Deltarune - Critique and Concerns
Published: March 30th, 2026
Greedy Keebler Elf (AKA @homerjahsimpson)'s "A Critique of Deltarune" isn't exactly popping off in terms of twitter statistics, but I think it's gotten enough notoriety for some bigger names in the Deltarune X Fandom to talk about it so that's enough for me to say- it's generated some repercussion. I was actually one of the first people to comment and repost it, back when it was still under 20 reposts, and I even left two replies praising some aspects of it. But in the time since that review was posted I've been thinking a lot about it, and about Deltarune, and so I've decided that even though I'll be talking to a brick wall (especially considering how long it took me to finish this), I think I'd rather give my own try at this Deltarune Criticism stuff. I'm also doing this because I've noticed a sentiment among the posts talking about Elf's review that, even though it had some points that a surprising number of people agreed to, it was still a very opinionated review that many thought was written in bad faith or a lack of consideration for some aspects of the game, wishing that someone with better faith would speak up about the subjects at hand. For you, I will try to be that person.
I was originally planning on writing more extensively about some of the points they make in their review, to showcase my own opinions on a lot of what was said. But because I suck at writing and don't actually have that much free time, I'm going to be more direct about it and only discuss two points I think matter most: gameplay and fandom. And before anyone gets any wrong ideas, I would like to make it clear that I am, in fact, a fan of Deltarune. I've been a fan of Toby's works since 2016 and that hasn't changed to this day. I bought the game when Chapters 3 & 4 released for the not very cheap regional price that it is asked for and enjoyed every hour of my gameplay, and have been talking to other people about it since with much excitement for what's to come. I agree with some of the criticism presented by Greedy Keebler Elf, and also disagree with a lot of the points they make (especially in regards to Toby's writing, pacing or the fact that they seem to not recognize or ignore lot of the themes presented by the game, or just the way they talk about Toby as a creative and as a person in general) but I have to emphasize that I have nothing but the best intentions in mind, because I love this game and want it to be great, and I hope I can express that in a way other people will understand.
That being said, I also want to thank Greedy Keebler Elf for writing that review. In spite of all the things they've said that I disagree with, and that many other people did so as well, I believe that everyone should have the capacity to be able to read a review like that and be able to discern what is unnecessarily hateful spiel that fails to acknowledge aspects of the game from actually valid points of criticism that deserve acknowledgment. Many of the things I'll write about in this review were things I'd noticed about the game for a long time now but never really paid attention to because I wanted to give Toby Fox the benefit of the doubt. Elf's critique was a cold shower that helped me see things more clearly and got me to think a lot about a game I really like in ways I really hadn't tried to before. So instead of QRTing their post saying something snarky because their username is homerjahsimpson lolololol maybe let's try to think about things critically for once and not dismiss criticism just because it's coming from someone you don't like. We don't need to agree with them, just be mindful of what they're saying and try to think for ourselves if there's any value to that.
Deltarune's strange gameplay conflict
Deltarune has a really weird gameplay problem that I can only describe as a conflict of vision. The first issue that comes to mind is the difficulty, which I think Greedy Keebler Elf has already said enough when it comes to saying that Deltarune isn't a game that tries very hard to challenge its players. When it comes to anything besides the bullet hell patterns in combat, nothing really challenges the player in any meaningful way and often times there is no such thing as a failure state for the game. That I think would be seen as an issue in any RPG akin to the ones Toby is inspired by but in Deltarune, it gets a pass. Why? The obvious reason is because Deltarune is a narrative focused game with a mostly casual audience that Toby simply doesn't want to bother with challenges that would take too much time to get past so the plot or the silly character interactions can continue. But is that really an issue?
Tell me, when you think of the most iconic fight in Undertale, what comes to mind? If the image of Comic Sans Under Tale wasn't what you thought, what is wrong with you? There are a lot of things that make Sans' fight memorable, but I think one of the biggest aspects of it is by far its difficulty. Sans' fight is hard and it's not afraid to be so. It literally begins with a surprise attack from Sans that has caught so many players off guard that you can find compilation videos on Youtube of people losing to him before they can even press the FIGHT button for the first time. It's a fight that gets progressively more difficult and ends with one of the longest and most intense bullet patterns in the game. And people fucking love it. So when Deltarune's demo was released and people found out there was another bossfight, this time a secret, that was almost if not more challenging than Sans', people went nuts. And to this day Jevil's fight remains one of the best in the game and arguably the only fun gameplay related thing in Chapter 1. And what did Toby have to say about it? That it was an accident. 3 years later Spamton EX's fight is a thing and it is one of the most disappointing fights in the game for anyone who not only expected the secret bosses to actually provide a good optional challenge for experienced players. And let's not even get started on Gerson, who literally does its best to help you not lose the fight, like decreasing the damage he deals as Susie's health gets lower. The Roaring Knight doesn't count. You know it and I won't explain why. And worse even, we all assume that if a rematch is ever going to happen against them, it won't be as nearly as difficult as it is right now, which is what made it very interesting in the first place.
