Accidental Aesop: Smoking literally shaves hours off of York's life every time he lights up. About one full minute of smoking in game can shave off an ENTIRE DAY.
Adorkable: Ushah doesn't quite know how to handle the prospect of Fiona being interested in him, and it's pretty cute to watch him try to figure it out.
Alternative Character Interpretation: Willie, until Word of God kicked in. He's clearly more than just a normal dog if you paid attention, but is he benevolent or evil? Word of God says he's Kaysen's handler and connection to the Red Tree, but that just brings further questions.
Was Thomas a cis gay man who just enjoyed crossdressing or did it to appease George, or a trans woman? Most players assume the former, but there's more than plenty of sufficient evidence as to the latter, such as the fact that he or she is considered a "goddess of the forest". The game itself never explicitly states either interpretation, and in the Director's Cut we see Thomas return to wearing male clothes in the afterlife. Further muddling the issue is that York half-jokingly applies the term to himself after a close call, making it ambiguous how literal the gendering of "goddess" is even supposed to be.
The original Raincoat Killer. Harry's recollection of the events makes him out to be just as insane and bloodthirsty as the villagers, killing everyone and apparently enjoying it. The actual instance of playing as the Raincoat Killer still appears that way, but sheds a different light on him. Was the Raincoat Killer really enjoying killing the townsfolk he has lived alongside of for years? Or was he trying to Mercy Kill everyone, after he realized that he couldn't stop the purple fog and its effects?
Is York just an alternate personality for Zach, or is he a spirit of some form? The former seems to be the interpretation in the majority of the game, but in the Director's Cut ending cutscene, York mentions how much he likes humans, indicating he's not one. This would also explain how York was able to leave Zach and be with Emily in the forest.
Alternate Self Shipping: There's a not-insignificant following for York and Zach—the main character and his imaginary friend, who is technically his split personality. Although they technically share a body, it seems to be possible for them to meet and exist in separate bodies in the otherworld that appears in their dreams.
Breather Level: Thomas' Apartment is built up as a climactic level, but it turns out be a very short and simple segment. Unfortunately, the city becomes overrun by the Shadows right afterwards and the following "dungeon" (Galaxy of Terror) is among one of the most annoying in the game.
Complacent Gaming Syndrome: People prefer to use the machine guns on Shadows, despite them getting more and more effective and bullet resistant. It also doesn't help that a side quest that can easily be completed early in the game gives you one that has infinite bullets. It's probably due to the fact that successive headshots practically stun-lock Shadows until they're dead. This is somewhat countered by the introduction of Crawling Shadows; throwing More Dakka at them won't help much since they have limited windows of opportunity to damage them, so you'll want to focus on weapons that do more damage per strike instead.
Complete Monster (includes A Blessing in Disguise): Forrest Kaysen, initially appearing to be a friendly sapling salesman, is in truth a childishly sadistic agent of the Red Tree. A being hailing from the Red World who spreads chaos wherever he goes, Kaysen travels from town to town planting red seeds to spread his master's influence. On his own time, Kaysen goes from house to house raping women to make them give birth to his tree saplings, forcing the husbands to either shoot their wife or let her die a withered husk. This is the fate that bestowed upon Francis Zach Morgan's mother and father, with Kaysen scarring the young Zach and imprisoning him in the Red Room. During the 1950s, Kaysen helped the military spread a purple gas across Greenvale, which results in a massacre that wipes out the entire town. Traveling to Le Carre in 2005, Kaysen was responsible for Lena Dauman's murder spree, assisting her in the creation of the deadly drug Saint Rouge, which kills plenty of people across the country. Returning to Greenvale in 2010, Kaysen instigates the new Raincoat Killer murders out of sheer boredom, and impregnates Emily Wyatt with his sapling, getting joy from Zach's suffering. Even after his death, Kaysen's spirit continues to haunt a traumatized Zach, luring him back to Le Carre to become his new pet monster, and controlling Aaliyah in an attempt to kill Zach, Patricia, and York.
