There are those among us who think 2008-2013 was the golden age of video games. It was five years before the PS3 and Xbox 360 were in full swing, but before The Last of Us came along and changed everything. Gaming in the modern age focuses on balloon-shaped, realistic graphics and emotional, cinematic storytelling. About a decade ago though, games were all about the fun, the silliness, and systematically clearing areas of an open world map so you could just paint it the right color. Saints Row (2022) is a throwback to those days of wine and rosé, and all I can say is be careful what you wish for.
Let’s say a few things though, just for kicks. Attempting to retell the story is a major setback. The new boss has the same attitude and charisma as before, but everything else suffers. Kinzi Kensington is gone, and now everything is worse. I’m not sure what this idea means. It’s an origin story, but it’s set in the future differently from the stories we’re all familiar with, so what’s it all about? The three new characters work well enough in isolation—Allie was most criticized during marketing, but most likable in practice—but lack any sort of dynamic or purpose. They’re all dressed in trope purple, and it’s impossible to take care of them.
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The game also uses these characters in such a manipulative way. During a mission, a character collapses that they were an orphan, then he never comes back. Another clearly brings up that their mother has cancer, a plot point that never comes back again. This puts Saints Row level with The Room for narrative potential. There is a pride flag in his apartment, but one character mentions being a poly once as a joke. It doesn’t punch down, but it’s pretty hazy and has nothing to say, which is in line with Saints Row’s whole approach to the big picture.
Rimjobs is now called Jim Robbs. Freckle Bitches are now called FB. This is typical of Saints Row’s presentation. The removed features are not replaced with something new or fresh, but replaced with some water. It’s not a question of the series ‘waking up’ (it’s always been female-led, sex positive and diverse in its cast), but the series is getting boring. It’s just a little dull. Saints Row has all its parts, but we seem to be missing something.
Venture Quest is a major issue at the heart of the game. Since it’s all about building your empire, the focus of the game is to buy businesses. It certainly has a criminal edge in keeping things cool. You buy a food truck, but it deals in drugs! How crooked! Your progress is regularly blocked by demands to buy more businesses and complete more side quests for them, where buying upgrades for cars, guns or outfits should be avoided in order to save money for the laundromat. Let’s Pretend and Planet Saints, the two most popular stores in the series, are both unlocked in Endgame and are worth $1.6 million each. When I finished the game, I had about $300k in my pocket. Mainstay fans may be hoping they’re off, tied to a progression system that ultimately makes no sense and doesn’t feel satisfying.
There are some non-enterprise sides that you get to know pretty quickly, but they are pretty dull. The wingsuit one is fine, but only because flying is enjoyable in itself and nearly impossible for the rest of the game. Others just annoyed me that the classics were taken away. Deep into the Venture Quest story, I unlocked both Insurance Fraud and Mayhem, but now they happen on the pass-fail metric instead of the medal. I’ve yet to unlock them all (due to their prohibitive cost) despite finishing the game, but I don’t think the Genki Bowl is visible from what I have left. No Genki Bowl, no Fight Club, but there is a mission that offers a replica of them. That’s the whole deal of Saints Row. It’s taking something popular from the series, making it worse, then putting it back in. The original ideas are few and far between.
It is trying to remove the idiosyncrasies of Saint Row’s history, while simultaneously embracing it and trying to make it more meaningful. It seems that someone loves Saints Row: The third has been forced to make Saints Row 2, and is deeply offended by the fact. It also tries to be dependable, with an emphasis on ‘trying’. It doesn’t look like it’s a group of Millennials discussing what they care about, it looks like it’s a group of Gen Xers trying to guess what the number of Millennials What do you care? They have to pay rent! That’s what kids need these days! They also hit up payday loan companies instead of banks, and searches aside, include leaving bad reviews online, which is a little less fun each time. There are also references to things like speed dating that betray the age of the writing team.
The Gang of Three is supposed to represent wealth, fame, and muscle, but in practice it’s a bit all over the place. Wealth marshals, representing the military-industrial complex. There’s some small satire here, undermined by the fact that you used to work for them and that many of Marshall’s members are portrayed as likable and relatable. Fame idols are, and I don’t know what’s going on here. They’re fame-hungry Gen Z influencers, except they’re anarchist-socialists too, except it’s all a front, except their image is all about fame. So in what sense are they projecting? This online justice may be a misguided metaphor about crusaders who take no action in real life, but it wildly misses the mark. The muscle comes from Panteros, which are Mexican and like cars. that’s about it.
On a pure gameplay level, shooting is fine but the inability to improve your arsenal puts a huge dent in your enjoyment. Quests help you unlock enough to get by, and special weapons include an excellent football rocket launcher thrown in like the Hail Mary Pass, but it doesn’t try to do anything remotely different from what Saints Row did. Always did, except it’s less silly. No Shark-o-matics or anything like them, at least you won’t need to make any progress if you want to buy a waste disposal plant. Skills add a bit of texture, like giving enemies a wedgie and throwing a grenade into their cracks, but enemies call for help almost immediately, meaning short skirmishes drag on until they’re no longer Don’t be funny That Y (or your console’s equivalent) is responsible for a number of actions, including special attacks, and getting into the car, and getting on top of the car, and getting out of the car, is one of the many jittery ways in which Saints Row is put together. goes.
Shooting ok, driving ok, jokes ok, missions ok, map ok, everything ok. The character creator is the only great thing here, and it always was. I just wanted a little more, and the more I played, the more I had to save money to unlock fairly flat side quests, the more annoyed I got at everything wrong with the game. You can probably play it and have fun if you don’t compare it to the rest of the series or think too much about anything else. Sure you can, but why would you want to? Saints Row doesn’t want you. It raises issues and tries to drag your heartstrings, but falters every time.
For all my issues with Saints Row, I keep saying to myself ‘At least it’s fun, and the reason people play these games isn’t for the characters, or the story, or the weak social attitudes that make the game. Carries forward, but fun’. It has become a mantra. Climbing a mountain like a little train: at least it’s fun, at least it’s fun, at least it’s fun. The more I progressed through the game, the less I felt that it was true.
Score: 3/5. An Xbox Series S review code was provided by the publisher for this review.
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