Deltarune: Chapter 5 review: A festival of light and shadows

Deltarune initially came out on Halloween of 2018, and yet, it’s still one of the most endearing RPG experiences you can have in 2026. The Fun Gang has gone through a hell of a lot from Chapter 1 to Chapter 4, and the game’s fifth entry pushes this even further.

Chapter 5 may prove to be one of the game’s most divisive so far; it deviates from the typical gameplay loop heavily, and it was a mixed bag for lore obsessives, too. I found a lot to love, though, particularly in the art department.

Here, you’ll find Kyusai’s full Deltarune Chapter 5: Festival Day review. Please note, this review will contain heavy spoilers, both for the gameplay style and the lore – I’d heavily recommend playing it beforehand. 

I’m manifesting a Queen spinoff chapter

I mentioned it in the introduction but want to reiterate – this is not a spoiler-free review. I’ll be looking at the normal route, but not the Snowgrave or weird route. If you’ve not played the fifth entry in Deltarune yet, I’d recommend it.  

Deltarune Chapter 5 starts off with Kris crawling back in through their bedroom window, reclaiming the SOUL from its cage, and heading out to go to Castle Town to meet up with Susie – not before making some honey toast for Toriel, though.

Susie is gearing up for her date with Noelle; which Kris will also be attending, naturally. The two best characters in the game, Queen and Lancer, make a brief appearance in this introductory sequence, with Queen attempting to be helpful by printing out an outfit for Susie, directly out of her mouth. Tasty. 

After a little exploration in Castle Town, Kris and Susie head back up from Castle Town, meeting up with Noelle and exploring the festival. Susie and Noelle get a sweet moment together on the beach while Kris is snoozing on a table. 

Eventually, Kris and Susie end up heading into a Dark World, via Asgore’s flower store. This new realm is the Flower Kingdom, where Asgore’s seven flowers have come to life, determined to create a “perfect world” for him – headed up by anime protagonist Flowery.

While Deltarune’s usual pixel art style is gorgeous – particularly in this chapter, I must add – the contrast between this and a fully anime-style introduction sequence for Flowery was jaw-dropping. 

It cut into the usual gameplay without warning and started playing, and for a moment, I genuinely thought I’d somehow exited out of Deltarune and clicked on another game in my library without realizing. Festival Day felt like a Chapter of contrast, going against previous segment conventions, and this was a great example. 

Flowery is positioned as the antagonist of Chapter 5 somewhat, but he’s a lot more nuanced upon inspection. He’s trying to coerce Asgore into staying in the Dark World, sure, but he’s trying to reciprocate Asgore’s kindness towards the flowers and protect him from the hardship that awaits him outside of the Flower Kingdom.

Flawed and creepy? Absolutely. But it makes for a compelling final boss fight, particularly when all seven of the flowers work together to try and defeat the Fun Gang. 

Flowery argues that Kris is trying to seal their Fountain but not thinking about the Castle Town Dark Fountain, asking why one dream is more valuable than the other, which felt like a very valid argument. 

While I did admittedly struggle with the mechanics in this fight – Seth’s bullet pattern was so irritating for me – I found the narrative design to be spectacular. Fellow Nine Sols geeks will be happy to know that there’s plenty of parrying in this fight. 

Hey, who hollowed my Knight?

Speaking of mechanics, Chapter 5 isn’t what I expected to be playing through in the slightest, as it leans heavily into platforming mechanics. As a rabid Hollow Knight and Silksong lover, I expected to be thrilled about this, but ended up having mixed feelings.

The platforming mechanic is introduced with the reveal of a special feather, allowing the party to switch from the standard Deltarune perspective and back again by striking mysterious podiums found around the world. 

Standard mechanics apply – run, jump, hit special items to fly upwards – but Acts can also be taken mid-hop, letting you interact with the world or tell party members to do something. Ralsei can create a platform with his scarf, while Susie can smack things with her ax.

I really enjoyed the platforming sections at first. The levels were designed well and it was fun trying to dodge enemies while working my way across hazards, but I found that the mechanic outstayed its welcome for me, and I ended up wishing for a regular Deltarune level towards the mid to late game. 

On one hand, I think it’s entirely commendable that something completely fresh was tried here. Deltarune does have an established format and structure, and changing it up did help the Chapter to feel unique. Plus, if it’d been a beat-for-beat remake of a previous Chapter’s structure, there likely would’ve been a lot more complaints across the board. 

However, exploring the world by walking around and interacting with items is half of the game’s appeal for me. I felt a little disappointed that I had to platform around these beautiful areas instead of exploring like normal by the time the Chapter came towards its end, feeling uninspired when the platforming mechanic popped up again.

This was an exceptionally gameplay-heavy Chapter, particularly when compared to previous entries. I didn’t mind there being more fights than usual, as I adore Deltarune’s combat style and found it to be very polished with Festival Day. The final boss fight did give me grief, but once I got over my grumpiness about it, it was fun. 

I’ve spotted a fair number of fans being upset that the Chapter “didn’t have much lore,” though.

Comparatively, sure, the story was lighter here, but some key moments and themes were present – Asgore’s relation to the Dark World, the Knight appearance, Susie and Noelle, Rudy falling down, Kris removing the SOUL again. 

I would love to see more lore, of course, which Deltarune fans wouldn’t? I’m still left with a mountain of questions and am anxiously awaiting Chapter 6, which is slated for release in 2027. I do think there was a passable sense of story progression with Festival Day regardless, though.

Visually, this may have been one of the best-looking entries in Deltarune so far. The splash screens behind the game looked fantastic, there were some seriously impressive lighting effects – the sunrise on the cliffs, particularly – and plenty of fun creature designs.

I did notice a few occasional frame drops while playing through on my Nintendo Switch 2, but outside of this, the Chapter performed just as nicely as expected, with the controls still feeling intuitive despite the new gameplay mechanics.

Chapter 5 isn’t snatching the crown of ‘best Chapter of Deltarune’, in my opinion – I’m reserving that for Chapter 2 – but it did have a lot of intriguing elements and fun scenes, along with some ridiculously beautiful visuals.

While I can understand some complaints that there weren’t enough key story bites here, Chapter 5 felt fun to play through and left me feeling hopeful for Chapter 6 in 2027. Deltarune continues to be a mesmerizing experience as an RPG lover, and I highly recommend playing Festival Day if you haven’t already.

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