Dredge Review (Y E E T)
DREDGE
Dredge is a fishing adventure game in which you uncover mysterious secrets that should best be forgotten.
Story
The story of Dredge is pretty straight forward: You play as a fisherman that accepted a job which leads you to a small costal town called Greater Marrow. Sudden fog makes it hard to navigate safely to the town and you end up wrecking your ship but the major of Greater Marrow offers you a new ship for some simple and fair work.
Soon after accepting the Major’s offer, the player starts realizing that this job is not as simple as it seemed at first. Strange fog appears after midnight. Strange ships sail around in the dark. You hear random horns and the fish you caught in the late hours of the day are mysterious and deformed.
After dredging up a mysterious artifact, the player encounters a strange man who calls himself the collector. The self-proclaimed collector has a nice little job for you but everything about it is as strange as the things you keep encountering, will you follow through with your newly acquired task or will you try to avoid it?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3297004757
Personal Note
I bought Dredge last year but ended up refunding it at first because I wasn’t in the mood for a game like this. During this year’s summer sale, I purchased it again and gave it another shot and I’m glad that I did.
The game is quite relaxing and the story is slowly unraveling a somewhat sinister plot but I mostly enjoyed the progression and fishing of the game which are both main aspects of the gameplay loop – you fish to earn money and to finish quests that you receive from a bunch of different characters and you dredge to collect materials to upgrade your ship but you also use the dredge mechanic to complete quests. The gameplay loop is pretty simple but feels good and keeps you going.
One of the quests is rewarding you with a camera which unlocks the photo mode of the game. You can do this relatively early but I would advise you to do it only after you have one of the better engines so you can get there quicker and complete the quest in one day. The photo mode itself is pretty basic but it works well and gets the job done.
Every region comes with their own challenges and requirements for fishing. You have to use special fishing rods to fish in certain regions but most of the upgrades are pretty easy to get and if you don’t rush the main story too much, you will have plenty of money and resources to upgrade your ship.
Upgrading your ship and collecting resources for doing so gets somewhat tedious after a while, especially in the mid to late-game of Dredge.
It took me about 10 hours to play through Dredge and I fully upgraded my ship and spend quite some time on fishing to make money and on dredging to get resources which makes me think that just going for the main quests would probably cut the playtime in half.
As of writing this review, it’s just fair to mention that I haven’t completed the game fully yet – that means that despite finishing the main story twice for both endings, upgrading the ship fully and completing all of the puzzles, there’s still some side quests that I haven’t finished yet and aim on finishing before trying to 100% this game in the near future.
Another fair remark is that I hoped that both endings would be a bit better. I really enjoyed playing through the game so I’m hopeful that the already released DLC called “The Pale Reach” and the upcoming DLC, which will be released in August this year, can satisfy the craving I have for Dredge.
Rating
Pros
Nice story
Simple but moody graphics
Nice soundtrack
Pretty relaxing game
A bunch of fish to collect
Lovecraftian monsters
Simple photo mode
Cons
Upgrading your ship feels kind of tedious
Relatively short
Conclusion
Is Dredge worth picking up? If you like cozy games that have some slight horror elements to it or if you’re a fan of Lovecraftian stuff, then I would recommend you the game for sure.
If you’re just looking for a nice little indie title to play through, I would also recommend you this game. Grab it on sale if you think that 24,99€ is a bit steep for the amount of content you end up getting.
7.7 / 10
“Fisherman! What is it? You look a touch troubled – is the fog starting to get to you?” – The Major of Greater Marrow
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https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3299575989