Dread Delusion (Jake's Indie Impressions)

[00:00:10] Welcome, welcome one and all.

[00:00:12] It is a very special Indian Pressions episode.

[00:00:15] It is me Jake from the Pre-Order Bonus podcast.

[00:00:19] And this is, I'm super excited for this episode.

[00:00:22] This one is gonna go public so the reach is gonna be a little bigger.

[00:00:26] So if you are listening to this episode, your long time listener of the Pre-Order Bonus

[00:00:30] podcast or you are just curious to hear about Dread Delusion from somebody else, please

[00:00:35] after a listen to this episode consider subscribing to our Patreon.

[00:00:39] We're at the Indie Pass tier.

[00:00:41] This is $3 a month.

[00:00:42] You get three episodes on Indie Games plus an Indian newsletter every month.

[00:00:47] So something just to consider but folks, yeah this is just kind of a snapshot of what

[00:00:51] that is like.

[00:00:52] And part of the reason why this one is releasing an early access and then going public

[00:00:58] is because talking with Evolve PR and they actually sent me a key for this game.

[00:01:05] So thank you Evolve PR, they have been super lovely to work with and thank you again

[00:01:10] to the developer, lovely help place for making this episode possible with that key.

[00:01:15] Alright folks, so I've already mentioned the games name we're talking about Dread Delusion

[00:01:19] in this episode and this is a super interesting game.

[00:01:24] If you are a long time listener, you know kind of how I game and what I like to do,

[00:01:28] I'm not like a huge fan of gaming at the PC.

[00:01:31] I prefer to lounge on a couch and kind of look at the TV screen.

[00:01:36] Dread Delusion is a game that has come exclusively to PC.

[00:01:40] It's on Steam right now.

[00:01:41] I would love for this to come to other platforms.

[00:01:43] I have no idea if that's in the plans or not.

[00:01:46] However, this is one game that when it came out and it came out April 16th, 2024.

[00:01:51] So not too long ago, just a few months ago, it got quite a lot of buzz.

[00:01:56] I saw a lot of positive reception to this one and so I was super curious.

[00:02:02] It's one of those ones.

[00:02:03] I ended up putting on a wish list and I was thinking well maybe someday I'll get around

[00:02:07] to this and then after being contact with folks that evolve PR, here we are, then ended

[00:02:11] up playing Dread Delusion to completion.

[00:02:15] Well, we will talk about maybe the ending of this game, maybe briefly like super briefly.

[00:02:21] I don't really like to do spoilers.

[00:02:23] We are going to talk quite a lot about like the first 20% of this game.

[00:02:26] So if you are a spoiler adverse, you don't really need to worry until maybe the very

[00:02:31] very end of this episode when I talk about one of my experiences with this game.

[00:02:37] So this was developed by a lovely help place.

[00:02:39] This was published by Dread XP and folks just before we get into our different categories.

[00:02:45] Please excuse my voice.

[00:02:46] I'm still kind of recovering from a nasty cold and so I have a lot of congestion and here

[00:02:52] we are, this is kind of how it is.

[00:02:53] So there's going to be some intermittent coughs.

[00:02:55] There's going to be some throat clearing and that's just kind of how it's going to

[00:03:00] be.

[00:03:01] So yeah, I ended up playing this one on Steam.

[00:03:02] It is available on PC.

[00:03:04] I play this with a controller just with an Xbox controller plugged in.

[00:03:08] I really, really liked that experience.

[00:03:11] I think that this game plays super well on Gamepad.

[00:03:15] So if you, if you prefer to play that way, this is a great game for you.

[00:03:19] But let's get into it, Dread delusion.

[00:03:22] We are going to be talking about this game in a few categories.

[00:03:26] So if you are a long time listener, you know the pre-adornist podcasts here in the

[00:03:30] pressions, we love our categories.

[00:03:32] If you're new to listening here, this is typically how episodes go to keep ourselves

[00:03:36] organized and to help you know exactly how we're going to be talking about games.

[00:03:40] So for the Indian pressions, the categories are the art direction, the narrative game

[00:03:45] design, and then finally who I would recommend this game for.

[00:03:49] And yeah, let's get into it.

[00:03:51] We've already spent nearly four minutes without any further ado.

[00:03:54] Dread delusion.

