| DELTARUNE | |||||||||
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| Release Date | Gameplay & Story | Pre-Order & DLC | Chapter 1 & 2 Review | Chapter 3 & 4 Review | Chapter 5 Review | ||||
DELTARUNE is a story-rich RPG blending turn-based combat and puzzles in a mysterious Dark World. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
Overview
What is DELTARUNE?
DELTARUNE is a narrative-driven RPG that blends classic turn-based combat with inventive gameplay twists and a rich, evolving story. Set in a mysterious world known as the Dark World, players follow a trio of characters as they navigate strange realms, uncover secrets, and face increasingly complex challenges. The game balances whimsical charm with darker themes, delivering an emotional and engaging experience.
DELTARUNE features:
⚫︎ Hybrid Combat
⚫︎ Slow Building Narrative
⚫︎ Expressive Character Designs
⚫︎ Genre Hopping Soundtrack
⚫︎ Mini-games, Puzzles and Hidden Secrets
⚫︎ Choices That Affect Encounters
For more gameplay details, read everything we know about DELTARUNE's gameplay and story.
| Digital Storefronts | |||||||
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 Steam |
 PlayStation |
 Switch |
 Switch 2 |
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| Price | $24.99 (Chapters 1-2 are free-to-play as a demo) |
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DELTARUNE Review (Chapter 5) | A Field of Pink Trees and Golden Moments
The Chaos Before the Storm
I am, for all intents and purposes, a new convert to Toby Fox’s ludography. My relationship with his seminal masterpiece UNDERTALE is… complicated, let’s say, leading me to only know about it and DELTARUNE through sheer cultural osmosis up until recently when I’ve actually played everything. This context matters because, as a newcomer, detached from a decade of memes, lore speculation, and the massive cultural events that Fox’s works have been for so long, I fell deeply in love with his style and work anyway.
There is a lot of heart in DELTARUNE and UNDERTALE that shines through not in spite of his very ironic sense of humor and complex philosophical outlooks, but because of it. His precise worldbuilding, sharp writing, and the execution of his ideas all circle around to games that feel fully realized upon inception, and it's why he’s become one of the most acclaimed gaming auteurs of the modern era.
DELTARUNE Chapter 5 feels scientifically engineered to keep players hooked by leaning more into the infectious warmth and quirkiness that drew both newcomers and veterans in. Described by Fox as a calm before the storm, one last classic adventure before things get wild, this chapter does less to flesh out the overarching lore (which, don’t get me wrong, it still does this extensively) than its preceding chapter and instead focuses on the heart of the narrative. This makes it a beautifully thrilling adventure, but one that raises more questions than it answers.
To this end, DELTARUNE Chapter 5 earns its numerous callbacks to both UNDERTALE and DELTARUNE’s first chapter by being such a fun mix of sweet, lighthearted character moments and high stakes adventure. It is a continuation of what made the game such a compelling experience so far, with new enemies, songs, and a whole new Dark World to explore only adding layers to what is already one of the best RPG experiences of the decade. The way it evolves DELTARUNE’s consistently ambitious gameplay loop with fantastic new additions only makes it that much more enthralling.
That being said, its focus on character dynamics and that specific, classic adventure feeling might prove polarizing to players that want answers to some of DELTARUNE’s most crucial mysteries, especially as the narrative nears its conclusion. It does reveal some of this information, but mostly uses it as a vessel to explore character motivations and relationships in a way that’s executed wonderfully nonetheless.
DELTARUNE’s 5th Chapter may not have the strange, ambitiously experimental feel of Chapter 3 or the dense, heavy lore work of Chapter 4, but it makes up for that by being one of the purest adventures in the narrative so far. It’s a little strange to see a Toby Fox RPG adventure that mostly plays it straight, but it makes me all the more excited to see how he’ll eventually deconstruct and dismantle this sense of familiarity in his signature style.
Some Flowery Additions to a Fantastic Core
DELTARUNE’s visual style and soundtrack have been polished to a mirror sheen at this point. The character design, pixel-art style, and especially the music have been such a highly celebrated fixation of pop culture at this point precisely because of how distinctive and memorable they are. New additions to this, then, have only evolved DELTARUNE’s unique aesthetic identity tenfold, which is mostly true for Chapter 5.
Chapter 5’s visual motif, much like the preceding chapters, centers around a key area of Kris’s life: their father Asgore’s flower shop. While this premise might sound less grand than a church or less zany than a television set, it’s completely made up for by just how beautiful the Flower Kingdom is. The skies often shift between vibrant, colorful shades of orange, violet, and even green (though that may just be a fox pretending to be the sun), while the introductory underground segments stand out with a beautiful mix of purple grass and pink trees.
