Saints Row 2 How To Create Johnny Gat

Saints Row is a Wide-Open Sandbox series of games by Volition. In the tradition of Grand Theft Auto, you assume the role of a career criminal and proceed to commit countless acts of murder, grand theft auto, reckless driving, vandalism, arson, assault, insurance fraud, theft, possessing restricted firearms, treason, and yes, even streaking, jaywalking and public drunkenness. First described as a Grand Theft Auto imitator, Saints Row began as a grim outlook on gang subculture in an urban American city, then transformed into a self-aware parody of itself as way to distance itself from the more realistic GTA games, such as Grand Theft Auto IV.

• Saints Row (2006): A Xbox 360-exclusive, later ported to Xbox One.
• Saints Row 2 (2008): Released on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, later ported to PC and Xbox One.
• Saints Row: The Third (2011): On Xbox 360, PS3, PC, later ported to Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4.
• Saints Row IV (2013): On Xbox 360, PS3, PC, later ported to Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch.
  • Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell (2015): On Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Xbox One, and PS4.
• Saints Row (2022): An upcoming Continuity Reboot of the series announced at Gamescom 2021 for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and PC.

The series is set in the Shared Universe with Volition's other series, Red Faction. Additionally, Volition released a Spin-Off titled Agents of Mayhem for Windows, Xbox One, and PS4 in 2017, set in the alternate timeline that was created in the Cosmic Retcon ending to Gat Out of Hell.

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Examples across the series:

• 100% Completion: An odd case, as each game tracks your completion, but not all content counts toward your percentage. As a general rule, missions, strongholds, activities, and collectibles count toward 100% completion, but diversions, challenges, assassinations, vehicle thefts, stunt jumps, barnstorming, and property ownership do not.
• Action Girl: Lin in the first game has her moments, and if your character is female post-SR1, then especially her. In SR3, Shaundi becomes one. In SR4, Kinzie becomes one in the simulation and Asha is one all the time.
• Acrofatic: Your character and even your gang can be made morbidly obese and still move like gymnasts and run a mile, if you so choose.
• Affectionate Parody: The franchise has always approached things with tongue firmly in cheek, but by the third game, things have gone far enough toward Silliness on the Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness that it's effectively a parody of open-world crime-based games, in general. Saints Row IV could accurately be called the Airplane!! of video games, with almost too many references, obvious and subtle, to list here.
• A.K.A.-47: A couple are shoutouts, the others are clearly certain weapons with a different name.
• Alas, Poor Villain: A few stand out.
  • Shogo Akuji comes across as one. Once his father arrives from Japan, his arrogant attitude feels like a complete facade to cover up his internal misery. After all, his father states outright, to Shogo's face, seemingly whenever possible, that he is actively and constantly ashamed of Shogo's very existence as a member of his family. Considering that his presumed death at the hands of Gat only comes when he confronts Gat and the Boss in a fit of rage after his bastard of a father mourns not just the loss of his surrogate son (Shogo's second-in-command Jyunichi), but also the fact that all he's left with is Shogo. He says this. To Shogo's face. Left at a Despair Event Horizon, Shogo tries to kill the heads of the Saints, thinking them the cause of all his problems.
  • A bit of an Ensemble Dark Horse for this category, but Maero can qualify, as well. He tells Vogel that his reasons for wanting the Saints wiped out isn't because they're stealing from him, encroaching on his territory, etc, but because, "...they killed my girlfriend and crippled my best friend." This is after the Boss initiated the entire conflict by scarring Maero's face with toxic waste after Maero gave him/her a partnership offer s/he didn't like, which to be fair, "80/20" is a pretty shitty deal.
• Alien Invasion: The plot of Saints Row IV centers around one.
• Alternate Continuity: The DLC campaign Enter the Dominatrix is framed with the Saints discussing and commenting on the cancelled project like a DVD extra, often joking about how crazy it is even by SRIV standards.
