Octodad: Dadliest Catch on PS4 is a game about destruction, deception, and fatherhood made by Young Horses, Inc. The player controls Octodad, an octopus masquerading as a human, as he goes about his life in a world with the wackiest physics. No even one suspects Octodad is an Octopus. Octodad: Dadliest Catch is a sequel to the cult hit original and was originally released on PC January 30th of this year. Nearly four months late, Octodad makes his console debut on the PlayStation 4.
If you’ve played the PC version already, then this will be mostly familiar to you. The PS4 version took that extra four months of development and added challenges like deck swabbing, jig dancing, and new disguises to wear. It also adds the use of the PS Move, provided you have controllers and the PlayStation 4 camera. You also have coop play with up to four players where you can each control each of Octodads limbs. The extra challenge in having multiple players controlling different limbs is worth the extra hilarity that ensures. I highly recommend people play together, because that is worth it alone.
To the people unfamiliar with Octodad: Dadliest Catch, and you very well might be if you’re strictly a PlayStation gamer, allow me to make it simple to understand for you. You play as Octodad, the world’s greatest dad, and you start the game off by jumping straight into his wedding (with a fish for his best man!). This is basically a tutorial level to get you comfortable with the controls. Don’t forget the two trophies in the wedding level. Because of the unique ways in controlling Octodad, it’s going to take some time to get comfortable with it. Expect a lot of movements that can feel a bit frustrating from the get go that will ease up over time. You will need to control your tentacle foot movements with the L2 and R2 buttons. Hold one of those and use the right analog stick to control the “foot” direction. You will use alternating L2 and R2 button commands to navigate the world as you control every step. That’s the simplest explanation. You will soon learn that navigating your tentacles on the “z” axis is just as important to get around.
Your hand tentacle is controlled using the two analog sticks and grabbing and letting go of an object is done with R1. You can use the Touchpad for arm movements, but I found that to be more cumbersome than using the analog sticks. Combining all the control movements will take some practice, especially during the final section of the game where you are tasked with walking across a maze of beams, where the controls of this game can quickly become frustrating. There are plenty of mini-games that will keep your movement skills sharp. Speaking of mini-games, while there are quite a few of them, they are extremely well varied and you almost don’t even realize that they are mini-games. I honestly didn’t think I would never be able to get past the controls, but once you really learn them and see how you control every bend in a movement, you’re going to fall in love with it. Have you ever wanted to reach down, around, and up into an arcade claw type game? You get your chance here and it’s quite easy.
Half the fun is getting your octopus into situations you didn’t intend him to get into. You can interact with nearly every single object in the game. You can put on hats that you see on hat racks and toss balls around. Part of the joy in this game is not diving in and tackling all the objects in the story path. The joy is just playing around with the environment. See how you can twist yourself into new spots or play with new toys. The game is simply funny. The dialogue and looks themselves from Octodad are priceless, especially when he sees a book about how to cook octopus.
And it’s a good thing you have these side activities to keep you busy. If you didn’t, you will find that the story is only 2-3 hours long on its own. But thankfully, I had no issues loading up a level in free play and I spent nearly two hours alone in just the super market. Tossing food around, playing with the floor piano, crawling through the freezer and taking a rid on a interact ship. There’s a lot to do, but not enough to keep you engaged for more than a few days. With the PS4 lacking support of custom level editor support like the PC has, replay value is low. That is, unless you have a coop friend(s). That’s a whole new experience.
Trophy hunters out there will be glad to know that there are 20 trophies in this game. No Platinum. All the trophies are bronze (I’d rather have 20 bronze trophies than 3 gold trophies) and with the exception of two story related ones, they are all for doing random stuff. These are my favorite types of trophies. It encourages you to do something in the game that you wouldn’t ordinarily stumble across on your own. My biggest complaint is the indifference developers have for trophies, and that is not the case here.
But when all is said and done and despite Octodad: Dadliest Catch being only a few hour long story mode, the game is simply fun to play. It’s an incredible, and funny Indie game and hopefully more players will start to give Indie studies more support. We are no longer a AAA gaming world. We can get fun and enjoyable experiences that equal that of AAA games for a fraction of the price. And speaking of price, the game is only $14.99 / €13.99 / £11.99 normally. A great deal, and a better one if you pick it up during the first week of release where you will save 20%.
Review Score – 8.2
Pluses
- General Goofiness
- Wacky Physics
- Great Characters
- Humorous
- Worlds Best Dad!!
- Fun Coop
- Great Trophies
Minuses
- VERY Short Story Mode
- Low replay value outside of coop
- No level editer
- Maybe to easy?
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