Developer Volition has always given players a good reason to try new ones Saints Row entries. The original was a technological improvement that built on (and largely copied) the formula of: Grand Theft Auto; the madness of the sequel gave the series a personality and made it a real alternative for those who wanted a less serious alternative to GTA IV; Saints Row: The Third was the first truly exceptional offering with great writing and mission design; while Saints Row IV went wild with super powers.
The series certainly ramped up the intensity at a pace it couldn’t possibly get any more ridiculous (and the diminishing returns were seen in the standalone expansion Hole from hell), so it made sense to bring things back to basics with a reboot. However, Volition has done more than just recreate the history of the series as it was stripped Saints Row for all its charm and ambition in delivering a lackluster reboot that won’t give even the most ardent fans a reason to play.
After a messy first act that introduces the unsympathetic protagonist — a career lowlife who begins working for a mercenary as a paid assassin — and their three dull friends, a new iteration of the Saints is formed and players are thrown into the open world with five or so missions to choose from, along with a litany of side content. Most of the game’s story missions serve as introductions to side objectives, which are usually so simple that they really need no introduction and almost always involve shooting a lot of enemies. Sometimes the killing is a little more interesting — like leaving a bad Yelp review for rival gang-owned businesses or burning wooden effigies of live-action role-playing groups — but in the end, the game leads you into the same repetitive battle you ‘ have done since the tutorial. There are some perks and abilities (like throwing approach grenades or fire blasts) that add some extra depth, but it’s never enough to be really interesting because the loop itself is so simplistic and over the top.
The game’s tagline, “Self Made”, refers to the wide range of optional tasks and building a gang of just three members into a powerhouse, but it also serves as an excuse to provide a less structured story experience. This isn’t a terrible idea, and it would actually make sense if this was a sequel since Saints Row had a wide variety of characters that did not need to be established. By rebooting the series with a new set of undercooked protagonists, especially the unsympathetic boss who is only too happy to do anything to make money, there is even more need for a solid story that establishes their motivations and a reason to care. about them. Instead, the game just spews out a lot of weak jokes during forgettable side missions rather than a campaign with actual characterization or growth. If the series were to muffle its more over-the-top elements, it would need more emotional depth to its story to make up for it, which it very much lacks, meaning it has the worst of both approaches.
While the missions aren’t that exciting at first, they get all the more cumbersome as they have a habit of glitching out in ways that make them impossible to complete. From enemies spawning in the wrong location and the game punishing the player for “leaving the mission area” if they try to chase them to quests for characters that don’t show up where they should be, it’s shockingly common for missions to fail. Sometimes reloading from the last checkpoint solves the problem, but sometimes you have to redo the whole mission.
That’s usually not bad considering many are a handful of simple fights, but it’s pretty annoying and disrespectful to the player’s time to ship a game in this state. Like Cyberpunk 2077The core game isn’t good, ambitious, or interesting enough to excuse these issues in the way that Bethesda titles have gotten a pass in the past for their bugginess. All it does is speed up what every player ends up doing: removing it from their hard drives with an unfulfilled feeling.
The most destructive aspect of Saints Row is that the glitches just act as a handy excuse and conversation piece that distracts from the bigger problem: even if Volition has patched the game to hell and back, it still won’t be fun or interesting to play. Because of the boring gameplay that is never interesting to work with mechanically, even the best-designed set pieces in the campaign don’t feel very cool because there is so little investment in what’s going on. Like the rest of the game, the final product is a superficial imitation of the idea on paper.
It’s all rather unfortunate, as the idea of a more open ending Saints Row game sounds solid, but due to its lack of personality and the will to go beyond just adding features from the past to check them off a list, it’s a boring, designed by number game in a series that used to be was refreshing in the open world space. Due to a disturbing lack of sight, Saints Row is no longer an alternative and only offers more of the same old you have experienced many times.
It’s sad to admit, but Saints Row has become exactly what it mocked within the genre and there’s no reason to watch this underwhelming reboot. With boring characters and a meandering story, the series once known for its great humor has lost its spice. The gameplay hasn’t evolved and is actually less mechanically interesting than its predecessors due to its tame, grounded approach and repetitive mission design that ticks the same old boxes. You can still have a laugh with friends if you choose to play in co-op, but that’s no saving grace as you’d have even more fun playing again Saints Row: The Third together; a comparison that shows how this once great series has completely lost its way and become a total shell of itself.
SCORE: 4.5/10
As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 4.5 equates to “Poor.” The negatives outweigh the positives, making it a struggle to get through.
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