DELTARUNE

DELTARUNE is basically the what if sequel to UNDERTALE that nobody asked for but we absolutely needed. It follows Kris, a quiet human kid who gets dragged into a classroom supply closet with the class bully, Susie, and suddenly they're both thrown into a twisted dimension called the Dark World. The gameplay mixes traditional turn based combat with the same bullet hell mechanic from its predecessor where you can move your soul around to dodge attacks. There's also a character creation thing at the beginning where you're naming your avatar, only for the game to be like «Actually no, your name is Kris, and that other name you picked… that's gonna be important later… probably… ».The characters are honestly so well written, with Ralsei being a sweet fluffy boy who just wants everyone to get along and Susie starting off as this massive bully but slowly showing she's just a scared kid putting up walls. The humor hits perfectly and the music is absolutely god tier, Toby Fox really outdid himself with Field of Hopes and Dreams. Plus, the ending of each chapter leaves you with so many questions about the actual reality of the world and what's really going on with Kris that it's painful waiting for more chapters.

And speaking of getting more DELTARUNE, some legends from a group called Project Echo just dropped a 3DS tech demo port and bro, it has no bussiness looking this official, like, I'm talking full on pretending you're holding an official port vibes. The port only covers the intro, messing around in Kris's house and the very beginning of the Dark World right after you exit the house, but the way it's put together is wild. It genuinely looks like something Toby Fox himself did, so the potential for what they cooking is insane. They're planning to bring full ports of UNDERTALE to both 3DS and Wii U and if this Deltarune tech demo is anything to go by, those are gonna be ridiculously polished. UNDERTALE specifically is gonna be fascinating to see on this page once they get it running, because that game's bullet hell patterns would translate so well to the 3DS touchscreen.

The thing that makes this release bitter tho is the situation around how it actually came out. The devs got swarmed by people demanding the port after it got popular online two days ago and seems some jerks took it way too far with the harassment. The team's been super clear that they're not abandoning the project or anything, but it's still sad since they were having fun with their little fanproject.

However, if you're dying to experience the full first chapter of DELTARUNE on your 3DS right now, just download Bound to the Dark World, it's obviously not the exact same experience since it turns the bullet hell combat into more traditional EarthBound fights, but the way it captures the characters and dialogue and world is spot on. Between that and this new tech demo, we're honestly eating pretty good as 3DS owners.