• Anyone Can Die:
  • Dabbled with in the first game with the death of Lin and when Playa is apparently killed in the final mission.
  • Brought out in full force in the second. Sometimes by your hand, regarding Julius.
  • The Third smacks you in the face with this trope, courtesy of losing Johnny Gat halfway through the second mission.
    • Averted as of Saints Row IV, where it's revealed that Johnny survived.
  • The Third keeps it coming afterwards in the final mission: if you choose to chase after Killbane instead of going after Shaundi and Viola on the statue, it will blow up and so will they. Along with Mayor Burt Reynolds (who you'll find out is there with them if you choose to save them).
  • Saints Row IV takes the cake with this one as Oleg from The Third dies... along with everyone else on the planet when Zinyak destroys Earth for The Boss' insolence.
• Arc Number: In every game of the franchise, the number 31 is used prominently.
• Arc Words: The Pyramid is referenced multiple times during Saints Row 2. You and Gat break into and destroy it during one of SR2's final missions.
  • It can be heard during radio advertisements, and often mumbled about by the bums and homeless people in their mad ranting.
  • "It's our time now: let's get this shit started!" is said in all games in the series, in the first by Julius, and in all the rest by the player character.
• Arms Dealer: Throughout the series, Friendly Fire has been the go-to place for weaponry and ammunition. They're also a less-scrupulous version of the Gun Shop Owner variant of this trope; proudly forgoing background checks or waiting periods, selling automatic weaponry and explosive ordnance, and knowingly doing business with criminals.
• Art Evolution: There's a rather big change between the 2 and The Third designs.
• Artifact Name: Overlapping with Artifact Title because it's about the group named in the title: The Third Street Saints gang's name in the original Saints Row was a Punny Name referring both to their HQ in an old church of the Stilwater's Saints Row district and to their claim to being the "good guys" in the Stilwater underworld, fighting for the common people against the actual criminal gangs. In the second game, they lose their hold of Saints Row and, after a change in leadership, abandon any pretense of goodness to become just another (albeit extremely persistent) power-hungry gang. The third game takes place in an entirely new city, and the next two leave Earth altogether, so by the time of Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell, they aren't really "Saints" in anything but a self-applied moniker.
• Artifact Title: "Saints Row" is the name of a district in Stilwater. Naturally, there is no such location in Steelport. Even as early as Saints Row 2 it was headed into this territory, as while the finale is set around the district in question, it's the only one in the game you can't take over even after you beat the game.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: Zigzagged. Some gang-bosses turn out to be powerful boss-characters, while others are just weak administrators dispatched with ease, or even executed in a cutscene. The player character can be said to be an embodiment of the trope from the second game onwards, but notably, "Playa" was kicking ass in the first game, too. Meanwhile, Julius - the original leader - is killed in a cutscene, and rarely ever kicks any real ass, much as he talks the talk.
  • A one-person example of the zig-zag would have to be Phillipe Loren from the third game. Leader of a huge criminal syndicate called The Syndicate, he's able to "kill" Johnny Gat off-screen, and subsequently acquires an Eyepatch of Power... but then the tables gets turned, and you kill him more or less accidentally in a cutscene.
  • The apex example would be the Boss in Saints Row IV, where you're the superpowered president of the United States. President! Superpowers!! The only way to grant you more authority and more asskickery would be if Boss became the leader of the alien race and took control of their technology. And then he does just that.
• Badass Crew: You don't fuck with the Saints. By the third game, they've amassed enough power that, depending on player actions, they can openly challenge the United States military in a second Civil War. By the time the fourth game rolls around, the previous possibility is moot, because they are in charge of the United States military.
• Bare Your Midriff: Lin and Tanya in the first game, Shaundi and Jessica in the second, and Asha in her superpower outfit in the fourth. You can also dress the Playa like this post-SR 1.
