Hello everyone I'm XboxClown89, I figured with no signs of Dead Rising returning. Also because it always had been one of my personal favorite game franchises. I should do an entire Dead Rising retrospective. A good amount of the focus will be my personal experiences with the games themselves. I really felt it's criminal this franchise got buried.
This will be focused on all the main console releases. I sadly never played any of the mobile Dead Rising games. Although if offered by someone I may give em a try one day. I wanted to clear that small issue up before I got started with Dead Rising retrospective. Also expect this to be an lengthy Dead Rising blog entry because I really love this franchise with a huge passion.
2006
Dead Rising (Xbox 360)
Keiji Inafune with a team at Capcom developed a game that eventually became the original Dead Rising. Now if that name sounds familiar it should, he's often called the Father of Mega Man. He also had some ties to the Resident Evil series. Speaking of Resident Evil, Dead Rising was released ten years later after the original Resident Evil is one of many facts that gets ignored.
Keep in mind, Dead Rising was an early Xbox 360 game. Not necessary an launch title but still early in it's life span. Some even considered the game as possibly the greatest zombie game ever made. Not only it's holding up amazingly well, it was mind blown back then how much this game pulled off. I still haven't played anything remotely similar to Dead Rising series making the series quite special.
Obviously, the game was surprise surprise. Yes it took a few years later to fully became an Capcom franchise. Sadly two particular achievements most Xbox 360 consoles couldn't fully handle. Due to the game had to stay on longer than it was designed to with a great risk of over heating. Thankfully they never made that mistake again.
How I gotten into the original Dead Rising funny enough also how I gotten into the original Saints Row too. I was in a training program, one of my neighbors if you wanna call em that. He had an expensive stuff including this nice TV. He also had Game Fly, yeah remember that? Anyway he had both those games, I got to try em out.
I will confess I was more into Dead Rising than Saints Row at the time. More recently, I do enjoy both these games a lot since then. Yes the original Dead Rising is more meant for tougher players. It can be quite rough on casual gamers. Although the game itself has several ways to help balance the difficulty out a bit.
Dead Rising was a truly impressive Xbox 360 game. Years later it's gotten ports that had their own changes. For this retrospective, I will give those versions they're own section. So no one can say I missed anything in this retrospective at all. The last major thing I sorta got to mention is a lawsuit. On the original cover for the game it states to not have any involvement with George A. Romero or his Dead franchise.
The company that held the rights to both versions of Dawn of the Dead sued Capcom over this. The lawsuit didn't go far with Capcom basically won the court. Most pointed out similarities were stuff that so happened to be featured in both of them. However Dead Rising does plenty of things differently to be more of it's own thing.
Therefore, Capcom didn't rip them off at all. Dead Rising still meant a lot to the right people. Easily, one of the most unique horror games I ever played. Such a strong start for a franchise. Sure I could bring up the usual complaints. At the same time, some of them doesn't even matter anymore. I will say if you still haven't play this, where the hell have you been?
2009
Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop (Wii)
Here's a particular Dead Rising game a lot of people forgot about. This might also come as a huge surprise to some. This was the only Dead Rising game I preordered no joke. Before I actually can talk about the game itself. I got to talk about what led to it's creation. In 2007, Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition got released.
Capcom already making money with Resident Evil 4 for a few years by this point. The process to bring an GameCube to the Wii was a lot easier than what eventually followed. Personally I strongly felt that's the perfect version of classic RE4 hands down, it's really damn good. Capcom decided to take a huge risk that quickly didn't pay off.
They went from one recent hit to another being the original Dead Rising. This was before Dead Rising fully became an franchise period or at least that's what I'm calling it. They gave the task of bringing the game to the Wii to Tose. The company was responsible for Nintendo's Game & Watch Gallery series with a lot of licensed games.
They eventually found success ever since this game. This also ended up being the solo Nintendo release for the franchise. I know some of you might be wondering really how? For starters, they couldn't simply port an Xbox 360 game to the Wii. The game was too ambitious with a much higher graphic capabilities.
They were forced to completely rebuild the game for the system. This led to some heavily criticized changes. Such as instead of 800 zombies on the screen, it's much lower being an 100 zombies. The entire map received a massive down grade in size too. Frank no longer capable of jumping or a very notable lack of camera usage.
