OMORI is a painful masterpiece. A very emotional review

OMORI is a difficult game to review. Not because it's bad, mind you. Quite the opposite. It has a gripping narrative, a distinct art style, beautiful music and charming characters. But its story and subject matter is... a lot. It's a game where I can't really talk about what makes it so special without providing multiple spoiler warnings and at least one content warning. And let me tell you, avoiding spoilers for this game for six years was a challenge in and of itself. But I managed to do a (mostly) blind playthrough of this game, and now I'm going to tell you all about this very tragic, but very engrossing experience.

Official box art for OMORI, featuring the titular character. Image found on Wikipedia.

Before we begin the review properly, here's a quick content warning. OMORI is rated M for Mature by the ESRB, for violence and profanity. It is also a horror game, with a heavy focus on mental illness during its story campaign. As such, the game features themes like loneliness, depression, grief and self-harm, and how people respond to those problems. It cannot be stated enough that this one of the darkest video games I have ever covered in the history of this blog. Viewer discretion is advised.

But what exactly is OMORI? It's a psychological horror role playing game developed and published by OMOCAT. It was released on December 25th, 2020, just in time for Christmas. OMORI is inspired somewhat by Toby Fox's UNDERTALE, which was in turn inspired by 90's and 2000's era RPGs like Earthbound, Final Fantasy and OFF. The comparisons to UNDERTALE were what drew me to OMORI in the first place, as UNDERTALE is one of my favorite video games of all time. So anything that can seriously be considered equal to it is going to get my attention. 

OMORI developed a reputation for its dark, but incredibly well-written story. But fans of this game will tell you that the less you know going into the game, the better the experience will be. Because of this, it can be frustratingly difficult to discuss this game in detail. So just to be safe, I'll say that this review will contains spoilers for the entire game. I will be discussing the broad strokes of the story, the major boss battles and all the twists and turns that happen along the way. This will include plot twists and discussions of the game's multiple endings. 

If you want my spoiler free thoughts on the game, OMORI is a great game with good art, amazing music and an emotionally devastating storyline. Five stars out of five, if you can stomach something so grim, I can recommend it. I do not recommend it if anything in that content warning will seriously bother you. I'm serious, this game goes to some really messed up places. But most importantly, be kind to yourself and be kind to others. Mental health is important, especially in this day and age. 

With all that being said, let's begin the review properly.

You play as a 12-year-old child named Omori, who lives in a whimsical land called Headspace. Despite Headspace being an idealistic paradise where kids can do whatever they want, Omori is completely numb to it all. He has a look of pure apathy plastered on his face almost at all times. And the few times he does emote, his facial expressions look almost forced in comparison to the more natural expressions of the other children. Heck, even Omori's design sticks out like a sore thumb in Headspace. Headspace is almost sickeningly vibrant and colorful, but Omori himself is completely monochrome.

Above is the inventory menu, below is a lineup of the game's four main heroes (Omori, Aubrey, Kel and Hero). Image found on the OMORI Steam page.

But Omori's friends are just as vibrant and emotive as Headspace itself. Three of Omori's friends will join his journey and assist in battle against various monsters. First is Aubrey, a cheerful girl with a love for baseball. Second is Kel, a mischievous jokester with a short attention span but a strong sense of loyalty. And third is Hero, a charismatic but mild-mannered teenager who by virtue of being the oldest kid in the friend group, is the responsible peacekeeper of the group. These three kids, plus Omori himself, make up the main group that you'll be playing as.

There are two more kids in Headspace, the soft-spoken Basil and always supportive Mari. These two are not playable (at least under normal circumstances), but they are just as important to the story as Omori's main friend group. Mari is especially important, not only because she is Omori's older sister, but because she is how you save your progress. The only way to save your progress in this game is find Mari in any given level and join one of her picnics. I know that sounds bizarre, but it makes sense with context, I promise.

Our adventure begins in White Space, a blank and empty room in the middle of Headspace. Omori starts every day in this room. We also see a cinematic of two children, with one of them crying while the other assures the first kid that "everything will be okay." We don't know the context of this cinematic, but it will make sense later. Also, the phrase "everything will be okay" gets used like a mantra throughout the game. But Omori doesn't stay in White Space for long. 

Shortly after grabbing a knife (for "self defense" of course), Omori meets up with his friends. Basil invites all of the other kids to his house so they can look through a photo album together. This photo album is filled with all of the photos that Basil took of his friends over the years and as such, it's his most prized possession. Well, besides his garden. A fun bit of trivia is that each flower in Basil's garden represents one kid from Omori's friend group, and clicking on the flowers will have Basil explain the meaning of each flower.

On the way to Basil's house, you are taught the basics of combat by fighting off basic Headspace monsters. Battles are turn-based, with each kid being allowed to take one action each (for a total of four actions per turn). You can either attack with your weapons, use a snack to heal yourself, use a toy to weaken an enemy, or use powerful techniques called Skills. The four main kids learn new Skills as they level up and grow stronger.

Skills come in two main types, attack Skills that deal more damage than attacking normally, and utility effects like healing or changing a character's emotions (more on them below). Skills cost a resource called Juice, which can be restored by eating or drinking certain snacks. Think of Juice as the equivalent of stamina.

The game's combat revolves around changing and controlling emotions like joy, anger and sadness. As seen here, three out of four heroes are angry while Omori is sad. Image found on the OMORI Steam page. 

The main feature of OMORI is being able to manipulate emotions to enhance your abilities. Emotions work on a rock-paper-scissors style system, with Happiness beating Anger, Anger beating Sadness and Sadness beating Happiness. You can use Skills and toys to change a character's emotions at any time. And some Skills can apply additional effects, but only if the user is feeling a specific emotion. For example, Omori's signature Skill is "Stab," a melee attack that ignores all enemy defenses, but only if he is feeling sad. Aubrey gets a similar Skill called "Headbutt" which deals double damage, but only if she is feeling angry.

The game doesn't directly mention this (or if it did, I missed that information), but if you use an emotion-changing Skill on a character already feeling that emotion, it causes that character to feel an even stronger variant of that emotion. For example, using Aubrey's "Pep Talk" Skill makes the target feel happy. If the target is already happy, they become ecstatic. The other emotions have similarly extreme variants. This produces even stronger effects, but increases your weakness to whatever emotion beats your current one. 

Omori is unique in that only he can access "tier 3" emotions like Mania, Fury and Misery, which are the three strongest emotions in the game. The other kids can only use the more "moderate" emotions. Most enemies can't access tier 3 emotions either, and the only characters besides Omori who can do so are all bosses. Omori is also unique because of a special passive ability he has that lets him survive one lethal attack per battle.

In addition to the three main emotions, there's a secret fourth emotion known as fear. Unfortunately, fear is weak to all other emotions, and all Skills are disabled until the character in question is no longer afraid. The four main kids have no way of inflicting fear on enemies, but enemies can inflict fear on them if certain requirements are met. You never want someone to be afraid, so if one of the kids does gain this emotion, you have to switch them to a different emotion (if you have the ability to do so).

The last main combat mechanic is the energy counter. You start every battle with 3 energy points, and gain an additional point every time Omori or his friends take damage. You can spend three points to do a Follow Up Skill, in which a basic weapon attack gets upgraded to either hit again or change a character's emotions for free. But if you save up for 10 energy points, you can do the Ultimate Attack, which is the strongest damage-dealing ability in the game. Of course, most battles don't last nearly long enough for you to use the Ultimate Attack. In my experience, the Ultimate Attack only really gets used for boss battles.

I was actually pleasantly surprised by OMORI's combat systems. Mostly because nobody ever talks about the combat in the game. Almost all discussion of OMORI that I've seen, even after beating the game, revolves around its story and subject matter. But the emotion system is simple and easy to learn how to use effectively. And there's a good variety in Skills that let you try out all sorts of combos and strategies. Sure, the battles can grow repetitive after a while, but the combat itself is actually kind of fun.

Outside of combat, Omori and friends travel across a retro-inspired open world and can solve simple puzzles. Each kid has a unique skill that can be used outside of combat. Omori can cut through obstacles like vines or (eventually) spider webs, Aubrey can push blocks around and smash pottery with her baseball bat, Kel can throw rocks at otherwise out of reach buttons and switches and Hero can use his charming demeanor to convince certain Headspace creatures to assist him. These puzzles are not too difficult, and most of them boil down to "switch to the right character to do their thing."

Okay, back to the story. So Omori and friends reach Basil's house. The only friend that doesn't join is Mari, who politely declines Basil's offer to hang out. But as the kids look through the photo album, Basil finds a photograph he doesn't remember taking. Its contents freak him out and cause him to yell out Mari's name in panic. Before he can show the rest of the gang what this mystery photo is, Omori is whisked away back to White Space. You actually can see the mystery photo flash on screen, but it goes by so fast that unless you're recording the gameplay and slow the footage down, it's impossible to make out the photo's contents. 

This scene is the first real showcase of horror elements, as before this point, OMORI's world had been suspiciously saccharine. But now Omori is now trapped inside White Space with no clear exit. But you remember that knife he picked up earlier? …It wasn't for self defense, after all. Yeah, the only way to proceed is for Omori to stab himself with the knife. Hence the self-harm warning.

Upon doing so, we switch perspectives to a new kid, one who is almost identical to Omori. The only difference is that this new kid has a fully colored sprite as opposed to Omori's monochrome aesthetic. You can name this kid whatever you want, as long as it's eight letters or shorter. But for the sake of consistency, this kid will be referred to as Sunny, as that is the default name. However, if you feel like getting completely immersed in the story that OMORI is trying to tell, go ahead and name the kid after yourself. What could possibly go wrong?

Sunny is a young boy living by himself at the moment, as his mother is out of town and his father left the family a long time ago. Sunny's family was supposed to be moving to the big city, and the only reason he's still in the old house is to finish packing everything up. While Mari is (at least initially) nowhere to be seen in the real world, you can still save your progress by interacting with empty picnic baskets.

In case it wasn't obvious, Headspace is nothing more than Sunny's dreams, based loosely off of half-remembered adventures with his real life friends. But in the real world, Sunny is just as depressed and apathetic as Omori. In fact, Sunny's mental health has gotten so bad that he experiences frequent hallucinations of a monster called Something haunting him. Yes, the main monster in this horror game is literally called Something.

The fifth hero, Sunny, fights a monster called Something by himself. This is the part of the game where the horror elements kick in. Image found on the OMORI Steam Page.

The major "highlight" of Sunny's night, for lack of a better term, is hearing a knock at the door supposedly from Mari. But when Sunny answers the door, all he finds is a jump scare from a ghostly being that only vaguely resembles her. Sunny sleeps off these literal night terrors, only to find another knock on his door the next morning.