The new chapter also brings in some new aesthetic elements, particularly to introduce a crucial new character named Flowery. Asgore's old "college buddy" (at least, that's what they want you to believe) is introduced through an anime-style FMV video, of all things, while his dialogue is accompanied by voice clips that accentuates his eccentric sense of humor and also makes him come off as an appropriately annoying foil to your party.
Elsewhere, though, the new additions to the game’s visual style mostly maintain it rather than innovate. The other new characters, while still well-designed enough, unfortunately do not have the memorable visual style of similar supporting characters and foils introduced in previous chapters. This is a shame because they’re otherwise interesting expansions to a concept revealed all the way back in UNDERTALE, but they serve their purpose well and have funny, memorable character moments to make up for it.
The new monsters and combat encounters, meanwhile, are sparse, but what’s here is fun and thematically appropriate in the classic way that Toby Fox is known to design enemies. I personally appreciated that one of these enemies, a beetle ninja, was essentially a walking Beatles reference. They even made Ralsei, my favorite character, listen to my favorite album by the band, which feels like a moment made specifically for me. It’s the kind of tongue-in-cheek, subtle pop culture reference that Fox’s work does best, and it’s done just enough to be incredibly fun without being too overbearing.
Music references aside, the actual soundtrack for Chapter 5 is still excellent, with new songs and renditions of classic tracks scoring the adventure perfectly. Toby Fox is just as much of a music composer as he is a game developer, and DELTARUNE’s infectious, groovy, but ultimately diverse style continues its hot streak here.
New renditions like "Garden of Hopes and Dreams" evokes the magical, nostalgic feeling of a new adventure well, building off from Chapter 1’s theme for "Fields of Hopes and Dreams." The new battle theme, meanwhile, "Rakuichi Battle," has elevated the original into being one of my favorite RPG battle themes period. The silky, beautiful violin and the punchy, fast paced drums convey a balanced sense of urgency, intensity, and grace that harmonize together perfectly. The absolute best part of this rendition, to me, is the killer bass guitar solo, which always makes this bass player smile wider than the circle of fifths when it comes on.
All new tracks are just as good, serving the purpose of the narrative greatly. Tracks like "I guess i’m in love" and "Onsen" are wonderfully intimate and subtle, soundtracking their moments of quiet contemplation and warmth well. Elsewhere, a song like "That Guy" immediately hits veterans with the leitmotifs Fox is known to incorporate throughout his games, prompting speculation from players about a character’s motivations just from hearing the song.
The Latest in DELTARUNE’s Genre Shifting Ambitions
DELTARUNE’s RPG combat system, is a refinement of UNDERTALE’s combat which itself has only become more foundational and structurally sound. For the most part, DELTARUNE Chapter 5 retains this same combat style, with the boss fights and regular encounters containing all the bullet-hell patterns and funny dialogue options that fans have come to love and expect from the series.
DELTARUNE’s mix of JRPG elements inspired by the Shin Megami Tensei and Mother series and the bullet hell stylings of the Touhou Project have easily become greater than the sum of its parts. It's such a solid RPG foundation that each chapter has made significant strides to subvert this formula and add new dimensions to it.
This is most notable with Chapter 3’s rather ambitious approach to adding new gameplay styles by framing it through a TV show lens. In this chapter, players had to control the party through a mix of rhythm game, arcade shooter, and quiz show pastiches, which were all incorporated wonderfully and were pretty fun additions in their own right. These new gameplay additions have always been inextricably tied to the form of escapism each chapter has been themed around, and its quite clear that the Flower Kingdom's Japanese-inspired locales also brought DELTARUNE into its ninja-esque action-platforming phase, one that it handles so well that it makes me want a whole game just like it.
Chapter 5 doesn’t quite hit the same experimental strides as its predecessor, but its laser focused attempt at adding an honest-to-god action platforming mechanic is mostly impressive and well-executed with some minor drawbacks. Off the bat, it’s simply just cool to see our heroes shift perspectives and become fluid, deeply mobile action-game warriors like Ryu Hayabusa or Samus Aran. These segments also control surprisingly well for a first time implementation, with the odd jump arc here and there that ruins your momentum if you’re not careful.
The best part of these new platforming segments is that they simultaneously diversify the gameplay and traversal while also smartly incorporating the party dynamics of the group. Susie, as the brute force tank of the party, thrashes obstacles and stuns enemies during combat, while Ralsei stretches into platforms, grapple points, and weights for Kris to reach as the lovable support that he is. Altogether, the party becomes a synchronized unit during these segments, and when the platforming gets challenging it's a genuine joy to behold these friends working together in perfect harmony.