I won't get into the fact that the Knight fight was nerfed as much as I think it made the fight easier because from what I've heard of people more knowledgeable on the issue than me, that fight used to have some weird or disjointed hitboxes that got patched out so I guess that might be a good thing at the end of the day.
My question is: is the appeal to a wider audience really to just make the game easier so that people can get to the story bits quicker? I personally don't think so. Actually, difficulty is something that can grab even casual players when the game is actually good at being difficult. There are many popular games out there that are praised for their difficulty and many players seek those out exactly because of that. Hell, difficult games are often equated to Dark Souls as a form of praise for their difficulty. It's no different in the world of JRPGs, because people love a good strategy game. And bullet hell fans certainly must love games that feel like hell. So why is it that we can't combine those two genres and keep the difficulty? People like being challenged and they like playing games that challenge them, but a lot of developers nowadays don't seem to realize that especially when appealing to casual audiences.
But what is really egregious about Deltarune's gameplay is the lack of mechanical depth. I think there's a number of things you could use as an example of this, and I honestly don't even think I can list them all. There's the stuff Greedy Keebler Elf mentioned like Susie's berserker attacks in chapter 1, or the underutilized dojo, the barely relevant element system, the forgotten target mechanic, et cetera and et cetera. But one thing I think is especially bad about the way a lot of mechanics are handled is the fact that they're often very one-and-done things. Undertale did this and Deltarune does it too, introducing game mechanics only to have them barely be used across the game, and rarely ever outisde of the chapter they're introduced in. Something like the Punch-Out!! style fights from Chapter 2 that are done exactly twice, the minigames from the TV World that, besides the arguably very barebones rhythm minigame, don't really get any expansion beyond the one time you play them (outside the ONE fight against Tenna, that is), or basically most field puzzles that aren't the most basic ass pushing block puzzles that no one gives a fuck about. There's probably more but this is all that comes to mind right now. And I wouldn't have much of a problem with all of that if not for the fact that in any other normal videogame, it's very commonplace for gimmicks or minigames like those to get introduced and then later iterated upon, with new mechanics and increased difficulty to spice up the gameplay. And though we might not need all of those minigames to happen again, I still think not enough attention is being given to making them into something that could actually be iterated upon and thus given any real depth or challenge.
Probably the best example is that thing I mentioned Undertale did and that Deltarune does again: soul modes. Seriously, why the hell are soul modes always exclusive to a single fight per game? How many people were begging for them to return before Chapter 2, and how many people are still asking for the blue and purple soul modes to come back today? Hell, even now, I still wish Toby did more with the yellow soul mode, because I thought Spamton EX's fight was easy even on the weird route and like when I get to play Deltarune but shoot 'em up while I'm doing it! Hell, remember when I brought up Sans' fight? What's another thing that makes it memorable and that helps with increasing its difficulty? It's the fact that they brought back the blue soul mode and made new, more difficult patterns with it that took that mechanic beyond the little we'd seen of it in Papyrus' fight. Hell, even Undyne the Undying did that, and that's another fight that people love. And so why can't we have more of that?
I see zero reason why we couldn't simply have different soul modes appear all throughout the game. There's no lore reason why it couldn't happen, we literally see Kris' soul change colors for no goddamn reason yet for some reason it also only does so when it's a conveniently important fight? Seriously, would it be bad if you got into a fight with a Rabbick in Chapter 1 and for one of its patterns your soul turned blue, increasing the number of patterns it has as well as the gameplay variety, and then in Chapter 3 the same thing happened againt Ribbicks with even more difficult blue soul mode patterns? Why can't the normal overworld enemies have those soul modes as well? Do we really have to restrict that potential for gameplay variety to just the special moments in the game? That alone demonstrates that there is a lot of potential for a lot of awesome things to be done in Deltarune's combat system, and yet, we don't see that potential really shine through most of the time.