This second knock is vitally important to the story, as choosing whether or not to answer it will cause the game to split into two routes. If you answer it, you will start the Sunny Route. If you don't answer, you will start the Omori Route. The Sunny Route focuses more on the real world and on what happened to Sunny's friend group, and it will eventually reveal the source of Sunny/Omori's depression and apathy. 

The Omori Route, meanwhile, takes you back to Headspace so you can do more wacky RPG adventures. But you will never learn the truth behind Sunny/Omori's despair if you go down the Omori Route, as this route skips over a lot of important information. The only positive of the Omori Route is that it unlocks Basil as a playable character, in case you wanted to experiment with the combat system even more.

I will say that it's really clever to have a jump scare play the first time you interact with the front door in Sunny's house, but not the second time. Having the jump scare happen first makes the player feel just as reluctant to interact with the outside world as Sunny himself is (because the game "taught" you to associate that door with danger), which makes the decision to answer it again even more impactful. 

Answering the door again reveals the real life version of Kel, who happens to be Sunny's next-door neighbor. As it turns out, Kel has spent the last few months trying to get in contact with him, in an attempt to reconnect with his old friend. Now that Sunny has managed to actually leave his house, the two decide to spend the next three days hanging out together. 

Why three days, specifically? Because that's when Sunny's mother comes back to town and takes him away to their new house in the big city. Once those three days are over, it's going to be much harder for Sunny and Kel to stay together. And the game's entire story structure from here on out is built around getting as much stuff done as possible within those three days. The game doesn't have a real time limit, thankfully, as time only moves forward if certain story events are triggered (i.e. boss battles). The "three days" thing is just for storytelling purposes.

This brings us to my favorite part of OMORI's story, Faraway Town. This town encompasses the "real world" sections of the game, and it provides crucial context for understanding Headspace. Something you must understand is that everything in Headspace is meant to symbolic of something in Sunny's life. For example, all of the creatures seen in Headspace are either exaggerated versions of people that Sunny has encountered in the real world before, or they're abstract concepts that represent something about Sunny himself. 

From this point onwards, you will alternate between playing as Omori and Sunny, with the former being in the Headspace sections and the latter being in Faraway Town. Headspace is more lighthearted and goofy than Faraway Town, and it can be tempting to stay there as long as possible to avoid dealing with all the horror stuff (which mostly happens in Faraway Town). But that's the point. OMORI is a game about how ignoring your problems and escaping to a fantasy land is not a healthy way to live, and that the only way to move on with your life is to head back out into that big, scary real world.

Another quirk of Headspace is that some areas are not accessible because of Sunny's real life fears and phobias. Specifically, he has a fear of heights, a fear of spiders and a fear of drowning. As such, Omori cannot climb ladders, cut through spider webs or swim until his real life counterpart, Sunny, overcomes these fears. Sunny can accomplish this by fighting Something and defeating it each time it appears.

While hanging out at the park in Faraway Town, Sunny and Kel meet up with the real world version of Basil, who is being bullied by the real world version of Aubrey. While most of the kids are more or less the same as their Headspace counterparts, this is not true for Aubrey. Headspace Aubrey is a cheerful girly gal that likes baseball. Real world Aubrey is a bitter street punk that uses a baseball bat as a weapon. She's also the leader of a gang of high-school delinquents called the Scooter Gang, who are just as abrasive as Aubrey herself.

But Aubrey wasn't always like this. The Headspace kids are all based on how Sunny remembered his friend group last time they were all together, which was four years prior to the start of the game. Because of this, the Headspace kids are four years younger than their real-life counterparts, both physically and mentally. So something happened to Aubrey since those four years that caused her to become so bitter. 

So Aubrey steals Basil's photo album and runs off. At Basil's request, Sunny and Kel go on a quest to get it back. This results in our dynamic duo tracking down and fighting each member of the Scooter Gang just to get a clue as to where Aubrey went off to. Battles in Faraway Town are heavily simplified, because Sunny and Kel are weaker than their Headspace counterparts.

Eventually Sunny and Kel track Aubrey down to the local church, where they confront her over her theft of Basil's photo album. This results in an explosive argument between Kel and Aubrey, in which the latter reveals the reason why she's so bitter. 

Mari, Omori/Sunny's sister and the glue that held the friend group together, is dead. And she's been dead for four years. 

A lot of things suddenly make more sense with this absolute bombshell of a revelation. Mari's death was what led to the friend group going their separate ways. It led Sunny to become a depressed shut-in that stays home all day. And Aubrey's rage and bitterness is a result of her unresolved grief from losing her best friend. The reason she still goes to church despite her punkish attitude is because it's the only thing that brings her peace of mind. At least it did, until this argument ruined the experience for her.

This leads to a boss fight against Aubrey in the church. It doesn't matter if you win or lose, as Aubrey storms off and throws away the photo album regardless. In fact, it's pretty difficult to actually win this fight due to limited healing items and a lack of healing Skills. The whole time this fight is happening, Aubrey is being ostracized and mocked by the elders in the church, who are completely apathetic to her sorrow. And this only makes her even angrier.

Regardless of how the boss fight went, Sunny and Kel manage to get the photo album back, but a few of the photos are suspiciously missing. Basil decides it's best for Sunny to hold onto the photo album, both so he can cherish the memories of their friendship, and so he can (eventually) retrieve all the missing photos. But Kel accidentally reveals that Sunny is moving away, which causes Basil to start acting... Strange. Erratic, even.

Sunny follows Basil into the bathroom due to the latter's suspicious behavior, but he quickly learns that Basil can see Something. You know, that hallucinatory monster that's been haunting Sunny this whole time? Yeah, not only can Basil see it, he has Something of his own that's been tormenting him all day. And Sunny's response to this revelation is to just leave and go home, even while Basil is having a Something-induced panic attack.

Not going to lie, I don't really like that the only way to progress on this Route is to not only leave Basil behind while he's in the middle of a panic attack, but then say absolutely nothing about what Sunny just witnessed. Obviously, trying to explain Something to "normal" people is going to sound insane, but like, we could at least have been given the option to bring up Basil's panic attack with Kel. He, of all people, would definitely be supportive of a friend at their lowest point. Maybe Sunny's inaction is supposed to show that he's too broken by his own problems to help anyone dealing with a similar crisis. But eh, whatever.

Side note, Kel is just a really good and supportive friend in general. Without Kel's intervention, most of the game's story simply wouldn't happen. We could all use a friend like Kel. The world would be so much better if there more people like Kel in it.

Omori and Friends talk to a gator guy while in Headspace. Image found on the OMORI Steam Page

So we return to Headspace and take control of Omori again. All of the Headspace kids are back except for Basil. So the gang decides to go explore this whimsical realm and rescue Basil from whatever fate had befallen him. But while looking for Basil, the gang gets distracted by a space pirate crew whose leader just went through a nasty break-up. Omori and friends agree to help the space pirates comfort their captain, which leads to the first major boss fight outside of the tutorial. 

This boss, a character literally called Space Ex-Boyfriend, serves as a wakeup call. If you don't take advantage of the emotion system, you're going to get absolutely bodied. All of the bosses possess either strong emotions or the ability to change the emotions of others. Spamming basic attacks is not going to cut it anymore.

The whole B-plot with the space pirates is supposed to "subtly" set up how all of the Headspace sections will work going forward. Omori and friends go to a place to look for Basil, get distracted by a wacky side quest, and fight a boss armed with strong emotions. Every time the gang actually makes progress towards finding Basil, they get warped back to White Space, and the only way to leave is through more self-inflicted violence.

Time passes to the next day, and we take control of Sunny again. Kel wants to hang out, just like before. If you declined to answer the door back on the first day, Sunny will automatically refuse to answer it again, thus locking you into the Omori Route. If you answer the door on the first day but refuse on the second, you get the Mixed Route, which is just a milder version of the Omori Route with none of the Route-exclusive content. The rest of the story summary describes the Sunny Route, as it definitely feels like the "intended" game path.

So Kel takes Sunny with him while running errands on his mother's behalf. Kel's older brother, the real world version of Hero, is coming home from college later that same day. So Kel's parents want to surprise him with an elaborate dinner.

The only problem encountered on the second day is that Basil has mysteriously disappeared, not just in Headspace, but in the real world as well. And his family is getting worried, enough to ask Sunny and Kel to go look for him. So now Sunny and Kel have to look all over town to find the real Basil, which was nowhere near as difficult as finding him in Headspace. It turns out that he went to a hidden lake that Sunny's friend group used to hang out at during the summer. But unfortunately, Aubrey's gang is there as well.

This leads to a boss fight against all six members of the Scooter Gang, a fight that is scripted so you don't really have a chance to win. As it turns out, a six-vs-two battle isn't exactly fair, especially when one side is armed with baseball bats and the other has no real weapons to speak of.

Anyway, Aubrey crashes out over how quickly everyone else "got over" Mari's death while she's still grieving all these years after the fact. This culminates in Aubrey accidentally pushing Basil into the lake. But Basil can't swim, so Sunny has no choice but to jump in the water and save Basil from drowning. At the same time this happens, Sunny gets attacked by Something and has to overcome the fear of drowning on the spot.

While Sunny does defeat Something, he starts losing consciousness after being underwater for so long. The only reason he and Basil don't drown is because Hero managed to show up just in time to save both of them. Despite Kel claiming that Aubrey has become too aggressive to be reasoned with, Hero still wants to reach out to her because he still remembers the cheerful girly gal Aubrey used to be and believes that the "old" Aubrey is still in there.

Unfortunately, the day is almost over by now, so the gang heads home. Sunny winds up hosting a sleepover event at his house, during which he and Hero talk about Mari. There was one room in the house that Sunny refused to enter before now, which was the piano room. And this piano was important, because the same day that Mari died was the day she and Sunny (who was an aspiring violinist prior to becoming a depressed shut-in) were supposed to perform a duet at their school together. That duet never happened, for obvious reasons.

Sunny and friends go to sleep, and we return to Headspace. Every time we enter Headspace, we get sent on increasingly nonsensical detours to distract Omori and friends from finding Basil. First it was the space pirates. Then they had to pass through an obnoxiously sweet candy kingdom ruled by a minor antagonist named Sweetheart. After that they had to deal with a hotel called the Last Resort that is owned by a literal loan shark. And finally, they have to explore the vast belly of a talking whale. All of these are the major bosses in their respective regions of Headspace. And with each adventure, the gang's memories of Basil fade away.

