I worked on this game, it was my first gig in the industry and I was on the character art team, most of my work was on the character creation system and making clothing for said system. That being said, I really enjoyed this video, I though it was extremely harsh, but fair. and I really liked the section where you talked about other videos just cashing in on the hate for this game and not really making any good points. This video overall was just really well constructed and you made a lot of really great points that most people didn't address because they wouldn't even bother to put in the effort to actually play or put I the effort to pay attention. So the fact you put this much effort into playing this game to tear apart is applaudable. You also did bring up some points about the development, citing "too many cooks in the kitchen" which I would say is accurate, and a lot of things you said in this video made me think of times where it was planned to have said thing and it got cut or the original plan was for something to be more like some of your recommendations to fix it but it ended up not coming to fruition. Theres honestly so much I could say but then this comment would be a 20 page paper so I wont bother going that in depth. The development for this game overall was just a mess, it changed direction so many times. It went through many tone changes before settling on something (which the game doesn't even match what we set on IMO) along with some missions getting re-made several times even months away from release which pulled resources from things that needed attention more, combined with too many cooks in the kitchen as well as volition bleeding talent as people left to go to other studios (which that could be a whole other story in of itself) AND Im not even sure how many people that worked on SR2022 even worked on the original games. With the previous layoffs from AOM and people just persuing other avenues I cant imagine a lot of the original talent for the older games where even there. On the character team at least I know pretty much everyone there joined the team during AOMs development at the earliest. So none of us had experience working on a SR game at all and we kind of had to figure out how to remake systems from the earlier games without the knowledge of how those systems where done. At least in regards to the character team I'm proud of what we where able to do with the character creator considering none of us had experience with a character creator system, let alone one from a previous SR game. But... yea, jesus christ I hope someone writes a book on what happened some day lol. Great video, definitely the most fair and probably unbiased video about this game I've seen.
I honestly wish you'd go into more detail. Like, what are some of the ideas that got scrapped? What tonal changes did it go through? Tell us more; the people need to know!
@@Tzilandi I was purposely vague due to NDA related stuff. Even though volition isn't around anymore and a lot of other devs have come forward (anonymously though) and have told some stories I still want to be careful as to not get into legal trouble. But believe me I'd love to talk about my experiences 😅 But I also think there are others that could say a lot more and put it in a lot better form then I could. A lot of what I know is stuff that trickled down the grapevine, as a low level character artist in the project I didn't have first hand experience with a lot of the things that people would find all that interesting in relation to the project so a lot of details would be fuzzy from my end as well. Unless you want to know about things specifically related to character models like NPCs, or the character customization system I don't really trust myself to provide details on anything else as to not get details wrong. To sum up exactly what I did, I started out at voltion as an intern, which led into a 1 year temp position which then led into a full time gig for 2 years and then the company went under. Most of what I did for the first year was just make clothing assets, shirts, pants, misc wearables for the customization system, the second year was mostly making the NPCs that populated the world, I made around 200 NPCs I think, but a lot of them repurposed the assets we already made for the character customization system, but changed the colors of clothing and other material properties to make the clothing look like it was made of different fabrics, then added patterns and other things we could swap out to increase variation in the already existing assets. After that it was mostly bug smashing until a few months before release then we where rolled off onto working on dlc assets. So tldr it was very early on in my career so I didn't really do anything cool. I guess one small story I can fit in is how mid production the character team found a fast way to generate blend shapes for the crotch buldges on all the lower wearables so we convinced production to let us add the buldge slider to the game because we ruled out it would be a relatively easy addition due to the scripts tech animation made to generate these on all the wearables. After that we had a meeting to review all the buldges in the game to see which ones needed tweaking / fixing. As you can imagine, that meeting was full of awful jokes and banter about crotch buldges. So totally the highlight of my career.
@@chuukoart3869 how was the work environment, if you're cleared to answer that? Did you experience any crunch? I hope that at least you got some experience and managed to find something more fulfilling.
@@grrrr255 I do believe I read elsewhere (in the SR Discord) from the mouth of a former dev that the original pitch was SR2.5, and Deep Silver slammed their dirty hands in and said "no, make this more relatable and epic millennial". Obviously not the wording, but you get the gist
@Ferbujosbe F in chat for the Boss EDIT: Since the original comment we were replying to appears to no longer exist, some context: The comment we were replying to mentioned that the Boss’ degree would’ve been invalid anyhow due to their violent criminal status (to say nothing of being in charge of a violent criminal syndicate), so they have student debts on top of a useless piece of paper.
"Grenades aren't just a way to say goodbye, they're also a hello! They're the aloha of armaments!" I love that line so much. Not just the line itself, but the delivery. You're great at conveying just the right amount of exasperation at design decisions, in truly entertaining ways.
A game which perfectly encapsulates that is halo ce (haven't played the other yet) specially on higher difficulties like legendary that increases the amount of enemies
I know for a fact the writers didin't mean this but Eli does look and act like a guy who blows up your phone with a new scamcoin or really tried hard to get you into NFTs.
You know, I'm thinking about the LARP mission, and wouldn't it be a more significant twist if Eli and Gwen were siblings or cousins, and this game is something they've engaged in since childhood, with Gwen always winning because of her ruthlessness in everything she does while a meeker Eli can never reach the upper hand due to always being so focused on following the rules. So at the end, Gwen learns not to take everything so seriously while Eli learns that sometimes you have to go above the rules to get ahead. It's not a good lesson, but it's better than nothing. Edit: Fuck, I just realized I also just wrote fanfiction for a game I'm not a fan of.
@@GeteMachine Yes, but at least JoJones' way would have been much better handling of the whole situation than it is in a game currently. At least it might have made Eli and Gwen a bit more interesting as characters.
It's kinda funny people like you and snake can spitball better ideas then people got paid to write. I honestly didn't mind the LARP missions as much as I thought I would. Either I was numb at that point or wannabe gangsters doing LARP for petty reasons seemed worryingly in character.
I’d consider this a constructive criticism in a very greatly missed opportunity to build the world and characters, whom feel like blande templates, than a fanfiction. The game itself feels like a fanfiction and a bad one story-wise
"It feels like gang war for kids" You know, that really does accurately sum up the tone and feel of Saints Row the new one. It really does feel like a brutal and violent gang war game made for tweens and children. Which is why it's such a tonal fucking mess. Like an R rated kids movie.
I mean, even in game being in a Gang is more portrayed like you work at Walmart then anything more gritty. "Uggh, my boss wants me to put in overtime to go rob this train, this is SO LAME".
@@NEEDbacon That's this game's, quote "JOKE" unquote. Treating crime and killing like the usual 9 to 5 job someone fresh out of college would be stuck with. The problem is that the game is not nearly charismatic enough to pull a concept like that off.
It's like every adult cartoon comedy where violence and over-the-top bullshit is everywhere combined with excess swearing but the writers forgot how to be funny or make characters interesting. Plus trying to be politically correct about crime.
A kind of petty thing I noticed, in the beginning when the Boss works for Marshall, and it shows his locker with pictures of Eli, Kev, and Neenah. Why are they individual headshots of the three of them, and not like, one group photo of them? The kind of picture that real friends take, and frame. Instead the individual headshots of them makes it look like they are assassination targets.
Someone else in the comments pointed out the idea You've basically roped them all to be your friends ala the Nuallhi. And in that sense headshots makes more sense.
@@nathanjimenez2640 It's challenging work, outta doors, and I garuntee you won't go hungry. Cuz at the of the day as long as there's two people left on the planet, someone's gotta want someone dead
There's a touch of comedy writing advice that isn't universal, but is a good fall back. The Leslie Neilson rule: It's okay for the world, setting, and story to be a joke. But the sillier your world, the more seriously your characters need to take it. Comedy comes from contrast.
@@kaydee66781it seems like a lot of those Japanese games seem to hold that sort of feeling. Resident evil and Metal gear both come to mind in that regard that these worlds are insane and funny but everyone takes it super serious
Here's a novel concept: have the characters have villainous character arcs where they fall from grace and become the worst possible versions of themselves. Instead of becoming a brilliant business mind, Eli sees that crime actually does pay a whole lot more. Neenah sees that family and creed is a powerful tool her old boss missed out on, and she breeds that loyalty into the saints to an absurd, extreme degree. Shirtless mcgee sees that any cause is probably bs and only serves those at the top, but that makes people rally together, perfect for organised crime. And the boss goes from a plucky young upstart who's being unfairly treated to someone who brutally and unfairly claws their way to the top, dealing with any slight against that momentum away. It's not perfect, but hell, I think it's a better character arc than... "I guess I don't like my gang now, bestie"
Sadly that would mean the characters would have to be bad people, and the writers would never allow their OC's to do that. BTW your idea sounds far better.
Nina is pretty close to that. I think she talks about how the original gang leader of the gang she was in valued family above everything, and I believe it hints that he was overthrown ( if it does it never clarifies. Especially since the game steals the boss fight from you) by the one who is then running the gang who just values muscle cars. Eli's arc is basically him learning he is an expert marksman with guns even though the intro tells us otherwise. Kevin gets a waffle maker?
@@TheCommanderTaco Ehh, Nina touches on the idea of what the Pantero's stood for being corrupted. But it goes no where, Nina doesn't grow anyway from destroying their HQ and Sergio gets bumped off by the Nuhalli. While Eli's gun training is stupid and shows he kinda gets into it, it's still shallow and goes nowhere for his character. The Pre-sequel version of Handsome Jack does a much better interpretation of a nerd getting a blood lust. Honestly Kevin might line up the MOST to OP's idea. That Kevin actually doesn't care about the Idols ideology. I mean he flips at pretty much the drop of a hat and never seemed too committed to the cause anyways. So it wouldn't be much of a stretch for him to take the of the Idols being "Revolutionaries" and applying it to the saints. Hell, that's technically what happens to the Playa in 1. Could even work with Nina. Lure in would be saints with the promise that it's a big movement that's going to change Santa Illeso for the better. And Nina can reinforce that being a Saint is more then just being a revolutionary, but in fact like being part of a family. Basically turn the saints into a Cult. And to add Eli to the mix, make his previously goody two shoes realize the potential of what has been created goes beyond any business could manage. Could even manufacture a better conflict by having him get drunk off the power being a "Leader" of the Saints. But having any idea he has get over ruled by the boss causing strife. To the point he organizes a Betrayal of the boss by rival gangs. One to get rid of the one thing holding Eli back, and two to give the saints an idol figure to truly worship and complete the cult transformation of the saints. Whoops, slipped into writing fan fic for a game I hate.
This game feels so condescending. It feels like a fifty-year-old guy lecturing the young people about how they'll love his new rock n roll album because he knows what the kids want, and his kids are telling him not to release the songs because they're embarrassing, and the kid who actually likes rock music is telling him to make the songs more like the classic rock bands like Led Zeppelin instead of Imagine Dragons. Then, the dad releases his songs about fidget spinners to the world and he gets mocked for them.
I will say this: Kevin as an idealist who's corrupted by money and power until *he's* the one wandering around in a sixty-grand purple suit with a stupid LED mask blazing the saints fluer de lis would have been pretty interesting. Using the characters as metaphors for the collapse of their own respective gangs and ideals and their incorporation into the start of, effectively, a crime based megacorp would have been something to hang a dark deconstruction off of. What could have been and all that.
You wanna know what’s funny about the Nahualli’s twist betrayal of the boss? The moment could have worked in a different story with a different motive behind the stabbing. Imagine if breaking the Nahualli out of prison was something we did near the beginning of the game, and for the course of building up the Saints and taking down the other gangs, the Nahualli was there helping us. I’m the beginning he’s helping us out to pay off the debt he owes for us for saving him, but eventually he’s just helping because he wants to see the Saints grow into the most powerful gang. Then, after all the other gangs are defeated, the big party happens, and the Nahualli calls the Boss for a private meeting away from the church, and the Boss, convinced that the Nahualli is a true friend, goes alone. The Nahualli then congratulates the Boss on taking over the city, before stabbing us, revealing that it was all just a ruse. The Nahualli only helped the Saints because he wanted to build his own criminal empire, and he knew he could exploit the Boss and the Gaggle’s trust and friendship to get them to do the heavy lifting. And after dumping our body, he lies to the other Saints and says that the last remnants of the other gangs banded together and killed the Boss, and he leads the charge to kill all remaining stragglers and claim the city for his own, only for his plans to be cut short when the Boss comes back from the grave and reveals what really happened. But no, we instead got a violent criminal stabbing us because he wants our friends after spending 1 afternoon hanging out with us and robbing one train, all crammed into the 11th hour
It’s like the Disney Star Wars story group write this plot. The plot in the actual game and having as much planning behind it as the conception to the Sequel Trilogy.
@@ExValeFor I thought Gary screw Jimmy over was just for his personal kicks. The whole anarchy thing in the end was just an exploitable bonus, after Jimmy creates some inbalances when he "took over".
The relationship with the main 3 characters reminds me of how YIIK has you meet party members and have fairly uninteresting or downright unpleasant experiences with them and the game insists you all are close friends. At least in YIIK you could get them all killed.
One thing that I liked in SR2 was how they treated Pierce. He was the guy with the plans and the ideas, and despite obviously following the classic hoodlum look, he is quickly noted for being sharp and very intellectual in many ways, pulling away from the stereotype of gangsta and being definitely more suited for organized crime.
I enjoyed how it showed that he could be a hardened criminal too. He wasn't afraid of killing and would get into shootouts, but he was still sensible, wanting to plan out missions, investigating to get the info he wanted, etc. You see why they keep him around as more than a punching bag. And then of course he's a giant fucking nerd compared to the others so of course they rip on him for it
I kinda liked Pierce, but I felt he should have been thrown a bone. He gets treated as a punching bag a tid bit too much for my taste, as it got rather obnoxious considering how usefull he is to the team. I get it, The Saints aren't exactly role-models, but even Shaundi got a whole spotlight arc where she was heavily involved.
Pearce is actually something I think 3 handled really well. Like you said, he’s the ideas man, the tactician, the talker. It makes perfect sense for him to be the guy most involved in managing the saints brand.
Man, the story-telling and relationships of the main characters really does evoke D-tier fanfiction writing. We can't show our precious OCs having any grit or edge like hardened criminals might, so lets have them trade around lame empty banter like a Discord chatroom filled with bored schoolkids. The way none of the villains never really pose a meaningful threat to the gaggle reminds me of OCs that the creator would get super attached to, and would never allow any sort of conflict get in the way of them trying to convince you that their character is the coolest ever.
@@trial_with_an_error9687 Oh gods, the coffee shop AUs. I used to be so confused about why those are even a thing, before I just accepted that it's probably latte girls writing what they know.
It really feels like the writers are just a bunch of boring out of touch armatures who wrote the only thing they knew. They act more like the cast of friends than *hardened criminals and ruthless killers*
"A car chase is a story in motion, and this game has just one script." If there's anything I love from your videos, it's your ability to make sentences like this, it's so good.
You know, sometime ago I watched a Saint's Row Reboot critique, and it made me realize something, and it's a very apt summary of the inherent idea behind design of this game. It was in regards to the on-rails section on the opening mission, the one where Nahualli is flying the jet, and you're shooting his men from top and then from the bottom of said jet. In Saint's Row 3, opening mission was a bank heist, and it also included on-rails defence. Specifically, when helicopter was lifting the vault from the building. During that section, Boss had to move around to change positions and shoot different enemies. Reason he brought that example was transition between positions - they used animation and camera angles, making the transition more seamless (the funny part is that this stuff isn't really praiseworthy, it's just normal thing In the Reboot however, during on-rails section, "Boss" is on top of the jet, and then... Cutscene plays, showing him changing positions, and then as cutscene ends, the loading screen shows up, completely breaking the flow, making the section somewhat even more monotonous. It perfectly illustrates the devolution in the craftsmanship, and I really wish I remembered the name of the reviewer.
The "Marshall now owns the Saints" plot point is baffling to me from the outside. They're a criminal organization, not a tech startup that can get screwed over by paperwork. Like, if a group of people respond to the cops saying "that's illegal you're coming with us" by opening fire, how the fuck are legal threats supposed to have any kind of sway over them? I imagine the game has some explanation (maybe the "gang" is technically an LLC or a mercenary concern?), but the whole concept seems nonsensical.
Best I can assume is Eli put up shell companies to control the stuff the Aint's own under the guise of the church or something, and when Marshall got wind of that they used their extrajudicial power to do some civil forfeiture scummery. But none of this is explained and only barely implied.
All the gangs were a rushed mess, Nahualli's gang being the worst but the fact that the Idols didn't even have a leader and exist only as a "haha remember the Borderlands psychos? well they wear pink!" rip off.
I think it would have worked if the Saints had funneled the money from their crimes into legitimate businesses. Real world criminal syndicates usually do that to keep in a steady cash flow and to provide a front for their illegal activities. It would make more sense then that Marshall could undercut them with white collar bureaucracy, using his business savvy to seize their legitimate assets and leave them financially hobbled. Hell, maybe he didn't even do it specifically to spite them. If you're going with the "capitalism bad m'kay" message, it would be more biting if Marshall didn't even remember the boss but fucked them over just because he's a greedy corporate asshole who wants a monopoly any fledgling business that he can get his grubby hands on.
42:23 "It's a system where the player is always the Agent of Mayhem" Actually top tier joke, also it's been great to see you improve at both writing and editing along your releases, love your stuff
The Boss shooting the lawyer and then saying "He was being a dick" feels like such a perfect slice of how the game just has to have the Saints be the good guys, while being criminals. At least in 2, the Boss would've shrugged it off by saying "Yeah, it doesn't change anything, but it makes me feel better." He'd be an asshole, but at least he'd have some kind of engaging character. In this game, killing people is treated with all the gravitas as the "kills" in the silly Dustmoot LARP section. It's like a bizarre blend of a Saturday morning cartoon and a spree killing. Gun down hundreds of people with no remorse, but don't worry, you and your #crimefriends are still the nicest people in town.
Johnny pretty much says as much in the beginning of 2, he doesn't deny any of the crimes he's being charged with and even goes further to say that he'd shove the gavel up the judge's ass and shoot her in the face simply because he feels like it. What made the OG gang work is that they're unapologetically terrible people. They don't claim to be goody goody or act like it, whilst being pretty damn charismatic.
