Though I love for Capcom’s Resident Evil series, I never took the plunge into its other zombie-filled franchise: Dead Rising. With the arrival of Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, I trekked into the Willamette Parkview Mall for a peek into this intriguing zombie adventure. I walked away a fan of what I experienced.
Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster involves a The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask-like 72-hour timer. Journalist Frank West arrives in this small Colorado town amidst a secret zombie outbreak. Your job is to investigate the several cases and figure out the truth behind the event, while protecting and saving survivors, before the three days are up.
For the purposes of this preview, I only had the chance to check out the first of the three days. This included an introduction to Frank, the other characters who find themselves in the mall, and a couple of boss battles. You can pretty much use your time however you like when it comes to engaging in its activities, finding collectibles, and completing side quests.
I enjoyed the freeform nature of this game, especially when it came to the semi-open world location of the Parkview Mall. I felt like, even in my short time spent with it, that it could be one of the most compelling and memorable locales in gaming. Every inch of the mall is fully realized and feels smartly connected to one another. This includes the various stores, the ridiculous food court, and the gorgeous park in the middle of the complex.
The mall may not be huge, but it has an intricate and thoughtful design that helps it to stand out. There is also something beautifully simplistic about the gameplay and progression of Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, from what I saw. In general, you can pick up various items you find, such as a propane tank or lead pipe, and use it to fight with a single button. You can throw some items, but there isn’t too much to combat outside of dodging, throwing, and attacking.
I appreciate this clarity, especially when it comes to the sheer swarms of zombies in the mall. Hacking and slashing through them felt fresh early on, especially due to the relative breezy difficulty of this game in the early hours. You can level up as you take photos, save survivors, and complete cases, to build up Frank as a fighter. Zombies went down in one or two hits during my initial voyage into the mall, and I found it rather easy to run away from them as well.
In this way, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster may offer the right balance of feeling fun to explore and like the challenge doesn’t gets in the way of the experience. The new control scheme, which allows the player to more fully move around, use the camera, and attack all at the same time, added to the newly modern feel.
It also seemed obvious right away that the graphical overhaul makes the game look better than the original. The added textures, hair details, and lighting changes seem evident, both in the mall environments and the characters. Though I could start to see some of the age in cutscene closeups with NPCs, in Frank’s first hours I noticed a solid level of polish that never made me feel like I was playing an experience from several console generations ago. The smooth performance, even playing on Steam Deck, helped in this regard. It felt surprisingly modern to me.
Even as someone who never played the original, I enjoyed my first few hours with Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster. The sometimes goofy nature of the story, characters, and costumes makes for a refreshing zombie romp. It is actually a shame I only got to experience Frank’s first hours in the mall, and I look forward to solving the mystery of this zombie outbreak in the full release.
Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster releases for PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC on September 19, 2024.
Published: Aug 13, 2024 11:01 am