Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying the GTA games are bad games. In fact of the ones I played the Vice City colorful world did work for me. But I never enjoyed it as much as others seemed to.
I kept plugging with other games in the series, and as they became more grounded I got less interested. It’s not for nothing that the only Saints Row game I’ve played, and the game of this style I enjoyed the most, is Saints Row 4. Even that, after about 20-25 hours, I was done with forever.
Basically the entire open world styling isn’t really my thing. The best examples I find passable. The worst actively infuriating. So I’ll never love them for the mechanics, so it has to be the writing. And dour and serious is at an extreme conflict with the mechanics, so the more serious they try to be, the less I like them.
But if they go the full Saints Row 4? That opening was bloody brilliant. The absurd spectacle of climbing the rocket, through the fact my viking looking dude was all Leave it to Beaver? Man, I ate that up.
It took me a long time to acknowledge it though. The praise was so strong, while my thoughts were largely ‘this is ok, I guess’, I kept plugging at them longer than I should have.