I went into Saints Row expecting it be the worst of the series - an unpolished, unfocused mess with poor writing and annoying characters. Through the first act, that is what Saints Row is. This game does not put its best foot forward. The game has a slow start, the writing is at its worst, which leads to the unlikable characters. However, once the Saints start becoming Saints, things get better and better. By the end, I was loving my time with Saints Row's last hurrah.
Not to say it was a great game by the end. The business venture side missions (which honestly felt like the bulk of the game) became tired and repetitive fairly quickly. Each business has its own unique side mission, which are mostly fun. The problem is I do the side mission, had fun, and the game says do it ten more times. Its those last ten times that are no fun.
Most criticism I heard about the writing and characters were one hundred percent accurate based on the first cut scene with the companions. It was a bad scene. Fortunately, the characters got better. They don't compare to the original Saints; the new Saints have plenty to like about them. The story focused more on the companions and less on the rival gangs. I would have liked more story to flesh out the other gangs; maybe focus less on the business ventures.
Additionally, the game's story was oddly paced. It felt like it took forever for the Saints to form. Then before I knew it, all the rivals gangs were defeated (in a span of three consecutive missions) and I was on the last mission. It could be because during act two, I was mostly focused on the business venture side missions, but thinking about the story, it definitely felt the first act was the longest, which each successive act being shorter. Which is a shame since the first act is definitely the weakest.
Stand alone, Saints Row is a decent game with writing and pacing issues. As an entry in the Saints Row franchise, it definitely falls beneath the heights of 2 and 3. Volition and Saints Row deserved another go around to get things right (I say the same thing about Agents of Mayhem). Unfortunately, the volatility of the video game industry means neither Volition or Saints Row will get to return to glory. While it wasn't the studio's or franchise's best, Saints Row was worth a playthrough, and I had plenty of good times with it.
Not to say it was a great game by the end. The business venture side missions (which honestly felt like the bulk of the game) became tired and repetitive fairly quickly. Each business has its own unique side mission, which are mostly fun. The problem is I do the side mission, had fun, and the game says do it ten more times. Its those last ten times that are no fun.
Most criticism I heard about the writing and characters were one hundred percent accurate based on the first cut scene with the companions. It was a bad scene. Fortunately, the characters got better. They don't compare to the original Saints; the new Saints have plenty to like about them. The story focused more on the companions and less on the rival gangs. I would have liked more story to flesh out the other gangs; maybe focus less on the business ventures.
Additionally, the game's story was oddly paced. It felt like it took forever for the Saints to form. Then before I knew it, all the rivals gangs were defeated (in a span of three consecutive missions) and I was on the last mission. It could be because during act two, I was mostly focused on the business venture side missions, but thinking about the story, it definitely felt the first act was the longest, which each successive act being shorter. Which is a shame since the first act is definitely the weakest.
Stand alone, Saints Row is a decent game with writing and pacing issues. As an entry in the Saints Row franchise, it definitely falls beneath the heights of 2 and 3. Volition and Saints Row deserved another go around to get things right (I say the same thing about Agents of Mayhem). Unfortunately, the volatility of the video game industry means neither Volition or Saints Row will get to return to glory. While it wasn't the studio's or franchise's best, Saints Row was worth a playthrough, and I had plenty of good times with it.
Brain dead MAGA people calling this "woke." They want the same characters to be reused until the end of time because they can't get over their nostalgia, how sad! Fun refreshing gameplay that will put GTA6 to shame. If you're still supporting Rockstar after all the crap they've been pulling, well, it's time to wake up and smell the coffee.
Complete and utter waste of money and time, I can't even come up with a clever insult to describe my frustration with "Saints Row (2022)", frankly, it doesn't even deserve a clever insult, that'd be an insult to insults.
I myself, am a huge fan of the Saints Row games; Saints Row 2 is one of my favourite video games of all time, but why is that the case, you may ask? It has what you want in an open world game; fun gameplay, a great story, variety of activities, weapons, and customization, and a great open world map, I could ramble on and on about why I love this game. Sooooo, Violition, why couldn't you have done something like this again? Oh that's right, we don't actually care for the fans, we just want money!!!
For a "Saints Row" game, it hardly fucking feels like Saints Row, the gameplay and feel of everything is more reminiscence of smth like Agents of Mayhem, another Violition game which failed financially unfortunately. The combat is so clunky and overly complicated here, instead of having a simple aim and shoot mechanic that EVERY SINGLE Saints Row game had, they add all of these complicated systems; you can't even kill them in one hit, instead you have to drain their health bar, and then take them down with a long ass finishing move, this isn't fun at all, and it ruins the gameplay even more. If you can fuck up as something as simple as combat, you know you're already playing awful game.
The open world map? Well... I have mixed opinions on the map, it's beautifully designed, the scenery and layout of the map is hoenslty not that bad. Yeah, I don't mind the map, it's kind of fun to explore and to admire all the sceneries. My main problem with the map are the exact same complaints I have with Steelport in Saints Row 3 and 4; a lack of shit to do in them. There are no enterable buildings, no interesting NPCs doing various activities, no objects to pick up, throw, and use as a Melee weapon, no secret islands, no emotion whatsoever. It's kinda like marketing bait, the map fools you into thinking that there'll be alot of crazy shit to do in this huge environment, but really, there's absolutely nothing to do here. Yeah, the scenery is gorgeous, but that almost means nothing in the end when you go ahead and play the actual game to see what the map is like for yourself.
Ugh, and the story is just... well, I barely even pay attention to any of the shit that goes on in the story because it's just so awful. Basically, the premise is that you're a group of millinuenals, and you're working for a criminal organisation to pay off student loans... who the fuck approved this? Sir, I play video games to distract myself from life, not to be reminded that it sucks. All of the characters are insufferable af too, I can't remember the names of half of them and I don't even care to. It's the most anti-Saints Row I have ever seen and all of these characters just piss me off regardless, I garuentee even if you separated the Saints Row name away from the title, the entire game would still be an awful pile of shit. The story fails at being a Saints Row story, and it fails as a video game story in general.
I just want to say for the record, the reason why I'm mad about the game is not just because it isn't like the old games at all, I'm mad because the game itself is terrible. I could have at least forgiven the story if the game was fun. But it's not fun at all! There isn't any variety in any of the missions, it's all your typical "protect yourself in combat" or "protect your homie as they go from A to B". They're not fun at all, they're lazy and half-arsed, it pisses me off how this is all that they could come up with for a game called "Saints Row", a game franchise that is well-known for all of it's crazy shit that you can do in free roam and in the missions and activities.
It takes me alot to get angry at a piece of media, and I think this game managed to achieve that record. It's the laziest piece of shit I have ever played in my entire life, there's not one redeeming quality about it, I can't fathom why anyone in their entire life would be able to enjoy this game, it's lazy at best and corporate greed at worst, Violition and Deep Silver clearly have no respect for their dedicated fans who have stuck with them for nearly a decade and a half now, I simply have no respect for anyone behind this game, how can I support a video game when the company who made can't even show any proper dignity towards their fans, it makes me mad that they can get away with shit like this. People say that the franchise couldn't get any worse after 3 and 4, I won't deny that Saints Row 4 did feel more like a bizarre paordy of the Saints Row games than an actual true Saints Row sequel, but I was at least able to unironically enjoy the gameplay and ironically enjoy the story for how wacky, ridiculous, and non-sensical it is, and Saints Row 3 was unironically alot of fun too, even if it felt like a downgrade from the previous game. This game? There's nothing to admire about it, I didn't enjoy anything about it, not even on the most ironic levels, it wasn't even "so bad it's good", it was "so bad it's bad", it's an insult to longtime fans, and it's insult to the gaming industry in general. Don't buy this game, period.
I myself, am a huge fan of the Saints Row games; Saints Row 2 is one of my favourite video games of all time, but why is that the case, you may ask? It has what you want in an open world game; fun gameplay, a great story, variety of activities, weapons, and customization, and a great open world map, I could ramble on and on about why I love this game. Sooooo, Violition, why couldn't you have done something like this again? Oh that's right, we don't actually care for the fans, we just want money!!!
For a "Saints Row" game, it hardly fucking feels like Saints Row, the gameplay and feel of everything is more reminiscence of smth like Agents of Mayhem, another Violition game which failed financially unfortunately. The combat is so clunky and overly complicated here, instead of having a simple aim and shoot mechanic that EVERY SINGLE Saints Row game had, they add all of these complicated systems; you can't even kill them in one hit, instead you have to drain their health bar, and then take them down with a long ass finishing move, this isn't fun at all, and it ruins the gameplay even more. If you can fuck up as something as simple as combat, you know you're already playing awful game.
