It’s close to a decade since a full-fledged Saints Row graced a gaming platform, with the latest Saints Row project being Gat Out of Hell, which was a standalone expansion for Saints Row 4. While each iteration of the franchise got crazier and wackier with each release, developer Volition decided to pull the series back, reboot it with “Saints Row.” The big question here is: was it worth the wait? That’s a rather complicated question. Read on for our Saints Row review to understand what we mean.

It’s All About Family, Except When It’s Not

One of the big goals with this reboot was that Volition wanted to make a more “grounded” experience. Despite the mostly positive reception from both critics, and fans, and profitable sales, there’s no denying that by the time Saints Row had reached its fourth iteration, the series had long moved past what many had loved with the originals. That’s not to say that fans didn’t enjoy what the games were offering, but from a development viewpoint, it was becoming increasingly harder to “top” the previous games, especially since one went into literal Hell. 

So the answer? Reboot the series and return to its gangster roots. An exciting thought, though once that trailer played, many were mixed as the characters didn’t exactly look like they could play the part of a notorious gangster. Well, I’m here to tell you that they don’t look or play that part very well. 

The game kicks things off with a tired looking businessman arriving at the Saints’ headquarters. He has come to see the Boss (you) in hopes of striking some sort of partnership. Well, coincidentally he just so happened to arrive during the Saints’ biggest moment. We aren’t sure what that is, but there’s a big party going on.

It is here where we are introduced to you, the Boss, a custom made character. Regardless of how you look, what ensues is perhaps some of the cringiest lines of dialogue as your character talks into their phone as if they’re in some sort of TikTok stream. A satire take, which fans of the series are all too familiar with. 

However, things soon quickly escalate as the Boss finds themselves in a bit of a situation. Betrayal, being buried alive, but by who? Cue the few months’ early title screen.  

We now find ourselves as a new recruit in the Marshall Defense Industries, a private military who is tasked with catching criminals. To cut the story short, you eventually find yourself moving up the ranks, only for you to eventually be fired over an incident involving a heist from an opposing faction.

This is where your fellow roommates, Kevin, Neenah, and Eli all come together as they too soon find themselves in a similar situation; booted from their own faction. Down on money, and needing to pay rent, the group decides that they should create their own gang and make their own rules. And thus the origins of The Saints begin.

Easy enough to follow, right? I thought so at first, but as the story kept going, things kind of just didn’t make sense. I don’t necessarily dislike the characters, but their motives and reasoning to join these gangs are very questionable to begin with.

Kevin, for example, loves to DJ, but from the short interaction you have at the start, you also learn that he’s a great cook. Eli is a business entrepreneur; smart, and serves as the brains for the group. Neenah is a car enthusiast, and she’s the team getaway driver. They’re all young, a mix of millennials and Gen Z if I were to put an age on them. I say this because I’m in the middle of that group, and embarrassing enough, they act like what I’ve seen from some people in my age group. So I suppose I could relate to them more than the older gamers out there. 

Still, that doesn’t answer my question of how these characters even got into these gangs to begin with, especially since their ideologies are different from their respective gangs.

We get some short snippets of their backstory, but they’re the kind that wants you to feel sorry for them, rather than explain how they ended up where they are. Like with the group’s collective skillsets, why is the first answer immediately a life of crime? Kevin could easily find a job as a DJ or become a chef, Eli a CEO or something, and Neenah a race car driver. They could have a good, honest life, yet they want one of crime because they are the outcast? And they wear it as if they’re the “good” guys when they have a whole organization of crime dealing in the most ruthless, and unethical practices. 

But let’s pretend for a second that they had reasons to go into crime and such. That still doesn’t explain a number of their own actions.

Like, why are these three, plus you, friends to begin with? They’re all in a faction that consider each an enemy. Heck, Kevin even makes a bit of a mention to this when he tells you not to hurt people from his faction because they’re like family to him. Yet when you do, there’s no tension between the two, it’s just “nah, I forgive you, bro!” and “you know what? I’m turning my back on my family by spying on them and letting you know, the guy that works at a defense firm, when they’re going to attack.” Neenah does the same thing too, telling you her faction is like family, yet she’s not hesitant to betray them, which doesn’t make any sense.

The plot in general seems to have a lot of things that get glossed over for the sake of moving the story along. It tries to get you emotionally invested in these characters, gives you some serious one on one, and then turns it into a joke — only for the story later to try and pull on those strings. It doesn’t know whether it wants to be a serious game, or play into the Saints’ humor, minus all the insane hijinks in the latter iterations. 

I would say that it could have worked, but it comes off as some sort of inside joke. You had to be there before the start of this game to know who these guys are and why you care for them. There’s even a scene where the gang is team building with a new character, and they do a bunch of activities that they, as a group, have done together. At one point they mention going to a bar, and someone brings up karaoke only for another to mention an incident around it and then someone saying, “we don’t ever talk about that.”

