So yeah the story is in general really lame first of the mission setup it starts out with teaching you side missions? Thats just lame its side mission shouldn't be in the main story line but anyways its alright no biggie but the entire setup is stupid

Phillipe is killed by a rolling boulder... lol how lame is that ending for the main bad guy?! he was the only gang leader i cared for i thought yey same setup as SR2 (didnt play SR1) theres 3 gangs to eliminate then i go for Phillipe. Instead they just annoy you through the entire game they kill Phillipe by a boulder you dont even fight him! then Killbane kills on of the DeWynter sisters for you... could've made a boss fight right there with the DeWynter sisters but of course not, the other sister well she joins you... meh then at least keep 1 of them alive for me to slaughter instead of her joining me.

Anyways next dude Matt (Miller?) the Deckers leader well he chickens out of the race without i ever having to fight him except in a virtual reality :/ Very bad choice imo

And finally Killbane the only real boss fight ( in the wrestling match ) and you dont even kill him!

Ofcourse they have to make the ending 2 sided kill Killbane or save Viola and Shaundi so of course i choose to save my homies (you can do the other ending after but nvm that for a sec) So i played an entire game without actually killing a single gang leader! How lame is that?!

If you choose to kill Killbane its just a very few QTE you have to do and then you kill the commander Cyrus but anyways the entire story mode is very poorly done. Please go back to the old formula where you decide what gang to take down first, thanks for reading it (if you have)

Just needed to get out some steam for this its just frustrating really especially compared to SR2

If you're playing Saint's Row for the story bits, you're playing it wrong.

@cstrang said:

If you're playing Saint's Row for the story bits, you're playing it wrong.

Just because its an open world it cant focus a bit on the story? i enjoyed SR2s story alot more i dont really see how SR3 is different from SR2 but also if we go there the costumization option with clothes is also missing alot wheres the over the top pimp outfit from SR2? i want to be pimp and the gang strippers / hoes would be awesome yet from what i found no pimp outfit :,(

@Kazzurak said:

@cstrang said:

If you're playing Saint's Row for the story bits, you're playing it wrong.

Just because its an open world it cant focus a bit on the story? i enjoyed SR2s story alot more i dont really see how SR3 is different from SR2 but also if we go there the costumization option with clothes is also missing alot wheres the over the top pimp outfit from SR2? i want to be pimp and the gang strippers / hoes would be awesome yet from what i found no pimp outfit :,(

No, I never said an open world game can't focus a bit on story, but it's pretty clear going in that Saint's Row the Third is making a point to be as absurd as possible. Even more so than the first two games, which is saying quite a bit. Any game where I can run around and beat people to death with a giant marital aid I wouldn't expect even a relatively coherent story.

Now, I didn't really read that much of this thread since I'm only halfway through - but my general feeling isn't that the story is that bad - it's just that it's so god damn poorly written.

I didn't even know Gat was dead, I assumed he was alive since everyone else that matters survived the airplane-crash - and to make things worse, it was told when Shaundi talks about some people fucking up his funeral? That's a double whammy of fail.

@Kazzurak said:

So i played an entire game without actually killing a single gang leader! How lame is that?!\

Remember in Saints Row 2 when Dane Vogel is talking up a storm, and then you're sick of his bullshit, then you shoot him in the fucking mouth and he goes crashing outside the window and falls to his death while hitting two or three stops on the way down?

That shit was pretty awesome.

@cstrang said:

If you're playing Saint's Row for the story bits, you're playing it wrong.

Pretty much. A lot of people said that about BF3 and I don't agree with that but for this game absolutely. It's more about how insane everything is, just killing dudes, and fucking around in the sandbox. That being said I didn't think the story was bad. Yea forcing the side stuff like it did was dumb but at least it's not as much of a force as SR or SR2 was. Also the last level...amazing. Really funny game.

Disagree. The story wasn't poor just because we didn't get to kill some gang leaders. They are taking the story further and further away from the gang fantasy and making it as over the top as possible. And you know what? It's fucking awesome. Giant boulder falling on the guy they built up to be the ultimate boss at the beginning was hilarious.