The open world map? Well... I have mixed opinions on the map, it's beautifully designed, the scenery and layout of the map is hoenslty not that bad. Yeah, I don't mind the map, it's kind of fun to explore and to admire all the sceneries. My main problem with the map are the exact same complaints I have with Steelport in Saints Row 3 and 4; a lack of shit to do in them. There are no enterable buildings, no interesting NPCs doing various activities, no objects to pick up, throw, and use as a Melee weapon, no secret islands, no emotion whatsoever. It's kinda like marketing bait, the map fools you into thinking that there'll be alot of crazy shit to do in this huge environment, but really, there's absolutely nothing to do here. Yeah, the scenery is gorgeous, but that almost means nothing in the end when you go ahead and play the actual game to see what the map is like for yourself.
Ugh, and the story is just... well, I barely even pay attention to any of the shit that goes on in the story because it's just so awful. Basically, the premise is that you're a group of millinuenals, and you're working for a criminal organisation to pay off student loans... who the fuck approved this? Sir, I play video games to distract myself from life, not to be reminded that it sucks. All of the characters are insufferable af too, I can't remember the names of half of them and I don't even care to. It's the most anti-Saints Row I have ever seen and all of these characters just piss me off regardless, I garuentee even if you separated the Saints Row name away from the title, the entire game would still be an awful pile of shit. The story fails at being a Saints Row story, and it fails as a video game story in general.
I just want to say for the record, the reason why I'm mad about the game is not just because it isn't like the old games at all, I'm mad because the game itself is terrible. I could have at least forgiven the story if the game was fun. But it's not fun at all! There isn't any variety in any of the missions, it's all your typical "protect yourself in combat" or "protect your homie as they go from A to B". They're not fun at all, they're lazy and half-arsed, it pisses me off how this is all that they could come up with for a game called "Saints Row", a game franchise that is well-known for all of it's crazy shit that you can do in free roam and in the missions and activities.
It takes me alot to get angry at a piece of media, and I think this game managed to achieve that record. It's the laziest piece of shit I have ever played in my entire life, there's not one redeeming quality about it, I can't fathom why anyone in their entire life would be able to enjoy this game, it's lazy at best and corporate greed at worst, Violition and Deep Silver clearly have no respect for their dedicated fans who have stuck with them for nearly a decade and a half now, I simply have no respect for anyone behind this game, how can I support a video game when the company who made can't even show any proper dignity towards their fans, it makes me mad that they can get away with shit like this. People say that the franchise couldn't get any worse after 3 and 4, I won't deny that Saints Row 4 did feel more like a bizarre paordy of the Saints Row games than an actual true Saints Row sequel, but I was at least able to unironically enjoy the gameplay and ironically enjoy the story for how wacky, ridiculous, and non-sensical it is, and Saints Row 3 was unironically alot of fun too, even if it felt like a downgrade from the previous game. This game? There's nothing to admire about it, I didn't enjoy anything about it, not even on the most ironic levels, it wasn't even "so bad it's good", it was "so bad it's bad", it's an insult to longtime fans, and it's insult to the gaming industry in general. Don't buy this game, period.
I don't really hate this, but I can definitely see how others would. It's not amazing, but I had a fun enough time with it. The bugs for me were never game-breakingly bad (minus a couple of crashes, but the game is liberal with autosaves). I did play it after the first bug patch though so I never got to experience it at its worst.
I think that what saved me from the unbearable bad dialogue was making a character so stupid that the stupid dialogue fit them and helped make it a cheesy comedy. But even then there were some parts too much for me.
The actual story itself outside the dialogue wasn't too bad. I liked the idea that your friends all had ties to the different gangs. Plus I did enjoy the final villain.
The 3 gangs (other than the saints) + the police provided a decent amount of personality between having seperate costumes, vehicles and gang members (both "special members" that spawn with the rest of enemies and then a boss that spawns at level 5 notoriety). One of the Idols special member for example has a spinning glowstick weapon that deflects bullets, while a Marshall one has a way to create clones that die in one hit until you find the real one.
As far as mechanics went, I enjoyed the driving quite a bit. It felt smooth, and the different special abilities you could unlock was a nice touch. The same could be said about guns with the special abilities, but gunplay in general was just...fine. It never felt bad, but with the sheer amount of shooting in the game would it kill to have at least put in a cover system? Melee combat on the other hand felt like shit. Not only did they rarely have any weight behind the hits, a heavy attacks did as much damage as a regular attack just without the ability to follow up.
Repetitiveness is pretty big flaw in the game. Almost everything is either driving or shooting, and the hundreds of side activities you can choose from don't add any breaks from the main gameplay loop, just scenarios that have less stakes than main missions. Hell of the 13 ventures you can unlock (which passively bring in income) about half of them are "get vehicle and drive it to place" with only minor alterations between them. The insurance fraud and mayhem ones were the only ones that felt like they used any kind of unique mechanic. There isn't even a racing activity.
There's also an apparent lack of polish in places. Things like enemies and even allies when you have them will just teleport behind you if you get too far away when driving. Starting a mission that involves phoning up a specific character, when you have that character with you as an ally during free-roam, will have the character just run away as they answer the mission call. Kev I know you're not at the church, you're 5 feet away from me. Some things are pretty ridiculous.
There are a couple of fun details they added though. Like during the LARP missions your lethal takedown move instead turns into a fake-fighting one.
And the shop you unlock after beating the game is really fun, with "costumes" ranging from turning you into a toilet to a swarm of angry bees.
There's actually quite a lot of unlockable from everything, and it can feel quite rewarding to finish a mission and get a new vehicle or weapon. Both of which you can customise like crazy, along with your character and the hundreds of outfits. Weirdly your actual character level maxes out very early, and I wasn't even half way through the game when I did so. This made literally all following exp gain worthless - and you get a lot of it.
Imo not a bad game, or even (now) a "broken" one. Just one that gets lost in a pool of much better games in its genre.
I think that what saved me from the unbearable bad dialogue was making a character so stupid that the stupid dialogue fit them and helped make it a cheesy comedy. But even then there were some parts too much for me.
The actual story itself outside the dialogue wasn't too bad. I liked the idea that your friends all had ties to the different gangs. Plus I did enjoy the final villain.
The 3 gangs (other than the saints) + the police provided a decent amount of personality between having seperate costumes, vehicles and gang members (both "special members" that spawn with the rest of enemies and then a boss that spawns at level 5 notoriety). One of the Idols special member for example has a spinning glowstick weapon that deflects bullets, while a Marshall one has a way to create clones that die in one hit until you find the real one.
As far as mechanics went, I enjoyed the driving quite a bit. It felt smooth, and the different special abilities you could unlock was a nice touch. The same could be said about guns with the special abilities, but gunplay in general was just...fine. It never felt bad, but with the sheer amount of shooting in the game would it kill to have at least put in a cover system? Melee combat on the other hand felt like shit. Not only did they rarely have any weight behind the hits, a heavy attacks did as much damage as a regular attack just without the ability to follow up.
Repetitiveness is pretty big flaw in the game. Almost everything is either driving or shooting, and the hundreds of side activities you can choose from don't add any breaks from the main gameplay loop, just scenarios that have less stakes than main missions. Hell of the 13 ventures you can unlock (which passively bring in income) about half of them are "get vehicle and drive it to place" with only minor alterations between them. The insurance fraud and mayhem ones were the only ones that felt like they used any kind of unique mechanic. There isn't even a racing activity.
There's also an apparent lack of polish in places. Things like enemies and even allies when you have them will just teleport behind you if you get too far away when driving. Starting a mission that involves phoning up a specific character, when you have that character with you as an ally during free-roam, will have the character just run away as they answer the mission call. Kev I know you're not at the church, you're 5 feet away from me. Some things are pretty ridiculous.
There are a couple of fun details they added though. Like during the LARP missions your lethal takedown move instead turns into a fake-fighting one.
And the shop you unlock after beating the game is really fun, with "costumes" ranging from turning you into a toilet to a swarm of angry bees.
There's actually quite a lot of unlockable from everything, and it can feel quite rewarding to finish a mission and get a new vehicle or weapon. Both of which you can customise like crazy, along with your character and the hundreds of outfits. Weirdly your actual character level maxes out very early, and I wasn't even half way through the game when I did so. This made literally all following exp gain worthless - and you get a lot of it.
Imo not a bad game, or even (now) a "broken" one. Just one that gets lost in a pool of much better games in its genre.
A technical mess, uninspired and an unnecessary reboot (low-key miss the old characters and the ridiculousness of the fourth entry), but is it bad? I don't think so. It's actually good fun! The humour just about lands, especially in a series of LARP-ing quests which were brilliant. A huge amount of content over a decently-sized map ranging from deserted canyons to sprawling malls. Plenty of collectibles, plenty of action, plenty of destruction. It's a Saints Row game, probably not the one people wanted but there you go!