This isn't to say that Toby doesn't know how to iterate upon game mechanics or gimmicks. That one mechanic where the soul becomes visible in the overworld and you have to avoid projectiles or other hazards was introduced in the first chapter and continued to be used up until the latest release, and although I wish there could be longer or more difficult sections that used that mechanic, they're still being improved upon with new ideas thrown into the tray every time. I know I mentioned the TV minigames earlier but I actually thought that using them in Tenna's bossfight was super clever and I was really sad when the fight was over because I wish it'd kept going on for longer! There's also the climbing mechanic in Chapter 4, which although was also nothing to really write home about in terms of difficulty (Greedy Keebler Elf also touched on this when they brought up the Titan climbing sequence), was still really fun and I loved how it was used throughout the second half of the chapter and especially in the Titan sequence. And speaking of the Titan - the darkness battle mechanic introduced in Chapter 4 was also very interesting and used multiple times throughout the chapter, with the implication that it might be used again in future chapters, and that's great! But many of those examples are still limited to the chapters they're introduced in, and that makes it so they don't really get all the time they could use to become more challenging or complex, and that hurts my experience with the game.
Still on the subject of the Titan fight, I'd actually argue it's the most mechanically complex fight the game. The use of the darkness mechanic coupled with an actual unique use for the fight mechanic made up for not only a good and unique feeling fight as well as a pretty good narrative moment for the game, which really stood out to me as a moment where elements of the gameplay actually seemed to come together very well, something I felt similarly when attempting to beat the Roaring Knight and realizing the importance of item management that fight held. Ironically, what made both of those fights shine to me on top of being more challenging or actually making use of different game mechanics in a meaningful way was the fact that they both achieved that by restricting the player in other ways, the Knight with its difficulty and the Titan by blocking you from getting a mercy win, which at that point was most likely carrying you throughout the game. I know that there are some benefits to using fighting instead of mercy, but the fact that it stood out more as a mechanic in the one fight where it didn't serve the same gmaeplay purpose as mercy really makes it feel like the game can be unfocused when it comes to its gameplay mechanics in a way that makes a lot of them feel useless. Notice how I didn't even bring up the pacify mechanic. It's that pointless. And every other underutilized mechanic feels the same.
This is something I've heard people say often and I don't think people pay enough attention to it even when they're the ones saying it, but: do you like replaying Deltarune? Does getting through the same easy fights really make you feel any challenge you must've felt the first time you played? Do the field puzzles that you only see one of each kind stand out to you in any way or do they feel more like something done to pad the pacing out? Because when you've already read all the dialogue, what's left of the game experience can really feel like a drag sometimes. And when the game doesn't try to have difficulty, variety or depth, you just end up with not a lot of value when the primary reason you play is something you've already exhausted. I fear that one day Deltarune will become a game people look back to and don't really look at the same way, and I certainly can't see myself coming back to it very often, at least not today, and that's definitely not the case with most other RPGs I've played.
The reason why I called it a conflict of vision is because the intentions behind the choice to make the game like that are confusing to me. That writing appealing characters and fun interactions is Toby's strong suit is undeniable. So it stands to reason that he would try to focus most of the game into those interactions. The same is true for the entire rest of the game's text based aspect, the narrative and the themes and the emotional moments... Toby knows that's the game's strongest aspect and so it also becomes the front and center of Deltarune as an experience. But at the same time, it introduces a large number of major and minor game mechanics only to make little use of some and not really explore the others too deeply and it comes off as the developers wanting to craft a metanarrative about playing games and the dark worlds acting as the game world while not actually investing into the making that game world feel like a good game world it enough to make that narrative work to its full potential.
And of course, you could argue that's intentional, that the game is about not becoming attached or that the player is meant to see the game past its gameplay and as a world of its own (this is further emphasized by theories that suggest the game is some kind of simulation or that it was turned into a game to accomodate the player's presence), in which case, sure, I understand that could be intentional, but understanding that doesn't make the game better for me, because I think not exploring its gameplay mechanics further is a waste. But at the end of the day I think that's more of a matter of opinion than anything. If you think it's okay for a game to sacrifice aspects of its gameplay for the purposes of the narrative that's okay, and if that's what Toby thinks I can't disrespect him for committing to that idea. Ultimately I'm still fine with what we're getting and excited for what comes next. But a game that doesn't strive to be good as a game is not something that sits right with me, and that's what I see in Deltarune. And if the point is that we were never supposed to become invested in the gameplay, then I'm sorry for thinking that the game that this game developer has been working on for years is good and hoping that more good gameplay comes out of it. Except no.
