Game review: Octodad Dadliest Catch (2014)

The game which I will be reviewing this fine afternoon is one of the more strange adventure/physics games that I've played in recent years, it's called Octodad: Dadliest Catch. This game is a sequel to an older freeware game which was of course called Octodad, sadly I never had the chance to play that. Octodad: Dadliest Catch saw release back in January of 2014 for the PC, with multiple ports happening for pretty much every other console that was available from 2014-2016. The game was developed and published by Young Horses, who has yet to make another game since this one was released. The version of the game that I'm going to be reviewing is the one for Steam/Windows. 

You might be wondering how I came about playing this game. Well, I picked this game up on the recommendation of a reddit user some years ago, and it was described as just a hilariously weird experience.  I mean, the premise and title alone let you know right off the bat that it's a bit of an odd game. I was honestly quite pleasantly surprised with how entertaining it is! The game uses some very unnatural and strange controls as one of the main mechanics of the game. Something which I really had a hard time getting used to. Thankfully, you'll be doing very plain and simple everyday tasks for a decent sized portion of the game, giving you time so you can acclimate. However, you have to remember that while such a simple task might be easy for us, what about for a crazy mollusk who's masquerading as a human? Yeah, turns out it isn't so easy for him as you probably guessed. 

The story of the game is a fairly simple one. You're just a normal guy trying to live his everyday life with his family, doing things that all normal families would do. You wear a nice little blue suit, love your family, absolutely no one even remotely expects that anything is amiss with you. But, there is something amiss with you. That's because you're actually some sort of Octopus who has to keep it a secret from his family and everyone else around him. You'll be mowing the lawn, playing games with your kids, going grocery shopping with your family, or heading over to the aquarium at the request of your wife. Though, obviously the aquarium is the last place he'd want to be for obvious reasons. 

Of course, keeping your secret isn't the easiest task to accomplish. Anytime you act weird you'll have to worry about arousing suspicion and having your identity exposed to your loved ones and neighbors. You'll also have to worry about the antagonist of the game, which of course had to be an evil chef named Fujimoto. Who could have guessed. Fujimoto's main goal is to cook you into a delicious meal, but must first begrudgingly expose your identity to those around you before he can do so. You know, because murdering someone is fine so long as they're an octopus. You'll find yourself dodging him throughout the game, all the while completing your everyday tasks and seeing a series of flashbacks explaining how and what has led you to where you are currently in life. 

The controls of the game can either be played with a mouse and keyboard or with a gamepad, something which I was really thankful was possible. I personally prefer playing most games with a controller when possible, as I feel like I suck quite a bit at mouse and keyboard controls. This game in particular feels like it works much, much better with a controller being used over the mouse and keyboard. You take control of three of Octodad's limbs for starters, his two legs and one of his arms. You'll be trying to manipulate them to allow him to climb, grab, walk, run, you know, just general everyday movements. The challenge comes into the fact that you can only control a single limb at a time, and since you're an octopus you're quite elastic, meaning at times you may do something you didn't want to happen. So, you'll have to make sure that you're really paying attention to your actions while playing. 

It's honestly a very confusing experience at first, and will take a bit of time to adjust and adapt to. A good comparison would be to think of what it would look like if you gave your elderly grandmother a control or mouse and keyboard and told her to play a game like Fortnite or Overwatch for the first time in her life. Even when the objective is clear and you know logically what you should be doing, there's bound to be some trial and error while you're getting used to the controls and how the game works in general. 

While this could be something considered negative to the game to a certain point of view, I think it fits within this specific title pretty much perfectly. The reason being is that you're controlling a body which is alien to us, because we of course have no idea how an octopus's body would behave if they suddenly decided they were people. But, not everything is bad with having a weird movement system, there are of course some positives like being able to get through tight spaces and reach strange areas. Things like that help offset the bizarre experience of learning how to move around with your strange, mollusk body. This can honestly be quite frustrating at first, but it definitely is worth it once you get the hang of it. By the time that you get to the end of the game, you should have no problem with basic movements like walking around, picking up objects, and not hurling them at your family on accident. (Yeah, "accident". I certainly didn't throw things at them because they were an annoying menace throughout the game. Get out of here with your weird soccer crap, damn it. Leave me alone!) 

While the concept and lore of the game is fairly silly and outside the box, the game fully knows this and never tries to take itself too seriously. The writing of the game and the dialogue fits with the overall tone of the game, and there's some humor to be found in the strange remarks and puns within the game. Just the interactions and looks from your family when you're in a weird situation will give you a few chuckles. Most of the hilarity of the game comes directly from the absurd concept and controls though, so don't expect to bust a gut from the dialogue or anything. Not unless you're, like, 9 years old and playing this. In that case, bust all the guts you want. You damn little heathen. 

Besides having some good writing that fits the tone of the game, it also uses some cartoonish graphics that fit the silly concept quite good as well. The game chooses to use a more cell shaded look giving it a heavy cartoonish feel. I feel like using anything even close to realistic graphics would really ruin the pacing and tone of the game, and using the cell shaded look was probably the best choice for the story and concept. The sound design also aids the absurdity of it all, giving a very peppy and happy musical score in the background while you attempt to fulfill your tasks for the day. 

The graphics at times can be an issue, however. As I experienced some freezing and other issues while playing the game when it came to instances where it started trying to load too many objects and living beings into the environment. I also experienced a few crashes while playing, but that could have just been something that had to do with my system file or the processor on my particular PC. I haven't seen a ton of people complaining about crashing issues, though I've seen a few mention it. So, while it does happen I'll just chalk it up to my bad luck. Overall, it functions pretty well for the most part, I have definitely experienced worse things with trying to run PC games before. *Vietnam flashbacks of trying to get Fallout 3 to run on my PC* 

The game itself can be completed fairly quickly in just around 3-4 hours. This shouldn't really come as a surprise since the game doesn't have a very depth filled plot or premise, obviously nothing is intricately designed or complicated within that aspect of the game. Most of your game time will come from the wonky controls as you get used to them. While I wish the game was another hour or so long, at the very least the lighter price point makes things more fair since the game only costs $15 when not on sale. You can also find it on sale for dirt cheap pretty often if you're patient. I'm not sure I would consider the short story to be an negative point in this case, as the game doesn't have much substance to it where it could stand on it's own two legs longer than 4 hours, but I know some people actually want to get a substantial amount of playtime out of their games, and this will not be one of them.  

While there is some other objectives for you to try and complete besides the story to stretch out time, there really isn't much else to the game and it's mostly a linear experience overall. Probably something you could gather from just looking into the game, but thought I should mention it. But, perhaps another good selling point is that the Steam workshop allows level customization where you can make your own maps to play for the game. There's also apparently a co-op mode which I have not been able to try out yet, but from looking into it online it appears to be a fairly silly and fun mode. So, there is some replayability here in a way, just not within the main game itself exactly. 

Overall, I'd say check this game out if you're into weird physics games, or interested in one that has a funny/silly story which don't take themselves too seriously. At the $15 pricepoint, I feel that you're getting a good bang for your buck. However, I'd say it's totally fine to wait for the game to go on sale for cheaper during the Steam winter/summer sales as well. While the game did give me some issues with the graphics now and then, I enjoyed the experience quite a bit and definitely don't regret playing this fun, albeit frustrating to learn game. Definitely check it out! 

So, yeah, that's my review on this game. Hope you've enjoyed reading about it. Thank you for stopping by!