Truth be told, the Headspace sections are probably the weakest part of OMORI's story. The pacing here is unfortunately rather slow, and battles against regular enemies can become repetitive. They do add some levity to what is otherwise an extremely grim and dour game, but depending on who you ask, these sections outstay their welcome. But then again, the slow pace may have been deliberate.

Now what I'm about to say is going to sound strange, but hear me out. There is a sentient coral branch encountered on the way to the talking whale that will clarify the lore in case you're unclear about how Headspace works. For such a minor character, the coral branch gives a lot of important information. 

First of all, the coral branch states clearly that Headspace is a dream, just in case there was any doubt about that. The second thing it says is that White Space represents the idea of pure nothingness, as Omori (not Sunny, the coral branch makes a clear distinction between the two) finds it better to feel nothing than it is to feel sad. The third and most important thing that the coral branch says is that Basil is not in Headspace, but instead is trapped in a darker part of Sunny's mind called Black Space. 

Above is the vibrant and whimsical Headspace, below is the dark and foreboding Black Space. Image found on Wikipedia.

In order to get to Black Space, we must first solve a Hangman puzzle. Starting from your second visit to Headspace (the one with the space pirates), you can find special letters hidden all over Headspace. If you collect enough letters to spell out the solution to the Hangman puzzle, you can enter Black Space. Funnily enough, it's actually impossible to fail the Hangman puzzle on the Sunny Route, as most of the wrong letters are only found in places exclusive to the Omori Route.

Black Space is a bizarre location, even by this game's standards. You are treated to a maze of strange, violent and unsettling imagery. At the end of this maze is the Headspace version of Basil, held in place by blood-red hands. But Omori does something incredibly shocking, regardless of the player's input. He stabs Basil with a knife and resets the entirety of Headspace. What's worse is that this is not the first time this has happened. 

Omori is revealed to be a sentient coping mechanism tryin to protect Sunny from Something, and he has been deliberately creating these outlandish scenarios to keep Sunny's mind entertained and distracted. So the slow pace of Headspace might've been a deliberate choice on the developer's part, possibly representing how the Headspace sections are supposed to be nothing but silly distractions created by Omori for the express purpose of wasting Sunny's time. 

More importantly, every time Sunny (or the other Headspace kids) get close to learning the truth of what Something is, Omori destroys them and resets Headspace. Basil seeing that mystery photo at the start of the game allowed him to learn the truth, whatever it may be, which was why Omori struck him down. 

But each scenario is getting messier and messier, as if Omori is running out of ideas for new adventures. Because Omori is not a healthy coping mechanism. He is denial made manifest. And he has killed the Headspace versions of his friends hundreds of times before, just to keep the fantasy going just a little bit longer. But no matter how many times Omori resets Headspace, one of his friends will always discover the truth of what Something really is. This whole cycle of Omori killing his friends and resetting Headspace has been going on ever since the day Mari died in the real world.

Omori being in full control of Headspace is also the reason why Mari never joins a battle officially. Omori is so scared of Mari getting hurt in any capacity, even in a fictional scenario like Headspace, that he keeps her trapped at the various picnic sites seen throughout the game. The only time Mari leaves the "safety" of a picnic blanket is when showing Omori/Sunny the way to the Last Resort, which "coincidentally" prevents enemies from appearing until she returns to a picnic site.

Thanks to Sunny reaching out to Kel on the first day, he no longer needs Omori to heal from the grief of losing Mari. So Omori takes the role of the main villain from this point on. At least, if you're on the Sunny Route. None of what I just described happens in the Omori Route, as you just sink deeper and deeper into the fantasies of Headspace until the line between reality and fiction becomes indistinguishable.

So the final day comes, I'm going to put another spoiler warning. The final day is literally the grand finale. So this is your last chance to go play the game, if anything I said before has caught your interest. 

So the gang confronts Aubrey one last time in an attempt to reconnect with her. Aubrey reluctantly gives the remaining photos back to Sunny, and as it turned out. all of the missing photos were of Mari. The entire reason she stole the photo album in the first place was because she wanted something to remember Mari by, and Basil wouldn't give the photos away willingly.

The four main heroes do a group hug after some spoiler-filled trauma bonding. Image found on RPGFan.com

The gang reconciles their differences and goes to visit Basil. But just like the day before, he isn't home. This time he's visiting his grandmother in the hospital. So the gang passes the time by doing side quests in Faraway Town. After plenty of side questing, we get a scene where the gang visits Sunny's house, in which they pass by a tree stump. And it's here that we learn how Mari died, exactly. And uh... There's no nice way of putting it. According to Hero, Kel and Aubrey, Mari took her own life using a noose. Which makes her passing feel even worse. The stump is what's left of the tree that Mari "self-destructed" on.

I'm going to be so real with you, seeing Sunny's friends mourn Mari's death got me teary eyed. Reading their dialogue hurt on a spiritual level. I never experienced clinical depression in my life, nor have I ever experienced a relative dying in such a tragic manner. But this game does a really good job at getting you to sympathize with its characters. The gang tries to cheer themselves up by focusing on the positive memories they have of Mari, like the time they built a treehouse together.

After doing everything I just described, the gang heads back to Basil's house. But Basil won't leave his room or respond to anyone. He has blocked himself off from everyone else, just as Sunny did for over four years. But this time, Sunny and friends won't leave Basil behind. The gang spends the night at Basil's place specifically so that he wouldn't feel lonely. When Sunny falls asleep, we are brought to Headspace one more time.

Except this time, we're still playing as Sunny. Omori is now separate from Sunny, unresponsive to our commands but still observing with an apathetic stare. Sunny decides he is ready to face the truth of what Something is and enters the darkest corners of his mind to do so. After a nightmarish sequence of Black Space-esque imagery, we find a collection of photos taken from Basil's POV. Photos depicting the night of Mari's passing and revealing Sunny's darkest secret. And one of these photos happened to be the mystery photo that Headspace Basil looked at back at the beginning of the game.

You know how everyone just said earlier that day that Mari took her own life? That was actually a lie. Mari never hurt herself, nor was she ever hanged. What really happened was that she and Sunny got into an argument and the confrontation got physical. It's not stated what they were arguing about and to be honest, the argument itself doesn't matter, as the result is always the same. There is an unused transcript revealing what they were arguing about, but that can't be encountered in the game by normal means, so take it with a grain of salt.

Sunny pushed Mari away from him, but he used more force than he intended, and Mari fell backwards down a long flight of stairs. Mari died on those stairs, and Basil (who was spending the night at Sunny's house) saw everything. What's worse is that some optional dialogue in Headspace has Mari mention that she "always had bad knees." A minor detail made worse with hindsight.

Only Basil and Sunny know how Mari really died. In fact, it was Basil's idea to make it look like a suicide in the first place. For whatever reason, Basil was terrified of the truth becoming public knowledge, and he was especially afraid that Sunny would be taken to prison for manslaughter. Basil is completely and utterly dependent on Sunny, in a way that comes across as a toxic obsession. 

Were Sunny and Basil right to do what they did? No. But we're talking about a pair of (at the time) 12-year-olds who just saw someone close to them die before their very eyes. They were not thinking clearly when they did what they did. And you remember those two kids from the intro? Those two were Sunny and Basil, on the night they hanged Mari's body. And it was Basil telling Sunny that "everything will be okay." Because, you know, Sunny's sister literally just died.

And that is what Something is. Something is the regret of having been directly responsible for Mari's death, and the guilt of having desecrated her corpse. Something is the fear and paranoia that came from keeping this secret for so long. Something is the shame that prevents Sunny and Basil from coming clean about what they did. And until Sunny and Basil reveal the truth of what they did, they will tormented by Something for the rest of their lives.

And here I'm going to have to put a side note. You know how I said this was a "mostly" blind playthrough of OMORI? This was the one thing that was spoiled for me. Sort of. I knew that a major character died from a staircase-related injury, but I didn't know that it was Mari specifically or that it was caused by the main character himself. One of the few things I knew about OMORI prior to playing it was that the fandom made a ton of darkly humorous memes about all the staircase-related injuries that happen in this game.

Anyway, the guilt of what he did to Mari's body is driving Basil mad. Unlike Sunny, who coped by wrapping his memories in several layers of denial, Basil never stopped thinking about the night Mari died. All throughout the game, Basil's behavior in the real world had been increasingly erratic and anxious. Now we know why. He has spent the last four years living in fear of someone figuring out how Mari really died and tracing it back to him and Sunny.

After learning the truth, Sunny wakes up from Headspace in the middle of the night, and the player is faced with a choice. Either confront Basil now, or wait until morning to do so. The latter choice leads to the first of many bad endings, in which Basil takes his own life because he can't handle the guilt anymore. The rest of the gang mourns him, as they had mourned Mari beforehand. Sunny does not reveal the truth in this ending, because it would be a really bad time to do so.

Choosing to confront Basil as soon as Sunny wakes up will result in a boss battle against Basil himself. Or rather, the Something that's been tormenting him. At this point, Basil's Something has grown out of control. In order to save Basil from Something, you will have to fight them both. Unfortunately, both Sunny and Basil are inflicted with fear, so neither of them can use Skills. The result is a straightforward slugfest where you hope you can do more damage to Basil than he can to you. The fight ends in a draw, as Basil is knocked out, but Sunny is stabbed in the eye with garden shears.

As the two are rushed to the hospital by Aubrey, Kel and Hero, Sunny is pulled into Headspace one last time. Sunny remembers all the positive memories he has of Mari, which allows him to finally heal from the guilt. Within these memories, Sunny finds a violin, which was the same one that Mari gave him as a Christmas present. This violin becomes Sunny's weapon of choice, completely replacing the knives associated with Omori. This leads to a showdown with Omori himself. 

This is the final boss battle, a one-on-one duel against the embodiment of depression and denial. It is impossible to defeat Omori permanently. Every time his health bar hits zero, Omori gets back up again with a new health bar. Because depression and grief can't be beaten down so easily. And throughout the whole fight, Omori taunts Sunny by rubbing Mari's death in his face with lines like "She loved you, and you killed her" and "Your friends will hate you once they learn the truth." This is the only time Omori speaks, as he was a silent protagonist/antagonist prior to this point.

This battle will continue until Sunny is defeated, at which point the player gets to make another choice. Either retry the Omori boss fight, or give up. Giving up here leads to another bad ending, in which Omori takes control of Sunny's body, even in the real world. Omori then makes Sunny walk off the edge of the hospital rooftop, killing them both. How did Omori get to the rooftop with no hospital staff to stop them? I dunno, but it makes for a thematically fitting bad ending. 

But choosing to keep on fighting leads to OMORI's best possible ending, and the only ending that can be considered even remotely "good." Sunny stands back up for a rematch, and uses his violin to play a song. And Mari's angelic spirit joins the song with some hauntingly beautiful piano playing. Even in death, Mari still loved her little brother.