This game got done dirty. One of the most joyous, fun, well-written, bitingly smart open world games I've played. On par with Saints Row 2 for me personally. Difficulty is slightly unbalanced and a little overly punishing on default, but there are so many different tweaking options that it really doesn't matter. Also a rare game where the DLC expansions are on par with (or even better than) the best of the base game's content. Don't be put off by that absolutely godawful launch trailer, the game is nothing like that.
I just was to uninterested to finish this one. I don't think its as horrible as everyone says, but its not really worth finishing IMO. I got to try the mechanics and shit and nothing was engaging enough to keep me in. Im also gonna dock points for the horrendous audio mixing and the weird lack of ANY music in some scenes, not even shitily mixed in the background. (3/10)
I've been a fan of Saints Row for a long time; I've played them all from start to finish (Agents of Mayhem included, unfortunately) and I can safely say this is prolly my second favourite
There have been very annoying bugs, but those aside, the game is fun and the characters are lovable.
The main gripe I have with this game is that the crude humour is massively toned down, and it's so obvious how censored things were. If this game had the original saints humour (and a few other polishes), this would be one of my favourite games
I also really miss the original Saints
There have been very annoying bugs, but those aside, the game is fun and the characters are lovable.
The main gripe I have with this game is that the crude humour is massively toned down, and it's so obvious how censored things were. If this game had the original saints humour (and a few other polishes), this would be one of my favourite games
I also really miss the original Saints
A game Ryan Reynolds fans will love
Seems only fitting to have a game like this glitch out in the final scene. There are some good qualities here, but the unapologetic nature of this game seems to not be enough to excuse buggy gameplay and a tedious way to finish all missions. I got this game for free with my graphics card, no way I would pay full price for it.
Saints Row was one of my favorite franchises growing up. Saints Row 2 still being one of my favorite games and 3 as a worthy successor. It's sad to see it in the state it is right now, unworthy of calling itself a GTA contender. I doubt the Saints Row franchise will return to its former glory and that truly breaks my heart. It's too scared to take itselfs seriously and relies way to much on being "funny" and "memeable" while also failing tremendously at those goals. If you truly liked the movie Free Guy, you will probably love this game
Seems only fitting to have a game like this glitch out in the final scene. There are some good qualities here, but the unapologetic nature of this game seems to not be enough to excuse buggy gameplay and a tedious way to finish all missions. I got this game for free with my graphics card, no way I would pay full price for it.
Saints Row was one of my favorite franchises growing up. Saints Row 2 still being one of my favorite games and 3 as a worthy successor. It's sad to see it in the state it is right now, unworthy of calling itself a GTA contender. I doubt the Saints Row franchise will return to its former glory and that truly breaks my heart. It's too scared to take itselfs seriously and relies way to much on being "funny" and "memeable" while also failing tremendously at those goals. If you truly liked the movie Free Guy, you will probably love this game
I found myself enjoying my time whenever I wasn't doing anything that had to do with the mission tab in my phone. so basically fucking around in the open world and doing side shit was an infinitely more positive experience than playing the main content. The main content is so aggressively bad since the writing and dialogue is so in love with itself that it doesn't realize how abhorrent it is. It doesn't help that the main missions are very rigid and allow for very little experimentation and freeform playing. Inherits the worst bits of GTA in that design philosophy.
You'd think that in a franchise where the main selling points is that it's basically GTA with character creation that the character creator would be good and not constantly glitch out and reset the colors of my clothes or put me in clothes I was never wearing out of nowhere with no warning.
Also the problems with my weapons sometimes just vanishing from my weapon wheel or driving around and suddenly shooting into the stratosphere from just slightly driving into a curb at the wrong angle.
The final hour of this game is where you see the rushed nature of this product the most where your characters dialogue will come out a few seconds before the model says it, a boss fight that you can easily get stunlocked and die in through no real fault of your own, and the final QTE segment glitching out when you shoot Nahualli and his model freaks the fuck out, T-posing and then awkwardly standing there as what I assume should be the animation of him crumpling over to the ground would be.
Saints Row is kinda dead, boys. It's time to hang it up.
You'd think that in a franchise where the main selling points is that it's basically GTA with character creation that the character creator would be good and not constantly glitch out and reset the colors of my clothes or put me in clothes I was never wearing out of nowhere with no warning.
Also the problems with my weapons sometimes just vanishing from my weapon wheel or driving around and suddenly shooting into the stratosphere from just slightly driving into a curb at the wrong angle.
The final hour of this game is where you see the rushed nature of this product the most where your characters dialogue will come out a few seconds before the model says it, a boss fight that you can easily get stunlocked and die in through no real fault of your own, and the final QTE segment glitching out when you shoot Nahualli and his model freaks the fuck out, T-posing and then awkwardly standing there as what I assume should be the animation of him crumpling over to the ground would be.
Saints Row is kinda dead, boys. It's time to hang it up.
This game isn't perfect, but it definitely gets way more hate than it deserves. The biggest downside of this game is the story, but not even for being poorly written. I wouldn't say there's anything real "cringe" dialogue, but the characters really don't make much of an impression throughout the main campaign, but there are some highlights still. Neenahs side missions did a lot to really endear me to her while Eli has a great multi part RP side quest that's a ton of fun. Kevin is the only real character that I feel falls flat. He really doesn't have any side missions or real moments that endear me to him, but he's not unbearable to be around. The other problem with the story is that since it's a reboot the whole game is centered around building the Saints as an organization, so the game ends where you feel that it should just be starting. Definitely all problems that could be sorted out if they were given the chance to do a sequel to it. Outside of the story problems, the game plays exactly like Saints Row and is just as fun as it was in the other 4 entries. Fuck Embracer for sabotaging the release of this game and shuttering Volition.
Pretty disappointing. It's kind of fun to play but there's literally nothing standout or memorable. Story felt really short, tame and not at all fleshed out. While the friend characters were alright, I liked Neenah, they definitely would not be lieutenants In the real 3rd Street Saints gang. Especially Eli talking about going to court and using our words Instead of guns.
It Is a fun game to play but can't compare to any of the original 4 SR games, even Gatt Out Of hell felt better made.
It Is a fun game to play but can't compare to any of the original 4 SR games, even Gatt Out Of hell felt better made.
This review contains spoilers
âWho is this for?â
That was the question running through my mind when the Saints Row Reboot (henceforth âSRRâ) was unveiled. Ostensibly intended to be a âmore groundedâ Saints Row game, it seemed unsure of whether it was meant to appeal to newer SR fans or the oldies who think everything after 3 (or 2) is abominable. Having been turned off early, I tuned SRR out of my brain and paid it no mind.
âŠThen I plugged my Xbox back in. Boredom has been overtaking me something fierce, seeing as weâre now in a relative dry period with regards to game releases and everything I care about is a few months out. To my surprise, the person I gameshare with had SRR in their library. Seeing as Iâve only played great games as of late, I figured Iâd temper my palate with something irredeemably garbage. Something I can just laugh at and throw on the easy-joke pile with Endwalker, Daemon x Machina, Telltale Games, Arkham Origins and a bunch of other tripe.
I didnât really get that. Instead I got a game that inadvertently made me reflect on my history with open world games, the open world genre as a whole, and what a âSaints Row Gameâ even is.
If I had to give you a brief tl;dr so that you can stop the [wordcount] review early, Iâd say⊠This game is the epitome of âone step forward, two steps backâ. Itâs locked in an endless game of twister where its only opponents are its hazy ambitions and the games that came before it. Remember, as of writing itâs currently the most recent big modern-ish open world game, newer than even Cyberpunk 2077. But ultimately its biggest flaw is that it just doesnât know who itâs meant for.
It demonstrates this in the first five minutes. Immediately upon starting youâre given a vague prologue and then access to the character creator. The creator itself is pretty much fine, having a ton of returning and new options - like prosthetics, which were a welcome addition as someone who likes to play disabled characters when they can.
Itâs great, varied, and⊠They didnât bother adding colour channels for a lot of gear, so only one section can be recoloured. The gameâs only button-up/waistcoat/tie combo only lets you dye the shirt, so it ends up not matching with more vividly coloured outfits. Itâs⊠strange, and really jarring? SR3 and 4 were a downgrade from 2 on the customization front, whereas this is an odd sidestep.
They finally brought back upper body layering (so the player selects a shirt and jacket rather than just a Top Piece) but skipped out on colour channels, sleeve options and even the option to tuck your shirt in. Arguably, the half-measure makes it more frustrating than the straight downgrade of SR3 and 4.
Immediately after making your character, youâre thrown into a banal corridor shooter segment. Itâs strange, but not in the ways youâre probably expecting. For starters, itâs one of the rare funny moments in this game, being a run-on bleak sequence of black comedy that wouldnât be out of place in a GTA spinoff. It didnât make me laugh, but it was amusing nonetheless.
Unfortunately itâs also a drag, where control is frequently wrestled out of your hands and the camera frequently pans away from the action to focus on something exploding.To say it sets the tone for the rest of the storyâs gameplay is putting it lightly.
Rather curiously, though, it doesnât set the tone for the actual story. Whereas the openings of SR2, 3 and 4 all told you what you were in for⊠SRR doesnât. The most you get from the intro is âThe Boss takes awful jobs to pay rentâ, but even with that in mind nothing you actually do in the prologue even matters. The Nahualli befriends and backstabs you later yet your role in imprisoning him here doesnât play into it. Gwen disappears from the plot after this mini-arc is over, and only appears in a side mission.
Immediately after, the player is introduced to the Bossâ best friends for life: Neenah, Eli and Kev. Itâs instantly apparent after a few minutes with them that theyâre amalgamations of previous characters (Shaundi, Pierce, Johnny Gat) but in a way that distinctly feels as though they were sanded down to be palatable to someoneâs mother. These characters arenât really what anyone would think of when asked to conjure up an image of âcriminalâ. Theyâre decent people - to an extent - and immediately theyâre made likeable and human.
And⊠I think them being human actually makes them more unsettling than SR1-4âs wisecracking murderbots.
When Watch_Dogs 2 came out, a pretty common criticism was that the cast were likeable but Marcus seemed sociopathic if the player didnât play non-lethally. Before that, GTAV received mild criticism for how strange the narrative feels if they choose to play Michael and Franklin as unrepentant murderers. Before that, people were pointing out how uncomfortable it is to have Nathan Drake and company be so happy and snarky after slaughtering enough people to fill out a cruise liner. The overarching theme being: âItâs unsettling to have characters just shrug off insane amounts of mass murderâ.
I would use the term âludonarrative dissonanceâ here, but 1) itâs not appropriate, actually and 2) that term was spawned from someone misunderstanding Bioshock 1, itâd be unfortunately fitting to use it here. There is no dissonance because the gangâs penchant for murder, apathy towards collateral damage and willingness to do things like destroy the environment are part of the narrative. Theyâre chummy and friendly and likeable, sure! They also by and large view human life as a statistic and are purely emotion-driven.
The disconnect is strange, and I actually came away finding them more uncomfortable than the cast from the past games. Itâs not helped by the gang being comparatively static, I guess? Thereâs no development here, individually or collectively. They end the way they started. Which is a little jarring, I will admit, because the gameâs story proceeds as if they did have development, but weâll talk about that when I get to the finale.
For now though⊠God, itâs a bad sign when even the cast are making me ask âWho is this for?â, isnât it? They feel like a corporate idea of a âhip and trendyâ cast which, as we saw during the pre-release, turned off most older SR fans. Except⊠They are quantifiably the kind of sociopathic impulse-driven maniacs that would fit in with SR3, even if they are a little underbaked. I initially thought they wanted to have more GTA-esque characters, but the complete lack of interpersonal strife and even arguments torpedoes that.
Donât get me wrong, part of me likes the new cast, but thatâs moreso in spite of the writing than because of it. In particular, I really like Kevin for being a masculine himbo character whose bisexuality is only played for laughs in very benign, almost endearing waysâŠ
Fuck. Alright. Okay.
Even if I cut this review short and end it early, I have to talk about the humour. More than the gameplay or the story or the mechanics or the cast, itâs the humour that confuses me.
This game really wants to be funny, and unlike the other SR games it has trouble nailing a particular style of comedy, because it goes for⊠All of them. Contemporary humor, political satire, lol-so-random funnies (shotgun chimp? seriously?), overly referential, punching down⊠This game tries to be funny in every single way imaginable and the end result is that it rarely is actually funny. Every now and then it just tells a straight joke and ends up being actually amusing - like getting fired as an âunlockâ - but then it pivots into a mean spirited jab at furries, or a boring and tired jab at bigots, or mocking activists, or mocking-
Hmm. Yeah. SRR mocks a lot of things. Like half the humour, regardless of flavour, is mockery. This game is overly referential and overly mean in ways that were gauche when Saints Row 4 came out a decade ago.
In a way, it feels like the only way in which SRR lives up to the shadow of GTAV it lives in, seeing as that game is also an irony-poisoned wasteland with mostly flat characters and a serious downgrade compared to the games it came after. Of particular note is the Dustmoot chain of missions, which seems to exist only to make hamfisted post-apocalyptic media shoutouts and spitefully poke fun at LARPers. It reads like the worst of Doug Walkerâs Nostalgia Critic back catalogue.
Once again falling back to âwho is this for?â, I also feel the need to point out that this game contains a number of jokes that boil down to âHAHA SOCIAL MEDIA IS STUPID ZOOMERS ARE STUPIDâ. Itâs really crass and childish, like theyâre aimed at an audience who never wouldâve played SR to begin with.
I would be kinder to this if the entire game didnât feel like it was afraid of saying anything or standing out. Its mockery doesnât feel sincere or even meaningful, just a reflex reaction to something the writers donât get.
And what better avenue to explore this gameâs fear of standing out than the gameplay?
If youâve played any open world game since 2008, youâve probably played SRR. If youâve played lots of them, youâve definitely played SRR. The game borrows elements from pretty much every major open world title over the last few years. It has a wingsuit and roof riding like Just Cause, it has side swiping and vehicle combat like Mad Max, it has command abilities using a meter like Agents of Mayhem (or any anime fighter released in the last decade), cool glory kills like Yakuza or Doom and it has shooting.
Itâs very transparently trying to appeal to as many open world fans at once, and as you mightâve predicted halfway through that paragraph, I donât think it succeeds. Just to go down the list:
The wingsuit handles strangely and they havenât bothered to give it the momentum control that other games with wingsuits needed, plus using it isnât very intuitive given how clunky roof riding is and the general lack of spots to wingsuit from. This gameâs map is very flat, after all.
Vehicle combat feels like an afterthought. The playerâs vehicles do so much damage that everything else is tantamount to a metal egg waiting to get cracked. While car handling is much improved from its predecessors, the physics engine is a little overzealous and itâs prone to sending you careening into the sky (or worse, into water) when you meet a slight incline.
Skills are⊠Weak, theyâre weak. The only good one is - tellingly - the very first one, which is a cheap command grab that does huge damage in an AoE, makes you invincible for the duration of the animation. The rest are superficial at best. Shooting your opponent in the face will do better damage.
The takedowns are just straight up bad. Theyâre a very obvious rip from DOOM 2016 (right down to giving you health and ammo on usage) but they go on far too long and on higher difficulties you donât actually get enough back from doing them to justify sitting through an animation that can potentially go on for half a minute.
While the shooting is an upgrade from previous games, itâs actually marred by the enemies you fight. They oscillate between squishy and bullet spongy seemingly at random, and a lot of weapons donât actually do enough damage to make fighting the spongier enemies less painful. You can upgrade them, but it does little to alleviate the issue. That the shooting itself is still a bit flaccid and unsatisfying doesnât help.
More than anything, though, the game just feels dated in both gameplay and humor. My main thought while playing it was âHuh, this feels like itâs stuck in GTAVâs shadowâ. Which wouldâve been fine ten years ago when GTAV was current, but 2013 was a long time ago. If itâd come out back then I couldâve easily declared âOh yeah, this is clearly trying to be more GTAVâ, but now Iâm not so sure. It feels trapped, both by GTAV and its identity crisis.
Before talking about the story from a narrative point of view, I need to say a few things on the gameplay front.
Back in the 2010s, singleplayer gaming ran into a pretty major problem: Setpiece addiction. Unwilling to let any mission be forgettable, every mission devolved into a handholding setpiece that was often scored with licensed music or some other âhype songâ. It was cute the first few times, but by 2012 itâd become exhausting. The setpieces often took priority over anything else - including character writing - and by the time they grew out of fashion, everyone was tired of them. Too much of a good thing, and all.
SRR feels like going back in time on that front. Way back, to the days where every game wanted to be Uncharted. Pretty much every mission goes off the rails at some point, dragging you into a boring murderfest or giving you a front row seat to a corridor setpiece that wouldâve been considered dated in 2012. This is something the other games in the series - and of course, GTA - managed to avoid, often devoting smaller missions to character building. Sure they were âfillerâ, but the game benefited from them.
Here? Itâs all action all the time, and by the endgame I was debating turning down the difficulty just so I could get it over with. I said there were a lot of setpieces, yeah, but theyâre hardly good ones. They boil down to âkill a lot of guys while licensed music playsâ. Itâs very Marvel in all the worst ways, and at times it feels as though theyâre trying too hard to aspire to the glory days of SR3. As if they have no greater goal than to make people feel the same emotions that they did when Power played⊠In 2011.
