Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories Reviews
Disaster Report 4 is a game like no other. Undeniably flawed both technically and mechanically, I cannot in good nature recommend it to anybody, and yet I find myself recommending it to every person to ask.
It's not necessarily fun, in a traditional sense, but it's culturally insightful and intelligent, and that makes it valuable.
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.
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.
Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories is a unique experience that allows players to create their own story of surviving an earthquake.
Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories is not the most refined game you'll find in 2020, falling short on multiple technical levels, but its blend of personal dramas and crisis management with slivers of wit and absurdity makes for a surprisingly impactful disaster movie-inspired experience that is arguably one that's difficult to find elsewhere.
Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories is a hard-fought project that captures your attention thanks to interesting characters, violent scenes, well-written situations during a global disaster and great gameplay. So in this case the graphics and bugs doesn't matters.
Review in Russian | Read full review
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.
Never having witnessed the apparent previous disasters having been reported I can't comment in any way how this edition compares...
Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories is definitely not worth the $60 retail price but it would be worth picking up in the $20 to $40 range.
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.
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
Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories is a perfect example of a beautiful story that falls short on execution. The creators seem to have put more effort into the characters than into the game itself. You also go through the game fairly quickly, if it does not crash. The appearance of the game is somewhat disappointing as well.
Review in Dutch | Read full review
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 not a good game. Its design is archaic, its presentation is lacking, and its story is nonsensical. But anyone who enjoys janky, weird games will very likely have a good time with it. It might not be quality, but it's often very entertaining.
If you can fight past the technical shortcomings – which, it's worth stating, are pretty considerable – then you'll find an experience that's totally unique on Switch, and that's no mean feat when you consider the depth of the console's library.
Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories took a long time to reach us - more than nine years, to be exact. That said, it's undeniable that this game features interesting characters, a degree of freedom that's worth the praise and multiple endings that will get players to return to it over and over again. Unfortunately its technical execution is very far from ideal and the heavy, clunky and unstable way it runs will definitely put many players off, which is a shame because Disaster Report 4 gets a lot of things right.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
While Disaster Report 4 is a very stiff and jerky game, it is at least entertaining. Just don't try to play it twice.
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.
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