The song that the siblings play together is simply called Duet, and it is *the* signature song in the OMORI soundtrack.  I'm going to be honest, if you *don't* get moved to tears by the Duet scene, you have no soul. I'm being serious. The song and the animation here is that good. In fact, I argue that the Duet scene is so emotionally powerful that it is worth buying and playing this game just to see it for yourself.

Anyway, Omori is defeated and Sunny gains complete control of his mind and body. He wakes up in the hospital, with an eye patch over his damaged eye. The Headspace versions of his friends fade away, as he no longer needs the fantasy to live. He makes his way to where Basil, Aubrey, Kel and Hero are. And Sunny tells them all the truth of what happened to Mari all those years ago. The game ends abruptly here. 

We do not get to see Sunny's friends react to the news that Mari never hanged herself, or that her death was in actuality an accident caused by Sunny. How they might've reacted is a hotly debated subject among fans. Some people in the fandom say that they would forgive Sunny, others say that they (mostly Aubrey) would be furious and want nothing to do with Sunny ever again.

Frankly, it doesn't matter if they forgive him or not. This is still the same day that Sunny's family is supposed to move out of town and go to the big city. If they forgive Sunny, they'll keep in contact with him. If they don't, well, at least he won't be coming back to Faraway Town any time soon. It's as simple as that. The only thing Sunny has to worry about is explaining what happened to his eye to his mother. I actually kind of like that the ending is ambiguous. I don't know, 

There is a secret variant of the good ending, acquired by watering Basil's flower garden every single (in-game) day. Which I didn't do, because I legitimately forgot about it. But if you do this, the good ending gets an additional scene where Sunny actually smiles for the first time in the game. A real, genuine smile. Something fades away, symbolizing that the burden of that dark secret is no longer haunting Basil and Sunny. So even if Aubrey, Kel and Hero didn't forgive them, at least Basil and Sunny can forgive themselves.

The last two endings are exclusive to the Omori Route. In this alternate storyline, Sunny refuses to answer the door to Kel and spends the rest of the game inside his home. There, he regresses further into the fantasy of Headspace. This route unlocks some new areas and bosses, including a boss rush against stronger versions of all the previous bosses. There's also a new layer of Black Space with even more deranged imagery than before, known as Black Space 2.

Because Sunny never went outside in the Omori Route, a ton of things that are supposed to happen simply don't. Aubrey never moves on from her bitterness. Kel and Hero never get a chance to reunite with the other kids. And Basil dies offscreen, and nobody realizes that he's gone until it's too late. Both of the Omori Route endings are unmistakably bad endings.

The first Omori Route exclusive ending is called Abandonment, and in it, Sunny's mother comes home and takes him away. Sunny's old friends are left with unanswered questions and Something is still haunting Sunny. And it will continue to haunt him until the end of his days. The second ending is simply called Knife. It's exactly what you think it is. Sunny stabs himself with a knife, but because he's not in Headspace, he dies for real this time.

These two endings are anticlimactic at best, and lead to a narratively dissatisfying experience. But that's the point. Despite being the game's namesake, the Omori Route is antithetical to the themes and lessons this game is trying to teach. OMORI is a game about how escaping to a fantasy land and cutting yourself off from the rest of the world is not a good way to deal with your problems. To do the Omori Route, you have to ignore this lesson and sink even deeper into the fantasy.

Omori and friends look at their reflection in the mirror. Image found on RPGFan.com

And that's the story of OMORI. This game, while fantastically well made, can be emotionally challenging to play through. It's reputation as one of the most tragic horror games ever made is well-earned. And that's what makes the game so difficult to review. There was a saying I heard once, that "Art should disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed." OMORI is that kind of art. It is not a game I would play for the fun of it, but for the *experience* of it. I don't think I'll play through the game again, at least for a long while. But to say this game is "bad" would be a lie on my part.

In terms of presentation, OMORI is a nice looking horror game with a distinct and recognizable art style. Or rather, art styles. The game uses a mixture of retro-inspired pixel art, hand drawn anime-style cut ins and distorted photorealistic images to get its point across. It sounds like a chaotic mess of clashing styles (and in some ways it is), but the game somehow manages to make it work. The only thing I can truly criticize here is that some character faces (mostly Kel and Hero) can look a little bit too similar to each other. But even that is a nitpick at worst.

The sound design is also good. The sound effects are crisp and clear, even if they are a little on the simple side. The music is amazing and arguably just as good as UNDERTALE's soundtrack, which is very high praise. Of course, this being a horror game, a lot of music in the soundtrack tends to be spooky ambience rather than conventional music. But the conventional songs that *are* in the soundtrack are all fantastic. 

I already mentioned Duet, but there are other great songs in OMORI's soundtrack as well. World's End Valentine is a spectacular theme for the boss fight against Sweetheart (that minor Headspace villain), managing to sound oh so regal and pompous. And even though it only plays in the game's worst possible ending, bo en's My Time works perfectly as both the only licensed song in the game and the only song with lyrics. My Time is by far the most chaotic and deranged song I have ever heard (not just in video games, but in general), and I mean that as a compliment. Like an out-of-control carnival ride.

Overall, OMORI is exactly what I said it was in the title of this post: A painful masterpiece. This game will not be for everyone, but it is the kind of game that could change someone's life. I have no choice but to give it 5 stars out of 5, because the game clearly did something right to garner such a reaction out of me. Is it as good as UNDERTALE? Kind of. The two games are going for wildly different vibes despite the similar concepts. UNDERTALE is a goofy game that occasionally delves into darker themes. OMORI is a dark game that has occasional moments of levity.

OMORI is the property of OMOCAT. None of the images featured here were created by me. Please support the original creators.

deltarune Chapters 3-4, going darker than dark. A very determined review

Back in 2021, I reviewed the first two Chapters of deltarune, an ambitious indie game project created by legendary game developer Toby Fox. That was actually one of my favorite reviews that I ever wrote. And deltarune itself is just a fun game to play and talk about. Fast forward to June 5th, 2025, and we see the official release of deltarune Chapters 3 & 4, which were released simultaneously. So naturally, I want to review the new Chapters, because I have a lot of thoughts on them.

The official logo of deltarune. Image found on Wikipedia.org

I do, unfortunately, have to make an important PSA. Chapter 4 (or at the very least the PS5 version, which I played) contains a glitch that can potentially soft-lock your playthrough, thus forcing you to reload to an earlier save file. Because I only had one active file when the glitch happened, I had to replay ALL of Chapter 4 to get back to where I was. This softlock soured my opinion of Chapter 4, despite enjoying the overall experience. Just to be clear, I don't hate or even dislike Chapter 4, despite getting soft-locked. I still consider the Chapter to be a worthwhile experience. But this was a valuable lesson for me, to always have a backup save file ready to go in case something like this happens again. Also, there's a good chance that this glitch will be fixed in an update, at which point this criticism is rendered null. But now that we got the PSA out of the way, let's get back to the review.

deltarune is a story-focused roleplaying game with an 8-bit art style, famous for its eccentric sense of humor and emphasis on pacifistic gameplay. It takes place in the same setting as Toby Fox's previous game, UNDERTALE. In both games, the world is populated by Humans and Monsters, the former being strong but unskilled with magic, the latter being magically gifted but cursed with fragile bodies. Both games have a Mercy System in which you can use nonlethal abilities called Acts to convince enemies to surrender peacefully. Both games have Bullet Hell sections where the Player has to dodge a barrage of thematically appropriate projectiles by using a cartoon heart to fly around. And both games have branching storylines that change based on how violent or merciful you were, with the good ending being locked behind the path of pacifism. 

However, deltarune is NOT a direct sequel to UNDERTALE. Toby Fox likes to call it a "parallel story." While both games have similar mechanics and themes, deltarune focuses primarily on a brand-new cast of characters, with a handful of fan-favorites returning in supporting roles. There are also new game mechanics, like Tension and magic spells. Tension builds up when you "graze" past an attack (i.e. get as close to the projectiles as you can without taking damage). You need Tension to cast magic spells, which can be used to either deal more damage, heal allies or put wounded/tired enemies to sleep. For lore reasons, only Monsters can use magic.

Speaking of Monsters, let's talk about the three main heroes of this game; Kris the Human, Susie the Monster and Ralsei the Dark Prince. For the sake of both humor and brevity, I will referring to these three heroes as the Fun Gang.

You play as Kris, or rather, the Soul inside of Kris. This is an important distinction, as you are not meant to project yourself onto Kris the same way you would with a conventional self-insert (i.e. your average RPG protagonist). Kris had a life long before the Player showed up, with their own friends, family and hobbies. Kris knows that they are being controlled by someone else, and they are not happy about having to share a body with the Player. They will occasionally rebel against the Player's commands, such as making chosen dialogue choices sound more sarcastic than intended or interpreting commands in ways that are maliciously compliant. Like, if you tell Kris to "turn a doorknob" they will do as instructed, but they will not open the door unless you specifically say the words "push open the door." Whenever Kris does something automatically, without Player input, is when we see a glimpse of their true nature. And that's what makes Kris an interesting character. Name one other video game where A; the protagonist is aware of the Player controlling them, and B; said protagonist is actively trying to sabotage the Player's goals whenever they can.

Susie meanwhile is too wild and independent for anyone to control. A common joke you'll hear among deltarune fans is that Susie is the "real" main character, as her choices are the ones that move the story along the most, or allow it to go in unexpected directions. She also gets the most character development. Without spoiling things too much, Chapter 1 Susie is almost a completely different person from Chapter 4 Susie. Don't get me wrong, she's still as vulgar as a T for Teen rating will allow, but she goes from being a high-school bully to being the coolest best friend Kris, Ralsei and the Player could ask for. Honestly, Susie is my favorite character so far, and the game is all the better for her inclusion.

Ralsei is content to follow Kris and Susie's lead, but that's because he's following a prophecy. Said prophecy is the titular Legend of Deltarune, which warns of the arrival of eldritch beings called Titans, who are destined to destroy the universe. As such, Ralsei is doing his best to "stick to the script" while Kris and Susie do whatever they want. The most interesting thing about Ralsei is that despite his wholesome, boy scout persona, he clearly knows more about the world than he lets on.