That scene is probably the closest I saw this "Boss" get to being like the real Boss, only to ruin it with that lame "justification." Like you said, old Boss would have said something more like "I was tired of listening to him" or "I hate lawyers" or anything less... limp.
SHAUNDI: You ever hear of "Don't shoot the messenger"? BOSS: Yeah, but this makes me feel better. PIERCE: [ Irritated groan ] So now what? We're gonna march up to their HQ and shoot up the place? BOSS: Sure, why not. PIERCE: What!? I wasn't- JOHNNY: Sounds like a plan. Good thinkin', Pierce.
I feel like the "gang but corporate" would've worked if they did basically a "rags to riches to ruins" story where you slowly do a "Yeah, but it was different when I did it!" story where you start viewing your gang members as expendable, just the same as the companies. But their insistence on making every action 100% justified ends up snubbing every chance for interestingness
The comparison of "What if we mixed building a gang with running a business" reminds me of this one bit from Hell's Kitchen where the guy bombing on soufles had the ingenious idea of "what if I coated the mold with butter and sugar". They've not stumbled on some incredible idea, they've just figured out the FIRST STEP in what they're dealing with.
Your writing and wordplay continue to be above top-notch. 'Why must they meet their ends just so we can make ends meet?' 'He waffles so much Kevin should just have a tattoo of him.' The way you play with idioms and metaphors is fuckin rad.
29:22 "There are vampires that can handle the stakes better than this game because at least they have the heart to go through with it." That burn has LAYERS
I think the reason things like this provoke us into making fanfic is because of pure spite. Writing like this is not only awful, its supremely arrogant. Thinks its a 10/10 when it can't even get past a 4. And that provokes a visceral response in us that makes us imagine a better version so we can rationalise that we definitely aren't as bad at writing as these poeple. That even given the exact same tools and pieces we can construct something better with a few minutes of thought, then these idiots could do with half a decade of dev time.
it can also be that we see those little nuggets that ARE good (or could be good) and want to latch on to that out of desperation, because we become somehow invested--especially if it's related to or a continuation of something we like.
@@aves-panthera Yeah, I’ve seen, just in this video alone, several points where SR22 was right on the verge of telling an intriguing story, but just missed it. If I were to try and fanfic it, I’d go for those plot beats right away and build out from there.
It's absolutely that. Taking the ruined or initially garbage material made by the "professional" writers and redoing it into something worth giving a damn about because clearly they are so horrid at their supposed job, creating something that essentially clocks it over the head and dumps it into the grave as shallow as the results of their work delivers a special vitriolic high. Gooood it is, helps to manage disappointment in the franchises ruined, and also free writing practice.
You know what? That's actually a very good point. Especially on how arrogant this game's writing is. The story banks itself on us not only caring about its bland as white bread cast, but loving them. The "friends" are the opening, the middle, and the ending of the journey throughout this game. Except the game never gives us any motivation to attach ourselves to these pricks, despite its own insistence on it.
The worst part for me in regards to this game is it made the one change I wanted to see the most in a new Saints Row, A brand new world space that wasn't another Steelport or Stillwater. Santo Ileso was exactly the kind of change I wanted....... but it's also in Saints Row 2022
1:49:20 Ya know what would’ve made this joke land for me? If after The Boss got miffed at them getting the name wrong, the broadcaster then said ‘as this task force will be our saviors, we’ve thusly seemed them ‘The Saints’’. Followed with The Boss getting even more frustrated
The Idols being seemingly written out of the story is one of the funniest things that came from this game. As if someone at Volition realized they had accidentally made an interesting commentary about the hypocrisy of upper class anarchists, and desperately tried to erase any mention of them from the rest of the plot in the middle of the game. It astounds me how this game, written to be squeaky-clean and politically correct, does something unintentionally based, catches itself too late into development, and just writes out one of the TWO rival gangs in the game to fix the problem.
It’s not even that controversial, like - criticism of ‘champagne socialists’ or whatever is popular basically across the board to anyone who isn’t one of them. It’s got such broad appeal, it’s perfect for cowardly writers who want to say something but nothing anyone might disagree with.
Are we sure this game wasn't outsourced to Ubisoft? Well, someone in dev-team is definitely their fans. Sounds painfully familiar to their tactic of Controversy-Bait stories, only to always back away the moment it could stop being a deceptive useless white-noise. Its like Teasing and Edging on new whole level.
@@legateelizabeth cowardly writers? dude, have you seen the world we live in now? its run by champagne socialists who cry and call the cops when someone disagrees too strongly with em, if anything, its normal writers who do it.
It's even funnier because everyone, right left or center, fucking hates rich "socialists". Liberals, Socialists, Anarchists, Conservatives, Communists, Libertarians, Republicans... Everyone hates a fucking "champagne socialist". Sure, the reasons can be different, but that doesn't matter. We'd all line up to kick their asses.
@@Tehsnakerer It would explain why dual wielding was the biggest upgrade for the Boss to unlock though, since dual wielding was the top tier upgrade for leader units in that game, too.
As someone who's lived in the South, I adore scrappy desert smalltowns with street art and community lads hanging out in town having a drink or playing at the local court. The eclectic feeling of the towns residences palpable just by driving through it. Saints Row 22 here in a way really does capture one of the themes of Saints Row 2 in a way. It certainly feels like I'm looking at a gentrified version of not only the towns I'm used to, but the game I grew up with. It really gives me a unique kind of slow-burn despair the longer I stare at it. Like someone made a product specifically for me, but not to sell it to me, but to spite me.
@Razorbitz Anytime a game gets a remake, I am forever left asking “Why?”, as the game being remade is typically just fine and didn’t need it. When COD decided to remake Black Ops, I was mildly confused but rolled with it, but when they turned around and remade Modern Warfare and MW2, I was like, “For what reason? Those games still hold up just fine, what the hell?” That could be taken as part of the definition of digital gentrification: “Why did you do this? It didn’t need to be done.” Of course, in the case of Saints Row, where they leaned way too hard into the antics and potholed themselves by reaching a point where they couldn’t go any higher with the plot, the remake is a good thing - or it could have been, if they hadn’t done… well, this.
Another argument for why we should be looking to remake bad games, not good ones. Imagine turning Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing into an actually excellent game.
@@isabellamorris7902 Bad games, or games that are so old you can’t even find the hardware to run them on anymore, should get remakes, to both make them better and to keep them able to be enjoyed as technology marches on. Good games that were fine and aren’t even old enough that they can’t function without emulators anymore? The fuck’s the point?
@@zyriantel9601 Don't forget another type of game: Games that never got a full release/was extremely cut down for international markets. A good example of this being Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere being utterly fucking destroyed when it was released outside of Japan.
"While I don't want to break out red faced seriousness, while I don't want to break out red faced seriousness" had me bust a gut laughing, that is such a fun callback.
@@dunkerbunker2501 In his Dead Rising 4 video, he explains a concept he calls "red-faced seriousness", where the game keeps trying to have a serious tone while undercutting itself with ill-attempted humor constantly. However, he accidentally included two different takes of him saying the same paragraph explaining it in the video, so you just hear him repeat himself. This was both a callback to the concept, and said accidental repeat in that past video.
THANK YOU! I was SO CLOSE to getting that joke, but I just couldn’t quite put it together… I remember listening to tue DR4 review and thinking “did he already say this, or am I going crazy???”
I think the issue this game has is a preference of friendship over brotherhood when it comes to themes. They're similar, but brotherhood is seen as something much more powerful in stories since it means characters are so close, they're practically family. And in those relationships, characters stick out for each other, even if they don't see eye-to-eye on everything. It's a big theme in mafia/gangster media and shows how strained bonds can be in the morally ambiguous world of organized crime. SR (2022) doesn't even try to capture this dynamic: there's so little friction among the main cast (because they're such good friends), there's nothing personal at stake and that is BORING. Even more concerning is that the game paints a good friend group as a bunch of yes-men that will agree/forgive anything.
Ok, I usually hate when people do this sort of bad-faith swipe at the creators, but I can't resist; "SR (2022) doesn't even try to capture this dynamic: there's so little friction among the main cast (because they're such good friends), there's nothing personal at stake" Could it be because the shallow yuppies over at nu-Volition themselves never experienced *true* brotherhood, and therefore even don't know what it is, hmm?. In their minds "friend = good", and no more, perhaps?.
@@roadent217 I also don’t tend to care for bad faith attacks, but in this case, the devs made an attack in bad faith against US, so I think it’s warranted here.
@@roadent217 thats it, these people feel like fake work friends the kind your only nice because you have to be. If they were realistic they would have argued 50 times already, that depression scene wouldnt be a few shit lines of thek acting like parents to a child whos grounded.
A much better anti-climax would have been in the LARP arc. Imagine if you “fought” through the entirety of the final castle and then defeated your former boss at Marshal. She cheats and, rather than doing the fight all over again, the Boss says “Oh, fuck this” and shoots her in the face. (Of course, this would mean the game has to recognize the Boss as being an actual asshole, and the boss from Marshal who’s name I can’t remember has to *actually* be lamentable for the player to feel good about offing her- but that’s probably more clever than the game is allowed to be…)
It would have been a better pay off TBH. We only started getting involved with Eli as a way to piss off Gwen. Even if we do start getting into it a bit, ultimately it's to get back at Gwen. Old Saints Row Playa would 100% have done that, if not something more brutal and sooner. It also would have made for a good dramatic "Oh shit, we're controlling an absolute psycho" moment. Just imagine: Gwen does here little cheat thing of going in the back and challenging us. We LARP shoot her, and she does her "Nuh uh" thing, annoying the Boss who does some more larping still trying to win the game in order to humiliate Gwen. One more time she says "You didn't shoot me". Cue a cutscene moment where we drop the toy gun, pull out the cutscene glock (I too was annoyed they did that shit) and proceed to magdump and kill her, and a one liner after. Having our petty revenge against basically a middle manager we just turn around and walk off as we got what we wanted, telling everyone else to go back to their fun as they stare at us in stunned silence. But like you said, the boss isn't allowed to be portrayed as bad. Edit: also it's really easy to do fanfic about this game.
Just going into the LARP with real guns from the start would have been my pick. It's such a lame hobby for someone who gets into real-life-shootouts. Make a joke of Gwen having such a bizarre hobby for someone who basically does this for real every day, then murder everybody involves while they helplessly fire foam darts at you.
Honestly, calling this game ''woke'' would be giving it way too much credit, as they seem the actually have no idea what the hell they want this game to be or to be about. Never have I seen a game so hard to push to have its own personality and identity, yet and up having none and feeling bland and generic af. Nothing about this game is done well in the slightest and it even makes SR4 look like a good game.
I think you mean "the friends you already had from the start whom you never had to recruit, canonize or prove yourself to and get no explanation on how you're all from and still in different gangs, don't really care and just hanging out in the same house where its not even relevant to your motives at all."
They made every death in Saints Row 2 feel visceral. The scene of you and Gat brutalizing Akuji, then burying him alive still haunts me. Another of my favorites was shutting Vogel's big mouth before he plummeted from his ivory tower.
Seeing all the enemies being effortlessly swatted away like flies just makes me experience second-hand hollow victory. If you want to sell a power fantasy, overcoming impossible odds and all that jazz, enemies must feel like they're actually threatening (even if they actually aren't) and they didn't even get THAT right! Between the gameplay shortcomings and the shallow marketing whoopsies, it's like they used extra thick, neon-colored yarn instead of piano wire when they attached all the strings.
The problem the Saints Row games have is rarely actually having the villains feel like an equal threat to the Saints and actually affect them narratively enough to sell the necessary back and fourth to build up for that ending. The only time they really did that was in SR2 with Maero, Jessica hinting she didnt respect you, you mess up her boyfriend's face, and she kills your friend, then you crush her in a car, then you start the real beef with their leader or Shaundi getting abducted by both Veteran Chils and Masako. Then in SRTT also at least had STAG that was an equal destructive force to the Saints. The reboot really doesn't do anything to build up the Saints, but rather the Boss gets their ass kicked in jus hand to hand fights, and the other gang members barely do anything, and Eli complains about being barely shot once, and thats it. There is just no tension because Nahualli pretty much steals your kills and you take cheap "shoot guys while they're talking" cop outs. The Saints in the reboot come off as just such wimps.
Honestly power fantasies are hard to do right. The reason why the new Doom games worked was because they had the coat of paint of a power fantasy while not being one at all. Like let's be honest, Eternal's not a power fantasy you can get curb stomped in that game with like 5 hits on the harder difficulties
The closest gang to being threatening is the Idols, and that's just because they actually do a little bit of something within the story. Unlike literally every other gang.
@@prossnip42 Yeah, that’s kind of the big secret to Doom: they start you out with weak, shitty enemies to rip and tear and get you some practice… And then they throw _the rest of it_ at you.
The fact that snakerer keeps being able to easily fanfic a much better story in the games he covers really shows how low the bar is for video game storytelling.
@olzhas1one755 Not every anime, but I could fill a book with anime with an interesting premise that just wastes it. And an endless stream of OP isekai harem trash.
I feel that the stupidity of that one critic's comment about bullets and lawyers wasn't fully appreciated. "America has more bullets than people" Are they under the impression that the third street ain'ts _have_ all of the bullets in America?
The whole Eli/Dustmoot/LARP-thing sounds like someone played Southpark: the Stick of Truth/Fractured But Whole, and decided they REALLY wanted that in their game too, no matter how shoe-horned it looks or sounds.
I honestly enjoyed those sections a bit more just because I played Stick of Truth and like it. At least I didn't hate them upon my first hearing those were main missions.
That rant you have at The Nahuallis betrayal is one that pretty much sums everything about the main cast, their personalities, the writing, their arcs, the gangs they represented. Just Everything. Making them the main reason for the Nahualli stabbing you in the back is so infuriating because you have spent so long in poorly written cutscenes, that terrible Larp mission chain, the lack of closure for Kev and Neena's overall storylines and Eli(I completely and utterly hated Eli from the jump and he comes off as completely spineless through out the story and Larp mission chain Made it worse) Eli needed to be either completely rewritten while still keeping the core idea of him. His focus on business and entrepreneurship and you could have had it done in one way. Look up Tom Hagen from The Godfather and the idea of the Consigliere, that is what Eli should have been. Everything that could possibility made Eli likable even to the most hardcore of Saints Rows fans could be done if they just took inspiration from Tom Hagen. But that would require these writers to actually write interesting characters. I just realized I'm doing the same thing Snake did during his Fanfiction segment. I hate this game.
It's so genuinely, bafflingly busted it's hard for you to not end up thinking of ways it couldn't be. Eli, in particular, seems designed for you to hate him; he's an almost cruel stereotype of a shitty dude people all know now, the Ideas Guy who talks about positivity and entrepreneurial attitudes and who listens to motivational speakers who talk about how great it is to make money. He's convinced he's smart and interesting, but he's demonstrably neither, he's the worst guy in any room who *will* want to talk to you about getting into the right mindset to get on that grindset. Everything about the game seems designed to be as bad as possible, making fun of the thing it's supposed to be making. How can you not witness it and come up with ways it can be improved? It's not like you have to think hard about it
I don’t think anybody could forget the amazing voice acting and even more amazing bumbling asshole protagonist of Neuro (and Snake’s adventures in trying to get Warden Avatar to say his damn lines), it’s too good.
Oh for all it's flaws, Neuro has far more genuine passion behind it. Neuro is a small story in a much larger world and one I would love to see more of. I mean the scene where Craig stops the missiles with it's minimalist sound design, that was genuinely dramatic and I was left curious, not just about the wider implications for this world; but for what exactly Craig became after that test. Neuro also had the nerve to depict the protagonist as making mistakes, plenty of them in fact. James makes errors, he is far from someone we'd aspire to be, but we are still given a very clear idea of who James is and why he makes the mistakes he does. I don't want to be James, but he is far more rounded than any of these 'Saints'. For good and for bad, James feels like a person, the Saints feel like 'traits'.
"I sometimes pick my radio station based on what I think my character would listen to. I don't know weird that is" Very, but I'm so glad it's not just me. FYI Franklin is Radio Los Santos, Michael is the 80s station, and Trevor is the punk station.
Fully agree. I also set a station or two in SR2 based on the kind of boss I’m going for. Is he more of a standard gangster listening to K Rhyme, more old school with the Mix, an intense metal head that’s all about KRUNCH
I remember seeing the ending dance scene for Saints Row 4 and thought "Wow. They literally can't do anything worse then this." And then they did the karaoke ending.
@@Zero-ds9ws saints row 4 actually payed homage to the older games and gave you nostalgia by having that mission where your in the saints row district from saints row 1 to fight off vice kings. the ending dance scene of saints row 4 felt like a goofy goodbye from all era’s of saints row. the karaoke ending from saints row the new one feels like any other dumb thing that the new characters did through the game. put it this way, i would never imagine johnny gat putting aside his hardcore gangster personality to try and do a dance and have a good time. but these new characters are almost expected to do some corny shit like a karaoke party
4 just felt like someone didnt know how end the series and just went with a stupid song and dance bit still was a better send off then loosely sharting this out onto the shower floor and trying to stomp the watery mess down the drain
"Mate, Have you ever heard of the term Hyperbole? Did you read it wrong and think it's what comes after the *FUCKING* Super Bowl?" Even as an American, I love jokes at our expense, especially ones like these. Great work on the video.
Snicker doodles' the key to all this, if we get the cat working. 'Cause he's a funnier character than we've ever had in the games. Honestly seeing the janky ass model walk up towards that table in the intro I knew I would like him.
You know what bothers me? I actually really like the idea of the game part. The "There's a bunch of factions we made hiding in cardboard fortresses waging fake wars with fake guns and rubber darts." even the finisher animations are fun? Like how you pretend to rip a person's heart out or do a light-hearted play beatdown with the other person playing along? That's like, actually really fun and endearing! or it would be, if it wasn't in Saints Row: This one
I actually kinda adore the fact that if not for the writing being what it is, it'd be nice if it would be a light hearted romp where The Boss might actually uh, get really into it and become super invested. Too bad instead it's a spite romp because fuck gwen I guess.
