4/5 ★ – EthanTheHuman's review of Deltarune: Chapter 1.

Great introduction to the series! I absolutely adore the 3 main characters of the story, Kris, Susie and Ralsie. I wish I reviewed this before doing chapters 2-3, as my opinions have changed a lot from playing those. I like this smaller-stakes introductory chapter, and I love the characters. Ralsei is a clear standout in Chapter 1, and obviously so is Susie. The game mechanics themselves are still very close to Undertale, but everything has an added dimension to it. You now have 3 party members that you see acting on screen as you do your fight and act actions, including team abilities where two or three characters share a turn to try to charm their foes. I'm really enjoying the steps up in graphics and gameplay, and the music is on par with Undertale's amazing score as well. Much like Undertale, the game is extremely linear, to the point where I was having some feelings of wishing for more substantial ways to play. I was feeling like I was more so just a piece in the cog of the Deltarune experience, than a driving force that I normally feel like in most games. That I was just playing my part in making Kris move to the right side of the screen and progressing text boxes with A, and I'm starting to feel like that might be intentional, as a big theme in the story is clearly about the player not being able to make choices of their own, and I think that's pretty interesting. There's so many outstanding questions about this game's story that I can't wait to find out about, but since the finale of the game is years away I can only judge the game based on what it is now, which in this chapter is an amazing low-stakes story, but not really a *game* game.