Our heroes, Kris (top left), Susie (middle left) and Ralsei (bottom left) can use the Mercy System to defeat enemies peacefully, usually by putting on silly costumes and performing comedic Acts. In the example above, they have to literally shoot the enemies' socks off. Image found on steamdb.com

This game's story is divided across seven Chapters, with each Chapter being effectively a full blown video game in and of itself. While the exact contents of each Chapter vary, they all follow a somewhat similar structure. The Fun Gang goes to/starts in a Dark World, they befriend/defeat all the Darkners (enemies) inside said Dark World, and they seal the Dark Fountain at that Dark World's center. Somewhere along the way they get to visit Castle Town, which is a sort of home base for the Fun Gang. If you show Mercy to enough Darkners of the same type, they will be recruited as townsfolk for Castle Town, which causes things like new shops and minigames to appear.

Hidden in each Chapter are the Super Bosses, optional enemies that are much stronger than their peers. If you can find and defeat each Super Boss (either with violence or with Mercy), you will be rewarded with new weapons and armor, as well as additional lore and story details. All Super Bosses are identified by two characteristics, they all carry an item called a Shadow Crystal and they all have the Freedom motif in their respective theme songs.

All available Chapters are about 10 hours long each, possibly longer depending on how much time you spend on the Super Bosses. However, Chapters 5, 6 and 7 are not available yet, as they are planned to be released as free updates. Buying the game now only gets you Chapters 1-4. I already reviewed the first two Chapters, as they were released for free. This review focuses mostly on what's actually new, as most of my opinions about the first two Chapters remain mostly unchanged. But because of this game's episodic nature and its connection to UNDERTALE, I will have to warn you that this review contains spoilers for both games. It's kind of impossible to discuss the new Chapters without spoiling twists from the previous Chapters, and some story beats only make sense with context provided by UNDERTALE. You have been warned.

Chapter 1 was equal parts tutorial for the game and an introduction to the world of deltarune. To make a long story short, Kris and Susie were regular high schoolers who wandered into the first Dark World by accident. They meet Ralsei, who tells them of the Prophecy and offers to guide them home. Susie learns a valuable life lesson about how violence is not always the answer to your problems, the Fun Gang defeat the evil King of Spades, and the Dark Fountain of this Chapter is successfully sealed.

Chapter 2 was a major expansion to the game's scope, introducing the existence of multiple Dark Worlds and hinting at the game's main overarching villain, the Roaring Knight. We do not know who the Roaring Knight is, only that it is responsible for creating the Dark Fountains (and by proxy, the Dark Worlds). Also, this Chapter focuses heavily on Noelle Holiday, Kris's childhood best friend and Susie's main love interest. While Noelle is not considered a "main" party member (yet), she's important enough to be considered an "honorary" member of the Fun Gang.

Also, Noelle's presence allows for the start of the Weird Route. This is an optional but very dark side story in which the Player forces Kris to psychologically abuse Noelle until she becomes a cold-blooded killer (literally in her case, as Noelle's specialty is ice magic). Completing the Weird Route results in Noelle being forced to murder her classmate, Berdly. This is the most evil thing the Player can do in this game. And make no mistake, we would be the bad guy for pursuing this storyline. Kris doesn't want to hurt Noelle, and they give us, the Player, plenty of chances to abandon the Route and make things right before it's too late.

Regardless of whether or not you did the Weird Route, Chapter 2 ended with the Fun Gang sealing the second Dark Fountain, saving the day and going home. Susie decides to have a sleep over at Kris's House. But while everyone else is asleep, Kris removes their own Soul (thus regaining complete control of their body) and they create a Dark Fountain right in the middle of the living room. This was one heck of a cliffhanger ending. 

There was a four year gap between the second and third/fourth Chapters' release. In that time lots of theories about where the story was headed propped up all over the Internet. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have theories of my own going into the new Chapters. The most popular theory floating around was the idea that Kris was the Roaring Knight all along, because they made a Dark Fountain. Which, to be fair, was a reasonable assumption.  

Another mystery that was left unsolved was whatever happened to December "Dess" Holiday, Noelle's older sister who went missing prior to the start of the game. And then there's the mystery of the Weird Route and why it exists. And of course, there's the mystery of the bunker at the southern edge of town, which seemed to have no clear purpose aside from being vaguely ominous.

Chapter 3 takes place right after Chapter 2's ending. Susie wakes up in the new Dark World along with Kris, who is under the Player's control again. Susie never learns that it was Kris who created this Chapter's Dark World, nor does she care to learn. She's been viewing the Dark World occurrences as nothing more than fun little adventures she can do with her friends.

They meet up with Ralsei, and while Susie invites Ralsei to the Light World for an upcoming festival, Ralsei declines. Not because he doesn't want to go to the festival, but Ralsei literally can't leave the Dark Worlds. Ralsei explains that Dark Fountains turn fantasy into reality by bringing inanimate objects to life. This is how Darkners are created. But once the lights come back on, those objects will revert back to their original form. Ergo, Darkners (like Ralsei) will cease to exist if they ever leave the Dark Worlds.

What makes this worse is that Ralsei's inability to exist in the Light World is clearly affecting his mental health negatively. He straight up says that none of the Darkners are truly real, including himself, and claims that the Darkners only exist to serve the Light World. Susie, naturally, tells him not to think of himself so lowly because as far as she's concerned, all her friends are equally real.

The main antagonist of Chapter 3, Mr. Tenna (right), is a crazy game show host who forces our heroes to partake in his show. Image found on rpgfan.com

This heart-to-heart is interrupted by the main antagonist of this Chapter, Mr. Tenna. Mr. Tenna is a TV-themed Darkner who forces the Fun Gang to take part in his game show. Most of the Chapter is spent playing minigames with Mr. Tenna, with the minigames being themed around old NES-style video games and various TV Channels. Just to give a few examples, there's a cooking minigame where Kris has to toss piles of food to passing customers, a music minigame where the Fun Gang act out a rock concert and a Legend of Zelda style adventure minigame where you explore an expansive map and solve simple puzzles.

The whole time these minigames are going on, Mr. Tenna is trying to pander to Kris's nostalgia by reminding them how much fun they had watching TV with their family. Almost as if he's afraid that Kris will discard him if he's not "entertaining" enough. And that's really Tenna's whole deal. He's an antagonist, sure, but I hesitate to call him evil. He's just a lonely guy who buries his insecurities underneath a larger than life persona.

While the Fun Gang do find Mr. Tenna's antics amusing at first, they insist on leaving Tenna's show to seal the Dark Fountain. Things take a turn for the worse when the Fun Gang discover that the "grand prize" of Tenna's show is a toy ball containing Toriel, Kris's (adoptive) mother who has slept through the entire Chapter. The only thing I can truly complain about Chapter 3 is that Toriel doesn't get to actually do much in this Chapter. I understand why, as she is a returning character from UNDERTALE and returning characters are basically fanservice for Toby Fox's older fans. Still, it is a shame we never see her reaction to the Dark World or get any interaction between her and Ralsei, given that have similar designs and similar abilities (magical healing, cooking, et cetera).

Unfortunately for everyone, Mr. Tenna has a psychotic breakdown, which culminates in a battle in which all abilities besides Acts are disabled. The Fun Gang manage to escape by exploiting certain limitations with the Acts, which is a really clever way to solve that problem. The rest of Chapter 3 is spent escaping from Mr. Tenna's TV Dark World and recruiting all of the new enemies. Despite being just as long as the other Chapters, Chapter 3 feels oddly short in comparison, partly because most of this Chapter's runtime is spent on the minigames. But to be fair, this is mostly a lighthearted romp with an emphasis on the comedy side of the game.

Things only really get serious after the heroes confront Mr. Tenna for the final showdown. Speaking of which, I really like Mr. Tenna's boss battle. He has the ability to force the heroes to play a random minigame and how well you perform in the minigame affects how much damage the Fun Gang takes. In other words, all the minigames you have been playing with Mr. Tenna was actually training for his boss battle. And I think that's cool. Assuming you showed Mercy to him, Susie gives Mr. Tenna a pep talk, telling him to not worry about being thrown away or replaced. She also says that if Kris's family doesn't want him anymore, then the Fun Gang can just find Tenna a new home. Moved by Susie's words, Mr. Tenna has a change of heart and agrees to give back Toriel.

But oh boy, here comes the mother of all spoilers. I really don't want to spoil this Chapter's final battle, because the ending of Chapter 3 is a major highlight of the entire game and irreversibly changes the tone of the story to something comparatively more serious. But I cannot continue the review without mentioning it. Just know that I give deltarune Chapter 3 five stars out of five, and I give deltarune Chapter 4 four stars out of five, at least until that glitch I mentioned gets fixed. Go play this game if you can afford it. It's only 25 US dollars, at the time of writing. If you want to know my more detailed thoughts on this game, come back after you finished Chapter 4.  Understood? Good!

So you remember the Roaring Knight I mentioned, and how there was a lot of speculation as to who the Roaring Knight was? Well, the good news is that we get official confirmation that Kris is NOT the Roaring Knight! …Because the actual Roaring Knight appears seemingly out of nowhere and KOs Tenna with a single blow. The Knight also tries to kidnap Toriel for unclear but obviously malevolent reasons, thus starting a battle between the Fun Gang and the Knight.

You know, it's funny. After 4 years of nonstop speculation and theorizing, no one predicted that the Fun Gang would simply get ambushed by the Roaring Knight in part three of a seven part story. I distinctly remember my first reaction to the Roaring Knight's debut being "WHAT DO YOU MEAN we have to fight the Knight now!?" And I'd bet that most other deltarune fans had a similar reaction.

The Roaring Knight is also this Chapter's Super Boss, and perhaps fittingly, it is the most difficult opponent the Fun Gang will ever fight. Not only does the Knight have complex Bullet Hell attacks that leave no room for error, it also cannot be shown Mercy at all. Just this once, our normally pacifistic heroes are allowed to use violence to defend themselves. You can make this fight easier by equipping a special armor called the Shadow Mantle, but this armor can only be acquired by completing an easily missed secret minigame. Said minigame also provides instructions for doing the Weird Route, in case you didn't know how to do so already. I'm totally sure there's no distressing narrative implications about this. 

Should you manage to lower its health down 75%, Susie can break off a piece of the Knight's sword, which becomes this Chapter's Shadow Crystal. Kris will also be rewarded with a unique weapon called the Black Shard, which is the most powerful weapon in the game (so far). But no matter how well you do against the Knight, it will always end the battle with an unavoidable, one-hit KO attack that leaves the Fun Gang kneeling.

Before the Roaring Knight can finish off the Fun Gang or capture Toriel, it is attacked from behind by Officer Undyne, another returning character from UNDERTALE. Why was Undyne in the Dark World, you ask? She entered the Dark World while investigating some property damage Kris caused back in Chapter 2. Anyway, the Knight grabs Undyne and drags her kicking and screaming all the way to the bunker in the Light World, the one at the southern edge of town. 

