The main thing that bugs me about this game is that I never felt the first four games in the franchise were particularly offensive. They did have raunchy jokes but nothing that you wouldn't see on a Family Guy or South Park episode. So them freaking out about the franchise's edgier past is ridiculous.
This is why it is fundamentally immoral to try to move the Ovington Window. In order to make the world as moral as yourself. The past must be made to be immoral.
2 has some teeth to it but it wasn't really pushing the envelope. 3 & 4 are so irrevent & over the top you can't really be offended without looking like a spiteful nun mad at teenagers drinking soda pop. There really wasn't anything to apologize for.
I don't know whether or not this happened, but it feels as if new writers and developers were brought in. SR 2022's development team is unlikely to have many crew members from the previous titles' development.
These days there's more and more media of all kinds coming out that makes me and many people think the same. It really shows how much the modern entertainment industry seems to live permanently in a bubble isolated from the real world.
@@hihihi1q23 Lmao, it's definitely one of the main reasons why the game flopped. It was woke af even the writing was pretty telling of MUH STUDENT LOANS. We're going to call it for what it is whether you refuse to believe it or not. Volition attacked their own audience. The people that have worked on the previous Saints Row games are long gone. The only people at Volition now are just new spinsters just trying to cash in the franchise while disrespecting the franchise at the same time - you're only half right on that part.
My favorite part about the Saints Row reboot was the community manager comparing the game's critics to ''terrorists''. Speaks volumes about the sort of mindset that was behind the reboot's development.
Yea u know they’re leftwing liberals. Only they call people terrorists that disagree and/or fascists. I just cant believe they actually have paying student loan debt as a feature. Let me guess they’re criminals because they couldnt pay their loans I never played this game and now i dont wanna buy it. They tried to be goofy like far cry but they made its stupid
@@DedAlexFiveWell to be fair any game should have their community managers and moderators in the credits in some way, at least as thanks. They are doing service for the success of the product after all.
The saddest part about Saints Row reboot and really any current day remakes made for the 'modern audience' is there's no reflection from the creators when the product inevitably bombs. Not even an apology for failing to meet up to the standards of what the IP used to mean. Instead you'll have single developers gripe on Twitter about how it's OUR fault or they blame the publisher for not allowing them to do whatever they wanted without restrictions. They never ever learn.
They never learn because of an unwavering belief that everyone who disagrees with them is a racist, homophobe, bigot, or some other category in the basket of deplorables, and they assume that there's nothing to learn from such ignorant, evil creatures. The lack of reflection is built in, because it's an ideology that heavily relies on poisoning the well. But more importantly, they never learn because they see themselves as the teacher... and no matter how much pushback they get from their students, they're gonna teach you a lesson.
@@hihihi1q23 If you aren't just a shit-tier troll you're an actual moron. Trying to impress people and trying to win praise from the audience are two totally different things. Everyone who creates things wants to impress their audience. The devs of this game wanted to win tongue baths from humorless, terminally-offended 'SJWs'. If you aren't just a crap troll your reading comprehension is really bad. All I can really say is stay in school because you desperately need education.
@@Hinokassaudifan1not all of us. Some of us don't really mind about the wokeness and hipster style. My main complaint is the game's state like the audio is terrible, bugs and so on. So terrorist are usually applied to those who don't subscribe to the wokeness of the game. I'm fine with the wokeness I like the toning down of callous humour and lessen the sexual exploitation of women in particular.
Fun fact, all the pride flags in spiderman are removed for the middle east region, so glad developers only have a spine when it comes to things that are only accepted in western countries.
This channel seems a safe place for my brain, hearing stuff with actual sense, reasononing. I may not agree with everything, but I don't need to. I love my opinion to be challenged as long as it's done the right way. And most of all, I love when content gives me something to think about. Although, in this case, I agree with everything. Saints Row has been butchered by those who actually created it for absurd cowardly reasons. And I hate this because I loved Saints Row, and now it's going to be canceled because the developers are going the spineless route. Geez.
Despite what some may think, the opposite of a good game isnt a bad one. At least with bad games SOME form of enjoyment can be gained. Even if ironically No, the opposite of a good game isnt a bad one. The opposite is a boring game and man did this version of Saints Row do that perfectly. What a shame
The worst sin of any media isn’t being bad, it’s being boring. Anonymous Agony (infamous Visual Novel) thrives on its absurd plot and voice acting. The Room and Super Mario Bros (1993) are classic weird movies. Saints Row (2022) will be forgotten compared to its excellent, and even its meh, predecessors.
Huh. You have a point. Sometimes Objectively bad games can be fun if you have the right mindset or a particular set of expectations... Take the Cdi-Phlips Games for example. They are objectively bad games... but they are great games when it comes to the memes. They probably kickstarted the UA-cam Poop Videos. You know?
Deadly Premonition is a mess of a game from it's graphics to it's gameplay, story and dialogue and by many metrics it fits the bill of being a bad game. However that game is so bizzare and hilarious at the same time that it's built a cult fanbase around it since it came out in 2010.
@@Sophnar0747not really. I personally think it's good they tone down the edgyness. Never been a fan of it and the edgyness just reminds me of those edgy Americans with loose personality. The type of people we see as a stereotype on Americans. It's been known in Chile, where I live, that most old white guys come here are conservative minded edge lord and a major jerk too. We are tired of them coming here talking about politics and missing traditional women while being edgy.
My favourite part of the story is how it presents the betrayal as a giant mystery, worthy of big reveals and plot repercussions. You know who the traitor is the second he's invited to join you, lmao.
Julius betraying you was a gigantic shock. Troy being a cop was pretty god damn obvious, so you would have expected the backstab to come from him. But to come from the man who saved your life, built you up, and founded the entire thing? And to do so for reasons that make _perfect sense,_ even if they're still betrayal and lead to you two fighting in the end? It was a shock.
@@hihihi1q23 You're talking to the same people who refuse to acknowledge that was the reason the third and fourth games went in a different direction, the devs didn't want to the series to be branded as bootleg GTA anymore.
1:44 to 1:55 perfectly describes the eventual fate of every beloved game developer. They will ALL turn out this way eventually. Start off making genuinely good games and building consumer faith. Then as the years go on old blood leaves, new blood joins, and the quality decreases. This is why I no longer have ANY sense of loyalty to any single company. They will ALL eventually be filed with incompetent employees who will just cut every corner possible, make a product with 0 care put into it, and just assume their former goodwill will just sell the product for them.
@@Sophnar0747 For me it's Obsidian, Outer Worlds was the canary in the coal mine for me. While it's not a completely awful game. It is aggressively mediocre, and the characters were all terrible, the cracks are starting to show. This particularly makes me sad, because there aren't a lot of people making CRPG's. We've got Owlcat games, InXile, and Larion studios, and I'm *really* anxious about Larion. They haven't declined yet, but man, the timeline's getting pretty close.
I love how they felt to diversify a series in which you ran a gang that was already completely diverse in terms of race, sexuality and even gender from the jump. In their quest to include everyone, they destroyed something inclusive people loved. Why I hate the "it was always political!" argument when a show goes off the deep end. Sure, it might have been.. but it's about the execution and intent.
I completely agree with you. Politics can be inserted subtly, organically. Then there's the way the "everything is politics" crowd do it - by ham-fistedly jamming their sophomoric political views into everything they touch. Less like art and more like something a toddler played with, leaving their sticky, grubby fingerprints all over it.
@@hihihi1q23 Actual quotes from the lead devs: "We worked really hard to build on the diversity of the characters" "One of the questions raised in the roundtable with the game's developers was that of cultural appropriation" "There was an explicit focus on making the team producing the game as diverse as the characters in it" So you're wrong, of course. But imagine the kind of game they could have made if their focus was less on diversity and more on actually making a good game?
@@paulw5039Seriously? Why? No wonder this game's so bad. I don't give two craps what the developers look like, I care what software they make. Literally just sell a good game and I'll buy it.
