What a loaded question the title of this article is. Why I decided to truly decide if this game is "good" or "bad" is actually beyond me. I've played about 30 hours of Saints Row and my conclusion is this: it's fun! Seriously. The writing may be weird and trying way too hard to resonate with a younger "woke" audience, the gameplay has its bugs (a fair share of them) and some of the missions can be bland or straight-up broken. But honestly, the game is one of the "turn your mind off and blow shit up" types of times. Full disclaimer, I bought this game at a 20 dollar price point. I do NOT think it's worth anything above 40.
With the launch Saints Row had and being nearly unplayable then, it seems to have been patched up quite a bit. Some troubles still linger and it is extremely noticeable when encountering something that's not right. For example, I started a side hustle (side mission) in between the main story. Every time I selected to start the mission, the music would play and get intense but NOTHING would happen. Literally. It told me to "survive the fight" but there was no fight. So technically, I survived? This was not fixed by restarting, I had to play another mission to knock it back in its place. Another example was before you unlock a "war table" early on. If you interact with the table, it sticks you into a screen just looking at a table and you're stuck there. You cannot move, or exit the screen or anything unless you restart the game. But seriously, if you take the game at face value and embrace the craziness, you start to enjoy the desolate and sort of barren world in which Saints Row builds itself.
When you think of past Saints Row games, you think of over-exaggerated weapons (a gun that summons a shark out of the ground, anyone?), INSANE characters, and a story that took your gang from a lowly start-up criminal group to literally running the world. Take all of that and throw it away. This Saints Row Reboot features characters who talk about things we want to escape from in real life (HR forms, financial woes, and plenty more), weapons, for the most part, picked out of "Generic Weapon Store Magazine", and a story that, well seems sort of the same just with a very different tone.
Why does this annoy me? Because I WANT to escape. I want the chaos. Grand Theft Auto has already established itself in the more serious than not feel and I wanted my Saints Row experience to be off the wall. That being said, exploring the city, grabbing collectibles, and unlocking new side hustles is a blast. It scratches the itch of being able to mow down bad guys while digging through a trash can to find new clothing or money. I did find myself seeking out all the locations on my map to take photos of fast travel locations before getting too far in the campaign because I was having too much fun doing things my own way.
A good thing is that there are a lot of moments that have made me laugh through my playthrough though. Bug or not, it was nice to garner a chuckle from some clever (at times) writing or some random glitch. For example, there was a mission where one of the main characters practices his shooting skills from the roof of a car. We get through the mission end and his character model gets sent flying off of the car towards the camera, completely unintentional. It broke me.
A new enemies have a health bar and can also block bullets with sticks mechanic can often get tiresome but for the most part, fighting your standard enemies with new skills (shoving a grenade in their pants and launching them on their way is fantastic) is a pretty good experience. There's even a LARP mission that changes animations of your melee attacks and even your load out and how it operates. There is some fun to be had here, I promise.
While it is a pretty big departure from the games before it, there is no denying that there was an effort to keep the chaotic charm. Saints Row does not love up to the hype I had when it was first announced BUT I will say that I've have really enjoyed my time spent roaming through Santo Ileso. If this game stays on sale, it's worth your 20-25 dollars to get your open world time waster fill. If not, I'd give this a skip.
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