Iâve mentioned SR3 a lot, because this game does read like an attempt to recapture those glory days. Would you believe me if I told you that, by all accounts, the devs were seeking to return to the days of SR2? Speaking to Eurogamer, one of the developers said:
â[Saints Row 4 is] so far beyond the realms of reality. Where do you possibly go from there? So you've got to go back to your roots. The only place to go when you've gone that far is to pull it back in.â
Other interviews make a point to reference Volitionâs desire to return to the âmix of drama and comedyâ that was present in SR2. All throughout the pre-release, this is their guiding star: âWeâre going back.â
And they sure did. I just donât know what they went back to.
The story, perhaps more than anything, is very emblematic of this uncertainty. Very immediately, it falls into the SR3 format: Get missions by phone, here are 3 very big bad factions to be afraid of, hereâs a 4th wildcard for near the end. Itâs very painfully derivative, to the point where it recycles a lot of plot points from SR3 - including one of the main threats getting unceremoniously offed in the middle of the game!
Unlike 3, though, the opening has a markedly different tone. Rather than a group of sociopathic murderers who âsold outâ and got betrayed, the nu-Saints are college graduates willing to do whacky things to pay off their exorbitant student loan and make rent. Itâs a very grounded beginning that ultimately just makes it more disappointing when the story falls back on ludicrous action setpieces and more murder.
Yet⊠I donât know, there are moments when it feels as though SRR crosses into a reality where it was more like SR2. Early in the game, you disrupt a convoy formed by Los Panteros and piss off their leader, causing a rising series of escalations that culminate in the leader destroying Neenahâs beloved car and triggering a rampage of revenge.
If youâve played SR2, you might be getting deja vu. If you havenât: The Boss in SR2 pisses off Maero of the Brotherhood and it triggers a string of brutal escalations that culminate in cruel executions and all out warfare.
The mini-arc with the Panteros is very clearly trying to allude to this. The gang even share a ton of visual similarities with the Brotherhood, have the same palette, drive the same vehicles and their leader is even a Big Dude who isnât keen on reason. It wants to be the new Brotherhood arc, and it simply isnât. Thereâs no meat to any of the escalations, and the plot being a straight line means that the Panteros are an afterthought. Theyâre even dispatched abruptly during an otherwise unrelated mission by a character who has no stake in the conflict. That the Boss lampshades this does not make it less confounding.
This isnât an isolated incident. Even before that, during the intro missions, an allusion is made to conflict between the gang stemming from their initial allegiances to the main three factions but it amounts to nothing. Itâs there to make a joke about the âroommate codeâ, and then the Saints are formed about a mission or two later.
Even worse, the ending seems to have been written with this hypothetical alternative story in mind. Later on in the story, the Boss recruits the Nahualli (every single slightly concerning Dangerous Hispanic trope in one) despite the apprehension of their friends. Even though they attempt to befriend him, the Nahualli betrays them and stabs them in the gut. What follows is a hallucination sequence where the Boss alludes to having âlost something along the wayâ, and theyâre then condemned by hallucinations of their allies for going too far in the morality swimming pool, being told that the Nahualli stabbing them is a comeuppance for their actions. In the final confrontation, the Nahualli is brought down by the power of friendship, with the Boss declaring âThey donât need me, I need themâ.
None of this has any relevance to what comes before. It is grotesquely out of place with the rest of the game.
No lip service is paid to the Bossâ allegedly decaying morality. In fact, they arguably become a better person after founding the Saints given that they make it a point to give their gang members salaries and pension plans. All of their victims are people who unambiguously deserve it and routinely incite their ire. The Saints themselves donât even truly escalate the way they did in prior games - especially 2, which the developers purport to be inspired by. The character arcs in this game are a straight horizontal line.
Most importantly, the sudden âpower of friendshipâ reference truly comes out of nowhere and is demonstrably false. Besides the Boss, the Saints are frequently damselâd and require the Boss to bail them out. Their suggestions that arenât âkill thingsâ often fall on deaf ears and the Boss ignoring them is vindicated by their wanton murder being the correct choice in almost literally every situation bar one - a situation which is not resolved by a member of the Saints, by the way.
It is a strange, flat and headscratching story. Not difficult to understand textually, but utterly bewildering in a meta context. It is at once SR2, SR3, and GTAV in the same game. Even as I type this, 3.3k words into a review, I donât have a clue as to what the actual point is.
An answer can perhaps be found in the real world.
SRR often has the Saints declare that theyâre âhere to stayâ and that theyâre not a fad or a âflash in the pan. Outside of the game, it was clear from the onset that Volition saw this as their big comeback. Their parent company gave them as much money, time and space as they wanted and the game was allegedly cooking for quite some time. Pre-release, numerous people involved were publicly confident that this would be it, that Saints Row would be BACK. One of the last things IdolNinja ever publicly said before his death was:
âOur new Saints Row game is absolutely going to blow the roof off. I am beyond proud to have been a part of bringing it to life.â
Morale was high. These people were clearly confident that Saints Row would be a household name again. And yet, the parent company all but said that SRR was never going to give them a good return on investment. It failed to meet expectations and it only took a few months before Embracer Group pulled them away from Deep Silver and threw them at Gearbox. To this day, theyâre still too ashamed to post sales figures.
I donât think Iâm wrong in saying that SRR was meant to be the resurgence of the entire franchise. In retrospect, it touches on a lot of the same beats that SR1 did and itâs more digestible if viewed as the start of a new series rather than a standalone reboot. It wasnât just going to be âa new Saints Rowâ, it was going to start a new Saints Row.
And it failed.
While writing this, I flicked through my library and came face to face with Crash Bandicoot 4. A game that ignored everything after 3 and explicitly aimed to design itself as âa sequel to Crash 3â rather than just a Crash game. In many ways, I feel this sort of explains why SRR is the way it is. They evidently wanted to make the reboot a spiritual sequel to SR2 but failed to realise that 2008 was 14 years prior to SRRâs release and the game itself came out a decade after SRâs peak in popularity.
If this game came out in 2008, itâd probably be viewed more positively, but itâs 2023. Just Cause, Mad Max, another GTA, Cyberpunk 2077, Crackdown, Prototype, Ghost Recon Wildlands⊠There have been so many better and more engaging open world games in the intervening decade that SRR was never going to be exceptional even if it did manage to be a perfect recreation of SR2.
Sometimes I feel like being kinder to the game. The deck was stacked against it and the SR fanbase is so polarized as it is that it was never gonna unify them. There simply isnât a world in which this game succeeded without being a radically different one.
ButâŠ
In 2007 I got my first Xbox 360, and with it a handful of games. Among them was a little game called Saints Row 1. It was a bit of a janky mess, lacking direction beyond âbe a GTA cloneâ and having an oddly paced story with a weird betrayal ending. Despite this, I liked it and could forgive it. It didnât feel bad to shoot things up and I liked the characters in spite of everything, plus very rarely it was genuinely funny. I could even forgive the bugs, the pacing and shallow gameplay.
However, it had this minigame called Insurance Fraud where the player had to rack up points by hurling themselves in front of cars. On paper it was fine but it was subject to numerous issues: The traffic controller sometimes failed to spawn appropriate amounts of vehicles. The physics were prone to bugging out and failing to launch you. Collision on ragdolls was wonky and oftentimes getting hit at 60mph lead to no points. Ultimately the entire mode was decided by RNG.
Itâs 2023 now. SRR has come out and been out for nearly a year now.
Itâs a janky mess, lacking direction, and it has an oddly paced story with a weird betrayal ending.
Now? I donât know if I can give it a pass despite the endearing characters, the rare moments where shooting is fun, and the odd moment of genuine humor. I donât know if I can forgive the bugs, the shallow gameplay or the pacing.
Itâs been 17 years and Insurance Fraud still has the exact same issues.
Says everything, donât it?
That was the question running through my mind when the Saints Row Reboot (henceforth âSRRâ) was unveiled. Ostensibly intended to be a âmore groundedâ Saints Row game, it seemed unsure of whether it was meant to appeal to newer SR fans or the oldies who think everything after 3 (or 2) is abominable. Having been turned off early, I tuned SRR out of my brain and paid it no mind.
âŠThen I plugged my Xbox back in. Boredom has been overtaking me something fierce, seeing as weâre now in a relative dry period with regards to game releases and everything I care about is a few months out. To my surprise, the person I gameshare with had SRR in their library. Seeing as Iâve only played great games as of late, I figured Iâd temper my palate with something irredeemably garbage. Something I can just laugh at and throw on the easy-joke pile with Endwalker, Daemon x Machina, Telltale Games, Arkham Origins and a bunch of other tripe.