And without any knowledge of what exactly happened that night, the new character ends their day quoting that same “we don’t talk about this” line and they all laugh it off. I laugh at a lot of dumb things, but in what context does that ever work. That character wasn’t there, so how do they understand the joke? Heck, how are we as players supposed to understand that? You are the boss, but you feel more like the outsider than the user generated scripted character you and the rest of the lot actually are. 

It’s a shame honestly, because I could see myself really liking these characters. We just aren’t given enough development to care, despite the main campaign being a little under seven hours long. Even the villains of each faction feel underwhelming in their development. 

To be fair, the story has never been Saints Row’s strongest suit. No, the series is mostly known for its outlandishly, over-the-top gameplay that’s just joyful and mindlessly fun to experience. And when it comes to the reboot, well there’s lots of mindless fun to be had.

All Play Makes Jack a Happy Boy

Without a question, the gameplay is the highlight of this reboot. For long time fans, you’ll probably be familiar with how it plays, as it’s essentially a third-person shooter. However it tries to be a bit over-the-top compared to many others as physics are cranked up to 11. Blast an enemy with a shotgun and they’ll go flying off screen. See that car? Well, shoot a few bullets at it and it’ll be engulfed in a fiery explosion. Maybe you want to own the sky, do a little bit of skydiving? You can do that too, only with the added perks of being able to bounce off people’s heads to keep the momentum going. 

There is a lot of fun to be had in Santo Ileso, and that’s matched by all the different activities that you can do around the city. Drive around carrying toxic waste and spewing it everywhere. Wreak havoc in a bulldozer, and even commit some insurance fraud. All this, including the main campaign, is playable in co-op. 

Plenty to do, and collect, just don’t go in expecting this to be as crazy as Saints Row IV or Gat Out of Hell. What I mean by that is, don’t expect to see any super power characters (there’s a skill system at least,) though the game does add a realistic take on some of those more wackier takes from previous entries.

Elsewhere, players can also buy up properties throughout Santo Ileso, and set up their own crime ventures. It’s a nice, easy way to earn hourly income on the fly, which can be used to buy new guns, vehicles, and even a robust assortment of customization. 

Just don’t go expecting too much craziness, like using a dildo as a melee weapon. 

I know that might turn some away, but I like this more grounded take to the gameplay. That does go without saying that it does have its faults. When Volition said they were taking it back to its roots, they weren’t kidding. As much as I do enjoy the gameplay, I will admit it does feel dated, and a missed opportunity for a reboot to evolve the franchise. You could say it regressed a bit, and is closer to say Saints Row 2’s combat. But it’s still fun nonetheless, and if that’s what you’re looking for out of this reboot, then you’ll have it, especially with a friend. Well, that is if you can ignore the other issues that may make you want to hold out for a bit longer.

Cyberdrunk 2022

I can’t speak for Xbox and PC users, but for all you PlayStation owners out there looking to venture off into Santo Ileso, be warned, this is one buggy experience. Playing on the latest available patch, as well as current-gen console (PS5) I have basically run into every kind of bug there is. System crashes, progression locks, clipping, freezing, and even broken camera angles were found to be very common throughout my playthrough. At one point helicopters became unusable (a bug my friend got also) as the camera put me in a super zoomed first-person perspective where all I could see were super close ups of poorly textured things as I flew. I was even locked out of some of the menus entirely as they simply would not load anything.

This was a bug that required a full close down of the game, as exiting to the main menu, or reloading a save still presented it. That was a very common issue I ran through, an extremely frustrating one as at times I had to restart entire missions. It got tiring after a while. 

I then decided to give co-op a quick spin with a friend (who’s on PS4) and we found the invite system to be a hit and miss. Being cross-gen, I couldn’t get any of his invites or join his game. We did eventually manage to get into my now-completed save, only for me to have to kick him since he couldn’t get out of his vehicle, which then ended up killing me for some reason. Don’t ask me why or how, it just did. We then tried it with him driving, and me as the passenger only for him to drive away and leave me behind. According to him and the video he had sent, I had jumped kicked into the vehicle with me in the passenger seat. That didn’t happen oddly enough.

It was pretty smooth sailing after that, with us completing a few missions without any hitches. However, when he did get back into his file (saved after the prologue tutorial) he noticed a bunch of icons on his map for missions that were inaccessible due to his current progression. He even had the final mission in his log. We are still waiting to verify whether or not he could complete his game, but this should be a fair warning to those who plan on playing co-op. Hopefully it’s just a visual  bug, though an annoying one at that.