[00:03:56] The art direction of this game.

[00:03:57] It is very cool.

[00:04:00] Like, I think Dread delusion is absolutely geared towards people who grew up playing Marowind.

[00:04:08] For people who kind of grew up, I mean, and I would say that this game absolutely looks

[00:04:12] rougher than Marowind.

[00:04:15] And when I mean by rougher, I don't mean that in a negative sense.

[00:04:18] It just looks a little chunkier.

[00:04:21] It definitely has those really old school like PS1 low poly vibes.

[00:04:27] I mean, it is low poly.

[00:04:30] And that's really what it is.

[00:04:33] A lot of interesting textures, but really, really chunky, really old school.

[00:04:39] I mean, just for example, like there are a lot of different staircases in here and they're

[00:04:43] like metal staircases.

[00:04:44] Imagine staircases like outside of an apartment building complex, right?

[00:04:48] Like a fire escape or something.

[00:04:52] And looking at the wrong angle, right?

[00:04:55] The steps or the railings are like literally one pixel thick.

[00:04:59] And so they will be razor thin from the wrong angle.

[00:05:02] And then when you kind of move closer towards them, and you have a different angle,

[00:05:05] you could see them much better.

[00:05:07] So I mean, this is really old school stuff.

[00:05:10] Like first leap, first four way from gaming's into 3D models and spaces.

[00:05:15] That is what you're looking at here.

[00:05:17] I think it really works.

[00:05:19] It really really works if you were a fan of anything.

[00:05:22] I said Marowind because that's a game of kept comparing to mentally.

[00:05:27] But this is like before Marowind.

[00:05:30] And so if you like that style, if you wanted a new game and that kind of look,

[00:05:35] this is absolutely nailing that 100%.

[00:05:39] But just other things about the art direction, this game has a lot of like jewel tones,

[00:05:43] some really saturated colors.

[00:05:45] And it's interesting because I was like kind of thinking, well, what are

[00:05:47] there like predominant color schemes in this game?

[00:05:49] And to be totally frank, like all of the colors are there.

[00:05:53] Like, you know, there's a moment where everything in gaming felt like it was

[00:05:56] brown scale or gray scale like colors.

[00:05:59] This game is actually filled with a lot of color.

[00:06:03] But it is kind of remarkably used because it still conveys this like overwhelming,

[00:06:09] like heaviness to the game and to the atmosphere.

[00:06:12] And so that's why I'm saying like jewel tones, some really saturated colors.

[00:06:15] They also tend to skew dark.

[00:06:18] Not a whole lot of bright colors with the exception of like this giant flying star

[00:06:23] in the in the sky, which is this vibrant neon pink.

[00:06:28] Everything else is pretty drab and it works really well in conveying the sense of heaviness.

[00:06:35] And just like I mean, this game is is post apocalyptic.

[00:06:39] It takes place after an event called the world rend in the atmosphere very much reflects

[00:06:43] that in the color scheme adds upon that.

[00:06:46] And so it's interesting.

[00:06:48] Like I said, like the art directions really chunky and sometimes it's super old school

[00:06:52] and sometimes like it's like razor thin and it's hard to see.

[00:06:56] Well, like if you're at the absolute wrong angle, like you're not going to see things

[00:06:59] really well.

[00:07:00] But despite all of that, there is a certain weight to this world, which I think really

[00:07:04] works in the favor of dread delusion of what it's trying to convey.

[00:07:09] Just other things like outside of this with art direction, like I was immensely impressed,

[00:07:14] especially with the main NPCs, like the key characters in this game look fantastic.

[00:07:21] Like this game is really big on representing like different cultures and different beliefs

[00:07:25] and different like religious systems or convictions.

[00:07:29] And I just think that like everything looks super unique.

[00:07:33] Like you line up yet if you have like a line of all the different main characters

[00:07:37] from the different hubs from the different areas in this world,

[00:07:40] you could easily pick out where they're from, who they are and kind of what they believe

[00:07:44] just based on what they look like.

[00:07:46] Lots of really fantastic looking characters.

[00:07:49] And this game is really unusual in that it is kind of like fantasy steam punk.

[00:07:55] I mean, there are flying ships.

[00:07:57] There's a lot of mechanical things but like at its core, a lot of it is just fantasy,

[00:08:04] right?

