Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories Reviews
The idea behind Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories is pretty good, but it can't unfold its potential: On the one hand it's telling you that your choices matter, on the other hand it's just a linear game without any real consequences. It seems that even it's techniques are from the olden days, especially on the scripting part and the uninspired NPC who are still doing what they were doing before the world collapsed. Nonetheless, the design of the characters is great and the soundtrack is amazing, but none of these two things will help Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories to become a blockbuster.
Review in German | Read full review
Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories is quite a special game. Belonging to a very specific niche in the market, and to a franchise considered cult in that market, it is a fairly continuous part, which also suffers the consequences of having gone through a tortuous development with a change of platform included. Apparently but technically fair, and with a chaotic and irregular narrative that will take us from situations of great harshness to others of continual shame. At least it's entertaining and it has his audience.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
With disastrous graphics and performance, not to mention a story that doesn't take itself seriously for the wrong reasons, my report is that Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories fails in almost every aspect, with its only redeeming point being one of the few games in its poorly competitive genre.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
If I had to sum up this game in one word the best I could do is two words and a hyphen: half-baked.
If you can look past the aesthetics of Disaster Report 4, there's a bunch of fun to be had escaping the broken city and helping out the residents as you struggle to survive and hopefully make your way home.
But this one, there are just too many things that got on my nerves. Some people will still have a good time, and for sure there were moments where I went from delighted to dumbfounded and back in seconds. But the best I can say is proceed with caution, falling debris ahead.
It's hard to recommend Disaster Report 4 Summer Memories to anyone that's not entirely into disaster movie and japanese culture. Ancient game design, technical issues and limited gameplay sink this game down.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories is a curious bet, due to the tittle is not the typical game we are used to it. This not the game of year, but the idea of enjoying an natural disaster’s adventure is great because it helps us to think to how surviving to something so real.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
It's not necessarily fun, in a traditional sense, but it's culturally insightful and intelligent, and that makes it valuable.
Overall, Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories is rather lacking as a whole. While there isn't really anything that makes it unplayable, it certainly doesn't help you out a whole lot either. The concept ins interesting, but it just couldn't take off the way I had hoped it would.
There are very small hints of a brilliant game in Disaster Report 4, but they’re quickly overshadowed by terrible graphics, controls, characters, and one of the worst framerates I’ve ever seen in a PS4 game.
Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories is a mess of a game.
At best, Disaster Report 4 recalls the mundane and absurd human dramas seen in Yakuza and Deadly Premonition, though shares more of the latter's rough low-budget execution. Ultimately, it's an acquired taste but might just scrape through on its peculiar charms to be a cult favourite.
Initially meant to be released in 2011, Disaster Report 4 was not worth the wait. The Switch version of the game is a complete mess (old-timey textures, frequent FPS drops...) and the experience is not very captivating overall, gameplay-wise. The only appeal of the game is in its atmosphere, paradoxally slow-moving and contemplative.
Review in French | Read full review
With the game finally completed and released to the world after nine long years, Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories marks the return of Granzella's cult classic series about surviving natural disasters. This time around, the team has traded action set pieces in for a more personal look at the human toll of horrific events—but they've done so without injecting enough humanity into that new direction to make it truly work.
Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories is a unique, sometimes earth-shattering experience. It doesn’t get everything right but it’s the nearest you’ll ever want to get to an earthquake and that works for me.
Pity. I was really looking forward to the release of 'Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories'. The title lured me by the exciting premise of not being a hero who defies a supernatural threat, but simply a man who faces a devastating natural disaster. Basically, 'Disaster Report 4' delivers exactly that and in its best moments, the title knows how to make your pulse race. Unfortunately, these moments are rare, or they are undermined by the poor technique and presentation. Far too often I found myself thinking that a sequence could have been potentially outstanding if the antiquated game mechanics hadn't gotten in the way. All great approaches are thus nipped in the bud, which I regretted painfully when testing. Not only the playful rays of hope suffer from this deficient technical framework - the entire game ailments from dusty mechanics. In all regularity we wander aimlessly through the shattered areas of the city, with no clue as to how to proceed. This helplessness also runs through various other game principles, which often leads to frustration. Nevertheless, especially sensitive scenes drew me to the controller again and again and made me sigh, how unfortunate it is, that such promising potential remained untapped.
Review in German | Read full review
Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories was so much bigger and more in-depth than I originally thought it would be. Try and find your way home as you abuse desperate people or try to help those in need, the way you react and deal with the various situations all comes down to your own personality. Although the core narrative is set in stone, only deviating at set waypoints, the comedic and down-right silly interactions you can have are all rather unique and special. I’m very grateful that we were able to experience this fantastic game, easily one of my favourite games of the year so far.
There are a few highlights, but Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories has so many rough edges, broken mechanics and frustrating, counter-intuitive elements that it’s anything but memorable.
I see great potential in Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories! I do think that there will be patches to fix the frame rate, and maybe even DLC chapters continuing the story.