In the shadow of a massive earthquake, you must brave a destroyed city where your choices will determine who survives.
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this game is so interesting. it's janky, looks crusty, and doesn't have much gameplay variety. but it's also not like anything i've played. i feel like this game very suited to a specific crowd. if you like the parts of yakuza where you just explore, talk to NPCs, find weird events, and have a tolerance to jank: then play this. it's got a lot of heart and it's overall a great experience (besides one poorly handled plot point towards the end.) definitely gonna play the rest of the series.
This game is a mess. Its tonally inconsistent in a way that feels arbitrary rather than considered, and its systems are nonsensical. Does it actually matter if i pee regularly? Why do i have to eat when i can go several chapters on “very hungry” with no consequences? Why are we tracking morality points when they dont have any bearing on the ending? Why is it sometimes immoral to fleece people for cash and other times its fine? Why is it moral to recruit people into a shady cult but immoral to save yourself from human traffickers ? Its fully nonsense in a way that is tiring instead of engaging.
The moment to moment gameplay is also unfortunately tedious. I played almost the whole game with a guide open because it was so incredibly unclear how i was meant to progress at all times. The game constantly wants you to speak to specific unmarked npcs in a specific order with no clear logic as to who you need to speak to next. Its peak bad adventure game design, pixel hunting for dialogue often in levels that are tedious to navigate. The flooded apartments are a notable low point for this and are the core reason i abandoned the idea of a second play through.
The game is simply at odds with itself whiplashing between real human tragedy and wacky sideplots worthy of a Yakuza substory. Unfortunately it lacks the compelling core narrative and endearing characters that define that other much more successful franchise.
Ultimately though, i did finish the game. The premise and setting were compelling and unique. Navigating the immediate aftermath of a large scale earthquake is something i havent experienced in a game before. While the game eventually collapses under the weight of its own disjointed ideas, the first hour or two was enough to get its hooks in me. I think id hesitate to recommend the game to most people, but ill be waiting for the announcement of Disaster Report 5 with some small amount of anticipation.
Game Highlight: i really enjoyed how delightfully low budget this was. This is a prime example of whater mean by shorter games by people who are paid more etc etc.
The moment to moment gameplay is also unfortunately tedious. I played almost the whole game with a guide open because it was so incredibly unclear how i was meant to progress at all times. The game constantly wants you to speak to specific unmarked npcs in a specific order with no clear logic as to who you need to speak to next. Its peak bad adventure game design, pixel hunting for dialogue often in levels that are tedious to navigate. The flooded apartments are a notable low point for this and are the core reason i abandoned the idea of a second play through.
The game is simply at odds with itself whiplashing between real human tragedy and wacky sideplots worthy of a Yakuza substory. Unfortunately it lacks the compelling core narrative and endearing characters that define that other much more successful franchise.
Ultimately though, i did finish the game. The premise and setting were compelling and unique. Navigating the immediate aftermath of a large scale earthquake is something i havent experienced in a game before. While the game eventually collapses under the weight of its own disjointed ideas, the first hour or two was enough to get its hooks in me. I think id hesitate to recommend the game to most people, but ill be waiting for the announcement of Disaster Report 5 with some small amount of anticipation.
Game Highlight: i really enjoyed how delightfully low budget this was. This is a prime example of whater mean by shorter games by people who are paid more etc etc.
Played this game on vanilla PS4. Ran like dogwater, but I'm convinced that's part of the charm. I had a lot of fun with this one. Something about the game hitting sub 20 FPS whenever anything cool happened actually grew on me pretty fast. I think there's an epilogue/epilogue DLC but I never did it. From what I've read, apparently earlier games had more actual gameplay? That is, actual gameplay mechanics that you interfaced with. It makes sense considering this game is like, the most glorified walking simulator I have ever played. But as a compliment.
