4.5/5 ★ – PhatBaby's review of Deltarune: Chapter 4.

WE'RE SO BACK BABY! I thought Chapter 3 was a bit underwhelming, but Chapter 4 was absolutely fucking phenomenal. Toby, you mad son of a bitch, you cannot be stopped. Straight out the gate, this is absolutely rammed to the brim with the story stuff that was missing in Chapter 3, and from the fantastic opening, which is just tickling your little lore giblets, this shit does not let up. Hint and tease after hint and tease, all the while Toby's still slipping in charming little joke characters and a turtle who becomes the MVP of this chapter, to the point where him cropping up made me lose my shit like an average Marvel fan when Doctor Glorpo from Dark Avengers issue 92 cameos in a Wong spin-off movie. But what makes it so good is that it completely kicks the format we've been following for each section to the curb. It's not "enter world based on a themed building in town and proceed to fight charismatic main villain who you find out is actually kinda chill like that." It focuses a lot on Susie, and this ethereal, kinda shady prophecy, and The Knight, to the point where it's five hours of game that hones in almost exclusively on the questions we've been asking for three chapters now. And that works so well. It's Toby Fox flexing that he's not just the guy who can write a part feel good, part fucked up story with some creepy mysteries blended amongst goofy little side characters and a skeleton who loves puns. He's got MAD good character chops. Like, bro takes a senile turtle and an angry teenage dinosaur in this and cooks up a genuinely touching little side narrative about persistence that hit me right in the feels. Every character has a wrinkle to explore here, and I love that Toby isn't being too coy with the mysteries and eeking them out for later chapters. He's answering some major questions while posing others almost instantly after. I remember finishing Chapter 2 when it came out and being like, damn, I'm excited for Part 3. After finishing this, I'm in agony knowing that Part 5 is probably at least a year off. I absolutely goddamn love this game, and with Chapter 4 being so darn good, I might be as bold as to say I currently like Deltarune as a whole more than Undertale... and that's wild, because Undertale is easily a top 10 game of all time for me.