Deltarune Chapters 3 and 4 (PC)
When I drew this comic with the unimpressed Spamton NEO glaring at the blue Addison before asking "That's it?" I thought "Haha, that would make a great reaction image." Fittingly, that was my initial reaction to Chapter 3.
I warmed up to it a little when I replayed it for the Grant Morrison project, but on my first playthrough all I could think was "I waited four years for this?" The pacing is janky, some of the minigames are total pants (I didn't even bother unlocking the Susiezilla minigame on my third time through because I didn't want to deal with it while fighting Tenna), and Tenna is just Spamton 2: Electric Boogaloo. He's a wacky cartoon man who shifts between little and big and starts lashing out when things go wrong for him, but then it turns out he's just really sad.
Chapter 4 is better. The pacing is more consistent and there's more going on with the story than Chapter 3 which, aside from the last two battles, feels like a total filler chapter. Although one big moment at the end of Chapter 4 didn't carry the bite for me it should have, but you already know that story if you've been keeping up with the site.
The hype around Chapters 3 and 4 seems to have quieted down a lot faster than Chapter 2 did, and that got me thinking about why Chapter 2 blew up the way it did. Yeah, everyone being bummed out from covid helped, and maybe having to pay for Chapters 3 and 4 when the game isn't finished split the playerbase, but I think a lot of it is how the Cyber World was this massive, sprawling city where it felt like anything was possible. Chapter 3 takes place in a tiny television studio, and Chapter 4 a church that, while larger than Chapter 3's world, is still far more confined than the Cyber World, or even the Card Kingdom.
Since I published the fourth part of the Deltarune/Grant Morrison project, I did finally beat the Roaring Knight both with and without the Shadow Mantle, and I have a fun story to share regarding it. Remember how I said one of the three reasons I gave up on it was because the music was annoying the ever-loving fuck out of me? Well, this line...
I did not care for "The Stains of Time" yadda yadda I love "It Has To Be This Way." That is my answer to that statement.
... gave me an idea. One November night, months after I'd given up on it, I copied the save file that had the Mantle from my laptop to my desktop, then went into the game's music files and replaced "Black Knife" (knight.ogg) with "It Has to Be This Way." Then I fired up the game just to see if it worked, otherwise I was going to mute the game and play the song in Media Player. But no, simply replacing the music file worked, and it was glorious.
And I one-shot the Knight.
Oh, it still slapped me around a bit (especially the final attack which I obviously had no experience with. Didn't help that I completely forgot about the speed boost. Wow, that hurt), but I managed to not get anybody knocked out and I only used a handful of healing items. I didn't even get clipped that hard during the hall of swords attacks, and then I looked at the patch notes and saw in late July, some time after I'd thrown in the towel, they finally fixed the hitboxes for those attacks. Meaning both of the bullshit valves in that fight had been shut off.
Then I went into a file that didn't have the Mantle and in fact never touched the Mantle's sidequest at all on, and two-shot it.
I am shocked at how well this works. And yeah, of course I then had to fight Spamton NEO to "I'm My Own Master Now." I went with "Red Sun" for the Hammer of Justice but I'm not sure what made me connect the two other than "the reptile tail ripped from its back," "I'M FUCKING INVINCIBLE/OLD!," and maybe Gerson and Sundowner having the same jawline. No video because while I can beat him, I'm kinda sloppy at him. And I'm even worse at Jevil, plus the most fitting song for him is probably "The Stains of Time" and... ugh...
Which leads me to some anecdotal shit nobody cares about. I first played Chapters 1 and 2 on a Windows 8.1 desktop and, well, Windows 8.1 support ended a couple years ago. So I continued on my Windows 10 laptop, which is how I replayed Chapters 1 and 2 during December 2021, but outputted the video to a monitor to get the same desktop-like experience as when I first played 1 and 2. I also did not fight Eram nor the Hammer of Justice on my first runs because I completely botched the concert minigame and was only able to complete the first board of the Shadow Mantle sidequest, and I never even found the Hammer of Justice. And to be honest, I didn't fight Jevil nor Spamton NEO on my first playthroughs of Chapters 1 and 2, so might as well continue the pattern.
Anyway, on my first playthrough, I was getting slapped around hard by pretty much everything from the camera miniboss to the water fountain to Tenna to Jackenstein although that last one was in part because it took me way too long to realize "Your taking too long" was Toby Fox Troll Logic™ and I kept trying to rush things. My laptop is also where I kept getting my ass handed to me by the Knight. But when I was writing the fourth part of the Deltarune/Grant Morrison project I replayed all four chapters on my Windows 11 desktop and had a much smoother time. I beat the Hammer of Justice on my first try while laughing my ass off and I did that on my desktop, and my desktop is also where I one-shot the Knight while jamming to "It Has to Be This Way." I'm starting to wonder if was there something wrong with my laptop? Like it was experiencing just enough lag to not be noticeable, but still screw me up?
Ah, yes, laughing at the Hammer of Justice. Yeah, finding out Deltarune is based on a bunch of old Grant Morrison comics completely changed how I was looking at this game, and like reading the cursed issue of The Multiversity I'll never be able to go back. So while everyone else was freaking out when the Roaring Knight dragged Undyne into the bunker and shitting their pants when the final boss of Chapter 4 revealed itself, I was thinking "wait, did the Roaring Knight just turn into a Deathcoat??" and "oh my god, this is the Candlemaker" respectively. And while everyone else was dreaming of all the Rule 34 they were going to make of Lanino, all I could think while looking at him was why does he look so much like Lennox??
Rating: 
for Chapter 3, for Chapter 4
The Spongebob Squarepants Movie (G)
I've mentioned before that I was a little too old for Spongebob when it came around, and I admit I only watched this movie to learn the context behind memes like "MY EYES!" and "Of course they were fake!" so I may not be the best person to be talking about it. But speaking as an outsider, this movie isn't as noisy as the show (a major theme through the movie is coming of age and boys becoming men, which might explain why they dialed back on the noise), and it allowed me to take in and respect the more creative aspects of Spongebob like the color and animation, the absurdist humor, the scene in Shell City, and just how delightful Plankton is. But again, if you didn't grow up with Spongebob, a lot of this is going to be lost on you.
Rating: