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I beat Saints Row 2022 (+ DLC) so you dont have to
a week ago
What in the overly sanitized garbage was that????
I honestly could not even write a review because even I'm still struggling to wrap my head around the many bad design decisions that went into this game.
First and foremost, the story is just so bad that its like they tried to mix friendship is magic with millennial humour and tried to make it gangsta. The story had no edge to it at all and i'mgoing to spoil it for you because you deserve to know why the ending is so fucking dumb.
You decide to throw a company team-building party for a Latino Assassin who sticks out like a sore thumb but this causes him to want friends so he steals your friends and leaves you to die, forcing your friends to be the ideal friend circle he never had. You go through a dream sequence that has you collecting game board pieces in the shape of animals before shooting evil game pieces to break out of your nightmare and get a 2nd life. You kill the latino in a showdown and you get a nice sunset but what the hell was that story.
The characters are so bland and cringe with no conflict between them and one of them (Eli who's basically Urkel) gets you to sign up for a mandatory LARP session that got its own DLC on top of its mandatory story missions which is as cringe as it gets. Another is Kevin, a shirtless white guy whose personality is that he likes to cook and shirts are his kryptonite. Neenah should have been an interesting character as she left Mexico to join an american gang in a car that means a lot to her so you would expect her to have some edge but the game just forgets she exists after her gang blows up her car.
The gameplay is just a modified version of Saints Row 3 & 4 which is fine if you liked playing SR3&4. Its servicable but thats all i can say. The devs attempted to make it more interesting by giving you Takedowns which function like Glory Kills but on a cooldown instead with animations that make you go "meh" and lack the brutality that you expect a mechanic inspired by Glory Kills to have. On top of having no edge, there's pratically no blood or gore so you get stuck with goons that just ragdoll or have exaggerated death animations.
The open world missions are genuinely HORRIBLE as you end up with discoveries that just amount to you pixel hunting targets to shoot or tourism boards to press. I'm serious. One of the open world activities you can do in this game is pressing 5 tourist boards just to get crappy exposition. For a game that does not need it in the first place. Then you get to the Empire-Building section of the open world which is basically where all the Respect missions are located now. You have to select a district, then select the activity, and then do the same respect mission until you complete the district, and then boom you're done!
ONLY THE RESPECT MISSIONS FUCKING SUCK. One of them has you waiting for RNGesus for a fashion store truck to show up, then you have to gently hurt the truck or snipe the driver so you can steal it because the truck is immune to normal hijacks. Then you have to take your (nealy destroyed) truck home in one piece and trying to shake off the cops. TWELVE FUCKING TIMES.
Another Respect mission has you skydiving to fuck up some cell towers but you have to do this 20+ times. I did all of the respect missions so YOU dont have to and what do you get once you finish all of them? This absolute beauty of a music video where you see all of the unlikable cringey ass cast of the whole fucking game rapping their hearts out.
The first DLC is just you pulling an Ocean's 11 on a douchebag A-List actor in a mission line that can be cleared in under a hour. The second DLC has you reenacting game of thrones in the very same cringe LARP setting where you team up with your former boss that hates you so much to kill winter elves. 2 hours long.
In short, dont play this game. I cant even go to bat for it because everything is so poorly thought out and designed that i'm surprised this hasn't become this generation's Superman 64.
I honestly could not even write a review because even I'm still struggling to wrap my head around the many bad design decisions that went into this game.
First and foremost, the story is just so bad that its like they tried to mix friendship is magic with millennial humour and tried to make it gangsta. The story had no edge to it at all and i'mgoing to spoil it for you because you deserve to know why the ending is so fucking dumb.
You decide to throw a company team-building party for a Latino Assassin who sticks out like a sore thumb but this causes him to want friends so he steals your friends and leaves you to die, forcing your friends to be the ideal friend circle he never had. You go through a dream sequence that has you collecting game board pieces in the shape of animals before shooting evil game pieces to break out of your nightmare and get a 2nd life. You kill the latino in a showdown and you get a nice sunset but what the hell was that story.
The characters are so bland and cringe with no conflict between them and one of them (Eli who's basically Urkel) gets you to sign up for a mandatory LARP session that got its own DLC on top of its mandatory story missions which is as cringe as it gets. Another is Kevin, a shirtless white guy whose personality is that he likes to cook and shirts are his kryptonite. Neenah should have been an interesting character as she left Mexico to join an american gang in a car that means a lot to her so you would expect her to have some edge but the game just forgets she exists after her gang blows up her car.
The gameplay is just a modified version of Saints Row 3 & 4 which is fine if you liked playing SR3&4. Its servicable but thats all i can say. The devs attempted to make it more interesting by giving you Takedowns which function like Glory Kills but on a cooldown instead with animations that make you go "meh" and lack the brutality that you expect a mechanic inspired by Glory Kills to have. On top of having no edge, there's pratically no blood or gore so you get stuck with goons that just ragdoll or have exaggerated death animations.
The open world missions are genuinely HORRIBLE as you end up with discoveries that just amount to you pixel hunting targets to shoot or tourism boards to press. I'm serious. One of the open world activities you can do in this game is pressing 5 tourist boards just to get crappy exposition. For a game that does not need it in the first place. Then you get to the Empire-Building section of the open world which is basically where all the Respect missions are located now. You have to select a district, then select the activity, and then do the same respect mission until you complete the district, and then boom you're done!
ONLY THE RESPECT MISSIONS FUCKING SUCK. One of them has you waiting for RNGesus for a fashion store truck to show up, then you have to gently hurt the truck or snipe the driver so you can steal it because the truck is immune to normal hijacks. Then you have to take your (nealy destroyed) truck home in one piece and trying to shake off the cops. TWELVE FUCKING TIMES.
Another Respect mission has you skydiving to fuck up some cell towers but you have to do this 20+ times. I did all of the respect missions so YOU dont have to and what do you get once you finish all of them? This absolute beauty of a music video where you see all of the unlikable cringey ass cast of the whole fucking game rapping their hearts out.
The first DLC is just you pulling an Ocean's 11 on a douchebag A-List actor in a mission line that can be cleared in under a hour. The second DLC has you reenacting game of thrones in the very same cringe LARP setting where you team up with your former boss that hates you so much to kill winter elves. 2 hours long.
In short, dont play this game. I cant even go to bat for it because everything is so poorly thought out and designed that i'm surprised this hasn't become this generation's Superman 64.