Now I wanna clear a big misconception of the camera part. There's a particular group of survivors you run into. During that mission, you will be given a very limited usage of your camera. Therefore, yes you can use your camera. But it's exclusively used for that mission that's it. You also can only wield one melee weapon instead of supplying up on em.
The guns were replaced by RE4 guns no joke. They reused several things from Resident Evil 4 to build this version. Which heavily explains the major change in Frank's game play. If you save Cletus, who originally dies in the original game. He will act as the merchant for reminder of your run.
Yes before Dead Rising 2: Case Zero, there was a merchant prior. Cletus will offer you gun stuff as well as magazines. You couldn't find the magazines like normal in the original game here. Although, you can keep em for future runs to better your chances. It's one of several major changes I felt made the game more enjoyable.
The same goes for the survivors' AI. Originally it was terrible while here an huge improvement. The texts does freeze the game play every time they show up. You also can read it much easier due to the word being in bigger texts. Honestly I prefer that then having to answer Otis repeatedly that easily put you in bad situations.
Also killing enemies like Resident Evil 4 gives you either money or ammo. You actually can store more the guns in your inventory. Which you have to pause the game to use. This also means you can stock up on a lot more ammo too. Another major change follows when you beat the game. Originally beat the game with Ending A unlocks Overtime Mode.
Now you unlock two different minigames. Second Amendment being an shooting game. It's basically more of a joke version of the shooting minigame within Resident Evil 4. Let's be brutally honest it's not nearly as good. The one I remembered best, Odd Jobs. You can tell they had a lot of fun with this. Some might even consider it as the best mode of the game.
Odd Jobs is an challenge mode with some rather interesting challenges. Yes there's some humor like having to face five Adam the Clowns. The final challenge is you face most of the bosses without healing while in your underwear. Hands down the most brutal challenge this mode offers. If you are able to beat it like I previously had, congratulations.
They removed the other endings then combined the main campaign with Overtime Mode. There's still some other major changes too. Like instead of a huge time limit to finish the game in. Every mission has their own timer. Although, some of them with the better ranks gives you some nice stuff. One of my favorites being an mini blender.
What this blender does is you now can combine health stuff mostly drinks on the fly. Yes this feature was originally done in this game, no body noticed. You also get more unlockables at your safe house than in the original game. Some of them are a huge surprise like boss weapons. You can tell they tried to make up for a somewhat lackluster experience.
Yes they took away a critical factor why the original Dead Rising was such an fun game. Without that huge time limit, you felt like you could do anything. Which turned a lot of people off, sadly Dead Rising 4 repeated the same mistake. I tried holding off on talking about the bosses for a few reasons. Trust me, some of this will be a difficult pill to swallow.
Some of the bosses reuses animations with audio pulled straight from Resident Evil 4. Let's say majority of usages were questionable at best. Some of the Psychopaths were changed to being recurring zombies. This version also has zombie animals that somehow remains exclusive to this one. Paul himself is excluded while you still can get Molotov Cocktails from your safe house.
The convicts is vastly done differently from the original game. Now they only appear once that's entirely done in quick time events. I actually prefer the original version of this boss fight more. This easily removes ways to spice it up to help you keep coming back long term. Some boss attacks can be easily dodged similar to quick time events in Resident Evil 4.
They also added in another Mega Man reference outfit. Originally you can dress up as classic Mega Man with two variations of his Mega Buster. Personally, one of my favorite hidden weapons was Real Mega Buster. Now you also can dress up as Roll from Mega Man Legends series. I know that's a small addition, some people love Mega Man.
They even reduced the amount of vehicles you can drove. This game easily could be seen either as a hidden gem or one of the worst Dead Rising games. Most Dead Rising fans agrees Dead Rising 4 much worst. I also wanna mention the cover art in particular the US one. I kinda prefer it over the original's cover art but I love both of them a lot.
2010
Dead Rising 2: Case Zero
Dead Rising 2
Dead Rising 2: Case West
2010 was surprisingly a huge year for Dead Rising franchise. Two smaller Dead Rising games that sorta acted as filler games. They were both canon entries that I can recommend to people. Sandwich between both of them was Dead Rising 2. All of a sudden, Capcom went big with Dead Rising 2. Case Zero is basically Dead Rising 1.5 that eventually led to Dead Rising 2.
