Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise

Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise isn't so bad that it's good, it's just average and technically rough.

Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing In Disguise is a welcoming return to its strange and absurd world, but feels diluted and missing many of the flavor notes that defined its predecessor.

A characterful, frequently charming sequel that doesn't quite match up to the original - and somehow performs worse.

I'm going to tell you something that I can't easily explain: When I advance the quest, I'm having fun. I barely know why, in the same way that it's difficult to explain why paying off a mortgage in Animal Crossing is fun.

Revisiting Deadly Premonition's unique sensibility is fun, but aggressively poor production values and shallow gameplay make it tough to stick around

It's a weird game to review because so many people are going to expect drastically different things. How many games force you to shave and send your clothes up for dry cleaning? How many times can you say that you hexed an old widow so that you could go bowling in the past...oh say decade or so? Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise is another trip. You've been warned.

Veterans of the first game won't be expecting a technical tour-de-force, but Deadly Premonition 2 still manages to underwhelm in pure performance terms. However (and this is a big however), it's a game with real character and it's very tough to dislike, even as you stutter your way around Le Carré on your skateboard. If you've ever been intrigued by the original, we'd recommend giving this a go. It's janky and derivative, yes, but it's also irresistibly wonderful and strange, and there's no other video game quite like it.

Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise is as bonkers as you'd expect and fans will no doubt enjoy catching up with Agent York, but a lack of atmosphere, dull action, serious technical issues, and the creeping sense that Swery is becoming a touch too self-aware conspire to kill the fun. Deadly Premonition 2 is for the hardcores – most other folks can safely close their investigation after finishing the first game.

In the end, a traditional review may be rather pointless, since the Deadly Premonition games operate on the same level as a film such as The Return of Captain Invincible (possibly the lone cult '80s film that York shockingly doesn't reference): something that operates on a completely different plane of reality than the rest of us, one where the mere notions of "good" and "bad" don't really apply.

However, I love the character of Francis Morgan, and, as such, I love a lot of the insight into him that Deadly Premonition 2 gives (even though some of it isn’t particularly well-executed). He’s the most convincing reason to play this game at all, and it’s really great as a character exploration. That got me through to the end credits. And it could maybe get me through it again if I feel like reconnecting at some point. But the game itself is a bland, joyless slog. It’s almost unreal. And not in a good way.