Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories

Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories features many over-the-top dramatized survival scenarios that are incredibly enjoyable. The resource management and systems kept me playing regardless of the low framerate and aged graphics. Each scene is cleverly written and features some memorable characters who make surviving through these natural disasters so very worth it in the end.

Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories has arrived, and it has many good ideas; but also a rather lacking technical realization.

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.

The result is best described as a mixed bag: while the game features interesting characters, a degree of freedom that will have the players eagerly exploring the game world and multiple endings that act as an incentive to pick it up again, its technical performance is everything but a success. Indeed, Disaster Report 4 often feels clunky and clumsy and while some players might be able to look past this, others will not.

Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories shows its side to undeniable technical criticisms, caused by a bad optimization and a game structure that would have been dusty fifteen years ago. However, it remains a cult game, made with heart and with a great concept behind it.

From a technical perspective, the Switch port of Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories is an absolute mess. Narratively and artistically, however, it’s one of the most fascinating games in recent memory. Its emotionally engaging exploration of a disastrous incident’s human aftermath is about as far as it’s possible to get from the Hollywood blockbuster treatment – and it’s all the better for it. 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.

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.

I see what the team wanted to make, and it is exactly the kind of thing I go for. I did enjoy the comedy, and some of the drama was touching if occasionally tactless. But there are so many technical issues, so much dated gameplay design, so many dubious writing choices, and so much grinding tedium that it just eclipses the things I enjoy. I could deal with the technical issues, the weird story hiccups, and even some of the gameplay stuff if only I felt like I always knew what I needed to do. The tedium and the madness are the two things that stick out. And sadly, the tedium just outweighs the madness. I would love to recommend this game to new-found fans of games like the Yakuza series, because there is a tonal similarity, but I just can’t. Early games in that series were primitive, but they weren’t aimless.

On Switch, then, the game is technically atrocious, both on the frame rate and texture front. It could have been a serious and unappealable rejection, instead it's just a fascinating disaster.