Dead Rising 3 Apocalypse Edition

[h2]Unironically a solid entry level title in a fun zombie franchise.[/h2] There's a Tl;dr if you don't want the full detail read. After being a casual but long term fan of DR since Dead Rising 2: Case 0, I came into this one expecting a bit of disappointment as it was the rumored start of "Milking Dead Rising for what it's worth", and when I finished the main story [spoiler]and obligatory OVERTIME segment[/spoiler] I was actually left fairly impressed rather than upset. To preface a few things; This is a mostly spoiler free review so I'm not going to talk about the narrative aside that it was [i]pretty okay[/i] as a standalone entry, and I think it's inoffensive to existing fans aside a cheap couple of cameos that don't do much outside of fanservice and teasing certain plot developments. There's a very devastating bug that if you aren't aware of how to circumvent it (As a PSA it's EXTREMELY EASY to avoid, if you see the game "Reset" your data, you back out one menu then go back to continue and your save is back to normal) will reset your save back to chapter 0 - character level 1 that should by no means have been ignored by capcom in any capacity. The Untold Stories DLCs included with the Apocalypse Edition are [b]Abysmal[/b] and I won't cover them outside of my opinion that they mostly are a harmful addition to the game, even for achievement hunters, as they devolve almost immediately each time into no time-limit fetch quests and checking boxes to collect everything before beating each sub 2 hour long experience. [h3]There's a fair few immediate praises that deserve to be shouted out:[/h3] - The game doesn't try to connect its self to other Dead Rising games too intimately or so much so that you can't play this game before playing the others, the story feels natural enough for a zombie game that you'll understand everything you need to even if this is your first Dead Rising - though it does give some satisfying references and interesting cameos for those who are vets of the series. - Combat is even smoother than DR2/Off The Record for both better and arguably worse, to focus on the positive side most weapons either right off of the ground or combined weapons are functional zombie killing tools, there is no arbitrary forced damage values that lean you towards one side or the other but you'll still be enticed to make combo weapons as much as possible. - The scale of the map and more involvement of using vehicles brings more depth to the scale of just how many zombies there are, and how much fun you can have exploring how to bring that kill counter up. - Leveling up is now more directly in the player's hands/control with attribute points, letting you decide if you value more Health over a new melee skill or throwing/ranged power, or even choosing to not upgrade at all to make the game a fair bit more difficult for yourself. [h3]And there's a few immediate irritation points to mention:[/h3] - Story Psychopaths and Side-task Psychopaths are all even easier for even bigger payoffs; in the older games there was some level of forethought, learning which weapons are better human killers than zombie killers [spoiler]it was usually the shotgun or the mini-chainsaw[/spoiler], in this game just about everything kills humans almost more reliably than zombies - which is fitting in everything except the fun factor. - Timers are unbearably forgiving, going up from last games' 72 hours (Roughly 6 - 8 hours pending on game) [spoiler]plus OVERTIME[/spoiler] to 168 hours (Well over 20 hours not including other gameplay factors) for the main story as well as making it so you can't "miss" a main story case outside of failing this global timer, and almost all side tasks having well over 30 real world minutes to complete them. This gets rid of any viable tension or concern that the main narrative brings to the table, with the ever looming "Firebombing date" the government puts out. - The Weapon Locker is something I could write a massive post past this but to summarize; it mostly trivializes the need to remember where anything is for crafting combo weapons or any checklists of what you've killed with/what you haven't killed with, it's good QoL in concept but it's left unchecked with how limitless it is. You can pull out 8 items in normal/4 in nightmare on a cooldown, but this cooldown is a mild inconvenience at best where you can sit and wait 2 or 3 minutes and go from 0 uses to near full again, meaning any combo weapons you want are almost infinitely at your fingertips to discourage you from revisiting any locations that are even slightly dangerous for the heavy duty stopping power. [i]Small mention here: yes there is a nightmare mode that fixes the timer issue I mentioned, but even there it's notably easy to do everything in the game from collectables to 100% sidetasks + bossfights and still make the main story deadline, on top of being able to carry over a lv50 save from normal difficulty to trivialize it further.[/i] [h1]So here's the tl;dr[/h1] The narrative is pretty much any other zombie B-movie experience just like other Dead Rising titles, gameplay feels solid and improved on in every way you would want it to over the years though this also leads to it frequently feeling "too easy even for a Dead Rising game", the exploration is vast and fun the first time but you'll only ever be encouraged to go to a lot of out-of-the-way spots a single time per save file, and naturally it does really good at the one thing it needs to do over all else: Makes killing zombies hilarious, and entertaining. Overall I'd give this one a solid 7/10, it doesn't do anything particularly amazing over the other titles aside a much more open map, and giving a more accessible title to the franchise for more casual oriented gamers to pick up part of the franchise to enjoy, but it also doesn't do anything particularly worse than other titles aside make the timers feel pointless.