As a seasoned gamer with decades of gaming under my belt, I must say that the Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster has been a delightful trip down memory lane. The game, though showing its age, has been significantly improved, making it more accessible and enjoyable for today’s players.
In 2006, as a high school student, I spent numerous months and my limited funds renting Xbox 360 gameplay at a mall store offering multiple TVs and consoles on an hourly basis. After several visits and two years of saving, I finally managed to buy the console, no longer content with being just a casual player of Capcom’s Dead Rising. Almost twenty years later, it’s been enjoyable revisiting this game, which remains a charming open-world zombie title despite its flaws. The Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster isn’t a new addition to the series I hope to see someday, but it provides an enjoyable trip back to the origins of a series that possesses a distinctive style and, for better or worse, peculiar design choices.
The Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster (DRDR) isn’t a complete overhaul or reimagining of the original game; rather, it’s an enhanced version with improved visuals and user-friendly updates. While the core elements of the game – such as its mall setting, the tone of its cutscenes, and the combat mechanics of protagonist Frank West – remain essentially unchanged, some aspects, like certain game systems, may feel outdated due to their original release in 2006 and subsequent aging.
Fundamentally, Dead Rising stands alongside Resident Evil as Capcom’s alternative zombie series, drawing inspiration from George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. The storyline revolves around a mall in Willamette, Colorado that becomes ground zero for a zombie outbreak. As a photojournalist named Frank West, who takes his job quite seriously but can be dressed up in various outlandish costumes, you arrive to investigate the incident. Unfortunately, you get trapped in the mall along with many other survivors. With zombies swarming whenever you leave the safe room, your objective is to discover the source of the zombie epidemic, survive until help arrives, and rescue as many people as possible.
Occasionally, it involves chasing after a guidance symbol indicating disturbance, as Frank may stumble upon survivors hiding in a jewelry store or supermarket. His responsibility is to guide them back to the safe room, but this can lead to irritation due to the unpredictable nature of the NPCs during escort missions. They have difficulty navigating through the zombies and are prone to getting caught or wounded. Fortunately, you can equip and heal them during the journey, but a restrictive inventory system forces you to balance carrying the necessary items for leading the group and providing what the group needs to follow you towards their rescue.
This is the most glaring of the game’s original pain points that reappears due to DRDR being only a remaster and not a remake. Though the game offers several welcome fixes to be discussed later in this review, the survivability of NPC allies is not among them. As a photojournalist, Frank has covered wars, but in this mall, he’s babysitting.
Occasionally, I stumble upon distraught survivors as I traverse through the game world, either by sheer luck or thorough exploration – there won’t be any specific markers pointing them out in my mission log, but their desperate cries for help can sometimes pierce through the chaos of dismembering zombies at a mock Starbucks. The atmosphere in Dead Rising is incredibly dynamic. It doesn’t seem to be battling internally as the phrase ‘at war with itself’ might suggest; rather, it appears to have been meticulously crafted to navigate the full spectrum of human emotion. Although there aren’t any heart-wrenching moments in the narrative – mostly because the characters are quite stereotypical, making it challenging to empathize deeply with them – you’ll find a fair share of solemnity instead.
In some games, events progress with the gravity of a criminal trial, while others offer action-packed sequences reminiscent of B-grade movies, complete with over-the-top dialogue and acrobatic martial arts moves. Interestingly, this game’s photography feature, designed to earn you experience points (PP), encourages capturing both harrowing images like people being devoured by zombies and humorous shots, such as those featuring costumed undead characters. In essence, the game maintains a balance between the horrifying and the comical, creating an overall tone that leans towards the absurd. Despite its occasional serious undertones, Dead Rising is inherently preposterous, and it thrives on this absurdity.
The game’s bosses, often referred to as psychopaths, demonstrate this most clearly. Each one is discovered in various sections of the mall at distinct points during the narrative, and they frequently embody aspects of American culture that the developers criticize using exaggerated caricatures of individuals. While these real-life issues may warrant seriousness, the game satirizes them through portrayals such as a family of hunters who target humans, reflecting America’s complex gun culture. Another example is a power-abusing cop who takes hostages in a women’s clothing store, mirroring real-life issues in a distorted manner. Lastly, a war veteran struggling with PTSD can’t distinguish between reality and his haunting memories.
