Recent reviews by Dods

You attack and remove the final boss's armor piece by piece only to give him a Disney villain death

It's bizarre how this game's legacy is Chad dancing to California Gurls while Jason is either downed or killing someone

Definitely better than the 1st game

It's alright but the bugs ruin the experience.

You have to punch the Pope to win the game

This is a bad Dead Rising Game. Only get it with a discount and if you want to waste your time.

The Dead Rising series is known for a lot of things and a lot of that are missing here. Other reviews have already pointed this out so if you plan on playing this with the expectations based on the previous games then you will be very disappointed.

Story wise, Frank has a different personality now. Sure we can chalk it up to trauma that he had through the years but it feels like you are playing as a different person now. Frank wasn't really nice in the previous games but he isn't a ♥♥♥♥ either and he genuinely wants to help the survivors. In here, Frank is just a jerk who only becomes likable at the end of Case 5. I even read a head-canon that this Frank is a psychopath named Hank East that thinks he is Frank West. Honestly, I would rather have that story.

Aside from Frank, almost none of the characters are likeable. Vick starts as someone who looks up to Frank and is out to get the story but turns a complete 180 at the end of the first case. Brad is alright but I wished they gave him more role than just a handler and the lockpick guy in some areas of the game. Tom is someone you will rightfully hate but it is so obvious what his role in the plot is. Darcy and Paula are obnoxious. Dr. Blackburne is there to give information in exchange for a way out but later betrays you. Hammond is honestly the only likeable character in the game. The maniacs are basically psychopaths without stories. Calder is built as this mysterious monster but he is already spoiled in the Steam Trading cards. The PMC commander and her enforcer is pretty much forgettable. I can't comment on the multiplayer characters as I haven't played it and the MP is dead.

The gameplay is more closer to DR3 than the previous ones. It has an open area like 3 but they did remove the timer to focus more on exploration. In regards to the exploration, blueprints are fine but the other collectibles are just a checkbox that are just there to extend your playtime. I think I might have finished the game much quicker if I ignored the collectibles.

The inventory system is changed. You now have 4 seperate slots: throwable , melee, ranged, food. Gone are the days where you would contemplate getting more food than weapons or analyzing whether you should bring more guns than melee. Food are now slumped into one category and heals the same amount of health. Back then you would determine which kind of food to bring if you know you'll be facing a boss or if you will eat a spoiled food just to heal. They also removed puking so you will no longer puke when drinking multiple alcoholic drinks and spoiled food are gone. Mixed drinks are also gone.

For the combo weapons, they retained the ability to create combo weapons on fly. It made sense in 3 as Nick is a mechanic and has a lot of experience making stuff. Frank on the other hand, is just a photographer and a writer. Gameplay and story segregation, I guess. The combo weapons are easy to make and so strong, non combo weapons are basically useless. This also removes the difficulty in the previous games where you are forced to use an object or save it until you can find a workbench to make a combo weapon.

As the timer and escort missions are removed, the difficulty has been drastically decreased. You can basically zone out while playing and it will still be hard for you to die in game. They did add a harder difficulty but this just increases enemy damage. The difficulty in the previous games wasn't the enemy damage or the special zombies, it was prioritizing objectives based on your time limit while escorting survivors with bad AI. Increasing the enemy damage doesn't make it more fun or challenging, just frustrating.

Driving is alright. There are combo vehicles but they aren't that notable to me and any vehicle will do if you plan on mowing zombies left and right.

The exo suit is alright. I just hated how the model sometimes reverts to the default one even though you have weapons equipped then reverts back; this is noticable when eating. Finishing the game rewards you a special suit in the safehouse which is fun to use but the only problem that I have is that it has a time limit and can only be equipped in the safe house so it's only useful in killing zombies near the safehouse.

For the enemies, there are two types of enemies: Zombies and Humans. For the human enemies, there are the Obscuris PMC and the hostile survivors. They mostly act the same and only differs in equipment. Hostile survivors use whatever weapons they can find. Obscuris on the other hand has more standard weaponry and do have exo suit wearing units. Obscuris and the survivors will fight each other which is a nice touch. The zombies still include the slow walking dumb zombie and a couple of special zombies. Dumb zombies are greater in numbers now but they don't grab you as much compared to the previous games so they aren't much of a threat. Fresh zombies are just fast zombies that can grab you. Evolved zombies has a more aggressive grab, deafening scream and can jump on walls. Both special zombies can block continued melee attacks so you should mix between the two attack buttons or just shoot them.

The bosses aren't memorable. Psychopaths are gone and replaced with maniacs which are basically the same thing minus cutscenes, lore and personality.

Coop mode is now gone and replaced with a multiplayer mode. I haven't tried it so I can't really make any comments about it.

The game also included a mini golf. It was pretty fun at first but I got bored after doing all holes. This looks more fun in multiplayer but MP in this game is dead.

Capcom Heroes is something that was better than the base game. Your attacks are now based on your costumes (Ryu can do a hadoken, Megaman can use his buster) and there are challenges to unlock other costumes. A much more fun alternative but left a sour taste in me as the game kept crashing on this mode at the end of case 5. Old forum posts also indicates that other people were having this issue as well with no fix.

Overall not a good Dead Rising game. A zombie mowing game that is pretty much below average at best.

Pretty fun and difficult game although the difficulty is artificially increased by clunky controls and poor survivor AI.

While the gameplay is great, you can feel that this is an incomplete game. The DLC are also too expensive for what they offer compared to the previous game.

Avoid this for now and let them cook a bit.

Update: It's good for now

I hired Johnny Bravo and Chris-Chan as a mercenary in Libra of Souls

Hey son, why did the burglar steal a shower?
He wanted to make a clean getaway.