I can finally return here and YouTube without fear of encountering Deltarune spoilers, woo! Although, out of respect of those of you that don't want to rush these honestly-brilliant chapters like I clearly did the last 5 days and nights, I'll try not to favorite Deltarune fanart here that would spoil any of the characters or even the most minor plot points in the Deltarune series (I'm sure Undertale characters, though, are fine about a decade later, though), and I probably won't upload any of my own stuff until the initial Deltarune hype likely dies down in July--though I will certainly will be going back to actually WORKING on animations now that I've finished Deltarune for now, I just won't upload them until later. By the way, the Steam page I bought and downloaded the game from literally says there will be more chapters beyond Chapter 4, so at least that doesn't count as a major spoiler when it essentially comes straight from Toby Fox's mouth.

Also, quite frankly, I don't think I can compete with Toby Fox, Temmie Chang and their slowly-growing animation and coding team in the indie entertainment space at the moment, might as well hold out a month or two for the Deltarune hype to die down a bit before I can trust that anyone has the extra free time to check out my stuff or other people's stuff again. I personally still have to watch stuff like the latest Punch Punch Forever episode that I've been putting off in favor of beating Chapters 3 and 4 before the loose-lipped Undertale/Deltarune community spoils major themes and plot points casually in their fan art and general social media discussions--sorry, Speedoru.

Why am I SO concerned about allowing not only myself, but others, experience the latest Deltarune episodes without spoilers? Honestly, it's because Toby Fox seems to have REALLY refined his storytelling abilities (particularly making shifts between a more humorous tone and a more serious tone feel more natural, compared to the original Undertale) and as a result, Deltarune is shaping up to be one of the most genuine, heart-tugging gaming stories I've played since The Last of Us Part 1. Some of you may be turned off by that, thinking it's one of THOSE JRPG-type games (it's not actually made in Japan, as far as I know) where you spend more time watching overwrought cutscenes than actually playing the game, but the real genius is that, to me at least, Mr. Fox's obsession with playing with our expectations of a traditional Japanese-inspired turn-based RPG since Undertale means the gameplay and varying difficulty of each fight actually enhances the emotion of each story beat--hence why I want to do my part to avoid spoiling anything to you guys. Even though I've experienced Ch. 3 and 4 myself already, I really think Deltarune is best experienced through actual gameplay, not just watching some YouTube Let's Player play for you and likely killing the mood with their own lame jokes.

No "ludo-narrative dissonance" here, not like how The Last of Us Part II tries something similar by making you feel guilty for every individual person and dog you kill, yet like any ultra-violent M-rated shooter, it doesn't give you any way to progress without basically killing everyone and everything that tries to kill you, and the upgrade system essentially rewards you for killing by giving you the tools to kill harder. Or how, for all of Metal Gear Rising's strengths, it was unfortunately confusing during my playthrough when characters and cutscenes shamed me for mostly ignoring MGS-style stealth in favor of playing the game more like Bayonetta, yet the ranking system at the end of each level is definitely more "Bayonetta" and you actually get a lower rank if you successfully sneak past entire enemy encounters, like the characters in the cutscenes want you to do.

...This is a reminder I need to play more indie games/watch/read more indie stuff in general, and stop pretending more "corporate" entertainment is good for anything besides a quick nostalgia fix to share with my "normie" friends and family who have no taste and culture...at best. Just like how Flow winning the Oscar for Animated Feature this year over the likes of Pixar and Dreamworks hasn't necessarily stopped either major studio from pursuing a financially-safer "nostalgia-bait" sequel/remake strategy, I highly doubt some higher-ups at, say, Activision, are looking at Deltarune shooting up to the top of Steam's charts since its release date and thinking "yeah, our main audience of rich suckers that just want the latest, increasingly-AI-generated COD, regardless of quality, will respond well to us pivoting to making lower-budget games with 'worse' (on a technology level) graphics that are the singular vision of talented, experienced directors like Toby Fox (as opposed to "design by committee", where for better or worse, even idiots on X have a say on the entire direction of our games)...and where such inspired writers make genuine, strong characters that happen to be queer and/or female with "they/them" pronouns, and not just because our now-nonexistent DEI departments forced them to make such characters."

This type of focused storytelling and genuine, well-written representation (happy Pride Month, everyone) seems only possible these days without shareholders, deadlines or other capitalistic pressures constantly breathing down an artist's neck, and I thank Deltarune (and Flow before it!) for reminding me of this seemingly-basic fact.