Octodad: Dadliest Catch review

by Dr_Worm on Mar 30th, 2014

The premise of Octodad: Dadliest Catch is pretty simple. Live a day in the life of an ordinary dad, doing yardwork, going grocery shopping, and visiting the aquarium. Here’s the catch – you’re an octopus. Not only do you have to live the life of an ordinary dad, but doing so while avoiding suspicion that you’re an octopus. Mowing the lawn is not so easy when you don’t have vertebrae.

Octodad’s unique control scheme is a bit arbitrary, and can be a little hard to get used to. You control everything with the mouse, switching between modes with the spacebar. Left click moves your left “foot”, right click moves your right, and moving the mouse forward lets you take strides. The other mode allows you to move Octodad’s hand to interact with things like buttons and levers, or pick up objects. You can even throw them if you get the hang of it. Octodad’s movement is pretty fluid and smooth, it’s just learning how to do it that’s the hard part. There is native 360 controller support, and I have to say it controls much nicer than with the mouse, possibly too much so. You don’t have to switch between modes with a controller. If you want a more authentic experience, go with mouse control, but if you just want to play through and have fun without too much trouble, stick with the controller.

This array of controls might be a turnoff for some, but it’s really what makes Octodad great. The controls are awkward because you’re an octopus trying to live a human’s life. It makes sense that you can’t walk without flailing around, and your attempts to perfect this control scheme is very much analogous to Octodad’s own struggles. Not only that, but the whole game is designed to make you look like an idiot. Banana peels abound seemingly everywhere you go, serving as just one element to the obstacles you face, and the more you screw up when humans are around, the more suspicious they become. When the suspicion bar fills, it’s kind of like dying in a typical game, but there are no penalties and you return to where you were before you failed (like a typical modern game).

Regardless, just about every part of Octodad has a new challenge for you to overcome. Whether you’re getting prepared for your wedding, pulling weeds in the garden, or playing various arcade games to impress your wife, the game always has something fresh right around the corner. When I first played it, the last third of the game was not very finely tuned, relying much on stealth, but not in a fun way. I was prepared to write this review begrudgingly saying you’ll know when the game stops being fun. Fortunately, a recent patch changed these last few stages to make them much more cohesive, and the fun difference is night and day. They might not be as creative as the first two thirds, but they no longer interrupt the experience.

Unfortunately, much like this review, Dadliest Catch is very short. It’ll only take easily under three hours to complete it, and that’s provided you don’t speed through it. Getting hidden collectible ties can make the game last a little longer, and some of those ties are deviously well-hidden. Octodad doesn’t overstay its welcome, but at the same time, it doesn’t stay long enough to get to know it. There’s also a co-op mode, and you can specifically set what appendages are controlled by what player, with up to four players supported. Workshop support even exists for Steam users, but as a GOG user I don’t get that luxury (not that there’s a lot in the workshop, which is a shame). All versions do come with the editor, however.

Length gripes aside, I had a blast with Octodad for the brief time it lasted. It’s one of the funniest games I’ve played in a while, and especially one of the most fun. From start to finish, Dadliest Catch has more originality than fractions of most other games. If you want a taste of Octodad, give the freeware prototype a shot, but bear in mind that the final game has much smoother controls.

4 out of 5

Categories: Reviews