Saints Row reboot Review on Xbox

There is no getting around it, this game has been brutally criticised recently and whilst I don’t want to dispel any reviewers take on the game, it did leave me wondering if the game is a bad as it is claimed or is there just a bit of a hate bandwagon going on. No better way to find out than play it myself and give you my honest thoughts, so here they are. All reviews (unless stated otherwise) are based on the Developer/Publisher providing myself with a review code, which i am grateful for, but does not influence my outcome.

Saints Row is a Reboot of the original 2003 franchise, which takes place in the fictional city of Santo Ileso and follows a new gang called The Saints.

The premise is you take control of a boss of a group of friends who after some disastrous events decide to become a new gang working to take over Santo Ileso from those that currently reside.

The games website boasts the biggest and best Saints Row playground ever created within the unique sprawling world of Santo Ileso.  A larger than life sandbox of thrilling side hustles, criminal ventures and blockbuster missions, as you shoot, drive, and wingsuit your way to the top, on your own or with a friend.

Accessibility

With regards to accessibility, I have to congratulate Deep Silver Volition whom have gone out of their way to make this game the most inclusive game there is, in terms of Accessibility. They even have gone out of their way to add its own tab with a plethora of options in helping those with disabilities get the very best out of this game subject to their individual needs.

Options for Automatic Quick Time Events, Vehicle Speed, Objective Difficulty, stick dead zones, button remapping, subtitles, high contrast, UI Mapping, reticule settings, critical speech and ambient world noises options, are just to name a few.

Without a doubt there is so much in there, this should be used as a template for all games and should be applauded for their in depth commitment to making this options available allowing the game to be played by the widest audience possible.

Gameplay

The gameplay starts with a short cinematic cutscene showing you as the boss, being visited by a shady character requesting to do business at The Saints hangout, during a huge party. This then sees things go very wrong, and switches to a few months earlier of said event, where the game truly starts. Here you start of working for a military Security company, with the basics being spelled out to you as you make your way through a pretty fun set piece. 

However, after one bad mission, you are fired and this is where the true legacy of the Saints start, as you decide to build your own empire. You find yourself some new digs, and soon your be able to take on side hustles, open business fronts that generate regular cash, and take over territory. To tie this all together is your trusty group of close friends and unique supporting characters, that you meet along the way.

Now, saints row stories are never Shakespearean tales that dwell on your minds years after playing them, but still, the main story here is at best forgettable, with the writing being the spearhead of its issues. For me, the characters themselves were void of any in-depth personality and at best, annoying and cringy, rather than interesting and engaging. 

And a big part of this, is due to the lack of the groups general back ground history, which is almost non existent. When some of it is showcased, its normally within a few throw away lines that feels like it forcing you to empathise with said character, which does the complete opposite. I never felt connected in anyway with this group, and after the many hours I have spent playing this, I still couldn’t tell you anything about them, including their names.

I’m sure I read from an interview, that the writers main motto was to ensure that the original series over the top often politically incorrect writing, that was well known to attack everything including its competitors, was changed to ensure it did not offend or harm. The problem with this is, offending is individually subjective, and removing all risk of that can reduce any engaging conversation or story, to nothing more than a lifeless technical report.

Now I can understand the reasoning behind this, and that it comes from a place of good intent. However, by removing that spice from the game, and trying to appeal to a broader audience, it does feel as if the soul of the game has now been removed too. It’s like the game has been watered down to the point where it feels like any average open world game, but with the name Saints Row name tagged on.

That’s not to say there isn’t fun to be had here, in fact it’s quite the opposite. It has a vast swath of silly side quests, collectibles, carnage and ‘’tempered’’ craziness, in which you can spend many an hour simply having fun. Whilst the big set pieces reside within the main story missions, there are some funny side Hussle missions that are equally as entertaining and show off that original Saints Row style. 

One of the best missions I found, is about a quarter of the way in, is a mission centred around LARPing. It’s as equally stupid and silly as it is engaging, and showcases off some over the top exaggerations when NPC’s die, that any true LARPer would recognise and smile at.

But there is also quite a bit of bloat here within the mission structure as well. Business ventures suffer the most from this, with a lot of OK missions being repeated way too often for my liking, in a bid to get the venture hitting its highest cash generating tier. 

Driving a selection of toxic barrels to a secure location whilst being rammed into from every direction, is great once or twice, but any more than that and it can get boring real quick.. Its also a shame as you need to complete a lot of these ventures in a bid to progress the story, which can add to the frustration.

The main aspect of the game is it’s gun-play, which I found overall to be pretty smooth and enjoyable, but there was some hit detection issues when in the heat of larger battles. Speaking of battles, you are never limited to what you bring to them, which depending on the arsenal can widely affect your gameplay. Combine this with the ability to upgrade almost everything in your arsenal, including vehicles, with often silly but humorous perks, your playstyle can easily be a case of, lets see what this does?

This ethos also seems to have crossed over into the character progression system with powerful perks being granted as you earn more experience. These can be customized to a particular button that once charged using the games FLOW system, can be used when needed. 

This also feeds Into the instant kill/health regen system which can only be activated, again when you have enough flow, rather than previous titles of when you felt like it. It soon becomes a dance to kill enough people to activate a perk or instant kill, whilst avoiding as much damage as possible, and that dance can be fun if not a little hectic in bigger battles.