Kris and Susie give chase, but by the time they catch up, the bunker has been completely locked down. Not even Susie, the strongest of the three heroes, can break through its doors. The only way in is with a passcode, but none of our heroes know the code. The Chapter ends here, with Undyne trapped inside the bunker and Kris and Susie forced to go home, as there is literally nothing else for them do. And let me just say, boy, am I glad that Chapters 3 and 4 released simultaneously. If Chapter 3 released by itself, this fandom would not survive a cliffhanger like that. We barely survived Kris opening a Dark Fountain. Also, getting to see the Roaring Knight this early into the project is crazy to me. I always figured that the Knight would show up in Chapter 5 at the earliest, but what do I know?

Ralsei explains the Legend of Deltarune, a prophecy dictating the events of the entire game. Image found on rpgfan.com

Chapter 4 is still only 10 or so hours long, but so much plot and character development happens in this Chapter that it feels a lot longer to play through it. This is both a good thing, since it provides a plentiful experience on a first playthrough. But it's also a bad thing, because it can feel repetitive going through the longest Chapter again on a second playthrough. And because of that softlock and my careless save file usage, I had to play through this entire Chapter twice. I'm still a little salty about that, but I will try not to let that cloud my judgement.

Chapter 4 starts the day after Undyne's kidnapping, with Kris having sealed the Chapter 3 Dark Fountain offscreen. Toriel invites Susie over for church service, to which she agrees. Not because Susie is religious, but so she can hang out with Kris and look for clues for the bunker code. I really like the church service scene, it's a heartwarming bonding moment with Susie that really cements the idea that Kris and Susie are best friends by now. Especially since we don't control Kris while they're goofing around with Susie, so we know for a fact that those shenanigans were 100% voluntary on Kris's part.

After the service, Kris/the Player has to ask around the church for clues, in which they learn only two people have ever opened up the bunker in the town's history; The Chief of Police and the Mayor. Unfortunately, the current Chief of Police is Undyne, who is in no position to share the code for obvious reasons. Which means that the Fun Gang's only option is to visit the Mayor, Carol Holiday. Who coincidentally happens to be Noelle's mom.

Before we go to the Holiday Household, we get a free roam section where Kris and Susie are free to explore the town and talk to literally everyone, including Berdly (if he's still alive), Toriel and Kris's many neighbors. You can even pop into Castle Town to hang out with Ralsei for a bit (and catch him up to speed on everything going on the Light World). Most of these conversations are lighthearted and humorous in nature. In case you're wondering whatever happened to Mr. Tenna, he's fine. Well, sort of. If you recruited all Darkners back in Chapter 3, Tenna will survive the Knight's ambush. If you don't, he's straight up dead for the rest of the game. If he's still alive, you can keep Susie's promise to find him a new home by either taking him to Castle Town or giving his Light World form (a TV set) to one of Kris's neighbors. Either way, Tenna gets what he always wanted; a new audience to entertain. This is the last we'll see of Tenna for now.

Our heroes (left) get attacked by enemies (right). In order to dodge attacks, you need to control a red cartoon heart and move it away from hazards. Image found on SteamDB.com

After exploring everything in town, Kris and Susie go visit the Holiday Household, ostensibly to work on a school project with Noelle. This was just an excuse to go snooping around the Household without drawing too much attention to themselves. And the Holiday Household might be my favorite location in the Chapter. It is a beautifully designed Christmas mansion that is filled to the brim with secrets, lore and a whole lot of Christmas puns.

The only room in the Household that is not readily accessible is Dess's old bedroom, but Kris can enter it once Susie starts distracting Noelle. And in Dess's room, we find (among other things) a guitar that has the code to the bunker inside of it. Before the Player can finish reading the code, Kris rips out their Soul again and throws it into a supply closet. Which leads to a stealth section where we must control the bodiless Soul and navigate the air vents, while avoiding the now openly hostile Kris. It's a tense scene that makes you feel vulnerable during a first playthrough, but with the benefit of hindsight, it's basically a Tom & Jerry skit. Just replace Tom with Kris and Jerry with the Soul.

The most important revelation about Kris's character comes from a phone call that the Soul can eavesdrop on. Kris is working for someone, strongly implied to be the Roaring Knight, and is actively trying to keep whatever is inside the bunker a secret from everyone. And honestly speaking, the idea of Kris being a secret double agent working for an unseen villain is actually more interesting narratively than simply having Kris be the Knight directly. But now we have a new mystery to solve; Why is Kris involved in such a sinister scheme? I have a theory, but explaining it would spoil the Chapter's ending. For what it's worth, I don't believe that Kris is willingly evil.

The whole time Kris and the Soul are duking it out, Susie and Noelle bond over a shared love of horror movies and video games. It's another cute and wholesome scene, made comical by the fact that Kris is beating the snot out of their own Soul in the background with a hockey stick. And I got to say, Toby Fox is a master at writing small talk. Like, the way Susie and Noelle bounce from one subject to another before returning to something they talked about earlier is the exact way most friends talk to each other in real life. At least, based on my experience. It is uncannily believable dialogue. This scene definitely highlights how good the dialogue in this game is.

Eventually, Susie grabs the guitar and puts on an improvised performance for Noelle at the latter's request. Which is also cute. All of Susie and Noelle's scenes are cute. They're just cute together, in general. Keep in mind, I am not a romance guy. Not in the slightest. BUT. Susie and Noelle have genuinely good chemistry together and I find myself feeling oddly invested in their relationship.

Unfortunately, Susie never notices the bunker code as she's too busy trying to impress Noelle. While this is happening, Kris calls their mysterious benefactor (who I will call the Voice on the Phone) that Susie has the guitar. Whoever the Voice on the other side of the phone is, they say that they will "be right there."

Not even ten minutes after Kris makes this call, Susie and Noelle's bonding is interrupted by Carol Holiday, who had (allegedly) just got home from work. Carol has maybe five minutes of screen time in this Chapter, but man, she makes those five minutes count. She is immediately introduced as an intimidating, no nonsense woman where the only thing colder than her icy appearance is her stern demeanor. She forcibly takes the guitar away from Susie and forbids her from seeing Noelle ever again. 

Carol's attitude warms up slightly when speaking to Kris, but even when she's trying to be pleasant she gives off a sinister, vaguely threatening vibe. Specifically, she says "As you know, you are welcome here anytime." With the second "you" in that sentence being highlighted in blood red text. And deltarune is a game where text is only colored either as the setup for a joke or because that word is important somehow. I'm not sure about you, but this scene doesn't strike me as humorous, so I have to believe that it's the latter. Especially since the shade of red used is the exact same shade of red that the Player Soul is colored in.

Kris and Susie are forced to leave the Holiday Household (but not before the Soul repossesses Kris). Neither Susie nor the Player got the code, and Kris clearly isn't going to share what they know with anyone. Also, because this scene sees the return of Noelle, we get the long-awaited(?) continuation of the Weird Route. 

If you play Chapter 4 on a save file that has completed the Weird Route, Kris removes their Soul like before, but this time they take Noelle into her bedroom so they can explain the whole situation to her privately. This is ironically the best look at Kris's true nature that we get. The Voice on the Phone doesn't matter in this Route, the only thing Kris cares about is protecting Noelle from the Player. Which is why I don't believe they are evil. At worse, they're a reluctant accomplice for someone else's villainy. Unfortunately, The Player can still possess Kris even while they are consoling Noelle, at which point you can either abandon the Weird Route by saying "It was just a prank" or continue it by saying "Proceed." 

The latter option leads to the Player forcing Noelle to wear the Thorn Ring (a weapon only found when doing the Weird Route). Once the Thorn Ring is back on Noelle's finger, there is no going back as her mind is broken beyond repair. After all, the Thorn Ring's existence is proof that the murders Noelle committed on the Player's behalf actually happened and weren't just a bad dream. And honestly, this whole scene is just... immensely uncomfortable to watch. Like it feels like you're about to witness a crime. So congratulations! We successfully traumatized a cute little anthropomorphic reindeer (again). That's our reward for doing the Weird Route.

Back on the Normal Route, Kris and Susie head home, only to discover that A; it's raining and B; Kris's House is locked. Which means that our dynamic duo needs to find Toriel to unlock the house. Toriel went back to church for choir practice, so Kris and Susie go to church again. But whoops! The Roaring Knight is back, and it has already opened a Dark Fountain in the church. And thus we finally get to the main Dark World of this Chapter, the Dark Sanctuary.

Kris and Susie find the Dark Fountain almost immediately, but are attacked by the Roaring Knight again. Both of them are sent tumbling down to the lower part of the Dark Sanctuary, and spend the rest of the adventure climbing back up. They meet up with Ralsei again, but something seems... off with Ralsei. As if he's worried about something. And Susie starts feeling insecure about her own capabilities once she realizes that Ralsei is a better healer than her.

The Fun Gang finds the Prophecy describing the titular Legend of Deltarune after exploring around. Back in Chapter 1, Ralsei mentioned the Prophecy, but his version was simplified and had key details left out. The Prophecy seen here is the original, full version. But before the Fun Gang can read the final passage, it gets destroyed by a mysterious stranger.

This leads to the introduction to the main "guest" character of Chapter 4, the Old Man. Who is the Old Man? The Fun Gang never learns his name, but anyone who played UNDERTALE will immediately recognize him as Gerson Boom, the old Turtle Monster who runs the shops in that game. And as far back as Chapter 1, you can visit a grave that has Gerson's name on it. When I first saw him, my initial theory was that Gerson never died, he just got trapped in the Dark Worlds and everyone just assumed he was dead because he's been missing for so long. Which is... Not even close to what's really going on with Gerson, but I'm getting ahead of myself. 

The game gets a lot of humor out of Gerson, as he acts like an absent-minded elder but is secretly wiser than his gnarly appearance suggests. Case in point, there's a unique "Old Man" Act that Kris can use as long as Gerson is on the team. The description of said Act only reads, "I'm Old!" And using that Act causes Gerson to interrupt the battle and perform a random, but always positive effect. He might heal the party with candy, deflect enemy bullets with his cane, or even just instantly Recruit enemies.

A boss battle against Jackenstein, a Halloween-themed enemy that has to be fought in the dark. Image found on rpgfan.com

Also, I want to talk about a boss named Jackenstein. Jackenstein is a joke boss that shows up halfway through the Dark Sanctuary and is one of the funniest things Toby Fox has cooked up in a while. Jackenstein's gimmick is that all of his "attacks" are not Bullet Hell patterns, but Pac-Man mazes, complete with collectible pellets. And if you take too long to complete the mazes, Jackenstein summons a pumpkin that speaks with a Text-to-Speech device, and the only thing it says is "YOUR TAKING TOO LONG." And then Jackenstein starts sentence mixing the pumpkin to make it say goofy nonsense like "YOUR LONG" and "YOUR TAKING TOO TOO." Jackenstein also marks the beginning of a HUGE difficulty spike, as Tension buildup is reduced during his battle (thus making it harder to use Susie and Ralsei's magic spells). But other than that, this fight is peak comedy. 10/10, would take too long again.

