The Saints Row franchise has always been a controversial one. Many fans of the series, as well as those who haven’t played the games before, will be happy to know that we’re going back to our roots with this next installment.
The saints row 5 is a reboot of the Saints Row series. It has received mixed reviews from fans and critics, who have complained about the lack of features that were present in previous games.
Are you a fan of Saints Row? (Image courtesy of Deep Silver)
A reader is underwhelmed by the Saints Row remake, blaming the new characters and cartoonish tone for alienating fans.
Many people would dismiss the Saints Row games as nothing more than weak GTA clones, but I am an unabashed lover of the series. The second and third games, in particular, are timeless masterpieces in my opinion, and they struck the perfect mix of gangster sim and comic open world game. I see why they’d want to attempt to reign things down a little after the fourth one went off the rails, but a reboot is not the way to go.
For starters, everyone in the game seems to be 13, which is off-putting for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I presume it will be an adult rated game. But, honestly, the character designs are terrible, and it’s no surprise that everyone is comparing them to Fortnite, since that’s clearly the target demographic for Volition. Because kids should be encouraged to play games about vicious criminals killing each other in order to take over a city.
Everything else falls into line once you realize what they’re aiming for, with the stupid language and strange, bland-looking action where characters blow themselves up with rocket launches yet barely get touched. That would be OK if this were Saints Row 4, but this isn’t the case; this was meant to be a more realistic reboot, so what went wrong?
It’s difficult to determine how humorous the game is intended to be since none of the jokes land, but the lighter tone and hipster-like characters are simply awful. They should have fully rebooted everything and returned to a genuine game with real people and real violence. Then, over the course of the following several sequels, you may gradually reintroduce the craziness.
Not having Johnny Gat and the others in the game isn’t a deal killer for me; that approach could’ve worked and definitely should’ve succeeded, but he needed to be replaced by someone as cool and charismatic. But, based on the trailer, did anybody get the sense that’s what happened?
It doesn’t help that the little gameplay they’ve shown so far seems disappointing, with poor visuals even by last-gen standards. Everything about this seems to be a move backwards, which is made worse by the fact that they had six years to come up with anything and this is what they felt would work.
It’s clear that when they began developing the game, Fortnite had just come out, and all they could think about was how they might create something comparable, totally disregarding the fact that Fortnite generates money in a different manner. The whole thing comes out as cynical and uninterested in the Saints Row brand.
I mean, they didn’t even use purple as a major color in the game, which is about as fundamental a mistake as you can make. Perhaps in the next months we’ll see more gameplay that looks better, but obviously nothing will change about those characters, and as long as that’s the case, nothing will persuade me to purchase the game.
Blanche, a reader
The reader’s feature does not necessarily reflect GameCentral or Metro’s opinions.
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MORE: Fans of Saints Row: The Third slam the reboot teaser as Volition releases fresh gameplay footage.
MORE: New Saints Row is a complete remake with no Johnny Gat, and it will be released in February.
MORE: PS5’s Saints Row: The Third Remastered turns your DualSense purple
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