I also love the aesthetics of the larp levels. They reminded me of the fake plywood boat and military base that serve as the tutorial levels for the 2016 Hitman game. Something about putting a deliberately shitty, cheap looking artificial world inside a very expensive, polished looking artificial world just tickles me. The writing in the larp levels felt like an attempt to extend the running joke throughout 3 and 4 where the boss was gradually introduced to the Nyte Blayde franchise, and goes from being contemptuous of it to being increasingly invested. But that joke only works because it contrasts with the bosses established personality of being a hardened killer (and because it's used sparingly).
This brought to mind Yakuza 0 and how Kiryu, this larger-than-life member of the Yakuza with a brick for a face who likes disco-stomping people, comes across Pocket Racing and he absolutely *adores* it and gets fully invested in it. I can really see Like a Dragon taking this type of concept and making it a whole huge side story like Pocket Racing was. The whole LARPing set up seems like a cute and fun thing if it was in a game worth a damn.
I think this marks the first game where you got audibly angry at it not out of frustration or wasted potential like you did with Greedfall but out of genuine disdain. That's an impressive level of bad. That being said the guy yelling out 'Wilhelm Scream' while the credits rolled actually did make me laugh, so it's only 99% bad.
Okay, just finished the video. Wonderfully done as always Snake. 1. The ONLY person I felt anything for is Gwen. Genuinely kind of felt bad for her. 2. By "grounded" did the marketing team mean "half-assed?" Look, you can not like 3 and 4 all you want but at least they COMMITTED to being as nuts as possible. Here, it's just like "Yeah, we wanna do that but we kinda can't... so let's be silly. Just a bunch of silly little guys. Whoopsie, we started a gang. Isn't that just so silly?" I really am amazed at how they made people who commit murder and theft daily NOT feel like criminals. 3.Oh look, a cat.
After watching the introductory video and not being *quite* able to nail exactly who your version of The Boss reminded me so much of, I've finally had an epiphany. He's the exact spitting image of that one advert with the punk mohawk baby. Think it's for detergent or something.
@@GoneRampant Aye! That's the one. The fact that the character's stuck with me and the product hasn't makes me feel better about the bastards sticking it in my head in the first place, if I'm honest.
The layers of character symbolism of the chuch and logo from the first and 2nd game blew my mind to put together, but the reboot having the characters just "eh, its just there." sounds fitting for he mentality behind how they saw the reboot, why they used the name, and church at all, and then just turning it into a bar/club not caring at all feels like how they saw the reboot overwritting the older titles to them. A shallow new paint job over layers of good lore and themes. The church doesn't matter at all in the reboot. The characters also do try to redesign their logo when they work with The Nahualli. And they instead wanted to go with... a waffle shaped like a cat-face... I mean, they don't go with it but thats what they wanted. Now why not just hammer it over our heads that, this is what the current devs like throughout the game.
Yeah I skimmed that moment but that and the spray paint seem like the only time Neenah shares her artistic "talents" and hoo boy they don't help her case.
The intro to the character customization adds a LOT to the theory that you weren't supposed to be able to alter your boss's looks much, and the delay was so that they could cram in the character creator at the last second. I've played a TON of games that let you create your character, and very, VERY few of them start off with showing the character BEFORE you can make them. With how tone deaf the devs for this game were in terms of the characters, it wouldn't be surprising to find out they were expecting players to just love Preview Boss, and were expecting to not need anything else beyond maybe clothing.
It's funny, my opinion of 2, 3, and 4 basically amounts to "Heck yeah, three cakes!" because I find them to be fundamentally different experiences, all of which are enjoyable. And (to extend the metaphor) the new one is like a rice cracker. Sure, it's food, but... I could just go back and have one of those cakes instead. Part of me wonders how, despite having *three* different successful vibes to take cues from, the new one manages to lack so much. It doesn't have the character of 2, the humor of 3, or the audacity of 4.
Tbh I didnt want the alien or sci-fi stuff in SR4, so there's that. That was already the prolem, with them take away the actual gangster stuff making the characters just feel like punchlines and too self-aware parodies of themselves imo.... You also just ignore SR1. That did what this reboot was trying to do, better narratively. SRIV was when the series just started turning into an "over the top for the sake of it" fantasy comedy. I at least prefer SR3's plot, comparitively to it.
@@GeteMachine That's sort of my point. Between those three games, there's pretty much *something* for everyone. And despite that, the reboot missed just about every target. Also I didn't own SR1, so it didn't really play into the point I was making.
I love Saint row franchise and enjoy 2 and 4. It's just a shame their are people in the fanbase who hate Saint row 4. Part 4 had arguably some of the funniest writing in video games and while not a crime sandbox. It really is a awesome superhero one. Simply put. Saint row can be great serious or absurd, but if it ain't got no heart and tries to do both, then what's the point.
been a fan of sr like you, and it's so sad. i remember people not knowing the trailer at gamescom not realising it was saints row until the title came up, and the rebooting graffiti wall building a lot of hype before that, i wanted it to be good. just glad this has caused a lot to talk about, especially for you who's quickly become my favourite video game essayist.
40:30 This actually reminds me of the game Starship Troopers (2007) for this little joke - that game has a very rare easter egg where digital grenades will say "Aloha!" and then count down in a foreign language as you cook them rather than simply saying "Online" or "Armed" or something along those lines.
One of the biggest problems with this game that sets it apart from the other Saints Row games is that you spend barely any time with the bad guys. Every other game spends a good amount of times with the villains, so you understand what their gang is like, and who you're taking down. I know absolutely nothing about the leaders of the Brotherhood ripoff gang, nor the Deckers ripoff gang. I know a small amount about the Marshall leader, at least. And The Nahualli. I still don't understand why they made him go all odd at the end.
55:30 They actually did this for saints row 2 and 3, lots of gang lines were created for such story centric needs that showed STRICTLY on those missions
1:17:17 "Sure, let's flatten his character from an American pancake to an English one." genuinely makes me giggle like a madman because I was eating some (American) pancake while watching this. Come 2023, that quote is gonna be ingrained in my memory along with "You're putting too many skittles in your vegetables!" from Ross's Game Dungeon video on Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy (aka a crime thriller with light supernatural element where the second half becomes The Matrix). But anyway, it perfectly summarizes the game's inconsistent writing where a character's personality can suddenly shift to another for the sake of a quick & cheap gag.
One of my favorite reviews displays how every vehicle can drift endlessly (with the player literally setting weights on his keyboard and walking away for sixteen minutes); the monster truck crushes anything that drives into it, even if the vehicle itself is unmanned and static; while the wingsuit is used repeatedly by Kevin, the shirtless verb, without any explanation for where it is worn.
Yakuza series is also a great example of you can have fun and wacky moments but still maintains that grounded, mature, and serious tone of their characters and storylines. I wish volition could have realized that.
You'd think it would be impossible to write a serious crime epic where the main character makes his pet chicken the manager of a real estate company and teaches orphans not to be racist but here we are. Kiryu approaches every situation so completely earnestly that it never feels disconnected from reality.
Imagine if they had actually played with the idea of everyone in the apartment starting out as roommates from different factions, living together because hey, the rent there is cheap and being the lowest rung doesn't pay that well, real job or criminal. Rework the characters a bit and you've got a compelling start. Eli is that kid who left his small town to make it big only to come back after an humiliating failure. He's back to prove he's got it and that his prior failure(s) don't define him. Neenah fell in with the Pantheros after her mother's death, looking for that sense of belonging again and an outlet for her creativity in the mechanic shops they run. Kev is still Kev. He likes the ideals of the idols, DJs and does odd jobs for them but doesn't feel like he fits in with them. He's the one that was looking for roommates as a form of company and maintains the peace in the apartment, helping everyone where he can with his contacts all across town. The boss is the latest arrival to the place, newcomer in town thanks to that fresh contract with Marshall. Marshall stiffed him on his sign-on bonus and Kev's place is the only thing he could find and afford on arrival. Now you've got a setup for the boss getting shown around the various corner of the town, helping everyone with jobs from their corresponding gang, growing closer with each of them as they do. Show them slowly get disillusioned with their gang (and going at it alone in Eli's case). Throw in a couple of group bonding moments outside their gang activities and voila, you can now have the boss get fired and the big concert event that leads to the Saint's formation. But look at me, doing the writers job.
I never understood why Eli couldn't be part of Marshall as if you got three friends and three gangs why isn't Eli one of them? I personally love your idea, but I think if your boss is living with three members of different factions then perhaps the Boss could be the one who connects them all by a outsider of sorts. Doing odd jobs and indirectly helps the other gangs by helping your friends. You could still have them being part of Marshall but only as a temp and not obviously loyal to them to work against their interests and help your friends. It would make your boss that more of a leader when you are the glue that holds your friends together and especially when you decide to form your own gang with them.
Hey I got that sleeping dogs joke. I do often wonder why sideswiping is what everyone took from that game, and the rest of its beautiful self has been left in the last gen dust
I love Sleeping Dogs. The DLC where you go to the Island of Death tournament was so good. The fact it's set in Hong Kong, the culture and language make it so distinct from the crime games usually set in LA or New York City. Plus the Kung Fu and sliding across every piece of cover to trigger John Wu slow mo. An underrated gem.
Watching you play Choplifting i can FEEL how painful it is. I can see the moments where sudden unnatural increases in velocity occur and you start trying to fight the controls to prevent yourself slamming into the ground or buildings and i can imagine how horrible it is. That and the pursuits highlight an issue i have where i truly despise where games, especially open-world sandboxes, try to artificially limit you into playing the way they want by designing gameplay to punish you for attempting to diverge from the solution they want you to use. I haven't even gotten to the writing and i can already tell i would hate playing this game. Thank you for going into such depth with the gameplay design, i appreciate it.
SR2 is the peak of characterization in the series and it's not even close. The Brotherhood storyline is heartbreaking at several different points. 3 and 4 were a lot more shallow and I never finished either, but it's shocking how far this one fell. Great editing and writing as always but I especially love the interweaving of clips in the Intro Outro.
Wow, this is one of the funniest/cleverest reviews I've seen on TH-cam. I wasn't even planning on watching all of it, but the writing and editing really kept me interested! Cheers 👌
@@zyriantel9601 Don't enable all the dlc if you get it. You have to wait for an animation and jingle and click "yes okay I know I got the dlc" for every single one and there are so impossibly many, most of which are pointless stupid garbage! It took so long I quit and actually uninstalled the game because it infuriated me so much it would have made it impossible to enjoy the game through the bitter rage. When I reinstalled it some years later it was fun, but I am still pissed about it
Okay, so what if "You" is not the original friend of that group and he just did the same thing the Nahualli did before but by this point some copious amounts of Stockholm Syndrome made them believe he was really their friend. They have nothing in common with You who is a murder machine. The forced friendship scene by the end just really put this idea into mind that they're only going along as friends because they are fuckin terrified of You.
I had that thought at a few points throughout playing, the boss is so horrifyingly attached to them I was wondering if he also saw them as little more than toys at points.
Holy shit yes. Imagine if your character was some sort of sleeper agent or criminal whose changed his face and whole appearance over and over to avoid capture, who fains morals, values, and charisma, but under all his pretending is a stone cold weapon whose only wants are fame, power, and money.
This seems like a good place to plop my own big damn plot rewrite. Anyone interested? Basically, in my version, things progress pretty much the same up to the night of the party. This is the crux of the plot, when the Boss is betrayed. However, this time the Nahuali doesn’t do the stabbing. That was too easy, and way too predictable. Instead the Boss goes inside and celebrates with their friends. Kevin hands them a special drink, warning them that it’s got a kick. He calls it “Boat Explosion” and, sure enough, they start to feel woozy. The lights and sounds begin to blur. Kevin helps them stumble outside, where they realize they’ve been poisoned. Then they feel the impact as they’re shot several times, the noise masked by the thumping cacophony of Kevin’s mix. The Boss stumbles into the garage when a car comes roaring out and hits them dead on. Neenah steps out. Eli lowers a smoking gun. Kevin joins them, and they all stand over the Boss, who begs to know why. They tell them the truth: It wasn't loyalty that kept them together. It was fear. This is why their camaraderie had such an artificial, sitcom quality. The laughter, the games, it was all a stage performance. We see that the previous scenes of happy companionship were filtered through rose-colored glasses, a distorted reality that existed largely in the Boss's head. We revisit older cutscenes and see things just a little differently, colors less vivid, grins fading when the Boss isn't looking, flinching when shots are fired, jokes landing wrong. We were always looking at the game through an unreliable perspective. Eli, Neenah, and Kevin committed crimes to make ends meet and achieve specific goals, but the Boss was a “murder machine”. The reason they always forced smiles onto their faces was because they were terrified of this maniac. Maybe it was real at first, when they became roommates and they were all doing a little crime to make ends meet. But then it escalated, and the three of them couldn’t handle the nonstop killing. They couldn’t make the horror into a joke anymore. Seriously, who makes jokes about killing people? Who treats mass murder like a game? The tipping point came during the Boot Hill broadcast, and they knew that the Boss would never stop, that there wasn't an end goal beyond this reckless rampaging lifestyle, and that the gang was going to be their whole lives from then on unless they did something. None of them really wanted to be in a gang. The Saints project was just a means to an end for them, and now that they have the money they intend to split up and follow their dreams. Neenah is going to own her own museum, Eli is joining Marshall’s board of directors, and Kevin’s going to start a club where he can be surrounded by friends and just party. They shoot the Boss a few more times and dump them in the grave. A different near-death experience unfolds in which the Boss confronts their delusions and is reborn as an angrier but wiser person, a symbolic return to the hard edge of earlier Saints Row games. They crawl out of their grave and are saved by the Nahuali, who doctors their wounds. As they recuperate the Nahuali explains that he managed to narrowly escape after the three traitors pinned the Boss’s death on him and made him a target of the Saints, his tolerance for poison being high enough to push through the effects of Kevin’s drink, though he’s still weak and nursing his own bullet wounds after single-handedly killing most of the gang's foot soldiers. He claims that he truly does consider the Boss to be a friend, one of the only real friends he ever had, a kindred spirit compelled to commit mayhem, both of them travelers on the same lonely, bloody road. At this point the choice mechanic introduced in the Marshall mission returns and the player is given the option to either kill the Nahuali or spare him. They're bitter. Maybe this guy just needs them for his own survival while he’s wounded, and he’ll stab them in the back like everyone else. Is the Boss done trusting people? Or will they take this one last chance at friendship? If the Nahuali is killed the Boss will proceed to finish the game alone, evolving into a ruthless sociopathic mob boss. If they spare him, however, then he offers assistance during the upcoming missions: Hunting down the former lieutenants who have since disbanded the Saints and consolidated control of their rivals. Marshall, the Collective, and Sergio were red herrings. Eli, Kevin, and Neenah are the true gang bosses of the game. Time passes through a kickass musical montage of the Boss and the Nahuali, if he survives, recovering and re-training each other to the tune of an '80s ballad like No Easy Way Out, Push It to the Limit, or You're the Best. Meanwhile, each of the traitors has rallied the remnants of the other factions. Eli hides behind Marshall security forces while Kevin and Neenah call on the last of the Idols and Panteros, who now regard them as their leaders after they destroy the church in a massive explosion of fireworks and conventional explosives. Kevin has convinced the disaffected Idols that the Collective were a bunch of sellouts, and nobody really liked Sergio, so Neenah has little trouble taking Los Panteros under her wing after she provides them with a windfall of funds to rebuild their fleet of cars. The Marshall building, Kevin’s club, and Neenah’s museum are the showdown arenas. We mix it up with different game mechanics and infiltrate each stronghold via stealth, violence, and a demolition derby destroying priceless works of art in a gallery before we drag race through the desert. At the end of each battle we're given a chance to kill them or spare them, bidding farewell in emotional cutscenes as the Boss admits that they understand why they did what they did. If we kill all three then the Boss also automatically kills the Nahuali in the ending, having become completely cynical. “All my friends either kill me or die.” If one or some of them are spared, then the Boss just dismisses the Nahuali and proceeds to rebuild the Saints on their own. “People like us are meant to be alone.” But if all three are spared then the Boss acknowledges the Nahuali as their lieutenant, both of them deciding that they’re better people with partners. “I think this is the beginning of a fucked-up friendship.” The Boss asks the Nahuali what his real name is, anyway. He says to call him Johnny.
@@JoeEnglandShow Ah but see you also make them suddenly jump back to their own gangs. Why, if they're off to achieve their dreams and they don't wanna be in a gang? Why the hell would I spare them when they tried to kill me over a lie? Doesn't make any sense lol. Plus, if we're supposed to be able to be so understanding as to spare the others, why would we still want to run a gang when we've been called out on being so horrible?
This video actually got me to go back and give Saints Row 2 a honest (unfashionably late) appraisal. Honestly I'm shocked at how well Volition had a handle on writing for an open world crime game without compromising on the fact that the only player archetype you can only really express in gameplay is being a psychopath bastard. I feel like Volition actually had something over Rockstar, after GTA4 tried getting serious with some dodgy results. Afterward though, I think Volition settled on the mantra of: "Doing the opposite of what GTA is currently doing tonally", which led to Saints Row 3 doubling down on the wacky bullshit and eventually reaching a wacky bullshit singularity with 4. So now you have GTA5, leaning back into a more humorous tone roughly on par with the tone of Saints Row 2, and Volition now has several problems on its hand. Saints Row 4 was a bridge too far with no sensible trajectory after the fact, and backpedaling to 2 as a tonal baseline would mean basically competing directly with GTA5. So they read the terrain and decided that if GTA5 was gonna be "funny, edgy, and irreverent", then the new Saints would be "funny, wholesome, and irreverent", which led to this hot mess.
Y'know, after being conditioned into looking forward to your next zinger/pun in your writing ("Who the fuck SCROTE this" ragdolled me for an amount of time I do not wish to disclose), it was pretty sobering to just hear you accentuate that one brutal interview with a very to-the-point *"Jesus Christ."*
eh feels like my reaction to both honestly. carlos' death in SR2 was genuinely painful to witness, but it sadly had to be done, a mercy kill, while depressing, is still better than forcing the individual to live in pure agony, still doesn't change the fact that it hurts the soul immensely though.