After the Jackenstein fight, Gerson notices Susie's insecurities and encourages her to start practicing her magic more seriously. Which means that Susie's "Ultimate Heal" spell is now worth using. For context, Ultimate Heal was the worst spell in the game, as it only existed for the sake of a joke. It cost 100% Tension to cast and only restored 1 hit point (out of 200+). But after the pep talk with Gerson, Ultimate Heal has been renamed to "OK Heal" and it will both heal more and cost less Tension with each cast. You can eventually get the cost down to 80% Tension and get it to heal 100+ hit points if you keep letting Susie heal you instead of Ralsei. And that's a cool way to tie game mechanics into character development. Practice makes perfect, after all.

The same time Susie gets an upgrade, Kris gets a upgrade called the Claimb Claws (typo intended). These claws let Kris (and by proxy, the Fun Gang) climb up certain walls. Now, you *can* use Kris's newfound climbing skills to move on to the next area, or you can backtrack to all the places you've already been to. Because the Claimb Claws let you access a bunch of hidden areas. In three of these hidden areas are golden music sheets, and if you play the completed melody on a golden piano, the path to the Chapter 4 Super Boss is revealed. And this one might be my favorite Super Boss yet.

So playing the melody reveals a hidden chamber in Gerson's study. And lying in that chamber is the Justice Axe, which is the strongest weapon Susie can equip. But before she can even grab the Justice Axe, Gerson tells her that she needs to pay for it. The Justice Axe is so expensive that it is impossible to buy it. Like, I don't even think the game will let you carry the amount of money that Gerson is asking for. So instead of paying, Susie makes a deal with Gerson; If she can cut off a hair from Gerson's beard, then he has to give the Justice Axe to her for free. Gerson agrees to the deal, and reveals his true power.

In case you haven't realized it yet, Gerson is the Super Boss of this Chapter. And this fight breaks a lot of rules. Firstly, it's a 1vs1 duel between Susie and Gerson. Kris and Ralsei are not allowed to interfere. Secondly, Susie is forbidden from using consumable items like health potions, as Gerson will steal them if she tries. Thirdly, Gerson can force you into Green Soul Mode, replacing your ability to fly around with a shield that can block directional attacks. And finally, Gerson can just straight up parry Susie's signature spell, Rude Buster, and throw it back at her. The only advantage Susie has is that losing to Gerson doesn't count as a Game Over, as he will end the duel once Susie has been reduced to one hit point, then he will give her a chance to heal up and try again from scratch.

So how are you supposed to beat Gerson? With magic of course. The whole point of Susie's character arc in this Chapter is learning to get better at magic, and this fight is meant to train her magic up. Any time you cast a spell, whether it be Rude Buster or OK Heal, Susie's magic will get stronger and Gerson will be impressed. Impress him enough times and Susie will figure out how to distract Gerson long enough to chop off his beard. 

Gerson admits defeat after losing his beard, and he will give Susie both the Justice Axe and this Chapter's Shadow Crystal. He'll also share some wisdom about how our destiny is not set in stone, no matter what the Prophecy says, and that stories can be changed as they pass through the generations. When Gerson was in his prime, he wrote an in-universe fantasy novel series called "Lord of the Hammer" which was based on the Prophecy, but changed some core details around. And when that series got popular, it was made into an in-universe video game franchise called "Dragon Blazers," which made even more changes to the story. Gerson says that both his own work and the video games it inspired are equally valid, as like he said, stories change as they pass through the generations. And that's a really cool take on the idea of adapting preexisting stories.

Like I said, Gerson is my favorite Super Boss, both because of the story surrounding him and because it's just a fun fight in general. Also, Susie's healing magic is upgraded once again after Gerson is defeated, being renamed to "Better Heal" and only costing 75% Tension to cast. It also FULLY restores all HP as long as the target has not been KO'd yet. So now Susie has a genuinely strong, if somewhat expensive, spell to cast.

Okay, back to the main story. The Fun Gang climb up a series of pillars and find a giant piano. In order to solve the next puzzle and reach the Dark Fountain, you need to play a melody on this piano. But there's just one problem. The nearby music sheet that Susie and Gerson discover is too long for most Players to memorize. To solve this puzzle, the Player has to willingly lose control of Kris, and let them play the song instead. It's a cool moment that's made better because the whole game has been foreshadowing it. Kris loves playing the piano, but cannot play it while the Soul is possessing them, because the Soul can only interact with musical instruments during minigames. So by loosening their grip on Kris, the Player is giving Kris a taste of freedom, while placing all their trust in Kris to solve this puzzle voluntarily. The piano puzzle gives way to the Dark Fountain, and the Fun Gang seal it with no issue.

But as Kris and Susie return to the Light World, they find a conundrum. The Roaring Knight made two Dark Worlds in the church, one in the lobby and another in the actual congregation. The door to the rest of the church is locked with another code. So now Kris and Susie have to look around the lobby for clues. Which leads to Susie snooping around in the pastor's office, and finding a glass case... Containing a dusty hammer and a photograph of Gerson. Remember what I said about Monsters having fragile bodies? As explained back in UNDERTALE, when Monsters die, their body crumbles to dust. As such, Monsters don't bury their deceased as there is nothing for them to bury. But they do cover the dust in an item that is heavily associated with that Monster, and bury the item instead. There's also a book you can read earlier in this very Chapter that explains how Monsters perform funerals.

Susie puts two and two together and realizes what exactly happened with Gerson. Like Ralsei said, Dark Fountains turn fantasy into reality by bringing inanimate objects to life. And the dust left behind by a dead Monster counts as an "inanimate object." Which means that Gerson really was dead, and that the Gerson we got was just a Darkner version of him. This is both infinitely more creative than what I thought of and infinitely more disturbing. Imagine dying and coming back to life as an idealized version of yourself because someone brought your cremated remains to a fantasy world. That's the human equivalent of what happened with Gerson.

No matter where you look in the lobby, Neither Kris nor Susie can find the code, so Susie comes up with a plan; create a Dark Fountain of her own and ask a newly revived Gerson for the code. When he was alive, Gerson's family visited this church frequently and his son, Alvin, became the current pastor. Susie also wants to try bringing Gerson back to Castle Town, despite that raising all sorts of ethical questions.

Kris and Susie climb a wall while avoiding fireballs made of dark magic.

The Dark World that Susie creates, the Second Sanctuary, is messier and more chaotic than the first. It even warps the colors of the Fun Gang, changing Susie from purple to orange, Kris from blue to pink, and Ralsei from green to blue. Despite the warped nature of this Dark World, the Prophecy is still intact. Which means we can read it in greater detail without interruption. Notably, it says that three heroes are required to stop the Roaring Knight; A Lonely Prince from the Dark (referring to Ralsei), a Cage with Human Soul and Parts (referring to Kris and the Player), and a Monster Girl, with Hope crossed on her Heart. 

There are some additional details in the Prophecy (some of which are obviously joke predictions), but the most important detail is this part; "LOVE will find its way to the Girl." Susie assumes this means she will fall in love one day, but because this game is set in the same universe as UNDERTALE, this has me wondering. Because in that game, LOVE is an acronym, standing for Level of Violence. Basically, it's a number on a person's Soul that measures how much death that person has caused, and their capacity to kill others in the future. The higher the number, the more powerful (and the more violent) a person becomes. Remember, UNDERTALE was a critique on the glorification of violence in video games, and it forced the Player to ask if it's even worth getting stronger if the only way to do so was by committing an act of unjustifiable murder.

Now, we can't get Susie to kill anyone, she's too independent to be manipulated. Even if we order her to attack Darkners during battle, they will always run away before suffering lethal damage. But you know who can be manipulated? Noelle. And you know can kill enemies permanently? Noelle. And you know who is also a Monster Girl, who also has Hope crossed on her Heart? Noelle. So there's a good chance that Noelle was meant to be one of the three heroes instead of Susie. Ergo, the Weird Route is what the Prophecy intended to happen, if this theory is true. Even if it's not true, the Weird Route still ties into the central theme of deltarune, which is the pursuit of freedom. If the Weird Route is not what the Prophecy intended, then the Player can only have real "freedom" by tormenting Noelle and ruining Kris's life, forcing us to ask "is freedom worth it if this what we have to do to get it?" If the Weird Route is what's prophesized to happen, then not only is the Player forcing Kris to torment Noelle (stripping both characters of their agency), the Player is taking away any chance for a "free" future from these two by forcing them along a predetermined path. Either way, the Weird Route is unambiguously evil, and it cannot be justified.

While in the Second Sanctuary, Kris and Susie get trapped in a dark room, and are forced to fight what they think is Gerson. This boss is basically a "Simon Says" minigame where you have to block directional attacks in the correct order. Susie tries to reason with "Gerson" and comes to regret making the new Dark World. Ralsei arrives just in time to save the day, and he just straight up kills this boss, which is revealed to be nothing more than a statue mimicking Gerson's appearance.

Ralsei explains that Gerson is not in this Dark World, and even if he was, the Fun Gang cannot take him back to Castle Town. Darkners modeled after the deceased can only exist in "specific" Dark Worlds, and thus are incompatible with Castle Town. Which leads to Susie snapping at Ralsei for not saying that sooner. And also for not telling anyone about the Roaring Knight, or how the Dark Fountains work, or the many other details that Ralsei neglected to mention. 

But Ralsei isn't withholding this information because he's evil. Far from it. Ralsei was cursed with the knowledge of how EVERYTHING in the world of deltarune works. He knows about the Prophecy, he knows about the game mechanics, he knows about the Save Files. Heck, he probably knows about the Player. But his own knowledge scares him, and he never knows when to say something when it's relevant. And he is terrified of the Prophecy's ending. The reason he's been acting weird in this Chapter is because he's been doing his best to cover up the ending. But the fact that he is going to such lengths to hide it already speaks volumes about how unpleasant it must be.

The Fun Gang get to the code to the lock, seal up the Second Sanctuary and head inside the third and final Dark World of this Chapter, the Third Sanctuary. Now I'm going to put another spoiler warning here, because now it's time for the final boss of this Chapter. And it is pure insanity. Like, I'm shocked that Toby Fox would use this kind of boss for Chapter 4, because any sane developer would've waited until Chapter 6 or 7. But now I'm left wondering who the final bosses of Chapters 5, 6 and 7 are going to be, because I cannot think of any way to top this boss.