I didnât really get that. Instead I got a game that inadvertently made me reflect on my history with open world games, the open world genre as a whole, and what a âSaints Row Gameâ even is.
If I had to give you a brief tl;dr so that you can stop the [wordcount] review early, Iâd say⊠This game is the epitome of âone step forward, two steps backâ. Itâs locked in an endless game of twister where its only opponents are its hazy ambitions and the games that came before it. Remember, as of writing itâs currently the most recent big modern-ish open world game, newer than even Cyberpunk 2077. But ultimately its biggest flaw is that it just doesnât know who itâs meant for.
It demonstrates this in the first five minutes. Immediately upon starting youâre given a vague prologue and then access to the character creator. The creator itself is pretty much fine, having a ton of returning and new options - like prosthetics, which were a welcome addition as someone who likes to play disabled characters when they can.
Itâs great, varied, and⊠They didnât bother adding colour channels for a lot of gear, so only one section can be recoloured. The gameâs only button-up/waistcoat/tie combo only lets you dye the shirt, so it ends up not matching with more vividly coloured outfits. Itâs⊠strange, and really jarring? SR3 and 4 were a downgrade from 2 on the customization front, whereas this is an odd sidestep.
They finally brought back upper body layering (so the player selects a shirt and jacket rather than just a Top Piece) but skipped out on colour channels, sleeve options and even the option to tuck your shirt in. Arguably, the half-measure makes it more frustrating than the straight downgrade of SR3 and 4.
Immediately after making your character, youâre thrown into a banal corridor shooter segment. Itâs strange, but not in the ways youâre probably expecting. For starters, itâs one of the rare funny moments in this game, being a run-on bleak sequence of black comedy that wouldnât be out of place in a GTA spinoff. It didnât make me laugh, but it was amusing nonetheless.
Unfortunately itâs also a drag, where control is frequently wrestled out of your hands and the camera frequently pans away from the action to focus on something exploding.To say it sets the tone for the rest of the storyâs gameplay is putting it lightly.
Rather curiously, though, it doesnât set the tone for the actual story. Whereas the openings of SR2, 3 and 4 all told you what you were in for⊠SRR doesnât. The most you get from the intro is âThe Boss takes awful jobs to pay rentâ, but even with that in mind nothing you actually do in the prologue even matters. The Nahualli befriends and backstabs you later yet your role in imprisoning him here doesnât play into it. Gwen disappears from the plot after this mini-arc is over, and only appears in a side mission.
Immediately after, the player is introduced to the Bossâ best friends for life: Neenah, Eli and Kev. Itâs instantly apparent after a few minutes with them that theyâre amalgamations of previous characters (Shaundi, Pierce, Johnny Gat) but in a way that distinctly feels as though they were sanded down to be palatable to someoneâs mother. These characters arenât really what anyone would think of when asked to conjure up an image of âcriminalâ. Theyâre decent people - to an extent - and immediately theyâre made likeable and human.
And⊠I think them being human actually makes them more unsettling than SR1-4âs wisecracking murderbots.
When Watch_Dogs 2 came out, a pretty common criticism was that the cast were likeable but Marcus seemed sociopathic if the player didnât play non-lethally. Before that, GTAV received mild criticism for how strange the narrative feels if they choose to play Michael and Franklin as unrepentant murderers. Before that, people were pointing out how uncomfortable it is to have Nathan Drake and company be so happy and snarky after slaughtering enough people to fill out a cruise liner. The overarching theme being: âItâs unsettling to have characters just shrug off insane amounts of mass murderâ.
I would use the term âludonarrative dissonanceâ here, but 1) itâs not appropriate, actually and 2) that term was spawned from someone misunderstanding Bioshock 1, itâd be unfortunately fitting to use it here. There is no dissonance because the gangâs penchant for murder, apathy towards collateral damage and willingness to do things like destroy the environment are part of the narrative. Theyâre chummy and friendly and likeable, sure! They also by and large view human life as a statistic and are purely emotion-driven.
The disconnect is strange, and I actually came away finding them more uncomfortable than the cast from the past games. Itâs not helped by the gang being comparatively static, I guess? Thereâs no development here, individually or collectively. They end the way they started. Which is a little jarring, I will admit, because the gameâs story proceeds as if they did have development, but weâll talk about that when I get to the finale.
For now though⊠God, itâs a bad sign when even the cast are making me ask âWho is this for?â, isnât it? They feel like a corporate idea of a âhip and trendyâ cast which, as we saw during the pre-release, turned off most older SR fans. Except⊠They are quantifiably the kind of sociopathic impulse-driven maniacs that would fit in with SR3, even if they are a little underbaked. I initially thought they wanted to have more GTA-esque characters, but the complete lack of interpersonal strife and even arguments torpedoes that.
Donât get me wrong, part of me likes the new cast, but thatâs moreso in spite of the writing than because of it. In particular, I really like Kevin for being a masculine himbo character whose bisexuality is only played for laughs in very benign, almost endearing waysâŠ
Fuck. Alright. Okay.
Even if I cut this review short and end it early, I have to talk about the humour. More than the gameplay or the story or the mechanics or the cast, itâs the humour that confuses me.
This game really wants to be funny, and unlike the other SR games it has trouble nailing a particular style of comedy, because it goes for⊠All of them. Contemporary humor, political satire, lol-so-random funnies (shotgun chimp? seriously?), overly referential, punching down⊠This game tries to be funny in every single way imaginable and the end result is that it rarely is actually funny. Every now and then it just tells a straight joke and ends up being actually amusing - like getting fired as an âunlockâ - but then it pivots into a mean spirited jab at furries, or a boring and tired jab at bigots, or mocking activists, or mocking-
Hmm. Yeah. SRR mocks a lot of things. Like half the humour, regardless of flavour, is mockery. This game is overly referential and overly mean in ways that were gauche when Saints Row 4 came out a decade ago.
In a way, it feels like the only way in which SRR lives up to the shadow of GTAV it lives in, seeing as that game is also an irony-poisoned wasteland with mostly flat characters and a serious downgrade compared to the games it came after. Of particular note is the Dustmoot chain of missions, which seems to exist only to make hamfisted post-apocalyptic media shoutouts and spitefully poke fun at LARPers. It reads like the worst of Doug Walkerâs Nostalgia Critic back catalogue.
Once again falling back to âwho is this for?â, I also feel the need to point out that this game contains a number of jokes that boil down to âHAHA SOCIAL MEDIA IS STUPID ZOOMERS ARE STUPIDâ. Itâs really crass and childish, like theyâre aimed at an audience who never wouldâve played SR to begin with.
I would be kinder to this if the entire game didnât feel like it was afraid of saying anything or standing out. Its mockery doesnât feel sincere or even meaningful, just a reflex reaction to something the writers donât get.
And what better avenue to explore this gameâs fear of standing out than the gameplay?
If youâve played any open world game since 2008, youâve probably played SRR. If youâve played lots of them, youâve definitely played SRR. The game borrows elements from pretty much every major open world title over the last few years. It has a wingsuit and roof riding like Just Cause, it has side swiping and vehicle combat like Mad Max, it has command abilities using a meter like Agents of Mayhem (or any anime fighter released in the last decade), cool glory kills like Yakuza or Doom and it has shooting.
Itâs very transparently trying to appeal to as many open world fans at once, and as you mightâve predicted halfway through that paragraph, I donât think it succeeds. Just to go down the list:
The wingsuit handles strangely and they havenât bothered to give it the momentum control that other games with wingsuits needed, plus using it isnât very intuitive given how clunky roof riding is and the general lack of spots to wingsuit from. This gameâs map is very flat, after all.
Vehicle combat feels like an afterthought. The playerâs vehicles do so much damage that everything else is tantamount to a metal egg waiting to get cracked. While car handling is much improved from its predecessors, the physics engine is a little overzealous and itâs prone to sending you careening into the sky (or worse, into water) when you meet a slight incline.
Skills are⊠Weak, theyâre weak. The only good one is - tellingly - the very first one, which is a cheap command grab that does huge damage in an AoE, makes you invincible for the duration of the animation. The rest are superficial at best. Shooting your opponent in the face will do better damage.
The takedowns are just straight up bad. Theyâre a very obvious rip from DOOM 2016 (right down to giving you health and ammo on usage) but they go on far too long and on higher difficulties you donât actually get enough back from doing them to justify sitting through an animation that can potentially go on for half a minute.
While the shooting is an upgrade from previous games, itâs actually marred by the enemies you fight. They oscillate between squishy and bullet spongy seemingly at random, and a lot of weapons donât actually do enough damage to make fighting the spongier enemies less painful. You can upgrade them, but it does little to alleviate the issue. That the shooting itself is still a bit flaccid and unsatisfying doesnât help.
