Once again, my friend and I have played through a new Dread X collection and I would like to make a short concise review for each game including the Hub area. We each played 1 game resulting in 6 each. The order of games reviewed is not the recommended order to play as we went on a very simple roundabout on the graveyard, and the games have a strong sense of quality unlike Dread X Collection 2 which had many great quality games and many low quality games.
Lets go!
Game X: The Castle (A bit unremarkable)
Scare Type: Cute
Player: My friend
The castle in some way is a step back from the awesomeness of the house. As it proceeds with forced dialogue cutscenes with your character and a ghost character that possesses in you. The puzzles and areas are also larger and more spread out and easier than the house. The Dialogue cutscene itself even give the idea to not compare the two, which is understandable. But let me tell YOU that I enjoyed the house more than I did the Castle (Even if it was not I who was doing the Castle Bit), so even if they are different, one was in my opinion better than the other.
The forced Dialogue cutscenes weren't to bad. The Voice Acting was not bad. Its rather the script and subjecting the player to sit through it. Its not the most fun to sit through and could have been handled better. In the house, a dialogue still happened but you were still free to move around while listening to the pre-recorded message. The ghost possessing you could have done the same with you, but instead this YOU is a character that must go into a dialogue and stop your gameplay.
The STYLE of the castle is where I think it wins the best. The very cute spooky aesthetic is great, and hold a lot of details we noticed near the end of the game. Like the paintings being famous paintings, replacing the characters of the paintings to goofy ghosts. Time passing between each game is also a great detail, making the castle ever so slightly different all the way to night time. I love the castle for this.
We quickly figured out that the theme for this Dread X collection was not just Cute and spooky, but also the inevitability of death.
Nate Berens – SATO WONDERLAND (Ok)
Scare Type: Surprising!
Player: My Buddy
This game was alright, nothing too amazing as pulling different topics to make a new dialogue box appear was tedious and a bit annoying. But the story itself was pretty cool, resulting in a surprise ending. Each game have different endings which we did not try to explore, but for this I think we managed to get the best ending. Not much to say about this one.
Blood Machine – Soul Waste (Eh...)
Scare Type: ...None?
Player: Me
Soul Waste is a 3D action platformer about this... post apocalyptical world, and you happen to be the “Saviour”. We got Ending C for this as we felt the tedium of the collectables and we weren't going to sit around collecting them all in this weird to navigate map. The enemies did not make much of a challenge making the game bit boring. The end boss was the only thing that gave me some ounce of real fun. There was a lot to explore, but my patience wore thin due to not being that interesting of a platformer. Although it did look good for what it did. There is some to explore which we did not, but I simply noticed that there was some things here and there that we did miss. We just did not feel the need to go back.
Bryce Bucher – Disparity of the Dead (Great!)
Scare Type: Horror that sticks around even after the game.
Player: My pal
This game I think pulls off the themes of Dread X Collection 3 very, very well! Perhaps the best thematic one? Nevertheless, this is a 3D platformer that lets you talk to fun characters collecting collectables and piece together a mystery. The topics that which the game introduces to you are all very good and sad in many ways. It also had a lingering effect on me personally. This lingering horror reminded me of SOMA by Frictional Games. Anyways, the game in general is not horrifying until you get to a certain point. Then when the actual ending plays, it all gets sad. We do not know if there are different endings, but the ending we did get was a sad one in my opinion and was great.
Amon Twentysix – Bete Grise (Cool!)
Scare Type: Uneasy, then relief!
Player: Me
I really liked the aesthetics of this game, reminded me a lot of some obscure old-school games. The gameplay is mostly of you going floor to floor doing cleaning and... repairing? Anyways, there are a few hints here and there that foreshadow the great revelation at the end. I saw some of them and felt very uneasy when going through the process as it all felt like a facade. But once the revelation hit, the game turned into something more funny, stylish and well, just felt good. Its rare for a horror game to kinda blue ball you into satisfaction.
DIRIGO GAMES – REACTOR (Disappointing)
Scare Type: Betrayal
Player: My Homie
This is a game I spoiled myself with, which is why I had my friend play it instead. The game is mostly a walking simulator in which it feels like you shouldnt be there in the bad/useless way as there is a robot buddy who keeps you company and doing everything for you. When the time comes, you are then obviously, chased to the ending of the game. Its not scary, sad. Its just a simple experience. The aesthetics of the game is great, by being a gradient of blacks and whites as well as minimal uses of colour. Other than that, this is disappointing.