Saint’s Row 3 was one of the first games I ever saw that let you completely customize your character’s clothing, body type, and voice without any gendered restrictions. Want to be a drag queen or a masculine body with e female voice? Go for it. It’s actually awesome for the level of customization it had.
Exactly that. Saints Row was diverse from the start. It just didn't used to be rubbed in your face all the time. Today, diversity is always and everywhere emphasised, where before it didn't need any extra words for it. In recent years, words like diversity have become buzzwords, which is detrimental to what is actually a good thing.
6:28 The sad thing is, this "villain is pro (insert social cause)" idea is pretty common among online activists. You'll see plenty of posts where it's just a PNG of a fictional character against an activist flag (usually a sexuality or gender flag) with the caption reading "(X) character supports (Y) rights!". This extends to how certain villains are perceived too, where people will get offended if a villain does something that's seen as bigoted... Even though they're the villain (e.g., Pennywise killing a gay couple, despite being a child-eating horror monster). In real life, who cares if an awful person supports your cause? "Well, he may have been a drug trafficker, but at least he wasn't homophobic", or something. If anything, you'd rather these people not support your cause, because it makes your group look bad if they try to speak for you as an ally.
The two biggest dark moments from the series was from two was where aisha dies and johnny confronts her killer in the graveyard. And how you fail to save carlos the guy who was with you from the start of the game is on the verge of dying by having been dragged from the back of a truck and the only thing that the mc does while not wanting to do is put him out of his misery as the only way to do anything for him. There was nearly nothing like that in this game. Moments that change characters forever due to some tragedy they went through.
It's so weird how the game sanitizes itself so much in a desperate attempt to not offend anyone and be "diverse™", yet there's still nudity and every character is physically-fit.
Thinking of the humor I just remember from the first game when Gat is handed a yellow shirt and goes "I'm yellow enough as it is." I miss lines like that
Saints Row 2022 makes me appreciate Saints Row 4.. edit - also, it really gets my goat that Saints Row 2 had some of the darkest, grittiest storytelling of a GTA clone I've played, on par with GTA IV, and SR3-4 just went completely goofy funny with none of the darkness. Aisha dying, the gangbanger being buried alive. They never surpassed that and they never could. Volition is dead and gone.
In my entire playthrough the only joke that gave me a chuckle was from some random pedestrian yelling at me that they need to take a shit. That's it. Gone is the charm that Johnny, Pierce and Shaundi brought in 2. Also Nahualli's betrayal has to be one of the dumbest villain motivations I have ever experienced.
Thank you for understanding dark humor. Joking allows me to take the darkness in the world and turn it into something more positive. It's my pressure release valve. I can understand if people who don't understand it find it distasteful, but holding more of the darkness inside isn't good for me.
Hope the devs are ready to join that classless moneyless commune they harped on about in the game. If this is their output they'll be joining them soon enough. Seriously, saying "balls" for 5 minutes, Erkle as a gang member, the most braindead possible reason to start a gang, and the weakest humor possible? They also became quite capitalist when dlc was about to drop. Guess they could hear the axe getting a good sharpening in the room next door
Love your clarification of what edgy or dark comedy is. Couldn't agree more. A way to cope and laugh at the dark and inhumane. YES! I've always thought this. It IS silliness. Finding the lighter aspects of real word trauma and laughing at the taboo. The saying comes to mind "if you don't laugh at the world, you'll cry" and that is how it is for me ....I deeply care about things and people but I must laugh or I'll cry. The woke crowd have never understood this.
@@hihihi1q23 No? I think thats just your schizophrenia acting up. You know if you have to descibe anyone with an opposing view to you as 'crying', then you have a weak-ass argument. Like, if thats the case then what you're doing right now is crying about 'anti-woke' people. Which BTW is just a strange way of saying 'normal people who don't view being offended as a hobby'.
Finding humor in everything has done wonders to help me get my life on track and get out of my depression state. So the fact that people who refuse to find humor in anything are miserable losers makes complete sense.
Or to put it another way: for many of us, video games are a means of escaping reality for a few hours here and there and not having to think about our problems all the time.
"Cowardly & Ashamed of its Past" sadly describes over half of the video game industry now. I feel the same thing with the new God of War games, we'll never get a classic style God of War again because the new devs seem ashamed of the games that made the series great. I fully suspect Grand Theft Auto 6 will end up being similar to Saint's Row 2022 in this regard.
Hearing Keith David talk about how "today is the day unlike any other day that has come before it" and how you'll administer the "biggest smackdown" was hilarious to me back in the day. To see this now, having been with the series since 2, it breaks my heart. Forgive my language, but Gat said it best: They traded their dicks for pussies. Saints name used to mean more than body spray and some ass tasting energy drinks (or in our case, poorly written re-makes of beloved series).
I am a Big Fan of 3, 4, and even Gat Out of Hell, but I refused to get this one. I have nothing but respect for those like you who have played this just to show us how bad it was. Keep up the Great Work Sophia.
I 100%-ted the game, it was... okay, the bugs drove me nuts, the times I had to reload the game after it would crash on the closing cutscene on a 20 minute long mission drove me nuts. The main problem is the absolutely abysmal writing for the game, the whole double-cross at the end of "I want your friends to be my friends" was laugable at best, and for all the wrong reasons. They forces stupid references in the game hoping to be like Portal, like with the whole Waffle Maker refrences and that childrens board game that played all of once in a cutscene, and what was with the villian making them portray a sitcom at the end??? There was no set up. So a lot of the story is lost. I did hear they just reused the engine from Agents of Mayhem to save money, which explains why the game plays so poorly, it took them nearly 2 years to fix AoM.
@@Larry I saw it. But Volition chose to neither use the engine nor aesthetics from Saints Row 2, but only what they sharted out from Saints Row 4 and Agents of Mayhem so I do think they lied as a way to attract old fans for Shits Row 22.
One of my major gripes about this Saints Row in particular is the lack of personality from literally anyone except maybe the Marshall Cowboy dude. Every character was a person. The boss despite being a CAC had a personality that made me believe they existed in the time between the games. The running joke about Gat always being stabbed in the stomach. Gat being a hyper violent sociopath who also has a massive amount of love for both Aisha and his best friend. Shaundi going from a drugged out sex symbol to a woman shaped by tragedy and trauma losing the fun part of herself. Pierce is well... Pierce. He's the comic relief and the guy who always get's his ideas stolen. But he's extremely loyal and the only person the boss will sing with. Now my favorite tragic character: Carlos, the Boss' protégé. A young kid given the chance to be somebody the same way the Boss was given that chance in the first game. Carlos just didn't have the chance to grow into someone. His death probably lingers in the Boss' mind. It's why the boss never took on new people that weren't already skilled in someway. The crew in this game have the personalities of wet blankets with the faces of the original crew half-asseedly drawn on with shit. Also I hate the forced party outfit. A game that has great character customization and I'm forced to wear an outfit that I don't like and looks weird on any character that doesn't have a feminine body type.
