Preview – Deadly Premonition: Director’s Cut

If you have never played Deadly Premonition the Director’s Cut looks to be the best way to enter the strange yet intriguing town of Greenvale with the polished version of the game.

Last week the world tour for Deadly Premonition Director’s Cut came to LA and I sat down with Access Games director Hidetaka Suehiro (better know as “SWERY”) and Rising Star Game’s Senior Producer Tomio Kanazawa to talk about what makes this PS3 exclusive version of the game worth picking up.

Deadly Premoniton was released in 2010 and has since established a cult following. The game has players control an FBI agent investigating the murder of a young girl in a small town. The gameplay is an open world experience in which a 24 hour clock system with side mechanics are present akin to those of the Dead Rising games. What really makes the game charming is its bizarre character writing and intriguing plot.

The Director’s Cut of the game does a lot to polish the Deadly Premonition experience without changing or removing any of what made it great, which was mostly its bizarre Twin Peaks influenced survival horror story.

“He [SWERY] Didn’t want to destroy the original story line,” Translated Tomio Kanazawa. “Because it’s completed. It’s Kind of perfect.”

Instead of altering the story the team added an all new prologue and epilogue through the form of a short cut scene showcasing a new mystery character. SWERY understands what players loved about the original release and wanted to bring the experience to more players.

The original Xbox 360 release of the game was a little unintuitive in gameplay and combat, but the team at Access Games took three years of fan feedback and tweaked the game so players can focus on fighting the enemies and not worry about fighting the systems.

SWERY took a deep look into the controls of the original game and tweaked them to feel more like western developed open world games, citing Skyrim and Red Dead Redemption as some of his inspiration for this universal control. If players are still unhappy with the new default control schemes the game has an option to program any action to any button, providing ultimate control customization.

Visually the game has been enhanced using redrawn textures, improved lighting and new shading but the differences aren’t significantly different.

Another major criticism of the 360 version were the complex and unforgiving QTEs. In an effort to silence the gripes, these button mashing prompts were simplified and made more lenient.

Other PS3 exclusive features include an improved in game town map (expands to 1/3 of the screen), Stereoscopic 3D and support of the PS Move controller. DLC will also be offered on PSN and will include visual costumes and items to be used in the world.

Get your favorite coffee mug ready, the game will be launching on April 30th at an unannounced price both retail and as a day one digital download on PSN.

Here is one of my favorite songs from the game. Listen for the kazoo. Best use of kazoo. 

“Life is Beautiful”

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