Recent reviews by Nonixel

TL;DR:

♦ Good
- coolio art style
- coolio characters and racial diversity
- coolio combat system

♦ Bad
- some issues with the game's target audience
- rushed story/plot
- a handful of bugs

♦ Overall
- RIP everyone that paid the original $60 price

LONG REVIEW:

As a whole, I don't hate the game, but I can't say that I love it either... no matter how much I want to. I really hate to be another negative review, so I'll start with what I like about the game.

I love the art style, adore the characters, and really dig the combat system. I love the new art style because I've never really been all that crazy for hyper-realistic graphics, so the cartoony style is pretty refreshing in my honest opinion. As for the characters (the non-Saints Row ones), the diversity of the character roster is large enough to keep me interested and make me swap out certain squadmates on my own initiative (rather than as a mission requirement) solely because I actually care to know more about everyone's story; I also love the different squad bants. For the combat system, I love how you can mix-and-match ability upgrades and freely respec each character's stats. This system especially comes in handy when compensating for other squadmates and coming up with devastating buff/debuff combos.

As for what I dislike about the game, it mainly revolves around the confusing target audience, cheaply animated cutscenes, and bugs. After a while, I completely forgot this was rated M (mainly because of the sense of humor) until someone dropped the F-bomb every now and then. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but it was pretty jarring for me, and this is where I felt that the game devs got lost with their target audience. I'm all for corny jokes; that kind of behavior isn't bad in rated M games, but it's done so often in this one that it's redundant, awkward, and almost... cringey? I guess? For the cutscenes, the animation style is very inconsistent, so much to a point that it's distracting. I acutally loved the choice of 2-D animation for the sake of variety, but sometimes the frames are smooth in cutscenes, and in others, it's literally just stills with dialogue, which I find very annoying because I KNOW it could've been done better given more time. As for bugs, there were not many that occurred for me, but it was incredibly annoying when I had to completely restart a half-cleared L.E.G.I.O.N. lair all because an enemy (whose death is normally required to progress) gets stuck behind a door, or because the lair disappears under my feet and the fall kills me, or when I get stuck in the ground/in place.

I purchased this game well after the base price dropped (at $20 when it was on sale). At 20 bucks, I can easily say that I would recommend this game. $30 would be the absolute max that I would lay down for a game that made me say "That's it?" after the main questline (the ending was rather abrupt). Overall, the game isn't god-awful, it just feels rushed and incomplete. And for that very reason, I cannot recommend this game to others. In all honesty, I think adding a multiplayer game mode would've made all the difference in sales and reviews. My heart goes out to those that paid the original $60 price for this game. :/

Thumbs up because of the customization range, but in all honesty, I couldn't care less about the actual gameplay or community. Customization is the only aspect of this game that's keeping me hooked. 90% of my time is spent in the Social District making themes, or customizing my look. Subsequently, I only do missions to unlock symbols, clothing, and cars so I can design my own stuff simply because I enjoy it. Unfortunately, you have to have Premium Membership (which costs actual money) to really express yourself in the editors. Also, a heads up: the majority (if not all) of the community is garbage. I won't go into detail (to spare you a wall of text), but just know that decent players in this game are a minority. And by decent, I mean in terms of good manners, common sense, and honesty. So ultimately, if you like a large range of cutomization, then this is the game for you. Otherwise, don't spend too much of your time looking for friendship.