Saints Row Hands-On Preview – The Saints Row franchise has established an excellent position in the industry.
With five full-fledged titles, the franchise went from a serious competitor to Grand Theft Auto and morphed into a parody of Grand Theft Auto. With crazy characters, insane weapons, and complete chaos.
It’s been almost ten years since the release of Saints Row IV. As well as fans looking for Online Casinos in Kazakhstan, they are also wondering where the franchise would go after the super-powered alien invasion storyline. The answer is that its story was over, and the franchise was getting a reboot.
Saints Row Hands-On Preview – A Great Return For The Saints, Full Of Crazy Antics And Over The Top Characters
Saints Row Returns With A Cast Of Characters That Aren’t For Everyone
To many people’s surprise, the newest entry in the franchise is a reboot. I got to go hands-on with the latest Saints Row last week for a full four hours, and I can say that this is the same Saints Row that we all love though I would be remiss to say that it does feel like it’s a tamer version of the Saints.
Though it’s not an issue, and I’m sure many people will find the main cast enjoyable, I didn’t find them enjoyable. My biggest problem is that they contradict themselves. Eli is all about saving the environment and constantly listens to self-help motivational speakers.
He constantly talks about driving electric cars when you go out on heists but has no problem with you driving a giant gas-guzzling truck.
On the other hand, Kevin is a great chief and believes his body is a temple. He’s fit and is constantly shirtless. Yet he’s part of the Idols gang, which is all about getting high and tripping out while listening to EDM.
Suffice to say; the characters feel targeted at the millennial audience. They constantly talk about the things that affect younger people today like climate change, student debt, mental health, and various other issues.
The problem is their way of dealing with these issues is committing crimes and causing chaos. Which are things I wish I could sometimes do to deal with my problems.
In a way, Saints Row and its characters feel like an outlet for how many people feel today.
Plenty Of Fun Side Activities To Tackle
The story follows your created character working for a private military security force called the Marshals. True to the Saints Row formula, your character is cocky and thinks they can disobey orders and do whatever they want.
This leads to tensions with your caption, who constantly reprimands and leaves you without much pay.
To make some extra cash, you decided to fall back into your old habits of picking up the odd job here and there. This leads to the various side activities you’re able to participate in.
These side missions are fun and include wing gliding around town and destroying satellites, boosting cars, leaving bad reviews at restaurants promoting gangs to come after you, and hunting down fugitives and collecting bounties.
I enjoyed these side activities as the dialogue was always funny, and the chaos that can ensue is true to the Saints Row formula. Though the side activities are fun, the main missions are where all the crazy stuff happens.
You’ll be fighting hand to hand on top of a plane, going Mad Max through a sand storm, jumping from car to car, taking out gang members, and, one of my favourite missions pulling a cargo container with a dune buggy destroying everything around me as I try and evade a crazy EDM gang members called the Idols.
Quality Of Life Improvements
Saints Row introduces excellent new mechanics, including perks you can unlock with your collected money. These perks are passive boosts that can be life saviours.
I couldn’t unlock many, but one of the perks allowed me to move faster while crouching.
Weapons also have unique skills and abilities. Suppose you complete prerequisites such as killing a certain amount of enemies while lying on top of a car.
Weapons will gain special skills like unique bullets that set enemies on fire. These prerequisites aren’t easy to complete, and some can take time to finish.
Chaos follows you everywhere, and Saints Row follows part three more than it does part four. You don’t get any superpowers here. Instead, it’s all about guns and melee combat.
Unlike Saints Row: The Third’s shooting, this time feels stiffer and not as smooth as the third game.
You’ll still be able to accomplish everything you need, but an aim assist helps here. You can also upgrade all your weapons at gun shops, increasing their damage and recoil.
Not Every Change Is For The Better
As you earn experience points, you’ll level up and unlock new skills and abilities. One of the earlier abilities will have you throw a grenade down the pants of your enemy and throw them into another group.
You can only equip four different abilities, so you’ll have to pick and choose the best ones for the situation you find yourself in.
One change that isn’t for the positive is how you heal. Healing now comes in the form of execution. Approaching an enemy and implementing an execution will restore your health, but the problem is that you have to wait for the execution to cool down before you try it again.
You can speed up the process by killing enemies, but it constantly puts you in the line of fire and leaves you needing to heal again instead of conserving your health.
The town of Santo Ileso feels like a border town. Its desert portion feels abandoned and deserted without much life, which means more crime and criminals running the town.
I didn’t get to explore the city portion of the map much, but it doesn’t carry that big city feel of past titles.
A Reboot That Keeps The Spirit Of The Franchise Alive
Saints Row comes with various radio stations that once again provide some great tracks. There is a station for everyone to enjoy, from death metal to classical music, mariachi tracks, and hip hop.
Voice work is once again top-notch, and the writing is a highlight as it is with every Saints Row title.
Visually, Saints Row doesn’t push the hardware to any limit. It’s a beautiful game, but some may not find a big difference between this reboot and Saints Row IV.
One great aspect is that you can customize your character from the game’s menu and constantly change your look and gender.
I enjoyed my time with Saints Row. The humour is intact, and the chaos is as great as ever. Though I wasn’t a fan of the cast of characters in my four hours of playtime, I hope they grow on me.
The town of Santo Ileso may not be as towering as past titles in the franchise, but it has a certain charm that made me want to explore it and learn about its history.
If you’ve been a fan of the Saints Row franchise, this reboot keeps its spirit intact. Just don’t expect vulgar humour and scandalous clothing this time around.
You’ll still blow up a bunch of stuff and take down some crazy baddies. It just may not feel as stylish as it did before.
Saints Row releases on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on August 23rd, 2022.
Preview opportunity generously provided by the publisher.