So the Fun Gang catch up to the Roaring Knight, and it looks like the boss is just going to be a standard rematch. But then the Knight opens a Dark Fountain while still inside the Dark World, which summons a Titan. Yeah, those eldritch beings I mentioned that are prophesized to destroy the universe? The Knight just casually summons one. As you do. And that's the final boss of this Chapter. Much like with the Knight, my first reaction to this boss was "WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE HAVE TO FIGHT A TITAN NOW!?" And again, most other fans had a similar reaction.

The first phase of the battle is a climbing sequence where Kris has to climb up the Titan's body, Shadow of the Colossus style, and the second phase is a more straightforward battle against just the Titan's head. And again, this is one of the few times where the Fun Gang is allowed to use violence to defend themselves. Because at this point, they aren't fighting wacky supervillains anymore. They're fighting Lovecraftian Gods. Not only does the Titan have a shield that Kris needs to break through with the "Unleash" Act, but once its health drops low enough, the Titan will start regenerating. And the speed at which it heals is faster than the speed at which the Fun Gang can damage it. All hope seems lost at this point... Until Gerson arrives and joins the party. Gerson may be a Turtle Monster, but today, he is the GOAT (greatest of all time).

With Gerson's help, the Fun Gang manages to defeat the Titan in the most hype boss fight in the entire game. While Gerson is my favorite Super Boss, the Titan is now my favorite Final Boss. At least, it's tied with Queen from Chapter 2. This fight is perfect. It has gorgeous pixel art animation, it has a banger theme song (both before and after Gerson arrives), it even brings back the gimmicks from Jackenstein's battle. This fight is peak cinema. 10/10, would climb up a Titan again.

But the Fun Gang's victory is short lived, as the Roaring Knight got away, Gerson is nowhere to be seen, and Toriel is still missing in action. Honestly I kind of forgot that the entire reason we came to the church was to get Toriel, because of... well, everything else. Anyway, Susie runs ahead of the group and gets to see the ending of the Prophecy. We don't get to see it ourselves, because by the time we catch up with her, Susie has already destroyed the mural depicting the Prophecy's ending. 

The Prophecy predictions range from serious to silly. This is one of the sillier predictions. Image found on steam.steampowered.com

Ralsei frantically apologizes for letting Susie see the ending, but she just ignores his worries. Susie boasts that she "wouldn't let that happen." She also assures Ralsei that Kris "wouldn't let that happen," and of course, Ralsei himself "wouldn't let that happen." She never says what "that" is exactly, but if I had to guess, one of the three heroes is prophesized to die. Presumably in a violent fashion. It's the only thing I can think of that would justify this kind of reaction.

We also get one of my favorite interactions between Kris and Ralsei in this scene. Ralsei starts crying, because it's getting harder to put up his wholesome, boy scout persona. He knows too much for his own good, and the stress of all that knowledge is getting to him. But despite that, he still forces himself to smile. The Player can choose to make Kris say "It's okay not to smile." Doing so leads to Kris kneeling down and hugging Ralsei. Willingly. Without Player input. Ralsei is taken aback by this kindness, but getting hugged does help him feel better. Most importantly, Ralsei says that he wants to believe that their future is not set in stone, and that there can be more than just one ending for this story. Which is a bold claim, as Toby Fox himself has gone on record saying that he has "only" one ending planned for deltarune. 

The Fun Gang seal the Third Sanctuary and prepare to head home. But the atmosphere is a lot more gloomy. It's the middle of the night by now, and the rain from earlier has stopped. The song that plays when Kris and Susie walk home is a special one. It's a remix of a song from UNDERTALE, called It's Raining Somewhere Else. It was one of the most somber songs in that game's OST, being the one time where Sans the Skeleton (UNDERTALE's mascot) finally stopped joking around and had a serious conversation with Frisk, the protagonist of that game. In deltarune, the song is called The Place Where It Rained, and it somehow sounds even more melancholy than it did originally. Yet, there's something nostalgic about hearing The Place Where It Rained. Hearing it felt like I was like being transported back to 2015 when I played UNDERTALE for the first time.

And speaking of Sans the Skeleton... Kris and Susie finally find Toriel, and learn that she was never in the Dark Worlds in the first place. On the way to choir practice, Toriel got caught in the rain, and ducked inside Sans' grocery store for shelter. Evidently she liked Sans enough to bring him home and start partying. Which means that the Fun Gang's adventure to the Dark Sanctuary was technically all for nothing. 

By the time Kris and Susie make it back to Kris's House, Toriel is outrageously drunk and all semblance of her saintly mother persona is gone. She's cursing, making bad puns, flirting with Sans, and just being an overall mess. Susie immediately bails and leaves Kris alone with their drunken mother and a man who is for all intents and purposes, a homewrecker. Any chance of Toriel getting back with Asgore (Kris's dad and Toriel's ex-husband) died in this scene. Without context, this scene is hilarious, but with context, you kind of just feel second-hand embarrassment for Kris. The most accidentally funny thing about this scene is, THIS was where I got softlocked. Yeah, the scene where Kris comes home to find their mom black-out drunk with a sassy skeleton was where the glitch that ruined my first playthrough happened.

Anyway, the Chapter ends with Kris trying and failing to sleep through Toriel and Sans's drunken banter. They receive a call, but what it says changes depending on whether or not you completed the Weird Route. If you didn't do the Weird Route like a good boy/gal, the Voice on the Phone tells Kris "Don't Forget... You promised." We don't know what Kris promised to do, but that line combined with how Kris behaves in the Weird Route has led me to believe that Kris is being coerced and is not cooperating with the villain(s) willingly.

Speaking of the Weird Route, the Weird Route version of this ending has Kris receive a call from Carol (we know it's Carol and not the Voice on the Phone, because the Voice uses a different font and sound effect when speaking), who thanks Kris for "agreeing" to take Noelle on a date to the Festival that Susie mentioned earlier. Which considering that the Weird Route is "reindeer abuse simulator" is very much not a good thing.

The last thing we see before the Chapter ends is Susie walking away from Kris's House, promising to "not let that happen." Her attitude is a lot more somber than when she first saw the Prophecy's ending, so whatever it was clearly affected her more than she would care to admit. It's a bittersweet ending, but it's nowhere near as much a cliffhanger as previous endings. And honestly? Given how intense this Chapter got, having a calmer ending was perhaps for the best.

And that's Chapter 4. We're done. We're at the halfway mark, now. This review was surprisingly difficult to write, mostly because so much *stuff* happens in Chapter 4 that it's difficult to summarize it in a way that feels coherent. Heck, even this summary is omitting things like Lancer's antics, the rematch against Rouxls Kaard, and the Asgore subplot.

Aside from getting softlocked, this Chapter was fantastic. If I were to rank the Chapters now, I would say that Chapters 2 and 4 are tied for my favorite, and the only reason they tie is because of the softlock. If Chapter 4 didn't have a glitch that can softlock your progress, it would just be my favorite Chapter, no contest. But below 2 and 4 I would put 3, and below 3 I would put 1. Chapter 1 wasn't bad, mind you, it's just outclassed by the other three Chapters.

As for presentation, deltarune has a simple, yet charming pixel art style. Everyone in the game is animated in 8-bit sprites, with the sole exception of Mr. Tenna, who instead has a 3D model that was run through some kind of pixilation filter. The result is that he looks like a Donkey Kong Country character standing next to a bunch of Donkey Kong Classic characters. He sticks out like a sore thumb, but in a way that feels deliberate and oddly charming. But the most impressive thing is the animation on the Titan. The animation on the Titan's hand is the smoothest and cleanest pixel art in any Toby Fox game. 

Ignoring characters for a bit, the background art is gorgeous. In fact, Chapters 3 & 4 have by far the prettiest backgrounds. Like the Holiday Household is so detailed that it looks almost like it came out of a different game. Which in a weird way, tracks. Toby did hire some guest artists for the new Chapters, so I wouldn't be surprised if the Holiday Household was handled by the guest artists.

Kris (middle), Susie (left) and Ralsei (Ralsei) play a rock concert minigame. Image found on steam.steampowered.com

As for sound, it's a Toby Fox project. You know the music is going to be spectacular. Most of the songs are relatively simple melodies, but they sound crisp and clear. In typical Toby Fox fashion, characters that are somehow related to each other, either narratively or literally, share similar motifs during their respective theme songs. This is part of the reason the Freedom motif is so important. And also the Don't Forget motif exists. Don't Forget is the main theme song of the entire game, and as such, the Don't Forget motif appears just as often as the Freedom motif.

As for the standout songs, Gerson's theme, Hammer of Justice is a fast-paced banjo medley of a whole bunch of songs from UNDERTALE, mostly Spear of Justice and Battle Against a True Hero. And it adds a banjo version of the Freedom motif in on top of that. It sounds exciting and nostalgic, but for reasons that are more lighthearted than The Place Where It Rained. Hammer of Justice might just dethrone The World Revolving for my favorite boss theme.

All of the piano-centric tunes are a joy to listen to as well. As they should, as the piano is Kris's instrument of choice, to the point where there are multiple puzzles that can only be solved by playing piano music. One detail I like about Kris's piano playing is that while they are obviously good, they are not a perfect prodigy. If you listen closely, you can hear Kris make minor mistakes while playing certain songs. And that makes sense, as Kris is still a teen and they haven't had time to practice, because of the whole "sharing a body with the Player" thing. It's a fun bit of characterization.

The sound effects are a little bit funny. While most of the sound effects are unique, there are also a handful of public domain sound effects. All of the public domain sound effects are used exclusively for comedy and are never used when the story gets serious. The most obvious being the explosion sound. Unrelated tangent here, but one day I decided to watch The Cuphead Show and that cartoon uses the exact same explosion sound effect that deltarune uses. This is not a bad thing as that specific sound effect is public domain, therefore, anyone can use it. But it was a funny coincidence that two indie projects in completely different mediums used the exact same explosion sound effect.

Overall, I'd say that deltarune Chapters 3 & 4 were worth the wait. I wish I didn't have to harp on Chapter 4 so much, but I can't in good faith give it a 5 star rating as long as that glitch exists. But despite that technical hiccup, I still enjoyed my time with the new Chapters. The jokes were hilarious, the characters continue to be charming, the Weird Route is still horrifying. And it gave some of the best boss fights in the game. Like I said earlier, Chapter 3 gets 5 stars out of five, Chapter 4 gets four stars out of five. And now all we have to do is wait for Toby Fox to release the other Chapters. However long that takes.

deltarune is the property of Toby Fox. None of the images used in this review were created by me. Please support the original creators.