Verdict
Saints Row The Third Remastered is a good improve of an open-world traditional, though does not soften all of its tough edges to correctly benefit from fashionable platforms.
Pros
The metropolis of Steelport remains to be a blast to discover
Main marketing campaign is incessantly hilarious, shocking and enjoyable to play
Boasts an interesting solid of eccentric characters
Visual upgrades assist it stand out on fashionable platforms
Cons
An odd quantity of bugs and glitches regardless of the sport’s age
Combat and exploration really feel archaic in comparison with style contemporaries
Key Specifications
Review Price: £34.99
Developer: Volition/Sperasoft
Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC
Genre: Open-World Action
Release Date: May 22, 2020
Saints Row The Third has all the time been thought-about Volition Studio’s magnum opus. It struck an ideal stability between self-indulgent extra and courageous new concepts, forming to create a compelling parody of the open-world style. What began as a playful riff on a few of gaming’s largest franchises morphed into one thing equally formidable and one thing that stands the check of time after all of the years.
Well – most of it has. Saints Row The Third Remastered is a devoted revival of the 2011 unique, translating the town of Steelport and all its jankiness over to new platforms with a shiny new coat of paint. It’s a wacky journey value revisiting, even when its juvenile sense of humour and considerably archaic fight hinder what might’ve been a very beautiful remaster.
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While its predecessors have been largely straight-laced escapades right into a fictional metropolis’s prison underworld, Saints Row The Third abandons any pretence of seriousness in favour of a world and characters that consistently poke enjoyable at themselves. The small-time gangsters are actually world celebrities starring in Japanese commercials and flogging merchandise by means of cheesy storefronts unfold throughout their metropolis. They purpose to earn cash and look good doing it.
As “The Boss” you’ll lead the Third Street Saints to their biggest success but, taking up the town of Steelport and combating anybody silly sufficient to cease you. This ranges from paramilitary corporations to precise zombie outbreaks, along with your crew coping with every more and more absurd improvement like one other day on the workplace. Such a tone helps the vast majority of dialogue really feel hilarious, with most traces hitting even when some ageing references fall by the wayside.
What helps Saints Row The Third Remastered shine is its improbable solid of more and more weird characters. There’s an expert wrestler turned hostile gang chief or a pimp that speaks fully in autotune, cruising round his neighbourhood taking out haters with some dulcet tones. Many of those characters have their very own distinct missions the place you’ll tag together with them whereas progressing by means of the principle marketing campaign, which itself consistently surprises with how genuinely weird it turns into in direction of the ultimate act.
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While its persona and characters have aged fairly splendidly, the moment-to-moment gameplay of this remaster is firmly caught prior to now. No main enhancements have been made and a few further visible blemishes surfaced throughout my playthrough on Xbox One X. Parts of the sky would flicker at random, whereas driving at excessive velocity in direction of sure obstacles would trigger my car to get caught within the terrain earlier than exploding right into a ball of flames.
These glitches aren’t breaking the sport and even had me guffawing, however their presence is unusual given Saints Row The Third is pushing a decade previous. Similar critiques could be thrown in direction of motion and gunplay, each of which really feel totally cemented within the final technology. Gunplay lacks impression, whereas motion oftentimes feels stilted and unresponsive. Constantly working out of stamina and having your dash sluggish to crawl simply feels irritating, failing to ship the ability fantasy being on the high of a prison organisation ought to specific.
Once you’ve obtained a number of upgrades many of those points deal with themselves, nevertheless it ends in a number of unusual problem spikes effervescent to the floor, exacerbated additional by some downright dated mission design. If you don’t comply with the target parameters set out by the sport precisely, you’ll have to begin from the latest checkpoint. Niggles apart, every mission nonetheless presents an pleasant romp of attractive explosions and foul one-liners which match the environment completely.
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Some of my private mission highlights contain parachuting onto a penthouse roof to the rhythms of Kanye West’s Power, gunning down a rival gang as The Third Saints make their first main splash on the town of Steelport. It exudes a way of epic grandeur that’s genuinely unmatched within the style, largely as a result of Volition is aware of precisely which bangers to blast within the second to get you hyped.
The marketing campaign is crammed with glorious moments like this, which arguably make up for the archaic nature of its gameplay mechanics. While this remaster isn’t the cream of the crop, it’s undoubtedly a contender. You’ve additionally obtained an extended record of aspect actions to partake in resembling Mayhem, Insurance Fraud and Professor Genki’s Reality Climax. The latter is a Japanese gameshow the place you battle your means by means of a vibrant warehouse crammed with uncommon traps, hostile mascots and different unwieldy threats for money prizes. It’s even accompanied by an over-the-top commentary for these treasured Takeshi’s Castle vibes.
Verdict
Saints Row The Third Remastered is a good improve of an open-world traditional, though doesn’t soften all of its tough edges to correctly benefit from fashionable platforms. Visual and mechanical blemishes stay, and these aren’t helped by fight and exploration, that are additionally feeling their age in 2020.
All my complaints apart, I nonetheless had lots of enjoyable roaming the streets of Steelport punching pedestrians within the jewels (sure, there’s a devoted button for that) and embarking on The Third’s delightfully wacky vary of missions and actions, all of which reward you with new weapons and automobiles to wreak havoc with. If you’re a fan of the collection or just after a captivating open-world expertise, you are able to do a lot worse than this.
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Games Writer
Jade is the devoted video games author at TechSwitch. She handles all issues gaming whether or not it’s information, opinions, occasions or foolish options. Seen at retailers resembling MTV UK, Kotaku and TechSwitch (…
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