#game literally relies on you taking over the entire map for the plot to even make sense

[kikidewynter]

Heyyo! In all seriousness, in your opinion, how atrocious is the reboot?

I tried watching it on YouTube but I couldn't sit through it after a while and now I'm curious about ppls opinions

ok this is probably going to be long, mostly rambling, and a little incoherent. but if this helps other likeminded fans save their money then i’m happy to go over as much as possible. this is obviously in no way a professional review, just my opinion.

so. um it was pretty bad. i hated it.

not because it’s modern (although i do hate the livestream, smartphone application activity, etc. stuff bc i hate that shit irl too), not because it’s buggy or glitchy (a lot of my favourite games are old as shit and never got patched, and even the cp2077 bugs didn’t deter me from playing), not because it had a new setting/characters (after getting over the initial shock of the trailer, i was actually pretty excited to be going on a new journey), definitely not because the three homies were characters of colour (if anything, i found it strange and fishy that the original series grew increasingly whiter over time), and obviously not because there was an openly gay character (please let shaundi talk about her ex girlfriends).

so why did i hate it? i need somewhere to start, so let’s talk about the tone. the opening cutscene didn’t really appeal to me until the boss got buried alive. that, i thought set the tone instantly. that the game was going to appear lighthearted, but really have a much darker side. that was immediately contradicted by the first mission, which if i have to compare it so something, felt similar to the gangstas in space epilogue for srtt or the cyrus temple opening to sriv. very strange starting point for what i assumed was a game going back to its roots—a game about a street gang. not necessarily because the boss worked for marshall, but because it was incredibly unserious and cheesy and i immediately hated it. the boss constantly repeating “it’s my first day!” only served to irritate me and pretty much gave me no reason to become invested in their career. which is very strange because the game makes a whole song and dance about how the boss got fired (after working at this job for like 3 whole days) and how depressed and mopey they are about it. something else that instantly tipped me off wrt the game’s tone was the boss just excessively swearing after the first mission. when they’re in their car just saying “fuck fuck fuckity fuck.” like… why. who wrote this. i sound like i’m nit-picking but it just felt really immature and not even in a fun way. like only 12 year olds would find it funny. there were an excess of moments like this that just had me sitting straight-faced, staring at my tv like. this game is not for me. this game cannot be for adults.

then there’s the friends. the game pretty much forces you to believe in this “we’re best friends we do everything together we love each other we’d die for each other” relationship immediately instead of like. allowing you to become invested in them yourself. that was really strange and offputting. especially since all the friends your boss makes in the original series are people they’re meeting for the first time. the games never ask you to like anyone (excluding later instalments), they present you with characters and you get to know them and come to love them or hate them. the entire reboot the whole way through is just this vibe growing increasingly ridiculous. the boss, neenah, kev, and eli make nahualli come on a team bonding exercise where they act like best buddies and try to convince him that friendship is magic or whatever. you know, instead of like some actual plot progression. again i feel like i just sound petty but this grew really fucking irritating. like why are you just telling me that these people are such great friends who sing karaoke together. why don’t you show me that. introduce the characters, and then show that they have this bond by having them sing together in the car or something, like boss and pierce do. it felt very much like you were just supposed to buy into it without there being any real reason. the final part of the game doubled down on this extremely, with nahualli betraying the boss literally so he could take their place because he wanted to be friends with neenah, eli & kev instead… yes the darkest moment of the game, the only glimpse of something a little gritty, the boss being betrayed and buried alive, was so that nahualli could steal their friends and make them his. there was a whole ridiculous mission following this where the boss is half dead and in the afterlife or something where they were inside the farmyard board game the 4 friends play together, which when it turns into a nightmare, has the friends, who are boardgame pieces, taunt the boss by saying things like “you’re such a bad friend, why would we ever be friends, you let eli get shot because you were sad about getting fired :(((” like WHAT is going on with the tone of this game. it really felt to me like it was supposed to be for younger audiences. there was absolutely no way it warranted an age 18 restriction. i would let someone as young as 8 play it. it felt like a kid’s game. literally no mention of sex. kevin’s sexual partners are referred to as his “special friends.”