Toby Fox, Deltarune, Fandom and Homestuck
Greedy Keebler Elf makes the point in their critique that much like Homestuck, Deltarune's serialized release has also been used to incite discussion between readers that in turn is the fuel for the experience being sold to the audience. I disagree with that for two reasons. Firstly, because Homestuck was, in fact, a work fueled by discussions between the author and the readers. And although Toby doesn't get very close to his audience, he is still trying to make a commentary on the relationship between the author and the player. And secondly, because Toby Fox actually has quite a different modus operandi from Hussie when it comes to exploring that relationship. And it's something that I've been thinking a lot about since and I think that it's really interesting and people haven't ever really brought up.
While reading the part of the critique about fandom, I was strongly reminded of the comment Toby made about how Homestuck "taught him lessons on how to deal with fandoms and the importance of valuing your fans." It's something that I don't see people really grasping the weight of. Because if Deltarune is meant to be approached as a community experience first and an individual game experience second, then it should be discussed more often how the way Toby interacts with that fandom is very important in shaping that experience. And how does that interaction work, exactly?
In Homestuck's case, there's an adversarial relationship that is built between the author/narrator and the readers, and the author is always portrayed as either annoying, stupid or straight up evil, because they are not someone you're supposed to glorify but rather someone you're having a conversation with, and although Hussie never actually gave fans full control of the story, and, in fact, even stripped it away when they retired command suggestions, they still spent a lot of time interacting with fans and taking in their expectations and thoughts on their work into account when writing and that becomes especially apparent with how much the second half of the story, as well as its official sequels, emphasize its metanarrative aspects by going as far as literally killing the author (their self insert, anyways) and questioning the contrast between 'canon' and 'fanon', with many in-comic references to its own fandom, too. By making the fans a part of the creation process and of the story itself and fueling the creative drive within the fandom, an experience that is founded on its collective aspects is built, and Homestuck fans to this day create their own takes on Homestuck's format and other stories heavily inspired by it - the spirit of collective creativity lives on. Homestuck wasn't afraid to explore this kind of interaction and it made it a core part of its identity and the experience it offered.
Minor spoilers for Homestuck [Click to open]
This conversation between author and fandom even continues to be the relevant as other characters take on the role of narrator/author and we're shown how they are flawed, and their works, not immune to criticism, challening the mystified persona of the author that Hussie held previously. Because even if back in 2010 they might've been glorified by their fans, I'm sure they've gotten a lot of criticism for how they wrote Homestuck since then, so the fans have certainly gotten the message.
I don't know about you, but I don't think it's unreasonable to assume Toby "Lived in Andrew Hussie's Basement" Fox was heavily inspired by Homestuck's creation process. I also don't think it's unreasonable to assume they are, on some level, attempting to emulate or even surpass the motion that Homestuck achieved. Especially considering how it is also a work that comments on the relationship between readers and the writer. But it does so in a very different way from Homestuck. Look at Gerson, which I think we can all agree is something of a self insert for Toby, and how he's portrayed as this this almost mythical figure, a legendary author and nice teacher that inspired people through his work, yet simultaneously a distant figure because of his death and the mysteries of the unfinished work he left behind. Only a fragment of the person who he was is observed by the player in Chapter 4, and there they are nothing but that wise, kind and intelligent teacher he's been alluded to have been in life. In other words, it really puts the figure of the author on a pedestal. His only flaw that we're shown is the fact that he wasn't able to incentivize his own son to pursue his creative aspirations, something he is not only able to correct post-mortem but is also shown to do to Susie the same way he wished he'd done for Alvin. Of course, it could be that he'll later be revealed to have been kind of an asshole or maybe wrong ideologically... hell, do you really believe that? Come on. We're talking about Gerson Boom Deltarune here.
