Deltarune: The Movie

Deltarune: The Movie is a film based around the 2018 game Deltarune: Chapter 1, made by Toby Fox. It is a surreal fantasy action movie released on October 31st, 2023. The movie is entirely made with computer-generated 2D animation. It received generally high ratings on both Rotten Tomatoes and iMDb. It's also known as Deltarune: The Beginning.

Summary
There is a game, and in it, there are two main characters: Kris and Susie. They accidentally discover an alternate world created by a fountain in their school's closet. They meet a strange prince named Ralsei, who tells them that the world is ending, and they were prophesized to save it. Along the way, they encounter a spade kid named Lancer, who tries to be evil but becomes their friend. After many struggles and hardships, Kris and Susie get to the fountain and close it. Kris walks home, but breaks free of the player's control and pulls out a knife.

Full Plot
A child is seen turning on a game system. He boots up a game with a peculiar name: Deltarune. In the game, a voice is calling out to the player. It tells him to create a vessel. The player assumes they will play as the vessel, so he proceeds. The voice asks some quesions, and the player answers accordingly. However, it instantly gets deleted, with text that says that his choices don't matter. It cuts to a gender-neutral teen named Kris being awoken by his mother Toriel. Kris is a human, and everyone else in town is an animal or a monster. Toriel wakes Kris up for school, and they get up. Toriel drives them to school, talking about her college-bound son Asriel, and they go to class.

Kris's class is doing a group project, so Kris is asked to find a partner. They consider partnering up with Noelle, a timid reindeer girl, but Susie shows up. Susie is a purple dinosaur girl and a bully. Their teacher is about to write the assignment, but she lost her chalk. She sends Kris and Susie to get it. Susie threatens Kris, but they go to the closet together. It's strangely dark, but they enter it. Suddenly, the floor collapses and they fall down! Kris then wakes up, now wearing knight armor and their skin is blue. They had landed in a weird cliffy area with eyes imprinted on the walls. After some exploring, Kris reunites with Susie. They spot a spade-shaped spy watching and attacking them, so they run for their dear lives.

Susie and Kris have no choice but to slide down a dark waterfall and land in a strange kingdom with a fountain in the center. A hooded figure greets them and explains what's going on. He says they are Lightners, beings from the Light World, and that they must save the world. Another fountain has recently appeared, and the balance of light and dark will soon come to an end because of that. Then they get attacked by Lancer, the spade prince from earlier. After the fight, Susie runs off to the fountain herself. The hooded figure takes off the hood. He is Ralsei, a Darkner goat wearing a green wizard's outfit. (Darkners are people who live in this Dark World.) The duo goes through the Great Door and tries to find Susie.

Kris and Ralsei end up in a field of purple grass, and diamond and heart enemies. Lancer encounters them again not long after, and he tries to fight them. He fails. Ralsei just decides to continue on. When he and Kris started to give up, they finally spot Susie. She's trying to open a door, but can't do it without solving a puzzle. She reluctantly joins Kris and Ralsei, but for every enemy they come across, she fights them violently. Lancer appears again after a while and brings some jigsaw puzzle-themed enemies. He's beginning to like Susie and wants her to teach him how to be evil. Susie denies and they all go forward. Past the field is a giant checkerboard with pawns everywhere.

At the halfway point, Lancer arrives with a bucket and three pieces of paper. He gives one to Ralsei and one to Susie. Lancer asks them to write a name for their team and asks Kris to choose. They choose Ralsei's, "The Legendary Heroes: Herald of Fun and Friendship." Instead, they just shorten it to "The Fun Gang." About a minute later, Lancer shows them a little checker who can't do much to the gang. It walks to the end of the board and gets crowned like in real checkers, and grows long legs. Kris and Ralsei successfully end the fight with mercy, even though Susie was attacking it. Ralsei directs his anger at Susie, which encourages her to leave the Fun Gang and join Lancer instead.

Up next is a forest with scarlet trees and a magenta floor. Susie and Lancer are making evil plans along the way, carrying some blueprints. There are many puzzles based on card suits. One of them is guarded by a three-headed monster named Clover. Ralsei and Kris spare her and move along. Then they come across a bake sale that Lancer set up with Susie. They buy a cookie for them, but that only gives them more money to fund their plans. Later, they appear again, asking them to design a machine for them. Kris designs a duck, and eveyone hates it. Everyone moves along either way. The final obstacle, a maze, comes next. The four of them make it through, with some struggling ensuing.

At the end, Kris sees the duck machine they designed... and then it blows up because it sucks. Lancer and Susie fight the Fun Gang themselves. They convince Susie to rejoin, but she says she'll only fight with violence. Lancer joins too. They all see his castle on the horizon. Lancer says that his fountain is being guarded by the King. (Fountains give the Dark World shape and form.) He also says the King will have to fight them, and he runs away, betraying the gang. They chase after him, but get cornered by his troops. They lock them in jail, not because they committed a crime, but for their safety. Thankfully, Kris helps Susie break out of her cell. She walks over to Lancer to confront him again.

Susie almost kills Lancer, but he explains everything. Susie realizes what she did and joins the team again. The Fun Gang travels through the castle, teaching Susie how to be nicer. Rouxls Kaard, the Duke of Puzzles, infiltrates them 3 times, and fails. He sucks at making puzzles. On the third time, he brings back the checker, but Susie beats him again. On the roof, Lancer talks with his dad, the King, and he HATES the Lightners. He tries to kill them, talking about the Knight. The Knight seemingly created the fountain, bringing more imbalance to light and dark. After the fight, King pretends to be redeemable, but hit them with one final attack.

Susie stands her ground, saves her friends and the King gets arrested. Before Kris goes to seal the fountain, they decide to say goodbye to Lancer and Ralsei. Ralsei takes off his hat, revealing his true identity. Then they close off the fountain for good, without realizing they destroyed Lancer's world. Back in the Light World, Kris says goodbye to Susie and walks home. Toriel is there to greet Kris after they walk through the door. They go to bed early tonight. Suddenly, Kris jumps out of bed and rips out their soul, what the player used to control them. They throw it in a birdcage and take a knife out of their pocket. The player turns off the game in disbelief.