DreadOut does not live up to the game it is trying to emulate
Emulating something you like by creating your own version of it is a modest goal. The only issue is keeping the good parts of the Fatal Frame franchise without making similar mistakes. With the budget this little game has that just isn’t possible. Any effective horror game has a creepy narrative to aid in building a genuine frightening atmosphere.Which is a problem when the plot starts with some teenagers and a teacher drive up to a spooky deserted town then decide to explore it. With no real reason why these characters are here or why it seems they have crossed into another dimension I couldn’t really get invested into anything that was going on.
At least the part where the player must help Linda fight off ghosts with her smartphone is effective. Almost every ghost is different and requires at least a minor change in how they must be beaten. Most require learning a attack pattern and then taking a ton of photos of them since that is the only way they can be damaged. Some even require solving a puzzle to beat them which is fine but can lead to some frustration. This works well enough but problems start to arise from the start.
Taking down ghosts can feel like a annoying long fight sometimes. With no real indication of how much damage I’m doing to a ghost or how much health they have fights can take a long time. Additionally a lot of different types of ghosts have a trick (Like vanishing and quickly reappearing behind Linda.) that once solved just become an annoyance till the player eventually defeats them. This is very prevalent near the start with it becoming less of an issue as the game continues. Also some bugs like the game freezing a few times brought any tension the game was building up down to zero.
At least the one thing I can say is that they set up different creepy environments to explore plus almost every ghost is unique. Each one has a different backstory that gets explained via a diary. Yet I’m really grasping at straws here to find things I like about this little horror game. My ending impression after finishing it in 3 hours was that it doesn’t do anything worthwhile with the concept of killing ghosts with a camera. More often than not the camera viewpoint makes fights more annoying than fun. Add on the fact that the story is not even slightly coherent I just can’t recommend anyone play this game.