[00:08:04] Like you're using fantasy weapons and armor and magic to kind of deal damage into.

[00:08:09] And that's why everybody sort of dressed up as as well.

[00:08:12] And so it's this cool meld and it just really works.

[00:08:16] It is an extremely unique world.

[00:08:18] The art direction really helps.

[00:08:20] I think immensely in sort of painting this unusual heavy, you know, really broken

[00:08:26] and I mean that quite literally in the sense that you travel from floating island to floating island.

[00:08:32] This is like really broken world because you are living in a post-apocalypse

[00:08:35] and you're trying to figure out like, well, how have people kind of reconstitute

[00:08:42] it things?

[00:08:42] How have people rebuilt their lives after this giant world shaking event?

[00:08:47] So yeah, art direction I think here is really fantastic but I will say to

[00:08:51] there is extremely particular.

[00:08:53] You really have to like this kind of style because because of the chunkiness

[00:08:59] of the textures especially, the visuals on screen in some cases can get really

[00:09:05] busy.

[00:09:06] And what I mean by that is like when you're walking through a forest,

[00:09:11] like the chunky tree bark textures like all mixed in with the different things on the ground

[00:09:14] with the different shrubs with the enemies coming at you with the different, you know,

[00:09:18] items just kind of scattered about that you can pick up.

[00:09:21] This screen can get really busy sometimes and so I actually struggled to take a

[00:09:25] screenshot of this game that I really liked.

[00:09:28] However, there are absolutely wonderful and beautiful moments in this game.

[00:09:32] I feel like when you're kind of outside of forests, some of the interiors of the buildings.

[00:09:39] It's more like the fields or like barren areas.

[00:09:42] I feel like look a little better just because they're a little less busy.

[00:09:47] So the last thing I want to say about art direction here is that I loved the music

[00:09:52] to this game.

[00:09:53] This music is freaking, I mean, the art direction like visually cat, like,

[00:10:00] does a lot for this world, but the music does so much more.

[00:10:05] I think for this world, I really loved.

[00:10:08] I don't have like great words or notes here to explain it, but it's just kind of what you would

[00:10:14] expect and I think this is where I drew the connection to Marrowen and like some like

[00:10:18] Skyrim a little more.

[00:10:19] Not just because it's like a first person perspective, but because you just really fall in love

[00:10:24] with that music and the different themes that are associated with different areas.

[00:10:28] This game nails that.

[00:10:29] It is all all so wonderfully done, big fan of the music and then finally another thing

[00:10:34] about the audio design.

[00:10:36] The like screams when people die.

[00:10:40] They are so abrasive.

[00:10:43] I mean they're very old school sounding noises, but it's just everything.

[00:10:47] It sounds like gears grinding, like every time something died.

[00:10:50] And I'm laughing because I liked it.

[00:10:52] It kind of just made me laugh also the death animations in this game.

[00:10:56] Everybody's so dramatically flops, drops to their knees and then just kills over.

[00:11:02] And I don't know, it added, I think, a really necessary sense of humor to this game.

[00:11:08] There's a lot of dark humor in this game, just as it's written.

[00:11:11] But like those animations in those sounds just kind of helped, I think, soften a lot of the

[00:11:18] heaviness that you're dealing with just kind of throughout the game as it is.

[00:11:22] So wonderful art direction, big fan of it.

[00:11:24] Moving on to narrative.

[00:11:27] This is a super well written game and I want to start before it kind of get into the themes

[00:11:33] in the general plot points.

[00:11:35] This is like a classic RPG you have to make decisions and they're going to have moral consequences

[00:11:40] and some morality's absolutely upplay here.

[00:11:43] And this game is incredibly jargony.

[00:11:48] However, I think that the writing actually paces you quite well

[00:11:54] into understanding who these people are, who the different factions are, what they believe and why

[00:11:59] they are doing what they're doing.

[00:12:00] Like all those motivations get spelled out relatively clearly.

[00:12:03] The game does start quite abruptly.

[00:12:06] So you start your like a prisoner of the apostatic union.

[00:12:11] And the granting quisitor has summoned you and said, hey, we need you to capture the captain or

[00:12:16] like the leader of the dark star mercenaries, Velica loose, Colruz.

[00:12:21] These are all names that I've read and never heard out loud.

