Deadly Premonition is… a lot. An enigma, a cult classic, a debatably bad game, an oddly great game, insanely creative, a rip off, a comedy, a horror, a mystery, it is many, many things. Like a Sinner’s Sandwich, this game is many things. Janky, weird, oddly colored, and yet आप keep coming back for more. If आप were to tell me that Deadly Premonition was an original experience and one of the best games out there, I’d tell आप “That’s understandable”. And if आप told me that Deadly Premonition was an overhyped buggy piece of shit, I’d tell आप “That’s understandable”. Deadly Premonition has an odd reputation. People either consider this game a 10/10 masterpiece, while others consider it one of the worst games of the seventh generation. There seems to be no middle ground with this game. आप either प्यार it या आप hate it. And since it’s me we’re talking about, I absolutely प्यार this game. I’ve been following the development of DP2, I’ve been playing the game on both 360 and Switch. I had the Whistle Theme as my ringtone for the longest time. This game is so special to me. But what is Deadly Premonition? What makes it such a strange game that people love. Well… Let’s get into it.
Deadly Premonition follows the escapades of one Francis York Morgan. But please, just call him York. That’s what everyone does. York is a very special kind of strange, yet an enticing protagonist. York does have creative detective skills and they do always lead him to the right track in a case, yet they are so unorthodox and strange, that it only makes sense for people to call him a fucking weirdo, made और so द्वारा how he can have a casual conversation with a doctor about puzzles in the room where a victims body is under autopsy, या how he will just talk about weird old फिल्में like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes over and over on the awkward drive to the अगला part of the case, and most importantly, will constantly interrupt conversations to badmouth the person he was just talking to right in front of them to a mysterious person named “Zach”. And yet, he always just comes off as charming. He is strange, and can even be rude with his lack of understanding of common sense, yet he never comes off as insufferable या a prick about it. Maybe it’s because his odd behavior fits well in the odd setting of this game. I’d even go so far as to say his personality is charming, how he gets passionate about a good meal, how he always has these little quirks about him like smoking before a case, always wanting to be called York, his प्यार for coffee with only milk, no sugar, his obsession with bad movies. It’s these little details to this character that just make him feel और like a person. Dare I say, it makes आप feel like you’re really York (kill me). York is a weird man, but he is a charming man, if that makes sense. Kind of like the game of Deadly Premonition. This game is charming, but still so very weird. And why not have a weird and charming protagonist lead your game. But a good protagonist can only carry the story for so long. How is the story of DP?
Well… It’s Twin Peaks. Yeah, it is very much Twin Peaks. SWERY65 is a man who likes to wear his influences on his sleeve in all of his games. Spy Fiction clearly being a Metal Gear game and even Deadly Premonition 2 being less Twin Peaks and और True Detective. This has led to some people flat out calling this game a rip off. And while I can definitely see it, even one of the tracks in the game blatantly sounding like Laura’s Theme from Twin Peaks, I’m a firm believer in the fact that nothing is original. It’s alright to have your influences as long as आप can add your own little touch to it. If you’re gonna rip something off, आप may as well go all the way and try to make a “What if I made this” sort of scenario. Besides, I feel like the game is different enough with it’s plot as it goes on to differ from Twin Peaks. But the actual story of the game is a winding path of weirdness and possible curiosity. York comes to the small woodland town of Greenvale, Washington. Here, he hears of the murder of a young girl named Annah Graham, who was murdered in a ritualistic fashion and is connected to other murders around the country द्वारा Red Seeds. With the help of the local police force including sheriff George Woodman, and police officers Emily Wyatt and Thomas MacLaine. During his investigation as और victims are killed द्वारा the murderer, a mysterious figure known as the Raincoat Killer pursues York through the strange world of red that appears at night, and leads York to the paranormal in this case. The story is bizarre, obviously, leading to all sorts of strange creatures and stranger people. Yet, while one can argue that the story itself is insane, it never gets boring to me. It starts off pretty slow, but it starts to pick up really fast as soon as the first chapter nears the end, and York finds himself being chased द्वारा the Raincoat Killer while in his investigations and starts exploring the town on his own. And speaking of which, the town of Greenvale.