Dead Rising 2 itself centers on a different protagonist being Chuck Greene. I was more of an Frank West person myself. I should point out Blue Castle Games made these Dead Rising games. Following Case West, Capcom purchased the company. Then they got renamed Capcom Vancouver for reminder of their time making games.
This added like combo weapons & vehicles. Although combo vehicles was mostly for motorcycles. It was still a nice starting point for the concept. Combo weapons really spiced the game up a lot. I always enjoyed the map itself just not my favorite version of it. There are some complaints, I strongly felt are easily dealt with in the game itself.
Some people didn't get how continuing after Katey died works. No really people hated to kept getting her Zombrex doses. They weren't sure to continue the game or start over if she dies. At one point a lot of us had a similar confusion. Eventually you begin to realize this game has multiple endings. All of a sudden stuff like that no longer matters.
This felt like a more ambitious game from the original Dead Rising. Personally it's debatable which actually better. There's a huge chance I may actually side with the original Dead Rising. I just wasn't into Chuck's story as much I was into Frank's. Also some bosses were just more interesting to me. Not to mention, I do prefer it's Overtime Mode more.
Yes this isn't as difficult as the original Dead Rising game. But if you are going for either Ending A or Ending S, the more mutated zombies are incredibly annoying. They are notably tougher than regular zombies, they also vomit. Sometimes being close to the same gases that mutated em puts you at a disadvantage.
They are just as aggressive as Hunters and Crimson Heads from Resident Evil series. There's a few mini game placed around the map. There are dlc outfits that you would need to buy. Although it's actually worth getting em for a few reasons. This is when Dead Rising was it's peak for a lot of people. Some felt from Dead Rising 2 to down is not worth mentioning, I'm not on that side.
There's also an multiplayer online sports mode with some variety. It's virtually zombie theme American Gladiators in a nut shell. I actually prefer the main campaign more myself. Dead Rising 2 was a decent sequel in it's own right. Things at the time were looking good for the franchise. Case West is essentially the canon ending to Dead Rising 2.
Speaking of multiplayer, most those games has coop. Which could be a lot more fun than playing it by yourself. This feature was a nice addition that I wish more games done it like this. Both players can do whatever they want. When one of them gets ready to do an boss fight, the other player either can confirm to help you out or leave entirely.
It turns out very late into Dead Rising 2, Frank West shows up to save Greene from an zombie TK. I know some Frank West fans might be mixed with that. I will say these two how they interact with each other I love it. I also loved we got the first two main protagonists working together for once. Saving people is the easiest in Case West.
All you do is fight off zombies then the people you helped escapes the facility. There's no more escorting people to the safe house since technically there isn't any in the game. This felt more like an important filler Dead Rising game. This eventually led to Dead Rising 3 in a few ways. A lot of people didn't even know about both Case games.
Capcom can be hit or miss when promoting games that isn't among their heavy hitters. Obviously, they didn't do a good job promoting the games. I say if you have an Xbox console, you should give both of them a try. Unfortunately there's one more critical thing I gotta mention before moving onto the next section.
Very late 2010, Keiji with several Capcom employees left the company to form Compect Inc. Now known as Level-5 Compect that developed a spiritual successor to Mega Man in the form of Mighty No. 9. Which sadly didn't do well for many reasons despite his previous reputation from Capcom. Mighty No. 9 came out in 2016 but the company still around today.
Their first release was The Island of Dr. Momo in 2011. Maybe starting a new company out of a blue wasn't a good idea. The new name for it came when Level-5 brought Compect. I'm not sure to consider that an success or not honestly. I know I'm starting to get off track here. This is when things started not going well behind the scenes for the franchise.
2011
Dead Rising 2: Off the Record
I always stated this to be my favorite Dead Rising game to date. I talked plenty about it on previous blogs, it's so much fun. After Keiji left, Capcom renamed Blue Castle Games to Capcom Vancouver. They quickly realize they loss their direct connection to Capcom. Which led to a lot of game pitches getting rejected.
A great video on those behind the scenes stuff is Dead Rising 4 - What Happened? Matt goes into details all the known pitches Capcom turned down. In fact, the only other game Capcom Vancouver game got allowed to developed that wasn't an Dead Rising game. Puzzle Fighter, an reboot of Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo for mobile devices wow right?