There’s a lot of other bugs I ran into, like T-posing, falling through the map, NPC’s disappearing or freezing into place, and general animations breaking. The list goes on and on, but these just being bugs there is always hope that we’ll see patches address them down the road. However, what we are unlikely to see fixes for is the general technical issues that are present, even on a powerful console like the PS5. 

Saints Row isn’t a graphical showpiece by any means. In fact, many were quick to point out how “outdated” the visuals looked when the title was first shown off last year. That didn’t really bother me because I thought it looked “fine” for a Saints Row game. After playing it, I can understand why someone would say it looks like a PS3-era game. I took some of these screenshots on the PS5, running in full “ultra” quality mode. Just look at the cat.

Even the guy in the background of that cat picture is wondering what the fuck is going on with it. That’s the face of a NPC realizing they’re in a video game. 

Still, I’m not all that bothered like some are about the visuals. I COULD let that slide if it meant everything else was polished. Sadly, that isn’t the case. 

The AI isn’t very smart. I know, I know, Saints Row was never known to have good AI’s to begin with. In fact it was usually always about the number game. You go into an area and battle it out with a ton of enemies, all while there’s a ton of chaos happening. That is why we love Saints Row after all, the crazy hijinks that can happen any moment. My issue with the AI, no matter the difficulty, I always seem to run into some that are just standing in place and doing nothing. 

There’s a mission early on where you have to demolish a construction site with a bulldozer. I am 100% certain the studio intended this mission to be completed by only using the bulldozer, because shortly after destroying the site enemies show up. Well, if you decided you didn’t like using the bulldozer because of the way it handles (it’s not good) you could hop out of it and use your guns. The result? The AI ignores you completely until you shoot at them. I’m not joking, have a watch yourself. 

I’ve had this happen in other instances. I don’t know if it’s because it bugged out, or if the developers intended me to use whatever I was supposed to use rather than play how I want to play. Not sure, but it was definitely a common thing I ran into. Cops are essentially non-existent in free-roam (lots show up in missions), and if you do happen to find one driving, you literally need to shoot at them to get heat. I’ve crashed into a few during my playthrough and got no response whatsoever. 

A larger technical issue you’ll notice is the insane amount of pop-ins. It’s 2022 and we have consoles with SSD’s capable of loading open-world games and levels in mere seconds, yet Saints Row has pop-ins as if it’s a game from the mid 2000’s’ (it’s bad). Whether you are walking on foot, driving, or flying through the air, you are going to notice it. If you pay attention to the traffic, you’ll also see it disappear as it’s coming towards you and then reappear again.

There’s also some weather effects in the game that will wow you though not in a good way. One in particular, the sandstorms. You all remember how the Grand Theft Auto Trilogy had horrible rain effect? Well, the sandstorms in Saints Row are just as bad, almost as if they’re a PNG overlay of some sort.

And while not a technical issue, but a design one, the way main missions are structured is still one of the most annoying things in Saints Row. They aren’t on the map at all, you select them by going into your in-game phone and viewing missions there. That’s fine and all, makes it really easy to go to the next one. However, fast travel is disabled when you start a mission. Understandable, but the bulk of these missions don’t actually start until you go to the mission point. Selecting them just sets a waypoint for you to travel, and most start out at the Saints’ headquarters. It’s just weird, because you can abort the mission, use fast travel to go to the headquarters, and then start the mission with no troubles whatsoever. Even weirder is the fact that when you do reach the way point, there is a brief loading time that then sets you back a bit from the way point just for you to go talk to a NPC. It’s an outdated mechanic.

I could go on and on and on, but I won’t because that would probably be another thousand words. Point is, expect Saints Row to have issues galore if you plan on playing it. Some minor, some major.

Verdict

You know, if it weren’t for all the technical issues I probably would have enjoyed Saints Row a lot more. The gameplay, though outdated and not really moving the needle for the series, is still pure fun, especially when I did get co-op to work. The story could have used more work for sure, but like I mentioned before I never played Saints Row for the story. Still, there are just too many technical issues to overlook to really give a solid recommendation. If you are a fan of the series, it might be worth the spin, but honestly you might be better off waiting for a patch or two. That or look into seeing whether the title works better on other platforms that aren’t either the PS4 or PS5. 

Score: 6/10

Pros:

• Gameplay is enjoyable and filled with those “only in Saints Row” moments, even if they scaled back on the craziness.
• When it’s issue free, co-op offers an endless amount of fun. 
• Lots of activities to do.

Cons:

• Lots of bugs that can cause the game to be a bit unplayable unless you force quit out of it entirely.
• Visuals are inconsistent, sometimes it looks good, other times it looks like something.
• Some of the worst pop-ins I’ve seen in an open-world game. 
• Story doesn’t tie things well together.
• Co-op may produce some unwanted side effects if one player has already completed the campaign. 

A review code for Saints Row was provided by the publisher and played on the PS5. You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.