Finished Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories today, including its lengthy epilogue chapter (which I assume was DLC at one point). What a marvellous, wonderful, janky old mess of a game that is. I'll be penning a review of it for Nintendo Life in the next couple of days along with a more lengthy analysis on MoeGamer, but suffice to say if you can get over some of the worst graphics performance I've ever seen on a home console, there's an absolutely fascinating experience to be had here.
It's probably the fact that I've absolutely binged it over the last couple of days, but I feel like it's one of those games that sticks with you. I keep thinking about it when I'm not playing it, and its atmosphere is such that it makes you grateful to remain safe — especially at times like this, with the world undergoing a disaster of a completely different kind at the moment.
It's also an example of a kind of game I really like: one that truly allows you to feel like you're immersing yourself in another culture. There are quite a few games out there that make you feel like you're "living the Japanese life", but I've never played one like this, where you're a normal person in Japan under circumstances that are anything but "normal". That said, the game does drive home that Japan, as a nation, has developed the ability to respond to disasters in a timely, efficient manner — and that in some cases, people see a massive, deadly earthquake almost as more of an inconvenience than anything they should actually be terrified about!
Having beaten the game and been teased by the epilogue with a number of characters and side stories I didn't encounter or resolve in my main playthrough, I'm tempted to go through it again, but not just yet; I need to get back to Atelier Iris 3: Grand Phantasm! Perhaps I'll consider a "New Game Plus" video series at some point in the future, using the knowledge I picked up on this first playthrough to see exactly what I can achieve in a second time around.
Or just to be a complete bastard instead of the nicey-nice goody-two-shoes I was in this run. Although I'm not sure I can actually bring myself to do that. I went in to the game with the full intention of seeing what would happen if I was "bad" but something about witnessing the initial disaster right at the beginning of the game just made me think "err… maybe I'll help people out a bit".
Anyway. Time for bed, for dreams of earthquakes, perhaps.
$5 Patrons, I've received this month's payments now, so a wallpaper will be heading your way in the next couple of days!
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