Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell (PlayStation 4) Review

The story picks up shortly after the end of Saints Row IV. With the Earth destroyed and the Saints being all that remains of humanity, the heroes are celebrating Kinzie's birthday aboard their ship. The party takes a strange turn when a Ouija board they are playing with sucks their leader into Hell. Series favourites Johnny Gat and Kinzie Kensington take centre stage, embarking on a quest to shoot the Devil in the face and save their boss' soul. Along the way they gather the aid of old friends and enemies, along with some famous historical characters who are currently ruling over different areas of Hell.

Players can switch freely between Kinzie and Johnny at any point, with the power-ups and abilities identical. Either can then tear through the five areas of Hell, along the way taking part in various mini-games, collecting collectables and engaging in the most important part of the series: wanton mindless, insane, destruction.

The first thing that jumps out about this iteration in the series is the flight ability; it's a feature that is done fantastically well. The ability to soar around is very fluid and an awful lot of fun; quite possibly the highpoint of the game. Gat Out of Hell also imbues players with new supernatural powers, and while some are very similar to those found in Saints Row IV, all are lots of fun to play with, summoning Demons, blasting enemies after petrifying them or even calling the wrath of God.

The sad news is that, on the whole, the game feels like a heavily chopped down version of Saints Row IV, which makes sense as it is a standalone product. However, there are cuts to vital aspects of the game that are very noticeable; losing the radio stations is possibly the biggest loss, but also gone are character customisations. Playing as Kinzie and Gat, it makes sense that editing the base look of the character is off the table, but removing the clothes shops?! It's fitting this game is in Hell as that's just sacrilegious!

There is complete freedom, with no real missions to progress through; instead the game implements a "Satan's Wrath" meter, which is filled by doing just about anything in the game, from the mini-games to completing the challenges, and even collecting the various collectables scattered across Hell. It can be quite strange to be flying around collecting floating orbs when suddenly progress can be interrupted by an FMV continuing the story… These FMVs also feel lacking compared to the punch of the humour from Saints Row IV. There are some funny moments, but more chuckles than the full-on laughter that filled the previous incarnation.

The majority of the mini-games are returns from Saints Row IV. There's "Mayhem," where the player needs to rack up costs by destroying as much as possible in a time limit; "Survival" is self-explanatory; and "Torment Fraud" takes the place of "Insurance Fraud," where the player ragdolls a character into traffic to rack up points. The old 'race through checkpoints' mini-game also returns, but using the superb flight system. The brand-new mini-games come in the form of "Salvation" - a mini-game that tasks the player with flying around, catching damned souls as they float up to Heaven or fall down to Hell. The mini-games are all fun enough diversions, but there simply aren't enough of each of them. They also seem an awful lot easier than in Saints Row IV, with even the hard modes posing little challenge.

The game can be finished in about five or six hours for those that tear through it paying little attention to the extra diversions, or eight to ten hours with the majority of collectables and side-quests done, also. The challenges, however, extend the lifespan a long, long way. There are 101 Challenges and all can be heavily time intensive, especially the "Kill X enemies with this weapon/power" ones, which usually require 100+ enemies. It's a touch too much, with hours and hours of investment needed; even planning beforehand, and switching abilities or weapons throughout, the player will still barely impact the challenges. This results in ridiculous amounts of grinding for 100%. It's disappointing that it's a lack of balance causing this. If there were more mini-games, or more replayability to them, the challenges would go by easier. As it is, anyone would be hard pressed not to complete the main story in less than ten hours and then see a wall of grinding ahead of them for three or four times their playtime. An ideal solution would be being able to take the characters or abilities out of Hell and into Saints Row IV, but, alas, that's not an option.