Asgore Above, So Below
Chapter 5 of DELTARUNE feels less like an active attempt to approach an answer to the crucial questions of the story, like its precedingly haunting 4th Chapter. Instead, it's an attempt to give players one more chance to enjoy the characters they love and delve into their growth as people. It’s a chance to do some actual character work for these people that, if you’re like me anyway, you’ve grown to love and root for, or at the very least feel deeply intrigued by.
On one hand, this core theme is done really well. Chapter 5 focuses a lot on relationships, specifically the relationships that characters have with each other and how that has affected their growth as people. These are especially interesting as these relationships are all interconnected and only lead to further growth that rounds out these characters and their place in the world all the better.
Without going too deep into spoilers, my favorite example of this happens right as the game starts to pick up speed. Susie and Noelle share a beautiful, intimate moment together that’s ultimately cut short by protagonist Kris’ mysterious, harrowing connection with the Dark World. Answers to their connection are then hinted at, by resolving a long-speculated story thread involving their father Asgore that also forces Ralsei to confront his place in the narrative and the Prophecy through his opposition to Flowery, the mysterious, eccentric newcomer.
This is a microcosm of the many ways that Chapter 5 focuses on relationships and how human connection has been so vital for these characters to be who they are, and they keep showing up in small interactions and in random side characters.
While I mentioned that new characters had mostly safe designs, these same people were nonetheless saved by their endearingly quirky personalities. In particular, new characters named Blue and Yellow have such a fun relationship and set of qualities that I felt bad having to fight them at all, even if their boss fights were some of the best in the game. A lot of the fun becomes just watching these wacky people navigate their places in each other’s lives, and they never cease to be funny, heartfelt, and wonderfully written.
On the other hand, I sympathize with frustrated fans who want more answers to the burning questions DELTARUNE has presented since its opening chapters. The game is approaching its conclusion, and in Chapter 5 the overarching lore is either sidelined or used as a vehicle to explore certain character dynamics. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t explored at all, some might argue that it does more to reveal bits of the story than something like Chapter 3, but they still take a backseat nonetheless.
This, for the most part, still doesn’t detract from my enjoyment of Chapter 5’s story at all, sparse as it may be. I do understand why fans may feel frustrated with this though because the core premise of DELTARUNE is so fascinating, and it feels like we’ve only been given gradual answers for some time now, which only get supplanted by more questions anyway.
Parallel universes are a staple of pop culture narrative and storytelling, and one that I find fascinating only when done to say something interesting about the world we live in. For my money, I think Twin Peaks: The Return did this the best, ending on a note which posits that choosing to change fate, even altruistically, traps us in a cycle of suffering and ennui that's mostly of our own choosing. Toby Fox’s DELTARUNE, then, forces players to confront an inversely haunting question through his signature meta-narrative, irreverent style: What is the point of free will if your choices, ultimately, don’t matter?
Subverting JRPG conventions, especially those of a game as choice-driven as UNDERTALE, to explore this concept is so inherently fascinating and rich in thematic complexity that in the hands of a more typical director DELTARUNE would focus entirely on this. Toby Fox, as we’ve established, is not like most game directors, so I eagerly anticipate how Chapters 6 and 7 (haha) resolve this central conflict.
In the meantime, Chapter 5 does exactly what it sets out to do as a more lighthearted, adventurous romp through the Dark World that still gives players just enough to want more. Whether you've been following Kris, Susie, Ralsei, and all their wonderful friends since 2018 or since last week like I have, Chapter 5 is an incredibly fun journey to take that fleshes these characters out beautifully both in gameplay and in narrative. They remain an absolute pleasure to watch grow and develop, especially as they face the horrors and ennui of their world, and you'll be left clawing at your seat to see what happens next.
Is DELTARUNE Chapter 5 Worth It?
You Are Filled with the Value of One of the Best RPGs Ever
DELTARUNE has been one of the most consistently fun, compelling, and earnest games I’ve ever played, with every new chapter elevating the experience into something even greater. This is especially true for Chapter 5 which, while unfortunately compromising on the overall lore, uses its focus on character dynamics and development to deliver one of the purest, most unrelentingly fun journeys in the game so far. The interactions between characters, new and old, are hilarious and well written, while the gameplay and secrets will inevitably compel replays and intentional exploration. Chapter 5 probably won’t draw in new players by itself, but the DELTARUNE experience as a whole will always be worth anyone’s time. The newest chapter just elevates DELTARUNE further by being the "calm before the storm," keeping players hooked for what happens next.
Game8 Reviews
