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Halloween Day by Day: "Dredge" (2023/X-Box)

 


You wouldn't think that "horror", and "relaxing" would go together, right?  Well... here we are...

You find yourself washed ashore in a small fishing village, and are recruited as their fisherman.  All seems to quiet in the idyllic island town... but things slowly start to descend into mystery and darkness.  What's with the strange lights in the fog?  Who is the mysterious and reclusive Collector?  And... what really happened to the village's previous fisherman?

I'm going to say right off the bat that I simply enjoyed this game.  It was a fascinating mixture of mysterious story elements, engaging quests, and relaxing gameplay mechanics.

The story is a slow burn of a Lovecraftian horror, revealed over the course of character interactions, the main quests, and side quests.  I found myself wanting to learn more about what was going on, and quickly lost track of time while playing.  The main story isn't long enough to get bored and frustrated, but not so short as to feel incomplete and unsatisfying.

While the fishing aspect is a bit of a grind, it's not an overwhelming one- and, and is mixed with 'species collecting' in such a way that it's actually enjoyable.  The developers managed to keep the fishing mini-game from becoming tedious by having variations of it throughout.

One thing I really appreciated about the game is that the mechanics and controls are very intuitive, and simple.  There were no complex combinations of buttons or use of seldom used buttons to do stuff.  This really helped to keep the frustration levels to a minimum.

I also really enjoyed the simple polygonal art style of the main game, and the more detailed artwork of the character screens and journal.  It wasn't so detailed as to distract me from the story and what I was doing.

"Dredge" has two DLC's- which I will absolutely be adding so I can play them.  This game is, in my opinion, one of "The Good".

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