3:23 These activist diversity-equity-inclusion (D.E.I., or rearranged to "D.I.E." if you want to do it like that) initiatives, despite their claimed intentions, actually hurt creativity (long rant ahead). Because of their need to make social statements, they bog down their fantasy world with real-world politics, and cause them to feel less immersive. They could've made a fantasy world where sexuality isn't important, but then you couldn't virtue single about it, could they? I'm not a Star Trek fan, but I know one basis for that series was that humanity's major issues like racial strife, resource allocation, etc. were mostly (if not completely) resolved, allowing the series to be a somewhat-utopian vision where they explore such concepts in more fantastical ways. These new brand of writers actually hurt their causes by causing the groups they claim to care about to constantly be re-victimized over and over again (e.g., the protagonist is black, so clearly we must make a reference to their race, either in the work or outside of it). Instead of representing the world as they want it (or a fantasy world without these specific issues), they always represent what they think the real world is like, which at that point, why consume a piece of fiction that just gives you the same nonsense you deal with in real life? On a related note, because they're bogged down by real-world elements, they can only explore these concepts through a human-lens that uses real-life events as a crutch. Instead of making aliens with their own cultures and histories, they just try to replicate real world events and politics, which makes them less interesting to consume. This writing style can make the messages these writers push even worse, because they might clash with the actual details of the fantasy world itself. To use She-Hulk as an example, Jennifer's feminist rant about "controlling her anger" better than Bruce fails because in-universe, Bruce has had a far worse life than her (the man literally tried to off himself, but the Hulk wouldn't let him). However, journalists will tell you that it's a good scene because it represents "the real world" (which is its own conversation), even though it completely clashes with what's been established in the MCU. So not only does this writing style bog everything down in real-life victimhood, you're supposed to just accept it because its "realistic", even if the way its presented makes the entertainment worse.
At least we still have the Postal series, which has maintained its sense of humor and violence. It hasn't kowtowed to the easily offended and shows a true appreciation for the fans and community that support it.
And when the developers (Running With Scissors) made the mistake of outsourcing a garbage sequel that ended up alienating their core audience, they apologized, distanced themselves from it, and made several proper sequels in-house that didn't disappoint. They may be the only company in the business with self-awareness.
Postal 4 is terrible though. It's an unoptimized mess, looks like a steam early access indie game, and traded the edgy humor and social commentary for nothing but reddit humor and sex jokes that a 15 year old would groan at. They clearly were too afraid of offernding anyone.
I’m just so proud it failed so miserably. They create a problem splintering the fanbase between styles of 1-2 and 3-4 (though imo 4 and Gat are their own and 3 is it’s own as 3 doesn’t go far enough but is too far from 1-2). I like 1-2-4-Gat, and think 3 has the worst of both ends. I digress. But 4 and Gat gave plot ways to return to the original style or backtrack and find a way to appeal to everyone (imo having “video game” missions with super powers would’ve been a fun compromise) Then they released Agents of Diversity, flopped got tons of feedback from their audience and instead of listening (again) said “we don’t need you” and here we are. Actively hostile to their fans when 4 ended with a thank you to the fans. 4 gets a bad rap, I get why, but it did expand on characters from past games in certain side missions and I liked that in my replay. They didn’t even make a good modern game. It looks like a game made but shelved 10+ years ago they decided to increase the resolution of and some textures and call new.
I love the OG Saints Row and have a special place in my heart for Saints Row 2. The older I got and the more often I replayed SR2 in it's entirety, I learned to appreciate how well crafted the story and game world were if you looked a bit deeper than the main plot of taking over the city for the Saints. Even from the perspective of a "political gamer", the topics of politics and social criticism were expertly woven into the world and never felt like someone was overtly trying to push a certain agenda although the game touched many such subjects. Gentrification (Ultor's big plan for Stilwater), omnipresence of megacorporations and their influence which breeds corruption and misconduct, selling out to corpos (Julius), sensationalist media resorting to questionable acts for the sake of rating instead of integrity (FUZZ and Vandalism minigames) and much more. What I loved is that you could either just enjoy being a badass gangsta without giving much though to any of this and just enjoy the mayhem and growing more powerful as a gang or explore the world and start to think more about the various things around you without either way of playing being forced upon you. The overarching theme of both games is also amazing, the Saints were created as a counterbalance to all the violent gangs to "clean the streets" from them but ended up being the same kind of group that they vowed to fight in the first place. That's a million times better than a bunch of redditors teaming up to combat their student debt out of all things.
Remember in saints row 2 where in one moment, you were driving a truck spraying shit around and in another your character mercy killed a younger member of the gang that was tortured by a rival gang, or in the promotion for saints row 2 they made fun of gta, pretty ballsy move to go after the big dog Saints row is supossed to be a criminal power fantasy with so much ridiculous shit not to become depressing
I mean, the issue I have with the Spider-Man "pride" iconography is that they gut it from places that don't allow that thing. If you actually care about your system and beliefs, then stand beside them, even if it might cost you money in the long run. They don't actually care about pride, they care about money, and that makes their thoughts on the matter loud and clear. We're just less likely to push back when it comes to that. Also the progress flag is dumb and ugly and takes away from the original meaning of the flag.
@@hihihi1q23 I mean, that's all well and good, but my issues from that game stem from the dogshit story more than the iconography. And I am not even invested in TLOU and having watched two different people play it start to finish, I can confirm it's dogshit. No amount of pandering iconography can save that kind of thing.
Another thing is in the DLC they have a few items on display that are from the old games as nods(why they even bothered to do so when the rest of the game is spitting in the face of the old games I don't know) but they even fucked that up. One of the items is legit just facing the WRONG WAY.
One of the funniest things about this game is that the ESRB rating of this game only says Use Of Drugs which means that Volition thought people drinking alcohol was way too hardcore nowadays.
Even though the ESRB literally has a separate descriptor for something with alcohol use. Isn't the "Drug Use" for the scene where the Player is tripping balls for the cheap flashback scenes?
The absolute funniest thing is how the braindead devs of nu-Saints Row don't remember how in the original Saints series the protagonist is either a Man or a Trans Woman. It is NEVER brought up how the Playa is canonically a dude in Saints 1 with no Woman options so for Saints 2 when you can be a Woman but you're still the same person and had to get surgery after getting boat exploded. If these assholes weren't pussies they'd be able to take the Boss and make the canon choice that the boss is the strongest Trans Women in fiction.
Saints Row was one of my favorite franchises, and this game was one of the biggest slaps in the face in the modern age of media. It was basically a divorce letter from something I loved, letting us all know that the Saints Row we loved will never move forward with us again.
This was the first Sophia stream I watched cause I was morbidly curious how bad this was. It’s worse than expected somehow. At least SR3 and 4 are on modern systems and I think 2 is as well. Even got 4 for $1.50 on Switch
2 never got ported to modern systems or remastered. Which sucks, because a decent chunk of the fanbase consider that to be the best one. 3 is decent as well, apparently the remaster is good, but 2 was really the last one before Volition started to slip imo. When Volition originally released SR3 it was a buggy mess with much of what was base game side content in SR2 being sold as DLC, clearly cut and held back to nickel and dime players. That's not really a problem now since when you buy the remaster all of that is presumably just integrated into the base game from the jump, but back then it struck me as shitty and I never bought another Volition game after that. Volition have been a bad company for a very long time now imo. For my money their last genuinely good game was Red Faction Guerrilla, and even that was nothing special.
@@yewtewbstew547 Saints Row 2 on GOG is nicely fixed up from its original terrible PC port. And apparently it’s on backwards compatibility on XB1 and the Series S/X. Which means you can play it’s disc if they ever delist the digital version like Rockstar did with the old GTA games. Wish it was on Switch though, but I do have a Steam Deck for it now at least.
The flag issue could've been resolved so danged easily by making cribs customizable and adding pride flags as a customization option. The fact that they're there by default only concretes what you said, it's about sending a message. But you're right, the whole thing is so cowardly annoying, you can't even go rob a bank without the characters justifying it by claiming that the owner kicked a dog.
I like that you mentioned that fans of the series come from all backgrounds, because is true unlike what the devs probably think, like in my case I'm a gay black guy I'm not a stereotypical dudebro and I was a fan of the franchise but this game oh boy I hate it so much, for many of the same reasons you already mentioned, I guess I'm not ideologically like them so I'm not included in the new crowd they're chasing, even though they love to pretend that they're "progressive" and that everything they do is for inclusiveness, woke media is just made for a bunch of regressive terminally online twitter users.
new Narwitz content?! seriously though, this game is for what I call "Neo-Puritans". it's odd. i used to live next to one of their studios and knew a couple of people that worked there. it's sad what it's become. some studios are doing this over the top pandering because of ESG and access to big money investors.