• Bash Brothers: Johnny Gat is probably the only person in the world capable of keeping up with the Playa in terms of combat pragmatism and sheer kill totals. At the beginning of Saints Row 2, Gat is on trial for three-hundred-eighty-seven murders. "I figure with the statute of limitations, it really should be closer to two-fifty." In cutscenes, the Boss and Gat can clear a room of mooks as fast as a bomb strike.
  • A fake interview with him (is there any other kind when it comes to fictional characters?) reveals his kill tally is actually around 16,000, at least according to him. But would you call him a liar?
  • The Boss could serve as this to Johnny if the player so chooses.
• Berserk Button:
  • Please do not fuck with Boss' crew; if you do, it's likely that you'll end up in the trunk of a car about to be crushed. Or Buried Alive, as Shogo found out after killing Aisha (albeit indirectly) and then interrupting her funeral.
  • Don't call Phillipe Loren French. He's Belgian.
  • Killbane doesn't being called Eddie just as much as Loren's dislike of being called French.
• Big Bad:
  • The Devil himself is this for Gat Out of Hell. Just as tall, too.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Common throughout the games.
  • The first game has gang leaders Angelo Lopez, Benjamin King (who has a Heel–Face Turn and is usurped by Tanya Winters), and Joseph Price (although his uncle William Sharp is arguably the true mastermind of his operations). The overall Big Bad of that game is de-facto mayor of Stilwater, Richard Hughes, who comes in when the gang leaders are dealt with.
  • The second game has The General, Maero, and Kazuo Akuji. In a format similar to the first game, once they are dealt with, Ultor executive Dane Vogel takes the stand, having manipulated two of the gangs throughout the story.
  • The third game has the Syndicate, which means the rival gangs are all working together. The Ensemble is with STAG and their leader Cyrus Temple (though he acts detached from the Syndicate, rather than with them). The Syndicate is led by Phillipe Loren, but he's really a Disc-One Final Boss and Killbane takes his seat as Syndicate leader.
  • IV has Zinyak, a ten-feet tall alien.
• Bilingual Bonus: Dex's annoyance with people calling them "the Los Carnales".
• Black-and-Grey Morality: Played straight, at least in the first two games; played with in subsequent games.
  • One of the reasons for the Saints' huge popularity at the start of SR3 is that Stilwater is much better off (arguably) without three warring gangs and a corrupt corporation scheming to Kill the Poor. In fact, the population expects a little hijinks from the Saints now, with SWAT officers asking Saints undertaking criminal activities to please put down their guns... after autographing them.
  • Evil Versus Evil in the second game. At least the Saints in the first game were explicitly there to stop the other gangs from causing too much of a ruckus. Now, the Boss is explicitly out for themselves, especially when s/he kills Julius.
  • Back to black-and-grey in the third game; the Saints can even be outright heroic at times, if the player so chooses.
    • In the fourth game, you are a hero, but it's still pretty black-and-grey throughout.
• Bling-Bling-BANG!:
  • In the original game, the special weapons, unlocked by completing the Hitman assignments, are a gold-plated large handgun, and a platinum plated shotgun, RPG-1, and riot shotgun. You only get one in the second game — a shotgun disguised as a pimp cane.
  • All of the special weapons in the second game, however, are distinctly better looking and very different from the average/normal guns. Not exactly bling, but some of them are pretty shiny.
  • The third game has customization options to all the weapons that add more bling to each gun (and the baseball bat too).
  • The fourth game takes this Up to Eleven and allows you to change the look of almost every weapon to bling to your personal taste.
• Branch-and-Bottleneck Plot Structure: The first two games in the series followed a complementary branches-based formula where you started off with a few linear missions introducing you to the game, before being tasked to dismantle three rival gangs. While each of these three (six, if you count both games) arcs is linear, you can tackle them in any order and even switch between them after finishing each mission. After defeating all three gangs, the respective game wrapped up with another short linear sequence of missions leading to the ending. Later installments largely abandoned this structure in favor of tackling rival gangs in a fixed order mandated by the plot, with rare occasions giving you two or three missions at one time and requiring you to beat them all before you could move on to the next part. The fourth game would have a small example where rescuing members between Shaundi and Johnny Gat (Pierce, Benjamin, and Asha) can be done in any order before proceeding.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall/Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Julius refers to the main character as "Playa".