Another idea I had: The Noalle (however the hell you spell his name) should have been a major player from earlier on. Rather than meeting him at his compound, you instead break him out using your former ties with Marshall. He mentors you and the other characters, showing you how to build your own gang from the ground up. In the end, he betrays you- not because of some “friendship” bullshit, but because the entire time he was just setting things up so *he* could take over.
I played a quadruple amputee and to be fair, the whole game felt like what a homebound torso person might imagine running a crime syndicate is like with absolutely no worldly experience due to being stuck at home via not having any limbs.
God, all of those micro-analysis of the first 2 saints row games sprinkled throughout this behemoth (especially the breakdown of Jessica's intro @ 30:42) really make me want a whole series of Playing videos of Saint Row: The Good Ones (ala Playing Yakuza)
The most shocking thing about this video was learning that Saint Row was meant to be portraying Millennials. And here I was thinking this was the cringe Gen Z stuff that I didn't understand that Grandpa Simpson warned us all about: "I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I'm with isn't it, and what's it seems weird and scary to me, and it'll happen to you, too" But no, this is meant to be Millennials somehow, the generation where the oldest are already in their 40s. The people making this game are more detached from reality then David A. Prior making the film Deadliest Prey. "True dat, for real dude, true dat"
We’ve still got the last dredges of boomers hanging on, for Christ’s sake, it’s not like us millennials are even that old news, and yet somehow we’re being this horrendously mischaracterized?
It actually feels more like they designed this game around the 2010s tbh. It was obvious they were from the way the characters dressed. The nerdy square glasses, the bowties, student loans, the yoga pants, the default Boss' hair and just the random cat being everywhere, is a millenial thing to me. Its why the characters are hipsters. Where one of the characters thinks being shirtless is the funniest shit in the world, or how another is an artist that wanted to work at a museum or something. Very hipster.
@@GeteMachine I do feel like if this game came out in the 2010s, it would have had more support. Probably would still get more or less hate due to the internet wars of the time but it would probably have had more defenders, maybe.
It's interesting to watch this and see you tearing into the threads that you liked about 2 that are absent or poorly done here, and seeing my own favorite things about 3 that you don't mention that are... ALSO done poorly or are missing. From things like the takedown system being just god-awful to the various gangs and the saints' connections to them, there's so much missing here that it just feels like it needed more time in the oven. For someone to stop and say "we need to tear parts of this building down to lay a stronger foundation for the good bits", and them to take more time (that they didn't have) to fix the glaring flaws in the design. The thing that irks me the most is that the story beats around your saints roomies being former members of these gangs is something that SRTT did, and even better. Instead of being immediately aligned with these inside men, you find the people upset with their former management and willing to take the fight back to their abusers. Oleg gives you info on the Morningstar, to crush that rich fuck Phillipe under your boot, then you meet Kinzie, an all-time favorite of mine, who isn't exactly ex-decker, but who has enough beef with them that she's just as good an informant. And then, against Killbane, you get Viola DeWynter, the woman whose sister he brutally murdered in front of her (and Angel, who i guess is also here). You promise to be a better leader for them than the people they had been working for, and you deliver, and it makes the crew feel whole. One cohesive unit barreling down on arguably stronger opponents simply by force of personality, trust, and copious amounts of spite and vengeance (earned vengeance, given the loss each of the characters has. The new crew have their own history, and the main saints themselves get Gat as their leading motivation, particularly Shaundi.) And the game highlights how your actions impact the gangs in an interesting way. They don't just exist when the plot demands and then vanish partway through. Phillipe is killed, a power vacuum is made, and Killbane drives the syndicate into the ground himself in a self-aggrandizing power grab. You take the fight directly to him in his own element, unmask him, and then he runs away like a coward while you save the people that you did all of this violence for. It's a family. A dysfunctional family full of druggies, whores, hitmen, and cheats, but a family that sticks together through the pain. It's what being in a gang is all about, is that sense of community when the rest of the world is out to get you. I think this is why the reboot's misunderstanding of what made the earlier games work so well is what killed it. It was never about how each character was good and special, it's about how all these terrible people come together to support each other. The boss' impulsivity and compulsion to solve problems through brute force is balanced out by having confidants that they trust and who direct that energy into the right places. You're a sledgehammer, and your crew is the power behind the swing and the aim of your blow. Without those checks, you get in over your head, every time without fail. The rest of the crew also has these weakpoints that their buddies can smooth over. Shaundi is the heart that reminds people why they are fighting in the first place, but simultaneously needs the crew to bring her back into herself when that same emotionality gets the better of her. In these ways, some of the characters can be relatively one-note and still be deep by the relations they have to each other. In earlier games, i'm almost certain Neenah's relationship to her car would be brought up way before it gets trashed. The game would have given you a reason to care about it ahead of time, so that when it gets wrecked you feel that punch in the gut, and would have the drive to go get revenge on her behalf. Eli's pacifism would probably be something they play up, especially in situations where it becomes a liability, but like you said, he would have come around at the end when it meant protecting the people he cares for. Kev's inclination for partying would constantly get him into trouble, but it would also give you those contacts that could get the saints places. And the gangs, as their own "characters", could have been built up so much better. Marshal feels like a mashup of Morningstar and STAG, taking the weakest parts of both. That buyout idea seemed like a great way to give them their own identity separate from those influences, but instead the reboot shoots itself in the foot there. The Idols are so aesthetically interesting that, had they narrowed the Council down to 3-5 members with distinct personalities, they could really show how taking down each Idol leader takes parts out of the whole, until they get desperate enough that it's pitiable. Panteros could have been a really interesting case where Neenah's "family" idea wins over the hearts of some individuals, and we simply stoke the flames of rebellion until it topples itself. Maybe even using Nahuali as the head of this rebellion, only for him to betray us once he's back on top. The saddest part of this is seeing the potential for cool, Saints Row style stories being completely flattened by a misunderstanding of what the fans liked and poor writing direction. There's a spark of something there, but the fire never caught alight. Also as a big fan of the color coding of all the saints row games, it never sat right with me that the Nahuali never got purple duds. I could see his betrayal coming from a mile away based on his shirt color alone. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not, but i want it to be noted.
Id like to dedicate this comment to "Thats nice, Eli. I'll leave a carbon footprint on your throat." Had me cackling like a hyena as i listened to this on my way to work
The one that got me was shortly after: "Eli, mate, you are so goddamn basic I could code you on an Atari." All he would need to do is make a follow command. You now have Eli.
Personally I felt that the third had some highlights... I liked Oleg... but he also kinda broke things, cause call him into a fight and then all of a sudden he's punching cars, and killing everyone taking cover behind them. The third felt like a... Chibi version. It's kinda cute and silly, and looks like the thing you like but it's soft and pliable without any of the steel that really gave the thing structure.
I appreciate your commitment to dissecting even lousy games like this. An Alan Moore interview comes to mind, where he recommended as a writer to read bad books. His logic being reading only good books and finding inspiration in them carries the risk of plagiarism and/or making something that's too similar to the original. Whereas with something bad, you're able to analyze and understand what makes that book bad, which is immensely more helpful for developing as a writer.
Saints Row 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. It invokes such nostalgia to me because of the soundtrack (mix 107.77 still best 80’s station in any game!) the characters and Stilwater itself. The characters felt natural and pretty charming. Plus, most of the comedy was kept in the mini games, so the main story could be serious. I feel like the new saints row has the exact problems saints row the third and all the other games after that had, trying too hard to be funny, rather than having a good mix. Plus after seeing how the devs reacted to valid concerns and criticism, I think they got what was coming to them. Saints Row 2022 is a miserable reminder that we may never get another game in the series because of this.
I’m more and more coming around to a cynical mindset of, “they deserve to die.” When Halo 4 happened, and the Halo series spiraled out of control into what it is now, I remember thinking, “3 was fine, 4 was unnecessary but at least provided some closure to the Master Chief’s story, but everything else is a mistake and they should just let this series die already.” That was the first instance of me actually wishing a series I loved would end already, because I was sick of seeing it get milked dry like a cash cow and twisted well out of its own proportions for no good reason. Saints Row has been added to that list. With how wildly extreme 3 and 4 got, while I can see the logic behind a reboot that goes back to the very VERY beginning, it’s clear that Volition was never equipped to handle the job. At this point, I don’t want another Saints Row, I just want it to die. Hell, even Assassin’s Creed has reached a point where I think it’s time to terminate the damn thing, and prior to me learning how awful a company Ubisoft is, I used to cherish that series, been with it from the very start. Nowadays, between Ubisoft being shit and the AC games growing more and more stagnant in their refusal to move the plot in any significant direction (how many times? _How many times_ are we going to keep going back in time and shoving Assassins and Templars into ancient history, before we _finally_ decide to do something about the god damned modern day plot thread?), I’m just at a point where I don’t want to hear about it anymore. I just want those games to end so that I don’t have to continue being reminded how bitter that series has become for me.
same thing with dead rising, really. went from a story that took itself seriously but allowed you to undercut it by dressing up as a servbot, to crafting wacky, zany and (dare i say) quirky magical laser swords and endless quipping
Funny thing is that Yakuza also does that. You have extremely serious main story spiced up with ridiculous humour in the side missions and that's one of the reasons why it's such a great franchise.
After finishing the video I feel like you owe me something, possibly the soul that was sucked from my body. Kinda funny how snake's script is like the opposite of the game's: Funny, knows what it's going for, confident without being overconfident, and insightful. Wanting to make the Saints conventionally likable while being psychos was such a fundamentally misguided idea because... Nobody likes Saints Row Boss or GTAV Trevor or Sundowner or Caim or whoever because they're *cool guys you'd want to hang with*.
You know what? That scene where Eli wants to take a hybrid car and makes you listen to his favorite motivational speaker made me think of something. In other Saints row games Eli would have been called a "pussy" by the boss or another character in the group. The other gangs would tear into him something FIERCE!! He would play more like their adopted chiwawa that they keep around because hes good with money and stuff. They would protect him and tolerate his "antics," but everyone would still mention his "antics." When he says, "Your carbon footprint matters," at the MOST, someone would have at least said, "SHUT UP ELI!"
@MrSoopSA Eli and the other characters suck. But Eli literally does nothing as far as I am aware. He serves no narrative purpose. Maybe the other two in a very, very small way. But Eli is a "bitch" and a "pussy". Everyone in the group would be straight dogging on his ass and slaying him to pieces. He is a whiny, pretentious. Condasending, poser that wants to play criminal. He makes dumb ass plans. He dresses goofy as all hell. He is useless in almost every sense of the word. AND!!!! This dude couldn't bag a bitch if his ass worked in a grocery store! The ONLY WAY, his character COULD WORK, is in the way I mentioned. The gang likes money, as all gangs do, so Eli is their "money guy." So he's counting the money. He is keeping track of who, what, where, when, and why there is or is not money flowing in. He WOULD BE the most ANNOYING AS HELL Bookkeeper! BUT!!! He gets away with it because he is a WIZ with numbers, and he knows better ways to launder said money into "legitimate" business to get a good mix of CLEAN and DIRTY money. So as MUCH as they or other people may dog on him for being..."himself." He is SO book smart that he fills a needed role in the gang. Not everyone can just go around shooting people and robbing liquor stores. Some people need to do the actual "buisness" side of things.
@@Tzilandi Eli. 100%. also (unrelated) but why the fuck do my comments keep getting deleted on every single thing I comment on???? Didn't I write a whole thing explaning how Eli would better fit into the game by changing his purpose and filling a needed hole in the buisness?!? I swear it's either TH-cam itself or its the people that run the channel. I swear it happens everywhere, every time.
@@victormercado278 It's youtube. They've even started sending me threatening popups about terminating my account for crossing community guidelines. As if starting a new account is some huge hurdle.
Great video, really stood out in the sea of ""Old Saints Row used to be better because they didnt care about offending people" stuff. This is a souless game made in the vision of some sales exec who *thinks* they know what people want and terrible writers
I don't know why, but Eli's model makes me unreasonably angry. The man is a literal matchstick. It looks like the devs balanced a watermelon on 2 toothpicks and decided to make a model out of it, and assign it to one of the most prominent characters in the game, who's supposed to be a founding member of a criminal empire. I am so mad and I do not know why.
Watching the combat in this game is just another justification towards my hatred of health bars in modern day shooters. Fucking hell it feels like an excuse developers use to give enemies more health than they should have.
And they STILL didn't bring back cutscene replay. For customization junkies like me, it's easily the biggest draw in games like this to me, and theater mode was damn near the very best part of SR2. Getting to replay those awesome cinematics in different outfits! It drove me nuts when the feature was dropped in all subsequent installments.
Can you find the 5 Mr. Brazils?
THE Mr. Brazil* cut
I would say no
Senhor Tehsnakerer, tá procurando os br??
"You are going to Brazil"
I'm still surprised that you weren't making a Taxi Driver reference with your main character
"There are vampires that can handle stakes better than this game, since they at least have the heart to go through with it."
Holy shit, you're a poet.
That line was art
I worked on this game, it was my first gig in the industry and I was on the character art team, most of my work was on the character creation system and making clothing for said system. That being said, I really enjoyed this video, I though it was extremely harsh, but fair. and I really liked the section where you talked about other videos just cashing in on the hate for this game and not really making any good points. This video overall was just really well constructed and you made a lot of really great points that most people didn't address because they wouldn't even bother to put in the effort to actually play or put I the effort to pay attention. So the fact you put this much effort into playing this game to tear apart is applaudable.
You also did bring up some points about the development, citing "too many cooks in the kitchen" which I would say is accurate, and a lot of things you said in this video made me think of times where it was planned to have said thing and it got cut or the original plan was for something to be more like some of your recommendations to fix it but it ended up not coming to fruition. Theres honestly so much I could say but then this comment would be a 20 page paper so I wont bother going that in depth.
The development for this game overall was just a mess, it changed direction so many times. It went through many tone changes before settling on something (which the game doesn't even match what we set on IMO) along with some missions getting re-made several times even months away from release which pulled resources from things that needed attention more, combined with too many cooks in the kitchen as well as volition bleeding talent as people left to go to other studios (which that could be a whole other story in of itself) AND Im not even sure how many people that worked on SR2022 even worked on the original games. With the previous layoffs from AOM and people just persuing other avenues I cant imagine a lot of the original talent for the older games where even there. On the character team at least I know pretty much everyone there joined the team during AOMs development at the earliest. So none of us had experience working on a SR game at all and we kind of had to figure out how to remake systems from the earlier games without the knowledge of how those systems where done. At least in regards to the character team I'm proud of what we where able to do with the character creator considering none of us had experience with a character creator system, let alone one from a previous SR game. But... yea, jesus christ I hope someone writes a book on what happened some day lol. Great video, definitely the most fair and probably unbiased video about this game I've seen.
I honestly wish you'd go into more detail. Like, what are some of the ideas that got scrapped? What tonal changes did it go through? Tell us more; the people need to know!
@@Tzilandi I was purposely vague due to NDA related stuff. Even though volition isn't around anymore and a lot of other devs have come forward (anonymously though) and have told some stories I still want to be careful as to not get into legal trouble. But believe me I'd love to talk about my experiences 😅
But I also think there are others that could say a lot more and put it in a lot better form then I could. A lot of what I know is stuff that trickled down the grapevine, as a low level character artist in the project I didn't have first hand experience with a lot of the things that people would find all that interesting in relation to the project so a lot of details would be fuzzy from my end as well.
Unless you want to know about things specifically related to character models like NPCs, or the character customization system I don't really trust myself to provide details on anything else as to not get details wrong.
To sum up exactly what I did, I started out at voltion as an intern, which led into a 1 year temp position which then led into a full time gig for 2 years and then the company went under. Most of what I did for the first year was just make clothing assets, shirts, pants, misc wearables for the customization system, the second year was mostly making the NPCs that populated the world, I made around 200 NPCs I think, but a lot of them repurposed the assets we already made for the character customization system, but changed the colors of clothing and other material properties to make the clothing look like it was made of different fabrics, then added patterns and other things we could swap out to increase variation in the already existing assets. After that it was mostly bug smashing until a few months before release then we where rolled off onto working on dlc assets. So tldr it was very early on in my career so I didn't really do anything cool.
I guess one small story I can fit in is how mid production the character team found a fast way to generate blend shapes for the crotch buldges on all the lower wearables so we convinced production to let us add the buldge slider to the game because we ruled out it would be a relatively easy addition due to the scripts tech animation made to generate these on all the wearables. After that we had a meeting to review all the buldges in the game to see which ones needed tweaking / fixing. As you can imagine, that meeting was full of awful jokes and banter about crotch buldges. So totally the highlight of my career.
@@chuukoart3869 how was the work environment, if you're cleared to answer that? Did you experience any crunch? I hope that at least you got some experience and managed to find something more fulfilling.
@@grrrr255 I do believe I read elsewhere (in the SR Discord) from the mouth of a former dev that the original pitch was SR2.5, and Deep Silver slammed their dirty hands in and said "no, make this more relatable and epic millennial". Obviously not the wording, but you get the gist
"It's time to earn our paychecks. Student loans won't pay themselves. Debt am I right? We are 99-out-of-100-%." The New Saints probably.
@@ferbujosbe5582 Lol, I didn't even think of that.
@Ferbujosbe F in chat for the Boss
EDIT: Since the original comment we were replying to appears to no longer exist, some context: The comment we were replying to mentioned that the Boss’ degree would’ve been invalid anyhow due to their violent criminal status (to say nothing of being in charge of a violent criminal syndicate), so they have student debts on top of a useless piece of paper.
"It's like a coffee shop AU for an IP that doesn't exist" That's such a one-of-a-kind insult.
"Grenades aren't just a way to say goodbye, they're also a hello! They're the aloha of armaments!"
I love that line so much. Not just the line itself, but the delivery. You're great at conveying just the right amount of exasperation at design decisions, in truly entertaining ways.
Yeah you either start or end a fight with explosives because you know how powerful they are.
A game which perfectly encapsulates that is halo ce (haven't played the other yet) specially on higher difficulties like legendary that increases the amount of enemies
@@chilbiyito Which is a good way to provide challenge with more enemies, especially higher class enemies that have better gear for more challenge.
