Introduction
I played the original Saints Row The Third two years ago and it was honestly one of the best open-world games that I have experienced. When the remaster was announced, I was super excited that I could finally play the game again, in HD with high hopes that they have further improved an already great game.
Pros and Cons
-A great story filled with humor and interesting characters
-Many ways to customize your character
-Fun combat with many weapons to take on other gang members
-All three expansion packs and other DLC’s are included
-Lots of side activities to do in Steelport
-An awesome soundtrack with real-world songs
-Great graphics that make Steelport feel alive
Cons
-Most of the weapons felt underwhelming
-The bugs from the original are still here and there are even new ones
-FPS in gameplay is 60, however, cutscenes drop to 27
Story
The 3rd Street Saints started out as a small-time gang but have grown to become a household name with products like Johnny Gat Bobble Heads, energy drinks, and a movie in the works. However, their fame has not gone unnoticed and the Syndicate wants in on it. After the Saints fail a robbery, they are offered freedom if they give 66% of their company away. The Saints refuse and a brawl ensues.
The Saint's leader Gat, dies in the process but you (the player) and one other escape. Steelport is now under control the of the Syndicate and the Saints must find a way to rise up and be number one again.
The Syndicate has three major units with them. Morningstar, who is led by Loren sells guns and controls the prostitution ring, the Deckers led by Matt Miller who are computer experts and has their hands in money laundering, and lastly, the Luchadores, led by Killban, who handles the drug trade and gambling.
There will be branching paths throughout the story, however, they don’t impact the main direction of the story in any major way. The choices can be things like getting a new crew member or having a property that will provide more income.
Character creation
The character creation mode has a variety of options to customize your character. You can make the most ridiculous kind of character or something normal and easy on the eyes, so be creative. Character skin can range from normal to green, yellow, blue, or even pink tones, allowing for a great bit of freedom and creativity.
Gameplay
Saints Row: The Third is an open-world game that has a ton of stuff for you to do inside the city of Steelport. Purchasing properties is something that you will want to do as they will generate income that can be used to get certain upgrades for your character. You can get more health, stamina, increased damage, damage immunity, and extra ammo. To get certain upgrades, you will need to have a certain amount of respect, think of respect as a level-based system in the game. You earn respect at the end of each mission you do as well as the side missions. You can purchase at the in-game clothing stores that will increase the amount of respect you earn.
The combat in Saints Row the Third is something that I have always enjoyed. There are a variety of weapons to use that are ridiculously fun and engaging. You have pistols, assault rifles, and sniper rifles to take out enemy gang members or police, a weapon for every occasion. You can even unlock upgrades that you can unlock to increase ammo, clip size, or even attaching a grenade launcher.
I do have an issue with how they handled guns. They have a good variety of weapons in this category, but only a handful felt actually useful. I found myself only using a pistol as it could one-shot people in the head, and the assault rifle (once fully upgraded) as it just outperforms every other gun. On occasion, I would mess around with the sniper rifle or SMG, but mostly I kept to the pistol or rifle as my primary method for taking on the rival gangs, completely ignoring the other choices.
Side activities
There are plenty of side activities to do, with each one having something unique to them. There are a few to choose from and you can do them at any time. The difficulty will increase as you play new ones, so be careful. My personal favorites were Professor Genki’s Super Ethical Reality Climax, where you kill mascots while avoiding traps to get money (the two hosts are very fun to listen to), Insurance Fraud where you run into things, injure yourself, and get money for it, and Mayhem/Tank Mayhem, where you have a set time limit to roam the city causing mass destruction.
The three expansion packs are also included in the remaster as well, there is Genkibowl VII, Gangstas in Space, and The Trouble with Clones. This will add about an hour or more of content for each expansion, none of this is required to beat the game, however, I recommend playing them as they are very enjoyable.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack for the game has real-world music, making Steelport feel like an actual city. My favorite has to be Kayne West’s Stronger and it was played on the mission Party Time, which is honestly one of my favorite moments in the game as it captured the feel of the song perfectly. KMFDM WWIII, Renegades, and Born Free were also songs that I enjoyed listening to while driving around Steelport.
Graphics and Performance
Saints Row The Third: Remastered runs very well, not coming across any problems during my playthrough. The graphics are very nice and it makes Steelport feel alive with its vibrant colors, it’s like an actual city in its own way. The remaster improved on the graphics, the visuals, and character models, everything else on the other hand is the same as the mission structure, map, HUD, and menus. It's more like an HD remaster than anything else. I tested the game on an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB, AMD Ryzen 5 1500X Quad-Core Processor 3.50, and 16 GB of RAM.
However, there are some issues with the game's FPS. Everything you do runs at a stable 60 FPS for its gameplay but drops to 27 FPS in cutscenes. There are some ways to slightly fix this issue but the highest FPS cutscenes can run at is 30. Hopefully, we will see a community mod to fix this issue if one has not been made already.
Another issue I had was the number of bugs that are plagued throughout. Not only have the bugs from the previous game not been fixed, but new ones have surfaced. Some of the gang territories did not show up and sometimes I would get stuck in places. Other times the A.I would also crash into other people, this was not present in the original game.
Final Verdict
I had a great time playing Saints Row The Third: Remastered, but the new version felt like more of the same. If you have not played Saints Row The Third yet and are looking to play it with all the DLC’s, then you could not go wrong with purchasing the remaster. There is much to do and experience in Steelport to keep you entertained and for me, was an overall fun experience.
However, if you own the original, it is hard to recommend purchasing the remastered version unless there is a decent sale going on. I know that I have praised everything that was offered, but much of what is worthy of praise is already present in the original game. The upgraded visuals and DLCs might not be worth buying the game twice as your experience will be very similar.