Some games are so infamous that making a proper review is tricky. You can start loving or hating it and end in a completely different mood altogether. How to properly convey this? Just mentioning the change in a review is an answer so simplistic it is almost insincere. Luckily, for these cases there is always the emo thing to do: write a diary.

Day 4

And thus, I beat the game.

Episodes 5 and 6 consisted only of the last boss fights, so they were over pretty quick.

Oh, Deadly Premonition, why have you slipped on that banana peel RIGHT BEFORE the finishing line? All was going so well: the assassin revelation made sense (so I will forgive you about the obvious script plot holes and that laughable Blanka you tried pulling on me) and then you masterly followed it with an that made my intestines twist and my brain explode inside my skull. I immediately remembered all the clues hidden in my subconscious and insulted myself for not being able to see that sooner. As “Amazing Grace” played while I approached the Clock Tower, the notion of this game’s greatness was solidifying inside my head.

But then you had to pull up the spiritual crap, didn’t you? You had to bring supernatural beings with no motivation whatsoever (other than they being “evil” ) to engage the player at the end, didn’t you? Sure, you delivered the game’s most dramatic moment right after the game’s most unintentionally hilarious line (“I’ve been soiled!”), but still! You had to pull that annoying Japanese convention of making all the spirits happy in a poor and shallow attempt to transform what could be a depressing, but memorable ending, into a fake optimistic conclusion. Worst of all, you attempted to explain Zach/York persona is a way I can only describe as “Saiyajin Switch-a-roo” as well as the Shadow enemies! Why the hell would you do that?

This greatly disappointing conclusion reminded me of the Rashomon ending. I could once call the game great or near great, but now I think it is only good. However, given its current price, it is still a must-buy.

Oh well, at least now I think I’ll be forever afraid of accidentally eating a watermelon seed again…

(By the way, I beat Deadly Premonition on Medium; so what’s the deal about not giving me an achievement for beating the game on Easy? Most other games would understand that beating a game on a higher difficulty already implies your capacity of beating it in an easier mode, so they give you already that achievement as well. I won’t play the game three times to get all achievements, if that’s what you are hoping, game!)

The previous entries can be found here:

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3

Tomorrow I’ll post the final entry of this report, containing the game’s postmortem. See you then?