And look, I'm not saying he's some kind of masturbatory self insert character written just to aggrandize Toby, but what Deltarune is very clearly trying to say (and everyone's pretty much figured out at this point) is that the author isn't just a great figure because they are good at writing good stories, but also because of their ability to inspire others, the next generation, to continue their work with their own ideals, and become authors themselves, to achieve that same height. But whether Toby wants it or not, the effect that has is pretty much that of exacerbating the figure of the author. And the effect of that is that fans have, since early into the release of Deltarune, developed this concept of Toby's Vision for Deltarune: an immutable idea of what the game should be as an intricately crafted piece of work, result of the enlightenment recieved from the ever so elusive prophetic fever dream that Toby had in college (and it's something nobody really knows what is but everyone kind of understands as this idea of what Deltarune should be leading up to), and that becomes this notion of a masterplan he's been cultivating since before Undertale even began development (see: shit like Penumbra Phantasm theories), and that all comes together to create a shield from any criticism that could be going into Deltarune or Toby, because whenever some kinds of criticism come up people will defend it on the basis that it is part of The Vision, and how the game is actually perfect because all of its imperfections are intentional, all the writing is just his way of doing things and preparing us for his 4D chess story twists and the story's elaborate meta themes, every odd looking visual asset isn't ugly but rather Toby-core, as if intentionality immediately erased the possiblity of criticism. In many deluded fans' eyes, criticizing that vision is critizing Toby himself as an artist and his way of doing things. And if you don't like it the way Toby does it? Then pick up the pen of hope, you're the next generation, write your own story! Make your own game! But is that really how it should be? Am I not supposed to think that Toby and the Delatrune developemnt team also have the responsibility to improve the game?
Obviously, it is something that mostly comes from the fans, and not all of them, maybe a vocal minority, but I think to some degree many people brush off a lot of potential criticisms towards the game because they put too much trust into that Vision, which isn't at all wrong (it's important to have good faith on the author/creator), but I also don't think it's entirely on the fandom's fault for thinking like that. Because there's no way Toby doesn't realize this is how people see him, and yet he's been cultivating that distant and mysterious persona (not much different from the elusive and wise Gerson Boom) which feeds into a lot of this ideal vision of Toby as a game development savant that, although he himself admits isn't true, isn't really helped by everything else. Because this detachment from the community in spite of how it is integral to both the sustainment of Deltarune as a collective experience as well as a story with themes of authorship leads to something that feels almost like a sacrifice of the author, a self-imposed removal of the author from the process of understanding their work that is paradoxically only possible because the author intended for such a thing to happen. Homestuck does this, but it challenges the reader's understanding of who the author is by doing so. Meanwhile Deltarune has done nothing but fuel this terrible symptom of modern fandoms that is the mystification of the creator figure, which in this case works in Toby's favor but can easily take a turn for the worse once what the fans ask for stops being what is actually being created. Wanting privacy online as a person with fame is, of course, completely normal, but I think maybe it'd do more good for Toby if he, I dunno, were more open to discuss the development of his game instead of making everyone wait for the godly gift of his seasonal newsletters, for example.
I should also make clear I don't think there's any malice from Toby when it comes to all of this, even if I think part of it is an intentional way to avoid criticism. I can't make this kind of judgement, because I don't know Toby fox as a person or the circumstances behind the game's development. And I really have no reason to, because despite it all I have nothing but good faith towards him and everyone else working on Deltarune, and I want Deltarune to be nothing but a great, no, an amazing game, and I want to improve really badly, but many people seem more fixated on that idea of what they think Toby thinks Deltarune should be that they lose the ability to think of Deltarune as something they can experience by themselves, making their own judgements and having their own thoughts about, instead asking for whatever they think Toby wants them to take of that experience and blindly accepting whatever may come from that. And maybe they should pay a bit more attention to that.
However, what really makes me concerned about this in the first place is the fact that if Deltarune is more of an experience than a game, what will be left when the experience is over and all that's left is the game? Because in the case of Homestuck, there's a lot of people who say you're not reading the same webcomic you would've read in, say, 2012 today, because that fandom experience, that event that was Homestuck, it is gone now, and it can only be experienced as an archival reader. But even though that component is missing, I still found that Homestuck was an incredible work by itself and I found it really enjoyable and entertaining to read by myself, and I was still able to find a really compelling work in it despite the abscence of that community experience. If Deltarune really is the same thing, more of an experience than a game, I fear that once the story's concluded, and the mysteries have been solved and explained, and most of the fans move onto theorizing about other works, there isn't really going to be much left of Deltarune as a game. Obviously that does tie into the themes of escapism of the game, and the idea that we shouldn't become attached to the characters and the world of the game, but I still feel like it's wrong to make a game that is poorer in some aspects just because you don't want players to engage with it as purely a videogame after the experience is over. It just doesn't sit right to me, y'know? Because I like playing videogames, and I like having this component of gameplay, and I know Deltarune is a story about being a player in a game and the metatextual aspect of that but I wish it was a game that I could come back for the gameplay as well. Because I like the gameplay of Deltarune and I think there are a lot of creative ideas there, but if those things are being put in the second plane because of story and themes being the focus, I feel like there's a misuse of potential there or even a conflict of vision. I see a game that could've been a really fun to play game being reduced so that it can focus on other, more fleeting aspects of the experience - and I'm not saying that's wrong to pursue as game design but as a player it is something that I think it's worth asking for.