This game is a pretty good example of this modern "neo punk" or "California punk" or "Silicon Valley punk" or whatever you'd call it. Characterized by neon pink and blue, street-art graffiti, mashup of fashion styles, Reddit, Twitter, Tumblr, and oddly light-hearted and downright family-friendly tone that flip flops with being an "ally" and being a "spiteful psycho". For these rebels, "revolution" and "fighting the system" means writing blog posts about capitalism's failures on your 3000 dollar Macbook, while they wear their knee-high Linux socks, wash down their estrogen pills with the Starbucks soy latte and sell people's data to advertizers gathererd from their cacha mobile game about Vtuber dating.
Volition are a tragedy story really. Freespace 2 - the best space combat sim of all time... so good, its lacklustre sales killed the entire genre for years, because if Freespace 2 failed, how could anything else succeed? Excellent gameplay, excellent writing, a phenomenal voice acting cast; kicked to the curb by quirks of the market. They tried to adapt and change. Red Faction had some nice ideas, but it wasn't up to the same standard, and the technology wasn't quite there yet (especially on console). Then they found a new passion - initially perceived as a GTA knock-off, the Saints Row franchise went through a lot of changes, but always plunged headfirst into what was honestly fun and ridiculous and unabashed. A lot of people slam 3 and 4 for pushing too far from what they perceive as the "peak" in Saints Row 2, but they were a logical and fun progression, especially for a company that had its big spectacle sci-fi roots kicked out from under its feet. And now, this. The one thing that could unite the most rabid fans of Saints Row 2 and 3... was something so bad, both camps could reject it outright, because it rejected its own heritage.
I'm not a gamer, I played Monkey Island 3, Grim Fandango and Zork Nemesis in the 90s and that's it, I will likely never play a single modern game, but I still enjoy your game reviews greatly.
They can't legally do that because of rights issues. They had someone fixing the port in his spare time but he literally died. I think someone else took it up but it's still a passion project.
Ya know, I was hyped for this game, the customization options looked amazing and what I thought cyberpunk’s character customization was gonna be, and I was ready for the saint row experience…..then I got distracted by another game, never got to buy this game and now I’m glad I dodged a bullet
I just want a gang game again. The feeling of building a crew of killers and taking over with real threatening ops is a fun time. Your gang versus the world with you butting heads against strong leaders and the cops in a corrupt city. Saints row had that, that's what I miss. For people's divisive stance on saints row three, at least it still had this. Killbane was goofy, but he basically called you and the saints out for pussing out into celebrities instead of defending the crown as the top gang on the streets.
God, my friend tried roping me into the idea of getting this on Steam if it ever went for like $5 to rip into it together (we're both [former] fans of the series), and I'm glad I was against the idea lol
10:40 see how close that window crack is to the joke, it sincerely looks like the developers at some point at least cogitated censoring this one minor joke with a bullet hole decal
The series started with joking that the PC is in fact a character of himself, and then building on bold twists and turns turning itself into self parody with a straight face. So what is the point with this entry?
Great work Soph, glad you finally got this video out and I remember all the horrors and boredom. Too bad they just didn't give this game a new name as you sad, and let it sit in the dust bin of history.
I’m glad this game failed. You can’t be afraid to offend someone when making comedy, because the “modern audience” doesn’t exist and even if they did they wouldn’t support things like this.
Great video Sophia and well said. Its one thing to have a crappy storyline/characters, but to have basic, uninspired, broken gameplay with bugs and glitches and a decent-looking but hollow open-world ON TOP of a bad narrative is just wild to me. I don't know how Saints Row comes back after this since SR2022 was the second reboot (I count Agents of Mayhem as the 1st) and Volition seems hell bent on not returning to its gangsta roots. It'd be astonishing if they double downed on these characters and actually gave them a sequel (since Volition refuses to listen to their fanbase on what they want).
Miss me?
No :)
maybe..
you goddamn right i did.
No:)
Y
E
S
Also, you know Volition done goofed when they managed to enrage the SR3 and SR4 fans along with the SR1 and SR2 fans. They got what they deserved.
They united the fanbase after all
I'm that 1% of fans that loved them all, even AoM, but this game broke me.
For real. 😅
On God
@@AspirantVeeVeeWhat about Gat out of Hell?
The main thing that bugs me about this game is that I never felt the first four games in the franchise were particularly offensive. They did have raunchy jokes but nothing that you wouldn't see on a Family Guy or South Park episode. So them freaking out about the franchise's edgier past is ridiculous.
This is why it is fundamentally immoral to try to move the Ovington Window. In order to make the world as moral as yourself. The past must be made to be immoral.
It is like Principal Skinner's angst over his having smelled Marijuana smoke back in Vietnam.
this one is way more offensive than any previous entry, the old ones at least gave latino names to latino characters
2 has some teeth to it but it wasn't really pushing the envelope.
3 & 4 are so irrevent & over the top you can't really be offended without looking like a spiteful nun mad at teenagers drinking soda pop.
There really wasn't anything to apologize for.
I don't know whether or not this happened, but it feels as if new writers and developers were brought in. SR 2022's development team is unlikely to have many crew members from the previous titles' development.
I genuinely don’t know how any one at the office thought this game was a good idea.
These days there's more and more media of all kinds coming out that makes me and many people think the same. It really shows how much the modern entertainment industry seems to live permanently in a bubble isolated from the real world.
These people are so obsessed with being offended, any sense of humor is long dead in them.
These devs haven't worked on a saints row game before that is why
@@inendlesspain4724 The bubble they live in is called Twitter.
@@hihihi1q23 Lmao, it's definitely one of the main reasons why the game flopped. It was woke af even the writing was pretty telling of MUH STUDENT LOANS. We're going to call it for what it is whether you refuse to believe it or not. Volition attacked their own audience. The people that have worked on the previous Saints Row games are long gone. The only people at Volition now are just new spinsters just trying to cash in the franchise while disrespecting the franchise at the same time - you're only half right on that part.
My favorite part about the Saints Row reboot was the community manager comparing the game's critics to ''terrorists''.
Speaks volumes about the sort of mindset that was behind the reboot's development.
Isnt this also the game with a "Thank you to the Saints Row Discord Mods" in the end credits?
Yea u know they’re leftwing liberals.
Only they call people terrorists that disagree and/or fascists.
I just cant believe they actually have paying student loan debt as a feature.
Let me guess they’re criminals because they couldnt pay their loans
I never played this game and now i dont wanna buy it.
They tried to be goofy like far cry but they made its stupid
@@DedAlexFiveWell to be fair any game should have their community managers and moderators in the credits in some way, at least as thanks. They are doing service for the success of the product after all.
The saddest part about Saints Row reboot and really any current day remakes made for the 'modern audience' is there's no reflection from the creators when the product inevitably bombs. Not even an apology for failing to meet up to the standards of what the IP used to mean. Instead you'll have single developers gripe on Twitter about how it's OUR fault or they blame the publisher for not allowing them to do whatever they wanted without restrictions. They never ever learn.
Saints Row 4?
(Thanks for correcting the comment)
It's okay Black Rock will bail them out
"Its the fans' fault our game made for people who werent our fans bombed" is peak 2023 videogame development really
They never learn because of an unwavering belief that everyone who disagrees with them is a racist, homophobe, bigot, or some other category in the basket of deplorables, and they assume that there's nothing to learn from such ignorant, evil creatures. The lack of reflection is built in, because it's an ideology that heavily relies on poisoning the well. But more importantly, they never learn because they see themselves as the teacher... and no matter how much pushback they get from their students, they're gonna teach you a lesson.
Damn Broda I didn't expect you to be here!
Everything they did in this game felt so performative. You can feel their desperation for praise from the audience they were trying to impress.
@@hihihi1q23wanting praise and wanting to impress are two entirely different things.