I'll probably try the earlier games when I can. (also hey did you know that the hit (lmao) shoot-em-up R-Type Final II (and maybe the original?????) features a homage to the franchise in the form of a ship called the 'Disaster Report'? It's an awful ship, it actually sucks. You should play both that game and this one.)
I'll probably try the earlier games when I can. (also hey did you know that the hit (lmao) shoot-em-up R-Type Final II (and maybe the original?????) features a homage to the franchise in the form of a ship called the 'Disaster Report'? It's an awful ship, it actually sucks. You should play both that game and this one.)
it's cute
One of the most bizarre yet compelling experiences I've had with a video game. It has so many problems with its technical performance and gameplay, yet there's something so endearing about it. The way it portrays people in the midst of a natural disaster feels melodramatic yet strangely human, and seeing the destruction caused by these disasters could be genuinely affecting at times. I just love how this game is able to balance tragedy, comedy, and moments of peace in a way that feels mostly coherent. But unfortunately I don't like the direction its story takes around the end. The tragedy element is hammered down a bit too much, there's a plot twist that's really dumb (but not in a fun way), and there's a plot point involving SA that I thought was handled very poorly. There were moments of Disaster Report 4 where I thought it could be one of my new favorites, but these issues did sour the experience a little bit. Still a very enjoyable experience that I would like to replay in the future.
This may be a bold choice - but I want to say something about Disaster Report 4 before I'm even done with it.
This games genius comes from how it tries to portray something that, in my opinion, video game medium or perhaps I should say industry struggles to come to terms with - "social realism", an earnest portrayal of the actual conditions of suffering in a society.
Now, it may seem strange to declare Disaster Report 4 a depiction of a society, when it at surface value is a depiction of natural disaster and it's effects on a society. Yet, I see something even deeper here.
I'm sure a lot of us have endured natural disasters of some sort. For me, living on the coastline of America, said natural disasters were often hurricanes. At first, when I was doing some volunteering to help mitigate the impacts of such a disaster, I had the true idea that "it brought out the good in people". Only, at that time this idea was somewhat superficial.
Since, I found in this game that disasters not only bring about good faith in each other as human beings, but also show and X-ray of a society that causes people suffering. Here we can see people with their heads down, suffering from not only natural disasters but the kind of bureaucratic cushioning that tries to absorb the impact of the natural disasters, while human individuals are left in the dark. Take an example of a character in this game, a man from a poor family who moved to the city after getting a job offering, who made it through multiple stages of the interview process before the disaster hit. All of a sudden his suffering is at a boiling point - not only has he come to the city searching for a job so he can support his family, but that hope has ultimately collapsed and as a result left him collapsed. In the search for light and hope for his family, and in his total destitution and misery at his own perceived failure to do so, do we realize something - no corporate body will set him free from this, it's *ultimately the power of human love at it's simplest, love for the Other (A la Levinas's Ethics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_(philosophy) ) - that we come to understand how interdependent we are.
So the thesis that natural disasters "bring out the good in people" is not totally unfalse -
but we have to see the profundity of this good, that it's a good that has to happen through struggling in order to be 'pure good'.
There are multiple people in this game who's life situations are ultimately at maybe their bleakest, and this is ultimately where the 'social realism' of this game shines through.
This is amazing, because I think the game medium itself encourages a kind of detachment from our own bodies - an 'out-of-body' experience, our movement projected onto an avatar. In order to make gaming 'pleasant' many video game companies resort to thus providing fantastical worlds, these days, most likely "open" worlds where peoples desire for escape from the vicissitudes of everyday life is ultimately encouraged, as a trade off for their money. So the fact that a game like Disaster Report 4 is allowed to exist is amazing. You won't find much extremely pleasant in gameplay here, for good and bad reasons - one such reason is that you are dodging natural disasters, collapsing buildings. For those of us who have survived this thing - it is an unpleasant thought to see our very human avatar being killed by a falling steel building.