Back when they were Blue Castle Games, they used to be known for developing baseball games funny enough. Officially that came out as their final game in 2017, the same year the last dlcs for Dead Rising 4. This might seem like I'm getting off track. Believe it or not, a few Dead Rising characters are in Puzzle Fighter that ties in to this.
Dead Rising 2: Off the Record is basically the non canon updated director's cut version of the game. Yes they swapped tasks around a lot. Parts of the story remained the story with some major changes. Like starting the game instead of a motorcycle sports event. Frank takes part in wrestling zombies. I used to be an wrestling fan a long time ago, obviously that's more of my thing.
The newer combo weapons from Case West got added in. Psychopaths wise is a little tricky to discuss. Leon who was a rival of Chuck's gets replaced by wait for it. Chuck himself yeah you get to kill Chuck off in this version. Sullivan and Stacey swapped roles that ends up being more interesting. Originally Sullivan was secretly working for Phenotrans that caused the viral outbreak to happen.
At the same time, he framed Chuck as the one that started it. Which led to a personal showdown if you went for either Ending A or Ending S in the original version. In this version, Stacey still talking Chuck/Frank stuff going on during the campaign. Then she revealed her true colors being an Phenotrans agent. Frank goes after her in a rather unexpected boss fight.
Facing Sullivan, it was almost like fighting Brook at the end of Dead Rising 1. He is a more dirty fighter out of the two. Stacey uses parts of the amusement park, which I'll be talking more about the actual location shortly. She used a giant machine to attempt killing Frank. Easily, one of my favorite boss fights in the franchise.
Originally, a particular section wasn't finished in the original map. Uranus Zone is a surprise addition to this version of the game. This really opened up the weird possibilities. It also added a few more mini games to the overall experience. Instead of the multiplayer sports mode, you now have Sandbox Mode. This is the improved version from Dead Rising 1's Infinity Mode.
Yes survivors are still your enemies in this mode. You get a lot of challenges that's a mixed experience. Which has an entire long list for either single player or coop. Despite those, you really can explore the map as much as you want. Not only the other DR2 dlc outfits are still in the game. Although some are a little secretive to find.
This version has four new dlc outfits as well. Each outfit in either set has particular things they do. Like Chuck's ninja outfit makes you virtually impossible to zombies due to not making sounds. I also liked Frank's sports fan outfit where you can drink liquor without vomiting. Not only that, you can increase your money amount between both modes making it easier to get $1,000,000 for a particular case.
They also increased the amount of money you can get from ATMs by doubled. This felt more like the complete experience you always wanted from Dead Rising 2. Obviously, Chuck and Frank fights differently meaning they unlock several moves the other doesn't use at all. One of those critical differences people forget to mention in comparisons.
Dead Rising 2: Off the Record lacks the canon ending. Despite Ending 2 being Overtime Mode's ending is nearly identical with some characters swapped out. I also gotta mention the intro is actually my favorite of the entire franchise. This is the closest they ever tried to be somewhat funny unexpectedly in the story itself.
Originally late into the game, Rebecca dies by Sullivan. Chuck was considering getting with Stacey that ultimately didn't work out. During TK's boss fight, you have to defeat him to save both Stacey and Katey. In Frank's version you are fighting to save Rebecca. Whose sorta acts as his love interest in the game.
Now I should also mention this is technically a mixed received game. Either you are a huge fan of it like me or you don't care for it at all. Those on the more negative side either felt they quickly edited DR2 but replaced Chuck with Frank to call it a day. Which isn't accurate in the slightest. The other major reason is they don't consider it to be a good day for some issues.
As I previously stated for DR2, similar complaints were easily dealt with here too. This is when you realize how particular some gamers are about the games they play. Hell someone had to grow an pair to say it, I really wish that person didn't had to be me lol. There is one other cool dlc that people doesn't know about, I really wanna talk about.
Gambreaker Pack originally meant for the PC version. It later became paid dlc for Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game. Easily, the most ridiculous Dead Rising ridiculous ever!!! No really it virtually destroys the game in nearly every possible way imaginable. I once had this back in the day, I still can't believe this exists!!!
You can make weapons never break or time related stuff plus more. Activating this will prevent you saving your game as well as unlocking achievements/trophies. Let me tell you this was quite a disappointment the remastered version doesn't have that!!! This dlc was very mind blowing all the stuff you could do, again Capcom poorly didn't do much promotion with that particular dlc.