@@hihihi1q23 Volition already had an audience for SR, but they decided to completely abandon them.
@@hihihi1q23 If you aren't just a shit-tier troll you're an actual moron. Trying to impress people and trying to win praise from the audience are two totally different things. Everyone who creates things wants to impress their audience. The devs of this game wanted to win tongue baths from humorless, terminally-offended 'SJWs'. If you aren't just a crap troll your reading comprehension is really bad. All I can really say is stay in school because you desperately need education.
Don't forget that this game's "community manager" called each and every one of us "terrorists". 😊
Yeah if hating this toothless woke garbage makes me a terrorist then I guess I'm proud to be one
wait fr?
@@coltoon3431 what? You haven't heard? Take a look yourself. Search for it here.
@@Hinokassaudifan1not all of us. Some of us don't really mind about the wokeness and hipster style. My main complaint is the game's state like the audio is terrible, bugs and so on.
So terrorist are usually applied to those who don't subscribe to the wokeness of the game. I'm fine with the wokeness I like the toning down of callous humour and lessen the sexual exploitation of women in particular.
@user-ti6ix5tn2o so jokes bad but butt naked mission good? You're worst than the worries who destroyed the game
Fun fact, all the pride flags in spiderman are removed for the middle east region, so glad developers only have a spine when it comes to things that are only accepted in western countries.
Pretty sure the banned mod for removing them was just enabling that version of the game too lol
@@elvickRULES i wanted to bring that up but i felt like it bloated my comment to much
@@elvickRULES Yet Nexus mods threw a fit over it eventhough it made them hypocrites.
Leftist double standards. Americans are not allowed to dislike rainbow flags but their precous middle easterns get a pass.
So what’s that Spider-Man mod that I can delete the gay flags?
Remember: This travesty cost over *$100 million* to develop
Must be money laundering 😂😭
And Volition paid the price. Studio shut down.
The game that brought together SR2 and SR3 fans in hating it. Welcome back, Soph
This channel seems a safe place for my brain, hearing stuff with actual sense, reasononing. I may not agree with everything, but I don't need to. I love my opinion to be challenged as long as it's done the right way. And most of all, I love when content gives me something to think about. Although, in this case, I agree with everything. Saints Row has been butchered by those who actually created it for absurd cowardly reasons. And I hate this because I loved Saints Row, and now it's going to be canceled because the developers are going the spineless route. Geez.
I agree, who knew that my opinion on an awful game would lead me to finding a pretty cool UA-camr.
Despite what some may think, the opposite of a good game isnt a bad one. At least with bad games SOME form of enjoyment can be gained. Even if ironically
No, the opposite of a good game isnt a bad one. The opposite is a boring game and man did this version of Saints Row do that perfectly. What a shame
Holy cow your point is perfect.
The worst sin of any media isn’t being bad, it’s being boring. Anonymous Agony (infamous Visual Novel) thrives on its absurd plot and voice acting. The Room and Super Mario Bros (1993) are classic weird movies. Saints Row (2022) will be forgotten compared to its excellent, and even its meh, predecessors.
Huh. You have a point. Sometimes Objectively bad games can be fun if you have the right mindset or a particular set of expectations... Take the Cdi-Phlips Games for example. They are objectively bad games... but they are great games when it comes to the memes. They probably kickstarted the UA-cam Poop Videos. You know?
Deadly Premonition is a mess of a game from it's graphics to it's gameplay, story and dialogue and by many metrics it fits the bill of being a bad game. However that game is so bizzare and hilarious at the same time that it's built a cult fanbase around it since it came out in 2010.
I'd argue this game is bad AND boring which is even worse.
The series known for being edgy is now afraid of even mild edge
A modern day tragedy 😢
This is just the precursor to what will happen with GTA 6. Mark my word.
@@Sophnar0747not really. I personally think it's good they tone down the edgyness. Never been a fan of it and the edgyness just reminds me of those edgy Americans with loose personality. The type of people we see as a stereotype on Americans. It's been known in Chile, where I live, that most old white guys come here are conservative minded edge lord and a major jerk too. We are tired of them coming here talking about politics and missing traditional women while being edgy.
My favourite part of the story is how it presents the betrayal as a giant mystery, worthy of big reveals and plot repercussions.
You know who the traitor is the second he's invited to join you, lmao.
Julius betraying you was a gigantic shock. Troy being a cop was pretty god damn obvious, so you would have expected the backstab to come from him. But to come from the man who saved your life, built you up, and founded the entire thing?
And to do so for reasons that make _perfect sense,_ even if they're still betrayal and lead to you two fighting in the end? It was a shock.
His machinations clearly LAID UNDETECTED!
His motivation is even dumber than the obvious setup.
Exactly 😂
@@hihihi1q23 You're talking to the same people who refuse to acknowledge that was the reason the third and fourth games went in a different direction, the devs didn't want to the series to be branded as bootleg GTA anymore.
1:44 to 1:55 perfectly describes the eventual fate of every beloved game developer. They will ALL turn out this way eventually. Start off making genuinely good games and building consumer faith. Then as the years go on old blood leaves, new blood joins, and the quality decreases.
This is why I no longer have ANY sense of loyalty to any single company. They will ALL eventually be filed with incompetent employees who will just cut every corner possible, make a product with 0 care put into it, and just assume their former goodwill will just sell the product for them.
Sad but true. It’s happened far too many times. Another recent one that hurts me is Arkane.
@@Sophnar0747 For me it's Obsidian, Outer Worlds was the canary in the coal mine for me. While it's not a completely awful game. It is aggressively mediocre, and the characters were all terrible, the cracks are starting to show.
This particularly makes me sad, because there aren't a lot of people making CRPG's. We've got Owlcat games, InXile, and Larion studios, and I'm *really* anxious about Larion. They haven't declined yet, but man, the timeline's getting pretty close.
At least Valve still has got it. They proved that with alyx.
Follow the devs, not the companies
I love how they felt to diversify a series in which you ran a gang that was already completely diverse in terms of race, sexuality and even gender from the jump. In their quest to include everyone, they destroyed something inclusive people loved.
Why I hate the "it was always political!" argument when a show goes off the deep end. Sure, it might have been.. but it's about the execution and intent.
I completely agree with you. Politics can be inserted subtly, organically. Then there's the way the "everything is politics" crowd do it - by ham-fistedly jamming their sophomoric political views into everything they touch. Less like art and more like something a toddler played with, leaving their sticky, grubby fingerprints all over it.
@@hihihi1q23 Actual quotes from the lead devs:
"We worked really hard to build on the diversity of the characters"
"One of the questions raised in the roundtable with the game's developers was that of cultural appropriation"
"There was an explicit focus on making the team producing the game as diverse as the characters in it"
So you're wrong, of course. But imagine the kind of game they could have made if their focus was less on diversity and more on actually making a good game?
@@paulw5039Seriously? Why? No wonder this game's so bad. I don't give two craps what the developers look like, I care what software they make. Literally just sell a good game and I'll buy it.
Saint’s Row 3 was one of the first games I ever saw that let you completely customize your character’s clothing, body type, and voice without any gendered restrictions. Want to be a drag queen or a masculine body with e female voice? Go for it. It’s actually awesome for the level of customization it had.
Exactly that. Saints Row was diverse from the start. It just didn't used to be rubbed in your face all the time. Today, diversity is always and everywhere emphasised, where before it didn't need any extra words for it. In recent years, words like diversity have become buzzwords, which is detrimental to what is actually a good thing.
6:28 The sad thing is, this "villain is pro (insert social cause)" idea is pretty common among online activists. You'll see plenty of posts where it's just a PNG of a fictional character against an activist flag (usually a sexuality or gender flag) with the caption reading "(X) character supports (Y) rights!". This extends to how certain villains are perceived too, where people will get offended if a villain does something that's seen as bigoted... Even though they're the villain (e.g., Pennywise killing a gay couple, despite being a child-eating horror monster). In real life, who cares if an awful person supports your cause? "Well, he may have been a drug trafficker, but at least he wasn't homophobic", or something. If anything, you'd rather these people not support your cause, because it makes your group look bad if they try to speak for you as an ally.
