This review contains spoilers
I remember when this came out and everyone hated it. It wasn't until Dead Rising 4 came out that opinion seemed to shift to "it's okay". Personally I loved it. It's still pure zombie killing mayhem, now with much bigger swarms and way more weapons.
The game seems way more balanced around combo weapons now, rather than in 2 where a few combo weapons basically just broke the game. The funny thing is though, early on you'll be relying far less on them than you were in the early game of DR2 thanks to some changes. Most notably is the fact that you NEED blue prints to make combo weapons now, rather than before where blue prints just allowed you to gain more pp. And with the removal of maintenance rooms you no longer have easy to find and memorize spots to create your favourite weapons. The items needed for the blue print are always scattered around it, but unless you remember the location of each blue print, you're not gonna be able to easily grab that weapon every time you run past. But as the game goes on it gets easier and easier to create combo weapons due to having more blue prints, and being able to spend attribute points in order to create weapons out of any generic material in a certain category (although super combos can't be created like this).
Speaking of which, attribute points that allow you to customise your playstyle are a nice improvement over random stat boosts every level up of old.
Some things remain the same great DR as always, such as memorable psychopath boss fights.
The story is the same dumb stuff Dead Rising is known for, just this time with a more boring main character. But I gotta admit there were 2 twists near the end that directly tied into past games that genuinely surprised me and I loved it.
The way they do the story is kind of different. It's no longer based on a time schedule. Instead story missions are basically always available, and you just get to choose when to activate it. I'm kind of mixed on this. On one hand it's nice to have the option to go at whatever pace you want and never be waiting around to continue the story, but on the other hand the old system made it so easy to know exactly how much time you had to do the side missions and goof off. While this game gives more than enough time to do all the side missions, the lack of knowledge of how much time you truly need to do all the story means everytime you want to goof off there's this fear that you might be wasting too much time.
It also shares the flaw of the older game where after you hit the max level cap getting pp is pointless, but now it's even more obvious due to the fact this game was MADE for pp farming, which feels great before you hit the cap, but afterwards 90% of the stuff you can do no longer serves a purpose.
Technically this is untrue since you need more attribute points to max everything than you'll have at level 50, but I was able to do it once I reached the hypothetical level 55 or so, so it's hardly a big improvement. In fact in past games I wouldn't even hit the level cap in one playthrough, but here it was very easy.
Other issues I had were the way too close camera that can't be changed, especially bad when paired with the not quite perfectly fluid movement, and the survivor system. I don't mind the removal of escorting every survivor everywhere, and I think they generally did ok with making the side missions fun, but I'm talking about the survivors who you can get to join you and "help" you. Remember how useful survivors were while following you in old games? Yeah that was the point because you were supposed to be protecting them, but this game decides to have them be just as ineffective but now you can have them follow you to...help you? I pretty much just ignored the whole thing. I guess they might be useful distractions in boss fights, but not only are they easy enough without them, it was hardly worth finding a safe house every time you were about to go to a boss fight just for some weak meat fodder.
Basically I think this game focuses less on the survival aspect and more on giving the player a power trip and using a multitude of ways to mow down hordes of zombies. They do put some limitations in place that stop it feeling TOO easy, like you may be able to grab any weapon you've already found/made in a safe house locker, but there's a limit to how many items you can get from a locker at once, and the limit is much lower the stronger the weapons you want.
Of course I played standard mode, nightmare mode is supposed to be a more traditional Dead Rising experience, so maybe with that all fans can be catered to.
The game seems way more balanced around combo weapons now, rather than in 2 where a few combo weapons basically just broke the game. The funny thing is though, early on you'll be relying far less on them than you were in the early game of DR2 thanks to some changes. Most notably is the fact that you NEED blue prints to make combo weapons now, rather than before where blue prints just allowed you to gain more pp. And with the removal of maintenance rooms you no longer have easy to find and memorize spots to create your favourite weapons. The items needed for the blue print are always scattered around it, but unless you remember the location of each blue print, you're not gonna be able to easily grab that weapon every time you run past. But as the game goes on it gets easier and easier to create combo weapons due to having more blue prints, and being able to spend attribute points in order to create weapons out of any generic material in a certain category (although super combos can't be created like this).
Speaking of which, attribute points that allow you to customise your playstyle are a nice improvement over random stat boosts every level up of old.
Some things remain the same great DR as always, such as memorable psychopath boss fights.
The story is the same dumb stuff Dead Rising is known for, just this time with a more boring main character. But I gotta admit there were 2 twists near the end that directly tied into past games that genuinely surprised me and I loved it.
The way they do the story is kind of different. It's no longer based on a time schedule. Instead story missions are basically always available, and you just get to choose when to activate it. I'm kind of mixed on this. On one hand it's nice to have the option to go at whatever pace you want and never be waiting around to continue the story, but on the other hand the old system made it so easy to know exactly how much time you had to do the side missions and goof off. While this game gives more than enough time to do all the side missions, the lack of knowledge of how much time you truly need to do all the story means everytime you want to goof off there's this fear that you might be wasting too much time.
It also shares the flaw of the older game where after you hit the max level cap getting pp is pointless, but now it's even more obvious due to the fact this game was MADE for pp farming, which feels great before you hit the cap, but afterwards 90% of the stuff you can do no longer serves a purpose.
Technically this is untrue since you need more attribute points to max everything than you'll have at level 50, but I was able to do it once I reached the hypothetical level 55 or so, so it's hardly a big improvement. In fact in past games I wouldn't even hit the level cap in one playthrough, but here it was very easy.
Other issues I had were the way too close camera that can't be changed, especially bad when paired with the not quite perfectly fluid movement, and the survivor system. I don't mind the removal of escorting every survivor everywhere, and I think they generally did ok with making the side missions fun, but I'm talking about the survivors who you can get to join you and "help" you. Remember how useful survivors were while following you in old games? Yeah that was the point because you were supposed to be protecting them, but this game decides to have them be just as ineffective but now you can have them follow you to...help you? I pretty much just ignored the whole thing. I guess they might be useful distractions in boss fights, but not only are they easy enough without them, it was hardly worth finding a safe house every time you were about to go to a boss fight just for some weak meat fodder.
Basically I think this game focuses less on the survival aspect and more on giving the player a power trip and using a multitude of ways to mow down hordes of zombies. They do put some limitations in place that stop it feeling TOO easy, like you may be able to grab any weapon you've already found/made in a safe house locker, but there's a limit to how many items you can get from a locker at once, and the limit is much lower the stronger the weapons you want.
Of course I played standard mode, nightmare mode is supposed to be a more traditional Dead Rising experience, so maybe with that all fans can be catered to.
3 Comments
I had a lot of fun playing this game and I'm not gonna lie to fit in haha
This is the most based review
MultiGenre
2 years ago