>>723125842
>you can kill monsters in UT from the start, its not safer then DR
They're just random encounters. There's no weight to any of it until you kill Toriel. I wouldn't call Undertale COMPLETELY safe and innocent from the start since you do have Flowey fuck with you and try to kill you, but the overall tone doesn't really start to turn until Waterfall.
Deltarune's tone isn't that far removed from Undertale but it is significantly more "dark" or "real," even if it's only in the PG -> PG-13 sense. The Light World is comforting but it's also grounded in reality and tinged with cynicism, and the Dark World is even more like a game than Undertale but that just makes the moments when "reality" slips through sting more. You don't kill enemies in Deltarune, but that just gives more weight to when Lancer starts worrying that you're going to kill his dad, and when Lancer and Susie fight for real.

>>713039045
That's not the "whole gimmick" but it's part of it.
It's kind of acknowledging a huge blind spot with Undertale, where the whole idea there was exploring how your actions affect the characters and the game world but your own player character was practically a blank slate, to the point that you wouldn't even know they were supposed to be their own person until the end of the game.
In Detlarune, you know from the start that you've taken control of some kid and that they have their own life, personality and goals which might come into conflict with yours.