In simpler terms, the characters in this game don’t seem to have any deep or meaningful messages, and it appears that the creators may not have hit their intended mark. Instead, they come across as exaggerated representations of America’s flaws, lacking any significant commentary. If one were to analyze these characters, it might feel like the analysis doesn’t fit within the game’s narrative. One could write extensively about this design choice and its potential impacts, but it seems like the developers are just creating for laughs, making it hard to take them seriously. I don’t find them offensive or enlightening; instead, they seem loud and silly. In retrospect, some characters might be handled differently today, but overall, they just strike me as over-the-top.
In this remastered version of the game, the non-playable characters (NPCs), secret characters, and bosses, along with the universal timer system, create an intriguing challenge: completing all missions, rescuing every survivor, and defeating all bosses. This can be thrilling or frustrating depending on your preference. For me, the difficulty outweighs the enjoyment due to certain unmentioned issues in the game. However, I found that I’m less bothered by the timer in this version compared to before. The game maintains a realistic day-night cycle where time doesn’t progress in real-time, but at a steady pace within its world. This allows for strategic planning as you navigate through the crowds and missions gradually disappear from your log once they aren’t completed in time.
Secret shortcuts can be found, and vehicles, as poor as their controls still feel 18 years later, can be driven across the expansive courtyard between mall sections. There’s ultimately one optimal, rigid path through the 12-hour game that will allow you to make excellent use of your time so you can see and do everything, and finding it was once a communal effort. Today these answers are widely available online since the internet optimized all of this nearly 20 years ago, and though newcomers who may have enjoyed those group brainstorm sessions can’t really partake in them anymore, it’s also true that players frustrated by such a setup can smooth over these rough parts more easily.
Dead Rising offers an unusual cooperative element that sets it apart from other games, even with its flaws. In this game, locating unannounced survivors becomes a crucial part of the experience. Information about when to lead a group of NPCs to another area for an essential item needed by a survivor hidden in your safe room, or when to rush to that safe room because a powerful trio of bosses will soon appear in a vehicle and likely run over your allies if given the chance, can be found in comment sections on GameFAQs threads. You can discover these tips through trial and error, but it’s likely you’ll learn them the hard way.
This aspect is connected to the game’s roguelike feature, although it’s not compulsory, it’s usually employed during at least one or two sessions of gameplay. When Frank perishes, you have the choice to restore your previous save or commence from the game’s very start while maintaining his level and abilities unchanged. Initially, Frank is sluggish, lacks effective combat moves, has minimal health, and possesses limited inventory capacity, making certain missions challenging to conquer in a single attempt. It’s possible to succeed, but it’s advisable to restart the game with a more robust Frank for a smoother experience. This advice applies to regular gameplay aimed at simply completing the game, but is particularly relevant for those pursuing a flawless playthrough.
In 2006, this method was quite unusual, and it seems even more peculiar now, considering the widespread popularity of roguelites. Dead Rising doesn’t delve deeply into this specific aspect of the genre, but it’s not hard to envision a modern reinterpretation of the game either eliminating this system or enhancing it to make it more engaging and intriguing.
Occasionally, it feels like the game’s combat systems could use some balance. On one side, I adore the concept of being in a mall where almost everything can be used as a weapon – from guns and blades to baseball bats or even throwing trash cans, benches, and tables at the undead horde. It’s quite entertaining! But on the other hand, the ability to heal using an array of food items like giant jugs of orange juice, coffee creamer, entire pies, and two-foot baguettes is a bit overwhelming, especially when my character gobbles them up as quickly as Scooby-Doo. I wish there was a bit more nuance in the healing system to make it feel more balanced.
Additionally, there are numerous unique weapons hidden within the game, some holding secrets that enhance their performance. Defeating an early boss rewards the best weapon in the game, which then respawns near the mall’s roller coaster whenever desired as a countermeasure to the game’s durability system. However, when you equip this weapon alongside three specific skill-enhancing magazines from various shops scattered throughout the mall, the weapon’s lifespan is significantly extended by a factor of 27, rendering it the only weapon needed for the entire game.
Consequently, this weapon makes the game feel unbalanced, at least it reduces the importance of finding new tools as intended. However, since the combat is clunky and often results in missed attacks followed by being devoured, I prefer using this weapon. The zombies’ slow pursuit means you’ll need to weave through crowds to enhance your dodging skills. Quicktime events happen when you’re grabbed, and while they can be easily escaped, their frequency can turn navigating the mall into a lethal game of whittling away at your health if you don’t carry enough orange juice or corn on you.
In Dead Rising, the zombies are skilled at catching you off guard, particularly during moments of vulnerability such as right after you snag a shopping cart to boost your speed slightly but before you gain enough pace to navigate the parking garage swiftly with it. More frequently, it’s the instant following a dive maneuver, which Frank can only execute every five seconds approximately, when another zombie will seize him and drain a bit of his health, even if you’ve already completed the quick-time event (QTE).