2013
Dead Rising 3
Dead Rising 3 is one of several launch titles for Xbox One. You can still play it on newer Xbox consoles. There's also a lackluster PC port, I haven't played. Let's get a few things straight before I talk about the game itself. Capcom had additional boss information in a rather unexpected method. You needed the Xbox SmartGlass or you have to look that info online what you were missing out on.
Surprisingly Microsoft out of the blue helped to save Capcom Vancouver. Dead Rising 3 was a truly ambitious entry. One of the finest maps to date broken into four sections. I would dare to say this had the best dlcs hands down. I also know some people are mixed with either the game itself or what followed afterwards.
Look I get Dead Rising 3 is among the easiest Dead Rising games. At the same time, making the game a little easier would help get more people into playing it. Which was a notable criticism some people had with the game. This had the best usage of combo weapons & vehicles in my opinion. There's even super combo weapons that were great additions.
I also loved you can build stuff on the fly instead of going into rooms with a table do the same thing. Obviously this game looks absolutely amazing. This also had the best usage of multiplayer slightly more than Dead Rising 2: Off the Record. Time limit could be changed depending on options. Ultimately you can play the game how you want.
Not only that, there's four shorter story dlc campaigns. All of them are canon that sorta explain things to a degree. Considering most of them dies with only Parker surviving. We could consider this a precursor of sorta to Resident Evil 2 Remake: The Ghost Survivors. Personally I do prefer the main campaign as well as a particular dlc mode more.
I also felt Nick one of the best protagonists they ever had too. His reactions to things felts very real. To some degree you could see yourself in him. I also liked they made seven bosses based on the Seven Deadly Sins. Only one of them you have to face for the story portion of the game. The boss fights are some of the most interesting yet.
This had my favorite vehicles in the series. This also had some of my personal favorite weapons too. Like Jazz Hands is technically an op gunned gloves. You can tell they were very creative with the game. In all honestly a very decent entry. Dead Rising 3 has one of the best stories to date. Sure, some characters didn't set well with people.
I do love the amazing detail in every aspect of the game itself. I actually felt just as mind blown as I previously did playing the original Dead Rising on Xbox 360. I was deeply impressed with everything, I kept coming back to eventually gotten every achievement. Most of them has a max of fifty achievements/trophies with the two smaller ones being twelve achievements.
Dead Rising 3 was a little over double the bigger Dead Rising achievements/trophies amount. Seriously I really love this game with a huge passion. Sure, the dlc outfits didn't change much in the actual game play. I think most Dead Rising fans agrees this had the best zombies hands down. There's a few variations of them with each having enough differences making them stand out.
Of course we got to talk about the Xbox exclusive dlc mode. The very late addition to the game, I strongly felt really made this game among my favorites. I love this mode so much the only real criticism is actually towards the insanely long title. I do get it's a parody of several updated SF game titles.
Super Ultra Dead Rising 3' Arcade Remix Hyper Edition EX + Alpha
This was a massive love letter to Capcom fans. You get four characters that have several Capcom character theme versions. Every single version of every character plays vastly different. This was a huge blast of nostalgia being a bigger fan of retro gaming, I absolutely loved that!!! You also can play this with three other players coop or completely by yourself.
This mode is incredibly fun to play repeatedly. There's a good variety of objectives that keeps it enjoyable. Each lineup is based on a particular section of the map. It truly was insane the mode got done this insanely good!!! PC players are really missing out on greatness here. This heavily a parody that truly lives up to that insane title.
Even Tofu appears as a power down, easily the worst Tofu game play experience lol. Well it's technically better than that hidden stage in Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles. Oh you know you love Tofu when a lot of them are trying to kill you lol. If you want the best Tofu experience play RE2 Remake: The Tofu Survivor instead.
For the record, Konjac is my favorite out of the five Tofu characters in that. This really felt like nearly everything Capcom in one place. I largely became an huge fan of their work because of stuff like this. Obviously, a very strong recommendation get yourself an Xbox One or Series X/S then Dead Rising 3. Then buy this dlc you really won't be disappointed.
Unrelated to Dead Rising 3, the following year 2014. Capcom released The Dead Rising Collection that had all Xbox 360 games packaged together. Although this was technically more successful Dead Rising compilation. It only got released in Europe weirdly enough. There's a later reason I'll talk about in a little while why I mentioned this collection.
