I downloaded this one on a whim, looking for something hopefully fun but not too much of a commitment to play in the wee hours (yes I still have insomnia thanks for asking), and I’d heard this was the goofier version of this particular game premise, compared to…that other series. I had The Third and IV, and I knew that this reboot was not well-received, but having never played a Saints Row game I figured best to start here rather than in the middle of the series.
Let’s start with the obvious: the jank is strong with this one. The first time I broke the game was right after the opening tutorial mission. The game wanted me to go to my car, but I wanted to test out the character creator that you can access at almost any point in the game and which lets you change literally everything about your character’s appearance, from body to personality to wardrobe, at the drop of one of many, many, mostly boring hats. So I’m in the character creator marvelling at my ability to tweak my facial structure in the middle of the game, when suddenly my character answers their phone. Like, their face is moving while I’m messing with it. After a brief conversation, they hang up. Well, that was weird. Anyway, I’m done, guess I should go get in that car now. So I close the app, but the game immediately goes into a cutscene in which my character gets home from work and talks to their roommates. At the end of the cutscene it goes to a loading screen. And stays there. For three hours. At which point I shut the game down and assume I’ll never play it again.
Then the internet in my apartment went down for 5 days. And so I played a lot of Saints Row. Like, too much. Waaaaay too much. And I’m here to say that I think this game is…fine? Maybe even…good?
It’s not brilliant. Almost everything it does certain other games do just as well or better. You know, like Cyberpunk 2077 and no other very famous games. And maybe if this game had fewer bugs than CP2.077K (oof, that doesn’t work does it) they might be comparable but it doesn’t. And even aside from the number of bugs, I would say the bugs in Saints Row actually negatively affected my experience more than those in Cyberpunk. One persistent bug involved doing a mission that was its own instance (i.e. a different version of the world), loading back in and going to the next mission, only to find that mission-critical assets didn’t load and in order to do that mission I’d have to fast travel to make the game reload and then go back.
Some of the most frustrating aspects aren’t even bugs, like the Burnout Paradise-ass collision sensitivity that would send me flying through my windshield should I merely tap an obstacle, or the I guess impressively realistic difficulty of controlling a helicopter, or trying to switch back and forth between the VTOL’s laser and its missiles but not being able to tell when either one is cooled down—I’m starting to sense that a lot of my problems center around the vehicles. Oh and the towing guide just doesn’t show up most of the time. And the hoverboard doesn’t get over obstacles as easily as it should so you’re just constantly losing momentum. And the boats are just kind of there for no good reason.
But setting the vehicular difficulties aside, there’s a lot about the game that’s fun. The gunplay is serviceable, though why anyone would use anything other than the RPG for groups and vehicles and the burst rifle for everything else is beyond me. And the notoriety system is interesting, the way it differentiates between each faction, giving you multiple fronts of the battle to control. And you can actually fight your way out rather than just having to run, which was one of the most annoying things about Cyberpunk‘s cops. And I like that you heal automatically rather than with health potions, and the takedown mechanic serving to mediate that so you’re still incentivised to fight even if you’re low on health.
The ventures are also fun, even if some of them can be a bit tedious and frustrating. I like that each criminal enterprise has its own personality, and you’re not just buying things up but actually starting the business yourself and getting involved. It really connects you to the criminal empire aspect of the game.
And there are some legit good tunes on the radio. We’ve got A Tribe Called Quest, Rakim, Cage the Elephant, Modest Mouse, and a bunch of country and synthwave artists I’ve never heard of but there’s some good shit in there.
As for the main story, it’s not amazing but it’s entertaining enough. I enjoyed the characters, especially my character who had a remarkably specific personality, which was a pleasant surprise in a genre overwhelmed by blank slates. They really know how to make murder fun, you know? Which is the thing about this world, that it’s all hyper-violent fun and games, until someone goes actually full-on crazy, which I legitimately did not see coming. And overall the game doesn’t take itself too seriously, a trap that both Cyberpunk 2077 and that other series that I’ve been avoiding mentioning both occasionally fall into.
So yeah, for all its bugs and ill-advised design decisions, I actually really enjoyed my time with this game. But, I hear the cries of the mob outside: “You didn’t play the other games! You have no idea how good the series used to be compared to this shit!” To which I say: Au contraire mon frère. When I said I’d been playing a lot of Saints Row, I fucking meant it.
See, it’s true that I’d never played a Saints Row game before this one. And I knew that that meant I didn’t have the full context for why a lot of people hated this game. So you know what I did after I rolled credits on Saints Row (2022)? I booted up Saints Row: The Third Remastered. And guess what? That game suuuuuuuuuuuucks.
Can’t mod your character on the fly. No ventures, just going around buying up businesses. A story that is, again, fine I guess, except this time I don’t give a shit about the characters because they’re flatter than a board, especially my character who has as much personality as a wind-up doll. The collision sensitivity for most vehicles is better, but motorcycles are unusable. Also, who thought there might be a scenario where I just want to open my car door and not get in. And the music selection on the radio is mostly garbage.
