing glimpse, even if the majority of the suspects are pursuing a motive related to Dess.

Not only Chapter 5 continued to provide vague allusions to the old mysteries, it did not shy away from introducing new ones. For example, Noelle implied that she forced Kris to do something in their past during their Ferris Wheel ride, with that revelation potentially re-contextualizing their relationship as a whole.

People often compare Deltarune to Undertale, claiming that the latter game explicitly brought up and resolved its questions pretty much only at the very end and thus Deltarune could be excused for dragging its mysteries on and providing very few clues. However, Undertale was a much smaller project explicitly created as a blueprint for Deltarune, and so its story had a reason for such a direction. At the same time, Deltarune is a game ten years into making that is already thrice as long as Undertale, so the story taking its sweet time with establishing its mysteries, let alone properly answering them, is hardly appropriate. Furthermore, Undertale writing issues should not mean that Deltarune can be excused for the same exact mistakes.

The upcoming chapters have a truly herculean task ahead of them. Just from the back of my mind, there are almost two dozen plot threads that are left unanswered or not even acknowledged thus far:

1. The Carol’s Conspiracy.

2. The Knight’s Identity.

3. Dess’ disappearance.

4. Kris’ past with Dark Worlds.

5. Kris’ relationship with their Soul.

6. The Soul and its role in the story.

7. The Shadow Mantle Holder and their relation to Kris.

8. The Egg Man.

9. Asriel’s role in the story.

10. The Goner Maker and the Voice.

11. The Legend and the Final Tragedy.

12. The Roaring.

13. Kris’ jealousy and their romantic affection.

14. Noelle’s past with Kris.

15. Noelle’s entire character arc.

16. Susie’s flaws finally being addressed and dealt with.

17. Ralsei’s Light World counterpart and his history with Kris.

18. The Grand Fountain’s origins.

19. And the list goes on.

Sure, we can be generous and assume that some of these issues are inherently connected and should be considered together, but, funny enough, there are no solid confirmations in the story to date. While I infinitely prefer Carol working with both Kris and the Knight for example, Kris working for both of them separately, or Carol not being aware of the Knight in the first place, are all possible outcomes. Perhaps that was something that the game should have clarified by now rather than turning it more obscure. Likewise, we can’t definitively claim that the Egg Man represents Kris’ trauma, and we can only speculate what relationship the Shadow Mantle Holder has with them.

Chapter 5 had the perfect opportunity to expand on at least some mysteries without even diverting from its course: revealing Ralsei’s past at that point would have been perfectly natural, but instead opportunities for meaningful story progression were ignored at every turn. But even if we try to argue that the upcoming chapters would have enough time to properly answer every important mystery without it feeling crowded or underwhelming in theory, the precedent of Chapter 5 would like to disagree.

Let us forget for a moment that Chapter 5 had any connection to the greater mysteries of Deltarune and look at it as if it was a self-contained story. Even in that case, there are still quite a few unanswered questions left by the end:

1. What was the relationship between Ralsei and Flowery before Chapter 5?

2. Why was Flowery so mistrustful and antagonistic towards Kris?

3. What are these ‘rules’ Ralsei forces himself to follow and for what reason?

4. What has happened on ‘that day’ Asgore blames himself for?

In other words, even if Deltarune has all the mysteries confided within a single chapter and all the time it needs for providing the answers, it could very well decide not to.

While it could be argued that Deltarune was meant to be experienced as a coherent story, we know that the script was finalized during the development of Chapter 2. By that point it was obvious that not only Deltarune would be released in chapters, but that there would be a noticeable gap between them. Furthermore, Chapter 5, despite being in active development alongside Chapters 3&4, did not release until a solid year later, providing the development team with ample time to change some things and perhaps add at least something new in regards to the ongoing story. If Chapter 4 added an entire fight with purely humorous characters referencing the community, why couldn’t Chapter 5 add a few lines of dialogue talking about serious plot threads?

