Saints Row(2022) Review

For a game I heard that was so bad, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It's not a great game but then again, if I am being honest I don't think any Saints Row game is that, they are solid and enjoyable games that I always preffered over GTA but I never considered them to be masterpieces not even 2. With that said, that probably explains why I don't have a strong dislike for this game. Also because I barely experienced the bugs and glitches this game had at launch.

Let's start with the good, I think combat in the game is the best the series has ever been. You can dodge roll now giving you more options to evade and avoid attacks, the health system is much improved and isn't the regen health system that I am not a big fan of instead you have to get kills to fill up a meter to perform a melee John Wick style takedown to recover a health block, I wish more games that attempt shooting try something like this since regen health tends to be a game of being a tank and hiding behind cover hoping no one hits you while you act defenseless and finite health you might not always have and it becomes a game of hoping you can find a health kit before the hitscan weapons can kill you. I do like that there is a bit more of an attempt at enemy variety here for being a crime sandbox game where you fight human enemies like the Idols having grenades and some can deflect bullets, and later with merc groups showing up. The AI is still dumb and some of the weapons could sound better despite the game's combat being satisfying enough overall. The secondary abilities are mostly useless outside of the extra health points one. The missions are also memorable and quite good too, you will be jumping through cars, riding a tank and causing destruction, evading a gang infested boat and then shooting them in an on rails section, fighting on a train, and riding a flying bike while escourting a trailer, overall the missions are memorable and always throws something new and fresh enough to be interesting and entertaining.

Now the negatives, the game can still be kind of glitchy at times, I didn't encounter too many bugs but I did fall through the world once. The mission requirements for some of them can feel out of place, where most missions require you to press through a mission select on your phone, other have requirements to unlock and to get the mission that progresses at the point where the in midas res part of the story requires you to engage in the criminal empire system which can feel jarring since you were selecting missions from your phone up until that point.

And I might as well talk about the story while I don't think its as *bad* as many in the gaming community makes it out to be, I don't think it's good either. The character interactions range from okay to really cringey and none of the villains really stand out either, Sergio and Atticus don't even get bosses fights and the former get killed by Nahualli. The Idols' main gang leaders you don't even cover in the main story. Speaking of the Nahualli, he's a very weak villain, like very poor. You fight him at the start, then recruit him and then after one trip with the Saints, he suddenly has a creepy obessesion with the player character's friends, all of it feels unearned since they only had one hangout together and now suddenly he believes they are actual friends, the final boss is really anti climatic too since the final phase is a QTE. I could go on, but the story really isn't very good and I'd even say at the very least Saints Row 2's writing is far, far above this game's.

Overall, I do like SR 2022 despite it's bad reputation, I have no strong attachment towards the series and I got this at half price, and I found it to be decent fun.