The Saints Row reboot provides some fun to be had. However, it feels last-gen and lacking in different ways.
Saint Ileso provides a great wild-west location with some diverse scenery and locations. Characters (the new Saints crew) never connected with me during my playthrough. Many people will be divided on this aspect of the game and while I wanted to give the story a chance, I didn’t find the characters that much likeable (I won’t say I hated them, more like a “meh” feeling) compared to Shaundi, Gat or Pierce. Mission variety is okay, but comes off unstructured. Three rival gangs exist, but only one gang seems to be the focus.
Combat is the weakest aspect of the game. Shooting works but has a clunky and wonky feel to it. It felt closer to a late PS2, early 360 era third-person game compared to something more modern or refined such as Ghost Recon Wildlands, the Survivor Tomb Raider Trilogy or the Mafia trilogy. Several settings do exist to change the aiming controls and sensitivity, and of course damage does increase when upgrading weapons, but it could have used more refinement. Dodge-rolling and crouching are nice, but I can’t help but feel that a cover system would have helped to alleviate these issues. Melee works as expected with the option to purchase different melee weapons from gun shops, but don’t expect any variation beyond pressing R2 to attack. Instead of health recovering overtime, takedowns must be performed to regain health (similar to 3D beat-em-ups) when a bar fills up to 100% from gaining kills in combat.
Driving vehicles and flying helicopters works and has your typical arcade-like handling model. There’s a new sideswipe smash mechanic where you can press square to slam into vehicles, like an arcade style racing game Vehicle selection is diverse, even including go karts, golf karts, a hoverboard and monster trucks. Car customization has a lot of detail and upgrades available.
Criminal Ventures/Side Hustles are the diversions and side activities of the Saints Row reboot. Early in the game, you’ll gain access to a Criminal Ventures map. This allows you to place a venture in an area on the city’s map region dictating where you want to partake in specific ventures. Some fan favorites like Paparazzi, Fuzz, Snatch, and ho'ing yourself out are gone, while Insurance Fraud, Jimrob’s Garage (Chop Shop from SR2) and Ridin’ Shotgun (a modified version of Guardian Angel from SR3) return along with new ventures consisting of a mix of shooting and driving (mostly driving).
Many accessibility options and sliders exist such as enemy toughness level, vehicle combat difficulty, wanted level difficulty, ammo scarcity, and timed objective difficulty among other options to tailor your play experience.
As far as areas that the reboot gets wrong, stores are basically the only buildings that can be entered. No access to malls, casinos, strip clubs, bars, etc. unless you're playing a story mission. Given that the city has a diverse, wild-west look and feel to it, this is quite disappointing seeing that Saints Row 2 allowed you to enter multiple buildings. This is also one of those games where you must be up close and in a specific spot in order to interact with an object. The city can feel lifeless at times, though I'm not sure if this is something exclusive to the last-gen versions. Robbing stores is nonexistent. Graphics are nothing special. Character customization is mostly robust, with the option to switch between created/downloaded custom characters on the fly like Watch Dogs Legion and GTA V being the best aspect. Unfortunately, some basic clothing options are missing and while there are several stores throughout the city, most clothing options are the same.
Crashes and major bugs were minimal during my playthrough, but annoyances like interact points not appearing and my vehicle disappearing and teleporting me outside were rare, but frustrating when they occurred. Framerate was mostly stable (hovering around 30 fps) as one would expect from a PS4 game.
Saints Row is just average. Not bad but not great. Good, but nothing special or extraordinary. Provides some fun and a customizable challenge, but doesn't do anything super special or standout. Worth playing if you want a fun open world game to mess around in. Not worth it if you are looking for something that will blow you away.
Saint Ileso provides a great wild-west location with some diverse scenery and locations. Characters (the new Saints crew) never connected with me during my playthrough. Many people will be divided on this aspect of the game and while I wanted to give the story a chance, I didn’t find the characters that much likeable (I won’t say I hated them, more like a “meh” feeling) compared to Shaundi, Gat or Pierce. Mission variety is okay, but comes off unstructured. Three rival gangs exist, but only one gang seems to be the focus.
Combat is the weakest aspect of the game. Shooting works but has a clunky and wonky feel to it. It felt closer to a late PS2, early 360 era third-person game compared to something more modern or refined such as Ghost Recon Wildlands, the Survivor Tomb Raider Trilogy or the Mafia trilogy. Several settings do exist to change the aiming controls and sensitivity, and of course damage does increase when upgrading weapons, but it could have used more refinement. Dodge-rolling and crouching are nice, but I can’t help but feel that a cover system would have helped to alleviate these issues. Melee works as expected with the option to purchase different melee weapons from gun shops, but don’t expect any variation beyond pressing R2 to attack. Instead of health recovering overtime, takedowns must be performed to regain health (similar to 3D beat-em-ups) when a bar fills up to 100% from gaining kills in combat.
Driving vehicles and flying helicopters works and has your typical arcade-like handling model. There’s a new sideswipe smash mechanic where you can press square to slam into vehicles, like an arcade style racing game Vehicle selection is diverse, even including go karts, golf karts, a hoverboard and monster trucks. Car customization has a lot of detail and upgrades available.
Criminal Ventures/Side Hustles are the diversions and side activities of the Saints Row reboot. Early in the game, you’ll gain access to a Criminal Ventures map. This allows you to place a venture in an area on the city’s map region dictating where you want to partake in specific ventures. Some fan favorites like Paparazzi, Fuzz, Snatch, and ho'ing yourself out are gone, while Insurance Fraud, Jimrob’s Garage (Chop Shop from SR2) and Ridin’ Shotgun (a modified version of Guardian Angel from SR3) return along with new ventures consisting of a mix of shooting and driving (mostly driving).
Many accessibility options and sliders exist such as enemy toughness level, vehicle combat difficulty, wanted level difficulty, ammo scarcity, and timed objective difficulty among other options to tailor your play experience.
As far as areas that the reboot gets wrong, stores are basically the only buildings that can be entered. No access to malls, casinos, strip clubs, bars, etc. unless you're playing a story mission. Given that the city has a diverse, wild-west look and feel to it, this is quite disappointing seeing that Saints Row 2 allowed you to enter multiple buildings. This is also one of those games where you must be up close and in a specific spot in order to interact with an object. The city can feel lifeless at times, though I'm not sure if this is something exclusive to the last-gen versions. Robbing stores is nonexistent. Graphics are nothing special. Character customization is mostly robust, with the option to switch between created/downloaded custom characters on the fly like Watch Dogs Legion and GTA V being the best aspect. Unfortunately, some basic clothing options are missing and while there are several stores throughout the city, most clothing options are the same.
Crashes and major bugs were minimal during my playthrough, but annoyances like interact points not appearing and my vehicle disappearing and teleporting me outside were rare, but frustrating when they occurred. Framerate was mostly stable (hovering around 30 fps) as one would expect from a PS4 game.
Saints Row is just average. Not bad but not great. Good, but nothing special or extraordinary. Provides some fun and a customizable challenge, but doesn't do anything super special or standout. Worth playing if you want a fun open world game to mess around in. Not worth it if you are looking for something that will blow you away.