  • Player him/herself does this over now being able to talk, as do others such as Lampshading his/her different looks by asking "Did you do something to your hair?"
  • Most of the fourth installment is set inside a simulation of Steelport. There are many references to everything being "a game".
  • Becomes No Fourth Wall in the Enter the Dominatrix DLC, which serves as a meta-commentary on Saints Row IV's development and the series in general.
• Broken Bridge: Averted in every instance that "wide open" sandboxes have come to conventionally rely on them. The game illustrates how unnecessary cramping player freedom is to maintaining narrative flow. Each story arc still unfolds chronologically, at the player's own pace. And if you don't want to be driven by the story, you can go everywhere, and you'll find a Minigame Zone when you get there.
  • The third game plays with the trope. It's averted for the vast majority of the game. Near the end, it appears to be played straight when the city is put under martial law, but all that happens is several bridges are raised and blocked off to seal off Downtown. There's nothing at all to stop the player from swimming across the river, or flying over, or boating over, or just ramping a car across. Unlike other games that instantly give you a 5-star wanted level if you try to evade the bridge, this game only gives you a 1-star that is little more than a minor inconvenience.
  • The game takes the trope literally in the cutscene preceding the "Return to Steelport" mission when the Luchadores blow up the Hughes Memorial Bridge.
• Bullying a Dragon: Anytime people start talking shit to the Boss or try to confront the Saints, the end results are truly horrifying.
• Butt-Monkey: Donnie, from the first two games. Whenever he shows up, you can bet your bottom dollar that something bad will happen to him. The second game also has Pierce. He has ideas ripped off him mid-sentence and is never listened to.
  • At one point, he calls you up to tell you that the Brotherhood are bringing in a bigass pile of guns on a boat. Shaundi calls up mid-way through that call to tell you the exact same thing before he does, and he told her in the first place!
    • The first Ronin mission has him trying to plan an elaborate Ocean's Eleven-style robbery, only to have The Boss and Johnny tell him it's much more fun to bust in with guns blazing. And then when they go through with it, all three are caught on security camera and wind up on the news... with Pierce's face never shown and his name never released.
    • Even funnier considering it's the exact same plan used in San Andreas' over-elaborate casino heist.
• Buxom Is Better: Adjust the "sex appeal" slider in character creation and a female Boss can end up with some absurdly large breasts.
• Car Fu: Aside from the obvious usage of this trope, the series also has an "evil cars" cheat which makes pedestrians in cars and motorcycles chase you down in an attempt to run you over.
• Cardboard Prison: When you get busted, you respawn at the nearest police precinct, less a chunk of your cash.
  • Also happens at the start of Saints Row 2, the Boss escapes prison pretty easily, and s/he breaks back into prison pretty easily later on too. Mostly for the illegal wrestling matches there.
  • Somewhat similar situation in IV when you break out of the virtual simulation and start fighting back against your oppressors.
• Character Customization: You can customize nearly every aspect of your character. The system is so good (especially in the second game) that a lot of people have made celebrities and posted the formulas on message boards and YouTube.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Gang colors. To elaborate, the Saints use purple; the Vice Kings and Ronin use yellow; the Rollerz and the Deckers have blue; Los Carnales, the Brotherhood, and Morning Star all use red; and the Sons of Samedi and the Luchadores use green. This is also reflected in the color schemes of their vehicles.
  • Ironically, "Karma Chameleon" uses those colors, and sure enough, when you listen to the song on The Mix 107.77, as the song is ending the DJ will sometimes lampshade the colors mentioned in the song to the three gangs that took over Stilwater in absence of the Boss.