The story keeping its cards close to its chest also serves as a major detriment to the writing. The story of Chapter 2 would not have happened if Ralsei simply brought up the Roaring to Queen instead of waiting for the last possible moment, and him already revealing the calamity to Kris and Susie in Chapter 1 (even if the game later pretends that he never did) completely negates the idea of him keeping quiet so that he won’t worry his friends. As such, the entire conflict of the chapter is pretty much reduced to a misunderstanding, even though it could have been easily rectified by Queen knowing of the dangers but being so arrogant and so confident in her scheme, she decided to roll with it anyway.

Thus, Deltarune obscures too much of its story, to the detriment of its writing. It will be impossible to resolve even half of the ongoing questions in a satisfying manner, and yet the game continues to add only more mysteries and dilute plot threads that seemed all but assured before.

4. Retcons, Rewrites, Re-imaginings.

It’s not really a heavily guarded secret that tobyfox attempted to create Deltarune long before Undertale came to be, initially envisioning the Light World as that bleak, mundane place while painting Dark Worlds as fantastical, colorful worlds populated by monsters. Of course, the successes of Undertale made him reconsider quite a few details, and the chapter based release schedule influenced his writing as well. We know that the overall script of Deltarune was completed during the development of Chapter 2, though the inclusion of the Mikes strongly suggests that even major parts of the story were modified later on.

Here, let us finally return to King’s characterization once again. Chapter 1 makes it obvious that he does not know Kris, with not a single Darkner from the Card Kingdom recognizing them as well. However, Chapter 3 blatantly retcons this by claiming that not only Kris played with King as a child but treated him as their closest ally. Likewise, you could argue that King not conversing with the Knight directly was a later retcon to obscure their true motives and bring their actions in line with Chapter 2. That change turns him praising the Knight completely meaningless and a little bit ridiculous in retrospect, unfortunately once again reinforcing King as a humorous character.

You could argue that this issue does not apply to Queen, for we know that she was a childhood toy of Noelle and Chapter 2 proves how deeply fascinated she was with her. However, it was directly mentioned that Queen singled out Noelle not because of their shared history she never brings up but rather because of her search history and her hidden powers. This all becomes even more contrived when Tenna joins Castle Town – apparently, despite being there to witness the games, he does not recognize neither Queen nor King, and they do not recognize him in turn despite being aware of each other. On a side note, Queen was told to be a new laptop, yet it’s clear that Kris and Noelle’s games took place many years ago, creating another contradiction.

It could be argued that King and Queen remembered them as children while Tenna watched them growing up and drifting apart, but then the information about the Card Kingdom and the Cyber City being inspired by childhood games becomes completely meaningless, unless you would like to argue that it proves that the Knight is intimately familiar with them… which does not eliminate a single prominent suspect. Also, Kris discarding King because of his scars, while a great detail giving him much needed characterization in later chapters, is a minor contradiction as well – Kris would have argued that scars make their King only cooler.

While this is more speculative, it's possible that Queen’s characterization was altered during the development of Chapter 2. Her original concept art paints her as a sinister antagonist more similar to King, and from that perspective it would make sense for Ralsei to be less confident in revealing the truth about the Roaring, or for her to completely dismiss his words out of egotistical desire to cover the Light World in darkness.

Kris and Berdly’s relationship is yet another aspect of the story I would argue was retconned. Chapter 1 makes it abundantly clear that not only they mutually dislike each other, but do not mind seeing each other hurt, considering Berdly chastising Kris over getting late to be paired with Susie and Kris inviting Berdly to hang out right below Rudy’s window so that he could throw something at him. Noelle’s dialogue in Chapter 1 proves that Kris does not like talking to people, so the notion of them and Berdly being friendly rivals enjoying a good banter is disproved by the person who knows them both very well.

During Chapter 2, Berdly was actively working against Kris, did not mind attacking them and made a clear distinction between Kris and ‘his friend Noelle’ on the Weird Route; he could shatter the Soul during his battles, which is something even Susie refrained from doing. However, with Chapter 2 we also got a hint of affection from Berdly’s side, and while in isolation this line might have been explained as a joke, their shipping exploded in popularity during the active development of Chapters 3&4.