The two biggest dark moments from the series was from two was where aisha dies and johnny confronts her killer in the graveyard. And how you fail to save carlos the guy who was with you from the start of the game is on the verge of dying by having been dragged from the back of a truck and the only thing that the mc does while not wanting to do is put him out of his misery as the only way to do anything for him. There was nearly nothing like that in this game. Moments that change characters forever due to some tragedy they went through.
I won't lie and say the ending nod to Spagetti westerns i didn't like as i did.
Sophia "Motorcycle Fucker" Narwitz graces us with another masterpiece video! Well made and edited! Glad to see you still making content!
Where does that nickname come from?
It's so weird how the game sanitizes itself so much in a desperate attempt to not offend anyone and be "diverse™", yet there's still nudity and every character is physically-fit.
@@hihihi1q23 That happens with pretty much everything that is boasting "diversity" as a selling point these days.
So since everybody is physically fit, does it mean Saints Row is fatphobic?
@@richardmarkert7736 Yep. Cancel those fuckers.
all the police officers are fat
@@richardmarkert7736yes
Thinking of the humor I just remember from the first game when Gat is handed a yellow shirt and goes "I'm yellow enough as it is."
I miss lines like that
Saints Row 2022 makes me appreciate Saints Row 4..
edit - also, it really gets my goat that Saints Row 2 had some of the darkest, grittiest storytelling of a GTA clone I've played, on par with GTA IV, and SR3-4 just went completely goofy funny with none of the darkness. Aisha dying, the gangbanger being buried alive. They never surpassed that and they never could.
Volition is dead and gone.
They have twin characters and one gets their neck snapped…
In my entire playthrough the only joke that gave me a chuckle was from some random pedestrian yelling at me that they need to take a shit. That's it. Gone is the charm that Johnny, Pierce and Shaundi brought in 2. Also Nahualli's betrayal has to be one of the dumbest villain motivations I have ever experienced.
Thank you for understanding dark humor. Joking allows me to take the darkness in the world and turn it into something more positive. It's my pressure release valve. I can understand if people who don't understand it find it distasteful, but holding more of the darkness inside isn't good for me.
Hope the devs are ready to join that classless moneyless commune they harped on about in the game. If this is their output they'll be joining them soon enough. Seriously, saying "balls" for 5 minutes, Erkle as a gang member, the most braindead possible reason to start a gang, and the weakest humor possible? They also became quite capitalist when dlc was about to drop. Guess they could hear the axe getting a good sharpening in the room next door
"Who the fuck is this game for?"
ESG scores. That's it.
"X is Cowardly & Ashamed of its Past" is a perfectly succinct way to describe a lot of things these days, from video games to entire nations.
Love your clarification of what edgy or dark comedy is. Couldn't agree more. A way to cope and laugh at the dark and inhumane. YES! I've always thought this. It IS silliness. Finding the lighter aspects of real word trauma and laughing at the taboo. The saying comes to mind "if you don't laugh at the world, you'll cry" and that is how it is for me ....I deeply care about things and people but I must laugh or I'll cry. The woke crowd have never understood this.
@@hihihi1q23 No? I think thats just your schizophrenia acting up. You know if you have to descibe anyone with an opposing view to you as 'crying', then you have a weak-ass argument. Like, if thats the case then what you're doing right now is crying about 'anti-woke' people. Which BTW is just a strange way of saying 'normal people who don't view being offended as a hobby'.
Finding humor in everything has done wonders to help me get my life on track and get out of my depression state. So the fact that people who refuse to find humor in anything are miserable losers makes complete sense.
The problem is, Woke had lost meaning. I'll just call them for they are. Vile Attention Seeking nutjobs.
Or to put it another way: for many of us, video games are a means of escaping reality for a few hours here and there and not having to think about our problems all the time.
"Cowardly & Ashamed of its Past" sadly describes over half of the video game industry now. I feel the same thing with the new God of War games, we'll never get a classic style God of War again because the new devs seem ashamed of the games that made the series great. I fully suspect Grand Theft Auto 6 will end up being similar to Saint's Row 2022 in this regard.
I've never played any of the God of War games, what's wrong with the new ones?
@@eneco3965Standardized third person PS cinematic game shlock. Its a hollow lowest common denominator game in every aspect; story, gameplay, etc.
I beat Duke Nukem Forever. Twice. I got two hours into Saints Row 2022 and just stopped playing. It’s so devoid of humor and personality.
Hearing Keith David talk about how "today is the day unlike any other day that has come before it" and how you'll administer the "biggest smackdown" was hilarious to me back in the day. To see this now, having been with the series since 2, it breaks my heart. Forgive my language, but Gat said it best: They traded their dicks for pussies. Saints name used to mean more than body spray and some ass tasting energy drinks (or in our case, poorly written re-makes of beloved series).
I am a Big Fan of 3, 4, and even Gat Out of Hell, but I refused to get this one. I have nothing but respect for those like you who have played this just to show us how bad it was. Keep up the Great Work Sophia.
I 100%-ted the game, it was... okay, the bugs drove me nuts, the times I had to reload the game after it would crash on the closing cutscene on a 20 minute long mission drove me nuts.
The main problem is the absolutely abysmal writing for the game, the whole double-cross at the end of "I want your friends to be my friends" was laugable at best, and for all the wrong reasons. They forces stupid references in the game hoping to be like Portal, like with the whole Waffle Maker refrences and that childrens board game that played all of once in a cutscene, and what was with the villian making them portray a sitcom at the end??? There was no set up. So a lot of the story is lost.
I did hear they just reused the engine from Agents of Mayhem to save money, which explains why the game plays so poorly, it took them nearly 2 years to fix AoM.
So they never recovered that lost Saints Row 2 source code. It was another lie.
@@thientuongnguyen2564 Yeah, do you watch Flippy's videos? They did find the source code apparantly.
@@Larry I saw it. But Volition chose to neither use the engine nor aesthetics from Saints Row 2, but only what they sharted out from Saints Row 4 and Agents of Mayhem so I do think they lied as a way to attract old fans for Shits Row 22.
One of my major gripes about this Saints Row in particular is the lack of personality from literally anyone except maybe the Marshall Cowboy dude. Every character was a person. The boss despite being a CAC had a personality that made me believe they existed in the time between the games. The running joke about Gat always being stabbed in the stomach. Gat being a hyper violent sociopath who also has a massive amount of love for both Aisha and his best friend. Shaundi going from a drugged out sex symbol to a woman shaped by tragedy and trauma losing the fun part of herself. Pierce is well... Pierce. He's the comic relief and the guy who always get's his ideas stolen. But he's extremely loyal and the only person the boss will sing with. Now my favorite tragic character: Carlos, the Boss' protégé. A young kid given the chance to be somebody the same way the Boss was given that chance in the first game. Carlos just didn't have the chance to grow into someone. His death probably lingers in the Boss' mind. It's why the boss never took on new people that weren't already skilled in someway. The crew in this game have the personalities of wet blankets with the faces of the original crew half-asseedly drawn on with shit. Also I hate the forced party outfit. A game that has great character customization and I'm forced to wear an outfit that I don't like and looks weird on any character that doesn't have a feminine body type.
3:23 These activist diversity-equity-inclusion (D.E.I., or rearranged to "D.I.E." if you want to do it like that) initiatives, despite their claimed intentions, actually hurt creativity (long rant ahead).