So when I say I want nothing but for the game to improve it's because I love this game and because even if Toby, as an artist, doesn't value the opinions or vision I hold, I should still be allowed to speak up about it and think that things could be done differently and that anyone should be allowed to do that. Maybe Toby does already have a solid idea of how the game will be and that's okay with me, because I like what he's put out so far and I have zero doubts that he will absolutely stick the landing when it comes to the writing and the themes and the big mysteries and that it's going to be a really fun experience, but I still fear that in the future people might look back at Deltarune and think "wow that was really fun back then but I have no reason to look back and play it now", and even if there's a good reason for that and it's related to the game's themes of escapism and letting go, I still hope that, at the very least, if Toby makes another game after Deltarune, that he will make it a better game and something that will be fun and a stronger gaming experience by itself more than a fandom thing, because I love video games and old RPGs and Toby absolutely does so too and there's nothing that I'd like more than to see him, with all his ideas and his writing and humor and style make a game like that that I can play and enjoy to its fullest. I believe that he can create a lot of amazing things as he has done so far and it just bums me a little that that potential doesn't seem to shine fully through Deltarune, his supposed life's work, even though all the potential is there.
Of course, I say all of this but I know well that Deltarune is still in development. So of course, a lot of my criticisms there might be defenestrated when the next chapter drops, and that's obviously fine. Maybe the gameplay will improve enough in the next chapters that it'll at least make me feel that actually recognized that gameplay potential, or maybe the story and thematic conclusions will be just so damn good it'll reframe all the means as acceptable given the end result. But as it stands, that's just how I see Deltarune as a game and my concerns about it.
Addendum #1: Chainsaw Man, and the problem with glorifying authors
While writing this post, the last chapter of the manga Chainsaw Man released to an incredibely mixed reception. My initial reaction to it was lukewarm, I didn't think much because I wasn't that invested in it nor did I have that many expectations for where it would go. But the more I think about it the worse my opinion of it gets. But what really makes me bring that up, beyond the fact it did the exact same thing I expressed worry about of focusing too much on delivering its themes and not providing a good execution of other aspects of the work beyond that, was how the fans reacted to it. I'm not going to get too much into all the reasons someone might think that the ending was good or bad, but take it from someone who really didn't like that ending: the way people are defending it is the exact same thing I talked about in relation to glorifying a creator and setting up expectations for them. People's expectations for Chainsaw Man and Fujimoto's writing were blown so out of the water for a number of reasons (a big one likely being the constant comparision of Fujimoto and Chainsaw Man to other works and authors in the same field as his, which manga fans are all about) that people did everything in their power to convince themselves that the ending would be good no matter what. When the last chapter didn't meet the expectations, half of his fans felt extremely offended by the ending while the other half became incredibely defensive of it to a degree that nears the delusional.
From my perspective, most people defending the ending have either made themselves uncapable of recognizing the possibility that Fujimoto could something that is truly bad, interpreting every aspect of it as intentional and therefore good (hey, isn't that line of thinking an issue too?), some particularly stupid users going as far as to make the hilarious argument that it's bad on purpose (won't even try to explain why that is stupid), while the other group has made defending the ending a defense of their own pride because of how much hope and expectations they deposited into Fujimoto over the course of Part 2. They equate understanding the ending to enjoying it because acknowledging that one could understand it and dislike it implies that they could've been stupid or in the wrong for ever thinking Fujimoto was infallible (it doesn't make you that, by the way.) And of course that turns into a complete shitshow from all sides of the discussion, not helped by the fact that a lot of the people hating on the ending were also not exactly very good and putting into words why, plus the general awfulness of trying to have a discussion about anything online with people who are more interested in coming out on top of discussions and getting engagement on their posts.
