Dream Arena – Willamette Parkview Mall (Guest Article)

This article was created by our guest writer zoniken, you can find him at his pixiv.

A few weeks ago we covered Dead Rising star Frank West in a Dream Smasher, and now I wanted to move to the next Dream article for Frank and the Dead Rising series…their Dream Arena. Dead Rising is very famous for their outrageously large open world concept, starting from the mall to the casino, then the entire town where zombies roam around. But where did it all started? Whenever you talk about Dead Rising, what place can you think of first? The answer to that question is Willamette, the famous town where the first Dead Rising game took place, and where the whole zombie hoard outbreak began in the entire Dead Rising series.

Willamette is a fictional town located in Colorado, with a population of 53,594. It is known to be a small town surrounded by green hill valleys and vegetation, which there’s nothing popular in attraction except for its giant shopping mall containing 79 stores, Willamette Parkview Mall. The mall has become the main stage for the zombie survival horror for Frank West, who’ve come to cover the case of the mysterious zombie outbreak. It has also become famous enough as it made crossover appearances throughout games like Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars and Project X Zone. In this article, we’ll be focusing on this zombie conquered shopping mall as Frank’s home stage, and today’s Dream Arena.

Music

First of all, let’s introduce the music choices for this stage. Since the stage will be taking place in the shopping mall, we’ll keep its main mall theme from the first Dead Rising in this list. Other songs will be based upon psychopath bosses from the first Dead Rising to Dead Rising 3, but it will depend whether it’s possible to be used or not due to legal rights. Finally, Dead Rising 4 doesn’t have much fitting music as they’re using Christmas songs most often, and we can’t use them due to legal rights. So in this case, we’ll use Oh Willamette as being more original than other Christmas songs.

Statistics & Hazards

The stage will be taking place in the Entrance Plaza of the mall. There will be three platforms placed on this stage; one is the centre clock and the stair connected platforms on both sides. The centre clock normally has a bee statue on top of it, but in this case, it’ll be removed so fighters can stand on it. At the same time, the fighters can go underneath the clock stand. While the ground will simply have walk-offs without any pits, the stairs connected to the side platforms will be hiding the bottom views, as fighters can hide behind it. All platforms will be solid as fighters cannot jump through it, and bounces back when blown away. Also, just like the Battlefield stages and Gaur Plains, this stage will be shifting the background from day to night every few minutes.

Four zombies separated into four major colors of red, blue, yellow, and green.

But this won’t be Willamette Parkview Mall without its main theme of the stage’s gimmick; the zombies. Dead Rising series is all about a zombie apocalypse, and the zombies will be appearing in this stage as spectators, roaming behind the barricaded background. However, one or two zombies will be appearing on stage as enemies in a random timing; crawling over the barricade and sometimes mysteriously falling from above. Once they appear, they’ll start attacking by grabbing the fighters and biting on them but can be easily removed by toggling the joystick. They will also scratch their target as they’ll flail their arms. However, rather defeating them in a bloody way like in the actual games, they’ll be blown away like many enemies from Smash Run or Brawl’s Subspace Emissary.

Omega Form & 8-Player Smash

Finally, let me explain how both Omega form and 8-Player Smash should look like. For the Omega form, the fighters will be standing on the bridge part similar to the mall’s second floor, which both sides will be left disconnected, with the same length of Final Destination. Since the stage will be taking place on the second floor, you will see the clock stand with the bee statue and the two stairways in the background, while the ground level will be filled with the pool of zombies. For the 8-Player Smash, the zombies will all disappear from the background as they will not spawn in to attack the fighters on stage.

And therefore, that’s it for this Dream Arena for Frank West and the Dead Rising series! Willamette and its mall are very famous for many Dead Rising fans as it is iconic and memorable. Although Willamette did return in Dead Rising 4 it was changed drastically and was poorly received by fans. The shopping mall from the first game is something that many fans would never forget about. I think that everybody would prefer this stage if Sakurai asked for a stage from the Dead Rising series for Smash.

Now that we’ve finished with the Dream Arena, join us soon for our final destination, Dream Items for Frank and Dead Rising! Until then, I’ll see you there!

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Joshua 'NantenJex' Goldie

A historian and avid gamer, NantenJex is the Editor-in-Chief for Source Gaming, overseeing videos and reviews for the site. He has a passion for obscure gaming so any article you see on uncommon titles like Nazo no Murusame Jo, Yuyuki and Marvelous, to name a few, are most likely from him. He also likes game design leading to the creation of Dream Smashers, a series on potential newcomers for Super Smash Bros. He wants you all to know that Yoshi is objectively the best Nintendo character.

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