[00:12:24] So I'm going to be butchering those pronunciations.

[00:12:27] But the granted quisitor is basically like, all right, we need you to track them down

[00:12:29] because they're really dangerous.

[00:12:31] And we're going to use you because you're super expendable.

[00:12:33] You're a prisoner and guess what?

[00:12:34] If you manage to succeed, if you somehow don't die, we'll go and use some freedoms.

[00:12:40] And so you are from the get go, you have motive to not like the apostatic union,

[00:12:48] which I really like.

[00:12:49] I like this a lot because the game sets up several moments and this isn't even a spoiler

[00:12:55] because at the very beginning of the game right like you were released.

[00:12:58] You find some gear.

[00:12:59] You talk to a captain.

[00:13:01] They say, hey, Velica loose was last spotted in the blinding light, which is this castle

[00:13:06] right up here.

[00:13:07] So just go over there and take her on a restaurant.

[00:13:12] And so it is abrupt and you're like, I guess sure.

[00:13:17] I don't know if I'm prepared.

[00:13:19] There's not much of a tutorial beyond that.

[00:13:21] And this beginning area, I would say is visually busy.

[00:13:25] And so you're like, where am I going?

[00:13:27] So you just follow the path and you make your way up to the castle.

[00:13:31] And I was like looking for somebody to be like, okay.

[00:13:35] Now you've made it to the castle go in.

[00:13:37] There's like no sign posting in this game.

[00:13:39] And so I found the castles like, okay, I guess I just go in.

[00:13:42] People started attacking me.

[00:13:44] I fought back and then we get up to Velica loose up there and she's about to take off

[00:13:49] and you have this conversation with her.

[00:13:51] And I picked a dialogue option.

[00:13:53] I was like, listen, the apostatic union wants me to arrest you.

[00:13:58] So I'm here to do that.

[00:13:59] And she laughs because she's like, you, you're just some, you're just fresh meat that they

[00:14:04] plucked out of somewhere to do this is stupid.

[00:14:07] And then it gives you an option here that I thought was really cool.

[00:14:11] It was like, no, in the name of the grand inquisitor, you know, I'm going to arrest you or

[00:14:16] you could say, you know what?

[00:14:17] Let me join your crew.

[00:14:18] Screw these guys.

[00:14:19] As I picked that option, I was like, yeah, I don't like these people.

[00:14:23] I'm a prisoner.

[00:14:24] This is a chance of freedom.

[00:14:26] Let me abort.

[00:14:27] And she just laughs and she books it and leaves you in the dust.

[00:14:32] And so tell me to my legs, you know, I go back to the grand inquisitor and I'm just like, yeah,

[00:14:36] she escaped.

[00:14:37] And they're like, oh, well, we're not surprised about you still tasked with this responsibility

[00:14:40] to hunt her down.

[00:14:42] And so that's the beginning of the game.

[00:14:44] That's how that goes.

[00:14:48] You're supposed to pursue her.

[00:14:51] All you really knows is that she's trying to tap into some power that everybody's really afraid of.

[00:14:56] And you learn quickly on here that like part of this power that she's tapping in on is the

[00:15:02] power of a God.

[00:15:03] And then this is where the lower exposition comes in.

[00:15:05] And so this is why I think that pacing actually works quite well with some of this jargon

[00:15:09] and stuff because up at the beginning, it's just like, hey, your prisoner, you're,

[00:15:13] your, your, your arrested, your by this faction and this faction wants you to do this.

[00:15:19] And then when you finally get your first quest done,

[00:15:24] then then it drops.

[00:15:25] It's like, well, the world rent cause because people were playing with gods.

[00:15:29] And that LaClos kind of wants to tap into that godly power again.

[00:15:34] And we don't want that to happen because we are very anti god.

[00:15:39] And so the apostatic union is essentially like, anti god,

[00:15:45] although they kind of have their own convictions, they're a little hypocritical here.

[00:15:50] But they, they essentially are like, god's early,

[00:15:52] go gods are bad.

[00:15:53] They must be killed.

[00:15:54] They must be destroyed.

[00:15:55] And so you're like, oh, wow.

[00:15:56] Okay, so this is what we're doing here.

[00:15:57] You have a clear motive and then you're kind of set out into the world.