  • Ultor has a thing for black and orange in the second game. See the Masako "special-ops" teams in particular.
  • STAG in the third is primarily white with some splashes of orange here and there.
  • Even neutral NPC gangs, such as bikers.
  • Though the Pimps avert this, they instead follow Dress-Coded for Your Convenience, sharing a broad, feathered pimp hat and a half-buttoned shirt.
  • In the fourth game, The Saints still wear purple, but in the simulation "red is evil" and "blue is good". This is a shout out to a certain other movie that was set in a simulated world.
  • Anything associated with Professor Genki in the third and fourth games is pink.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Inverted. Both weapons and vehicles controlled by the player are noticeably more durable than those controlled by NPCs, to the point that the player can use one tank to take out three other tanks without much trouble.
• Cool Old Guy: Zimos, the oldest pimp in Steelport; he even has an auto-tuned voice. Benjamin King in the fourth game, who's noticeably older than the rest of the cast.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Benjamin King is a little like one in the first one, but Ultor Corp. is this full stop in the second game, especially Dane Vogel.

  Dane Vogel: "It's like my father said, if you're gonna build an ivory tower, you're gonna have to kill a few elephants."

  • Not to mention you can sometimes hear him calling The Mix and requesting Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World", calling it his theme song. This continues even after his demise!
• Coup de Grâce Cutscene: The defeat of every rival gang boss (in all games) gets one of these.
• Crapsack World: Stilwater: Pretty on the outside, really fucking nasty on the inside. From Bad to Worse in Saints Row 2, what with the Saints no longer being a vigilante gang.
  • This becomes even more clear during the Fuzz activity, where the Boss assumes the roll of a beat cop to get footage for a tv show. By the later levels of the activity, you're chasing down eco-terrorists setting pedestrians on fire, rogue APCs tearing through the streets, attack helicopters raining missiles down from the sky, and pirates and ninjas fighting in the streets. Bear in mind, all these crimes are taking place with no involvement from the player.
• Crowd Song: Early in The Third, Boss and Pierce sing Sublime's classic "What I Got". During the credits, five of the Playa's voices sing.
  • In the fourth game, there is a duet with The Boss and Pierce of Paula Abdul's "Opposites Attract", with The Boss doing the Paula Abdul portions. And again later, there is a second sing-a-long to Biz Markie's "Just a Friend". Which Zinyak interrupts and "ruins" the song.
• Cultured Badass: Oleg in the third game, Pierce in the third and fourth, and especially Zinyak in the fourth are all fond of classic literature and poetry. One of the Boss's voices alludes to this in the third game and it graduates to a running gag in the fourth.
• Dark Action Girl: The female Boss in SR2, SR3, and SR4.
• Darker and Edgier: While the first game had its moments, particularly the death of Lin, despite arguably being funnier, the second game goes further, particularly the Ronin missions "Bleeding Out" and "Rest in Peace" and the Brotherhood Missions "Red Asphalt" and "Bank Error In Your Favor".
• Deadpan Snarker: A bunch, mostly from the Boss.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: See Cardboard Prison; replace "busted" with "smoked" and "police precinct" with "hospital".
• Denser and Wackier: The first game was more or less straight-up; the second game started introducing all sorts of strange, funny elements. The third game goes completely off the rails, and the fourth doesn't even care (you're president of the US, you have superpowers, and an alien invasion is coming; need we elaborate?).
  • This is even lampshaded in the mission "A Remote Chance":

  The Boss: He's (Killbane) more afraid of Angel than me?

  Shaundi: Yeah, no offense, but you look kinda ridiculous.

  • The whole series compared to Grand Theft Auto.
• Department of Redundancy Department: Stefan does this in the radio ads for Impressions, the clothing shop where you shop for clothing, and Foreign Power (FOREIGN POWER!).
• Depraved Bisexual: The Female Boss is heavily implied to be one.
  • As of IV, so can a Male Boss thanks to every character being romanceable.
