Saints Row IV: Re-Elected

Genre: Open-World Action-RPG

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local Wireless, Online)

The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

.

Review:

(Note: This game is included in the Saints Row: The Big Purple Package compilation, along with Saints Row: The Third: The Full Package)

Saints Row IV: Re-Elected is a port of the 2013 Open-World Action-RPG that starts with a formula similar to the Grand Theft Auto series, but quickly becomes a superpowered adventure I’d argue is closer to the Xbox 360 game Crackdown. This version of the game includes all of the previously-released DLC.

Many complained about the Nintendo Switch port of the third game in the Saint’s Row series (in my review of the Switch port of Saint’s Row The Third, written after the game was patched, I noted that the graphics still had some issues, but it was largely fine as a port), and others have noted that the port of Saint’s Row IV fares much better. Overall I would have to agree with that assessment of IV – this game does a much better job with textures, and overall the framerates in this one are much smoother (although when things get hectic they can really start to chug). I will say that this game does have a few issues the first game had – it has serious problems with aliasing, creating jagged edges to everything on-screen. There’s also a fair amount of pop-in. However, after adjusting to it, this game overall looks great and its graphical flaws don’t mar the action too much.

As for that action… wow. Where Saint’s Row The Third was like Grand Theft Auto on some crazy drugs, Saint’s Row IV takes one look at that and chuckles “well isn’t that quaint” before diving head-first into a swimming pool of the stuff. Where the previous game had a gang elevated to corporate status, this game starts with the leader of that gang (your character) conducting a raid on a terrorist compound, getting elected president, and then the Earth gets invaded by aliens and you get trapped in a virtual reality world where most of the game takes place.

Some people were turned off by how absurd this game gets, but given that this series has always been the crazy, off-the-wall cousin of Grand Theft Auto, doubling down on the crazy with this installment only feels true to the series’ overall progression. However, this time around the craziness gets so over-the-top that I’d argue the result is that the gameplay shifts from being a copy of Grand Theft Auto to something else entirely – as I noted before, in adding Matrix-style superpowers, this game becomes closer to the Xbox 360 game Crackdown.

While the game starts out with the same sort of carjacking, gun-toting gameplay you’re familiar with in the GTA games (and earlier Saint’s Row games), it soon deviates, first by allowing you to summon previously-stolen cars anywhere you want without having to go to a location to pick them up, which streamlines things considerably. However, shortly after this, you gain super-speed, super-jumps, the ability to climb walls, the ability to shoot beams of ice, and soon enough you’re scaling buildings and jumping all over the city looking for collectable pickups.

And wow, what a blast. There’s an immense sense of freedom jumping around from building to building, speeding across the map, and hunting down pickups for upgrades to become even more ridiculously overpowered. The game does still find ways to get you using the old-fashioned guns and cars too, of course, and there’s a healthy variety of activities here, from taking out enemy strongholds, missions to cause as much mayhem as possible with a specific weapon, climbing massive towers using your superpowers (don’t worry, it doesn’t quite feel like an Ubisoft game), racing through checkpoints using super-speed… while I won’t say that this game never gets repetitive, it still provides you with plenty to do for times you want to switch gears.

Oh, and because I know some people will want to know, yes, this game does incorporate gyroscopic motion controls, wisely refraining from using them until you’re aiming with a weapon.

I’ve been heaping praise on Saint’s Row IV, but there is one place that I have to knock this game down a peg – the price. At $40, this game is twice the price as other platforms, and the price difference becomes even crazier when you factor in the fact that the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game go on sale for as low as $5. That is an insane price difference for portability, and I would suggest that unless you really need that portability, or don’t have another game console, get a different version of the game instead.

Overall, Saint’s Row IV is a joy to play on the Nintendo Switch. And while this port isn’t without a few technical issues, and the gameplay can get repetitive in places, this does little to dampen the ridiculous absurdity and outright pure fun this game has to offer. Switch players looking for a crazy, sexy, violent, bizarre, absurd, and delightful open-world game on the Switch should absolutely get this game, but only if you really need the game to be portable, or you don’t have any other platform to play it on, because the price difference here is almost as bonkers as the game itself.

tl;dr – Saint’s Row IV is a super-violent off-the-wall Open-World Action-RPG that starts out like Grand Theft Auto, but soon adds superpowers, becoming something more like Crackdown. It’s a solid port of a joyously good game, but the price difference here is outrageous, and while I think this is a game that should definitely be played, Switch owners who also have another modern gaming platform will save a lot of money getting it elsewhere.

Grade: A-

.

This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2020 Game Awards:

Winner:

Most Underrated – This category is for games with a Metacritic score I felt was way too low, and sometimes this means a good game that I felt was unfairly maligned by critics, such as Crysis Remastered and The Outer Worlds (yes, the Switch versions of those games had worse graphics, but they were still perfectly playable, enjoyable games), and sometimes this means games that critics liked, but I felt like they deserved higher praise than they received. In the case of Saints Row IV, it’s kinda’ somewhere in-between. With a Metacritic score of 71, I think it’d be fair to say critics were lukewarm about this game, which is astounding to me because this game is some of the most fun I’ve had on my Nintendo Switch. Yes, it’s a competent but unspectacular port of an older game (and thankfully a better port than Saints Row The Third was), but it’s a fantastic older game and one that absolutely deserves more attention than I think it got.

.

The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

Saints Row IV: Re-Elected

Genre: Open-World Action-RPG

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local Wireless, Online)

.

Review:

(Note: This game is included in the Saints Row: The Big Purple Package compilation, along with Saints Row: The Third: The Full Package)

Saints Row IV fared much better on Nintendo Switch than its predecessor, which means there’s much less to improve. In my original review, I complained about the $40 price tag, but that has since been reduced to a far more acceptable $20. However, the game still has plenty of aliasing and pop-in that’s not going to see any improvement on Nintendo Switch 2. So, what has been improved here?

As with its predecessor, the original game had dynamic resolution, which tops out on Nintendo Switch 2 meaning the resolution overall looks pretty good. The framerates, also, are much smoother here. What’s more, the loading times seem to have been greatly improved too, with it taking 30 seconds to load up a game on Nintendo Switch and only 12 seconds on Nintendo Switch 2.

Overall, this is a solid improvement over playing the game on the original Nintendo Switch, though not so great an improvement that the game feels transformed. It would be wonderful to get a full remake/remaster of this game like Saints Row: The Third got on other platforms, but with developer Volition shut down by its owner Embracer Group in 2023, that’s not likely to happen. So for Nintendo Switch 2 owners, this is probably the best they’re going to get when it comes to a version of this game to play on this hardware. Thankfully, it’s a pretty good version of the game, even if it still has some flaws.

tl;dr – Saint’s Row IV is a super-violent off-the-wall Open-World Action-RPG that starts out like Grand Theft Auto, but soon adds superpowers, becoming something more like Crackdown. It’s a solid port of a joyously good game made even better on Nintendo Switch 2, even if there are still some graphical issues still remaining.

Grade: A-

.

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}