Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster [Review]

Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is a gold standard for remastered games, with new gameplay, graphics and structure, but still very similar from the original, retaining its quirkiness and uniqueness.

Without the artificial difficulty of the original, the Deluxe Remaster is hard but not impossible, super fun and completely addictive. I couldn't stop playing, as the gameplay loop is amazing and very well done, everything feels curated and each minute that passes in the game there's something to do.

The weapon system and the world interactions are super nice, and the photography is just the icing on the cake. Dead Rising always tried its best to be a different type of zombie game, and this Remaster finally delivered on the vision of the original. My only nitpick is the bosses health which can be a bit spongy, other than that, the loop and battles are fun and the map – a gorgeous and large shopping mall –is pretty and packed with things to do.

Some of the questing system is still too punishing and there is some of the "forced replay" feeling, but nothing impedes the main scenario. The new auto save feature makes battles and exploration easy while still having challenging moments due to the unforgiving nature of Frank's resources until the third act of the game. Basically, I died a lot and needed to rethink how to approach situations several times.

While the systems are stellar and the game finally feels coherent, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster still has a big problem on its story, as most of the overarching narrative is pretty generic with a forgettable main cast. Yes, the side content with the psychopaths and rescues is indeed more memorable, but many of them are still one note ill-intentioned stereotypes of people outside the beauty standards from movies. The game chooses to make fun of everyone that is not thin, and it ends up feeling like an overly written attempt to be edgy at all costs, it fails to deliver on sarcasm and it feels weak.

Still, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is fun and maybe the best on the series for making it not artificially long as the original without sacrificing the challenging aspect of having a limited amount of time to save as many people as possible while staying alive. It is a hell of a game, if you're willing to tolerate some pretty shitty characterization.

8/10

Yes, these were the only three screenshots I've taken from the game. Yes, I've played most of the game with the Mega Man suit.