Many moons ago some of the guys at HMV where I working at the time were talking about Saints Row 3. I had played a small amount of Saints Row 2 and was pretty underwhelmed, it felt like a cheap clone of the Grand Theft Auto. They told me to ignore any preconceptions I had and play it, so I did, and oh boy was I wrong. The game was so much fun and overshadowed most of the Grand Theft Auto games to date. When it was announced it was being remastered for PlayStation 4 and XBOX One I was more than a little excited.
My joy of sweets started from when I was a child, one of my early memories was chewing on Rowntree's Fruit Pastilles. Chewy, juicy, along with containing and being covered in lots of sugar. Once every now and then I would be inhaling them with such vigor that I would get a piece of foil. Now at the time (and up to about a week ago) I had no fillings, and while the taste was not pleasant it was manageable. Nowadays I eat them a little slower, but when I do get a bit of foil it seems worse than when I was child and not as tolerable. Playing Saints Row 3 Remastered I found myself asking was that bit of foil a little too bad to ignore?
Story
The Third Street Saints were once a tough street gang and have almost become a parody of themselves. They have their own clothing brand, stores and energy drinks. They have all the important people paid off to look the other way. As many movies, TV series and books have taught us you can't be number one forever and there is always someone looking to knock you off the top spot. The someone is the Syndicate, a collection of gangs and bad guys who seem to be taking over the place. They offer a deal to the Saints who decide to give them the middle finger, this does not work so well. Turned into a public enemy and having all resources drained they must find a way to stop the Syndicate and get back on top.
Despite the story sounding very serious the game does not take itself seriously, there a lots of gags, breaking of the fourth wall and more crude comedy than you can imagine. A fun story, that has some heart and a hell of a lot of laughs.
Visuals
This visual in the original release of Saints Row 3 (and Saints Row 4), is a blend of realism mixed with an almost comic book style characters (the above image is a good example). The original visuals were good but were far from top notch for the time. While it difficult to know for sure personally I don't think it was a priority for developers Deep Silver and Volition. That being said if you have a good quality story and gameplay it can be overlooked. The biggest thing that stood out for my visually in the original was the variety of backdrops, Steelport itself admittedly is fairly similar across the connect islands, Genki, and VR activities were a lot of fun, and near the end of act two there is an almost Tron inspired mission which looks really cool.
Remasters released on the PlayStation 4 and XBOX One can have a tendency to feel like a cash grab by companies with little notable differences made to the game. That is not the case with Saints Row 3, especially visually. One of the best representations of this is the image below. Overall Deep Silver and Volition has done a great job of remastering the game visually while at the same time leaving the core unchanged.
Music
The music is combination of rock, pop, R&B, Metal and Classical. There is background music but along with great radio stations with some fantastic tracks. The music is composed by Malcom Kirby Jnr. He has produced a rich tapestry of music for many TV series, movies and games, including; CSI, Training Day, Saints Row IV, NBA Street Home Court. He produced sounds for some of the biggest studios including; Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, CBS, MTV and more. He is a massively talented musician playing Jazz with many musicians.
The soundtrack is hours and hours long, and while naturally some tracks and pieces repeat over time there is plenty for your ear drums to enjoy. The Mix was by far my favorite radio station music from; Adam Ant, Bonnie Taylor, Faith No More, and Run DMC. Overall a great selection of music no matter your music taste.
Gameplay
When it comes to gameplay its hard to match the fun, manic and often hilarious gameplay. There is so much to discuss so lets get on with it. There are story missions that rather than just having all missions being 'drive to point A, destroy something and move on'. Often there are a couple of options to complete a mission, some which give you respect (SR3 version of experience points), or cashes bonuses. Upgrade, not just a good movie but also a large part of SR3. Cars can be upgrades to incredible degree, want a supped up Golf Cart that has nitrous and spikes sticking out the wheels to knee cap anyone and everyone done? Want to be able to throw a fart grenade at an enemy make the puke and then kill them with a dildo the size of a large dog? Done. Tired of your gender, want bigger breasts, want to look like an alien, cover yourself in tattoos? Done. There were very few games at the time the game was originally released that offered that level of customization.
There are three games modes available; campaign (it is what it is), Co-Op (tons of fun), and Whored Mode (like horde mode but sexy - not really). The game offers a lot of play options including different difficulty levels. That combined with the ability to make story choice means there is a lot of replay value.
In a similar way to series like Yakuza and GTA the story missions are just a small part of what makes up the game. There are challenges, car theft and assassination missions, along with my favorite of all activities. There are so many activities to complete; Insurance Fraud which involves you getting knocked around like a rag doll by cars. Mayhem, which is all about doing as much damage as possible in a limited time, Genki Bowl, which involves you killing armed mascots, and scoring high enough to win the top prize, filled with traps and angry foxes and pandas. There are more than just these but does help give a taste of what there is on offer.
A year after SR3 was originally released there was a complete edition called Full Package Edition. This featured the three add-ons; The Trouble With Clones, Genki Bowl VII, and Gangsta's In Space. All are available in the remastered edition along with a ton of extra content, new vehicles, clothes, and new weapons. All the new content is available once you get your first crib. All offer a lot of fun and many more hours of gameplay.
Okay I have said lots of good things about the game now for some bad. Shortly after finishing act two the game failed to saved. Instead there was the save icon was constantly showing, I tried reloading an older save the same issue happened, got it working again for it then fail. This also affected all the progression including stats and trophies. The other down side is that the save message appears where mission information appears meaning it was not always possible to know what I was supposed to be doing. I persisted until I completed the game but left a bitter taste in my mouth and certainly ruined the last few hours of gameplay.
Overall the gameplay is fairly solid, but the save issue was pretty big for me, that being said it only seems to affect a few people and is seems I was just unlucky as my partner in crime never experienced the issue and we purchased it at the pretty much the same time.
Final Thoughts
Sooooo, after thirty hours in Steelport how did I feel? Pretty good. The story was as fun as I remember and the characters themselves are quite memorable. The visuals are nicely polished and remastered, the music is as good as I remember. The gameplay was crazy fun and the only complaint I had was the save issue which was pretty big and if it had occurred earlier in the game may have caused me to give up playing it. This one was a tough one to score but in the end managed to slide in with a 4 out of 5