Of course, I don't want to think that Toby Fox would deliever such a divisive and, possibily, shitty ending, especially considering how different of a story Chainsaw Man is to Deltarune and how different mangas are to games, so I'm really just telling a cautionary tale about what happens with fandoms that isn't even exclusive to the works I've mentioned so far and there's probably numerous other examples of this across different mediums and the history of entertainment. It's also an example of a work that sacrificed other aspects of itself so the themes could work, and again, kind of a different circumstance than Deltarune's development (I fully believe that Fujimoto just got tired of writing CSM and figured if he was going to deliver the bare minimum for the ending, it'd have to be the themes and that's honestly respectable), but it's something else I mentioned before that I think should be kept in mind.
Addendum #2: Toby Fox odeia latino-americanos???
Another, more relevant issue that arose in discussions since I began writing this was the matter of Toby "not caring" about his fans from countries that aren't in the US or Europe or Japan and whatnot, most notably countries in Latin America, which began because of that one concert they announced. I don't even think it's worth addressing why complaining about that issue is stupid, but what was really interesting about the situation is that Toby, ever so concerned with his public image, was quick to release a statement defending why Latin American fans don't get that much "attention." He brings up three points, and I wholly understand the first two: of course Toby isn't the person behind the concert and of course shipping merchandise to Latin America is a huge fucking hassle, that's a problem way beyond his or Fangamer's control. But what I didn't expect to get thrown into the conversation was the subject of the game recieving translations to other languages that aren't English and Japanese, and his stance on that I think I have a bit of an issue with.
To be very honest, the impression I got while reading was that his argument for why those translations don't happen, the fact that he put extra effort into the Japanese translation just so it could match his vision, came off to me as the same kind of talking point that some weebs make to talk about anime/manga/game/etc translations that, for one reason or another, aren't perfect and don't get every linguistic nuance across, or maybe even localizations that make changes to the script for whichever reason it may be, discrediting those translations as if they're an insult to the original writing and translators are evil vile people who want you to misunderstand art. Not that I think Toby thinks that... But it doesn't really bode well for me.
The problem with this idea that the main obstacle to translating the game is aligning the translation with Toby's vision is that the problem is actually a lot smaller than what he makes it sound like. First of all, there's no such thing as a perfect translation. Not only because translators are human and can make mistakes, but also because translating a language perfectly is impossible. This is a whole can of linguistic worms I don't want to really get into but suffice to say, anyone that knows two distinctive languages well probably realizes that you can't translate every nuance of a language perfectly. Even words or expressions that might have a direct translation can lose connotations in the process and that's just a natural part of how different languages develop. Japanese is the perfect example for this because their cultural imports are very popular around the world so people are constantly bringing up how Japanese has a lot of nuances and unique aspects to it or at least that differ from, say, English, and so comparisions between translations and the original text come up often. Point is, even if Toby really wanted to, there'd be no way for him to ask for a translation that truly "matches his vision" because not only is that an impossible task for translators, but also even for himself!
If you're in the Deltarune community you've probably seen people bring up the Japanese script for the game in discussion because of how there are lines of text in which details are present there but not in the English script, and so fans will often compare the game's two official scripts in search of details that might help them piece together the whole picture of the story. And what this means is that not even Toby, when translating the game to Japanese, gets to fully match his vision to that which is in the English script, which for all we know, might not even be "the original"! And there might not even be an "original"! Because if people are looking into the Japanese script as if it had come first and the English, "incomplete" script came second, does Deltarune even have a primary language? If anything, understanding the work completely might not even require you to just know Toby's native language, but two, completely different languages! And if that's not a testament to the idea that no language can perfectly capture his vision, I don't know what is. Worse even, it shows that most of his fans aren't even getting that whole vision anyways.
I've been careful not to say anything too negative about him as a fan but, sincerely, if not out of ignorance, his stance on this issue feels very self-centered. And I think it's a shame that there's people defending that because, once again, it shows how one's glorification of Toby and his "vision" for the game has overpowered their capacity to realize that translating the game is neither impossible nor a terrible thing. This user put it best when they said that a translator's whole job is to bridge that vision of the author to an international audience to the best of their abilities, so I don't see why Toby wouldn't be able to consider it even if for after the game is already finished and there's no need to juggle between a bunch of different parts of developing the game or worry about lore implications and the risk of ruining mysteries. It'd be way less work than translating to Japanese as well since he can't be involved so directly in the process, unless he feels it's absolutely necessary to oversee how each and every little pun gets translated, but hey, if a super accurate translation is what he wants, he better commit to it, right?
