Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories Review (Switch)

Game: Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories
Genre: Action-Adventure
System: Nintendo Switch (also on PS4 and Steam)
Developer | Publisher: Granzella |Granzella (Japan)| NIS America
Age Rating: US Teen| EU 18+
Price: UK £43.95 |EU € 59.99| US $ 59.99|AUS $ 90.00|CA $ 79.37
Release Date: 7th April 2020

Review Code used, with many thanks to NIS America!

I’ll admit, this is not usually my kind of game. I enjoy knowing exactly where I’m supposed to go usually, so I can decide to go somewhere completely different, but, wow, just wow. This has to be the most frustrating, yet enjoyable, game I’ve played for a long time! I have been playing it in short spurts, otherwise I get too frustrated at myself for not figuring out where the heck I’m supposed to go next!

You start by figuring out what kind of character you want to play, and customising how you want yourself to look. Then you’re straight into the game, on a bus, making more decisions. One of my favourite things about this game so far, is how often you can make choices! However, since I haven’t managed to finish it yet, I’m not 100% sure on how much impact these choices make in the game apart from the things I’ve already witnessed myself so far.

Gameplay

Most of the game is exactly as it says on the tin: you are running around Tokyo, trying to find your way out of the city after it has been ravaged by an earthquake. You have the choice to try to help people, leave people behind, let people help themselves. The choice is always yours.


Most of my time is spent trying to find people to help, to save. Might just be some kind of hero-complex I have, but I decided to go with the options to help people, I like to think I’d do the same thing in a real life earthquake, but I’m unlikely to find out without leaving the comfort of my own home.

You’ll find yourself in an area, with buildings all around, in a cross section of roads. You need to find out how to move forward, triggering events and scenes with NPCs, dealing with aftershocks and more earthquakes, falling buildings and platforms. You also need to stay hydrated and fed, clean, toileted and decrease your stress to a manageable level.

Sound and Graphics

The graphics are good, it felt rather too real for me at some points, and the music helped with the tension. I was on the edge of my metaphorical seat so often during my time with this game. The people are fleshed out well, the expressions and reactions are done superbly, and the buildings, the damage, the fires, it all feels straight out of a movie, to me anyway.

The sounds of people are realistic and disturbing, the rumbling, the cries, the fires, again, it’s all very real sounding, which helped me feel like I was really there, I’m easily sucked into feeling the way characters feel in games, movies and TV series, so feeling like I was really there was actually quite terrifying at points.

Difficulty

Now, as stated before, I do not normally play this type of game. The difficulty may not be as hard as I felt, but that’ll be down to my inexperience I believe, not caused by the game itself.

I found myself stuck, very very often, and this would often leave me frustrated that I couldn’t find the logical move to continue, but, I would turn it off, and come back to it a day or so later, and I’d find the next move! Sometimes it was stupidly simple and I’d just missed it by a hair’s breadth, sometimes it was a connection of people I’d missed out before, sometimes, I’d just been too impatient with the game.

Conclusion

I found it quite difficult. This was due to the fact I couldn’t understand some of the logic behind why this triggers that, or that triggers this.

I thoroughly have enjoyed the time I have spent on this game and I will definitely be continuing until I finish it! And then, perhaps, play again and see what I missed or could do differently this time!

Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories places you at the epicenter of disaster. Rise above the calamity, collect your thoughts and fellow survivors, and stay alive. What will you do when every passing second and every snap decision could spell the difference between life and death?

If you enjoy the idea behind Disaster Report 4, I would recommend it to you, for sure.

Final Verdict: I Like It! Ladiesgamers.com

6 comments

    1. I found it a touch jerky in places, and it has points where it can feel like your character is walking through soup, but it didn’t slow down for reaction times or anything.

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