Saints Row (Reboot) Review

Release Date: August 23, 2022

Designers: Deep Silver Volition, James Tsai

Developers: Deep Silver Volition, CD Projekt, High Voltage Software, G5 Entertainment, Fishlabs, Sperasoft Studio, LLC

Publishers: Deep Silver Volition, THQ, Deep Silver, Plaion, Buka Entertainment, THQ Wireless

Systems: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Windows and Stadia

Heads Up! There will be story spoilers in this review. Thank you for reading – Jason

Introduction: Saints Row 2022 is a reboot from the original Saints Row that released back in August 29, 2006. I haven’t played the ladder but have beaten Saints Row 3 and 4 to completion which were more “out there” in their presentation. I read some comments on the internet (I know I know) that the cast and crew of this reboot of Saints Row is “woke”.

First of all, who gives a shit about who or what is or isn’t woke. Second, everything is woke these days it seems in every internet bubble and or tribe as far as I am concerned. I know how to think for myself. Thank you Jesus! Anyways, In my opinion the main characters Boss, Elijah, Neenah and Kevin are the same as the main casts in Saints Row 3 and 4.

I cannot tell the difference with these main characters from previous games and this reboot. They are all edgy with specific humor. Gamers are too busy having a brainwashed agenda that suits their take. Being extra honest I actually found the reboot’s humor more funny then past Saints Row games I played. There I typed it!

Presentation: Let’s all say it together “bugs”. I have not played a game that had as many bugs as Saints Row 2022 since launch night Cyberpunk 2077’s release. I can’t even count the number of times an animation or menu bug froze my character in-game. Buttons wouldn’t work so many times and my character froze countless of times when switching weapons. I played Saints Row on my Xbox Series X for reference.

Surprisingly Saints Row never crashed out of game while I played. It was mostly my Boss player who would freeze in combat gameplay where you had to restart back to a checkpoint which in most cases sucked. I had to replay multiple mission sequences over and over due to bugs and glitches in game.

At the final campaign mission “Showdown” when hunting down Nahualli EVERY time I switched my weapon fast my character’s animation would freeze and I had to start half the mission over. So yeah, after I stop switching my weapon I was able to beat the game. Presentation was terrible due to the continuous flow of bugs but not all was bad.

I actually found Saints Row’s gameplay fun (when not bugging out) and it’s humor funny. Saints Row’s humor was due to my cowboy Boss’s Texas accent. There was some chemistry with the Boss, Elijah, Neenah and Kevin. It seemed like my Boss character wouldn’t fit in with the cast but he did due to his dialogue and chemistry. Gameplay I will get into more in a bit but all I’ll say here is the open world of Santo Ileso is fun with plenty of activities to do at your leisure

Story: Saints Row’s story maybe a reboot but it’s similar to past Saints game’s stories in some regards. Can you say “revenge”? You play as the Boss ringleader of the Saints who starts the game working for an evil Corporation called Marshall Industries. Boss makes a mistake while head of security for an event that houses the Codex.

Idol Initiative (another bad guy faction tied to Kevin’s past) steals the codex causing Boss to get fired from Marshall. In retaliation Boss starts the Saints empire along with Neenah the ex Los Panteros (another bad guy faction). Kevin (ex Idol Initiative) and Elijah who masquerades as Eurkel and serves as the brains behind the Saints.

Saints Row’s story has alote to do with a character named “The Nahualli” which I won’t spoil. Oh snap I already did. For an over the top action open world game such as Saints Row the story was okay for THIS game. You have some twists and turns. Some reveals as well backstab reveals.

Gameplay: Open world action and mayhem. You have guns, vehicles, main missions, side jobs, collectibles of all sorts. You also have online coop. The Empire Table let’s you take over parts of Santo Ileso later on in the campaign which unlocks more content. Shooting is okay-ish in Saints Row. You have all types of firearms from Launchers, shotguns, assault rifles melee weapons and sidearms that you can unlock upgrades for.

The Boss can unlock and upgrade specific abilities and skills of various degrees like a flaming fist punch, leech ability and a shield you can shoot through walls with. Jank is present throughout all movements no matter if you melee kick, shoot, jump or roll. You will feel the jank. Vehicles while driving had jank. Hoverboards and hoverbikes might be the worst offenders. Boats and cars not as bad.

Near the end of the game you unlock a VTOL jet which controlled the best. Helicopters also controlled nicely. Many a time gameplay was hampered by bugs mostly pertaining to animation freezes and whatnot. So overall, gameplay was janky with bugs. I don’t know why even with all the negatives I listed it was still fun to pull off crazy combat gameplay sequences and hitting your personal emoji at the end. Overall, I’d say the gameplay is fun but watch out for the bugs.

Visuals/Graphics: I played Saints Row in performance mode. The latter mode was the best in my opinion but still looked last gen. 4k was a fuzzy bloomy trash-fest so don’t try that on your Xbox Series X. Saints Row had it’s moments of dips in framerate even on performance mode. Graphically Saints Row just wasn’t nice to look at. I am trying to look for positives in the visuals here. I just can’t. The artstyle of Santo Ileso was nice at sunset. There I did it!

Sound/Music: The radio stations were all pretty solid from metal, to hip-hop, to classic to latin to country etc. Voiced dialogue and lines delivery were decent and often times making me actually laugh on occasion. Sound mixing wasn’t good however.

Final Thoughts: BUGS! FUN! 7/10 On a side note wait for a sale and especially wait until they fix the bugs in this game on Xbox Series X. Here you can watch all of my Saints Row Video Gallery Playlist videos.