More than anything, though, the game just feels dated in both gameplay and humor. My main thought while playing it was âHuh, this feels like itâs stuck in GTAVâs shadowâ. Which wouldâve been fine ten years ago when GTAV was current, but 2013 was a long time ago. If itâd come out back then I couldâve easily declared âOh yeah, this is clearly trying to be more GTAVâ, but now Iâm not so sure. It feels trapped, both by GTAV and its identity crisis.
Before talking about the story from a narrative point of view, I need to say a few things on the gameplay front.
Back in the 2010s, singleplayer gaming ran into a pretty major problem: Setpiece addiction. Unwilling to let any mission be forgettable, every mission devolved into a handholding setpiece that was often scored with licensed music or some other âhype songâ. It was cute the first few times, but by 2012 itâd become exhausting. The setpieces often took priority over anything else - including character writing - and by the time they grew out of fashion, everyone was tired of them. Too much of a good thing, and all.
SRR feels like going back in time on that front. Way back, to the days where every game wanted to be Uncharted. Pretty much every mission goes off the rails at some point, dragging you into a boring murderfest or giving you a front row seat to a corridor setpiece that wouldâve been considered dated in 2012. This is something the other games in the series - and of course, GTA - managed to avoid, often devoting smaller missions to character building. Sure they were âfillerâ, but the game benefited from them.
Here? Itâs all action all the time, and by the endgame I was debating turning down the difficulty just so I could get it over with. I said there were a lot of setpieces, yeah, but theyâre hardly good ones. They boil down to âkill a lot of guys while licensed music playsâ. Itâs very Marvel in all the worst ways, and at times it feels as though theyâre trying too hard to aspire to the glory days of SR3. As if they have no greater goal than to make people feel the same emotions that they did when Power played⊠In 2011.
Iâve mentioned SR3 a lot, because this game does read like an attempt to recapture those glory days. Would you believe me if I told you that, by all accounts, the devs were seeking to return to the days of SR2? Speaking to Eurogamer, one of the developers said:
â[Saints Row 4 is] so far beyond the realms of reality. Where do you possibly go from there? So you've got to go back to your roots. The only place to go when you've gone that far is to pull it back in.â
Other interviews make a point to reference Volitionâs desire to return to the âmix of drama and comedyâ that was present in SR2. All throughout the pre-release, this is their guiding star: âWeâre going back.â
And they sure did. I just donât know what they went back to.
The story, perhaps more than anything, is very emblematic of this uncertainty. Very immediately, it falls into the SR3 format: Get missions by phone, here are 3 very big bad factions to be afraid of, hereâs a 4th wildcard for near the end. Itâs very painfully derivative, to the point where it recycles a lot of plot points from SR3 - including one of the main threats getting unceremoniously offed in the middle of the game!
Unlike 3, though, the opening has a markedly different tone. Rather than a group of sociopathic murderers who âsold outâ and got betrayed, the nu-Saints are college graduates willing to do whacky things to pay off their exorbitant student loan and make rent. Itâs a very grounded beginning that ultimately just makes it more disappointing when the story falls back on ludicrous action setpieces and more murder.
Yet⊠I donât know, there are moments when it feels as though SRR crosses into a reality where it was more like SR2. Early in the game, you disrupt a convoy formed by Los Panteros and piss off their leader, causing a rising series of escalations that culminate in the leader destroying Neenahâs beloved car and triggering a rampage of revenge.
If youâve played SR2, you might be getting deja vu. If you havenât: The Boss in SR2 pisses off Maero of the Brotherhood and it triggers a string of brutal escalations that culminate in cruel executions and all out warfare.
The mini-arc with the Panteros is very clearly trying to allude to this. The gang even share a ton of visual similarities with the Brotherhood, have the same palette, drive the same vehicles and their leader is even a Big Dude who isnât keen on reason. It wants to be the new Brotherhood arc, and it simply isnât. Thereâs no meat to any of the escalations, and the plot being a straight line means that the Panteros are an afterthought. Theyâre even dispatched abruptly during an otherwise unrelated mission by a character who has no stake in the conflict. That the Boss lampshades this does not make it less confounding.
This isnât an isolated incident. Even before that, during the intro missions, an allusion is made to conflict between the gang stemming from their initial allegiances to the main three factions but it amounts to nothing. Itâs there to make a joke about the âroommate codeâ, and then the Saints are formed about a mission or two later.
Even worse, the ending seems to have been written with this hypothetical alternative story in mind. Later on in the story, the Boss recruits the Nahualli (every single slightly concerning Dangerous Hispanic trope in one) despite the apprehension of their friends. Even though they attempt to befriend him, the Nahualli betrays them and stabs them in the gut. What follows is a hallucination sequence where the Boss alludes to having âlost something along the wayâ, and theyâre then condemned by hallucinations of their allies for going too far in the morality swimming pool, being told that the Nahualli stabbing them is a comeuppance for their actions. In the final confrontation, the Nahualli is brought down by the power of friendship, with the Boss declaring âThey donât need me, I need themâ.
None of this has any relevance to what comes before. It is grotesquely out of place with the rest of the game.
No lip service is paid to the Bossâ allegedly decaying morality. In fact, they arguably become a better person after founding the Saints given that they make it a point to give their gang members salaries and pension plans. All of their victims are people who unambiguously deserve it and routinely incite their ire. The Saints themselves donât even truly escalate the way they did in prior games - especially 2, which the developers purport to be inspired by. The character arcs in this game are a straight horizontal line.
Most importantly, the sudden âpower of friendshipâ reference truly comes out of nowhere and is demonstrably false. Besides the Boss, the Saints are frequently damselâd and require the Boss to bail them out. Their suggestions that arenât âkill thingsâ often fall on deaf ears and the Boss ignoring them is vindicated by their wanton murder being the correct choice in almost literally every situation bar one - a situation which is not resolved by a member of the Saints, by the way.
It is a strange, flat and headscratching story. Not difficult to understand textually, but utterly bewildering in a meta context. It is at once SR2, SR3, and GTAV in the same game. Even as I type this, 3.3k words into a review, I donât have a clue as to what the actual point is.
An answer can perhaps be found in the real world.
SRR often has the Saints declare that theyâre âhere to stayâ and that theyâre not a fad or a âflash in the pan. Outside of the game, it was clear from the onset that Volition saw this as their big comeback. Their parent company gave them as much money, time and space as they wanted and the game was allegedly cooking for quite some time. Pre-release, numerous people involved were publicly confident that this would be it, that Saints Row would be BACK. One of the last things IdolNinja ever publicly said before his death was:
âOur new Saints Row game is absolutely going to blow the roof off. I am beyond proud to have been a part of bringing it to life.â
Morale was high. These people were clearly confident that Saints Row would be a household name again. And yet, the parent company all but said that SRR was never going to give them a good return on investment. It failed to meet expectations and it only took a few months before Embracer Group pulled them away from Deep Silver and threw them at Gearbox. To this day, theyâre still too ashamed to post sales figures.
I donât think Iâm wrong in saying that SRR was meant to be the resurgence of the entire franchise. In retrospect, it touches on a lot of the same beats that SR1 did and itâs more digestible if viewed as the start of a new series rather than a standalone reboot. It wasnât just going to be âa new Saints Rowâ, it was going to start a new Saints Row.
And it failed.
While writing this, I flicked through my library and came face to face with Crash Bandicoot 4. A game that ignored everything after 3 and explicitly aimed to design itself as âa sequel to Crash 3â rather than just a Crash game. In many ways, I feel this sort of explains why SRR is the way it is. They evidently wanted to make the reboot a spiritual sequel to SR2 but failed to realise that 2008 was 14 years prior to SRRâs release and the game itself came out a decade after SRâs peak in popularity.
If this game came out in 2008, itâd probably be viewed more positively, but itâs 2023. Just Cause, Mad Max, another GTA, Cyberpunk 2077, Crackdown, Prototype, Ghost Recon Wildlands⊠There have been so many better and more engaging open world games in the intervening decade that SRR was never going to be exceptional even if it did manage to be a perfect recreation of SR2.
Sometimes I feel like being kinder to the game. The deck was stacked against it and the SR fanbase is so polarized as it is that it was never gonna unify them. There simply isnât a world in which this game succeeded without being a radically different one.
ButâŠ
In 2007 I got my first Xbox 360, and with it a handful of games. Among them was a little game called Saints Row 1. It was a bit of a janky mess, lacking direction beyond âbe a GTA cloneâ and having an oddly paced story with a weird betrayal ending. Despite this, I liked it and could forgive it. It didnât feel bad to shoot things up and I liked the characters in spite of everything, plus very rarely it was genuinely funny. I could even forgive the bugs, the pacing and shallow gameplay.