[00:16:01] And so once you get out of this like, tutorial area,

[00:16:05] the game gets a little, I mean, it gets, I don't know.

[00:16:09] I felt confused still a little bit just because I was getting used to like this art style.

[00:16:14] I was getting used to like what was going on.

[00:16:17] The Lord dump there is is pretty big and so I'm trying to wrap my hand around a bunch of it.

[00:16:22] But essentially you are tasked like, okay, you need to go to the, the haloshire,

[00:16:26] which is the main hub that's going to connect to all these different areas that you go to.

[00:16:32] And on your way there, you need to get like permission to travel over this bridge to get in there.

[00:16:37] And so first, you need to stop this town,

[00:16:40] which is has something to do with mushrooms.

[00:16:43] I want to call the, the shrimp shire, but I know that's wrong.

[00:16:46] And so, but essentially you need to go there and get this passport.

[00:16:52] And I'm like, it's so funny because I'm just like, well,

[00:16:57] you want me to do all this stuff, but you give me like absolutely no resources to do it.

[00:17:01] And so like at this point in the game, I'm kind of just like,

[00:17:04] I don't want to do this.

[00:17:06] Like I am not interested in, uh, in serving you.

[00:17:12] You guys treat me like crap and it's like quite obvious that they care so little about you.

[00:17:18] And so I don't know.

[00:17:19] You go out into this world or you want to go out into this world.

[00:17:25] I want to go into the house, however, but you stop by this place, the shrimp shire.

[00:17:28] I can't even pull up the name real quickly here.

[00:17:31] And to get the passport across the mayor has this crisis.

[00:17:36] The crisis is that there is suspicion that some people are still worshiping God's.

[00:17:47] And so this is, this is really scary for them.

[00:17:51] But there's also another problem.

[00:17:53] And that is that this is a mushroom harvesting community.

[00:17:58] And uh, there are a whole lot of mushrooms, crop yields are getting worse and worse

[00:18:02] and a lot of people in town think it's because they stop providing sacrifices to this God here.

[00:18:10] And so you're presented with what I thought this was done well.

[00:18:14] You're presented with this hypothetical,

[00:18:16] this moral quandary after just being told that all gods are bad.

[00:18:21] And so you have to figure out how you're going to get a passport and there are kind of three

[00:18:25] ways to play this game.

[00:18:27] You can be entirely selfish or you could try to be good.

[00:18:32] It like in favor of people worshiping their gods and kind of going back to the old ways.

[00:18:36] Or you could just be an absolute mercenary for the apostatic union and just kill every single person

[00:18:43] and every single god or god like thing that you come across in this game.

[00:18:48] And so this was really cool.

[00:18:50] Um, the mayor has this problem.

[00:18:51] She's just like, hey, if you look over there, it looks like they have some sort of, uh,

[00:18:55] the people who want to go back to the old ways.

[00:18:58] It seems like they have this like massive god or something out here

[00:19:01] that they're going to unleash on our city if we don't let them.

[00:19:05] They're like, I don't really want bloodshed, but at the same time if you went and kill them all,

[00:19:08] I wouldn't be that hurt either.

[00:19:11] So you're like thrown into like the CD politics.

[00:19:15] This like nasty just sort of situation.

[00:19:19] You meet several NPCs from a handy.

[00:19:22] And I think this is where the game really picked up for me because one like here,

[00:19:25] okay, I have to make it.

[00:19:26] Who's side am I going to join to get this passport?

[00:19:30] So I can go into the haloshire

[00:19:33] and there are several different options here.

[00:19:36] There's, there's a fair amount of exploration around here.

[00:19:40] And you talk to, and this is one of those games that's very old school in its design

[00:19:43] where it's like, you gotta talk to everybody to get the information that you need.

[00:19:47] And so narratively here, like, okay, what are you going to do?

[00:19:49] You have to make a decision.

[00:19:50] And this really sets the stage.

[00:19:52] This is a good tutorial moment for how the rest of the game is going to play out as you go to different areas.

[00:19:57] As you, uh, well, your supposed to do is recruit specific NPCs to join your crew,

[00:20:01] back at the blinding light so that you could pursue Vela Coluse because it's suspected

[00:20:05] that she's trying to find this godly power in a place called the underlands.

[00:20:10] And so you are going to have to make a lot of decisions,

[00:20:13] take some sides, kill some people to recruit these NPCs as you progress throughout the game.

