Club wrote that Saturdays=Youth "boasts a more expansive sense of space" than the band's previous albums, and opined "For all the awe kindled by the effectively perfect sound in a transcendent highlight like 'Kim & Jessie,' the real triumph is that M83 uses such a setting for more simple melody and emotion than ever before.

"[17] Brian Howe of Pitchfork noted that Saturdays=Youth's songs "disperse in all directions: Producers Ewan Pearson and Ken Thomas spread the melodies and beats into a sound world of uncommon vibrancy and pristine clarity, mounted on a massive yet now more proportionate scale", adding that the album "meaningfully diversifies M83's catalog while retaining Gonzalez's indelible fingerprint.

"[9] In a mixed review, Dorian Lynskey of The Guardian expressed that "[t]o call Saturdays=Youth derivative is to pay it a compliment, because every retro synth sounds calibrated to provide the maximum nostalgic rush—if not for your own adolescence, then at least for that of a poetic outcast in a John Hughes film", but noted that "[i]t's a shame the songwriting evaporates in a haze of rote shoe-gazing and ambient murmurs halfway through.

"[20] Benjamin Boles of Canadian newspaper Now believed that the album is "more derivative and familiar than Anthony Gonzalez's past work as M83, which means it's more accessible but also less innovative and original.

"[21] Spin's Mosi Reeves was unimpressed, writing that "[o]nly a few compelling songs, particularly the lush darkwave instrumental 'Couleurs' and the breezy shoegaze rock of 'Graveyard Girl,' emerge from the bathos.