Eli is a businessman in the sense that the guy from high school who messaged you about his 'incredible new opportunity' is a businessman
That could have at least been funny. Eli joins a pyramid scheme. Then, after a game of character development, creates one instead.
Eli really should have fallen for multiple scams already. Like he definitely has an NFT he won't talk about
@@Tehsnakerer Eli creates SaintCoin, and much like this game, it falls through
I know for a fact the writers didin't mean this but Eli does look and act like a guy who blows up your phone with a new scamcoin or really tried hard to get you into NFTs.
@@lollma0 Eli looks like the mother fuckers who constantly call you in GTA Online and never stop.
You know, I'm thinking about the LARP mission, and wouldn't it be a more significant twist if Eli and Gwen were siblings or cousins, and this game is something they've engaged in since childhood, with Gwen always winning because of her ruthlessness in everything she does while a meeker Eli can never reach the upper hand due to always being so focused on following the rules. So at the end, Gwen learns not to take everything so seriously while Eli learns that sometimes you have to go above the rules to get ahead. It's not a good lesson, but it's better than nothing.
Edit: Fuck, I just realized I also just wrote fanfiction for a game I'm not a fan of.
Meh, the Larping shouldn't have been there at all. I hoped for an actual gangster story.
@@GeteMachine Yes, but at least JoJones' way would have been much better handling of the whole situation than it is in a game currently. At least it might have made Eli and Gwen a bit more interesting as characters.
It's kinda funny people like you and snake can spitball better ideas then people got paid to write.
I honestly didn't mind the LARP missions as much as I thought I would. Either I was numb at that point or wannabe gangsters doing LARP for petty reasons seemed worryingly in character.
@@GeteMachine at least we still have the OG series
I’d consider this a constructive criticism in a very greatly missed opportunity to build the world and characters, whom feel like blande templates, than a fanfiction. The game itself feels like a fanfiction and a bad one story-wise
"It feels like gang war for kids"
You know, that really does accurately sum up the tone and feel of Saints Row the new one. It really does feel like a brutal and violent gang war game made for tweens and children. Which is why it's such a tonal fucking mess. Like an R rated kids movie.
I mean, even in game being in a Gang is more portrayed like you work at Walmart then anything more gritty. "Uggh, my boss wants me to put in overtime to go rob this train, this is SO LAME".
@@NEEDbacon That's this game's, quote "JOKE" unquote. Treating crime and killing like the usual 9 to 5 job someone fresh out of college would be stuck with. The problem is that the game is not nearly charismatic enough to pull a concept like that off.
😸😸😸😸
It's like every adult cartoon comedy where violence and over-the-top bullshit is everywhere combined with excess swearing but the writers forgot how to be funny or make characters interesting. Plus trying to be politically correct about crime.
I feel like a lot of games take this tone now. Felt the same with the BF 2042 "What a time to be alive" cringefest of a video.
A kind of petty thing I noticed, in the beginning when the Boss works for Marshall, and it shows his locker with pictures of Eli, Kev, and Neenah. Why are they individual headshots of the three of them, and not like, one group photo of them? The kind of picture that real friends take, and frame. Instead the individual headshots of them makes it look like they are assassination targets.
Someone else in the comments pointed out the idea You've basically roped them all to be your friends ala the Nuallhi. And in that sense headshots makes more sense.
Meet the sniper
@@deadrivers2267 Sniping is a good job mate
@@nathanjimenez2640 It's challenging work, outta doors, and I garuntee you won't go hungry. Cuz at the of the day as long as there's two people left on the planet, someone's gotta want someone dead
Maybe they're playing the long game and new saints 2 is all about murdering them.
Probably not, but hey, one can dream.
There's a touch of comedy writing advice that isn't universal, but is a good fall back. The Leslie Neilson rule:
It's okay for the world, setting, and story to be a joke. But the sillier your world, the more seriously your characters need to take it. Comedy comes from contrast.
that rule is like the fundamental of smilling friends when i think about it
Also works for surrealist art like David Lynch stuff
This. This is why I prefer the Yakuza series over the SR games after SR2.
@@kaydee66781it seems like a lot of those Japanese games seem to hold that sort of feeling. Resident evil and Metal gear both come to mind in that regard that these worlds are insane and funny but everyone takes it super serious
@@creed8712The Raiden Vamp fight was insane but didn't feel out of place
Here's a novel concept: have the characters have villainous character arcs where they fall from grace and become the worst possible versions of themselves. Instead of becoming a brilliant business mind, Eli sees that crime actually does pay a whole lot more. Neenah sees that family and creed is a powerful tool her old boss missed out on, and she breeds that loyalty into the saints to an absurd, extreme degree. Shirtless mcgee sees that any cause is probably bs and only serves those at the top, but that makes people rally together, perfect for organised crime. And the boss goes from a plucky young upstart who's being unfairly treated to someone who brutally and unfairly claws their way to the top, dealing with any slight against that momentum away.
It's not perfect, but hell, I think it's a better character arc than... "I guess I don't like my gang now, bestie"
damn it you wrote fanfic for a game you dont like
Sadly that would mean the characters would have to be bad people, and the writers would never allow their OC's to do that. BTW your idea sounds far better.
Nina is pretty close to that. I think she talks about how the original gang leader of the gang she was in valued family above everything, and I believe it hints that he was overthrown ( if it does it never clarifies. Especially since the game steals the boss fight from you) by the one who is then running the gang who just values muscle cars.
Eli's arc is basically him learning he is an expert marksman with guns even though the intro tells us otherwise.
Kevin gets a waffle maker?
@@TheCommanderTaco Ehh, Nina touches on the idea of what the Pantero's stood for being corrupted. But it goes no where, Nina doesn't grow anyway from destroying their HQ and Sergio gets bumped off by the Nuhalli.
While Eli's gun training is stupid and shows he kinda gets into it, it's still shallow and goes nowhere for his character. The Pre-sequel version of Handsome Jack does a much better interpretation of a nerd getting a blood lust.
Honestly Kevin might line up the MOST to OP's idea. That Kevin actually doesn't care about the Idols ideology. I mean he flips at pretty much the drop of a hat and never seemed too committed to the cause anyways. So it wouldn't be much of a stretch for him to take the of the Idols being "Revolutionaries" and applying it to the saints. Hell, that's technically what happens to the Playa in 1. Could even work with Nina. Lure in would be saints with the promise that it's a big movement that's going to change Santa Illeso for the better. And Nina can reinforce that being a Saint is more then just being a revolutionary, but in fact like being part of a family. Basically turn the saints into a Cult. And to add Eli to the mix, make his previously goody two shoes realize the potential of what has been created goes beyond any business could manage.
Could even manufacture a better conflict by having him get drunk off the power being a "Leader" of the Saints. But having any idea he has get over ruled by the boss causing strife. To the point he organizes a Betrayal of the boss by rival gangs. One to get rid of the one thing holding Eli back, and two to give the saints an idol figure to truly worship and complete the cult transformation of the saints.
Whoops, slipped into writing fan fic for a game I hate.
Congratulations, you made Saints Row 1 and 2.
This game feels so condescending. It feels like a fifty-year-old guy lecturing the young people about how they'll love his new rock n roll album because he knows what the kids want, and his kids are telling him not to release the songs because they're embarrassing, and the kid who actually likes rock music is telling him to make the songs more like the classic rock bands like Led Zeppelin instead of Imagine Dragons.
Then, the dad releases his songs about fidget spinners to the world and he gets mocked for them.
You just described KoRn lol
I will say this: Kevin as an idealist who's corrupted by money and power until *he's* the one wandering around in a sixty-grand purple suit with a stupid LED mask blazing the saints fluer de lis would have been pretty interesting. Using the characters as metaphors for the collapse of their own respective gangs and ideals and their incorporation into the start of, effectively, a crime based megacorp would have been something to hang a dark deconstruction off of.
What could have been and all that.
All of them becoming corrupted by greed and brutality into their worst versions would make gor a far better story id say
I think Saints Row may only tie with Far Cry for fumbling the same aesop multiple times in multiple entries like that.
You wanna know what’s funny about the Nahualli’s twist betrayal of the boss? The moment could have worked in a different story with a different motive behind the stabbing.
Imagine if breaking the Nahualli out of prison was something we did near the beginning of the game, and for the course of building up the Saints and taking down the other gangs, the Nahualli was there helping us. I’m the beginning he’s helping us out to pay off the debt he owes for us for saving him, but eventually he’s just helping because he wants to see the Saints grow into the most powerful gang.
Then, after all the other gangs are defeated, the big party happens, and the Nahualli calls the Boss for a private meeting away from the church, and the Boss, convinced that the Nahualli is a true friend, goes alone. The Nahualli then congratulates the Boss on taking over the city, before stabbing us, revealing that it was all just a ruse. The Nahualli only helped the Saints because he wanted to build his own criminal empire, and he knew he could exploit the Boss and the Gaggle’s trust and friendship to get them to do the heavy lifting.
And after dumping our body, he lies to the other Saints and says that the last remnants of the other gangs banded together and killed the Boss, and he leads the charge to kill all remaining stragglers and claim the city for his own, only for his plans to be cut short when the Boss comes back from the grave and reveals what really happened.
But no, we instead got a violent criminal stabbing us because he wants our friends after spending 1 afternoon hanging out with us and robbing one train, all crammed into the 11th hour
It’s like the Disney Star Wars story group write this plot. The plot in the actual game and having as much planning behind it as the conception to the Sequel Trilogy.
Isn't that just the plot of Bully
@@ExValeFor
I thought Gary screw Jimmy over was just for his personal kicks. The whole anarchy thing in the end was just an exploitable bonus, after Jimmy creates some inbalances when he "took over".
@@ExValeFor Ah man, bully is so fucking good I might play it right now
To be fair, that's the plot of Bully
The relationship with the main 3 characters reminds me of how YIIK has you meet party members and have fairly uninteresting or downright unpleasant experiences with them and the game insists you all are close friends. At least in YIIK you could get them all killed.
that's just what I was thinking! this felt like YIIK 3d
Imagine making a AAA game topped by YIIK.
yiikes
yiik is a lot more complex of a game than this shit lol did u even play the game
YiiK will always be a masterpiece.
@@LazyBuddyBan I see what you did there...
One thing that I liked in SR2 was how they treated Pierce. He was the guy with the plans and the ideas, and despite obviously following the classic hoodlum look, he is quickly noted for being sharp and very intellectual in many ways, pulling away from the stereotype of gangsta and being definitely more suited for organized crime.
I enjoyed how it showed that he could be a hardened criminal too. He wasn't afraid of killing and would get into shootouts, but he was still sensible, wanting to plan out missions, investigating to get the info he wanted, etc. You see why they keep him around as more than a punching bag. And then of course he's a giant fucking nerd compared to the others so of course they rip on him for it
I kinda liked Pierce, but I felt he should have been thrown a bone. He gets treated as a punching bag a tid bit too much for my taste, as it got rather obnoxious considering how usefull he is to the team. I get it, The Saints aren't exactly role-models, but even Shaundi got a whole spotlight arc where she was heavily involved.
Pearce is actually something I think 3 handled really well. Like you said, he’s the ideas man, the tactician, the talker. It makes perfect sense for him to be the guy most involved in managing the saints brand.
@@nerdyvids1I really do like how much more involved he was in the third game as well as his relationship with the boss.
@@nerdyvids1 He was pretty much the Boss' Number 2 after the presumed death of Gat.
Man, the story-telling and relationships of the main characters really does evoke D-tier fanfiction writing. We can't show our precious OCs having any grit or edge like hardened criminals might, so lets have them trade around lame empty banter like a Discord chatroom filled with bored schoolkids. The way none of the villains never really pose a meaningful threat to the gaggle reminds me of OCs that the creator would get super attached to, and would never allow any sort of conflict get in the way of them trying to convince you that their character is the coolest ever.
It's basically those terrible Coffee Shop AU fanfictions. Nothing really happens and nothing ever really will.
So the writers have been watching Terrible Writing Advice's videos and taking notes without realizing that he is being satirical.
@@trial_with_an_error9687 Oh gods, the coffee shop AUs. I used to be so confused about why those are even a thing, before I just accepted that it's probably latte girls writing what they know.
I really thought they were doing a breaking bad start to darkness
It really feels like the writers are just a bunch of boring out of touch armatures who wrote the only thing they knew. They act more like the cast of friends than *hardened criminals and ruthless killers*
"A car chase is a story in motion, and this game has just one script."
If there's anything I love from your videos, it's your ability to make sentences like this, it's so good.
You know, sometime ago I watched a Saint's Row Reboot critique, and it made me realize something, and it's a very apt summary of the inherent idea behind design of this game. It was in regards to the on-rails section on the opening mission, the one where Nahualli is flying the jet, and you're shooting his men from top and then from the bottom of said jet.
In Saint's Row 3, opening mission was a bank heist, and it also included on-rails defence. Specifically, when helicopter was lifting the vault from the building. During that section, Boss had to move around to change positions and shoot different enemies. Reason he brought that example was transition between positions - they used animation and camera angles, making the transition more seamless (the funny part is that this stuff isn't really praiseworthy, it's just normal thing
In the Reboot however, during on-rails section, "Boss" is on top of the jet, and then... Cutscene plays, showing him changing positions, and then as cutscene ends, the loading screen shows up, completely breaking the flow, making the section somewhat even more monotonous. It perfectly illustrates the devolution in the craftsmanship, and I really wish I remembered the name of the reviewer.
Did you remember it?
@@Neogears1312 Nope
The "Marshall now owns the Saints" plot point is baffling to me from the outside. They're a criminal organization, not a tech startup that can get screwed over by paperwork. Like, if a group of people respond to the cops saying "that's illegal you're coming with us" by opening fire, how the fuck are legal threats supposed to have any kind of sway over them? I imagine the game has some explanation (maybe the "gang" is technically an LLC or a mercenary concern?), but the whole concept seems nonsensical.
Bold of you to assume the game has any explaination for it
Best I can assume is Eli put up shell companies to control the stuff the Aint's own under the guise of the church or something, and when Marshall got wind of that they used their extrajudicial power to do some civil forfeiture scummery. But none of this is explained and only barely implied.
All the gangs were a rushed mess, Nahualli's gang being the worst but the fact that the Idols didn't even have a leader and exist only as a "haha remember the Borderlands psychos? well they wear pink!" rip off.
@@enkephalin07 no one at volition bought real estate or even though about how it works...
I think it would have worked if the Saints had funneled the money from their crimes into legitimate businesses. Real world criminal syndicates usually do that to keep in a steady cash flow and to provide a front for their illegal activities. It would make more sense then that Marshall could undercut them with white collar bureaucracy, using his business savvy to seize their legitimate assets and leave them financially hobbled. Hell, maybe he didn't even do it specifically to spite them. If you're going with the "capitalism bad m'kay" message, it would be more biting if Marshall didn't even remember the boss but fucked them over just because he's a greedy corporate asshole who wants a monopoly any fledgling business that he can get his grubby hands on.
42:23 "It's a system where the player is always the Agent of Mayhem"
Actually top tier joke, also it's been great to see you improve at both writing and editing along your releases, love your stuff
The Boss shooting the lawyer and then saying "He was being a dick" feels like such a perfect slice of how the game just has to have the Saints be the good guys, while being criminals. At least in 2, the Boss would've shrugged it off by saying "Yeah, it doesn't change anything, but it makes me feel better." He'd be an asshole, but at least he'd have some kind of engaging character. In this game, killing people is treated with all the gravitas as the "kills" in the silly Dustmoot LARP section. It's like a bizarre blend of a Saturday morning cartoon and a spree killing. Gun down hundreds of people with no remorse, but don't worry, you and your #crimefriends are still the nicest people in town.
A blend of Saturday morning cartoon and spree killing would be way more fun.
Johnny pretty much says as much in the beginning of 2, he doesn't deny any of the crimes he's being charged with and even goes further to say that he'd shove the gavel up the judge's ass and shoot her in the face simply because he feels like it. What made the OG gang work is that they're unapologetically terrible people. They don't claim to be goody goody or act like it, whilst being pretty damn charismatic.
That scene is probably the closest I saw this "Boss" get to being like the real Boss, only to ruin it with that lame "justification." Like you said, old Boss would have said something more like "I was tired of listening to him" or "I hate lawyers" or anything less... limp.
@@jase276also it was hilarious when Johnny tried to claim statute of limitations as well honestly
SHAUNDI: You ever hear of "Don't shoot the messenger"?
BOSS: Yeah, but this makes me feel better.
PIERCE: [ Irritated groan ] So now what? We're gonna march up to their HQ and shoot up the place?
BOSS: Sure, why not.
PIERCE: What!? I wasn't-
JOHNNY: Sounds like a plan. Good thinkin', Pierce.
I feel like the "gang but corporate" would've worked if they did basically a "rags to riches to ruins" story where you slowly do a "Yeah, but it was different when I did it!" story where you start viewing your gang members as expendable, just the same as the companies. But their insistence on making every action 100% justified ends up snubbing every chance for interestingness
The comparison of "What if we mixed building a gang with running a business" reminds me of this one bit from Hell's Kitchen where the guy bombing on soufles had the ingenious idea of "what if I coated the mold with butter and sugar". They've not stumbled on some incredible idea, they've just figured out the FIRST STEP in what they're dealing with.
Your writing and wordplay continue to be above top-notch. 'Why must they meet their ends just so we can make ends meet?' 'He waffles so much Kevin should just have a tattoo of him.' The way you play with idioms and metaphors is fuckin rad.
29:22 "There are vampires that can handle the stakes better than this game because at least they have the heart to go through with it." That burn has LAYERS
"Eli you're so basic I could code you on an Atari"
@@dogearflopper7011 lines like this are a huge part of what make snakes videos so damn rewatchable imo
Modern day Shakespeare, shaking down bad games and sparing no one
@@pravkdey jab jab!
I think the reason things like this provoke us into making fanfic is because of pure spite. Writing like this is not only awful, its supremely arrogant. Thinks its a 10/10 when it can't even get past a 4. And that provokes a visceral response in us that makes us imagine a better version so we can rationalise that we definitely aren't as bad at writing as these poeple. That even given the exact same tools and pieces we can construct something better with a few minutes of thought, then these idiots could do with half a decade of dev time.
it can also be that we see those little nuggets that ARE good (or could be good) and want to latch on to that out of desperation, because we become somehow invested--especially if it's related to or a continuation of something we like.