Moya Horror/Amos – Nice Screams at Funfair (humorously frustrating)
Scare Type: Dont fail
Player: Me
This is a very short game that was short enough for us to also explore a different ending. There is no real inherent horror here. Its mostly thematic to being like Halloween. The game has you serving icecream to people, the challenge is to serve them the ice cream that they want, and take the money into your tip jar or cash register. The real challenge is the controls, as throwing ice cream into the ice cream cones often fails for no reason, and clicking on to activate anything just sometimes did not work. Resulting in funny scenarious. We got 2 different endings for this, one that made sense, and another that we didnt understand. The game looked great, the intro did not have to be as long as it did but it was a fun little ride.
Basalt Tower – Matter OVER Mind (Woah!)
Scare Type: Loosing progress...
Player: My Amigo
Matter over mind absolutely felt like an old-school platformer, it was also unique, colourful and funny/cute! Crawling around as a little parasitical monster and possessing scientists in order to escape the labs just looked great. Like many of these games, it had a collectible that meant... NOTHING. And if you died collecting them, you will loose them all. Prompting you to reset the entire game. Nevertheless, it was an impressive game that felt great.
Corpsepile – Submission (Fuck yeah!)
Scare Type: Scary, but also funny
Player: Me
This game had so many unique and cool twists and ideas. Maybe one of the best games in this collection. It was absolutely creative, funny... everything! It was also scary at times, referencing P.T. Its puzzles were great and fun, so much good about this one! The gameplay switches often, the horror amps up... Man... Submission was super good! Cant really say much other than that.
Torple Dook – Chip’s Tips (Funny!)
Scare Type: Friendly?
Player: My guy
Super creative point and click adventure game, hamming it up to 101%. It is also so patronizingly friendly that it becomes funny. Probably the most unique game on this list. And you can pet the dog in this game. I absolutely love the aesthetics of the unhinged masked textures, as well characters being flat cutouts. What is sad is this game feels like the end to Torple Dook’s streak of being in Dread X Collection games as it references his previous 2 games as well as more.
Breogan Hackett – Bubbo: Adventure on Geralds Island (Woah! x2)
Scare Type: JUMP
Player: Me
A very well done 3D platformer, with some challenge. The game is not scary, although it does come to a point. The platforming was very good albeit a tiny bit weird when turning in a specific way. It also features hidden collectibles that we unfortunately did not find all and left it at that. It sounded and felt good, looked good and was fun to get to the end with. There are different endings, we (me) only got to see 1. I jumped at the right time and made my way out!
Modus Interactive – EDEN: Garden of the Faultless (Chaos?)
Scare type: None, just weird.
Player: My hombre
This is literally a game akin to raising your Chaos in Sonic Adventure games. Just that you raise your little Evangelion. This game I think, has the best Ps1 look than the other games. It has a very weird control scheme, as well as being weird in its own right. And it nails the aesthetics very well. Too bad the game is finicky or boring, sporting long paths and lots of waiting. I guess you could have some fun minmaxing your wittle angel. I guess you always need at least one super unorthodox entry in a collection.
Adam Pype & Viktor Kraus – SPOOKWARE @ The Video Store (Quintessential)
Scare Type: brief moments of panic
Player: Both of us
This game... is actually really fun. Spookware is literally Wario ware but with horror movie themed events. The style, game and everything is perfect. Although very short, I would honestly buy a game like this if it was fully complete. I also think this is the most fitting game for the theme of the collection. Although, not much is done about the “inevitability of death” theme here, but everything else about it carries the collection thematicly. Such a fun and quirky little game.
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Conclusions
And so, the best games in the collection In my opinion were...
#1 Submission AND Spookware
#2 Chips Tips
#3 Disparity of the Dead
The collection was not at all as scary as the first or the second collection. Although, that is understandable as it had a more Fun and goofy vibe to it. I love seeing these collections and it introduces me to people ive never heard of before. Like Viktor Kraus who made the music, like in the trailer for the collection. Thats a great one. I wish to keep seing them make these and I hope that it is profitable for them in the end as well.
No, you're not dreaming. The developer of Hand of Doom, my fav gaming YouTuber, the developer of the Faith trilogy, and the artist who created Sirenhead, have worked together with lo-fi horror TikTok sensation Molly Moon to create a short and pretty uncanny indie horror experience.
