Well the game was very poorly balanced. You typically had to lose a few times to figure out how it works, and that can be frustrating for someone who doesn’t get the play style, so I can see why people bounced.
I love the original Dead Rising, but fuck it is stressful to play. The strict time management, the gameplay difficulty, the save system, starting the game completely underpowered, and the game just letting you fail and showing you how bad you fucked everything up, it’s brutal. Even after almost 20 years, hearing just the first second of the song that plays while the convicts are outside in the jeep raises my blood pressure.
I made the mistake of taking the lady who can’t walk and had to be given a piggy back ride through THE WRONG WAY past the escaped convicts on the Humvee, and haven’t played since
I still want to go back though, I know I can make it through again.