Paying for a three course meal and only getting the appetizers and main course

To me, the apex of the Saints Row saga was Saints Row: The Third. Back in 2013, I most certainly purchased Saints Row IV and enjoyed my time with it, but with the added gameplay mechanics to SR4, it made a whole lot of the game trivial. Sure, that’s part of the fun, but it was also its downfall in a lot of ways. Years later, we get Saints Row IV: Re-Elected for the current gen systems, and a few more years down, it hits the Nintendo Switch. While the game is totally fine, the package and pricing is what really makes it unusual.

So, for those that don’t know, Saints Row 4 has players taking over as the leader of the 3rd Street Saints, a popular street gang that has turned into full on celebrities. Using this notoriety, they eventually get put into office, with the player now being the president of the United States. To top it all off, aliens have begun invading the planet, and with the budget of the US and the ruthlessness of a gangster, they take on the aliens in a strange way. Since they are all captive, they are all jacked into a virtual world. Due to them being in the “Matrix” so to speak, they can adapt and become superhuman able to throw cars, jump extraordinary heights, and many other abilities.

It has the gameplay mechanics of a Crackdown with the open world to play around in. What starts as a GTA type game quickly turns into a playground world to explore and wreak havoc. Sure, it’s fun, but due to all these new abilities, it makes a lot of old mechanics useless. Why drive a car when I could easily jump to my destination in half the time?

The Switch version runs totally fine with little issues to even talk about. In fact, I was impressed there were no real performance issues, even during the crazy explosions and powers going off. It even looked pretty decent in handheld mode, but I will say this – actually playing a third person shooter in handheld mode is very cumbersome and not recommended at all. Docked with the Pro Controller is the way to go and it worked very well.

Now comes the major issue I have with this Re-Elected package. Currently, this game is selling for $39.99 on the Nintendo Eshop. Now, I would say that wasn’t bad considering players will be getting all the DLC for the game, including the two episodic piecesthat were released, but let’s take a look at the Xbox One or PS4 versions of this exact same game. It’s $19.99. Oh, and the Re-Elected + Gat Out of Hell expansion package is $29.99. Gat Out of Hell is a stand-alone game that was added when the Re-Elected version first released, and it came bundled with the whole package…for $29.99. So why is it that the Nintendo Switch version is $39.99 and doesn’t even come with everything the $29.99 version does on Xbox or PlayStation? Doesn’t make much sense.

Look, maybe I’m going overboard with this whole package and price thing, but when justifying this extra price so I can play it on the go is not a very good justification since playing in handheld mode is not ideal in the slightest. I could give The Witcher 3 a pass since it comes with everything ever released and it’s The Witcher 3. But this is Saints Row IV. With The Third being the best in the series so far, I can’t see throwing this up for 40 bucks all because it can be played portably. If you have an Xbox, PC, or PS4, just grab it there for half the price and you get Gat out of Hell with it. The only way I could see saying pick this version up is if you have no other avenue to play it. It’s still a fun ride, but the price of admission is steep for something that a) came out seven years ago and b) doesn’t have everything in it but is still charging more for it. The choice is yours, but I would wait until we get a price drop that is equal to the other versions of this game.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.

Good
  • Still a fun game
  • Runs decent on Switch
  • Still has some funny moments
Bad
  • Wrong price point
  • Handheld mode is rough to play
  • Missing Gat out of Hell
6.5
Decent
Written by
Drew is the Community Manager here at ZTGD and his accent simply woos the ladies. His rage is only surpassed by the great one himself and no one should stand between him and his Twizzlers.