There are some incredibly strange game pitches out there. For instance, a metroidvania game where you play as an armless sheep that doesn’t fight anything in Sheepo. What about whatever the hell Inscryption was based on? In this case though, the idea is a bit more simple. Dadish is about a radish who’s also a dad, and his children ran off when he was having a nap. Pretty straightforward, right? Throughout five worlds, each with its own boss fight at the end of it, because, somehow you managed to piss off the lord of the land during your adventures, you’ll find one of your children in every level. Oh and a possum, you’ll find a possum too.

You might be thinking, “man that’s a lot of children”, to which I say, how many radishes do supermarkets have? Also, the titular Dadish agrees with your thinking, as one of the best parts of this game as a whole is the self commentary. The game features a ton of dry humour mixed with perfect timing which goes a long way. While this may seem like a kids’ game, it really isn’t. Sure, it’s not hugely difficult, the levels are fairly short, but the dialogue may make children realise just how their parents talk about them behind their backs.

The music in Dadish is a lot of fun. It’s quite cutesy, nothing too over the top or pretentious, but each area features some kind of fitting instrumentation and composition. The first area, for instance, features your basic, happy go lucky, Kirby’s “Green Green” kind of tune. On the other hand, the final area’s theme song is a bit darker, a bit more sinister, but still, oddly enough, quite upbeat. All of this is played while traversing fairly small areas as an 8-bit radish, something I still cannot wrap my head around.

You have no real way to defeat enemies, save for the few that are “able” to fall onto spikes, so you’ll have to resort to avoiding them. The enemy roster is, well, quite unique, featuring hopping french fries, marching burgers, or sausages that can throw unlimited sausages around, as they get such sausages from the inter-dimension sausage vortex or whatever one of the kids in the calls it (yep, Dadish features actual lore and world building, shockingly enough).

If you haven’t noticed the theme, every single enemy is based on fast food/junk food. While you can’t fight against normal enemies, you can do so against bosses. In fact, you are basically forced to. Each boss room has buttons that cause spikes to appear from various protrusions. You can already imagine what you need to do, right? It’s very simple, but it requires some planning, as this game follows the Mega Man trend of killing you if you dare to touch any of these aforementioned spikes.

Outside of the normal playthrough, Dadish features two other modes. Hard mode is pretty much just the same, but with fire scattered throughout levels, as well as enemies that move faster; the same can be said about the bosses. The other, which is the best thing in the entire game, is Possum mode, where you play as a possum saving other possums. Please, leave all logic outside before tackling this mode. The reason this mode is the best is the fact that all the possum does when dialogue comes up is screech. While bosses will have a dialogue with Dadish, usually ending with “I’ll kill you,” when the possum screeches at the bosses they are always caught off guard, responding with “oh my gosh”. 

While Dadish is a pretty simple platformer, with some fun puzzles and a few harder-to-find stars (its main collectible macguffin), it is actually pretty fun, and it will offer you a good time. It’s a cute little game with some pretty funny dialogue and, especially near the end, some levels that will definitely take you a handful of tries to finally be able to do and collect its prizes. You could a lot worse than tackling this odd but adorable little indie title.

Graphics: 7.0 While the game doesn’t look like anything exceptional or special, it’s still quite nice looking, save for a couple of areas where darker blocks can be harder to see on top of dark backgrounds.	Gameplay: 8.0 A simple, easy to understand platformer. There’s not a lot to say about it besides of this summary. A lot of variety in the levels, with some of the more difficult ones being the most fun in the game.
Sound: 6.5 Fun music that matches the game, but nothing that stands out as exceptional. Bonus points though for the possum scaring the hell out of me the first time it screeched.	Fun Factor: 8.5 Weirdly enough, one of the most fun platformers that I have come across this year. A lot of really good level design, and a game I’m more than willing to tackle multiple times to play through on each difficulty.
Final Verdict: 7.5

Dadish is available now on Nintendo Switch, PC, Xbox One, PS4, Mobile.

Reviewed on Xbox One.

A copy of Dadish was provided by the publisher.