Deadly Premonition is delightfully weird
I was lingering on YouTube earlier this week when the algorithm managed to bless me with something outside of my normal second monitor content, yet still right on the money: a video titled Can I Solve Twin Peaks Before The Reveal by YouTube content creator Chase Bridges.
Twin Peaks is a wonderful show, and I love to see new people discover and watch it for the first time. I shifted YouTube to a primary monitor viewing experience because Twin Peaks content is always worth it.
Two hours of Lynch later, I was now itching to re-watch the 1.5 good seasons of the show's original run. However, any time I think of this show, my mind swiftly turns to the janky little cousin of Twin Peaks, Deadly Premonition.
Deadly Premonition follows the story of Francis York Morgan. York is an FBI Profiler who has arrived in the city of Greenvale to investigate the murder of Anna Graham. He meets the quirky townsfolk, many of whom would fit right into Twin Peaks. He gets involved with the sheriff’s department, the murder investigation, and the town itself.
The biggest draw of Deadly Premonition is unquestionably the ambience it projects. Deadly Premonition is one of the few games I've seen that manages to capture the feel of the Twin Peaks. There's comedic absurdity, locals with their own sordid pasts, a web of love affairs, and legitimate intrigue seasoned with bursts of terror. And a sneaking suspicion that things are not what they seem.
Most of the interactions you have with the townsfolk are optional. Each of the main townsfolk have some depth to them, emphasizing their more absurd traits. They have unique walking animations that look goofy and incongruous at times. However, they are also the source of your side quests. Think of these as the B-plots from Twin Peaks. While the main story was on Cooper, there were many plots unconnected to the main case. These are a fun way to see these B-plots, and flesh out the world of Greenvale. They also offer handy rewards, such as a new car, powerful weapons, and infinite ammo guns. This is the exploration phase of the game. Exploring the town of Greenvale feels like driving around Twin Peaks itself.
The story is no slouch either. There’s some legitimately surprising twists, and a compelling chase after the murderer as the bodies increase. When the story is getting serious, the goofiness and the jank disappear in a spray of viscera. It can conjure some real depth. These moments, and the crimes attached to them, are drenched in pathos.
York is a delight to watch. Take Agent Dale Cooper, make him more cynical, decrease his charisma, and replace Tibet with classic movies, and you have York. He constantly talks to Zach, a voice in his head. People openly regard him as a weirdo. He manages to have some of the presence of Cooper, while still being his own character.
The biggest downside of the game is easily the combat phase of the game. Your primary obstacles are shadows - ghostly, unsettling spirits of the dead. The combat phase takes place in an alternate place, shifting from the ‘real’ world to an equivalent similar to the Otherworld from Silent Hill. The game uses Resident Evil 4 style tank controls, save even clunkier. The worst part of these sequences is that they feel like blatant filler - just a way to fill the space. Apparently, the game wasn’t planned to have these sections at all originally, only being added as a result of executive pressures.
Instead, the main gameplay loop of these sections seems to have originally been a more puzzle based investigation. The best part of these sections are building the profile, from the clues you find in these combat zones. All these combat zones are investigating potential crime scenes for leads. This leads to seeing a cool film reel of the clues you picked up at the end, enabling York to work out a conclusion. It does a great job of bringing you back in at the end of a combat slog.
I am tempted to play it again. I probably won’t because the combat is so awful, but I think it is a game any fan of the Twin Peaks should push through the gameplay to experience at least once.