However, it had this minigame called Insurance Fraud where the player had to rack up points by hurling themselves in front of cars. On paper it was fine but it was subject to numerous issues: The traffic controller sometimes failed to spawn appropriate amounts of vehicles. The physics were prone to bugging out and failing to launch you. Collision on ragdolls was wonky and oftentimes getting hit at 60mph lead to no points. Ultimately the entire mode was decided by RNG.
Itâs 2023 now. SRR has come out and been out for nearly a year now.
Itâs a janky mess, lacking direction, and it has an oddly paced story with a weird betrayal ending.
Now? I donât know if I can give it a pass despite the endearing characters, the rare moments where shooting is fun, and the odd moment of genuine humor. I donât know if I can forgive the bugs, the shallow gameplay or the pacing.
Itâs been 17 years and Insurance Fraud still has the exact same issues.
Says everything, donât it?
Runs like shit, plays 3x times worse than sr2 that released in 2008 and there's literally not a single positive thing i can say about it. Even the settings are fucked which is weird considering this game seems like an asset flip that's combined of Sr2/Sr3. How do you even manage to do worse than games that came out back in the late 2000s.
PS: Keep in mind that i came to this open minded and thought that it probably wasn't as bad as people claim it to be and it happens to be even worse than that.
PS: Keep in mind that i came to this open minded and thought that it probably wasn't as bad as people claim it to be and it happens to be even worse than that.
I have no idea why I got the platinum in this
https://www.tiktok.com/@jordanrasko/video/7144155216571600130?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1&lang=en
https://www.tiktok.com/@jordanrasko/video/7144155216571600130?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1&lang=en
As someone who's been a Saints Row fan since 2014, I had hope for this game despite the marketing being pretty poor prior to release. However, this game just doesn't feel like a Saints Row game at all; the other Saints are boring, unlikeable and uninspired, the antagonists have absolutely no depth or personality to them except for maybe The Nahualli, and this is the first Saints Row game where I've genuinely disliked the boss that you play as in the game.
The only good thing about this game is the customisation, which has really peaked here compared to every other entry in the game. It's just a shame they couldn't put as much effort as they did in customisation into the other aspects of the game.
The only good thing about this game is the customisation, which has really peaked here compared to every other entry in the game. It's just a shame they couldn't put as much effort as they did in customisation into the other aspects of the game.
just super flimsy and annoying. there's like no soul or anything inside this game. it is hollow and empty. nothing to grip or hold on to. i had hoped maybe there'd be a spark inside of it, but nope. nice setting though. the bright orange amalgamation of New Mexico and Nevada is really soothing on the eyes. but it, too, is a hollow nothingness ultimately.
Existe um grande jogo a ser descoberto no reboot de Saints Row.
Digo isso sem medo, pois o jogo carrega consigo o que hĂĄ de melhor nos 6 jogos (descontando o mobile) que o antecederam.
Infelizmente, no estado atual, este game Ă© como uma cobra que devora a si mesma.
Saints Row (2022) é um jogo que traz muitas features que seus antecessores apresentaram e receberam clamor pela boa execução.
Temos a extensiva customização de personagem, que faria qualquer um fĂŁ de SR2 entrar em ĂȘxtase;
Pros veĂculos, muitas peças, cores e pleno controle sobre como cada conjunto irĂĄ se parecer, tĂŁo bom (ou mesmo melhor) como era em SR3;
Para as armas, upgrades especiais, junto de bastante liberdade para decidir as cores e texturas, agora fora da simulação de SR4.
Para os fãs de Agents of Mayhem, o dinamismo se mantém firme, embora um pouco menos frenético, afinal, este jogo não se trata de um looter-shooter.
Existem outros exemplos de coisas boas que poderiam fazer de Saints Row (2022) uma carta de amor aos fãs de longa data da franquia. Todavia, parecer-se tanto com outros jogos leva a comparaçÔes e estas comparaçÔes levam a conclusÔes. E, se as notas e comentårios servem para dizer algo, é fåcil entender a conclusão que muitos chegam ao jogar.
Eu poderia passar horas descrevendo cada um dos bugs e glitche que encontrei enquanto jogava e, provavelmente, nĂŁo seria suficiente pra cobrir todos.
Bug e feature se confundem neste jogo como ĂĄlcool e ĂĄgua misturados e quanto mais eu descobria, menos vontade de continuar jogando eu tinha.
NĂŁo me leve a mal, mas Ă© difĂcil fazer vista grossa quando eu preciso tolerar com uma ridĂcula frequĂȘncia coisas como:
â Uma parte da cidade esporadicamente desaparecendo, nĂŁo sobrando NPCs ou carros;
â Toda a customização de personagem, veĂculos e armas sendo resetadas ou modificadas. Eu perdi a conta de quantas vezes precisei pĂŽr de volta um chapĂ©u, Ăłculos ou mesmo a roupa Ăntima do meu personagem.
â Uma fĂsica inconsistente que por um lado me permite colidir contra uma parede violentamente sem cair de uma moto e que faz de veĂculos pesados se comportarem como uma bola de pinball com a menor das colisĂ”es.
Eu poderia continuar, mas acho que assim como os inimigos do jogo, em algum momento vocĂȘ que estĂĄ lendo simplesmente desistiria de mim e iria embora.
Assim como muitos jogos AAA que tĂȘm sido lançados, Saints Row (2022) parece fazer dos jogadores seus Play Testers enquanto os responsĂĄveis por corrigirem a infinita lista de problemas continuam fazendo cuidados paliativos de um jogo que, atualmente, parece estar pedindo um tiro de misericĂłrdia.
Espero que em alguns anos eu possa reescrever essa review e dizer tudo de bom que encontrei enquanto jogava, mas, enquanto esse momento nĂŁo chega, eu apenas aguardo.
Digo isso sem medo, pois o jogo carrega consigo o que hĂĄ de melhor nos 6 jogos (descontando o mobile) que o antecederam.
Infelizmente, no estado atual, este game Ă© como uma cobra que devora a si mesma.
Saints Row (2022) é um jogo que traz muitas features que seus antecessores apresentaram e receberam clamor pela boa execução.
Temos a extensiva customização de personagem, que faria qualquer um fĂŁ de SR2 entrar em ĂȘxtase;
Pros veĂculos, muitas peças, cores e pleno controle sobre como cada conjunto irĂĄ se parecer, tĂŁo bom (ou mesmo melhor) como era em SR3;
Para as armas, upgrades especiais, junto de bastante liberdade para decidir as cores e texturas, agora fora da simulação de SR4.
Para os fãs de Agents of Mayhem, o dinamismo se mantém firme, embora um pouco menos frenético, afinal, este jogo não se trata de um looter-shooter.
Existem outros exemplos de coisas boas que poderiam fazer de Saints Row (2022) uma carta de amor aos fãs de longa data da franquia. Todavia, parecer-se tanto com outros jogos leva a comparaçÔes e estas comparaçÔes levam a conclusÔes. E, se as notas e comentårios servem para dizer algo, é fåcil entender a conclusão que muitos chegam ao jogar.
Eu poderia passar horas descrevendo cada um dos bugs e glitche que encontrei enquanto jogava e, provavelmente, nĂŁo seria suficiente pra cobrir todos.
Bug e feature se confundem neste jogo como ĂĄlcool e ĂĄgua misturados e quanto mais eu descobria, menos vontade de continuar jogando eu tinha.
NĂŁo me leve a mal, mas Ă© difĂcil fazer vista grossa quando eu preciso tolerar com uma ridĂcula frequĂȘncia coisas como:
â Uma parte da cidade esporadicamente desaparecendo, nĂŁo sobrando NPCs ou carros;
â Toda a customização de personagem, veĂculos e armas sendo resetadas ou modificadas. Eu perdi a conta de quantas vezes precisei pĂŽr de volta um chapĂ©u, Ăłculos ou mesmo a roupa Ăntima do meu personagem.
â Uma fĂsica inconsistente que por um lado me permite colidir contra uma parede violentamente sem cair de uma moto e que faz de veĂculos pesados se comportarem como uma bola de pinball com a menor das colisĂ”es.
Eu poderia continuar, mas acho que assim como os inimigos do jogo, em algum momento vocĂȘ que estĂĄ lendo simplesmente desistiria de mim e iria embora.
Assim como muitos jogos AAA que tĂȘm sido lançados, Saints Row (2022) parece fazer dos jogadores seus Play Testers enquanto os responsĂĄveis por corrigirem a infinita lista de problemas continuam fazendo cuidados paliativos de um jogo que, atualmente, parece estar pedindo um tiro de misericĂłrdia.
Espero que em alguns anos eu possa reescrever essa review e dizer tudo de bom que encontrei enquanto jogava, mas, enquanto esse momento nĂŁo chega, eu apenas aguardo.