CarrionCrow: (...)
Right. Saints Row is strange as a series because it really feels like it was two separate entities that got smashed together. In 4, when they start bringing back old enemies in the simulation, even the snippets of backstory you get from audio logs show that the games that came prior to the "hey, let's go super wacky" decision were very different animals then the recent entries.
It felt very dissonant to hear people talking about betrayal, morals, camaraderie, loved ones being killed as a result of leading criminal lives, things like actual depth and characterization being presented, when 4 is basically nothing but silly fun time murder/destruction sandbox with next to no real story.
It really feels like the makers of Saints Row decided that they couldn't fight the battle against GTA, so they slashed and burned their own storytelling in favor of shallow silliness.
At this point, they pretty much have to go that route. After 3 and 4 in particular, they're locked into being the goofy ones. It'd be great to see them actually making something that has more of a balance, but again, they really don't seem to want to fight GTA head-on. And so, it'll stay with what it's got until the well runs completely dry.
Problem is, that well's going to do so that much faster because they don't have things like real characters, real motivations, real backstory to build and expand on. They just have to keep digging deeper into "how silly can we be".
Yes it seems like that might've been the motivation to go down the silly route. And honestly why play the copy when you can play the original GTA....but then again they already moved away from the GTA-clone when they developed SR2 at least from i know because SR1 was just a GTA-clone the sequel not so much....
Yes that's i fear because i generally like the series but it cannot continue down the silly route forever....