[00:20:20] So I'm kind of going to stop there when it comes to the plot details of the game.

[00:20:23] But what I will say is like thematically,

[00:20:26] this game presents a lot of the, like, really popular moral or philosophical questions

[00:20:31] in a really cool, I think fun and binding fantasy steam punk way.

[00:20:36] And I think that, like, that's a really great thing.

[00:20:40] And this happens, I think quite, I mean,

[00:20:42] this is why I kept thinking about like Bethesda RPGs and some of these big RPGs that do this really well.

[00:20:47] This is just a great genre to kind of explore those things and the letter players were to decide and see

[00:20:52] what unforeseen consequences or forcing ones will happen.

[00:20:57] Well, we'll come to pass if you pick one side over the other.

[00:21:02] So I really enjoyed it. On top of that, um, the writing here is just super great.

[00:21:06] People feel like real people. They have different motives, they have different desires.

[00:21:11] They have different opinions about what's happening, about what's happening with a god.

[00:21:14] Some people will give you the reasoning why they're in favor of the apostatic unions.

[00:21:18] Some people will tell you why they need to go F themselves.

[00:21:20] And this is just like, I don't know. It's a really wonderfully built world.

[00:21:25] And I think, I don't know, I remember like, with some of these RPGs,

[00:21:31] like I'm thinking like, like classic even Pokemon, you go to a town and it's four buildings.

[00:21:36] There's 12 people. You can talk to eight to them and they don't tell you anything interesting.

[00:21:41] Except what to do next. And I feel like dread delusion, like lovely help place, made a huge effort to avoid that.

[00:21:49] Where there is an in- in- world explanation as to why cities are the way that they are, why people reside there.

[00:21:56] Like who the residents are and why they're there.

[00:21:59] Residents from the most part have something interesting to say. And of course shopkeepers

[00:22:03] and, you know, prominent NPCs do point you towards different tasks.

[00:22:08] Different main quests and a lot of your quests are like, oh, find this person.

[00:22:12] They're probably around here asking them these questions. And that's that's really how the game progresses.

[00:22:16] And I am kind of bleeding into game design now as we're- I'm not talking about more plot points specifically.

[00:22:24] But I just think it's constructed really well. And the narrative has some really cool moments.

[00:22:28] Some excellent side quests as well too. And I would say, now we are like fully fledged in a game design.

[00:22:35] You have the main quest which forces you to go to all the different areas that this game has to offer.

[00:22:40] And there are outside of the haloshire. There are three main ones.

[00:22:44] That's all I'll really say to avoid spoilers. In each of those,

[00:22:49] you're supposed to do the main quest but there's also like a predominant quest line that will,

[00:22:55] like severely or majorly impact what happens in that hub at the end of the game.

[00:23:02] And those quests were my favorite by far. Like the main story is great and it's well written.

[00:23:07] But I just love seeing like getting into the nitty gritty details. Like the politics of why

[00:23:13] some of these regions have these problems. And what a random outsider can do with those problems.

[00:23:20] Do they make them worse? Do they provide a solution? Who gets to benefit from all that?

[00:23:26] And so those quests to me were my absolute favorite ones to tackle.

[00:23:30] And sometimes I got nervous making decisions, you know, it's so really got to me. And I just think

[00:23:35] really the hallmark of this game is like, maybe you don't want to have 100% it because there's a whole

[00:23:41] lot of side quests. You could do there's a lot of minds, especially that you can explore. You could,

[00:23:46] you can really kid out your your main character. But for me, it was just like how the different

[00:23:53] cultures in this universe interact with each other and within themselves and how they try to make

[00:24:01] progress and how they define progress for their different kingdoms or their different people's.

[00:24:05] So A plus I would say they're absolutely. Other things about like game design specifically.

