Up until now, our discussion of this game has been confusingly scattered
across multiple threads. This is appropriate, because Deltarune is a game that's confusingly separated into multiple pieces.
But now Chapter 2 is out on PC, all the cards are on the table, and we now know what it is: a massive follow-up to Undertale that's divided into seven chapters. The chapters are all hosted within one game, but they're divided up from each other such that areas from one chapter get locked off when you complete it. When you start the next chapter, you can import your save data from the previous chapter to maintain various sidequest state, but if you don't have that save data it'll just fill in some default info. There's only one ending, and your choices don't matter that much.
And, having beaten Chapter 2... this all feels very unnecessary! The game is great, but I've found it really hard to get invested into it knowing that I'll beat it in three hours and then forget everything over the course of the next three years before the next chapter comes out. There are some cutesy character moments that already don't resonate with me that much, but then when you add on the disconnect I feel from the game--this isn't my "real" playthrough, since I'll need to go back and replay everything else anyway--it's not quite clicking with me like Undertale did.
The game
is great. But I think I'm going to hold off on playing more until it's
done. Toby says that he'll be finishing Chapters 3, 4, and 5, and then charging money for Chapters 1-5 all together. But then Chapters 6 and 7
still won't be done!
It took three years for Chapter 1 to come out. It took three years for Chapter 2 to come out. Am I going to be 40 by the time this thing is done!?
Secret_Tunnel said:Once upon a time, people would dedicate their lives to building cathedrals, knowing that they'd die before the building was complete. Beautiful, monumental pieces of art that last for thousands of years and gesture at something divine that exists within the human spirit, taking decades or even centuries to create.
But we don't build cathedrals anymore, either literally or figuratively. What does a software cathedral look like? What is the website version of the Great Pyramid of Giza? If a game takes longer than five years to make, we say that it's in development hell. But what about development heaven? Why no DC Superhero Men?
What if the next Mario game—the one that fulfills the promise of Bowser's Fury—doesn't come out for another 10 years? Or 15? Or 20? What if that really is how long it takes to create a game that builds on and extends our existing 50 years of video game canon? Homer's Odyssey was written 3000 years ago. Will Mario Odyssey be remembered for just as long? What would it take to create a game as influential on human civilization as that?
It makes sense. Authors start ambitious book series that'll take 20 years to complete all the time.
But it feels different with a game that has one continuous story with persistent inventory and sidequest status!