I know a lot of folks like to point to the removal of the timer and frank being annoying as shit as examples of What Went Wrong, but I would like to add some thoughts:
In most Dead Risings, when living human enemies show up they're presented as a major challenge compared to the faceless zombie hordes, whether they be in the form of psychopath boss fights or special forces agents or whatever.They represent an escalation of conflict. In Dead Rising 4 though, you run into looters or Obscuris on every block. Living enemies are a constant presence, and by the final day it's basically a war zone between all these living enemies, but unlike say Dead Rising 1's finale with all the special agents running around the mall, it's not actually a challenge or anything, you just kind of.... drive past them, the way you've been driving past them this whole time.
But that brings me to my next point: A lot of y'all criticize the over-reliance on Wacky Combo Weapons, but to me DR4's issue was an increased reliance on conventional guns. There are Obscuris soldiers parked on every block, and they always drop guns, and if you defeat all of them you can raid their vans to get even more guns. Frank has to fight his way through multiple military bases, but don't worry, most of them have AK-47s and whatever just laying on tables for him to pick up so he can murder all these special forces people! To me this make the tone of the game feel way more mainstream than removing the timer.
(Along those same lines: The prevalence of Med Kits as healing items really kind of changes the tone of the game a bit, doesn't it? It kind of loses some of the charm)
On the positive side: Not including all the gross sexual assault/threat of sexual assault/"take upskirt shots of this female character to get exp!" stuff was a huge improvement.