[00:24:11] So if we weren't here already, we're here now talking about game design. I mean, it is a first

[00:24:16] person like melee combat game. At least that's how I played it. So there are several different

[00:24:21] classes. I just picked a dumb as a rock warrior. So I mostly swords for for I ended up getting like a

[00:24:31] great sword and max maxing it out and let me tell you dude, you I don't know the the weapon

[00:24:38] scaling in this game is wonky as heck because enemies sometimes it can hit hard but like combat

[00:24:45] is not hard. I played this game on normal whatever the medium difficulty was. If you were to play

[00:24:51] on hard core, I have a hard time believing that it would be much different. You would probably hit

[00:24:59] for less damage but I found that I could scale like once I got out of the tutorial area into the

[00:25:05] haloshire just by like exploring the haloshire. I felt like I got the materials to upgrade my armor

[00:25:12] and my weapon pretty easily and I just felt like I was doing massive damage left and right. And so

[00:25:19] combat is fine and I think this is probably the biggest criticism that I have heard about

[00:25:27] dread delusion just just broadly that combat is underbaked. I mean underbaked to me feels a little strong

[00:25:33] but I didn't really want combat to be more difficult than it was. I think at like first person

[00:25:39] melee combat games can get kind of funky especially if you're not really using like a gun like

[00:25:45] thinking of like first person shooters. First person melee I feel like it can just be a little weird

[00:25:51] and a little uncomfortable to play because there's not like as opposed to third person where

[00:25:55] there's like good reliable dodge and you can really see what's happening. Like better when you're

[00:26:01] facing a ton of enemies the camera angle I think is just so much more generous in providing you

[00:26:05] information. So like first person I don't know I didn't go in with a lot of expectation I think

[00:26:11] met it was fine it was fun combat was there it was present I ended up not fully max outing but

[00:26:18] getting like a bow as well so I had arranged weapon to use as well. The thing I didn't get into

[00:26:24] was spells and spell casting and I did not since I was dumb as a rock like all a bra and no

[00:26:33] brain character there's a really robust charm system in this game where if you were to max out

[00:26:39] charm you could actually avoid a lot of combat and there was a ton of areas that I was locked out of

[00:26:45] simply because my character had absolutely zero charm. Nobody was interested in my character

[00:26:52] and I think my charm at the end of the game was like I don't know I put two points into charm

[00:26:57] I'll be honest here and I felt like the minimum threshold to charm people was like 20 and I put

[00:27:05] two points into it and which I think like gives you stat increases of five so I think I ended the

[00:27:11] game at like charm 10 so it did nothing for me I wish I could have respected just like put those

[00:27:16] into something else I put them mostly into my which increased your attack in defense and

[00:27:21] gile which increased your stamina but I think I think another playthrough of this game where you

[00:27:26] picked a class that favored charm you invested a ton of charm and magic would be really fun also

[00:27:33] so I think there isn't like anything new when it comes to like classes that you can pick

[00:27:39] but I do think that this game won merit a second playthrough quite easily like I think there are

[00:27:44] two predominant ways you can play this game smash everything to bits or silver tongue talk your way

[00:27:50] out of everything and I don't feel like there's a lot of room for a mixed play through to be honest

[00:27:57] I feel like you kind of have to lean one into the other because leveling up isn't super common I mean

[00:28:05] you have to do a lot of exploration and find a lot of armors that helped with those stats I think as well

[00:28:10] but anyway I really feel like there's two different ways to play this game and they're both

[00:28:14] probably really awesome I love just Hulk smashing everything I think that worked out really well

[00:28:19] I enjoyed it other thing about game design like thanks simple I mean this game is really straightforward

[00:28:26] like I mentioned you have to talk to a lot of NPCs to get a lot of information and a lot of

[00:28:31] quest are going to take you to go to this area and find the thing and let me tell you the map and

[00:28:36] this system is not particularly helpful so picking up the compass item and then you need to talk

[00:28:42] there are cartographers in each area talk to them and then start whenever it shows up on your

[00:28:48] map like hey this looks like an interesting location you can take note of it and you really need

[00:28:52] to build out the map so by the end of the game the map was incredibly helpful but the beginning of the game

[00:28:58] the map was really unhelpful because I had to build it and because the game could get visually

[00:29:05] busy at times it is crazy easy to get lost in the early game by the end of the game though I was

[00:29:11] a absolute master of what this map was and what this says to me about game design is that this is just

[00:29:17] super old school you had to collect a lot of the information and you had to remember a lot of

[00:29:24] that information thankfully there's like a quest log in here and some of those modern quality of

[00:29:27] life things but yeah this is an old school game design it doesn't give you a lot of

[00:29:35] information you have to earn or find that information I would even say just like even pressing buttons