@@aves-panthera Yeah, I’ve seen, just in this video alone, several points where SR22 was right on the verge of telling an intriguing story, but just missed it. If I were to try and fanfic it, I’d go for those plot beats right away and build out from there.
It's absolutely that. Taking the ruined or initially garbage material made by the "professional" writers and redoing it into something worth giving a damn about because clearly they are so horrid at their supposed job, creating something that essentially clocks it over the head and dumps it into the grave as shallow as the results of their work delivers a special vitriolic high. Gooood it is, helps to manage disappointment in the franchises ruined, and also free writing practice.
As stated before, Spite is the greatest motivator
You know what? That's actually a very good point. Especially on how arrogant this game's writing is. The story banks itself on us not only caring about its bland as white bread cast, but loving them. The "friends" are the opening, the middle, and the ending of the journey throughout this game. Except the game never gives us any motivation to attach ourselves to these pricks, despite its own insistence on it.
The worst part for me in regards to this game is it made the one change I wanted to see the most in a new Saints Row, A brand new world space that wasn't another Steelport or Stillwater. Santo Ileso was exactly the kind of change I wanted....... but it's also in Saints Row 2022
You win some, you lose some, I guess.
1:49:20
Ya know what would’ve made this joke land for me? If after The Boss got miffed at them getting the name wrong, the broadcaster then said ‘as this task force will be our saviors, we’ve thusly seemed them ‘The Saints’’. Followed with The Boss getting even more frustrated
this is fucking genuis.. sorry can't be in the game
Or shoot have him be so exasperated by the situation he actually thinks it's kind of funny.
@@marley7868 and then you are praised because he was notoriously corrupt/ generally awfull
The Idols being seemingly written out of the story is one of the funniest things that came from this game. As if someone at Volition realized they had accidentally made an interesting commentary about the hypocrisy of upper class anarchists, and desperately tried to erase any mention of them from the rest of the plot in the middle of the game. It astounds me how this game, written to be squeaky-clean and politically correct, does something unintentionally based, catches itself too late into development, and just writes out one of the TWO rival gangs in the game to fix the problem.
It’s not even that controversial, like - criticism of ‘champagne socialists’ or whatever is popular basically across the board to anyone who isn’t one of them. It’s got such broad appeal, it’s perfect for cowardly writers who want to say something but nothing anyone might disagree with.
Are we sure this game wasn't outsourced to Ubisoft? Well, someone in dev-team is definitely their fans.
Sounds painfully familiar to their tactic of Controversy-Bait stories, only to always back away the moment it could stop being a deceptive useless white-noise.
Its like Teasing and Edging on new whole level.
I feel like the only reason the Idols commentary is so downplayed because they were too incompetent to even realise they made it in the first place.
@@legateelizabeth cowardly writers? dude, have you seen the world we live in now? its run by champagne socialists who cry and call the cops when someone disagrees too strongly with em, if anything, its normal writers who do it.
It's even funnier because everyone, right left or center, fucking hates rich "socialists". Liberals, Socialists, Anarchists, Conservatives, Communists, Libertarians, Republicans... Everyone hates a fucking "champagne socialist". Sure, the reasons can be different, but that doesn't matter. We'd all line up to kick their asses.
Let's face it, after hooligans every crime sim is gonna be a letdown.
It truly was the peak
@@Tehsnakerer It would explain why dual wielding was the biggest upgrade for the Boss to unlock though, since dual wielding was the top tier upgrade for leader units in that game, too.
@@zyriantel9601 Meanwhile dual wielding was just an optional button in SR2.
It's not crime bruv, is part of our culture
They were better friends, too.
As someone who's lived in the South, I adore scrappy desert smalltowns with street art and community lads hanging out in town having a drink or playing at the local court. The eclectic feeling of the towns residences palpable just by driving through it.
Saints Row 22 here in a way really does capture one of the themes of Saints Row 2 in a way. It certainly feels like I'm looking at a gentrified version of not only the towns I'm used to, but the game I grew up with. It really gives me a unique kind of slow-burn despair the longer I stare at it. Like someone made a product specifically for me, but not to sell it to me, but to spite me.
@Razorbitz Anytime a game gets a remake, I am forever left asking “Why?”, as the game being remade is typically just fine and didn’t need it.
When COD decided to remake Black Ops, I was mildly confused but rolled with it, but when they turned around and remade Modern Warfare and MW2, I was like, “For what reason? Those games still hold up just fine, what the hell?”
That could be taken as part of the definition of digital gentrification: “Why did you do this? It didn’t need to be done.”
Of course, in the case of Saints Row, where they leaned way too hard into the antics and potholed themselves by reaching a point where they couldn’t go any higher with the plot, the remake is a good thing - or it could have been, if they hadn’t done… well, this.
It’s called getting old
Another argument for why we should be looking to remake bad games, not good ones. Imagine turning Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing into an actually excellent game.
@@isabellamorris7902 Bad games, or games that are so old you can’t even find the hardware to run them on anymore, should get remakes, to both make them better and to keep them able to be enjoyed as technology marches on.
Good games that were fine and aren’t even old enough that they can’t function without emulators anymore? The fuck’s the point?
@@zyriantel9601 Don't forget another type of game: Games that never got a full release/was extremely cut down for international markets. A good example of this being Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere being utterly fucking destroyed when it was released outside of Japan.
"While I don't want to break out red faced seriousness, while I don't want to break out red faced seriousness" had me bust a gut laughing, that is such a fun callback.
Can you explain it?
@@dunkerbunker2501 In his Dead Rising 4 video, he explains a concept he calls "red-faced seriousness", where the game keeps trying to have a serious tone while undercutting itself with ill-attempted humor constantly. However, he accidentally included two different takes of him saying the same paragraph explaining it in the video, so you just hear him repeat himself. This was both a callback to the concept, and said accidental repeat in that past video.
THANK YOU!
I was SO CLOSE to getting that joke, but I just couldn’t quite put it together… I remember listening to tue DR4 review and thinking “did he already say this, or am I going crazy???”
Actually at some point I could swear the Boss even started to sound like pseudo-Frank from DR4.
I think the issue this game has is a preference of friendship over brotherhood when it comes to themes. They're similar, but brotherhood is seen as something much more powerful in stories since it means characters are so close, they're practically family. And in those relationships, characters stick out for each other, even if they don't see eye-to-eye on everything. It's a big theme in mafia/gangster media and shows how strained bonds can be in the morally ambiguous world of organized crime. SR (2022) doesn't even try to capture this dynamic: there's so little friction among the main cast (because they're such good friends), there's nothing personal at stake and that is BORING. Even more concerning is that the game paints a good friend group as a bunch of yes-men that will agree/forgive anything.
Ok, I usually hate when people do this sort of bad-faith swipe at the creators, but I can't resist;
"SR (2022) doesn't even try to capture this dynamic: there's so little friction among the main cast (because they're such good friends), there's nothing personal at stake"
Could it be because the shallow yuppies over at nu-Volition themselves never experienced *true* brotherhood, and therefore even don't know what it is, hmm?. In their minds "friend = good", and no more, perhaps?.
@@roadent217 I also don’t tend to care for bad faith attacks, but in this case, the devs made an attack in bad faith against US, so I think it’s warranted here.
@@roadent217 thats it, these people feel like fake work friends the kind your only nice because you have to be. If they were realistic they would have argued 50 times already, that depression scene wouldnt be a few shit lines of thek acting like parents to a child whos grounded.
1:16:40 "Them discovering the logo and deciding, yeah we'll just use that" Sounds like Volition digging around to make this game.
A much better anti-climax would have been in the LARP arc. Imagine if you “fought” through the entirety of the final castle and then defeated your former boss at Marshal. She cheats and, rather than doing the fight all over again, the Boss says “Oh, fuck this” and shoots her in the face.
(Of course, this would mean the game has to recognize the Boss as being an actual asshole, and the boss from Marshal who’s name I can’t remember has to *actually* be lamentable for the player to feel good about offing her- but that’s probably more clever than the game is allowed to be…)
That actually would have been funny too
It would have been a better pay off TBH. We only started getting involved with Eli as a way to piss off Gwen. Even if we do start getting into it a bit, ultimately it's to get back at Gwen. Old Saints Row Playa would 100% have done that, if not something more brutal and sooner.
It also would have made for a good dramatic "Oh shit, we're controlling an absolute psycho" moment. Just imagine:
Gwen does here little cheat thing of going in the back and challenging us. We LARP shoot her, and she does her "Nuh uh" thing, annoying the Boss who does some more larping still trying to win the game in order to humiliate Gwen. One more time she says "You didn't shoot me".
Cue a cutscene moment where we drop the toy gun, pull out the cutscene glock (I too was annoyed they did that shit) and proceed to magdump and kill her, and a one liner after. Having our petty revenge against basically a middle manager we just turn around and walk off as we got what we wanted, telling everyone else to go back to their fun as they stare at us in stunned silence.
But like you said, the boss isn't allowed to be portrayed as bad. Edit: also it's really easy to do fanfic about this game.
Just going into the LARP with real guns from the start would have been my pick.
It's such a lame hobby for someone who gets into real-life-shootouts. Make a joke of Gwen having such a bizarre hobby for someone who basically does this for real every day, then murder everybody involves while they helplessly fire foam darts at you.
Honestly, calling this game ''woke'' would be giving it way too much credit, as they seem the actually have no idea what the hell they want this game to be or to be about. Never have I seen a game so hard to push to have its own personality and identity, yet and up having none and feeling bland and generic af. Nothing about this game is done well in the slightest and it even makes SR4 look like a good game.
I’m woke as hell and I hate this story 😭
Its not even woke, Its just souless
@@hunts4209 True true
As long as you deny the woke leftist are responsible for this type of products the more of them you will get...
It’s so woke It puts you to sleep
So ultimately this game’s message is that the real Millennial power fantasy is the friends we made along the way.
And that’s awful.
I think you mean "the friends you already had from the start whom you never had to recruit, canonize or prove yourself to and get no explanation on how you're all from and still in different gangs, don't really care and just hanging out in the same house where its not even relevant to your motives at all."
@@GeteMachine Yeah, but that one doesn’t roll off the tongue as easy, so we had to shorten it down.
They made every death in Saints Row 2 feel visceral. The scene of you and Gat brutalizing Akuji, then burying him alive still haunts me. Another of my favorites was shutting Vogel's big mouth before he plummeted from his ivory tower.
"I don't want to just scream 'woke' like an alarmist clock" was actually a really great pun.
I really liked the "There's vampires that know better what's at stake as they have the heart to see it through"
@@silentype3008 You think he's ever considered a rap career?
russian bot?
@@slvrshore5300 what? what do you even mean here?
Saints Row's story sounds like the American Psycho movie if Harron and Turner's takeaway from the novel was "Wow, that Bateman guy sure is cool!".
Seeing all the enemies being effortlessly swatted away like flies just makes me experience second-hand hollow victory. If you want to sell a power fantasy, overcoming impossible odds and all that jazz, enemies must feel like they're actually threatening (even if they actually aren't) and they didn't even get THAT right! Between the gameplay shortcomings and the shallow marketing whoopsies, it's like they used extra thick, neon-colored yarn instead of piano wire when they attached all the strings.
The problem the Saints Row games have is rarely actually having the villains feel like an equal threat to the Saints and actually affect them narratively enough to sell the necessary back and fourth to build up for that ending. The only time they really did that was in SR2 with Maero, Jessica hinting she didnt respect you, you mess up her boyfriend's face, and she kills your friend, then you crush her in a car, then you start the real beef with their leader or Shaundi getting abducted by both Veteran Chils and Masako. Then in SRTT also at least had STAG that was an equal destructive force to the Saints. The reboot really doesn't do anything to build up the Saints, but rather the Boss gets their ass kicked in jus hand to hand fights, and the other gang members barely do anything, and Eli complains about being barely shot once, and thats it. There is just no tension because Nahualli pretty much steals your kills and you take cheap "shoot guys while they're talking" cop outs. The Saints in the reboot come off as just such wimps.
Honestly power fantasies are hard to do right. The reason why the new Doom games worked was because they had the coat of paint of a power fantasy while not being one at all. Like let's be honest, Eternal's not a power fantasy you can get curb stomped in that game with like 5 hits on the harder difficulties
The closest gang to being threatening is the Idols, and that's just because they actually do a little bit of something within the story. Unlike literally every other gang.
@@prossnip42 Yeah, that’s kind of the big secret to Doom: they start you out with weak, shitty enemies to rip and tear and get you some practice…
And then they throw _the rest of it_ at you.
@@prossnip42 imo best power fantasy is prototype
The fact that snakerer keeps being able to easily fanfic a much better story in the games he covers really shows how low the bar is for video game storytelling.
It's probably even worse in anime.
@@olzhas1one755 I wouldn't bet on that fight myself. You could easily make an argument either way.
@olzhas1one755 Not every anime, but I could fill a book with anime with an interesting premise that just wastes it. And an endless stream of OP isekai harem trash.
I feel that the stupidity of that one critic's comment about bullets and lawyers wasn't fully appreciated. "America has more bullets than people" Are they under the impression that the third street ain'ts _have_ all of the bullets in America?
I'd believe it if it was the actual original crew
“Pole vaulters can only go over the top because they start on the ground.” LMAOOOO your straight faced delivery of this absolute gem was perfect
The whole Eli/Dustmoot/LARP-thing sounds like someone played Southpark: the Stick of Truth/Fractured But Whole, and decided they REALLY wanted that in their game too, no matter how shoe-horned it looks or sounds.
I honestly enjoyed those sections a bit more just because I played Stick of Truth and like it. At least I didn't hate them upon my first hearing those were main missions.
That rant you have at The Nahuallis betrayal is one that pretty much sums everything about the main cast, their personalities, the writing, their arcs, the gangs they represented. Just Everything. Making them the main reason for the Nahualli stabbing you in the back is so infuriating because you have spent so long in poorly written cutscenes, that terrible Larp mission chain, the lack of closure for Kev and Neena's overall storylines and Eli(I completely and utterly hated Eli from the jump and he comes off as completely spineless through out the story and Larp mission chain Made it worse)
Eli needed to be either completely rewritten while still keeping the core idea of him. His focus on business and entrepreneurship and you could have had it done in one way.
Look up Tom Hagen from The Godfather and the idea of the Consigliere, that is what Eli should have been. Everything that could possibility made Eli likable even to the most hardcore of Saints Rows fans could be done if they just took inspiration from Tom Hagen. But that would require these writers to actually write interesting characters.
I just realized I'm doing the same thing Snake did during his Fanfiction segment. I hate this game.
The fanfic infection spreads
Because it's so easy to realize how broken it is and how little effort to fix it that you can't help but try and fix it
It's so genuinely, bafflingly busted it's hard for you to not end up thinking of ways it couldn't be. Eli, in particular, seems designed for you to hate him; he's an almost cruel stereotype of a shitty dude people all know now, the Ideas Guy who talks about positivity and entrepreneurial attitudes and who listens to motivational speakers who talk about how great it is to make money. He's convinced he's smart and interesting, but he's demonstrably neither, he's the worst guy in any room who *will* want to talk to you about getting into the right mindset to get on that grindset.
Everything about the game seems designed to be as bad as possible, making fun of the thing it's supposed to be making. How can you not witness it and come up with ways it can be improved? It's not like you have to think hard about it
@@romulusnuma116 Saints Row '22 fixfics when?
@@FizzieWebb Right now, baybeee
2:01:41 im so happy Neuro is still remembered as a game with so much soul.
I don’t think anybody could forget the amazing voice acting and even more amazing bumbling asshole protagonist of Neuro (and Snake’s adventures in trying to get Warden Avatar to say his damn lines), it’s too good.
Oh for all it's flaws, Neuro has far more genuine passion behind it. Neuro is a small story in a much larger world and one I would love to see more of. I mean the scene where Craig stops the missiles with it's minimalist sound design, that was genuinely dramatic and I was left curious, not just about the wider implications for this world; but for what exactly Craig became after that test.
Neuro also had the nerve to depict the protagonist as making mistakes, plenty of them in fact. James makes errors, he is far from someone we'd aspire to be, but we are still given a very clear idea of who James is and why he makes the mistakes he does.
I don't want to be James, but he is far more rounded than any of these 'Saints'. For good and for bad, James feels like a person, the Saints feel like 'traits'.
"I sometimes pick my radio station based on what I think my character would listen to. I don't know weird that is"
Very, but I'm so glad it's not just me. FYI Franklin is Radio Los Santos, Michael is the 80s station, and Trevor is the punk station.
Fully agree. I also set a station or two in SR2 based on the kind of boss I’m going for. Is he more of a standard gangster listening to K Rhyme, more old school with the Mix, an intense metal head that’s all about KRUNCH
I remember seeing the ending dance scene for Saints Row 4 and thought "Wow. They literally can't do anything worse then this." And then they did the karaoke ending.
At least the song was good in Saints Row 4
And at least SR4 was dumb fun. The New SR is just dumb.
@@Zero-ds9ws saints row 4 actually payed homage to the older games and gave you nostalgia by having that mission where your in the saints row district from saints row 1 to fight off vice kings. the ending dance scene of saints row 4 felt like a goofy goodbye from all era’s of saints row. the karaoke ending from saints row the new one feels like any other dumb thing that the new characters did through the game.
put it this way, i would never imagine johnny gat putting aside his hardcore gangster personality to try and do a dance and have a good time. but these new characters are almost expected to do some corny shit like a karaoke party
4 just felt like someone didnt know how end the series and just went with a stupid song and dance bit still was a better send off then loosely sharting this out onto the shower floor and trying to stomp the watery mess down the drain
Not to worry guys, in a few more years, Volition will somehow release another saints row so bad that we'll be praising this game.
"Mate, Have you ever heard of the term Hyperbole? Did you read it wrong and think it's what comes after the *FUCKING* Super Bowl?"
Even as an American, I love jokes at our expense, especially ones like these. Great work on the video.
The fact the cat was the most memorable part of the whole ordeal truly speaks a lot.
