At least Capcom gets credit for bringing Dead Rising into compliance with canonical zombie fiction, despite the game limping out of the seventh-generation tomb for its second remaster. In other words, it is officially now a corpse that is refusing to stay dead as well. But Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is deserving of praise for more than that. Several deft gameplay adjustments by Capcom have made it less difficult to survive in a zombie-infested mall than twenty years ago. Still, they haven’t compromised the difficult, time-limited nature of the original game. Though occasionally creaky combat is showing its age through a modern lens, the result is the finest way to play what is still the best Dead Rising game, especially when combined with a brand-new visual upgrade.
Video game remakes and remasters that are already excellent can be a little difficult to evaluate. Like The Last of Us Part 1, which is a remake of an already-excellent remaster that was difficult to fault on a platform that was only one generation old, they can be amazing yet unavoidably inessential. On the other hand, they might only represent a little improvement in resolution, similar to the 2019 remaster of Ghostbusters: The Video Game from 2009. Though I love Ghostbusters, what did the re-release of the game as a custom product accomplish that the free “Enhanced” 4K updates for other Xbox 360 games did not, aside from keeping it off of Sony’s PS3?
Kill ’em Mall
To be clear, even though it uses the same RE Engine as the most recent Resident Evil remakes, this is not a complete overhaul in the vein of its zombie Capcom relatives. Conversations and cutscenes share the same rigging, and much of the time it does feel like the 2006 classic is grinding away beneath the slick exterior.
Although there has been a significant visual upgrade, given the 18-year-old source material, this is not a startling discovery. The facial animations now have a level of fidelity that was before almost nonexistent. Regarding the older and more weary Frank West in Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, I honestly have no opinion. Less heartthrob, and more dad bod—I can’t tell the difference. But this time, his shoulders seem a little more massive, and I am envious. The guy is constructed like a 4:3 man in a widescreen environment.
In any case, the true attraction here is still the Willamette Parkview Mall’s universe. I was very nostalgic exploring the intricate boutiques, each with its unique themes and selections of weaponized products. This was especially true as Willamette has four CD and DVD stores, which I miss.
The true star of this place is still the universe which is Willamette Parkview Mall.
However, it is not without flaws. Regrettably, pop-ins are especially common in the outdoor Leisure Park region. Additionally, there are sporadic textures that never seem to sharpen up, and there are some clear indications of AI-upscaled gibberish (on a door plaque that is conspicuously closed in our faces during an early cutscene, no less), which do raise questions about how many human eyes saw these assets before they were included in the final product.
Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster has made some significant changes, although they have more to do with the game’s spirit than its appearance. I quickly adapted to the new controls, even though the original control scheme is still present. There was no way I could turn back now.
One significant change is the ability to move while aiming. This is largely responsible for the new controls feeling significantly less clunky, even though it makes cheesing some of the more difficult bosses much easier. Special maneuvers that formerly required skilled control of the right stick have been replaced with button pushes. Conversely, responding to radio calls and giving orders to the survivors you are escorting have been transferred to analog stick pressing, so we can keep going in any direction without being stopped. I discovered that I could move without missing a beat while I jogged, carved a path through zombies, and yelled commands at the stupid Mallrats I had gathered.
The fact that the survivors have notably improved intelligence from the original also helps. They still occasionally have pathfinding issues, and when leading big herds, things can go a little wonky, but all in all, it’s a nice improvement.
Navigation has also been significantly enhanced, and weapon durability is now depicted. A functional compass and distance markers have taken the place of the original’s hazy arrow, making it easier to determine when new objectives are nearby and to discern when objective locations are on different floors. It makes it much simpler to decide whether to redirect attention to a recently discovered survivor on, say, your current journey back to the security room. It saves time when combined with the new auto-save mechanism. In Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, I’ve seen significantly larger groups of survivors than I ever would have in 2006.
While the continuous loading times between locations in 2024 are undoubtedly tiring, the auto-saves that occur when you move between them are revolutionary. The original Dead Rising was indeed infused with some degree of frustration. It required players to make quick and tough choices, accept sometimes unfavorable concessions, and improvise when things didn’t go as planned. Nevertheless, I believe the new auto-save feature is a reasonable and cutting-edge compromise. That makes Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster easier, but it’s still a very time-sensitive game that requires a lot of spinning of plates.
Wrecking Mall
On the other hand, some adjustments—like some of the re-recorded voice acting—don’t work. Although there are moments when the survivor talk seems like a different person than you initially spoke to, it’s a good thing that all of the survivor and radio dialogue has been fully voiced. But some of the stand-in performances for the main characters are a bit more forced, which only serves to emphasize how awful some of the script’s most awkward lines are.
About the narrative, there are a few other somewhat perplexing changes as well, but none more so than the removal of Cliff’s Vietnam War veteran background. To refresh your memory, Cliff is the “psychopath” that can be found in Crislip’s Home Saloon. He has completely lost contact with reality as a result of the zombie outbreak, and the horrors of it have pushed him back into combat. I could understand if there was a real worry about trivializing PTSD in combat veterans, but Cliff is still clearly a member of the armed forces. It seems as though someone objected to Cliff calling Frank a “filthy communist.” That’s a rather ridiculous form of censoring in a game that, for example, felt it appropriate to keep its hot hostage-taking cop intact.
Unfortunately, something so insignificant has taken precedence over features that may have improved Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, even though it’s hardly a game-breaking issue. For example, the Humvee’s prisoner psychopaths still reappear after a few hours. It doesn’t make sense and has always seemed like a mistake (or, at the very least, a cheap trick to pull on gamers). That is not how any other special psychopath responds.
Eventually, the roof-level elevator is perpetually packed with zombies. That was foolish back then, as it is now. It would be shocking if it were occasionally overrun by zombies. As it is, it’s just tedious, especially when you can activate the elevator by simply darting in and spamming interactions. No matter how many zombies were in the lift, as long as your survivors were near enough to it to begin with, you’ll all still look secure on the deserted roof. That might have been improved by Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster.
But perhaps it couldn’t have. Perhaps some of the jank is ingrained in the gameplay too much to be changed without also breaking other things. By today’s standards, I suppose it’s not the only stuff that sounds a little off. We’re talking about a game where your goal is to use a sniper rifle to shoot a woman in the face until she stops screaming or to shoot a man until he gets away unharmed, leaving your ally severely injured with the only shot that seemed to matter during the entire shootout. It’s old, hey. It’s how we operated in the past.
Verdict
Above all, the Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster maintains the experience of the cult classic while including some sensible and much-needed modern touches, like as auto-saving, a new navigation system, and NPCs that don’t seem to mind getting lunch for themselves. Returning to the Willamette Parkview Mall after a long absence serves as a poignant reminder of how outstanding the first Dead Rising was in 2006. While several other annoying issues remain unaddressed, the new voice acting is not quite satisfactory. It is still almost as compulsive as it was over twenty years ago, luring as many unlucky customers as possible back through hordes of festering zombies. Any fantastic game (or reasonably successful zombie, for that matter) will, at the very least, make me want to play it again now that I’ve taken the time to put this review up.