Crosses the Line Twice: When York talks about the cases he's been on previously, he mentions horrifying cases (such as one involving a man using skulls for everyday practices and a man who raped 800 people), but his skewed priorities when it comes down to the horribleness of the crime and the reactions of Emily, Thomas, and George make it very, very funny.
Cult Classic: It's got a relatively small fanbase, but those who like it call it either gaming's definition of So Bad, It's Good, or a rough, uncut diamond in a sea of polished, cut coal.
Demonic Spiders: The huge hellhounds that only appear at night. Enormous, scary, invincible... you have little choice but to run away from them. This isn't a big issue as long as you avoid going outside past midnight, but you will be forced to deal with those things in the game's very last stretch, which can make for a really nasty surprise for those who had no idea they even existed beforehand.
Punk York. Although never seen in-game, York's mention that he used to dress like a punk rocker captivated fans' imaginations. He shows up with regularity in fan art, and a punk costume for York was commonly speculated/asked for leading up to the Director's Cut.
Fans of Two Best Friends Play have also latched onto Quint as one of their favorites, due to Pat's antics and fury directed towards him and his sidequest, later resulting in repeated mockery.
Epileptic Trees: Are the Shadows citizens who were caught in the rain and mutated by the Red Seeds and purple fog? Are they the ghosts of the victims of the original massacre 50 years ago? Are they merely figments of York's imagination, and if so, how do they cause him real pain? Or perhaps they're monsters created by Kaysen, trying to prevent York from helping Zach get out of the Red Room? Word of God suggests it's the second one, but it's nowhere near conclusive.
Fashion-Victim Villain: George's tight leather jacket, pants, and spiked armbands. Combined with his rapidly growing physique, it squeaks and creaks so much you'd think he was fighting back a barrage of farts.
Game-Breaker: Legendary Guitar Grecotch, which, while slow, usually take out shadows in just one or two hits, and, due to the fact it's a quest item, will not break.
Arguably even better is the wrench, which is almost as strong as Grecotch, also indestructible, and much faster.
Weapons aside, the Weather Doll. When activated, your health will automatically regenerate, rendering all the first-aid kits you've been hoarding completely useless. There's a reason this is one of the hardest items to obtain, unlocked after completing Emily's sidequests which can only be done when it's raining, and at a specific time frame.
Genius Bonus: The Weather Doll is based on the Japanese teru teru bōzu tradition, where paper dolls are hanged outside the windows of a farm to inspire clear weather, or upside-down to inspire rainy weather.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Most of the game's cult fanbase mainly hail from North America. According to Swery, the game barely made a blip in its native Japan, but found a larger audience in the west. Being very similar to Twin Peaks probably helps.
Goddamned Bats: The wall crawler enemies which are unfortunately common during the second part of the game and take far too long to kill normally. They would be Demonic Spiders, except that they don't really pose a threat. They're just really tedious to fight without using an unintuitive alternate method. If you have unlocked the Wesley Special, they become a LOT easier.
Another option is you could use Legendary Guitar Grecotch and a shotgun, which can kill them in 13 secondsnote First, you shoot them with the shot gun, causing them to move over to the wall, when they complete their attempt to grab you, smash them with the guitar..
Good Bad Bugs: As Supergreatfriend's Let's Play can attest, at times, the characters animations while you're talking to them sort of break, resulting in gems like Emily, who is supposed to be drinking Alcohol, pouring it in her ear.
In the Director's Cut, having any DLC suits turns York's second default suit into an extremely... Colorful hybrid of a business suit and Hawaiian shirt.
Interacting with Willie when he's clipping into Kaysen can look most unfortunate.
Harsher in Hindsight: York's chainsmoking habit, which pisses off the Greenvale inhabitants, and the fandom's jokes about its ability to burn entire days off. Deadly Premonition 2 reveals at the beginning that Zach is suffering from terminal cancer only ten years later.
York has been taking care of Zach since they were seven years old. All the talking that York did to Zach helped him escape the red room that Kaysen had trapped him in. He isn't insane, he's just protecting the mind of a scared boy.
The ending with York and the goddesses at the diner.
