Deadly Premonition has obvious flaws, but it still manages to entertain throughout
You play the role of FBI agent Francis York Morgan, who goes by York, because as he says "That's what everybody calls me". The game opens up with York driving to a small town to investigate the murder of a young girl. While driving York sees someone standing ahead of him, so he quickly turns and ends up crashing through into the woods. He then grabs his gun and starts to head through the woods. While doing so he manages to run into zombie like creatures called shadows.
The prologue is easily one of the weakest parts of the game. This half-hour section focuses on the game's weakest feature, the combat. The controls have you holding the right trigger to aim, press left trigger to lock on, and press A to shoot. You don't have to lock on; even still it's going to take a while to get used to the combat. Fortunately, after the prologue ends things start to get a bit better. York finds himself in the town of Greenvale, where the game slowly starts introducing its memorable cast of characters, one by one.
This is where Deadly Premonition starts to shine. Deadly Premonition's story has a wide cast of characters, some of whom are inspired by the 90's TV show Twin Peaks. But that doesn't stop each character from feeling unique. The thing about Deadly Premonition is that it's not just a survivor horror game; it's also an open world game. The town of Greenvale is surprisingly big. You'll be able to drive around in GTA-kind of style, traveling from mission to mission. This game gives you plenty of opportunities to interact with the characters that live in Greenvale.
Interacting with these characters is one of the best parts of the game. There are a ton of side missions that not only deepen the story, but add depth to the characters. You'll grow attached to many of the characters and even learn to care some characters you probably won't even like at first. But the character you'll learn to care for the most is the main character, York. While York is also inspired by Twin Peaks, he manages to become a unique and interesting character of his own.
One of the things that make York such a standout character is that he's always talking to his imaginary friend Zach. This isn't just a throw away thing added to make York appear insane, this actually ends up eventually tying into the story. When it does it adds more depth and personality to York. This, along with his fast talking and his always upbeat attitude make Agent York one of the most memorable protagonists of this year.
The story itself is surprisingly deep. To say too much would risk giving away what makes the story so entertaining and so special. Let's just say that characters that are added to story never feel like they're there to keep the game going. The plot twists always have thought to them. Not only is the plot twists well thought out, they are extremely unpredictable. It's because of this that the story continues to constantly shock. This will continue to happen all the way to the game's extremely shocking conclusion. This will have you deeply engaged in the story's plot, and care for the characters that have gotten themselves involved.
Despite all of this, the gameplay itself isn't that great. Most of the main missions end up leading to scenarios where you'll find yourself fighting zombie after zombie. By this point you'll have gotten used to the controls, but shooting starts out feeling okay, and then quickly leads to boring. Not too far into the game you'll start fighting wall crawling zombies, who unless you're well equipped, can take way too long to kill. Some of the more intense encounters you'll have during these bits are when you'll come face to face with the raincoat hooded villain. When you encounter this guy, you'll ether find yourself in a very annoying quick time event, or hiding somewhere randomly pressing the left trigger to hold your breath whenever he gets nearby.
Fortunately unlike the prologue, you'll unlock bits of story by playing through these sections. So it ultimately pays off to play through these. Not to mention you'll get to see some of the best scenes in the game by getting through these. With actual story to motivate you through these parts, putting up with the mediocre gameplay doesn't seem that bad.
Normally when the gameplay of a game suffers, it sets the game back and usually makes it not a good game; this is not that kind of case. Deadly Premonition manages to grab your attention, and constantly entertain and keep you engaged throughout with a great and unpredictable story, memorable cast of characters, and plenty of shocking moments. These elements are so good that they easily make up for the gameplay. It's rare that a game is good for everything but its gameplay, and graphics, but Deadly Premonition is one of those cases. If you think you can handle Deadly Premonition, let me be the first one to say to you, welcome to Greenvale.