2016
Dead Rising Triple Pack
Dead Rising 4
I personally considered this the worst major Dead Rising year. Capcom was already going to do several Resident Evil remastered games. Which three of them are part of a triple pack. The big difference between Resident Evil and Dead Rising though was Resident Evil released them separately. They chosen to release all three remastered Dead Rising games the same day.
A little information not a lot of people knows about these remastered versions. Two different teams were tasked making them. The first team only had the original Dead Rising. I actually would say the best version of the game. They made in game texts easier to read. All the free dlc outfits already included.
They did a great job with remastering the entire game, I was impressed. Sadly the last decent Dead Rising release. A lot of people mistakenly criticize the original crashing as much as the other two remastered Dead Rising games. Yes in a blue moon it may crash. Other than that it's more of a stable Dead Rising game in comparison.
The second team got the short end of the stick. They not only had to swap out working between two versions of Dead Rising 2. They also had a strict deadline to get em ready by. Which is exactly why both remastered versions are widely known crash heavy. Sometimes the crashing doesn't allow you to load em back up.
I will heavily suggest the best Xbox experience is Xbox 360 versions hands down. Sure you have to buy the dlcs but other than that it's not often those would crash. You are more likely going to get more achievements than these remastered versions. I never found out if Capcom had them fix that problem or not.
Already we're heading into a questionable period for the franchise. The true beginning of the end for me started with Dead Rising Triple Pack. I can still play em but knowing two of three remastered games could crash at any moment come on Capcom!!! But wait there's more they also didn't include both smaller Dead Rising games neither Gamebreaker for DR2: OTR either.
Which means no not every dlc is actually included in this pack. Although, the two smaller Dead Rising games eventually became playable on newer Xbox consoles since then. Late into 2016 we get Dead Rising 4. It's no secret everyone agrees the worst Dead Rising game myself included. A game so bad it sunk Capcom Vancouver worst than the famous Titantic did.
Virtually everything about the game itself was a massive step backwards. There's no sugar coating this had the worst overall dlcs. Even a handful of dlcs in Saints Row reboot was technically better. They got Frank's personality wrong with a different voice actor really didn't helped things. They completely removed the big time limit from the game was a huge mistake.
Now let's look at how Dead Rising 2: Off the Record handle that situation. Either you can play the campaign that has the big time limit or without it altogether in Sandbox Mode. The fact they didn't even ask us in game is kinda upsetting to me. They reversed how multiple endings worked in the franchise. In most Dead Rising games, the main campaigns had multiple endings.
Among going for a particular ending regarding Overtime Mode that adds more game play. Eventually leads up to it's conclusion sounds simple right? I bet a lot of you are very curious how did they mess this up? OMG they not only removed the multiple endings from the main campaign. You had to buy Frank Rising dlc to fully finish out the story.
Keep in mind, your multiple endings with strict conditions are presented in Frank Rising. Now why the hell would you even consider forcing us to buy dlc to essentially finish the game? More recently Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth just pulled something similar with New Game+!!! Both are clearly bad decisions that will deeply impacted the games.
I will be brutally honest I really don't wanna talk about the other modes. Sadly I got no choice here, multiplayer is pure trash. I never fully finished it out neither I wanted to. It's a coop mode with randomized objectives. I could see randomizing games possibly being fun. But when the objectives with moving safe houses to weird locations, it just doesn't work!!!
There's also mode exclusive blue prints that mostly aren't worth your time as well as effort. I would more like throw this game out the window than play that game again. Capcom Heroes is technically the better variation of the main campaign. However it also has it's fair sure of problems too. The main campaign somehow made exosuits repetitive as well as surprisingly limited.
These exosuits had a strict time limit before they run out. I will say these had some of my favorite combo upgrades though. In Capcom Heroes, those are replaced by Capcom Arcade cabinets. Frank can transform into several Capcom characters including their shadow variations. Also placed around the map is Capcom game posters representing a lot of their franchises.
They even changed the leveling system a bit. In Most Dead Rising games, your maximum level is 50. It's actually doubled in DR4 with a lot of upgrades. Which a large amount of those seem kinda pointless. Especially how well DR3 done the same concept way better. In most of them there's several fast leveling tricks you could use.
