Maroc - 3RD-STRIKE.COM - A La Une - 04/Feb 03:28

DreadOut Remastered Collection – Review

Even though horror games aren’t always our go-to genre to unwind after a busy day, we do enjoy them from time to time to play through interesting spooky stories. That being said, the genre is filled with games that often offer the same premise and gameplay, and it’s sometimes hard to find great horror games in an oversaturated genre. DreadOut is one of those games that made some waves nearly a decade ago thanks to its intriguing setting and overall creepy atmosphere. Sadly, the game was also found to be a bit rough around the edges and failed to impress with its gameplay mechanics, which felt like a toned-down version of Fatal Frame (Project Zero). Now, it seems the series is back with the DreadOut Remastered Collection, which includes the original 2014 game and its DLC, DreadOut: Keepers of The Dark. For our short review below, we’ll mainly be delving into the quality of this remastered collection, rather than full reviews of the game and its DLC. If you haven’t heard of DreadOut before, we’ll explain what to expect. DreadOut is an Indonesian horror game that uses Indonesian folkloric creatures for its ghoulish monsters. This by itself already creates an interesting premise. In the game, and its DLC, you’ll play as Linda, and you’ll explore your surroundings from a third-person perspective. The gameplay could be described as a Fatal Frame clone, albeit with a lot more shallow mechanics and no real progress curve in terms of new mechanics and abilities. To progress, you’ll have to defeat ghastly creatures with your smartphone camera by taking pictures of them. Your smartphone will often give you a visual cue as to when you’re able to dish out damage to said monsters. Outside of camera-based combat, you’ll have to solve some puzzles, some of which feel very obscure. The DLC builds further on this formula. The offset is straightforward, but the game does feel rather dated, especially when it comes to the aforementioned mechanics and the audiovisual presentation. Even though DreadOut, and the Keepers of The Dark DLC, nail the overall atmosphere to a T, it falls short in a lot of other areas. The overall animations are a bit janky, especially during cutscenes and dialogues. On top of that, the game misses a lot of simple mechanics to make the game more pleasant, and the camera shtick feels like a budget-bin version of the one we’ve seen in Fatal Frame. The latter is mainly because there are no real upgrades for your camera, and nearly every fight feels the same: clunky and slow. The overall pacing is also not really amazing, as you’re left to wander huge areas without a map, and then other things start to plague you as well. Monsters sometimes clip through walls and are able to attack you, you can get stun-locked by enemies, causing you to die no matter what, and so on. It all feels a bit rough around the edges, and we feel that instead of a remaster, the developers should have opted for a proper remake. DreadOut has an interesting setting and a lot of intriguing lore, and it would have been amazing to have modernized gameplay mechanics that would further heighten the already great atmosphere. Conclusion DreadOut Remastered Collection is a ‘collection’ that left us with mixed feelings. We absolutely love the creatures, the setting, and the overall atmosphere of DreadOut and its DLC, but there are a lot of issues that hold this franchise back. For starters, the gameplay feels clunky and underwhelming, and the flow feels off most of the time. We were sad that DreadOut 2 wasn’t included in this collection, and we couldn’t help but feel that this series needs a remake rather than a simple remaster. Even so, DreadOut shines at times, and those moments might still be worth looking into, if you don’t mind a few janky animations and dated gameplay mechanics.