A Look at Deadly Premonition: The Director’s Cut: Ultimate Edition

Back in May of this year, I reviewed the Director’s Cut of Deadly Premonition aka Red Seeds Profile. I absolutely adored it, and even here in late October, it’s one of my two favorite games of 2013, along with Shadowrun Returns. I actually platinum’d it, something I rarely ever set out to do, and my wife still quotes dialogue from the game. I never bothered to purchase any of the DLC though, as by the time any of it came out, I had already 100%’d the game. One of the perks and downsides to being a reviewer I suppose. See also the currently available DLC for Disgaea D2. So when Rising Star Games offered us a review copy of Deadly Premonition: The Director’s Cut: Ultimate Edition, which was a bundle of the core game and all the DLC, of course I jumped at it.

Now I’ve already reviewed Deadly Premonition: The Director’s Cut, and there’s not much more I can say about the game, so this is going to be more of a look at the bundle and the DLC. I strongly suggest you read my review of the game first so you can see why I love it so much, and to better understand this featurette on the Ultimate Edition.

The first thing you need to know is that the Deadly Premonition Ultimate Edition bundle is only $29.99. Now the DLC free disc version is still $39.99 in stores like Amazon and Gamestop, so not only is the Ultimate Edition loaded with the DLC, but it is ten dollars cheaper. The downside is that the Ultimate Edition is digital only, and the game alone clocks in at a little over 13 gigabytes, with the DLC bringing the game up to roughly 14. If you have a PS3 with a smaller hard drive, this is going to take up a lot of room.

As well, it is worth noting that the digital and disc versions of Deadly Premonition DO NOT work together. At first I just tried loading the DLC and using it with my disc based version of the game, but I received an error message that the two were incompatible and that I should delete the digital DLC in order to run my disc version. Then, when I downloaded the full 13 GB digital version, I COULD use the DLC options, but I could not use my save that came from all those hours put into the disc version. It simply wouldn’t recognize it, despite being the same exact game. I’ve never had that problem mixing digital and disc based games on my PS3. I’ve done it with games like Time and Eternity, so I’m not sure WHY the two versions of this game just don’t like each other. So heads up, if you were thinking of trading in the physical copy of Deadly Premonition and using your old save with this one. For the curious, the trophy list is shared between the two versions, making my confusion about the whole thing all the greater.

There are seventeen pieces of DLC with the Ultimate Edition. You get five suits for Francis York Morgan, two for Emily, three new cars, one car skin, the ability to purchase a house in Greenvale (instead of staying at the hotel) and five PSN avatars. I currently have the Raincoat Killer as my Avatar on PSN. However, you can only have one of each type active in a game. So I can’t have all five suits in my briefcase to change into. I can only have one of the DLC suits in addition to those already in the core game. That’s an odd and highly disappointing decision. It also sucks that I can’t have all three cars in the game hiding somewhere in Greenvale either, but it is what it is. At least it makes sense that you can only have one of Emily’s outfits active at a time (cat girl or evening dress), but it’s odd to have all these options and not be able to take advantage them. You’ll have to go into the “Add-On DLC” menu, which is on the same screen where you decide to start a new game or load a saved one, and pick one from each of the suit, car, Emily and house options.

So which DLC option is best for you? Well the Emily outfit skin is really up to your own personal tastes, but I prefer classy and sultry over furrie any day. You only have the one house option, and it’s worth having, as it is more centrally located than the hotel, but you DO need to buy the house before you can use it. With the cars, the Chibi Chibi Bang Bang skin is useless, as it does nothing but change the appearance of your vehicle. It is adorable and creepy at the same time though. The Devil’s Red has high speed and acceleration, making it a good choice (besides York’s Ultimate car) to do the plot sub-quests with. The Blue GT is the best in terms of handling, so it’s nice for the obstacle courses. The Green Drifter just… drifts really well, and so is the weakest of the three cars.

In terms of York’s suits, the Espresso suit doubles your resistance to hunger and sleep, which is great for exploring Greenvale. The High Roller and Happy Songkran suits triple your money rewards, which can net you things faster, but I always had more money than I needed in my original playthrough, so these sound better than they really are. The Field Ops suit gives you triple Hit Points and attack damage, which is awesome if you have problems getting through the game. I found combat to be almost too easy though, so this is probably best doing the battle quests and the boss run mission in the post game. Finally we come to what I feel is the best suit in the game – The Special Ops suit. It gives you a little bit of everything. It doubles your Hit Points, Attack, the money you receive and your resistance to hunger and tiredness. It’s definitely the best suit in the game, and it should let you plow through things easily. Just remember you do have to change clothes unless you want characters to comment on your stinkiness.

…and that’s pretty much the game. It’s great to get all the DLC and the game for a lower price than the physical copy currently runs for, but it does suck that the two versions of the game aren’t compatible with each other. The DLC is cute and I’m sure I would have enjoyed it/appreciated it more had it been my first playthrough, but the only thing I found to be an excellent addition to the core game is the Greenvale Real Estate purchase option. The suits, Emily skins and cars are all fine for what they are, but they don’t really impact the game unless you are exceptionally bad at playing Deadly Premonition in the first place. It’s all fun but unnecessary add-ons. That said, the Director’s Cut: Ultimate Edition is definitely the way to go if you haven’t picked up Deadly Premonition yet. After all, it’s all the DLC and it costs less than the physical copy by ten dollars. If you already have the physical copy of the game, you can pass on this, as the DLC doesn’t really add anything to the game and it won’t be compatible with your physical game save anyway. Still Deadly Premonition is an amazing game and you should definitely get SOME version of the game. Heck, it’s on Steam now so even PC gamers can enjoy it!


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