This review contains spoilers
this review is going to have spoilers for Twin Peaks, Persona 4, and Deadly Premonition.
lets get the obvious stuff out of the way first. the gameplay sucks. even fans of this game recognise that there isnt a single piece of this that works on a gameplay level. navigating greenvale is a nightmare because of the moving mini-map, but even the whole town map rotates without having an explicit north point. the most you can zoom out of the map shows you less than 1/8 of it, so its borderline impossible to work out where you're supposed to go using it. worst map in a game? might be! game shat the bed on nintendo switch too. driving through any of the populated areas plummeted the framerate to like 10fps at best, which is funny because despite them being the "populated" areas, theres absolutely no one there. the levels and combat encounters were incredibly boring. lame combat that doesnt evolve or do anything more interesting than literally the first time you get there. endless ugly corridors with the same pointless zombie enemies doing nothing. melee weapons break too often, guns are slow and clunky and have no weight too them, getting hit by an enemy takes so long to recover from. there are items galore that dont make managing the stats of hunger and sleep anymore interesting, theyre just tedious and dont contribute to any sense of atmosphere or vibe. they just clog up your tiny inventory. driving is slow and boring because there's nothing in town worth looking at, so the town isnt fun to explore in the car. theres no actual collision mechanics either so you can slam into another car at 90mph and nothing happens? its just boring! whatever, i think we're all in agreement of the gameplay being ass. unfortunately, the story is too, and here's where the real review begins...
we're looking at a story inspired by twin peaks, silent hill, and resident evil here i think. a murder mystery in a quaint but scary town, with gun action on the side. (thats the resident evil influence on the side). for most of my time playing the game i was actually complimentary of how it took twin peaks as an influence because i felt like it wasnt just lifting the black lodge and lynchian aesthetic the way that soul eater and gravity falls have. i felt like it was trying to understand the relationship because the quaint and the creepy, and trying to paint its own path to that. by the end of the game i changed my mind on this. for one, greenvale never succeeds to be quaint. twin peaks the town is charming and fun because of its colour pallette, because it's like a soap opera. we spend time with lots of characters, even outside of the detective's perspective. those characters and their lives and their oddities become intimate to us. in greenvale, theres no real sense of location because the town is absolutely huge and none of the areas outside actually stand out at all. furthermore, these areas arent populated, so our experiences there dont do anything for us. greenvales roads are eerily quiet, its street void of life. for a game that wanted to be about the quaint and familiar life of small countryside life, it felt incredibly lonely, something which i felt never went away. secondly, the horror of twin peaks works because we understand what the evil is. in short, BOB is the evil that men do, and the lodge entities represent aspects of human cruelty. almost all of the horror imagery in deadly premonition ends up being shallow and pointless.
both of these problems contribute to my problems with the plot. i'll admit i didn't necessarily think george was going to be the killer, but it doesnt work at all! for one, the main cast is actually incredibly small. it has george, thomas, emily, forrest, nick briefly, and diane briefly. its quite clear that its not nick who's the killer, so it only really leaves thomas and george left from the photos? forrest's involvement is abaundantely clear if you have eyes and brain because he's literally carrying around the red plant that seems to be found with evey crime? but george is the problem, not kaysen. the town is filled with lots of characters, but almost all of them are relegated to side content. what that means is if you only do the main story you know the characters who are and aren't going to be involved in the main plot. makes the whole thing fall apart when you realised that none of the other suspects actually turn up in the story whatsoever. again, the town is lonely and small, and our cast of suspects is too narrow to create a compelling mystery. secondly, george fails to have a motive. the george we spend most the of the game talking to isnt the same man that we have a (horrible) boss encounter with. is this inherently bad? kind of. in persona 4, the killer (or at least, man responsible for everything happening in inaba) is adachi, the goofy cop sidekick. its surprising because the time we spend with him he seems so nice, so this reveal that he's an evil nasty man makes him seem like he was faking it all along... but the fact is, he wasnt! if you spent time in persona 4 getting to know adachi, then you realised he was actually kind of a fucked up dude with some twisted beliefs on people. its clever subtle writing that makes you feel slightly weird about him. then when its revealed he's the killer, those worldviews he showed you suddenly make more sense. the character is consistent in his inconsistency, and a whole picture can be understood. the same is true of leland as the killer in twin peaks. even after its revealed he killed laura and maddie, or when cooper speaks to him in the prison, its clear that the leland we saw grieving or dancing was still the same man as the killer. its consistent in its inconsistency! george in deadly premonition doesnt fit this. it just falls into the same tired trap that people who were abused as children turn into fucked up killers. his world view about him being some kind of silly chosen one because of magic seeds