Because of their need to make social statements, they bog down their fantasy world with real-world politics, and cause them to feel less immersive. They could've made a fantasy world where sexuality isn't important, but then you couldn't virtue single about it, could they? I'm not a Star Trek fan, but I know one basis for that series was that humanity's major issues like racial strife, resource allocation, etc. were mostly (if not completely) resolved, allowing the series to be a somewhat-utopian vision where they explore such concepts in more fantastical ways. These new brand of writers actually hurt their causes by causing the groups they claim to care about to constantly be re-victimized over and over again (e.g., the protagonist is black, so clearly we must make a reference to their race, either in the work or outside of it). Instead of representing the world as they want it (or a fantasy world without these specific issues), they always represent what they think the real world is like, which at that point, why consume a piece of fiction that just gives you the same nonsense you deal with in real life?
On a related note, because they're bogged down by real-world elements, they can only explore these concepts through a human-lens that uses real-life events as a crutch. Instead of making aliens with their own cultures and histories, they just try to replicate real world events and politics, which makes them less interesting to consume. This writing style can make the messages these writers push even worse, because they might clash with the actual details of the fantasy world itself. To use She-Hulk as an example, Jennifer's feminist rant about "controlling her anger" better than Bruce fails because in-universe, Bruce has had a far worse life than her (the man literally tried to off himself, but the Hulk wouldn't let him). However, journalists will tell you that it's a good scene because it represents "the real world" (which is its own conversation), even though it completely clashes with what's been established in the MCU. So not only does this writing style bog everything down in real-life victimhood, you're supposed to just accept it because its "realistic", even if the way its presented makes the entertainment worse.
At least we still have the Postal series, which has maintained its sense of humor and violence. It hasn't kowtowed to the easily offended and shows a true appreciation for the fans and community that support it.
And when the developers (Running With Scissors) made the mistake of outsourcing a garbage sequel that ended up alienating their core audience, they apologized, distanced themselves from it, and made several proper sequels in-house that didn't disappoint. They may be the only company in the business with self-awareness.
@@hihihi1q23 Weird way to spell "I personally don't like Postal".
@@hihihi1q23 I'm sorry you're such a boring tasteless person
Postal 4 is terrible though. It's an unoptimized mess, looks like a steam early access indie game, and traded the edgy humor and social commentary for nothing but reddit humor and sex jokes that a 15 year old would groan at. They clearly were too afraid of offernding anyone.
I’m just so proud it failed so miserably. They create a problem splintering the fanbase between styles of 1-2 and 3-4 (though imo 4 and Gat are their own and 3 is it’s own as 3 doesn’t go far enough but is too far from 1-2).
I like 1-2-4-Gat, and think 3 has the worst of both ends. I digress.
But 4 and Gat gave plot ways to return to the original style or backtrack and find a way to appeal to everyone (imo having “video game” missions with super powers would’ve been a fun compromise)
Then they released Agents of Diversity, flopped got tons of feedback from their audience and instead of listening (again) said “we don’t need you” and here we are.
Actively hostile to their fans when 4 ended with a thank you to the fans. 4 gets a bad rap, I get why, but it did expand on characters from past games in certain side missions and I liked that in my replay.
They didn’t even make a good modern game. It looks like a game made but shelved 10+ years ago they decided to increase the resolution of and some textures and call new.
I can't wait for this current trend of giving creative control of franchises to people who hate the previous entries to end.
Äläpä muuta sano..
Wait...was it this game that also had the community manager go on an unhinged rant on twitter?
Yes ma’am.
Also one this games developers got caught on a pro 🍇 subreddit.
I've definitely missed your content Sophia. Hope you're doing well, that your health is improving and that you can start streaming more!
Literally one of the activities is leaving bad Yelp reviews. I bought the game when it came out and I’m still pissed
I love the OG Saints Row and have a special place in my heart for Saints Row 2. The older I got and the more often I replayed SR2 in it's entirety, I learned to appreciate how well crafted the story and game world were if you looked a bit deeper than the main plot of taking over the city for the Saints. Even from the perspective of a "political gamer", the topics of politics and social criticism were expertly woven into the world and never felt like someone was overtly trying to push a certain agenda although the game touched many such subjects. Gentrification (Ultor's big plan for Stilwater), omnipresence of megacorporations and their influence which breeds corruption and misconduct, selling out to corpos (Julius), sensationalist media resorting to questionable acts for the sake of rating instead of integrity (FUZZ and Vandalism minigames) and much more. What I loved is that you could either just enjoy being a badass gangsta without giving much though to any of this and just enjoy the mayhem and growing more powerful as a gang or explore the world and start to think more about the various things around you without either way of playing being forced upon you. The overarching theme of both games is also amazing, the Saints were created as a counterbalance to all the violent gangs to "clean the streets" from them but ended up being the same kind of group that they vowed to fight in the first place. That's a million times better than a bunch of redditors teaming up to combat their student debt out of all things.
Its was a game made by Twittier users who think that this is how gangbangers think.
Remember in saints row 2 where in one moment, you were driving a truck spraying shit around and in another your character mercy killed a younger member of the gang that was tortured by a rival gang, or in the promotion for saints row 2 they made fun of gta, pretty ballsy move to go after the big dog
Saints row is supossed to be a criminal power fantasy with so much ridiculous shit not to become depressing
I mean, the issue I have with the Spider-Man "pride" iconography is that they gut it from places that don't allow that thing. If you actually care about your system and beliefs, then stand beside them, even if it might cost you money in the long run. They don't actually care about pride, they care about money, and that makes their thoughts on the matter loud and clear. We're just less likely to push back when it comes to that. Also the progress flag is dumb and ugly and takes away from the original meaning of the flag.
@@hihihi1q23 I mean, that's all well and good, but my issues from that game stem from the dogshit story more than the iconography. And I am not even invested in TLOU and having watched two different people play it start to finish, I can confirm it's dogshit. No amount of pandering iconography can save that kind of thing.
Another thing is in the DLC they have a few items on display that are from the old games as nods(why they even bothered to do so when the rest of the game is spitting in the face of the old games I don't know) but they even fucked that up. One of the items is legit just facing the WRONG WAY.
Your character glitch humping that bike might the be the ONE dirty joke this game made that actually made me laugh
Love you as a content creator, Sophia.
ayy you watch sophia too? valid:)
One of the funniest things about this game is that the ESRB rating of this game only says Use Of Drugs which means that Volition thought people drinking alcohol was way too hardcore nowadays.
Even though the ESRB literally has a separate descriptor for something with alcohol use.
Isn't the "Drug Use" for the scene where the Player is tripping balls for the cheap flashback scenes?
The fact you felt the need to claim you’re not transphobic or homophobic is sad… not because you did it because you felt you had to.
The absolute funniest thing is how the braindead devs of nu-Saints Row don't remember how in the original Saints series the protagonist is either a Man or a Trans Woman. It is NEVER brought up how the Playa is canonically a dude in Saints 1 with no Woman options so for Saints 2 when you can be a Woman but you're still the same person and had to get surgery after getting boat exploded.
If these assholes weren't pussies they'd be able to take the Boss and make the canon choice that the boss is the strongest Trans Women in fiction.
The Paul walker joke genuinely gave me a good few chuckles.. Thank ya' for that.
You mean that guy from Tammy and the Teenage T rex?
Saints Row was one of my favorite franchises, and this game was one of the biggest slaps in the face in the modern age of media. It was basically a divorce letter from something I loved, letting us all know that the Saints Row we loved will never move forward with us again.
This was the first Sophia stream I watched cause I was morbidly curious how bad this was. It’s worse than expected somehow.
At least SR3 and 4 are on modern systems and I think 2 is as well. Even got 4 for $1.50 on Switch
2 never got ported to modern systems or remastered. Which sucks, because a decent chunk of the fanbase consider that to be the best one. 3 is decent as well, apparently the remaster is good, but 2 was really the last one before Volition started to slip imo.