He Really Can Act: Although some critics consider the game's voice acting to be poor due to the strange, hammy or stilted deliveries on certain lines, the events of the finale make it clear that at least York's seeming nonchalance to shocking events is appropriately deliberate and not just Dull Surprise. In contrast, despite sharing the same actor Zach sounds noticeably distinct from York, being far more emotional and having very realistic-sounding reactions to the bizarre events of the plot.
When you talk to General Lysander to activate his first sidequest, he'll start comparing sick soldiers to "the walking dead". Roger L. Jackson, his voice actor, would then voice Chuck in The Walking Dead (Telltale).
One of the music featured in this game is a sound-alike of one of the level themes of Super Mario World, despite the game isn't available on any Nintendo consoles. Cue the second game being Nintendo Switch exclusive and the first one getting ported in 2020.
Both of the McClaine siblings. Their attempts to kill Emily in order to Murder the Hypotenuse are certainly unjustified, but it's clear that they're the victims of severe physical and sexual abuse, especially if you pay close attention to Thomas during some of his off-hours.
Lysander, whose sidequest chain reveals that he wears his Sergeant uniform because a soldier he originally hated died after saving his life and he hates his own guts for surviving
York's chipper and oddly blasé way of speaking has gotten quite a bit of this. Isn't that right, Zach?
"F K"... In the coffee!* York's love of and his ability to somehow accurately divine future events from coffee is a popular subject of fanart.
York's grotesque attempts at a smile is beloved by fans for parodies and fanart.
It's a good thing "Life is Beautiful", also known as the whistle theme, is so catchy, given its tendency to play during inappropriate moments, and fans' finding ways to shoehorn it into even more inappropriate moments.
Michael Tillotson's aggressive Rhymes on a Dime speech would certainly do it. ...So says Mr. Stewart.
Misaimed "Realism": Your car can actually run out of gas and you have to fill it back up, yet during certain missions and checkpoint races, your car becomes invincible and has unlimited fuel, which makes you wonder why the developers bothered implementing such a pointless mechanic. It's possibly an excuse for more sidequests when it comes down to it.
Narm: All over the place. The chaotic sound design, some truly bizarre music choices, stilted line deliveries, graphical glitches, and exaggerated animations in dramatic cutscenes are just the tip of the iceberg.
Narm Charm: However, said Narm is a major part of the appeal for those who believe this game falls on the good side of So Bad, It's Good. While the awkwardness can cause a lot of unintentional laughs during moments that are not meant to be funny, it helps that the writing is largely sincere, that there are other scenes where the silliness is deliberate, and that the most important emotional moments are usually good about avoiding Narm.
The shadows are more goofy than scary with their funky limbo moves and slow garbled speech. At least, until one of them gets a hold of you and tries to shove its arm down your throat.
George and Kaysen's monster forms are pretty silly in design. One of them ends up looking like a Super Saiyan.
It honestly says something when Kaysen's first, giant blueberry-like form often compared to Violet Beauregarde is the creepiest out of the three forms he has.
Polished Port: If one's willing to contend with it being the original game rather than the Director's Cut, though that's not a high bar given the Porting Disaster issues below, the 360 version can be played on an Xbox One or Series console, running the game at a full 1080p resolution with stable framerates and no real glitches or issues compared to the later ports. It's the definitive way to play the game as the developers intended without compromising on the original release like the Director's Cut ports did.
Porting Disaster: Both versions of the Director's Cut count for different reasons.
The PS3 version suffered from horrid framerate problems that dip below 15 (on a system that, objectively, is more powerful than the 360).
The PC version is an incredibly barebones port that, unless a fan patch is used, is hard locked to 720p with no options. That's on top of a bug that corrupts your save file if the game crashes during the cutscene at the beginning of chapter 9, among other problems - worst of all, a gigantic memory leak that will crash the game after a few hours of continuous play, even with the patch installed.
Origins, which is based on the original release (and thus missing all of the adjustments of the Director's Cut), launched with an unfortunate glitch where being outdoors for barely a minute can mute several sounds and even make the whole game totally silent. Unlike the PC port, the developers were willing to patch this one ASAP.
