Review: Dread Delusion (Switch 2)
Did you ever see the movie House? Not the ’85 comedy/horror movie with William Katt and Richard Moll, the ’77 comedy/horror movie with…uh…Kimiko Ikegami and Kumiko Oba. No? Well, I’m not going to recommend it to you. Because I don’t know you. And it’s a weird, weird movie to recommend to someone I don’t know.
I feel the same with this review of Dread Delusion. This is a game I enjoyed, but I’m not sure if it’s because it’s a good game or because it’s just the type of thing I’m inclined to enjoy. So, read on and decide for yourself if any of this sounds appealing.
Boiled down to basics, Dread Delusion is a first-person action/RPG with the flat, bitmappy graphics of ’90s FPS titles like…take your pick, I guess. The era’s visuals do not hold up well at all, but James Wragg—Dread Delusion’s sole developer at Lonely Hellplace—leans heavily into the aesthetics to create a rather stunning world.
Your adventure in this world begins in a cell. The RPG elements are introduced via some initial stat decisions, and you’re then released…with purpose. The land is in turmoil, and you must suppress a rebellion by defeating Vela Callose. You’d think the powers sending you on this mission would properly equip you for the task at hand, but no. You’re given nothing but a rusty old sword and a standard RPG upgrade system.
The RPG elements are what will hook certain gamers (if the visuals haven’t already). There are many routes through the game’s open world, and the one you choose will be determined by how you want to play. You can focus on stats like lockpicking to gain access to the areas you need, or you can just fight your way through. You can charm people to get what you want, or complete quests for them to win their favor. Play the game a certain way one time, then take a different approach the next. You’ll find that different decisions can lead you down completely different paths.
That’s important, because exploring this world is a large part of Dread Delusion’s appeal. Perhaps too large. Combat is never terribly satisfying even as you level up your weapon and gain new skills. Of course, this is in line with the ’90s first-person shooters on which the action appears to be based, but those games compensated by serving up that action relentlessly. Here combat comes in fits and starts. If swords-and-bows-a-blazin’ is your preferred approach, you’ll be let down.
Thankfully, exploration compensates by being continually interesting in ways you don’t expect. You’ll quickly find that objects appearing to be decoration will open to you with key (or at least helpful) objects. New areas can often be accessed in very clever ways. And man…the creatures/people you meet. These are some of the craziest designs I’ve ever seen. What would be grotesque with modern graphics comes off as simply bizarre as presented here.
There is a story of sorts tying things together as you work through the game. It’s mostly delivered via documents you find and people you meet, and it could change the decisions you make along the way. I’m sure I didn’t find everything on my first playthrough, but I wasn’t compelled to immediately hop back in to plug up the holes. It’s more about lore than narrative. That’s fine, of course; a lot of games are. But the lore here isn’t terribly effective.
So, I’ll go back to what is effective: the visuals and the audio. I’ve mentioned the visuals already, which are oddly jarring not only in how the crudely rendered elements relate to each other, but through the colors used, too. The screenshots don’t really capture how cool this effect is, so I encourage you all to find a video of the experience.
That video hopefully includes the ambient soundtrack, which is simultaneously haunting and calming. It wouldn’t be out of place underneath a planetarium narration about the vast emptiness of the cosmos. And the sound effects kind of make it feel like you’re exploring a ghost ship. Considering you spend most of your time on disconnected floating islands, I suppose you kind of are.
What I don’t understand is why Dread Delusion is only compatible with the Switch 2. Nothing in this game appears optimized for Nintendo’s newest hardware. But hey, I’m a consumer, not a developer. And, as a consumer, I have my own unique set of filters that allow things to drip through to enjoyability. They’re why I can visit Nobuhiko Ōbayashi’s House movie, but won’t set foot in Hugh Laurie’s House TV show. Understanding this about the gamers in my network, I wouldn’t recommend Dread Delusion to most of them. For those to whom I would recommend it, however, I do so with aplomb.
