When Capcom revealed that the original Dead Rising was getting the remaster treatment, it honestly took me a moment, as I recalled playing the original and the rest, quite fondly. Then I realised that the original released in 2006, making it now 18 years since that zombie slaying/survival game released. Does this remaster breath new life into this undead classic, or has the gameplay just rotted to much by now?

I won’t dive into the story in depth here, as it is the same story that players have known for 18 years. Frank West is a freelance photojournalist, who after getting a tip that something strange is going on in the small town of Willamette, heads there and quickly discovers that Zombies are running amok. While there are people that are surviving, Frank’s main goal is to get the facts and then get out of town via his hired helicopter, but he keeps getting pulled into helping others. Brad and Jessie are government agents who are in town for a mysterious reason, there are countless survivors and more than a few psychopaths. The games main hook is that you have 72 hours to try to and discover all about what is going on, before you attempt to escape. What makes the story unique is that depending on what you do, you will experience different things from other players, even if you just focus on the main story thread, your experience will vary. The game also has multiple endings and depending on how you do, your ending might not be the good ones, or even the correct one.

The major change to the game this time is with the core gameplay, the running around the mall and wearing random items is still present, but now it no longer feels like you are controlling a melting block of ice as you do so. In the original game, Frank was very rigid, from his movement to his inability to move while aiming, thankfully that has all be updated in this release. When you first start the game, it will ask if you want to play with the new controls or the old, don’t worry though you can swap between them in the game at any time. I opted for the new control scheme as it just made more sense and from the moment I started running from the zombies, it felt right. Stepping back out into the mall, there was a lot that just felt so familiar to me, but early on I noticed a lot of quality of life improvements that made the game just more approachable. The biggest change you will notice from the outset is that your items now display their durability on the screen, so when you have picked up an umbrella or guitar, a small bar appears under the icon, showing how long you have until it breaks.

Another major change to the game is the updates to the photography mode, now giving you more controls over the shots you take. Originally you could take photos and that was about it, and as long as people or enemies were in shot you were good, but now you have filters and focus pull, not that I took advantage of all that. Of course, taking photos is a great way to earn PP, which of course levels Frank up and unlocks new abilities. Playing through the game, I couldn’t help but marvel at the number of abilities Frank ‘learnt’ as he slaughtered zombies, such as rugby charges and elbow slams. Some of the moves I found to be kind of lame, but others were very helpful, I myself would often jump kick my way through, especially when there were a lot. Zombies were not the only threat Frank had to deal with and the psychopaths were just as much fun this time around as they were last time. Jo Slade was a character I hated in the original release and now I still hate her, but this time it was likely due to the fact I tried to take her down with a single bar of health. There are some that you will encounter as you play through the main story, but the rest will be delivered to you via scoops, which you can ignore if you wanted to. The more scoops you attempt to complete, the more PP you can earn and the more Frank can level up, which in turn gives you more abilities and stat upgrades.

There is another way to earn PP and that is just by slaughtering as many of the undead as you possibly can, sometimes it is a perfect way to kill some time. Before I get into zombie exterminating techniques, another change to the game is that you can now fast forward through the time, usually at couches or save points. This is great if you want to speed through the story mode and are not worried about getting scoops under your belt, of course the other way is by taking down as many zombies as you can. Here is where the game originally shined and it does so fairly well here this time around, at least for the most part.

The games presentation has been given a serious boost, with the characters, items and the world all looking great, the problem is that the game can honestly not handle the zombie horde. There were more times than I can count, when I would leave the security room and enter the mall, only to find a handful of zombies around, but then as I would head into a direction, the game would load in more. The problem is that the game struggles is the small spaces, it loads horribly when you go into the underground access tunnels or outside into the park in the center of the mall. The zombies were spawning in so badly in the outside portion of the mall, I legit questioned if I was playing Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster or Dead Rising: Chop til you Drop on Wii. The updates to the visual are honestly just that, updates, characters might look nicer, but they don’t behave better than before. A prime example is with hair, Isabella was a constant reminder, her hair is fixed in place and whenever she tilted her head to the side, her hair would clip through her. The problem with the visual update is that every time the game fails to load in zombies or has issues of clipping, it just breaks the immersion and sure you can argue a game about running around a mall dressed as Mega Man, while pushing a shopping cart covered in pointy objects, is not really immersive, but I stand by my point. The game is releasing digitally first and then physically later this year, so hopefully they can patch the experience, so by the time it arrives in stores, it’s a better experience.

On the sound side of things, the game is now fully voiced, which means all the survivors will call for help, point things out to Frank when he is helping them and of course, story moments feel better. The games effects have also been remastered, so guns sound better, the toy laser sword sounds more toy like and yes even the zombies give of nicer undead groans. The music is good, sometimes it heightens the action that is taking place on screen, the previously mentioned psychopaths get some nice tracks, but it does have issues with the audio. Once the prisoners appear in the park space, the game tends to use the same piece of music over and over again. There are also folks who can speak, who often repeat the same dialogue when they see you, which isn’t a great concern early on, but does quickly become a bit of a nightmare.

It is hard to recommend Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster to those who never played the original, as the updates to the game make it far more enjoyable, auto-saving is a blessing now, but some of the updates fall short of where the series ended with Dead Rising 4 that released in 2016. That is not to say that this is a bad game, it was honestly quite fun to run around the mall again and cause a little chaos as I did, but the default mode might not be for everyone. With a nice story, fun gameplay and more zombies than you can run over with a shopping trolley, there is a lot to enjoy here, but I feel that a remake would have made the game truly remarkable.