Saints Row: The Third Discussion - Spoilers

I had a lot of fun with this game after getting it free with gold all those years ago. At the same time I never felt the urge to play any of the others in the series.

I think two is probably better than three but three is better than the rest.

One of the few games I loved playing when I was a kid and got all the achievements before I even knew achievement hunting was a thing. Fun game and I one of the few games I don't mind doing over and over, with breaks in between each "completion" of course.

Saints Row were some of the only games I bought DLC for back in the 360 days. I think this game was before Season Passes (but that may have been SR2). I also remember this one was a little bit "easier" than the previous offerings (which had some pretty difficult mini-games in the higher levels) because I finished it pretty quickly and without distraction.
Needless to say, I love these games, and while I still didn't break my "no pre-order" tradition (in place since Destiny 2), I still plan to play the new one.

I've bought the remastered edition and was looking to get stuck in, but tendonitis in my thumb has set me back - no right analogue stick use for me!

I can't wait to replay this, though. I did think the first 3 SR games got better each time. SR1 was a nice distraction whilst we waited for GTA IV to come along, then we all realised that GTA IV wasn't that much better. SR2 was fun but the craziness got turned up in SR3. SR4 I enjoyed but they kind of painted themselves into a corner with the storyline and it was a bit too crazy with those super powers.

It is a shame the reboot (supposedly) isn't up to much and now we might not get another entry into this zany world.

Long live Gat.

SR3 is definitely the last Saints Row I enjoyed. SR4 was fine, but all the superpowers made everything else seem a bit redundant.

I was so excited for the release of this game back in the day, but it just didn't live up to what I had hoped for in a sequel to SR2 (my favourite game at the time, and still one of my favourites today). Honestly, I think the lack of mission replay is the main reason why, I spent so much time replaying the campaign in 2 after changing my character at the plastic surgeon - all the fun of a new playthrough while keeping all of the cars, guns, clothes and abilities that you already had! The later games give you all sorts of fantastic abilities throughout the game but you barely get a chance to use some of them, really killed my enjoyment of the series.

Also in regards to the new one, I enjoyed playing it, I thought it struck a nice balance between the story and gameplay styles of 2 and 3 (no mission replay though!), but I've basically completely forgetten about the game even though it was only a couple of week ago that I finished it - yet parts of 2 are still crystal clear in my memory even after a decade.

Having played Saints Row 1-4 and Gat Out of Hell, I can say with confidence that Saints Row 3 is my favourite. It managed to have just the right amount of the series's trademark wackiness while remaining grounded enough that it still felt somewhat logically consistent. Oddly enough, my biggest criticism of Saints Row 4 was always that, despite the game completely losing itself in absurdity, it managed to feel more bland than Saints Row 3 somehow, probably in part because the Zin are the game's sole main antagonists and they by themselves aren't as interesting as the rogue's gallery for all the rival gangs in previous games in the series.

All in all, I think Saints Row 3 represents the best the series has to offer, before they got stuck trying to one up themselves with absurdity at the expense of everything else. I'm not at all surprised that the new Saints Row (2022) chose to go the route of a full reboot, they kind of wrote themselves into a corner with the last few games and there just wasn't anywhere left to go that would allow them to continue that escalation of absurdity. It's unfortunate that the version of The Saints seen in previous games will likely stay in the past, but I can't say I would be able to keep upping the stakes like that much longer either.

Ended up playing through this game twice, doing the 360 version and then the remaster. The base game was fun and mostly enjoyable to complete (except for one or two achievements). But the DLC was more than a little obnoxious to burn through, especially doing it twice.