A gruesome murder occurs in a sleepy American town. You’re sent as a rookie FBI agent to find answers behind the killing. When you arrive you realise the murder is the least of your worries, as the town is plagued by supernatural beings. Will Leigh find the killer, or will the things that go bump in the night get the better of him? Find out in his Deadly Premonition: Origins Switch Review.

To note, a review code for the game was supplied by the game’s EU and AUS publisher Numskull Games.

A Deadly Premonition

Deadly Premonition: Origins (DPO) is a cult classic. It follows FBI agent Francis York Morgan (or just York to his colleagues) in his first big mission. York has been sent to a little town in rural Washington called Greenvale. A terrible murder has taken place there and York has to find the killer.

Greenvale is shocked by its first homicide of a young woman called Anna. The girl was found by two boys in the woods. She was left hanging from an oak tree with with her tongue removed and her belly cut open. As you can probably tell already, DPO is not your typical Nintendo family game!

During York’s journey to the small town he suffers a car accident, landing him in spot of trouble. Well, ‘a spot’ is putting it lightly. He encounters a bunch of undead monsters lurking within the woods surrounding Greenvale. After a quick escape, he eventually meets up with a Sheriff of the town, George Woodman, who becomes his new partner.

What we soon learn is that York isn’t an ordinarily agent. He has a special gift or should I say special guide. He is accompanied by a spirit guide called Zach, who can speak to him and help him in his cases. In addition, York gets premonitions from Zach, which lets him solve cases in the past and see into future events.

Weird world of Greenvale

Greenvale is strange town that houses a multitude of strange individuals. The town is surround by dense woodland and large open lakes. On the surface you’d say it sounds like a peaceful getaway. However, there is dark energy that flows through the town, which all starts when it rains. Just a drop of moisture forces the locals indoors. This is because of an urban myth about a red raincoated killer that comes out when it’s raining!

Getting around town.

The town of Greenvale is a big place to explore but thankfully you won’t have to run to each destination. Instead you are given a cop car or truck to traverse the surrounding areas.

During your free-roam time you will have to refuel your car at the petrol station in Greenvale. This requires cash, which you earn from completing missions in the game.

A real life clock ticks during your free-roam sections and certain shops, bars and art galleries are only open at certain times- just like in the real world. This means sometimes you’ll have to wait around until a specific time before you can enter an important location. This may seem like a way to pad out the game’s length, however, there are activities to keep you busy.

Activities include: fishing, side quests and joy riding around town. As well as collecting trading cards that can be found all over Greenvale. These side activities can help pass the time before continuing on with your investigation.

Though there are enjoyable sights in free roam, the game’s performance struggles whilst you’re driving. The frame-rate dips below 30fps during these areas, often giving me motion sickness as I drove from location to location.

It’s a shame because I liked the sense of freedom you have as you drive around Greenvale. Plus, as you drive you can press the A button and York will talk a little bit about himself. It’s a perfect way to add character to the main protagonist and it kills time whilst driving. However, the frame-rate totally turned me off the driving in the game.

Voice acting

I was pleasantly surprised with was the voice acting in DPO. While sometimes corny and overly dramatic, the voice acting was really well done. The cast characters are completely off the wall and the VA added to their weirdness. I seriously wouldn’t want meet some of these people in a dark alley- that’s for sure.

You have to remember, the game originally came out in 2010 so the animation is a little janky. At times it was off-putting and almost scary, but it fitted the off putting and scary characters very well. It felt like this was done on purpose, to make the town folk seem a little crazier and wackier.

Agent York

Our main hero / investigator York is quite a character in his own right. With his spirit guide Zach, they both play an important part in the story. The story intertwines into the past and present, making this a story driven experience that I actually wanted to play to its conclusion.

Controlling York is fairly easy. You move him around with the analog stick, interact with persons of interest with the A button or observe what they’re doing with press of the X button.

You can hold your breath and crouch to avoid the undead creatures with the ZR trigger. Sprinting is mapped to the ZL trigger, with a quirky mechanic that makes you watch your heartbeat. Get your heart beating too fast and you’ll run out breath and stop running.

L bumper will draw your weapon and you fire with the R bummer, reloading with the B button. You can also select a new weapon by using the d-pad or check out your map and inventory by pressing the + button. There is an encumbrance limit with your inventory, so be careful what you pick up. But feel free to use your weapons case to hold items for safe keeping.