I completely disagree, I felt the gangs were all handled very well. I liked that Viola defected to the Saints, and I liked how the boss fight with Killbane was more about humiliating him than killing it. It felt like you were beating the bosses at their own game, which I enjoyed. Also, if you decided to kill Killbane instead of saving Viola and Shaundi, you made the wrong choice.

I liked how they killed the big boss really fast. Games dont usually do that. They also have Phillipe tell you Gat died but that was the only one that was poorly handled. Plus I thought the idea of humiliating instead of killing them as much funnier, cooler, and innovative.

If you want a decent well written story in an open world action game then maybe you should play Grand The.....oh wait nevermind.

I fucking LOVED the story in this game. It's completely mental.

Big boss man killed within the first hour by giant boulder? Check.

Second boss man killed by going into a computer as a toilet, then a blow up doll, then a dragon guy with a sword? Check.

Third boss man fought by first having a pro wrestling match where you chainsaw a bunch of dudes, then on the movie set for "Gangstas.... in SPACE!"? Check.

How could anyone not like the story in this game? If you were expecting GTA IV levels of coherence, you came to the wrong game. So many great scenes, and awesome characters.

- Scott

i actually like the fact that you beat the leaders at their own games. The set-up before all the fights was good and the wrestling match with Killbane was entertaining, especially with the chainsaw. and forcing STAG to admit defeat is a lot more satisfying then straight-up killing them. But then again that's just me.

I don't get how people didn't know Johnny Gat died. I never played any other saints row game, and I still noticed that Gat died, the game made it pretty damn clear that Gat died right at the beggining, whoever he was.

@Kazzurak:

Wow I actually had a completely different read on how the story played out. I overall enjoyed the other gangs' stories.

• Phillipe killed by boulder: I did not see that one coming. He seems more of a businessman than a badass anyway so any fight would've been easy.
• Kiki DeWynter getting Killbane'd: didn't see that one either. And it established KB as a violent psycho. Good stuff.
• Viola joining me: meh, didn't care much for her. Sacha Grey's voice acting was a little flat too :|
• Beating Matt in VR: well, I kicked his ass on his own turf. And the actual fight was fun, if easy

Unfortunately, I didn't really care for any of my lieutenants except for Gat, who eats it in the first 10 mins. So that part was kinda weak and made me far less invested in the story than in SR2. That was the biggest disappointment for me, story-wise.

Im sorry. But if you came to a saints row game for a story...much less this one which was pushed as a game thats fucking insane as it is..then you brought the wrong games. 

@Ulong said:

I don't get how people didn't know Johnny Gat died. I never played any other saints row game, and I still noticed that Gat died, the game made it pretty damn clear that Gat died right at the beggining, whoever he was.

You hear Gat eat it over the airplane intercom, for crying out loud! How could anyone not know he was dead? The story then references it a half dozen more times throughout, and your character will even randomly yell "That one's for Johnny!" during combat.

- Scott

@HellBrendy said:

Now, I didn't really read that much of this thread since I'm only halfway through - but my general feeling isn't that the story is that bad - it's just that it's so god damn poorly written.

I didn't even know Gat was dead, I assumed he was alive since everyone else that matters survived the airplane-crash - and to make things worse, it was told when Shaundi talks about some people fucking up his funeral? That's a double whammy of fail.

This is what I had issue with as well. I was thinking "Wait, he died? Funeral? What??!". It was really weird, but not in the good way like the rest of the game.

@Ulong said:

@huntad: The funeral thing is actually a problem yah. Apparently you only get the funeral cinematic if you chose to blow up that building at the end of act 1, which is a major oversight. As said though, the game makes it clear Johnny died in the plane sequence, you hear him die, right after you land philipe calls you up to taunt you about your friend dying, and shaundy spends almost literally every cinematic talknig about how you have to avenge johnny. Them not showing the funeral sequence if you keep the tower is stupid though.

