There are definitely some odd and interesting premises for video games that can range from being funny to strangely intriguing such as a scientifically altered bandicoot saving his girlfriend, to a lombax teaming up with a small metal robot to save the galaxy. If I were to tell you the weird premise about an anthropomorphic octopus who has a human family trying to avoid being sliced up by an over eccentric chef, you’d think that would be doomed to fail. Surprisingly though, this game has plenty of fun ideas and good gameplay to make up for its somewhat cheap presentation.
Octodad is an anthropomorphic octopus creature who has a loving human wife and two human children (Yeah you can bet this is the kind of game your in for) Octodad tries to live an everyday life while watching out for the watchful eye of an evil chef who wants to kill him. Things get worse when the family takes a trip to the aquarium and bad memories start to arise from Octodad which concerns his loving wife and kids.
This game’s story is insane and makes no sense a lot of the time, but to the game’s credit, it kinda knows that and it goes all out of its way to make everything as nonsensical and absurd as possible to the point of being hilariously over the top. The interactions between characters are so funny that it's hard not for you to have a big grin on your face while playing. The game never takes itself that seriously even when it's being somewhat emotional and it always knows how to change things up during the course of the story just when you think things couldn't get any more stranger.
The gameplay is rather simple as you’ll be controlling the octopus’s arms and legs in sort of a ragdoll fashion to traverse the areas of the game's story. If you want, you can also set the gameplay so two players can control the octopus at the same time which makes for some great enjoyment as you will have to direct each other in order to complete a certain task. Your tasks are completely absurd and random which fits perfectly with the tone of the game and difficulty can be set to easy or hard depending on how experienced of a gamer you are. It's so much fun to play around with the controls of octodad and it's even more fun with the results that come with how enjoyable in execution a stupidly simple idea can be unfolded into an infectioniously fun experience.
Now the graphics may not be the finest in video game history, in fact most of the designs of the humans and the backgrounds are very cheap looking from time to time. It may not be the most beautiful or well put together game ever created, but the story and gameplay are so enjoyable that it's easy to forget that the graphics are very premature and not as polished compared to other games of the same time period. I still go by the notion that it's better to have a cartoony game that is not very polished rather than a realistic looking game that is exactly the same way.
Octodad Dadliest Catch will always have a special place in the world of video games, not because it's groundbreaking or really smart, but because it's just plain fun and sometimes that's really all you need in a game like this one. I would still recommend this game to any gamer of any age because it's fun to just mess around as a ragdoll octopus and play through a world that is crazy insane but intriguing at the same time.
(Final Grade: B)