It's not bad, but it feels like a downgrade from Chapter 1 and that's probably primarily because Chapter 1 of Deltarune felt like something fresh and new compared to Undertale whereas this felt like more of the same. I liked it, don't get me wrong, but if I said it was worth the wait I'd be lying. Hoping for improvements in the future chapters though

Edit: Didn't think the review would get any traction whatsoever, but people are asking me to elaborate so. Undertale and Deltarune are extremely different games that both have a unique identity. When Deltarune Chapter 1 came out it felt so cool and worth the wait because not only do you see the characters and world that you missed, but the game also feels like a new experience that is completely separate from Undertale. As far as Deltarune CH2 goes, I didn't feel that at all, it just felt as though I waited 3 years for a patch to Deltarune. That's because Deltarune was released as an unfinished game, and that remains the case here. When Chapter 1 was released Toby said that the next release was going to be the full game, which obviously was not true. Is this preferable to getting a full game release in 2036? Maybe, but it still feels like a letdown when you think about it that way.

Again, the game is not bad, by any means (although I do think that the writing is worse than in Ch1 and significantly worse than in Undertale) it is a nice little game that is fun to play but that's it. The lasting impact that was left from Undertale in particular is not there.

Edit 2: Undertale/Deltarune fandom is insufferable so just gonna delete the annoying comments and disable commenting. Some people cannot accept an opinion that doesn't align with their own unfortunately. It's crazy because I literally LIKE THIS GAME and am a huge fan of Undertale, but because I didn't give this game a 5/5 stars rating I get mauled by rabid obsessed fans. Yes I know about the "Pipis Route" btw

So it seems that after the fairly simplistic, different sort of metroidvania experience that Circle of the Moon provided, that they decided that the next GBA game would be far closer to Symphony of the Night. In theory, this sounds like a cool idea, essentially having a portable reimagining of such a classic title, but in the end, the game falls flat, as it seems that the designers thought that SOTN was a good game because of mind numbingly easy difficulty, the main character having a trail behind them as they walk, and having 2 castles. I find it quite unfortunate that a game with such potential ended up being one of the weakest main games in the series for seemingly being unable to do anything particularly decently.

From the moment you begin the game, it becomes immediately obvious what one of the main problems with this game is, and that’s the awkward way which the player moves, seemingly in between a state of rigidity and fluidity in all the worst ways. While Juste Belmont is able to dash forward and backwards from the very start of the game, which completely kills the feeling of gradually understanding how to optimize one’s movement as the game goes on, instead encouraging constant dash spamming to make it through basically any situation, this is contrasted by the fact that any time the player attacks in the air, their jump becomes committal, making dealing with airborne enemies awkward at the best of times. Furthermore, this is the one game in the series so far that manages to make the player feel overly floaty in all of their movements, having no real weight to any of their movements, causing the game to feel unsatisfying to play on a base level.

That said, I feel like I’d still be able to garner some serious enjoyment from this if not for the fact that this game has the worst navigation out of any of the games in the series without even being close. What this game fails to do in particular is telegraph where the player is meant to go, with many of the paths for progression being considerably more cryptic than even the most obnoxious aspects of SOTN all across the place. These issues range from having to break walls within save rooms to get key items, dash under fake walls that have no visible difference from regular ones, and having to locate a specific warp point that initially seems quite out of the way and unimportant. This issue becomes worse once the 2nd castle is introduced and the twist of the warp points taking you between the castles comes into play, showing that you’d only explored parts of the map during the journey that you initially thought was nearly over. This admittedly is executed very well, explaining why there were some places that were inexplicably locked while walking through the castle and the overall unusual feeling separation of the castle throughout, and gives potential to give another dimension to exploration, something that I consider far superior to the inverted castle which just felt tacked onto the end of SOTN for extra padding. The problematic aspect of this is the way it’s handled, instead of causing the player to feel as if they’re progressing through the labyrinthine mess of these 2 converging castles, this instead causes backtracking to become an absolute nightmare, with multiple key progression points being on other sides of the castle or just requiring extremely long, winding pathways to be traversed multiple times, making the game a slog despite me finishing the entire thing in under 5 and a half hours.

This game just feels rushed or simply poorly conceived in a lot of other ways as well that all contribute to making the game feel unsatisfying to play. The overall game balance feels absurdly off, with the opening couple of sections having extremely long, grueling areas that seem to punish even the slightest mistakes, before quickly devolving into a game that almost rivals SOTN in terms of easy difficulty, but feels far less satisfying due to not having the insanely fast, snappy and varied moveset of Alucard, instead having nothing more than a handful of spells and the slow as molasses whip attack as your tools to deal with what the castle throws at you. I also feel that the boss design for the most part ends up causing the game to feel quite incomplete, most fights only having 1 – 3 attacks to deal with, even in the late game, making for extremely simplistic encounters that end up feeling tedious and anticlimactic more than anything else, often without even a grand visual spectacle to make up for the disappointment.

In the end, this game clearly feels heavily inspired by Symphony of the Night, but without any understanding of what made that game so good despite all of its flaws. This instead feels like a game made up of parts that almost have something good going, but never quite gets there in any field, making for a game that’s painfully mediocre at the best of times. Of all of the portable Castlevania games from GBA and NDS, this is easily the game that I’d recommend the least, to the point where I’d straight up say that you aren’t missing out on much at all if you just completely ignore this.