Apart from regular hand-to-hand combat and firearm skills, Frank gains additional abilities, which involve quick sequences of button presses on the controller. These have been simplified to make them easier for players to execute. As I progressed through levels, I unlocked moves that added a layer of absurdity to the game. For instance, I could stand on the shoulders of zombies as if crowd-surfing at a rock concert, perform a soccer-style bicycle kick to decapitate zombie heads, and deliver gruesome gut punches to disembowel the undead – reminiscent of scenes from ‘The Boys’. Over time, I even learned moves inspired by professional wrestling, such as the bulldog and German suplex.
In other words, while these moves aren’t particularly efficient for dealing with large groups of zombies due to their ability to only affect one at a time, they can still be useful in certain situations. For instance, a jump-kick could stop a zombie from attacking an ally without causing much harm to the ally themselves.
It may sound like I have a lot of qualms about a game I praised to open this review, but many of its quirks and even some of its flaws ultimately make Dead Rising special, too. While it’s annoying to be caught in a zombie’s clutches because of stilted attacks or movement, such a moment unfolds in a mall playing once-cheery Muzak on a loop as zombies dressed in giant Servbot heads trip into fountains or reach toward Frank–who may by then be dressed as a child, Mega Man, or the mall’s bee mascot–from the other side of a smoothie bar. The world is consistently ridiculous in its sights and sounds, and its gameplay woes often fall by the wayside as a result. This isn’t true for a late-game enemy type that is more frustrating than I remembered (and won’t spoil), but otherwise, Dead Rising is like an adorable puppy that pooped on the carpet; I can’t easily stay mad at it.
The Deluxe Remastered version is more accurate than ever before, as while the overall Dead Rising package might not hold up as well as it did in 2006, this iteration offers a superior gaming experience. Numerous improvements have made the gameplay smoother and more enjoyable for an open-world experience. For instance, in this version, Frank can now move and shoot simultaneously, a feature that was missing from the original game. Additionally, a compass on top of the screen guides you to the best path, even suggesting shortcuts once they’ve been unlocked. Furthermore, durability meters for weapons have been added, eliminating the guesswork from that mechanic as it previously existed in the original game.
Arguably, the most important aspect is the ability to advance time, which allows you to speed up those smaller chunks of time between when you’ve done all you want to and when the next main mission unlocks in the game’s universal timer. For perfectionists, this also helps you min-max Frank through early playthroughs so you can climb to level 50 faster and perform the perfect run. It’s worth noting, however, you still don’t choose what upgrades you unlock. Instead, each upgrade, be it a speed boost, another inventory slot, a wrestling move, or something else, is tied to a specific level. That seems like an additional detail a new Dead Rising would rightly redesign, but in 2024’s remaster, it’s another head-scratcher in a game full of sometimes-charming design conundrums.
I particularly appreciate the introduction of auto-saves in this game. Earlier, if you didn’t take time out to manually save your progress and then perished, you would lose all the progress made since your last save, but at least you’d retain your level for the roguelite reset option. The manual saving process occasionally interrupted your gameplay flow and also reduced the total playtime due to the time taken off the path. Now, the game automatically saves when you transition from one part of the world to another, such as leaving a safe room or moving from the North Plaza to the supermarket. This keeps the gameplay experience smooth and less punishing if you haven’t saved for a while.
The enhancements in the updated game significantly improve its quality compared to the original. The shift to Capcom’s RE Engine brings a sepia tone similar to recent Resident Evil games, which changes the game’s color scheme and might annoy some video game preservationists. However, I find it quite subtle unless you compare the versions directly. Some blue tones have been replaced with earthy colors like tan. The updated version also boasts improved textures and more realistic facial animations, giving it a modern look. However, Frank’s facial features appear harsher now, making him seem grumpier than he actually is, although he can still be quite grumpy.
The Enhanced Remaster of Dead Rising offers an upgraded take on an original game with some flaws. While certain imperfections may stand out more now, numerous enhancements to the overall experience address other problems entirely. Its enduring aspects, such as a ludicrous plot and engaging environment, prevent it from feeling repetitive. However, I expect future Dead Rising installments to significantly improve upon its shortcomings – some of its sequels have already shown this potential. Although Dead Rising in 2024 may not compel me to purchase a new gaming system, I am glad to replay it in this revamped version.
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2024-09-17 21:39