• Derivative Differentiation: The gradual increase in Denser and Wackier elements helped to set the games apart from Grand Theft Auto.
• Devil in Plain Sight: Most people on the street seem to know your character is the leader of the Saints (and many of your actions), yet no one seems to care much (including rival gangs) unless you start stirring up trouble. In fact, as the game progresses, some pedestrians on the street compliment Playa on their actions.
  • In The Third, The Boss even has his/her own fans!
• The Dinnermobile: Saints Row and Saints Row 2 have the O-Ring, which is a fast-food delivery van modeled after a fast food basket meal. The first game has two cosmetic variants — one is modeled after a burger, the other fried chicken — though both feature a serving of fries housing the exhaust pipe, and a drink cup serving as the car's cabin. The second game only has the burger-based model.
• Double Entendre: Oh so many. Friendly Fire (weapons), On the Rag (natural clothing store), Peep This (theater), Phuc Mi Phuc Yu (faux Asian food store, which sells Sum Yung Guy and Sum Old Guy), Sloppy Seconds (second-hand clothing), Rim Jobs (car mechanics), Mourning Wood Cemetery, and Freckle Bitch's menu and radio ad. There's also TNA Taxis' (and Big Willy's Cabs') phone response. Not to mention the phone numbers for the aforementioned taxi services, which are 555-455-8008 (ASS BOOB) and 555-819-8415 (BIG BALS) respectively.
• Early Installment Weirdness:
  • The first game has so much. It was exclusive to one platform, you could only play as a male character who rarely spoke and it lacked much of the series' trademark silliness. It's actually kinda weird looking back at the first game and how seriously it took itself.
  • Even the second didn't get too outlandish and, though tongue in cheek, kept it's feet on the ground. By the third game the developers cranked the silliness Up to Eleven and kept on rolling with it into the fourth game.
• Enemy Chatter: Gang members will often talk amongst each other when not in combat.

  Ronin Mook: Why are we called the Ronin? We have a leader.

  • In IV, the chatter of the mooks in the Asha rescue mission is hilarious especially considering the context of the parody.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: The Saints, especially in the second one.
• Escort Mission: Drug Trafficking, Escort, Snatch, and Heli Assault (in the second game). Along with a bunch of story missions.
  • The series is a generally unfrustrating example of traditional escort missions, at least for the story missions. Escorts are treated as homies and so can be revived if they fall.
• Every Car Is a Pinto: And dammit, it's awesome. This is actually lampshaded in the second game. Sometimes pedestrians, when having their car stolen, yell, "I left my hydrogen tank in there!"
  • More than awesome, they're almost better than grenades, simply because the enemy so often supplies you with them and the blast is bigger. The only thing which makes them not better is that it takes three or four shotgun shots (at the beginning, at least) to make an enemy car explode.
  • It gets just odd in the third game. At one point, you ride a human pony cart, don't ask, and get chased after by other human pony carts. When you shoot them enough, they explode too.
• Everything's Deader with Zombies: Zombie Lin in Saints Row, Zombie Carlos in Saints Row 2, and Zombie Gat in Saints Row: The Third . And in Saints 2, you can go to any of your cribs and play a fun little minigame called Zombie Uprising, which is pretty much the Saints Row world's answer to Dead Rising.
  • The Third also has a zombie voice option. After the mission "Zombie Attack", an island is permanently infested with zombies. There is also a cheat — 'brains' — that causes all pedestrians to turn into the stumbling, mindless, undead.
• Evil vs. Evil: To paraphrase from Snatch., "Do you know what "nemesis" means? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified, in this case, by a horrible cunt... the Boss."
• Exploding Barrels: Too many to count. Crucial to the Trail Blazing activity in Saints Row 2, where hitting them will cause huge explosions with your flaming ATV.
