Deadly Premonition: The Director's Cut Reviews

It's well, something~

This game had a big potential, but it's broken for some reason. I love the vibe of this and the characters are good written. But I can't recommend it

Picked this game up for $1.25, i knew about the bad port but figured it try it out. Even for 1 dollar this game is unplayable. Tried to run the .exe as windows8/ME and launch as admin and still didnt fix the issue. I made the mistake of running the game on full screen the first time i played and on the first game freeze, even using alt cntrl del and ending the program didn't drop the game, just frozen on my screen forever. Had to restart PC. Great game! RIP PC PORT

This game reminds me of the games where you need a guide to figure out all the quests and mechanics of the game. And for some reason, I find it kinda fun and so 90's-00's that I'm following guides/FAQ's as I play through this game. It feels janky and it looks dated, but I'm enjoying the absurd, (unintentional?) Yakuza-esque humor and weirdness.

DO. NOT. BUY. THIS. It's absolutely broken. Spent the better part of 5 hours trying to get past the crash that occurs on Episode 2 Chapter 9 only to have to download a different person's archived save file. Meaning I lost whatever progress, items, and money I had. Had to use a controller layout someone posted just to get around the left stick issues. DPfix got me through the Hospital crash, but not this one. Also, encountered a *really* annoying sound bug where you get a repetitive tire screeching sound when you try to drive a car that only seems to happen when using a gaming headset that uses the 7.1 surround audio channel. And, if you can't switch it to stereo, you're stuck with it. Just so disappointed because I was really enjoying this game. The characters, the story, the location, the gameplay. It was like one of those bad movies that's so bad, it's good. But I will not be playing this again 'til something's fixed. Not holding my breath, though. And I'll make sure to keep anyone I know from buying this 'til then.

Honestly wanted to try the game, as I'm a big fan of Twin Peaks and weird games. Sadly, the game doesn't launch, even after installing DPFix. You're better off emulating it.

Despite its PS2 graphics and weird combat system, it could be a once in a lifetime gaming experience. The atmosphere is captivating, almost every character is memorable, and the city has been crafted with great care. There are so many little details that make you feel like you're actually living in a real city, with real people taking care of their ordinary businesses. However, it's plagued with crashes and bugs, which can't be fully fixed even after following the best guides available. I hope it will be remade with better graphics and no bugs in the future. Play it on PS3 or Xbox 360 if you get tired of dealing with these issues.

It’s hard to recommend this game, but even harder not to. Deadly Premonition tries to do a lot of things, but doesn’t commit to polishing any of them. Shooting sucks. Driving sucks. Chasing sequences are awful. The whole gameplay feels like it was shoved in at the last minute, especially the shooting bits, which seem like a producer really loved Resident Evil 4 but didn’t understand what made it good in the first place. The game itself is unstable. It’s held together with duct tape and hope, and there’s a huge chance it won’t even run. Less than 10% of Steam players made it to Episode 2. It’s not just jank, it actively fights against being played. But I like it. I love it. What makes Deadly Premonition worth playing is the story, the characters, and the town. It starts off as a detective mystery with some supernatural elements that you’re never sure are real or just in York’s head. Over time, it loses connection with reality and goes full wack, and somehow, that works. [spoiler] I couldn’t predict any of the twists, and I genuinely felt betrayed when some characters turned out to be bad. [/spoiler] It’s tragic, and it hit hard. And then there’s the casualness, York and Zach’s conversations, the slice-of-life moments, the calm before the storm. Those parts stay with you. It’s messy, broken, and full of heart. And somehow, that’s enough.

F...K in the coffee. Fantastic story in my opinion. But holy shit you better be prepared to deal with an absolute headache getting this game to be stable even with all the fixes that are out there. Make sure you back up your save, a lot.

Deadly Premonition is fantastic. It's a surreal and quirky game with a plot and world that will captivate you. Each character is memorable- with NPC schedules that Bethesda games could only dream of. And while the gameplay isn't anything to write home about, it remains serviceable. As such, I wish I could recommend this. But no. This PC port is high up there with some of the worst and lazy ports ever released on PC. Constant, and I mean constant, crashing, memory leaks, broken mechanics, the list goes on. This port was a shoddy after thought by Toybox Inc. and the only thing they've done for the game in over a decade is an equally shoddy controller fix. You won't be able to aim up or down without external fixes. The kicker is that this is a port of the already garbage PS3 version and, yet, the PC version manages to be worse! You can't even adjust the brightness setting in this version; at least the PS3 allowed it. I never thought I'd see the day a console game, especially a 7th gen console, would have more settings customization than a PC game. And of course it's retained all the brokeness of the PS3 version as well. Absolutely infuriating driving mechanics (you will drive in a straight line and then suddenly gravity will glitch and catapult you into the air), scuffed audio mixing, and broken textures in the town (primarily using glowing night time window textures during the day time). And the best part is the resolution is locked to the same as the PS3 release without a mod. Assuming you can even get the game to start in the first place without external fixes. Don't buy this. Don't waste your time. SWERY has nothing to do with this port, you're not supporting him or the franchise. You're just supporting an incompetent company that can't be assed to fix a single thing in this game. They don't deserve the money. I paid a dollar for this and that was too much. That being said if you're like me and determined to give it a fair shake, there are fixes that will make the game at least run that you can find through the community hub. Keep in mind only so much can be done on the user end. The primary issue is a memory leak and that's what causes 9/10 crashes in this game even with all the mods and fixes. This is why your game will have different hard crashes at the same location, and why smoking a cigarette and forwarding time can circumvent those crashes. If this one single thing was fixed, we could have SOMETHING from this port. The best part is this is an easy thing to fix for someone with the source code. But Toybox won't be doing that. All the memes you've seen about this game and how terrible it runs is due to the PS3 and this PC port. It has absolutely wrecked this game's technical image. Not that it was ever a marvel, but the original version on the Xbox 360 ran fine. These bugs, crashes, broken mechanics are not a part of any charm. They are hack-jobs done by incompetent devs. If you want the best way to play this game. It's the original release on the Xbox 360. Play that. Save yourself the headache. It fortunately was also on the backwards compatibility program for the Xbox Series X/S and can be purchased digitally. This is the original vision of the game. It has the correct color palette, proper audio, functioning driving mechanics, and NO crashes with a stable FPS. Just play that version if you really want to experience this game and save yourself the headache To sum it up: I would never recommend this port to anyone. Especially not at full price. It's on sale as I write this for a dollar, which is what I bought it for, and even that's too much money to give these devs. But if you're willing to add an extra layer of difficulty to this game by saving every five minutes for fear of crashes and searching ways to circumvent the other litany of issues you'll have, then a dollar isn't the worst price to pay.