isnt present in his character writing anywhere. his desire to sacrifice people has absolutely no meaning or merit outside of the plot needing there to be murder victims. he just kind of says to york "and then i decided to kill anna" and thats it for his motive i guess? it doesnt even make sense that he's the raincoat killer. the first time we encounter the killer in gameplay york says "he's here!" which implies the killer is actually in the building with you... but almost always when these sections happen, we know that george is outside with emily. the game essentially just lies to you about whats happening when the raincoat killer is chasing us. also, why does york run from the killer? he's literally pursuing him, and fighting all these zombies. why is he suddenly scared of a guy with an axe? theres a story/gameplay disconnect that that i found quite frustrating. at the start of the game i almost enjoyed this supernatural facet of wherever the killer was could conjure these hallucinogenic worlds of zombies for york, but then it becomes clear that they are artificial padding to keep the game lasting longer, and they have no meaningful impact on the story whatsoever. when i was fighting them in harry's mansion that's when i realised they were totally pointless. i liked kaysen more as a villain i think because his performance was good, but again in terms of motivation he's just like "Yeah i'm evil i guess" and it just doesnt mean anything at all! horror aesthetic for no reason. these are not characters you can get invested in. this is a story with no flavour beyond the immediate feeling its trying to provoke, and it doesnt do anything to justify wondering about what has happened or what will happen. it all just feels so pointless and hollow.
the only thing i'll give the game credit for is some of the music (limited as it was) and York. his performance is so good that it does really endear the player to him. i like that he gets everyones back up at first because he is just an insane man. spoilers, he is literally insane and that's why he talks to someone called zach! further spoilers, the reveal about who zach is literally changes nothing abuot the game. its genuinely a pointless bit of drama. i dont think i minded it too much because i already liked york, but i do think its ultimately meaningless. york is a charming protagnosit because of how confident he is in everything. its just a shame that literally everything surrounding him is superficial and doesnt work on basically any level.
sorry eveyone! thought i was going to have some fun with this one, but it just isnt good.
lets get the obvious stuff out of the way first. the gameplay sucks. even fans of this game recognise that there isnt a single piece of this that works on a gameplay level. navigating greenvale is a nightmare because of the moving mini-map, but even the whole town map rotates without having an explicit north point. the most you can zoom out of the map shows you less than 1/8 of it, so its borderline impossible to work out where you're supposed to go using it. worst map in a game? might be! game shat the bed on nintendo switch too. driving through any of the populated areas plummeted the framerate to like 10fps at best, which is funny because despite them being the "populated" areas, theres absolutely no one there. the levels and combat encounters were incredibly boring. lame combat that doesnt evolve or do anything more interesting than literally the first time you get there. endless ugly corridors with the same pointless zombie enemies doing nothing. melee weapons break too often, guns are slow and clunky and have no weight too them, getting hit by an enemy takes so long to recover from. there are items galore that dont make managing the stats of hunger and sleep anymore interesting, theyre just tedious and dont contribute to any sense of atmosphere or vibe. they just clog up your tiny inventory. driving is slow and boring because there's nothing in town worth looking at, so the town isnt fun to explore in the car. theres no actual collision mechanics either so you can slam into another car at 90mph and nothing happens? its just boring! whatever, i think we're all in agreement of the gameplay being ass. unfortunately, the story is too, and here's where the real review begins...
we're looking at a story inspired by twin peaks, silent hill, and resident evil here i think. a murder mystery in a quaint but scary town, with gun action on the side. (thats the resident evil influence on the side). for most of my time playing the game i was actually complimentary of how it took twin peaks as an influence because i felt like it wasnt just lifting the black lodge and lynchian aesthetic the way that soul eater and gravity falls have. i felt like it was trying to understand the relationship because the quaint and the creepy, and trying to paint its own path to that. by the end of the game i changed my mind on this. for one, greenvale never succeeds to be quaint. twin peaks the town is charming and fun because of its colour pallette, because it's like a soap opera. we spend time with lots of characters, even outside of the detective's perspective. those characters and their lives and their oddities become intimate to us. in greenvale, theres no real sense of location because the town is absolutely huge and none of the areas outside actually stand out at all. furthermore, these areas arent populated, so our experiences there dont do anything for us. greenvales roads are eerily quiet, its street void of life. for a game that wanted to be about the quaint and familiar life of small countryside life, it felt incredibly lonely, something which i felt never went away. secondly, the horror of twin peaks works because we understand what the evil is. in short, BOB is the evil that men do, and the lodge entities represent aspects of human cruelty. almost all of the horror imagery in deadly premonition ends up being shallow and pointless.
