Dead Rising 1 is the most average game that I spent over 80 hours on. Technically, it has plenty of issues: long loading times, muddy textures, and some pretty awkward controls. Its difficulty curve is absurd: you can stumble into the game's most difficult boss battles within minutes of starting the game, but you can also level grind to the point where nothing is a threat. Your first playthrough is almost assured to be a losing effort, and even if you finish it there's no guarantee you'll get a good ending.

The sequels improved the controls and smoothed out the difficulty curve a bit, but there's still plenty of things that hold the series back from mass appeal.

Simply put, the games aren't for everyone. And that's perfectly fine.

Aside from a few games, the series seems to actually discourage players who want to run around and kill zombies with fun weapons. It's possible to do that, but the timer is an constant reminder of what you should be doing. The real appeal of the game is completing the story under the strict time limit given to you. It's a constant balancing act between rescuing survivors, fighting off bosses, and managing your tiny inventory.

The best Dead Rising moments happen because the time limit is there. I recall escorting a group of 3 survivors in Dead Rising 2. Without the time to return them to the safe zone, I decided to take them all with me to the next mission. This required cutting through a part of the casino that housed Snowflake, a tiger who was hellbent on killing me and all of my group.

I commanded the group to run to the nearest exit while I fought off the tiger. But fighting a tiger is much easier said than done, andand I was soon running low on healing items. I emptied out all of the steaks I hoarded in my inventory to draw the tiger away, making my way to the group who were near death after fighting off zombies with tennis rackets and golf clubs. We made it to the next waypoint, but with no healing items, the horde picked off two of us and only 1 survivor and I made it to the mission on barely any health.

Moments like that are the highlights of Dead Rising games. Trying to balance rescuing survivors to get stronger and completing the main missions to progress the story. Dealing with a small inventory of breakable items, which force you to scavenge and pick up anything around so you have some form of defense.

The appeal of killing off zombies is only part of the Dead Rising equation. Individual zombies are not challenging to kill. But when there's a horde of zombies between your group of damaged survivors and a mission marker that's a mile away, they turn from an inoffensive threat into a major issue.

The later games in the series added more options to appeal to more people, like Sandbox Mode in Dead Rising 2: Off The Record, and Dead Rising 3's "save anywhere" options and relaxed time limit.

Dead Rising 3 was a fine game, and received well. Capcom is responding to this by stripping away the rest of the game's identity for Dead Rising 4.

According to early reports, Dead Rising 4 will have no timer, and Frank West will have regenerating health. I understand why Capcom wants to appeal to a larger audience. But these changes worry me, as they seem to take away the challenge and tension I enjoyed playing Dead Rising games.

With no timer, players can run around and slaughter zombies as much as they want. Is that appealing to a mainstream audience in 2016, who groan when yet another zombie game is shown on stage at E3? Now that The Walking Dead TV series has settled into a predictable groove, is there even a "zombie media" craze to capitalize on? The control of Dead Rising games is still somewhat awkward and outdated. If new players are drawn in, will they even stick around with these imperfect game mechanics?

Removing the timer also removes the core conflict of the series: balancing your need to level up and gear up with the simultaneous need to progress through the story and see new areas and enemies. Without a timer, escorting survivors becomes trivial, and zombies are even less of a threat because you have infinite time to clear a path.

Despite Capcom's backing, Dead Rising has always been a niche game that turned off mainstream players with high difficulty and imperfect controls. But getting over the initial thrill of killing hordes of zombies brought an even more rewarding feeling of completing difficult tasks under strict constraints, and overcoming a constant threat to be rewarded with satisfying boss battles and great ending sequences.

Dead Rising doesn't have to be for everyone. Many games that try to appeal to everyone end up appealing to no one. And if the changes to Dead Rising 4 do strip the game of its identity like I fear it will, I hope the remastered titles show a new generation of players how special a game can be when it refuses to compromise for mass appeal.