Octodad: Dadliest Catch Review - Being an octopus has its advantages but controlling all of your limbs might prove a bit challenging

Written by Brandon Hofer  on April 26, 2014

Octodad PS4 Review: Octodad: Dadliest Catch is a unique and different concept and can be a fun distraction as long as you are able to grasp the control system.

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Octodad: Dadliest Catch has to be the most unique game I have played to date on PS4 and that is both good and bad. I initially struggled with how to review this game for those reasons. When you first play Octodad the controls appear to be broken, or at the very least, really obtuse. Due to the control scheme there were many moments of frustration as Octodad wouldn’t do what I wanted at all times. That said though the moments I was able to successfully complete an objective was a great one. I question whether gamers will hang around long enough to really understand how to control Octodad and navigate the various environments. Of course it helps that Octodad is only a couple of hours long.

The story for Octodad is fairly light and pretty ridiculous. I say that in a positive way as some of the situations you are put in can be pretty funny. You are an octopus and somehow married a human female without her knowing that you are an octopus. You also have two human children with a young son and a young daughter. Throughout the game your wife begins to suspect something is wrong and keeps questioning you about strange occurrences she has noticed. Along your journey you keep running in to this sushi chef that knows your secret and is trying to expose you to the world. So not only do you have to worry about this chef trying to ruin your life but you also need to perform the functions of every other normal dad such as taking care of your kids, tending to the yard, doing grocery shopping and more.



There are a few different environments in the game that range from your house, your yard, a grocery store and more I won’t spoil. If you are able to grasp the controls quickly you can pretty much fly through this game. If not it is going to take you a little longer to figure out how to solve the puzzles that are presented to you. Once such puzzle consists of trying to get some frozen pizza in the grocery store but the freezer has frozen all of the doors shut, except for one of them on the opposite end of where you need to be.

In addition to the single player campaign, there is also a co-op setting as well as free play. Local co-op works with two to four players with each person controlling one set of limbs. This is one Octodad can be really fun. The madness that ensues from having everyone control a different limb is great and resulted in a bunch of laughs and good times from everyone involved. This is probably the best way to experience Octodad if you have friends to play the game with. Free play will allow you re-play any segment you have already passed. It will tell you how long you took to beat each level in case you want to go for a better time as well as how many available ties you have found. The trophies in Octodad range from getting an item at the grocery store before someone else to doing things that are a bit more crazy such as getting sucked into the riding mower. The good news is that if you missed some trophies during your playthrough you can use the free play option to go back to specific stages and unlock them.



Your experience with Octodad will depend on a variety of factors. If for some reason you can’t grasp the controls it is going to be a very frustrating experience. If you are able to understand what they were going for then you should have fun on the brief campaign. Octodad is at its most fun when playing with friends though. With friends, even if you can’t figure out how to do anything, you will probably still be laughing when you accidentally trash a room or generally wreak some other type of havoc. In my opinion Octodad is a pretty good game but nothing great. This would be the perfect game for there to be a demo so everyone could find out for themselves whether they like it or not but unfortunately that isn’t the case here. If you are in the mood for a really unique and different game then go ahead and give this a shot.