The first level does NOT do a very good job of easing you into the game. In addition to introducing the weakest part of the game first, the combat, the combination of fussy controls, very few melee weapons, the weak starter pistol, a poorly placed patch of Respawning Enemies and the instant kill quick time event at the very end turn a lot of people away before the game even really starts. Thankfully, one of the Directors Cut's main touted features is that they've reworked the gunplay controls, making it slightly more bearable.
Gas mileage is very limitednote Though it can be upgraded for the generic police cars, and cars with better specs can also be obtained later, which is made particularly noticeable by the amount of driving necessary to move around the Wide-Open Sandbox world map. While this is largely a holdover from the similar mechanic in Mizzurna Falls, one of this game's major inspirations, technical advancements mean that the map in this game is much larger, and in this instance it is aggravated by...
The extremely zoomed in map screen. Not only does it make it needlessly hard to navigate the fairly large sandbox, but the map doesn't stay fixed unlike 99% of every other open world game. It actually ROTATES in the direction the player moves in. This would be annoying enough in a more polished game, but add the fact that several of the roads in town lead to dead ends or around objectives and it becomes infuriating. Add to it the gas meter mechanic and the fairly strict time frames for certain missions and you have a complete mess. Of all the things improved in the Directors Cut, who on earth decided it would be a good idea to exclude a semi-readable map?!
The segment in which you have to fish for evidence can be agonizing if you haven't gotten used to the fishing mechanic before hand.
So Bad, It's Good: Some claim that Deadly Premonition IS this trope in game form.
Or, as one Destructoid user put it, "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. WE HAVE FOUND GAMING'S CITIZEN KANE.".
Special Effect Failure: Okay, most of what we see in the game is actually not half bad, especially for a budget title, and a lot of the interior areas have quite good attention to detail. The outdoors (specifically, the woods) are another story entirely, with oft too repeated textures and sub-Dreamcast level tree textures floating in the air. Of course, for some, that's part of the charm.
Stock monkey sound effects are used for squirrels in an early cutscene.
The game has been criticized by a lot of people who notice that the game's soundtrack and voice audio quality can be weird. What's probably one of the most consistent errors is that the music in the game will drown out characters speaking.
Spiritual Licensee: A lot of people on the internet have compared it to Twin Peaks, even more so before the game came out, before the game was changed in response.
Squick: It is a horror game. Even so, York's description of a past case he's involved himself in a particular scene was more grating than what actually happens. It's somehow borderline worse.
The song that plays while racing is very reminiscent of "American Idiot". On the soundtrack the song is even named "Racing Idiot".
Tear Jerker: A good deal of the ending sequence. Particularly the Playable Epilogue, where York's deadpan movie chats are replaced with Zach monologuing to York and Emily, his last chance before he leaves them behind - as far as we know, for good.
That One Sidequest: Emily's sidequests, due to them having stringent requirements to even access them (18:00 on a rainy night, still a chance of not being able to even with those fulfilled) on top of the 1 quest per quest giver per chapter limit. You'll more than likely end up replaying early chapters just to get them done. The worst part is the items you need to complete said sidequests are not available at the very time you figure out that you need them, so if you haven't already obtained them beforehand, you're just gonna have to wait until the next rainy evening comes along. In fairness, though, the reward at the end almost makes up for it (see Game-Breaker above).
The first two victims are found in a crucified pose.
The upside-down peace sign.
Both of these are actually Red Herrings, believe it or not. The poses the victims are in and the signs are supposed to be trees.
The usage of Amazing Freaking Grace in the infamous scene near the end. When you go by the original religious intent of the song (that no one is beyond redemption, regardless of their sins in life, and that we all are able to do the right thing) and what the character is trying to do: get to the clocktower and stop the gas, according to the director.
The Woobie: Many, many people in Greenvale seem to fit this, such as Olivia, who thinks her husband is cheating on her.
aka the Whistle Theme, the incredibly catchy tune that has become the game's Signature Song.