I don’t know how the insanely bizarre characters of Deadly Premonition 2 were not considered as crazy as these characters in Greenvale. Maybe it’s because in DP2, they were trying too hard to make them all whacky, which they certainly were strange, whereas DP was a bit more… eased into the madness. Having grown up in small towns myself, this game just gives me a really homey feel to it and it’s all thanks to the strange characters आप meet. आप got a store owner with her rockabilly husband, a elderly hotel owner with an insanely long तालिका, टेबल for no reason, the rich man of the town who always wears a gas mask and lets his assistant talk for him, ending his responses in “So says Mr. Stewart”, a gas station owner who will only talk to cops if they bribe him, a sergeant at the local junkyard who calls himself a general, an old woman walking around with a pot, a gravekeeper who has a speech impediment, and much, much more. These characters all stand out in ways that are really charming या at least their one gimmick is strange enough to keep आप interested in doing their sidequests. And like I said, growing up in small towns all my life where everyone knows everyone, this is exactly what a small town in America feels like. You’ll have those strange folk that आप hear rumors about, but then will be shocked to hear such things, like the old woman with the pot who is always walking around with it was once the prettiest girl in her high school class या how the general may have been a character in SWERY’s पूर्व game, Spy Fiction. आप really get a feeling that there's और to this small town than on surface level. And it adds और to it when आप see the characters hurt द्वारा the deaths of these young girls. They aren’t just shaken द्वारा it, some of them are absolutely mortified. Anna’s mother has gone mad from grief, her best friend decides to stay locked up in her house out of depression, the town starts to fear for their own safety and mourn her loss. Greenvale has so much personality to it and it’s not just someone dimensional “Look at all these weirdos” kind of thing. They all have their own daily routines, they all have different relationships with other characters. Some are फ्रेंड्स with others, some are married and have kids, some stay reclusive and away from others, and some of them are always going around the town at different points of the day. They never stay in one spot and for a game that was on one hell of a budget, just seeing that is really charming.
Unfortunately I can’t say the same for the gameplay. While I can say that the setting and the characters and even the story have so much charm to it and it makes up for the technical issues in the cutscenes and the graphics, the amount of charm in the gameplay can only help it out so much. The संगीत is fine, having this sort of jazzy tune to it, even distorted at points to emphasize the madness that York finds himself in during the other world sections, while also being both pretty enticing while at other times so out of place that it is hilarious. The tonal shifts caused द्वारा this soundtrack should drive me to an autistic rage, yet I find myself laughing from it due to the games will and determination to be crazy. But, as I stated, it can only do so much for the gameplay. One issue with the open world sections is that everything in this game is really widespread. It is a small country town and, again, very realistic to small country towns. Everything is spread out between roads and farmlands. The downside is that this is a game, not real life, and that just isn’t fun to me. Driving back and forth from grassland to grassland to reach the अगला point in the story can get really tiresome. However, I personally was never bothered द्वारा it. Maybe it’s the charming conversations that York has with Zach about the case, about movies, about characters in the story, या just about whatever strange thing comes to mind. Maybe it’s the wacky संगीत of York’s theme that is just so lovely that it calms my nerves. Maybe it’s the fact that seeing York crash his car at high velocity due to the buggy mechanics that leaves me laughing. Whatever it is, while I can understand the issue with this, I am not too troubled द्वारा it. But another issue that is hard for me to defend is the gunplay. I’ve heard rumors that SWERY never wanted to add these sections in the game but was told to द्वारा the publisher because Resident Evil 4 was the hottest कुतिया, मतलबी in town at the time, so he was left with no choice. And yeah… I believe it. It’s not… terrible, but it certainly feels awkward. Like really awkward. Like it feels like how आप would आग a gun, gamers at home. That said, I won’t deny that taking a shotgun and blowing a Shadows fucking face off in one hit isn’t the most satisfying thing ever. A feature that I did miss in DP2, not gonna lie. I also feel that these sections can go on for a bit too long. But hey, at least the levels in the shadow world change in DP1 unlike DP2 (I’ll get around to reviewing DP2 some time. That game has things that it does better and does worse than 1). The gameplay in and of itself in DP1 is awkward. Charming, and far from being absolutely god awful, but awkward. Like a little kid who is दिखा रहा है his प्यार for माइन्क्राफ्ट द्वारा dressing up in a really bad Creeper costume. आप wanna tell him it looks like shit and he’s probably gonna get made fun of द्वारा absolute degenerates, i.e. 30 साल olds on Reddit who think they’re funny, but आप can tell he’s having fun with it… what was I talking about again? Right, DP1 gameplay. Yeah, it’s alright. Better than Godhand/10.
