It could have included mechanics to make sailing and navigating more interesting (the map which effectively acts as a GPS showing your precise location is a particular mistake, taking a lot of fear out of being caught in the fog). But I came away feeling that DREDGE missed an opportunity to be a great game. The atmosphere in particular is affecting and well worth experiencing. I thoroughly enjoyed my first 4 or 5 hours in the game, and had a good enough time to finish the story, but not enough to 'complete' it. The story swims into focus as you near the end, and is good enough, although if you don't find what's needed to open up the alternative ending, I think it's possible it could pass you by completely. The atmosphere lingers much longer, and the frisson of pushing your luck by sailing through the night to reach port with only a cracked headlight to stave off the night terrors lasts almost to the end. I think I should have invested earlier in the options which effectively let you earn without the need to play the mini-games (trawl nets and crab pots). Worse, I had a definite mid-game lull where unlocking new equipment required sums of money that took frustratingly long to earn. The excitement of those possibilities fades over several hours, as you become increasingly aware that all the mechanics revolve around finding a thing, playing a button-press mini-game, and then hauling it back to the correct person, and that the ports and their characters are paper thin. It lets you cast off after a quick sketch of story and a minimal tutorial, and then perfectly paces the introduction of new mechanics, as the game's possibilities open up before you, all dripping in a thick atmospheric fog.
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