i just felt alienated from the start. as though it was only advertised as saints row bc the ip already has a lot of fans. they really should’ve made it a whole new thing. which brings me to the writing. because there is literally no reason for them to be the saints. the hq is a church, which i guess is supposed to be their whole origin—the reason they’re called the saints. that’s the only reason i can think of. because the boss literally just stands in the church in silence for five seconds and is like “omg i’ve got it… we’re the saints” right out of nowhere. it’s so bad. like if this is supposed to be an origin story for a new gang then why is there no real origin. it felt very shallow. like the game is just calling itself saints row, but isn’t actually saints row at all. i’ve said before, i was 100% open to the reboot and having a new version of saints row. but there was just no justification for them to still be the saints. it was just way off with the tone and kept attempting to prove to you that it really was a saints row game by making the occasional reference. like the boss saying “it’s our time now, let’s get this shit started.” which i’m sick of hearing by now btw. like !!!! god why didn’t they just put a little effort into the writing. the enemy gangs sucked too. i was not interested in sergio at all. he was mentioned as being in group chats with neenah and then, because she betrayed them, he stole her car and destroyed it. that was it. he trashed neenah’s car. which, i’m sorry, is not enough motivation for me to even care one iota about sergio. what jess and maero did to carlos made me actually care whether they lived or died, and made one of the most brutal deaths in the series incredibly satisfying. sergio was just not giving anything. there’s a train heist mission where a final confrontation with him is supposed to happen which at this point i thought was strange since he hadn’t really been built up to even being a real antagonist. but then when he appeared, he was instantly killed by nahualli anyway. not even the boss. so i was like ok. literally no impact at all. the idols had no members that even stood out, so even though they kidnapped kev at some point i still didn’t really care about them. even after getting rid of both gangs i didn’t believe it was over ??? i thought they would return in force, but that was it apparently. killing some nameless idols and sergio instantly dying by someone else’s hand. that was all it took.

the missions… to me, it felt like there were only a few actual missions. the rest were just pushing you towards doing activities as mission gameplay or completing ventures to take over the map. there was very little story. and i didn’t do many side missions as i found them tedious and wanted to focus on the main plot. so when the game was trying to convince me that the saints had come a long way and now rule the city it was just completely out of place for me. imo a game should not require you to do all that inconsequential shit for the main story to even slightly make sense. that is not good. same thing with nahualli. i guess his betrayal was supposed to be some huge thing. but again, it had 0 impact because the dude was around for 2 or 3 missions and barely gave me time to care about him. the mission where you recruit members for your new gang literally just had you go on a genki-esque murder livestream and apparently that was it. that was all you needed to do for the game to give you some npcs hanging around the crib. bc the saints don’t do much else i can tell you that.

the boss was incredibly unlikeable to me. they have a pretty strong personality that is in effect at all times, never giving you a moment to let your mind wander and come up with headcanons for your own oc. which i suppose makes the boss a solid character. but also makes the whole “create your own boss” thing pretty redundant. i finished the game having made absolutely no notes about my own boss, and no longer caring about him at all.

just a mess. total shambles. really strange vibes. great concept, terrible execution. game forces you to care about its characters but gives you no time or reason to grow attached to them. just awful writing all around. nothing was impactful. really immature to the point where i genuinely couldn’t believe it was for grown adults. bizarre experience.

i’ve seen people say in response to the reviews that “a game doesn’t have to be good, it just has to be fun.” and i’m just going to let that speak for itself because wow alright

[dearamleo]

New Fic: Mischief Managed: Marauders’ Mansion Mayhem

This is absolutely not what I was intending to write when I started this fic. This got away from me in about three paragraphs flat and turned into the most absurd thing I've ever written. I don't even know- enjoy, I guess?

It was entirely James’s fault.

Ever since Lily had installed that blasted television in their house for Harry, James had been practically glued to the screen. He watched everything from the Saturday morning infomercials, to the muggle sports games, the monotone documentaries about fish and polar bears, and, of course, the cartoons .

Which is exactly how Sirius, Remus, Peter, James and Lily all ended up crammed into Pete’s mom’s old Chevy Astro barreling towards some unnamed, unspecified ‘haunted’ location where James was determined they were all about to live out his ultimate Mystery Gang fantasy.

“I don’t even understand why we’re doing this,” Sirius complained for the hundredth time as he wildly missed Peter’s mouth with the M&M he was throwing. “We lived with ghosts for seven fucking years! And we’ve got a literal werewolf in our backseat!”

“Hm?” Remus hummed, only now looking up from the book he had been reading for the last 45 minutes.