• Face–Heel Turn: The second game shows you that Julius is responsible for the explosion that nearly killed you at the end of Saints Row, believing that the player wouldn't give up the life. He was right — and he gets murdered by the player. It can be argued that this is the point where the player character does a Face-Heel Turn and crosses the Moral Event Horizon. Dex also attempts to set the two of you up for execution by the Masako squad in the game's secret mission.
  • Troy is an interesting case. At first, he is one of the Saints, then it turns out that he is the reluctant undercover cop who doesn't want to sell out the gangs. The second game reveals him trying to do good, but is frustrated with the gangs and Ultor leaning on him, and trying to make amends with Julius. Gat mentions after Troy became Chief everyone who targeted him in prison left him alone, Troy keeps the Boss on life support after the bombing and can even be called out to help the reformed Saints, despite being more psychopathic and evil than the original Saints were.
• Faceless Protagonist: Your character's voice, gender and appearance is completely dependent on what the player chooses in the character creation screen. During the intro missions for The Third and IV, you haven't had the chance to create your character yet, so you play as this during this one mission, by having the Boss wear an outfit that completely covers his body and either having him/her wear a voice changing mask (Third), or having the communicator malfunction (IV).
• False Flag Operation: One Vice Kings mission in the first game involves you and Johnny dressing up in yellow (Vice Kings colors) and causing mayhem.
  • In the second game, the Boss and Shaundi disguise themselves as electrical repair technicians in order to sneak into the monitoring room in the Police HQ so they can tap into the CCTV network and track down The General's limo. Amusingly, the uniforms are purple so they can still represent the Row, even while undercover.
    • And of course, Troy, who was trying to bring down the gangs from the inside.
  • In the third, this is taken to an extreme (just like the rest of the game) when you get a complete plastic surgery to look like Cyrus and infiltrate the STAG Airship. Even more over the top if you were playing as a female character, since it goes beyond plastic surgery and into a sex change operation... just to do one mission!
    • STAG ends up trying to do this themselves at the end, where Kia attempts to destroy the Magarac Island statue to frame the Saints as a domestic terrorist group.
• Fast-Food Nation: The series does this in the first two games with any food the player purchases coming from fast food places. The food system is done away with in the third game and doesn't return for the fourth, so this doesn't continue.
• Flanderization: The first game was a humorous open-world crime game in the vein of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that was lauded as a legitimate alternative to GTA. The second game emphasized the humor and wackiness more (with trailers taking jabs at GTA's newfound seriousness). The marketing for the third game makes the wackiness and crude humor the main selling point of the game. Fans are split on whether this is the franchise finding its true voice and stepping out from under GTA's shadow or abandoning what made the first game great.
  • Then the fourth game includes: A) The Boss becoming President of the United States, B) Aliens invading, and C) Said aliens putting the Boss in a simulation that gives them superpowers. Any trace of seriousness has officially been left behind, and with it a Broken Base has fully taken root.
  • Johnny Gat is the character that most suffered from this as the series went on. While he was already murderous badass in the early games, he was not invencible and being stabbed by Jyunnichi's katana in Saints Row 2 was enough to sent him to the hospital, where he would have died if it wasn't for the Boss. In The Third he easily shrug off a bowie knife to the belly and, in IV, he's treated as a One-Man Army that would be capable to stop an alien invasion all by himself.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble
  • After Carlos' death, the four main Saints. The Boss is VERY choleric, being a vicious psychopath. Johnny is sanguine, being the most cheerful of the four. Pierce is melancholic, being the smartest and a complainer. And Shaundi is phlegmatic, being the most agreeable of the four.
  • In The Third, the four main Saints. Pierce is now sanguine, being the most flamboyant. Shaundi is now choleric as the one who is perpetually angry. Oleg is melancholic and is the most down-to-earth of the four. And the Boss is now phlegmatic, who's just going along with the flow while still being a badass.
  • In IV, the only real change from the Third is that Oleg's characterization is transferred over to pretty much any one of the other main Saints (Keith David, Benjamin "Motherfucking" King, Kinzie even).