Overall, controls can feel a little ‘old-school’ but I found them surprisingly easy to use. I liked the aiming as it reminded me of Resident Evil 4’s aiming, which is like Marmite- you either like it or you don’t.

Episodes – Recap

Like your favourite TV show, after loading up your save file you’ll get a recap of events that have taken place. This is a useful feature if you haven’t played in a while. It gets you back up to speed with recent events and quickly back into the swing of things.

Premonition events

In DPO you won’t just be exploring and shooting, there are a few quick time events that will occur during your play time.

The most memorable one was a scene in which I needed to hide from the killer in a locker. The screen is split into two halves- one for my view point and the other for the killer. It was a unique experience and something I haven’t seen in other titles before. Following which, a quick-time event springs into action. I had to wiggle the analog stick to make York run through a corridor. It reminded me of the trench run from Star Wars, I had to think quickly and smash buttons to make him dodge incoming projectiles. It was intense and broke up the game nicely.

However, in my opinion it was a little too harsh. If you missed any button you’d have to start the section over. It might have been more player friendly if you had three chances before you had to restart from the beginning.

Eat, Sleep, Detective, Repeat.

Survival mechanics in the game mean you’ll need to sleep and eat throughout the day. To keep your hunger levels up, food items can be bought at a variety of shops around town. For sleep you’ll need make sure you take regular naps in between missions. Otherwise York will be a sleepy boi!

It’s a strange implementation that I don’t think really needs to be there. I think it might be a sign of the times, as survival games were really starting to take off back then. However, I found it more annoying than anything else.

Going door to door

Going door to door in Greenvale is a great way to find clues for your investigation. You can peek through windows (creepy, I know) and knocking on doors allows you question locals. This helps when finding ‘key clues’, which can be put together to see events in the past and future of the story. It also lets you get to know some more of the creepy residents of Greenvale.

Weirdly Wonderful

There’s alot of strange sh*t that happens over course of your investigation. One example is leaving your hotel room in the dead of night and seeing a blood red moon. The blood moon awakens all the dark entities of the town that start shambling towards you.

There so many strange and unexplained events in DPO, I could write a whole book about them…

Dead Premonitions is unique with its incredibly weird but in some respects wonderful story and setting. Nevertheless, it does have some issues too.

Problems arose

One of my biggest issues that I’ve already spoken about is free-roam parts of the game. Alongside the dipping frame-rate, the car controls in free-roam are possibly the worst controls I’ve ever had to use. The car is extremely twitchy. Push on the steering wheel too much and you will fly off the road and into a wall- it’s that bad.

I also ran into multiple bugs where my vehicle would hit an invisible bump causing it to fly through the air. In addition, there were no engine noises from the car, it’s completely silent. Either this car is a Tesla or there’s some bug that still needs fixing. Plus, everytime I parked my car it would start to shake uncontrollably for no reason. You could argue it adds to the creepiness of the game but again, I think it’s another bug.

Its clear the DPO isn’t perfect and still suffers from multiple issues.

A cult classic brought to the modern gen.

Deadly Premonition is one of those games I didn’t think we’d ever see on a modern generation console. It has a popular cult following, with fans putting it in the echelon of weird but wonderful entertainment, alongside shows like Twin Peaks and Lost- both of which were know for their wacky stories and interesting characters. I think Numskull Games have struck gold with bringing the game to Switch, as it opens up the game and to a new generation of players.

However, we can’t forget that this is a remaster of a game made nearly 10 years ago, and the age shows. The animations are awkward and look their age. The controls for the car are extremely difficult to handle and the fram-rate dips frequently in the free-roam area, causing me to get motion sickness. Plus, there were lots of bugs I found in the game that even after 9 years still haven’t been fixed.

Nevertheless, the story was great and so were the characters, brought to life by excellent voice acting. If you’re looking for something a little different on the Switch then I’d highly recommend Deadly Premonition: Origins- just be aware of its flaws!

That’s why I give Deadly Premonition: Origins by Numskull Games my rating of

What did you think of Leigh Deadly Premonition: Origins Switch Review? Will you be picking it up? It seems like a perfect game for Halloween. Let us know over on Twitter or come and join the SIF Discord server.

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