Snicker doodles' the key to all this, if we get the cat working. 'Cause he's a funnier character than we've ever had in the games. Honestly seeing the janky ass model walk up towards that table in the intro I knew I would like him.
Whenever snickerdoodle is not on screen, we need the audience asking "where is snickerdoodle!?"
When you said "expect it this week" I didn't think less than 24 hours later. Top notch work as always snake
Love the "Red-faced seriousness" deep cut for us Tehsnakerer superfans.
Had to properly rack my brain to remember what that was from
Man, Dead Rising 4 sure was one of the games of all time
Oh that's where it was from! I remember that sounding familiar
You know what bothers me?
I actually really like the idea of the game part. The "There's a bunch of factions we made hiding in cardboard fortresses waging fake wars with fake guns and rubber darts." even the finisher animations are fun? Like how you pretend to rip a person's heart out or do a light-hearted play beatdown with the other person playing along? That's like, actually really fun and endearing! or it would be, if it wasn't in Saints Row: This one
this isnt really the games fault, but when i saw that footage out of context i thought it was a misaligned animation with missing effects lma o
Lucky for you South Park: Stick of Truth exists and does everything this tries to effortlessly.
I actually kinda adore the fact that if not for the writing being what it is, it'd be nice if it would be a light hearted romp where The Boss might actually uh, get really into it and become super invested. Too bad instead it's a spite romp because fuck gwen I guess.
I also love the aesthetics of the larp levels. They reminded me of the fake plywood boat and military base that serve as the tutorial levels for the 2016 Hitman game. Something about putting a deliberately shitty, cheap looking artificial world inside a very expensive, polished looking artificial world just tickles me.
The writing in the larp levels felt like an attempt to extend the running joke throughout 3 and 4 where the boss was gradually introduced to the Nyte Blayde franchise, and goes from being contemptuous of it to being increasingly invested. But that joke only works because it contrasts with the bosses established personality of being a hardened killer (and because it's used sparingly).
This brought to mind Yakuza 0 and how Kiryu, this larger-than-life member of the Yakuza with a brick for a face who likes disco-stomping people, comes across Pocket Racing and he absolutely *adores* it and gets fully invested in it.
I can really see Like a Dragon taking this type of concept and making it a whole huge side story like Pocket Racing was. The whole LARPing set up seems like a cute and fun thing if it was in a game worth a damn.
I think this marks the first game where you got audibly angry at it not out of frustration or wasted potential like you did with Greedfall but out of genuine disdain. That's an impressive level of bad.
That being said the guy yelling out 'Wilhelm Scream' while the credits rolled actually did make me laugh, so it's only 99% bad.
This game managed more hate than fuckin YiiK or Freeman.
I actually liked Greedfall for what it was. Unfortunately somehow i managed to permanently bug the game so that my controls dont work
@@jackhazardous4008 Whoops
@@zyriantel9601 The worst part is everything but movement works
@@jackhazardous4008 If my experience with Ymfah videos tells me anything, this is the start of your How To Beat Greedfall Without Walking run.
Okay, just finished the video. Wonderfully done as always Snake.
1. The ONLY person I felt anything for is Gwen. Genuinely kind of felt bad for her.
2. By "grounded" did the marketing team mean "half-assed?" Look, you can not like 3 and 4 all you want but at least they COMMITTED to being as nuts as possible. Here, it's just like "Yeah, we wanna do that but we kinda can't... so let's be silly. Just a bunch of silly little guys. Whoopsie, we started a gang. Isn't that just so silly?" I really am amazed at how they made people who commit murder and theft daily NOT feel like criminals.
3.Oh look, a cat.
After watching the introductory video and not being *quite* able to nail exactly who your version of The Boss reminded me so much of, I've finally had an epiphany. He's the exact spitting image of that one advert with the punk mohawk baby. Think it's for detergent or something.
The Fairy cleaner?
@@GoneRampant Aye! That's the one. The fact that the character's stuck with me and the product hasn't makes me feel better about the bastards sticking it in my head in the first place, if I'm honest.
Fitting. Both are out of touch corporate attempts to get "down with the kool kids"
Surprised no one.said he looked like Travis Bickle
The layers of character symbolism of the chuch and logo from the first and 2nd game blew my mind to put together, but the reboot having the characters just "eh, its just there." sounds fitting for he mentality behind how they saw the reboot, why they used the name, and church at all, and then just turning it into a bar/club not caring at all feels like how they saw the reboot overwritting the older titles to them. A shallow new paint job over layers of good lore and themes. The church doesn't matter at all in the reboot.
The characters also do try to redesign their logo when they work with The Nahualli. And they instead wanted to go with... a waffle shaped like a cat-face... I mean, they don't go with it but thats what they wanted. Now why not just hammer it over our heads that, this is what the current devs like throughout the game.
Yeah I skimmed that moment but that and the spray paint seem like the only time Neenah shares her artistic "talents" and hoo boy they don't help her case.
The intro to the character customization adds a LOT to the theory that you weren't supposed to be able to alter your boss's looks much, and the delay was so that they could cram in the character creator at the last second.
I've played a TON of games that let you create your character, and very, VERY few of them start off with showing the character BEFORE you can make them.
With how tone deaf the devs for this game were in terms of the characters, it wouldn't be surprising to find out they were expecting players to just love Preview Boss, and were expecting to not need anything else beyond maybe clothing.
That doesn't make sense.
Did they literally add entire voice actors kn the last minute?
@@tricksterhuaun Given the quality of the Voice acting? Wouldn't surprise me.
It's funny, my opinion of 2, 3, and 4 basically amounts to "Heck yeah, three cakes!" because I find them to be fundamentally different experiences, all of which are enjoyable.
And (to extend the metaphor) the new one is like a rice cracker. Sure, it's food, but... I could just go back and have one of those cakes instead. Part of me wonders how, despite having *three* different successful vibes to take cues from, the new one manages to lack so much. It doesn't have the character of 2, the humor of 3, or the audacity of 4.
Tbh I didnt want the alien or sci-fi stuff in SR4, so there's that. That was already the prolem, with them take away the actual gangster stuff making the characters just feel like punchlines and too self-aware parodies of themselves imo.... You also just ignore SR1. That did what this reboot was trying to do, better narratively.
SRIV was when the series just started turning into an "over the top for the sake of it" fantasy comedy. I at least prefer SR3's plot, comparitively to it.
@@GeteMachine That's sort of my point. Between those three games, there's pretty much *something* for everyone. And despite that, the reboot missed just about every target.
Also I didn't own SR1, so it didn't really play into the point I was making.
Finally, someone who appreciated 3 and 4. I need to go play 2 with the Gentlemen mod though.
I love Saint row franchise and enjoy 2 and 4. It's just a shame their are people in the fanbase who hate Saint row 4. Part 4 had arguably some of the funniest writing in video games and while not a crime sandbox. It really is a awesome superhero one.
Simply put. Saint row can be great serious or absurd, but if it ain't got no heart and tries to do both, then what's the point.
been a fan of sr like you, and it's so sad. i remember people not knowing the trailer at gamescom not realising it was saints row until the title came up, and the rebooting graffiti wall building a lot of hype before that, i wanted it to be good. just glad this has caused a lot to talk about, especially for you who's quickly become my favourite video game essayist.
I think the reason why you're making fanfiction out of a bad game is sort of simple: there is nothing worse than a bad piece of media with potential.
Honestly, fanfiction isn't too bad of a thing.
@@a.k8185it only gets hate bc teenage girls like it
@@foggy_nights
Or that some of it is truly terrible.
You're right. The game I figured that out with was Fallout 4. I'm never buying a Bethesda game ever again.
40:30
This actually reminds me of the game Starship Troopers (2007) for this little joke - that game has a very rare easter egg where digital grenades will say "Aloha!" and then count down in a foreign language as you cook them rather than simply saying "Online" or "Armed" or something along those lines.
While I never played that game I'm glad people know of it.
One of the biggest problems with this game that sets it apart from the other Saints Row games is that you spend barely any time with the bad guys. Every other game spends a good amount of times with the villains, so you understand what their gang is like, and who you're taking down.
I know absolutely nothing about the leaders of the Brotherhood ripoff gang, nor the Deckers ripoff gang. I know a small amount about the Marshall leader, at least.
And The Nahualli. I still don't understand why they made him go all odd at the end.
55:30 They actually did this for saints row 2 and 3, lots of gang lines were created for such story centric needs that showed STRICTLY on those missions
1:17:17 "Sure, let's flatten his character from an American pancake to an English one." genuinely makes me giggle like a madman because I was eating some (American) pancake while watching this. Come 2023, that quote is gonna be ingrained in my memory along with "You're putting too many skittles in your vegetables!" from Ross's Game Dungeon video on Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy (aka a crime thriller with light supernatural element where the second half becomes The Matrix).
But anyway, it perfectly summarizes the game's inconsistent writing where a character's personality can suddenly shift to another for the sake of a quick & cheap gag.
One of my favorite reviews displays how every vehicle can drift endlessly (with the player literally setting weights on his keyboard and walking away for sixteen minutes); the monster truck crushes anything that drives into it, even if the vehicle itself is unmanned and static; while the wingsuit is used repeatedly by Kevin, the shirtless verb, without any explanation for where it is worn.
I think that review is the same one he talked about in the bad reviews section funnily enough. Still a good review if a bit pedantic.
Yakuza series is also a great example of you can have fun and wacky moments but still maintains that grounded, mature, and serious tone of their characters and storylines. I wish volition could have realized that.
You'd think it would be impossible to write a serious crime epic where the main character makes his pet chicken the manager of a real estate company and teaches orphans not to be racist but here we are.
Kiryu approaches every situation so completely earnestly that it never feels disconnected from reality.
man the amount of hidden jokes and wordplays in your script is insane, had me pull stupid grid after stupid grin for 2 hours
well done
Imagine if they had actually played with the idea of everyone in the apartment starting out as roommates from different factions, living together because hey, the rent there is cheap and being the lowest rung doesn't pay that well, real job or criminal. Rework the characters a bit and you've got a compelling start.
Eli is that kid who left his small town to make it big only to come back after an humiliating failure. He's back to prove he's got it and that his prior failure(s) don't define him.
Neenah fell in with the Pantheros after her mother's death, looking for that sense of belonging again and an outlet for her creativity in the mechanic shops they run.
Kev is still Kev. He likes the ideals of the idols, DJs and does odd jobs for them but doesn't feel like he fits in with them. He's the one that was looking for roommates as a form of company and maintains the peace in the apartment, helping everyone where he can with his contacts all across town.
The boss is the latest arrival to the place, newcomer in town thanks to that fresh contract with Marshall. Marshall stiffed him on his sign-on bonus and Kev's place is the only thing he could find and afford on arrival.
Now you've got a setup for the boss getting shown around the various corner of the town, helping everyone with jobs from their corresponding gang, growing closer with each of them as they do. Show them slowly get disillusioned with their gang (and going at it alone in Eli's case). Throw in a couple of group bonding moments outside their gang activities and voila, you can now have the boss get fired and the big concert event that leads to the Saint's formation.
But look at me, doing the writers job.
I never understood why Eli couldn't be part of Marshall as if you got three friends and three gangs why isn't Eli one of them? I personally love your idea, but I think if your boss is living with three members of different factions then perhaps the Boss could be the one who connects them all by a outsider of sorts. Doing odd jobs and indirectly helps the other gangs by helping your friends. You could still have them being part of Marshall but only as a temp and not obviously loyal to them to work against their interests and help your friends.
It would make your boss that more of a leader when you are the glue that holds your friends together and especially when you decide to form your own gang with them.
Hey I got that sleeping dogs joke. I do often wonder why sideswiping is what everyone took from that game, and the rest of its beautiful self has been left in the last gen dust
The fact that no other games (to my knowledge) let you hurl yourself out of your car and onto the roof of another is criminal.
@@nerdyvids1 Just Cause has the stunt jump mechanic. Is that close?
@@nerdyvids1I sucked at that mission that introduced that.
@@nerdyvids1the pursuit force games on psp had you doing that a lot. Pretty good games
I love Sleeping Dogs. The DLC where you go to the Island of Death tournament was so good. The fact it's set in Hong Kong, the culture and language make it so distinct from the crime games usually set in LA or New York City. Plus the Kung Fu and sliding across every piece of cover to trigger John Wu slow mo. An underrated gem.
Watching you play Choplifting i can FEEL how painful it is. I can see the moments where sudden unnatural increases in velocity occur and you start trying to fight the controls to prevent yourself slamming into the ground or buildings and i can imagine how horrible it is. That and the pursuits highlight an issue i have where i truly despise where games, especially open-world sandboxes, try to artificially limit you into playing the way they want by designing gameplay to punish you for attempting to diverge from the solution they want you to use. I haven't even gotten to the writing and i can already tell i would hate playing this game. Thank you for going into such depth with the gameplay design, i appreciate it.
SR2 is the peak of characterization in the series and it's not even close. The Brotherhood storyline is heartbreaking at several different points. 3 and 4 were a lot more shallow and I never finished either, but it's shocking how far this one fell.
Great editing and writing as always but I especially love the interweaving of clips in the Intro Outro.
3 and 4 still felt like they had a heart to them. This one feels soulless. Or worse a soul vacuum.
The writing is so sharp in this man. So many clever jokes, puns and double entendres it's fantastic!
Wow, this is one of the funniest/cleverest reviews I've seen on TH-cam. I wasn't even planning on watching all of it, but the writing and editing really kept me interested! Cheers 👌
Unsure how you did that with the little amount of time it has been up but thats all the same!
@@Tehsnakerer I meant I'm still watching and most likely will to the end 😭
Ah lol
@@Tehsnakerer my fault for phrasing it weirdly to be fair haha
No worries!
The "let sleeping dogs lie" mention in regards to car swiping almost snuck by me. But i saw what you did there lmao.
I did not, sadly. I got got.
Which is just more proof that I need to play Sleeping Dogs, damn it!
Hooray, I was not the only one to notice this.
@@zyriantel9601 its always pretty cheap on Steam
also the definitive edition makes it look prettier
way better than certain other DE...
@@zyriantel9601 Don't enable all the dlc if you get it. You have to wait for an animation and jingle and click "yes okay I know I got the dlc" for every single one and there are so impossibly many, most of which are pointless stupid garbage! It took so long I quit and actually uninstalled the game because it infuriated me so much it would have made it impossible to enjoy the game through the bitter rage.
When I reinstalled it some years later it was fun, but I am still pissed about it
@@WlatPziupp sounds like New Vegas' Courier's stash.
Okay, so what if "You" is not the original friend of that group and he just did the same thing the Nahualli did before but by this point some copious amounts of Stockholm Syndrome made them believe he was really their friend. They have nothing in common with You who is a murder machine. The forced friendship scene by the end just really put this idea into mind that they're only going along as friends because they are fuckin terrified of You.
I had that thought at a few points throughout playing, the boss is so horrifyingly attached to them I was wondering if he also saw them as little more than toys at points.
That would be a pretty amusing reveal. You open your closet and out falls the skeleton belonging to your skinsuit
I'm getting flashbacks to Mass Effect 3 and the Indoctrination Theory
Holy shit yes.
Imagine if your character was some sort of sleeper agent or criminal whose changed his face and whole appearance over and over to avoid capture, who fains morals, values, and charisma, but under all his pretending is a stone cold weapon whose only wants are fame, power, and money.
@@Tehsnakerer Would make the board game being a prominent element of his dying dream that much more meaningful
This seems like a good place to plop my own big damn plot rewrite. Anyone interested?
Basically, in my version, things progress pretty much the same up to the night of the party. This is the crux of the plot, when the Boss is betrayed. However, this time the Nahuali doesn’t do the stabbing. That was too easy, and way too predictable.
Instead the Boss goes inside and celebrates with their friends. Kevin hands them a special drink, warning them that it’s got a kick. He calls it “Boat Explosion” and, sure enough, they start to feel woozy. The lights and sounds begin to blur.
Kevin helps them stumble outside, where they realize they’ve been poisoned. Then they feel the impact as they’re shot several times, the noise masked by the thumping cacophony of Kevin’s mix. The Boss stumbles into the garage when a car comes roaring out and hits them dead on.
Neenah steps out. Eli lowers a smoking gun. Kevin joins them, and they all stand over the Boss, who begs to know why. They tell them the truth: It wasn't loyalty that kept them together. It was fear.
This is why their camaraderie had such an artificial, sitcom quality. The laughter, the games, it was all a stage performance. We see that the previous scenes of happy companionship were filtered through rose-colored glasses, a distorted reality that existed largely in the Boss's head. We revisit older cutscenes and see things just a little differently, colors less vivid, grins fading when the Boss isn't looking, flinching when shots are fired, jokes landing wrong. We were always looking at the game through an unreliable perspective.
Eli, Neenah, and Kevin committed crimes to make ends meet and achieve specific goals, but the Boss was a “murder machine”. The reason they always forced smiles onto their faces was because they were terrified of this maniac. Maybe it was real at first, when they became roommates and they were all doing a little crime to make ends meet. But then it escalated, and the three of them couldn’t handle the nonstop killing. They couldn’t make the horror into a joke anymore. Seriously, who makes jokes about killing people? Who treats mass murder like a game? The tipping point came during the Boot Hill broadcast, and they knew that the Boss would never stop, that there wasn't an end goal beyond this reckless rampaging lifestyle, and that the gang was going to be their whole lives from then on unless they did something.
None of them really wanted to be in a gang. The Saints project was just a means to an end for them, and now that they have the money they intend to split up and follow their dreams. Neenah is going to own her own museum, Eli is joining Marshall’s board of directors, and Kevin’s going to start a club where he can be surrounded by friends and just party.
They shoot the Boss a few more times and dump them in the grave. A different near-death experience unfolds in which the Boss confronts their delusions and is reborn as an angrier but wiser person, a symbolic return to the hard edge of earlier Saints Row games. They crawl out of their grave and are saved by the Nahuali, who doctors their wounds.
As they recuperate the Nahuali explains that he managed to narrowly escape after the three traitors pinned the Boss’s death on him and made him a target of the Saints, his tolerance for poison being high enough to push through the effects of Kevin’s drink, though he’s still weak and nursing his own bullet wounds after single-handedly killing most of the gang's foot soldiers. He claims that he truly does consider the Boss to be a friend, one of the only real friends he ever had, a kindred spirit compelled to commit mayhem, both of them travelers on the same lonely, bloody road.
