4/5 ★ – PhatBaby's review of Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster.

When they announced this, I felt an old dog inside me start goddamn barking. Like Sylvester Stallone in every single movie when he says something to the effect of "one last job". Dead Rising was my Dark Souls before Dark Souls. I played SO much DR 1 and 2 as a kid that they're seared into my brain like a virus. And that's largely because both games were ruthlessly hard and I was terrible at them. But, weirdly, they were also the first games that I decided to invest in and become genuinely good at. While you were all clowning around, dressing as Mega Man, having "fun", I mastered the art of the toy chainsaw build. I know the janky-ass control scheme of the original two Dead Risings better than I'll know any child I ever sire. This is my goddamn house, baby. And considering this semi-remake is like playing the game without any of the dumb bullshit or weird difficulty spikes enabled, my god, I pulled deep down, summoned the gremlin spirit of my 13-year-old self and just blitzed this out in two big ol' fat sittings. And it was goddamn superb. But as a longtime fan, the remake treatment is kind of a double-edged sword. If we're talking graphically, it's absolutely sensational, even though my boy Frank got done dirty, and now it seems like he's spent his whole life pushing 60. Plus, it feels a lot smoother, the new control scheme is an improvement, and there are some small little quality of life adjustments that rock. But, man, they really do take the difficulty and kind of bin it, which sucks. I don't care that they removed having to save manually; I liked it, but it was always contentious, so sure, get rid of it. And yeah, I appreciate the changes to survivors, even if the pathing and how stupid they are hasn't dramatically improved. But you level up so quickly that you're tanking through pretty much everything by the mid-game. Maybe it's the masochist in me, but this game putting me over its knee and spanking me for days straight was kinda the appeal. And that one change alone kinda makes the whole thing lose its edge. I maxed out my Frank in one run, and while I was beating the ever-loving shit out of every psychopath I came across, it started to feel a bit bad. It's like standing up to your school bully and putting the beat down on them, but they just stop fighting back, to the point where you're like... am I the bad guy now? But it's still a lot of fun. What can I say, the game's fucking great. It's hard to mess with something that was so inherently fun, rewarding and gloriously shlocky by tweaking a few things. And the stuff that needs to be here is still here. For once, they didn't think the game's greatest feature, the time mechanic, needed to be altered, and for anyone who is also a Dead Rising fan, that's like your best mate Capcom deciding they were a flat earther years after you met them and they're finally back to acknowledging that, hey, maybe that whole "gravity" thing is kinda based. I don't know if this was just a one-off for Capcom, but dear god, please say this is a hint that we're potentially getting a Dead Rising 5 that's actually going back to the formula. Because I can't live through another Dead Rising 3 and especially not another Dead Rising 4. This is what we should be aiming for. Old Dead Rising, with the edges sanded off, and the more hardcore elements refined so they aren't so off-putting for newcomers. BUT! And this is a big but! Capcom... please... I beg you. Bring back the good Frank West. I don't think my heart can take the hilariously bizarre bee Capcom has in its bonnet for the original Frank. These motherfuckers spend every game trying to reframe and reimagine my big burly boy. The new voice actor is way better than the dollar store Nathan Drake from DR 4, 200%. But only one man can make me hoot and holler when I hear the sweet, seductive combination of words that is "I've covered wars, ya know!", and that's my guy, T.J. Rotolo. It's almost like, at this point, Capcom forgot how much they cooked with their original take on the character and are just like, WE'LL MAKE THIS MAN INDIANA JONES IF HE WAS PLAYED BY DAN AYKROYD, AND YOU'LL FUCKING LIKE IT.