both of these problems contribute to my problems with the plot. i'll admit i didn't necessarily think george was going to be the killer, but it doesnt work at all! for one, the main cast is actually incredibly small. it has george, thomas, emily, forrest, nick briefly, and diane briefly. its quite clear that its not nick who's the killer, so it only really leaves thomas and george left from the photos? forrest's involvement is abaundantely clear if you have eyes and brain because he's literally carrying around the red plant that seems to be found with evey crime? but george is the problem, not kaysen. the town is filled with lots of characters, but almost all of them are relegated to side content. what that means is if you only do the main story you know the characters who are and aren't going to be involved in the main plot. makes the whole thing fall apart when you realised that none of the other suspects actually turn up in the story whatsoever. again, the town is lonely and small, and our cast of suspects is too narrow to create a compelling mystery. secondly, george fails to have a motive. the george we spend most the of the game talking to isnt the same man that we have a (horrible) boss encounter with. is this inherently bad? kind of. in persona 4, the killer (or at least, man responsible for everything happening in inaba) is adachi, the goofy cop sidekick. its surprising because the time we spend with him he seems so nice, so this reveal that he's an evil nasty man makes him seem like he was faking it all along... but the fact is, he wasnt! if you spent time in persona 4 getting to know adachi, then you realised he was actually kind of a fucked up dude with some twisted beliefs on people. its clever subtle writing that makes you feel slightly weird about him. then when its revealed he's the killer, those worldviews he showed you suddenly make more sense. the character is consistent in his inconsistency, and a whole picture can be understood. the same is true of leland as the killer in twin peaks. even after its revealed he killed laura and maddie, or when cooper speaks to him in the prison, its clear that the leland we saw grieving or dancing was still the same man as the killer. its consistent in its inconsistency! george in deadly premonition doesnt fit this. it just falls into the same tired trap that people who were abused as children turn into fucked up killers. his world view about him being some kind of silly chosen one because of magic seeds isnt present in his character writing anywhere. his desire to sacrifice people has absolutely no meaning or merit outside of the plot needing there to be murder victims. he just kind of says to york "and then i decided to kill anna" and thats it for his motive i guess? it doesnt even make sense that he's the raincoat killer. the first time we encounter the killer in gameplay york says "he's here!" which implies the killer is actually in the building with you... but almost always when these sections happen, we know that george is outside with emily. the game essentially just lies to you about whats happening when the raincoat killer is chasing us. also, why does york run from the killer? he's literally pursuing him, and fighting all these zombies. why is he suddenly scared of a guy with an axe? theres a story/gameplay disconnect that that i found quite frustrating. at the start of the game i almost enjoyed this supernatural facet of wherever the killer was could conjure these hallucinogenic worlds of zombies for york, but then it becomes clear that they are artificial padding to keep the game lasting longer, and they have no meaningful impact on the story whatsoever. when i was fighting them in harry's mansion that's when i realised they were totally pointless. i liked kaysen more as a villain i think because his performance was good, but again in terms of motivation he's just like "Yeah i'm evil i guess" and it just doesnt mean anything at all! horror aesthetic for no reason. these are not characters you can get invested in. this is a story with no flavour beyond the immediate feeling its trying to provoke, and it doesnt do anything to justify wondering about what has happened or what will happen. it all just feels so pointless and hollow.
the only thing i'll give the game credit for is some of the music (limited as it was) and York. his performance is so good that it does really endear the player to him. i like that he gets everyones back up at first because he is just an insane man. spoilers, he is literally insane and that's why he talks to someone called zach! further spoilers, the reveal about who zach is literally changes nothing abuot the game. its genuinely a pointless bit of drama. i dont think i minded it too much because i already liked york, but i do think its ultimately meaningless. york is a charming protagnosit because of how confident he is in everything. its just a shame that literally everything surrounding him is superficial and doesnt work on basically any level.
sorry eveyone! thought i was going to have some fun with this one, but it just isnt good.