At this point the choice mechanic introduced in the Marshall mission returns and the player is given the option to either kill the Nahuali or spare him. They're bitter. Maybe this guy just needs them for his own survival while he’s wounded, and he’ll stab them in the back like everyone else. Is the Boss done trusting people? Or will they take this one last chance at friendship?
If the Nahuali is killed the Boss will proceed to finish the game alone, evolving into a ruthless sociopathic mob boss. If they spare him, however, then he offers assistance during the upcoming missions: Hunting down the former lieutenants who have since disbanded the Saints and consolidated control of their rivals. Marshall, the Collective, and Sergio were red herrings. Eli, Kevin, and Neenah are the true gang bosses of the game.
Time passes through a kickass musical montage of the Boss and the Nahuali, if he survives, recovering and re-training each other to the tune of an '80s ballad like No Easy Way Out, Push It to the Limit, or You're the Best. Meanwhile, each of the traitors has rallied the remnants of the other factions. Eli hides behind Marshall security forces while Kevin and Neenah call on the last of the Idols and Panteros, who now regard them as their leaders after they destroy the church in a massive explosion of fireworks and conventional explosives. Kevin has convinced the disaffected Idols that the Collective were a bunch of sellouts, and nobody really liked Sergio, so Neenah has little trouble taking Los Panteros under her wing after she provides them with a windfall of funds to rebuild their fleet of cars. The Marshall building, Kevin’s club, and Neenah’s museum are the showdown arenas. We mix it up with different game mechanics and infiltrate each stronghold via stealth, violence, and a demolition derby destroying priceless works of art in a gallery before we drag race through the desert. At the end of each battle we're given a chance to kill them or spare them, bidding farewell in emotional cutscenes as the Boss admits that they understand why they did what they did.
If we kill all three then the Boss also automatically kills the Nahuali in the ending, having become completely cynical. “All my friends either kill me or die.” If one or some of them are spared, then the Boss just dismisses the Nahuali and proceeds to rebuild the Saints on their own. “People like us are meant to be alone.” But if all three are spared then the Boss acknowledges the Nahuali as their lieutenant, both of them deciding that they’re better people with partners. “I think this is the beginning of a fucked-up friendship.”
The Boss asks the Nahuali what his real name is, anyway. He says to call him Johnny.
Now this sounds like a good game!
@@shcdemolisher Thanks!
So you're saying you're in the middle of writing this fan fic, and are currently in a youtube comments section shopping the plot around. I'm down.
@@krullachief669 Heh, I might like to someday, though I don't know how I could ever find the time while I have comics and stuff to draw.
@@JoeEnglandShow Ah but see you also make them suddenly jump back to their own gangs. Why, if they're off to achieve their dreams and they don't wanna be in a gang? Why the hell would I spare them when they tried to kill me over a lie? Doesn't make any sense lol. Plus, if we're supposed to be able to be so understanding as to spare the others, why would we still want to run a gang when we've been called out on being so horrible?
This video actually got me to go back and give Saints Row 2 a honest (unfashionably late) appraisal. Honestly I'm shocked at how well Volition had a handle on writing for an open world crime game without compromising on the fact that the only player archetype you can only really express in gameplay is being a psychopath bastard. I feel like Volition actually had something over Rockstar, after GTA4 tried getting serious with some dodgy results.
Afterward though, I think Volition settled on the mantra of: "Doing the opposite of what GTA is currently doing tonally", which led to Saints Row 3 doubling down on the wacky bullshit and eventually reaching a wacky bullshit singularity with 4.
So now you have GTA5, leaning back into a more humorous tone roughly on par with the tone of Saints Row 2, and Volition now has several problems on its hand.
Saints Row 4 was a bridge too far with no sensible trajectory after the fact, and backpedaling to 2 as a tonal baseline would mean basically competing directly with GTA5.
So they read the terrain and decided that if GTA5 was gonna be "funny, edgy, and irreverent", then the new Saints would be "funny, wholesome, and irreverent", which led to this hot mess.
Y'know, after being conditioned into looking forward to your next zinger/pun in your writing ("Who the fuck SCROTE this" ragdolled me for an amount of time I do not wish to disclose), it was pretty sobering to just hear you accentuate that one brutal interview with a very to-the-point *"Jesus Christ."*
Neenah's family car blows up
"Eh."
Puss In Boots having a realistic anxiety attack in his second solo movie
*"BAWLS EYES OUT"*
eh feels like my reaction to both honestly.
carlos' death in SR2 was genuinely painful to witness, but it sadly had to be done, a mercy kill, while depressing, is still better than forcing the individual to live in pure agony, still doesn't change the fact that it hurts the soul immensely though.
Another idea I had: The Noalle (however the hell you spell his name) should have been a major player from earlier on. Rather than meeting him at his compound, you instead break him out using your former ties with Marshall. He mentors you and the other characters, showing you how to build your own gang from the ground up. In the end, he betrays you- not because of some “friendship” bullshit, but because the entire time he was just setting things up so *he* could take over.
I played a quadruple amputee and to be fair, the whole game felt like what a homebound torso person might imagine running a crime syndicate is like with absolutely no worldly experience due to being stuck at home via not having any limbs.
This sounds amazing. 😭
God, all of those micro-analysis of the first 2 saints row games sprinkled throughout this behemoth (especially the breakdown of Jessica's intro @ 30:42) really make me want a whole series of Playing videos of Saint Row: The Good Ones (ala Playing Yakuza)
The most shocking thing about this video was learning that Saint Row was meant to be portraying Millennials. And here I was thinking this was the cringe Gen Z stuff that I didn't understand that Grandpa Simpson warned us all about: "I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I'm with isn't it, and what's it seems weird and scary to me, and it'll happen to you, too"
But no, this is meant to be Millennials somehow, the generation where the oldest are already in their 40s. The people making this game are more detached from reality then David A. Prior making the film Deadliest Prey. "True dat, for real dude, true dat"
Yeah. I'm 41. This game could not be less relatable.
We’ve still got the last dredges of boomers hanging on, for Christ’s sake, it’s not like us millennials are even that old news, and yet somehow we’re being this horrendously mischaracterized?
It actually feels more like they designed this game around the 2010s tbh. It was obvious they were from the way the characters dressed. The nerdy square glasses, the bowties, student loans, the yoga pants, the default Boss' hair and just the random cat being everywhere, is a millenial thing to me. Its why the characters are hipsters. Where one of the characters thinks being shirtless is the funniest shit in the world, or how another is an artist that wanted to work at a museum or something. Very hipster.
@@GeteMachine I do feel like if this game came out in the 2010s, it would have had more support. Probably would still get more or less hate due to the internet wars of the time but it would probably have had more defenders, maybe.
@@GeteMachine A game made for millennials by millennials who don't know what millennials are.
It's interesting to watch this and see you tearing into the threads that you liked about 2 that are absent or poorly done here, and seeing my own favorite things about 3 that you don't mention that are... ALSO done poorly or are missing. From things like the takedown system being just god-awful to the various gangs and the saints' connections to them, there's so much missing here that it just feels like it needed more time in the oven. For someone to stop and say "we need to tear parts of this building down to lay a stronger foundation for the good bits", and them to take more time (that they didn't have) to fix the glaring flaws in the design.
The thing that irks me the most is that the story beats around your saints roomies being former members of these gangs is something that SRTT did, and even better. Instead of being immediately aligned with these inside men, you find the people upset with their former management and willing to take the fight back to their abusers. Oleg gives you info on the Morningstar, to crush that rich fuck Phillipe under your boot, then you meet Kinzie, an all-time favorite of mine, who isn't exactly ex-decker, but who has enough beef with them that she's just as good an informant. And then, against Killbane, you get Viola DeWynter, the woman whose sister he brutally murdered in front of her (and Angel, who i guess is also here). You promise to be a better leader for them than the people they had been working for, and you deliver, and it makes the crew feel whole. One cohesive unit barreling down on arguably stronger opponents simply by force of personality, trust, and copious amounts of spite and vengeance (earned vengeance, given the loss each of the characters has. The new crew have their own history, and the main saints themselves get Gat as their leading motivation, particularly Shaundi.)
And the game highlights how your actions impact the gangs in an interesting way. They don't just exist when the plot demands and then vanish partway through. Phillipe is killed, a power vacuum is made, and Killbane drives the syndicate into the ground himself in a self-aggrandizing power grab. You take the fight directly to him in his own element, unmask him, and then he runs away like a coward while you save the people that you did all of this violence for. It's a family. A dysfunctional family full of druggies, whores, hitmen, and cheats, but a family that sticks together through the pain. It's what being in a gang is all about, is that sense of community when the rest of the world is out to get you.
I think this is why the reboot's misunderstanding of what made the earlier games work so well is what killed it. It was never about how each character was good and special, it's about how all these terrible people come together to support each other. The boss' impulsivity and compulsion to solve problems through brute force is balanced out by having confidants that they trust and who direct that energy into the right places. You're a sledgehammer, and your crew is the power behind the swing and the aim of your blow. Without those checks, you get in over your head, every time without fail. The rest of the crew also has these weakpoints that their buddies can smooth over. Shaundi is the heart that reminds people why they are fighting in the first place, but simultaneously needs the crew to bring her back into herself when that same emotionality gets the better of her. In these ways, some of the characters can be relatively one-note and still be deep by the relations they have to each other.
In earlier games, i'm almost certain Neenah's relationship to her car would be brought up way before it gets trashed. The game would have given you a reason to care about it ahead of time, so that when it gets wrecked you feel that punch in the gut, and would have the drive to go get revenge on her behalf. Eli's pacifism would probably be something they play up, especially in situations where it becomes a liability, but like you said, he would have come around at the end when it meant protecting the people he cares for. Kev's inclination for partying would constantly get him into trouble, but it would also give you those contacts that could get the saints places.
And the gangs, as their own "characters", could have been built up so much better. Marshal feels like a mashup of Morningstar and STAG, taking the weakest parts of both. That buyout idea seemed like a great way to give them their own identity separate from those influences, but instead the reboot shoots itself in the foot there. The Idols are so aesthetically interesting that, had they narrowed the Council down to 3-5 members with distinct personalities, they could really show how taking down each Idol leader takes parts out of the whole, until they get desperate enough that it's pitiable. Panteros could have been a really interesting case where Neenah's "family" idea wins over the hearts of some individuals, and we simply stoke the flames of rebellion until it topples itself. Maybe even using Nahuali as the head of this rebellion, only for him to betray us once he's back on top.
The saddest part of this is seeing the potential for cool, Saints Row style stories being completely flattened by a misunderstanding of what the fans liked and poor writing direction. There's a spark of something there, but the fire never caught alight.
Also as a big fan of the color coding of all the saints row games, it never sat right with me that the Nahuali never got purple duds. I could see his betrayal coming from a mile away based on his shirt color alone. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not, but i want it to be noted.
Id like to dedicate this comment to
"Thats nice, Eli. I'll leave a carbon footprint on your throat."
Had me cackling like a hyena as i listened to this on my way to work
The one that got me was shortly after: "Eli, mate, you are so goddamn basic I could code you on an Atari."
All he would need to do is make a follow command. You now have Eli.
Personally I felt that the third had some highlights... I liked Oleg... but he also kinda broke things, cause call him into a fight and then all of a sudden he's punching cars, and killing everyone taking cover behind them. The third felt like a... Chibi version. It's kinda cute and silly, and looks like the thing you like but it's soft and pliable without any of the steel that really gave the thing structure.
I appreciate your commitment to dissecting even lousy games like this. An Alan Moore interview comes to mind, where he recommended as a writer to read bad books. His logic being reading only good books and finding inspiration in them carries the risk of plagiarism and/or making something that's too similar to the original. Whereas with something bad, you're able to analyze and understand what makes that book bad, which is immensely more helpful for developing as a writer.
20:36 It's pretty sad that this little edit made me smile so much more than playing the actual game.
And your video Snake. Love All your vids.
Saints Row 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. It invokes such nostalgia to me because of the soundtrack (mix 107.77 still best 80’s station in any game!) the characters and Stilwater itself. The characters felt natural and pretty charming. Plus, most of the comedy was kept in the mini games, so the main story could be serious. I feel like the new saints row has the exact problems saints row the third and all the other games after that had, trying too hard to be funny, rather than having a good mix. Plus after seeing how the devs reacted to valid concerns and criticism, I think they got what was coming to them. Saints Row 2022 is a miserable reminder that we may never get another game in the series because of this.
I’m more and more coming around to a cynical mindset of, “they deserve to die.”
When Halo 4 happened, and the Halo series spiraled out of control into what it is now, I remember thinking, “3 was fine, 4 was unnecessary but at least provided some closure to the Master Chief’s story, but everything else is a mistake and they should just let this series die already.” That was the first instance of me actually wishing a series I loved would end already, because I was sick of seeing it get milked dry like a cash cow and twisted well out of its own proportions for no good reason.
Saints Row has been added to that list. With how wildly extreme 3 and 4 got, while I can see the logic behind a reboot that goes back to the very VERY beginning, it’s clear that Volition was never equipped to handle the job. At this point, I don’t want another Saints Row, I just want it to die.
Hell, even Assassin’s Creed has reached a point where I think it’s time to terminate the damn thing, and prior to me learning how awful a company Ubisoft is, I used to cherish that series, been with it from the very start. Nowadays, between Ubisoft being shit and the AC games growing more and more stagnant in their refusal to move the plot in any significant direction (how many times? _How many times_ are we going to keep going back in time and shoving Assassins and Templars into ancient history, before we _finally_ decide to do something about the god damned modern day plot thread?), I’m just at a point where I don’t want to hear about it anymore. I just want those games to end so that I don’t have to continue being reminded how bitter that series has become for me.
same thing with dead rising, really. went from a story that took itself seriously but allowed you to undercut it by dressing up as a servbot, to crafting wacky, zany and (dare i say) quirky magical laser swords and endless quipping
Funny thing is that Yakuza also does that. You have extremely serious main story spiced up with ridiculous humour in the side missions and that's one of the reasons why it's such a great franchise.
Boss listening to Unsung by Helmet while Niko was listening to Remedy by Black Crowley. Ah 2008.. Take me back..
After finishing the video I feel like you owe me something, possibly the soul that was sucked from my body.
Kinda funny how snake's script is like the opposite of the game's: Funny, knows what it's going for, confident without being overconfident, and insightful. Wanting to make the Saints conventionally likable while being psychos was such a fundamentally misguided idea because... Nobody likes Saints Row Boss or GTAV Trevor or Sundowner or Caim or whoever because they're *cool guys you'd want to hang with*.
You know what? That scene where Eli wants to take a hybrid car and makes you listen to his favorite motivational speaker made me think of something.
In other Saints row games Eli would have been called a "pussy" by the boss or another character in the group. The other gangs would tear into him something FIERCE!!
He would play more like their adopted chiwawa that they keep around because hes good with money and stuff. They would protect him and tolerate his "antics," but everyone would still mention his "antics."
When he says, "Your carbon footprint matters," at the MOST, someone would have at least said, "SHUT UP ELI!"
Can you imagine Kinzie dealing with Eli’s nonsense? Even Pierce would be clowning on the guy.
@MrSoopSA Eli and the other characters suck. But Eli literally does nothing as far as I am aware. He serves no narrative purpose. Maybe the other two in a very, very small way.
But Eli is a "bitch" and a "pussy". Everyone in the group would be straight dogging on his ass and slaying him to pieces. He is a whiny, pretentious. Condasending, poser that wants to play criminal.
He makes dumb ass plans. He dresses goofy as all hell. He is useless in almost every sense of the word. AND!!!! This dude couldn't bag a bitch if his ass worked in a grocery store!
The ONLY WAY, his character COULD WORK, is in the way I mentioned.
The gang likes money, as all gangs do, so Eli is their "money guy."
So he's counting the money. He is keeping track of who, what, where, when, and why there is or is not money flowing in.
He WOULD BE the most ANNOYING AS HELL Bookkeeper!
BUT!!! He gets away with it because he is a WIZ with numbers, and he knows better ways to launder said money into "legitimate" business to get a good mix of CLEAN and DIRTY money.
So as MUCH as they or other people may dog on him for being..."himself." He is SO book smart that he fills a needed role in the gang. Not everyone can just go around shooting people and robbing liquor stores. Some people need to do the actual "buisness" side of things.
@@victormercado278 Who do you think would get less respect; Eli, or Josh from The Third?
@@Tzilandi Eli. 100%. also (unrelated) but why the fuck do my comments keep getting deleted on every single thing I comment on????
Didn't I write a whole thing explaning how Eli would better fit into the game by changing his purpose and filling a needed hole in the buisness?!?
I swear it's either TH-cam itself or its the people that run the channel. I swear it happens everywhere, every time.
@@victormercado278 It's youtube. They've even started sending me threatening popups about terminating my account for crossing community guidelines. As if starting a new account is some huge hurdle.
Great video, really stood out in the sea of ""Old Saints Row used to be better because they didnt care about offending people" stuff. This is a souless game made in the vision of some sales exec who *thinks* they know what people want and terrible writers
I don't know why, but Eli's model makes me unreasonably angry. The man is a literal matchstick. It looks like the devs balanced a watermelon on 2 toothpicks and decided to make a model out of it, and assign it to one of the most prominent characters in the game, who's supposed to be a founding member of a criminal empire. I am so mad and I do not know why.
Watching the combat in this game is just another justification towards my hatred of health bars in modern day shooters. Fucking hell it feels like an excuse developers use to give enemies more health than they should have.
The peter principle is really fascinating, I'm surprised this is the first time I've heard about it.
I heard the concept of being promoted out of your area of competency. But didn't know it had a useful name to refer to it.
And they STILL didn't bring back cutscene replay. For customization junkies like me, it's easily the biggest draw in games like this to me, and theater mode was damn near the very best part of SR2. Getting to replay those awesome cinematics in different outfits! It drove me nuts when the feature was dropped in all subsequent installments.
Yeah!! Seeing how crazy you could look or how badass was perfect for character customizing!
“We really need to use the Saints Row brand or we are going completely bankrupt”
Well that aged interestingly.