Most of all, though, the combat is bullshit. Nigh on unplayable. Only way to get rid of notoriety is to run away, there’s no way to heal, and there are just so many goddamn enemies per encounter, like 5 times more than in SR(2022).
I hated SR:TTR, didn’t even finish it, and it only made me like SR2.022K (nope, still doesn’t work) even more. I was more confused than ever. I had to dig further.
Saints Row IV: Re-Elected begins with The Saints leading a counter-terrorism mission that concludes with The Boss (you) becoming president of the U.S., and at that point I was wishing that I’d finished TTR because holy shit how did we get here. Well, turns out it doesn’t really matter for reasons we don’t need to go into because this isn’t a review of Saints Row IV Re-Elected. That review will be out shortly, because I’m still playing it and I’m about 60% of the way through. I started it it like 2 days ago.
The point being that SRIV:R-E is really fun. Arguably more fun than the reboot. This is the closest I get to understanding where the hate comes from. While I do think 2022 makes some improvements on the mechanics (e.g. ventures, customization, being able to get into your car), it’s hard to beat having literal super-powers, which kind of negate the need for any of those improvements. IV is also the only game in which the “Insurance Fraud” mini game doesn’t suck, because your superpowers make aiming unnecessary so it doesn’t matter that you can’t. (But it kind of overcorrects in the direction and makes its trivial. If it weren’t so fucking frustrating to play I would actually prefer the reboot’s version because it’s funnier.) And the radio in IV is better than in The Third, the rock station actually has good rock and the reggae station is all killer no filler.
But, three points. Firstly, there’s still plenty of jank, both in terms of bugs (the game has crashed 4 times to date, and at some point deleted all my clothes from the Wardrobe menu so I had to buy them all again, even the DLC ones, even the ones I was currently wearing [EDIT: it actually kept doing this, and even deleted some stats data as well]), and in terms of bad design (the number of times I hit a car with my Super Sprint when I was trying to get in it, because once again they decided that the action button just opens the fucking door so of course I’m going to press L1+Action to get in, and you can bet your ass this happened during Chop Shop). The jank is, really, one of the most consistent aspects of the series as far as I can tell.
Secondly, yes this game is very fun. It also would be very difficult to support a sequel. Where do you go from here? Land on an alien planet and set up The Saints as the new global power? Ok, that actually sounds great, I think I just argued myself out of this one. Haven’t actually finished the game yet though, maybe there’s some reason why that’s not doable [EDIT: nope, that actually would’ve been great.]. Assuming there is, a reboot makes sense. I mean, SRIV came out in 2013. There’s a whole new generation of consoles, and a whole new generation of gamers. And I do think, based on what I played of the third game (The Third), the reboot is actually more in line with the spirit of the series than its predecessor, at least in terms of gameplay. What I see in Saints Row: The Third is a studio that doesn’t want its criminal empire sim, no matter how absurd it is, to feel overly gamey. You know, like with health drops and super powers and stuff. I think 2022 actually does a decent job of maintaining the absurdity while keeping the mechanics just grounded enough.
The Thirdly, I still don’t like the characters that much. Yes, they are more interesting than in Le Troisième Remasterisé. I mean, Keith fucking David’s here (but not, as he makes very clear, fucking Keith David. It just wouldn’t work.) And The Boss has more personality as well, at least with the voice I chose (though the pitch shifting is hilariously bad compared to 2022). But they still feel just…lesser than the main cast of 2022. Just a little bit less fleshed out. Or…I think what it actually is they all kind of hate each other, or at least are dicks to each other. What can I say, sometimes I’m a sucker for earnestness, and the friendship between the characters in 2022 feels good.
So where does that leave us. Well, gameplay-wise I don’t think the reboot is significantly worse than IV, and I think the ways in which it differs were intentional artistic choices that I can mostly respect. And it’s way better than The Third. Story-wise, it’s no The Matrix (unlike IV, which obviously is) but I do find it engaging and entertaining, and there are some really enjoyable character moments. Also it’s just, like, pleasant? That’s not a requirement, obviously, but it was kind of nice to just play a fun murder game where the main characters are mostly just chill people. Just for a change of pace.
All of which is to say, I’m fairly confident that Saints Row (2022) is not, in fact, a piece of shit. And for how much I played it in a very short period of time, it’s clearly doing something right, at least for me.
But hey, because of the Embracer Group meltdown Volition doesn’t even exist anymore, so we can all be equally unhappy! Yay! Jesus christ this industry is on the rocks right now! How the hell did one conglomerate get itself into the position to fuck over so many studios! The next 5+ years are going to have a noticeable dearth of high-quality AA and AAA titles! A lot of our favorite franchises are dead in the water! It just really sucks man! Fuck! I guess what I’m saying is buy more indies! It’s not like any one company could have the power to fuck over that entire segment! Let’s unite around indies! That’ll be our battlecry! Unity! A totally good word with no negative connotations in this specific context! Huzzah!
Ok I think I’ve spent my exclamation point budget for the year, time to call it a night.
Certain of Eventual Failure 