Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster Review

The original DEAD RISING’s Willamette Mall was a place I spent a lot of time in when I first bought my Xbox 360 back in 2006. Having blasted my way through the growing zombie population, dispatched some local psychopaths, and browsed the stores, I was ready to experience it all again in Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster. With CAPCOM adding various enhancements and graphical upgrades, would Frank West’s first run-in with the undead be just as fun as I remembered it being?

The story of DRDR remains unchanged from the original, with the town of Willamette, Colorado suddenly being placed into lockdown by the army. Protagonist Frank West, a photojournalist who’s seen his fair share of action over the years (he’s covered wars, y’know!), smells a big scoop, so he sets off to find out the cause of the quarantine with his trusty camera by his side.

It becomes apparent very quickly that something is majorly wrong, and after being dropped off via helicopter on top of the Willamette Mall, Frank soon discovers that the dead are walking the Earth and have a taste for human flesh! Trapped in the mall, Frank and a small group of survivors barricade themselves in a relatively safe security room. There are still people stuck in the mall and a mystery to be solved, however, so Frank sets out to uncover the truth about the zombie outbreak.

With the plot taking place during 72 in-game hours, there can be very strict time limits on certain story cases. Miss these, and you may lock yourself out of certain endings, although leaving any main case incomplete won’t lead to a game over, and you do have the option to just ignore the plot entirely. You know, in case all you’re interested in is smashing some zombie skulls in. Can’t say I blame you!

The visual enhancements are instantly noticeable in this remaster, with CAPCOM breathing new life into the game thanks to their RE Engine. The result is an impressive amount of added detail in the environments and vastly improved lighting, making Willamette Mall look better than ever and so much fun to explore (despite the hordes of undead shoppers looking to snack on a Frank burger). The RE Engine also gives DRDR’s character models and animations a facelift. Characters — especially the psychopaths — have much more expressive faces, which certainly adds to the B movie, cheesy charm of the original, even more so now that the game is fully voiced.

As for the technical side of things, I didn’t notice any form of slowdown or frame drops. There were still a fair number of loading screens, though, most notably before, in between, and after cutscenes and when moving to new areas. These aren’t egregiously long or anything, but they are frequent enough to become a bit of an annoyance.

For the majority of the gameplay, things have remained unchanged from the 2006 original, which shouldn’t be too surprising considering this is a remaster, not a remake. I’d say the changes are more “quality-of-life” improvements that combat some of the original title’s issues, and these alterations go a long way in making the game as a whole a much more enjoyable experience.

For starters, there’s the new auto-save, meaning a desperate dash to a bathroom to manually save your game is now a much less tense affair. This also makes dying a little less stressful, as you won’t have to replay hours of the game because you forgot to save. Of course, each death does still grant you the option of starting afresh, carrying over all your skills and level upgrades to reset the clock and try again. Thus, making my method of grinding away to bulk up my Frank before getting stuck in the main story was still a viable option.

The controls are much better now, too, with small adjustments and additions that certainly help get rid of some of the original’s clunkiness, although the new control scheme doesn’t rid the game of it entirely. Things such as the ability to move whilst aiming, using a button prompt instead of the thumbstick to shake off a zombie, and making skills much simpler to perform all go a long way in creating a much more modern version of Dead Rising. It doesn’t feel wildly different to play, but the frustrations I remembered when playing the original were more or less absent in this version. For all you purists out there, you can switch to the “classic” control type, which is a nice (if personally unused) addition, but the new way to play is just a much smoother experience overall.

The user interface has also seen some changes, with the biggest upgrade coming in the form of being able to see an equipped weapon’s durability. Instead of each one flashing in your inventory when close to the end of its usefulness, a durability meter is located underneath the weapon icon to give players an exact lifespan for their wide array of melee weapons. A small thing, sure, but one that was sorely missing from the 2006 release.

Finally, there’s the AI improvements. Remember having to stop every two steps because a survivor you were rescuing had wandered into a horde of zombies? Well, now they have a bit more of the intelligence part of artificial intelligence, and it’s an absolute lifesaver. Literally, in the NPCs cases! This doesn’t mean they can go on rampages and wipe out the undead population, and there are still moments when they get stuck in the environment or forget how to swing a baseball bat, but the majority of the time, they’re much less of a hindrance than they once were. Battles against the psychopaths don’t fare quite as well, as their AI still feels as lacking as ever. These encounters are where the game’s age shows the most, and it’s here that you’ll easily notice how janky DRDR can be. Again, it’s a remaster, not a remake, so to expect brand-new mechanics and gameplay would be asking a bit much, and the changes are a welcome upgrade. But when remastering a game that’s 18 years old, you’ve just got to expect there to be a few issues that transfer over to the shiny new version.

Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster does exactly what a remaster should do. The impressive boost in visual quality, some mechanical tweaks and control refinements make this the best version of the 2006 classic to play. Despite a few issues with the game feeling a little janky, it’s still just as enjoyable to wander around Willamette Mall, snapping photos and cracking skulls with everyone's favourite photojournalist once again.