When Volition originally released SR3 it was a buggy mess with much of what was base game side content in SR2 being sold as DLC, clearly cut and held back to nickel and dime players. That's not really a problem now since when you buy the remaster all of that is presumably just integrated into the base game from the jump, but back then it struck me as shitty and I never bought another Volition game after that.
Volition have been a bad company for a very long time now imo. For my money their last genuinely good game was Red Faction Guerrilla, and even that was nothing special.
@@yewtewbstew547 Saints Row 2 on GOG is nicely fixed up from its original terrible PC port. And apparently it’s on backwards compatibility on XB1 and the Series S/X. Which means you can play it’s disc if they ever delist the digital version like Rockstar did with the old GTA games. Wish it was on Switch though, but I do have a Steam Deck for it now at least.
This is why I'm gonna stick with classic Saints Row 2 & Saints Row The Third for the PS3
The flag issue could've been resolved so danged easily by making cribs customizable and adding pride flags as a customization option.
The fact that they're there by default only concretes what you said, it's about sending a message.
But you're right, the whole thing is so cowardly annoying, you can't even go rob a bank without the characters justifying it by claiming that the owner kicked a dog.
I am definitely homophobic and transphobic. It’s super cringe.
Did you know? I'm really happy to hear your voice again
Did you know: the Saints Row reboot killed Volition?
I like that you mentioned that fans of the series come from all backgrounds, because is true unlike what the devs probably think, like in my case I'm a gay black guy I'm not a stereotypical dudebro and I was a fan of the franchise but this game oh boy I hate it so much, for many of the same reasons you already mentioned, I guess I'm not ideologically like them so I'm not included in the new crowd they're chasing, even though they love to pretend that they're "progressive" and that everything they do is for inclusiveness, woke media is just made for a bunch of regressive terminally online twitter users.
new Narwitz content?!
seriously though, this game is for what I call "Neo-Puritans". it's odd.
i used to live next to one of their studios and knew a couple of people that worked there. it's sad what it's become.
some studios are doing this over the top pandering because of ESG and access to big money investors.
They can't even stand by the cringe they shoved down our throats for months. They have taken out the so called funniest joke in the game
Johnny Gat would probably just go back to hell if he saw the new saints row.
This game is a pretty good example of this modern "neo punk" or "California punk" or "Silicon Valley punk" or whatever you'd call it.
Characterized by neon pink and blue, street-art graffiti, mashup of fashion styles, Reddit, Twitter, Tumblr, and oddly light-hearted and downright family-friendly tone that flip flops with being an "ally" and being a "spiteful psycho".
For these rebels, "revolution" and "fighting the system" means writing blog posts about capitalism's failures on your 3000 dollar Macbook, while they wear their knee-high Linux socks, wash down their estrogen pills with the Starbucks soy latte and sell people's data to advertizers gathererd from their cacha mobile game about Vtuber dating.
The queen is back.
Volition are a tragedy story really. Freespace 2 - the best space combat sim of all time... so good, its lacklustre sales killed the entire genre for years, because if Freespace 2 failed, how could anything else succeed? Excellent gameplay, excellent writing, a phenomenal voice acting cast; kicked to the curb by quirks of the market.
They tried to adapt and change. Red Faction had some nice ideas, but it wasn't up to the same standard, and the technology wasn't quite there yet (especially on console).
Then they found a new passion - initially perceived as a GTA knock-off, the Saints Row franchise went through a lot of changes, but always plunged headfirst into what was honestly fun and ridiculous and unabashed. A lot of people slam 3 and 4 for pushing too far from what they perceive as the "peak" in Saints Row 2, but they were a logical and fun progression, especially for a company that had its big spectacle sci-fi roots kicked out from under its feet.
And now, this. The one thing that could unite the most rabid fans of Saints Row 2 and 3... was something so bad, both camps could reject it outright, because it rejected its own heritage.
I'm not a gamer, I played Monkey Island 3, Grim Fandango and Zork Nemesis in the 90s and that's it, I will likely never play a single modern game, but I still enjoy your game reviews greatly.
the intro had me in tears xD
what a disaster of a game
5:10 lmao finally someone running around with no pants xD that was unexpected, made me laugh
man oh man, I'm flying hight right now, new Sophia content!!! Welcome back
Glad you are still about Soph! Hope you are doing well
They could've remastered Saints Row 1 or fix the pc port for 2 but no we got this disaster.
They can't legally do that because of rights issues. They had someone fixing the port in his spare time but he literally died. I think someone else took it up but it's still a passion project.
Ya know, I was hyped for this game, the customization options looked amazing and what I thought cyberpunk’s character customization was gonna be, and I was ready for the saint row experience…..then I got distracted by another game, never got to buy this game and now I’m glad I dodged a bullet
@Anton Kushnir consider the bullet to be dodged again 👍
Never knew you were gone. New fan here. Now don't leave us again. 😢
Came to watch this after the announcement of the Volitions shut down.
I hope you liked it. 👉👈
I just want a gang game again. The feeling of building a crew of killers and taking over with real threatening ops is a fun time. Your gang versus the world with you butting heads against strong leaders and the cops in a corrupt city. Saints row had that, that's what I miss. For people's divisive stance on saints row three, at least it still had this. Killbane was goofy, but he basically called you and the saints out for pussing out into celebrities instead of defending the crown as the top gang on the streets.
You’re forgetting, evil cannot create.
WUW!! she's back :-)
I've become a big fan of your content in the year since your last video. Good to see you posting again!
Can't believe Sophia bought and played this garbage heap, just so she could watch her character struggle snuggle her motorcycle. SMDH.
Excellent video, happy to see a new video from you!
God, my friend tried roping me into the idea of getting this on Steam if it ever went for like $5 to rip into it together (we're both [former] fans of the series), and I'm glad I was against the idea lol
Sophia Narwitz is back, I'm so glad!
By the way, the wishlist link doesn't appear to work! 🙏
Thanks for watching and for the heads up about the link. It's been awhile, I'm rusty at this it appears.
Saints Row kinda looks like a total conversion mod of Saints Row 3. I don't know why you'd convert a good game into a bad game, but here we are
10:40 see how close that window crack is to the joke, it sincerely looks like the developers at some point at least cogitated censoring this one minor joke with a bullet hole decal
thing is, i remember when the reveal trailer came out, no one liked it and the devs still didnt change course
The series started with joking that the PC is in fact a character of himself, and then building on bold twists and turns turning itself into self parody with a straight face.
So what is the point with this entry?
12:00 the motorbike didn't give consent
I applause you, you gave the truth with no filter, specially with the pride flag stuff. You have more balls than many dudes online.
You perfectly summed it up “who is this for?” 🤷🏽
The crowd they keep trying to bow down to don’t even buy their products ANYWAY! 😂😂
Great work Soph, glad you finally got this video out and I remember all the horrors and boredom. Too bad they just didn't give this game a new name as you sad, and let it sit in the dust bin of history.
Hey you're still alive ❤
I’m glad this game failed. You can’t be afraid to offend someone when making comedy, because the “modern audience” doesn’t exist and even if they did they wouldn’t support things like this.
Happy to see you posting here
This game is basically the new Velma if it was made into a video game
I can still remeber when i seriously considered pre-orderimg this game becsuse "it cant be that bad right?"
Glad i went with my gut
SHE'S ALIVE!!!
Yay! You're back, Sophia! And a brilliant video tearing Saints Row remake a new one. Noice. Welcome back, btw. 🙂
Great video Sophia and well said.
Its one thing to have a crappy storyline/characters, but to have basic, uninspired, broken gameplay with bugs and glitches and a decent-looking but hollow open-world ON TOP of a bad narrative is just wild to me. I don't know how Saints Row comes back after this since SR2022 was the second reboot (I count Agents of Mayhem as the 1st) and Volition seems hell bent on not returning to its gangsta roots. It'd be astonishing if they double downed on these characters and actually gave them a sequel (since Volition refuses to listen to their fanbase on what they want).