Howdy y’all!
Happy Halloween!
Welcome to another week of Design Blox Studio’s Character Analysis! For this week and next, we’ll be talking about a game that was teased on October 30th 2018 before made it’s proper debut on Halloween the next day!
And that game is deltarune.
[Image Source from the deltarune wiki]
deltarune is from the makers of the indie game hit, Undertale.
Chapter 1 was released as a teaser demo of sorts in 2018 and Chapter 2 releasing in 2021 while originally made to be bought, was also made to be playable for free due to the ongoing pandemic (bless you crew).
While having similar faces from Undertale, the world of deltarune seems to be a alternative world with fresh new faces as well, along with it’s own story to tell. So while it is not required to know Undertale, as deltarune is not a prequel nor sequel, knowing things from Undertale can be important context for certain things in deltarune. As such, there will be spoiler warnings for this. We highly recommend playing Undertale or at least doing research to know what goes on to sooner make sense of what’s going to be talked about here. We’ll wait.
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Did you do your homework about the game(s)? Good! If not, we hope this encourages you to see the games regardless of seeing spoilers because seeing things executed can be fun as well!
Let’s talk about a main character we control in this game, their name is Kris.
Kris
[Image Source from the deltarune wiki]
Kris…. is an enigma. We don’t know much about them even if we get to see their parents, know his brother is off in college, used to be close friends with Noelle and her older sister, doesn’t mind Berdly, they live in a small down, etc. It feels like despite 2 out of 7 chapters, we’ve been sooner learning more things around Kris and very few things about themself, making Kris feel like a mystery to unravel. Which might be on purpose due to the situation, let alone their design.
Similar to Undertale, the Player themself are controlling/possessing a character in the world to interact with it. Kris shares things in comment with 2 of the Fallen Kids in Undertale. Frisk in Undertale’s case and in deltarune’s case, it’s Kris. While we don’t know Frisk’s name until the end of the Pacifist Route, we still influenced their actions and will on which ever route the Player does. Another similarity is Kris and Frisk’s names, remove the F, rearrange the letters and you can make Kris out of Frisk’s name.
Another detail is that if the Player acts like a complete monster, we meet Chara at the end of the No Mercy Route. In deltarune, we know Kris’ name immediately and not only that, but Kris kinda looks like if Chara got to grow up into a teenager… Hm……
(Left is Kris, the right is Chara for comparison.)
[Images taken from respective wikis, both linked in their names.]
The slightly darker hair, similarly colored sweater… the almost immediate resemblance made people feel like Kris IS Chara when we only had Chapter 1 alone to work with, no real info on how much deltarune is connected to Undertale, heck, “deltarune” is just “Undertale” if you rearrange the letters-
Heck, Kris’ name is a kind of knife too, and in the No Mercy Route, one of the best weapons is a knife.
In addition, if anyone had doubt about the potential connection or similarity to Chara (as some can deny it’s mainly the sweater colors), the actions Kris does when you finish Chapter 1 WILL leave an impression to think about the similarities. (Interestingly, Kris’ sweater sooner resembles Asriel’s, which in terms of design, could mean they’re kinder than we’re lead to think.)
And then here comes Chapter 2, while the prior was revealed to be a fake out on what Kris would do with the knife, the other isn’t. We see Kris rip the SOUL out, the Player and trap them in the birdcage (if checked, implies this often happens which adds more questions on why this seems to still happen when we start to control Kris only recently.) But that goes into speculation and as much as I’d love to do so, let’s speak about the Dark World next. Namely, Kris’ outfit changing when in a Dark World and how it’s design contrasts their usual wear.
Kris’ outfit seems to resemble a knight, yet for some reason, their skin turns a shade of blue/cyan. In contrast, Susie, Noelle and Berdly’s scales/skin/feathers don’t change drastically as Kris’. This maybe due to them being a human but the jury’s out on that as a 100% fact.
[Image Source from the deltarune wiki]
Besides the gear, Kris does also suddenly wields a sword and shield, adding onto the theme more. They are the leader of their group, which includes leading them into battle like a knight has done. If ya want another, when with Noelle’s Christmas theme, could say Kris is a “Silent Knight”, ha! Jury’s out if they’re also the Holy Knight. Time will tell.
But yeah, we’re slowly learning about Kris via the things occurring around them. Examples include them being the creepy kid who likes pranking (which could be why they never seemed to mind Susie, feeling that they understood her pain), them shielding and protecting Susie from a attack, outside of the Player’s control and being genuinely shaken and terrified on if at some point, they’ll be a puppet without it’s strings. Clearly, Kris is a person too, suffering from his parents’ divorce along with dealing with a magical world, that even if it gives a form of escapism, it still occasionally reminds Kris of the issues they face in their day to day.
That is all we have for this session with Design Blox Studio Character Design Analysis! While this is more on the short side of things, this is only the appetizer for more deltarune anniversary blog posts to come!
Do you want to read more? Click to read our blog about Molly from Epithet Erased! Her power is Dumb and she makes it work!