There’s so much और I wanna talk about in this game, especially involving और of the strange संगीत that can actually be really well placed at times, the story of the Raincoat Killer, and discuss the insane ending, but that would require spoilers, and while I could just leave a spoiler warning and tell people, “Go and play the game yourself”.... I’m not gonna do that. This game works better when आप go in as blind to the twist as possible. I am not gonna be the one to tell आप where this game's story goes, because it’s actually pretty good. या at least, I remember it being good. It’s definitely not at all what I was expecting it to be, but I remember liking it despite that. So I won’t be spoiling it here for you. Instead, I’ll discuss one thing about this game. The horror aspects. Deadly Premonition is considered a horror game, and while I do प्यार this game with all my heart, is it a horror game?... Maybe? I think. Personally, I never got scared of this game. While it is described as a survival horror, I don’t see it. Sure, the other world does look like a typical Silent पहाड़ी, हिल setting, but those sections are so few and far between that you’ll never get the chance to let the horror set in before your back exploring the town and hearing York talk about his punk phase in high school. The amount of items आप pick up means that you’ll never run out of ammo. You’ll also pick up खाना and coffee, so you’ll never worry about needing to eat या sleep in this game either. And the enemy डिज़ाइन is just not bizarre enough to warrant any fear. There are creepy moments like the Raincoat Killer moment near the end that I refuse to describe या a creepy hand just subtly दिखा रहा है itself before disappearing, but the game just isn’t all that scary. But it most certainly has its moments. The enemies have this quick, inham movement to them. Think of the nurses' strange movements from Silent पहाड़ी, हिल 2, but cranked up to 11 on how fast they move, almost like they have this चित्र speedline to their twitching. And the कुत्ता that can chase आप at night and are just slightly faster than your car had me worrying for my life and wanting to get inside as fast as I could. And I won’t deny, the acts of how Red Trees are grown is one of the most fucking evil things I’ve ever seen in fiction. That is just horrifying. And I will say, the way the characters हटाइए and look adds to the strangeness. Look, I personally believe that the uglier a game looks, the creepier it is. That may sound strange, but think about the polygonal abstractness of the monsters from Silent Hill. If आप could get a good look at something and if it moved well, your brain would just go, “Oh, yeah, I can make that out”. Humans have a habit of fearing the unknown. We want to know things, put logic into it, so when we see something that our brains can’t process properly, it confuses us, and it disturbs us. That’s what puts Deadly Premonition in the Uncanny Valley, a system of function where आप see something that looks human, yet… somethings not right. Like how androids हटाइए their facial expression. They may look human, but something’s not right with their body movement, how they look at आप with a dead gaze. And Deadly Premonition has that in spades with the janky character movements, how they can stand as stiff as a board before breaking out into full Sasquatch walk, with the strange facial expressions that range from looking like an action figure to full scale blow up dolls. It gives this game a sort of dream-like feeling to it, and it really does work in the strangeness of this game, and that’s what Deadly Premonition feels like to me. A dream.
Deadly Premonition is a really special game. द्वारा the time I finished it, I was already having fond memories of it, feeling nostalgic about it, despite having played it pretty recently. My first time playing Deadly Premonition was when it was released on the Switch as Deadly Premonition Origins to promote DP2. I had never played the game prior to that. My first time playing this game was back in September of 2019, not even a साल ago. And I fell in प्यार with it immediately. I प्यार the strange tone, I प्यार the weird small town, I प्यार the janky combat, I प्यार the strange story, I प्यार York’s weird traditions with coffee and investigating, and I even प्यार all the ugly parts of this game. Deadly Premonition is the definition of just being a charming game. It’s not a perfect game, and I can understand people saying it’s not a good game. But I still प्यार it, because it has charm. That’s the word of the day, people, charm. This game has charm. So much damn charm. Clear as a crisp spring morning. If I have somehow sold आप on this game, आप can get it right now on Switch from the Origins version, and it is on Steam right now for $25. आप can also get it on Xbox 360 या the Director’s Cut version for PS3, though दिया DP2’s story, it looks like the events in the Director’s Cut are non-canon.
Deadly Premonition is truly a fantastic game… But it wasn’t the game that made me appreciate SWERY as a creative genius. I mean, I’ll admit the game's flaws are still prevalent. So what was the game that made me admire his work? What was the game that made me respect this westaboo? Well… stay tuned.