The same also can be said for money too. The big trick for both in Dead Rising 4 is very time consuming as well as tedious as hell!!! There's a particular location you can quickly get an exosuit with a nearby upgrade for it being the vacuum one. No other method in the game works nearly as well. Oh yeah they named Psychopaths to Maniacs.
They come off as a major downgrade. Most of them lacks death cutscenes. Majority of them has a lot of enemies with em. They attempted to "fixed" the bosses, they are still very lackluster. They also added in harder difficulties because the game on it's Hard Mode was too easy. Capcom Heroes by itself can be quite repetitive at times.
They reduced the leveling down with better upgrades. Other than that it's necessary the same campaign with some game aspects that's changed. All of a sudden this failed attempt at a spiritual successor to that Xbox exclusive dlc disappoints in record time. The famous bad Mini Golf mini game, worst Dead Rising game ever!!!
Super Ultra Dead Rising 4 Mini Golf
The title sorta deceives people into thinking this mini game possibly being an follow up to that dlc. When it virtually has little to nothing at all to do with that. This is a stupid deeply overacted attempt at a cheesy Mini Golf game play. You use weapons with large golf balls that could take zombies out. This also has some replay value with the better clubs you can get as well as the upgrades.
Sadly, it's confusing as hell to play right. It's difficult to tell at times where you're possibly aiming the ball to go to. What really doesn't help is Frank's bad commentary. There's no way to shut him up during the mini game. The one good thing I could say about Capcom Heroes is it's an free dlc. I actually felt ripped off by this no joke.
There's smaller dlcs that depending on which gaming services may or may not include those into the big deal. For some odd reason, Xbox version didn't. There's five smaller dlcs that roughly half of them are worth getting. The other half is complete waste of your money. Majority of them were originally preorder bonus dlcs.
Frank's Ugly Sweater
X-Fists
Candy Cane Crossbow
Sir Ice A Lot
Slicecycle
It almost felt like they wanted this game to fail. This wasn't the way we wanted the franchise to go out on. Capcom was deeply disappointed with this game which I'll be discussing in a little while. PS4 version came with all the dlcs because for some odd reason, Xbox had an exclusive period deal. Obviously that plan backfired right in their faces.
Every main Dead Rising game has one particular enemy group that annoys the hell out of me. The original Dead Rising had cultists that either goes away on their own or you take out their leader. Speaking of that cultist, they made a disappointing return in Dead Rising 4. As previously mentioned, in both versions of Dead Rising 2 had the more mutated zombies.
Dead Rising 3 had the bikers that are among the easiest to annoy me a lot. After awhile you won't deal with them for reminder of the run. Dead Rising 4 has these particular smart zombies that's incredibly annoying to deal with. I will give a little credit to changing the game play a bit for Frank Rising. The best dlcs are the holiday free stuff.
You can make what technically is an Christmas game look like another holiday. Although the holiday outfit selected is limited. It's very difficult to believe these were the very best dlc the game has to offer. It mostly changed what the zombies looks like during the game play. It's not much but at least it's something a little more strangely interesting.
2018
Death of the Franchise
Capcom decides to shut down Capcom Vancouver. Effectively burying the franchise with no real word what's going on with it. A major factor why things played out the way it did. Capcom was too focused making Resident Evil a major deal in the gaming industry. Just enough to sorta come off like this. I put some thought or more actual thought than the entire of Dead Rising 4 for this following joke.
"Oh that's Dead Rising over there. Okay give me a minute. Sir Dead Rising wants your attention. Not right now can you see I'm busy with Resident Evil!!! Please sir we could have an situation on our hands. Fine!!! Dead Rising come over here. See this toy (throws it away) well go at it. (Orders someone to shut and lock the door behind Dead Rising) Good I can get back to business."
It's almost like they didn't wanna bother having more than one horror franchise. Don't get me wrong I have very personal connections to Resident Evil myself. I don't even blame em for what happened to Dead Rising. I just felt Capcom was too invested into Resident Evil to properly communicate with the team.
In fact, going by several behind the scene videos. Capcom didn't seem or at least came off like they didn't care about Dead Rising. Especially with Resident Evil being one of their heavy hitters doing very well. Maybe if Keiji would've stayed a little longer with Capcom. Maybe things could've ended up a bit differently who really knows.