I'm sure Granzella themselves were very aware of this - they were planning to release the game a day before the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake hit (source: https://www.vgfacts.com/game/disasterreport4summermemories/), that caused at least 18,000 people to die (source: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/day-2011-japan-earthquake-and-tsunami).
So knowing this, I think Granzella (who before the earthquake was known as Irem) must've known that the Disaster Report series could not stick to it's roots as simply a fictional disaster-flick inspired game (not to say the original games were without any weight, either though). Many people who had survived the disaster who would think to play this game would find such a representation bullshit at best, and insensitive at worst. Yet, in a stroke I consider genius, they had to imbue it with a serious humanistic weight. It's one of the most 'real' games that I've played all my life.
Play this, it should hit you like a lightning bolt.
This games genius comes from how it tries to portray something that, in my opinion, video game medium or perhaps I should say industry struggles to come to terms with - "social realism", an earnest portrayal of the actual conditions of suffering in a society.
Now, it may seem strange to declare Disaster Report 4 a depiction of a society, when it at surface value is a depiction of natural disaster and it's effects on a society. Yet, I see something even deeper here.
I'm sure a lot of us have endured natural disasters of some sort. For me, living on the coastline of America, said natural disasters were often hurricanes. At first, when I was doing some volunteering to help mitigate the impacts of such a disaster, I had the true idea that "it brought out the good in people". Only, at that time this idea was somewhat superficial.
Since, I found in this game that disasters not only bring about good faith in each other as human beings, but also show and X-ray of a society that causes people suffering. Here we can see people with their heads down, suffering from not only natural disasters but the kind of bureaucratic cushioning that tries to absorb the impact of the natural disasters, while human individuals are left in the dark. Take an example of a character in this game, a man from a poor family who moved to the city after getting a job offering, who made it through multiple stages of the interview process before the disaster hit. All of a sudden his suffering is at a boiling point - not only has he come to the city searching for a job so he can support his family, but that hope has ultimately collapsed and as a result left him collapsed. In the search for light and hope for his family, and in his total destitution and misery at his own perceived failure to do so, do we realize something - no corporate body will set him free from this, it's *ultimately the power of human love at it's simplest, love for the Other (A la Levinas's Ethics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_(philosophy) ) - that we come to understand how interdependent we are.
So the thesis that natural disasters "bring out the good in people" is not totally unfalse -
but we have to see the profundity of this good, that it's a good that has to happen through struggling in order to be 'pure good'.
There are multiple people in this game who's life situations are ultimately at maybe their bleakest, and this is ultimately where the 'social realism' of this game shines through.
This is amazing, because I think the game medium itself encourages a kind of detachment from our own bodies - an 'out-of-body' experience, our movement projected onto an avatar. In order to make gaming 'pleasant' many video game companies resort to thus providing fantastical worlds, these days, most likely "open" worlds where peoples desire for escape from the vicissitudes of everyday life is ultimately encouraged, as a trade off for their money. So the fact that a game like Disaster Report 4 is allowed to exist is amazing. You won't find much extremely pleasant in gameplay here, for good and bad reasons - one such reason is that you are dodging natural disasters, collapsing buildings. For those of us who have survived this thing - it is an unpleasant thought to see our very human avatar being killed by a falling steel building.
I'm sure Granzella themselves were very aware of this - they were planning to release the game a day before the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake hit (source: https://www.vgfacts.com/game/disasterreport4summermemories/), that caused at least 18,000 people to die (source: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/day-2011-japan-earthquake-and-tsunami).
So knowing this, I think Granzella (who before the earthquake was known as Irem) must've known that the Disaster Report series could not stick to it's roots as simply a fictional disaster-flick inspired game (not to say the original games were without any weight, either though). Many people who had survived the disaster who would think to play this game would find such a representation bullshit at best, and insensitive at worst. Yet, in a stroke I consider genius, they had to imbue it with a serious humanistic weight. It's one of the most 'real' games that I've played all my life.
Play this, it should hit you like a lightning bolt.