[00:29:42] it took me forever to figure out how to use like a health potion or how to switch from a sword to

[00:29:46] bow so menus are a little clunky it's not exactly it's not exactly user friendly all the system

[00:29:56] made sense by the time I had beat the game but yeah it's just not user friendly it is super

[00:30:04] old school you kind of got to do it yourself in a lot of different ways and then the last thing

[00:30:09] I want to mention about game design is that there is a lockpick system in this game which is essentially

[00:30:13] a di-roll and if your if your di-roll is higher than the threshold then you get in if you up your

[00:30:21] guy-all lockpicking supposed to be easier so you're going to run into less and less

[00:30:26] high requirements like rolling up four or five or six to get into different places so I had

[00:30:31] high lockpicking lockpicking was super easy this game is immensely generous with lockpicks I think

[00:30:39] two generous like it was very easy to get in everywhere I was constantly max out on lockpicks

[00:30:46] and part of this is because I specked into it so maybe it's not two generous maybe it's just

[00:30:51] the way that I played but it was quite generous in how and how many lockpicks you got and how

[00:30:56] that all worked so yeah there you have the game design I really liked it but it is a slow burn

[00:31:05] and it's going to take you while to get to a point where you're really comfortable with the game

[00:31:08] and that you really start enjoying exploration in the game however who I recommend this game for

[00:31:15] if you're an old school gamer if you want those old classic RPG vibes if you like first person

[00:31:21] melee if you like high fantasy if you like a well built out interesting world you got a

[00:31:27] play dread delusion like I think it's perfect for that it took me about 13 hours or so to complete

[00:31:35] that was mostly mainlining it but like I said there is one major side quests in each of the

[00:31:39] main hubs and I saw those to completion so super super interested by them they had a lot of cool

[00:31:46] things to say a lot of cool problems and all those different societies and how an interesting

[00:31:51] solutions that people had come up with and they're asking you to help with yeah who else would

[00:31:58] I recommend this game for like if you I don't know if you have a potato like if you have a potato

[00:32:03] computer this game is going to run on it and it's going to run on it totally fine if you like

[00:32:08] sitting out the computer if you just want to kind of dig into an RPG I think if you were to dig

[00:32:13] into this game I think you could easily put 20 to 30 hours in here kind of really exploring

[00:32:18] everything that this game has to offer there's plenty of stuff that I did not get around to plenty

[00:32:23] of side quests that I did not complete either and I think the person who just falls in love with

[00:32:28] will there's so much this world has to offer for you now the very end of this game I want to say

[00:32:35] this just because this is part of my experience I have not seen anybody else run into this problem

[00:32:42] but I ran into the bug a bug when I was at like the final interaction of the game

[00:32:49] where it just simply did not appear like that the room I needed to be in was not there it did

[00:32:58] not spun in it did not populate within the game and so I quit out of the game and I booted it back

[00:33:06] up and the game had sent me back an entire hours worth of progress and I was super frustrated

[00:33:13] this is my biggest criticism of the game right not that bug because I think it's super rare

[00:33:19] I haven't seen anybody else get this but it's the safe system it's an old school safe system

[00:33:24] where you need to go to specific spots to save now there is auto save and what the auto save does

[00:33:29] is it that auto saves your item pick up and your quest progress which is really good but not your location

[00:33:36] and so this really killed me like it killed the buzz at the very end of the game for me to be like

[00:33:41] oh my gosh I have to redo this whole hour here and I really don't want to and so and ending

[00:33:47] the play session was like I need to find a place to save and they're hidden and they're not

[00:33:55] super available so I don't know if you're going to be playing this game I also recommend

[00:34:00] this is somebody who doesn't really have a tight deadline like if you're like I have 30 minutes to play

[00:34:05] that 30 minutes might turn into 50 because you're spending 10 minutes to find the save point

[00:34:10] which is unfortunate you can quit out and you do retain some of that stuff but then you're

[00:34:14] have to walk pretty far. All right folks that's what I've got that's dread delusion. Overall I do recommend

[00:34:22] this game to pretty much any gamer there is a lot here to enjoy there's a lot of really great

[00:34:27] narrative and storytelling going on and wonderful writing and combat was fine like I thought it was good

[00:34:32] exploration was very rewarding as well so folks thank you so much for listening if this is your first

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