One of the best parts of this game was it’s new base customization, in which you can find collectibles around the world, slightly flickering in blue, and take a photo of them using your phone. These are then sent to your base, which you can then place anywhere where there is an option to do so. You can also use your phone to see what collectibles are missing and a hint of its location. I will admit I spent way too much time doing this in a bid to get the right feel of my base.

Another big part of the game is it’s driving and I can say here, everything was top notch and felt well done. Different vehicles did feel different enough in their handling and the ability to go from driving to riding onto a roof before wing suiting your way to another vehicle never gets old. 

As I said earlier, vehicles also have a unique ability which can be unlocked by doing its minimum requirement, one I would suggest you do. These perks do provide another level of fun, as different car do have vastly different abilities. One might slash an opponents cars tires, do a double flip or ejector seat you out, all with the press of a button.

Now I was lucky enough to play this game before and after the day one patch, and I can say it was vastly more buggy prior. However there are still some game breaking bugs that will mean you have to restart missions, or part of the game mechanics stop working, until you closed down the game entirely and reload. These are more rare now, but I’d be lying to say they have gone completely.

Overall whilst these technical issues did impact my overall gaming experience, I did manage to still enjoy a lot of what I was playing, whilst ignoring what I didn’t.

Graphics

The game visuals do have a fortnight sort of style, but for me this design choice isn’t an issue. The benefits of being a regular indie game reviewer is you realise looks aren’t everything. The overall environmental design worked beautifully depending on where you was looking and it wasn’t too close up. If you looked into windows directly, these was often populated with an jpeg style interior which did feel a bit retro for my liking.

I was more enamoured with the backstreet local artworks and depending on the time of day can produce some stunning vistas. Weather effects though I felt was a little heavy handed, when fog or dust storms came in, as they literally blinded you to your surroundings.

By far the biggest issue, even after a day one patch is the pop-in. It’s everywhere from cars, trees, people and buildings and is most noticeable when driving. It can turn large swaths of the streets into an almost vacant apocalypse setting in the blink of an eye, and I was often riding down completely empty streets in some instances. Regarding empty areas, the game also seems to have gone backwards with its interactable elements such as ATM’s, casinos and even peddle bikes being more as static placeholders.

What has been upgraded though, is the level of personal cosmetic customization in the game. There is nothing here you cannot change to suit your personal tastes, from mascara colour to the tone of your arsenal and base. It’s glorious and whilst I did have the odd bug that kept switching my clothes to what i hadn’t purchased, there is enough variation to keep almost everyone happy.

Sound

For this game, the general sound quality is one of the better aspects of the game, and has a plethora of fun, unique upbeat and enjoyable soundtracks that you can listen to, ranging from electronic to country music. As you progress you get the option to choose your playlists from our phone, with missions then adding to the list as you complete them. All are worthy of listening to, and more often or not I would put on my favourites and head out. It also has radio stations that plays individual genres and is hosted by different NPCs. These also react to the player’s achievements in the game via the Newscasts, which can also be re-listened to in your phone’s Playlist app. I did get a bug where It wouldn’t load the playlist for a few hours, but a full game reset sorted this out.

Everything here is fully voiced and putting the horrendous dialogue aside, the actors did a great job working with the script they were given. You really did believe they the characters In question thought the cringe worthy lines were actually funny. Ambient sounds and weapons sounds also was good and did the job that was needed. Explosions sound good and weapons do sound punchy. I would say though, that the game overall does sound a little too quiet even on max settings.

My recommendation here would be a good quality headset or soundbar to really allow yourself to experience this to its most engaging.

Verdict

This leads me onto the rating of the game:-
Now I rate games in order of, avoid, on sale, great purchase and must own. My rating for Saints Row is a "On Sale’’.

In its current state, for me, considering its top tier price, is it is just a bit too bland for a Saints Row game. In the versatile culinary delights of the unique open world genre, it’s become the mash potato.. It has lots of fun moments, but these are hampered by technical issues, too many repetitive missions, and not so great writing. Which is a shame as I can see the potential for a very unique and engaging game, than what is sticking out of it’s ‘’paint by numbers’’ surface. Whilst the main storyline is fixed, I believe adding in a plethora of spicey, engaging, over the top fun, in terms of updates and dlc’s, would easily upgrade it from plain mash, to a cuisine meal.

The game is currently priced on Xbox at £59.99 or approx. $60 and depending on skill and patience would give you about 25+ hours worth of gameplay. Which can easily double due to a multitude of side activities/business ventures still available, general open world carnage, and a end game mission that only appears once everything is completed.

In the beginning of this is review, I asked ‘’is the game as bad as it is claimed or is there a bit of a hate bandwagon going on?’’ The answer for me personally, is no, the game isn’t as bad as is claimed. Yes it is marred by some bigger than usual technical issues and a bit of steep price, but the mileage you will get out of this game will very much depend on the person playing it, and their tolerance of those issues. Whilst there is genuine criticism to be had, it does feel a bit overblown in the overall scheme of things. My personal recommendation is to wait a bit, and see if the developers will improve the game and add some more unique and engaging elements.