Even if there's some sort of twist later in the story, it's poorly done. Johnny has been a major character in the Saints Row games, and not even seeing him die is criminal. It should have had some grand cutscene with him going out in style. Anyways, I don't want to complain about the game anymore, because it's a good game. It's just not without it's flaws like every other game.

My brain is full of fuck

Dude... gangstas in space.

That ending was awesome.

@Ulong: There is no funeral cinematic. If you blow up the tower they just shout "now lets go bury johhny" and then you get the scene on the bridge.

@rebgav said:

@huntad said:

Johnny has been a major character in the Saints Row games, and not even seeing him die is criminal. It should have had some grand cutscene with him going out in style.

You don't see him die and the plane is never found. Do the math.

FUCK MATH! But like I said, that's a lame way to handle it. I assumed he would come back later, so if it's true it's easily predictable.

@kwyee: unexpected turns are great but not if it means that the main villain of the game doesnt die by your hand. Fine they killed a DeWynter sister there's 2 but i dont see a reason for the second sister to join you really

@Scotto: Seriously stop the arguments about Saints Row not being story oriented i dont care but really i couldnt have much fun with a game if it was ONLY open world without some sort of goal, i know what i got myself into when i bought SR3 i love the games action i just think its lacking in so many spots fx the story which i happen to hate, and the clothing options is lacking as well tbh theres really not many options considered they already outfitted everyone in the game with clothes you cant buy. If they at least make it so that everything you see other people wear you can buy somewhere yourself it would be fine

I think that, while their approaches to how they killed people off in this game were lackluster, the people they chose made sense.

You can't really fight Philepe. You saw what happened when Philipe tried to kill gat, dude is a push over when it comes to a real fight. Ideally you would have a super climactic fight up to him and then fuck him up, but it wouldn't pretend to be a boss battle.

You can't fight the dewynter sisters either. They too are not fighters, they have no inherent badassness about them. I felt that having killbane kill one was perfect as it showcased just how frail they really were while emphasizing how much of a stone cold badass he was. That one of them would join you is something I actually liked as they had no real gang gimmick about them.

Killing Johhny Gat also made sense in terms of motivation and driving the story along. It would've been nice if it had been handled better or if it turned out he wasn't really dead. Even better would be if they had churned out gat clones like they did for the brutes. But from a narrative aspect, killing off what was emblemic of the saints was a great idea because it allowed for a returning to their routes without feeling terribly contrived.

Sure there was poor execution all around but I felt the ideas behind it all were solid. It felt a lot like they wanted to leave things open for Gat to come back. The way we never see the body, or know for sure how Gat died makes it seem like the dev team really wanted him to come back but were never given the chance, and thus had to close things off in a hurry.

It's not ''horrible'', just different. Whilst the first was just straight up poker-face street hoods gangsta stuff (I mean there's a lot of people calling each other the N word right in there, all serious like; I don't think it was uttered once during the later games), the second lightened up a fair bit but did still keep that sense of camaraderie with some surprisingly dramatic portions. Saints Row The Third just cuts away all of the pretense, character drama semblance of human emotion and just goes for thrills at every turn. It's sublimely entertaining, but I do still prefer the somewhat more grounded, passionate and cohesive story from SR2, even if the missions themselves for SR3 are superior in every way.

The part with Gat's death is dreadful, and even if he isn't actually dead (the fact that you can unlock him as a zombie speaks against that possibility though, I think) he should of returned during the story in the grandest way possible to save the Boss at the last moment or something for an end game twist to tie things up, just to make his original death have some kind of meaning. Otherwise it was all pointless and stands as being a really lazy and utterly bizarre story point.

I disagree, I really liked the story for all its goofy stuff. I also really liked watching the characters interact with one another and actually found it fairly emotionally compelling.

I love how all of your negative points were positive ones for me, from that great bait and switch with Phillipe to the great twist of having a gang boss join you instead of a crappy boss fight. Things didn't follow the usual formula and I guess if you're the kind of guy that doesn't want to be surprised by a game then I could see how this could be a disappointment....