Of course, I can't also deny the possibility that maybe Toby just... doesn't want it to be translated at all. If he just wants it to stay 100% faithful to his own vision, then honestly, I guess I kinda have to accept that as an artistic decision for the game, so I can't really say he's wrong for prefering that. But choosing between that or translating has its pros and cons, so whichever choice he makes will lead to some issues that he has to weight and consider which is a bigger problem for his work. But that won't really change my stance. People will often bring up the idea that, if you want to understand a work 100%, you should learn the language it was originally written in to grasp the whole idea behind the text, and on paper that sounds like the best idea because it incentivizes people to learn new things and such, but, speaking as someone who lives in Latin America especially, we have to be realistic and recognize that that idea is nothing but a distant dream for most of the world's population. Whether Toby chooses to do it or not, there will always be a market for translations. And while he does recognize that and thinks it's a good thing that there are fan translations doing the job for him "unofficially" (and therefore, without the need to be "accurate to his vision"), I don't think it's wrong to think that maybe translators could be getting paid for translating things, y'know. Labor is labor, after all.
The last thing I want to talk about in regards to this topic concerns a certain tweet that felt very critical of Toby but that I couldn't help but think about for a while and wanted to discuss. I thought about whether or not I should directly show it here but I realized six people will most likely read this at best so I trust nobody here will go harrass this user for it. Much more productively, you'd harrass him for putting the trollface on the internet. Anyways this is the tweet:
Of course, most people seeing that tweet probably thought of it as nothing more than "ragebait" or a hate post made for the sake of hating, much like what people thought of Greedy Keebler Elf's review, but I can't shake the feeling that they might not be wrong for thinking that way. That Toby could have some veneration for japanese game industry stars is undeniable, and I don't think it's wrong for someone to strive to reach a similar level of recognition in the world. If the image that the fandom has of him is anything to go by, he's most certainly already on the track to being there, given how he's had dinner with other game developer auteurs and has pretty much solidified this idea that he's the white guy in a kimono that actually got it right. Of course, a comment like that probably has a lot of emotions behind it, whether it be anger or jealousy, but taking into account that perception of himself that he's created for the fandom as well as his takes on something like the translation issue which, again, I do feel is self-centered, I can't deny that Whynne's perspective there is almost vindicated. It's normal for people to be skeptical of things when they're sold to them as too good to be true ("se a esmola é demais, o santo desconfia"), especially when they're outside of the bubble that constantly praises it, and Toby's image and works absolutely fall into that category of "too good to be true". And as much as I think it's not good to make such assertive comments about Toby as an individual, I still think there's a bit of truth there that some people might be too afraid to acknowledge.
Even if it's good for his art, Toby is a creator who's absolutely worried, maybe too much, with his own image, and that's why things like the game only being translated to two languages happen. And more people should realize that before they glorify him too much as a person and creator, or else we'll never be able to have a proper conversation about anything he does on the internet.
Conclusion
I've spent way too much of the time I barely have writing this post so I think it's about time to wrap things up. It's probably going to read as messy or too long but I don't care, I just want to get done with it at this point. Honestly, despite it all, I feel like I still might've been too forgiving when it came to my criticims of Toby and his game (trust me, that's mostly just how I express myself a lot of the time), so I'm sure there could be a lot more that could be said about every topic I brought up. Likewise, I don't expect people to agree with everything I said, especially since a lot of it I see as my own personal opinions, but in any case, I want to make clear that I'm completely open to discussing everything here with other people if they so wish. You can go to whichever post I make on Twitter linking to this page, or maybe my DMs, or maybe you can message me on Discord, I don't care, if you're interested in having a conversation about this, reach out to me! I like talking about this and I want to have some conversations in good faith about it. Actually, fuck it, if you liked what you read, consider giving my Twitter profile a look and following me if you think it's worth it. I don't post much currently but if I had followers who actually saw anything I posted I'd probably be more willing to share my thoughts on different things. I like talking about things with people online so please talk to me about shit. It's kind of embarrassing to ask that but at this point I have nothing to lose.
Anyways... thanks Greedy Keebler Elf for the blogpost that inspired this, thanks everyone else I might've mentioned for their unwilling contribuitions, thanks to Deltarune development team for the work (I wish you people nothing but the best, really) and thank you for your time.
TL;DR: Read Homestuck.