Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories Reviews
Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories is an absolute mess from start to finish. The puzzles that stand in the way of your progress are almost universally illogical leading to an experience that frustrates throughout. This would perhaps – at a push – be worth persevering with if the story were engaging enough, but the tale told here is so silly that it could have been generated by pulling plot twists out of a hat. Throw in a creepy vibe, crummy production values, and dodgy controls, and you're left with an unmitigated disasterpiece that you should avoid like it's got the coronavirus.
If I had to sum up this game in one word the best I could do is two words and a hyphen: half-baked.
There are still glimpses of the original's charm, and the potential of an earthquake-surviving simulator is made clear, but this tonally awkward, disaster of a game doesn't get close to realising it.
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.
BAD - No. Just…. No. Find something else to play. Terrible controls on top of poor writing on top of confusing and boring gameplay makes Disaster Report 4 a game I wouldn’t pick up in the bargain bin where they give you 99% off.
Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories starts with a promise to let us experience a massive disaster first hand, and challenge our sense of morality in the face of such a catastrophe. However, the game almost immediately reveals itself to be shallow and underdeveloped in almost every aspect—from game mechanics and graphics, to story and performance. Perhaps a less ambitious and more focused development could have produced a unique game, but as it is now, we cannot recommend Disaster Report 4 to anyone
Review in Persian | Read full review
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.
There's a certain earnestness to Disaster Report 4 that can be charming, but that charm only goes so far, and the game's dull mechanics and poor design overstay their welcome.
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.
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
Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories has solid ideas, but very few that manifest themselves properly.
In paring down the campy charm of the series before it, Disaster Report 4's more serious tone often crumbles like the very buildings you find yourself running away from.
Not always I have a chance to review a game the title of which could be used as well as a title for my review. While playing Disaster Report 4 I truly felt like a reporter witnessing a tragedy first-hand since the game is a small catastrophe in almost every aspect. That being said, it is also virtually impossible not to develop a love-hate relationship with it because of how bonkers its story gets.
Review in Polish | Read full review
Disaster Report 4, as it name suggests, is nothing more than a disaster. There are some good here and there throughout the game, but they are not enough to overcome the many shortcomings that the game is suffering from.
Review in Persian | Read full review
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 isn’t quite a disaster but it does have quite a few things wrong with it you need to keep in mind before jumping in. Getting to visit a Japan hit by disaster and have the opportunity to interact and choose whether to help people can be fun. It’s just a shame that the game looks and performs poorly and has some questionable design choices and writing in it.
Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories is a mess of a game.
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
What players might expect out of Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories and what it actually is are two entirely different things.