Deltarune’s first three chapters seems like a fairly cliché “kids get sucked into a fantasy world” RPG (much like Toby Fox’s previous game, Undertale), populated by characters who seem to slot neatly into genre boxes: the silent protagonist (Kris), the delinquent (Susie), the trusty guide (Ralsei), the nerd (Berdly), etc. However, almost every one of these archetypes gets bent or subverted in some way once you spend real time with them. The game uses those deviations to sneak in some commentary on school hierarchies, expectations, and the pressure put upon people by social roles they didn’t ask for. We know for sure that Deltarune breaks genre convention, but while breaking it does help the story say something true, it also risks ending up trivializing real issues by presenting it alongside comedy.
DELTARUNE CHAPTERS 1-3 SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
Take Susie, for example. On first glance, she’s a typical delinquent: intimidating, antisocial, quick to threaten violence. A stereotypical game would have her either stay a bully and anttagonist or undergo a clean redemption where she “learns to be good.” Deltarune does neither; Susie softens, sure, but the game keeps her personality intact through Chapter 3 (I’m stuck on roaring knight so I’ve not played chapter 4+), and it never/hasn’t yet explained her backstory to help the player dissect the character. That refusal to resolve her is extremely important. By not giving her character a clean, resolvable backstory, Susie becomes less like a fantasy delinquent and more like a real kid who’s been labeled as a “problem” by a school system that doesn’t care why and surrounded by kids who refuse to connect with her in fear of being lumped into the same group, and as such the game makes the player sit with that discomfort instead of giving them closure.
Berdly is where Deltarune gets more openly critical of a real social structure. The genre stereotype is the “nerd,” usually there to be smug and then humbled. Deltarune plays the usual dialogues in Chapter 1, setting him up to be a stereotypical smartass, but Chapter 3 shatters the illusion: Berdly’s arrogance turns out to be a facade to cover his hidden insecurity, built from being the only other high scorer besides Noelle. This isn’t a scene that was delivered as a joke. It uses our established judgements about the character to talk about how achievement culture in schools can lead to a kind of cruelty which punishes all students. Whether that’s beneficial is genuinely debatable. It gives weight and depth to a character usually treated as disposable, but it also makes a lot of players reinterpret “annoying rival” as “kid in crisis” in the span of one boss fight (which isn’t that long), so some of the nuance can get lost under the game’s mostly comedic tone.
Noelle deviates from her own stereotype in a quieter, sometimes darker way. The shy character is a familiar archetype, usually there to be rescued or perhaps build their confidence until they can stand up for themselves. Deltarune instead ties Noelle’s timidity to a lack of control in her own life, and, in a very disturbing fashion, the game makes the player complicit in how far that timidity can be pushed, especially in the Snowgrave route (it’s an extremely disturbing route, and chapter 2 is just the beginning. Be warned!). It’s a case where deviating from the “sweet, harmless” stereotype carries some unexpected impact: it forces the player to reckon with how easily social pressure can turn into manipulation, rather than let the trope stay comfortable and decorative.
Snowgrave route: https://youtu.be/JCjJ8x0j8wg?si=Tz8tfIFOpZx1pbtM
These are incredibly serious topics that are being covered, and the devs have to balance that with the lighter aspects of the game to keep from repelling the audience. Infusing bullying, classism, insecurity and manipulation into the comical fantasy monsters makes heavy material more approachable, but it also risks presenting real issues as something that can be solved with a pep talk (talk-no-jutsu). Deltarune’s genre-bending is beneficial because it refuses that softness and comfort at the hardest moments — Susie’s unresolved story, Berdly’s involutary facade, Noelle’s exploitability — even though the surrounding tone remains playful. The inevitable cost is that some players will only ever see the joke, not the message underneath it.