As such, not only Berdly began openly expressing his affection for Kris later on (despite the fact he proclaimed his feelings for Susie and should have still pretended to harbor affection for Noelle), he got inserted into otherwise serious conversations, like with Ralsei sharing his worries over being unable to visit the festival. Moreover, Chapter 4 framed Kris asking Berdly out as an option they don’t really mind while Chapter 5 showed them having his feather, for some reason. Considering how little bearing Berdly had on the story past Chapter 2, I am inclined to believe that his relationship with Kris was retconned because of the shipping’s overwhelming popularity.

A very interesting retcon concerns one prominent character in particular. You see, when tobyfox was working on Undertale Alarm Clock app, he included a variety of dialogues with characters discussing their lives on the surface and their past alike. One of them was Asgore reminiscing about Rudy and his daughter that now can finally see the sun. However, later on this dialogue got updated to include two of Rudy’s daughters, and since Noelle’s concept art existed before the Alarm Clock app came to be, it proves that Dess was added to the story of Deltarune much later than one might expect.

Indeed, that would explain why she only had scarce mentions thus far, especially so in Chapter 1, despite being the character guiding the story. In fact, there is potential evidence that parts of Asriel’s characterization, like him wielding a bat, were passed onto Dess, and perhaps her inclusion would explain Noelle’s stagnant character arc. Not only Noelle’s story would have been drastically different without Dess, but the Conspiracy might have pursued a completely unrelated goal. Or, rather, the Conspiracy itself was added to the story as a consequence of introducing Dess, which once again would explain the scarce information about it even in later chapters.

Considering Chapter 1’s descriptions of the Knight, perhaps their cause was not connected to Dess until the story was finalized during Chapter 2’s development, and that inconsistency might be the reason for why the Knight’s plan seems so convoluted and why they still bear the title of the ‘Roaring Knight’ despite both Ralsei and Gerson arguing that ending the world is not their goal. On that note, another rather frustrating retcon is Ralsei warning Susie and Kris about the calamity in Chapter 1 – yet in Chapter 4 Susie lashed out on Ralsei and claimed that he was withholding the critical information about the Roaring until the very last moment in Chapter 2, which simply isn’t true.

Don’t forget about the Dark Worlds and their mechanisms. It was impossible to leave Dark Worlds in Chapters 1&2, yet Chapter 3 argued that the Grand Door could be used to hop in and out of them at any time, but, crucially, only as long as the actual doors in the Light World remain open. Chapters 4&5, however, completely neglected the idea of the Grand Door altogether and showed that simply following the light would be enough to leave, no matter if the doors in the Light World are shut. The Knight traveling between different Dark Sanctuaries despite the door between them being locked from the outside is yet another contradictions to add here.

Finally, Shadow Crystals were retroactively introduced to Chapter 1 after its initial release, thus proving that the Secret Bosses, while not necessarily new as a concept, were united by that common link relatively recently. This also explains why Jevil, the first Secret Boss imagined long before the script was finalized, slipped through the cracks and barely got any mentions while Spamton remains overly represented both in the game and in the supplementary material.

As such, Deltarune went through numerous changes during the development, and, unfortunately, some of them were incorporated more competently within the story than the other. The ongoing and rather prolonged development of the game introduced quite a few retcons, changes and contradictions to the story that were left unaddressed despite the fact that some of them might prove crucial for unraveling the narrative at large.

Conclusion.

Chapter 5 is wildly considered to be the weakest chapter of the game in regards to its story, and while this criticism is perfectly just, these issues were affecting Deltarune’s writing for far longer. The story already supplemented serious revelations with jokes, forced characters to experience the very same character arc time and time again, desperately fought to obscure its mysteries from the players and did nothing to accommodate for the growing divide between the original idea behind Deltarune and the game that is being developed now.

Even thought I could argue that my preferred theory about the Knight’s identity got even more evidence and my preferred shipping is going stronger than ever, I am nevertheless very disappointed in Chapter 5 and what did it mean for the story’s direction. There is simply no time left for indulging in mysteries any longer, and even if we outright dismiss half of the questions left unanswered as redundant or unimportant, the story will not be able to resolve the rest in a coherent, satisfying manner.