A Delightful Throwback to the Platformer Genre
Developed by Thomas K. Young, Dadish 3D is a charming platformer that feels like the genre stripped down to its core elements. You play as Dadish, the titular radish who is also a dad, on a quest to save his very many children from the clutches of a mysterious enemy and their army of fast food-themed henchmen. From the usual array of world biomes (like forests, beaches, mountains, etc.) to floating platforms and spiky blocks, everything you’ve come to expect from the staples of the genre are here. Dadish 3D is a colourful jaunt through everything that makes the platformer such a mainstay genre in gaming.
A High but Shallow Difficulty Curve
It might feel skeletal at first, but Dadish 3D is not casual fare. It can be quite punishing when it feels like it. Each level takes the form of a gauntlet of platforming challenges with no checkpoints. Although the lack of a lives system means there’s no threat of a game over, the slightest mistake still boots you back to the start of a level with your progress reset. Fortunately, the tight design of the levels ensures that players will always be able to complete them with enough focus.
Dadish 3D starts off feeling like a tutorial for the platformer genre you might recommend to a newcomer to cut their teeth on. I am pleased to say that is not the case. Before you know it, you are playing with all the precision needed to compete in the standouts of the genre. With ten levels to a world and five worlds in total, Dadish 3D successfully balances its pick-up-and-play factor with a more involved difficulty curve.
Charming but Simple Boss Fights
Since there is no combat system, all that mechanical challenge has to be concentrated in the platforming. From cannons to crumbling blocks, it is all there. The mechanical pacing is quite good even if ten levels per world can quickly wear out its welcome. Dadish’s skillset (or lack thereof) can feel quite limited during marathon play sessions. All he can do is jump, and he can’t even jump on enemies. Progress is won with deft platforming, except at the end of the world where you are confronted by a boss. Dadish 3D’s boss fights are serviceable, if a bit perfunctory. The charming designs and delightfully punny names of the boss characters fail to make up for how limited the fights tend to feel. Dadish has to bait bosses into damaging themselves since he can’t do much else. It is true that later bosses do require a bit more finesse. Still, anyone going into this game expecting intense boss fights is bound to be disappointed.
Impeccable Presentation
It is hard to hold anything against Dadish 3D for long, though. Its greatest strength is its presentation. Character designs are full of personality. Worlds burst with colour, and although the music can wear out its welcome as fast as the worlds themselves, it is more than adequate. A particular highlight are the boss tracks, which provide some much-needed intensity after ten levels of the same repetitious melody. The short scenes with Dadish and one of his children that bookend each level are more interested in keeping the dialogue as light and bouncy as the colour palette than in upping the stakes. Not all of the humor lands, but it feels like the game knows it. Dadish 3D is simple without being simplistic, and earnest without taking itself too seriously. Its playful exterior conceals not only one of the more compelling platformers available on mobile, but one of the more hardcore mobile experiences in general.
