John Wick: Chapter 2

Note: This review contains spoilers for John Wick: Chapter 2.

While the original John Wick film (Chapter 1) was a box office success in 2014, enough to warrant ancillary media, it wouldn’t be until 2017 that there would be a formal theatrical sequel, John Wick: Chapter 2 (Chapter 2), with the same writer and director returning. After finally seeing Chapter 1, I was interested enough in its setting and characters to watch Chapter 2 soon after. Although many sequels tend to have a decline in quality after the first installment, Chapter 2 manages to raise the stakes without going overboard, all while maintaining the same level of quality, even with some nitpicks.

Deltarune Chapter 2

Note: This review contains spoilers for Deltarune Chapter 1.

After another three-year gap from the successful release of Deltarune Chapter 1, Toby Fox announced a surprise release of Deltarune Chapter 2 during an Undertale anniversary stream, which naturally caught fans off-guard. A countdown took over the official website and when it finished, the site revealed that Toby Fox had not only released it for free due to the state of the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, but that the upcoming Chapters 3-5 would be completed as a paid release sometime in the future. At the same time, Deltarune Chapter 2 was released alongside Chapter 1 on Steam and itch.io as a collective demo that would let you continue from whatever save data the player had from the original release of Chapter 1.

Since I had completed Chapter 1 when it originally came out, I watched the last portion of the countdown with great anticipation and downloaded the Steam release as quickly as possible. Though I wasn’t in a position to play the game all the way through in one go like before, I still dodged spoilers throughout my entire playthrough to better recapture the magic of completing Chapter 1 blindly. Based on how it turned out, it looks like Toby Fox has not only listened to feedback, but has opened up a lot more of the potential for Deltarune as a whole.