“C’mon, Padfoot! Where’s your sense of adventure! Your sense of wanderlust! Your sense of mischief and-”

“Oh, please, James, not again,” Lily groaned, trying to uncrinkle the map that was too big to actually open inside the van. “I can’t hear this speech again, you’ve already got us in the car!”

“You do realize that most of the muggle so-called haunted places are just old, rundown buildings with creaky floors and drafty windows, right,” Remus said. “The Ministry wouldn’t actually let magical beings roam free to break the statute of secrecy.”

“Details, Moony, details. We’ll find something spooky, I promise! There’s gotta be some crusty old hack that just needs us to unmask them and stop their plot of eeeeeevil .”

Peter, who had been nervously scribbling away at his Sudoku book, finally spoke up. “I hope Remus is right. This whole idea gives me the creeps.”

“Shocker, there,” Sirius teased.

“You know I’ve been scarred ever since that one time the Bloody Baron came floating through the showers! You go through that and try not to have nightmares about it!”

“Everyone will be fine and we will have a great time and solve our mystery and have fun , understood,” James said, taking on that slightly disappointed dad tone he somehow seemed to have developed the moment Harry popped out.

“Ugh. Yes, dad,” they all chorused together.

“Which means no wands.”

“What,” Sirius squawked.

James turned to face Sirius as much as he could while driving 70 on the highway, Lily leaning over quickly to help steady the wheel. “No wands, Sirius. We’re going in just like muggles- like Scooby and the gang. We’re going to rely on our wits and courage, not magic .

“You’re determined to kill me, I swear to god, Prongs.” James simply continued to give him the stern dad face. Sirius threw up his hands. “Fine, but if we end up leaving your son a lonely orphan because we’ve all gone and gotten ourselves killed by some creepy perv living in a drafty, creaky muggle mansion, I’m solely blaming you.”

“Is it ever tiring being so dramatic,” Lily laughed.

“Here, Pads,” Remus murmured, holding out a lightly smoking joint to him.

Lily turned around from the front again. “Seriously, Remus? Already?”

“Hey, do you want a happy Padfoot or a pouty Padfoot?”

The entire gang turned to look at Sirius who was already inadvertently pouting at the mere implication that he could be pouting.

“ Happy ,” they all said collectively.

“Go to hell, the lot of you,” he grumbled, but smiled softly at Remus. “Thanks, Moons.”

“‘Course, baby.” Leaning over, Remus took Sirius by the chin, letting him breathe in the smoke that he was exhaling into Sirius’s open mouth. The soft groan he let out was muffled by Remus’s lips as the pair quickly devolved into making out in the back seat.

“Oi,” Pete shouted. “You two! No fornicating in the van! Not again!”

Sirius rolled his eyes, dragging his lips away from Remus’s “I thought you didn’t want a pouting Padfoot, Wormy? Cockblocking me is a sure fire way to achieve maximum pouting!”

“James, love, I think you’ve taken a wrong turn,” Lily said, cutting over top of the other three’s bickering.

James simply grinned wider. “We’ve got one last stop before we head to our destination!”

“James, why are we at Reg’s dorms?”

At Remus’s words, Sirius' neck snapped around with an audible pop as he looked out the window for the first time in a while. And sure enough, standing out by the curb looking unnecessarily stoic, was Regulus Black. The Astro’s brakes squealed unnecessarily high as James pulled over and Peter flung the side door open.

“Nooooo,” Sirius whined loudly as he watched his little brother climb in. “You invited fucking Scrappy Doo ?!”

Not even fully seated yet, Regulus reached out to smack Sirius on the side of the head. “Shut the fuck up, I’m not Scrappy Doo!”

“You don’t even know what that means!”

“So! If it’s coming from you then I know it’s meant to be an insult.”

“It means you’re an annoying bitch , is what it means!”

“Boys,” Lily groaned. “So help me god I will drop the both of you off at the babysitter’s with Harry if you don’t shut the fuck up! You’re supposed to be mending relationships, remember?”

Regulus shifted to quickly latch his seatbelt at Lily’s tone. Peter held out a bag of Twizzlers to him, which he gratefully took, throwing a last glare over at Sirius. “Can we just get on with this… adventure? Whatever it’s supposed to be.”

“Wait,” Remus said. “James didn’t tell you what-”

James revved the decrepit engine then, a devilish gleam in his eye. “Gangs all here! Autobots, roll out!”

“I think that’s a different cartoon…” Peter mumbled with a shrug.