• Foreshadowing: Those who learn about the history of the Vice Kings will notice that it practically reads like a Recycled Script for the history of the Saints - complete with equivalent characters - across both games: from their origin as a Well-Intentioned Extremist vigilante group by Benjamin King to clean up his section of the city from the onslaught of Los Carnales, down to their descent into corruption and Motive Decay until they became as bad as Los Carnales and the others. And just like the Kings, the Saints have their leader usurped by a depraved, power-hungry villain.
  • This has more foreshadowing of The Third than SR2: the Vice Kings clambered to the top of their criminal empire, with their leader being a curb-stomping badass, but has also started "going legit" (Vice Kings with Kingdom Come Records, the Third Street with the Saints-Ultor Media Group). When another criminal organization threatens their livelihood, most of the lieutenants start complaining their leader is more into money than fighting, and that they should charge into battle head-first. The end of Benjamin King's story also has foreshadowing of BOTH of The Third's endings: either the fact he becomes a gangster In Name Only (and makes a movie about it) or he kills his lieutenants (technically, Warren and Tanya betrayed King, but the connection is still there).
• Fleur de Lis: The symbol of the Saints.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: The player character. The main character at the start of the first game is just some random pedestrian who gets caught in gangland crossfire and is adopted by the Saints. By the end of the second game, s/he's a full blown psychopath who's just taken over Stilwater, with eyes on the rest of the world. Goes a step further in Saints Row: The Third, in one ending the protagonist takes Steelport and secedes from the US.
  • Ultor too, since they were just a clothing store in the first game.
• Free Rotating Camera
• Full-Frontal Assault: The Boss is terrifying enough; however, watching them shoot, maim, or roast their enemies is only made worse when they do it totally naked. In the later three games, there's even a diversion and a corresponding challenge based on streaking.
  • There are specific missions in The Third and IV where the Boss is naked during the mission (notably, in The Third, they're also drugged, adding Interface Screw on top of this). And at least one side character in each game ends up naked for the majority of a mission as well.
• Fun T-Shirt: The games offer these among the clothing options.
• Gag Penis: The Dildo Bat, a.k.a. the Penetrator.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: In the in-engine cinematics, your character appears as dressed and customized, but can wield any weapon the scene calls for, even dual-wielding sword and gun, which can't be equipped together in gameplay.
• Gender Is No Object: Men outnumber the women in the gangs, but otherwise nobody really cares one way or another. In Saints Row 2 this even applies to security guards and police officers. In the third, police and The Luchador gang are all-male, and the only females in the Deckers are the super-fast rollerblading Specialists, while The Saints can be customized to have any proportion you choose.
• Hammerspace Police Force: Justified in the fourth game by the computer simulation simply creating additional cops. No such excuse in the rest of the series.
• Heel–Face Turn: A few, most prominently Matt Miller going from a major Syndicate leader in the third game to joining the Saints in the fourth. Likewise Benjamin King who similarly joins the Saints in the fourth and being the Boss's Chief of Staff when they're elected President.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Johnny Gat. When gangsters call you a gun-toting maniac, you may have to calm down a little. The man's favorite pastime is violence. Preferably against police. His solution to any problem is to walk in the front door and start killing people... and somehow, he comes off as a complete and total badass instead of a bloodthirsty psychotic. Your main character also fits this trope to a T, for the first game at least. In Saints Row 2, you drop the "heroic" bit and eventually this becomes your hat again in The Third.
  • In the fourth game, this is lampshaded in the scene that explains how Johnny Gat is back. Zinyak used time travel to take him off the plane in The Third and stick him in his virtual prison to keep him out of the fight, because Zinyak thought Johnny Gat was one of the only people that could stop his plan!
• Hide Your Children: While children's voices can be heard in some of the radio commercials, they're nowhere to be found in the city.
  • Promotional info for The Third reveals that a Stilwater City Ordinance prevents the public display of children and animals.
  • Averted in The Third, since many of The Deckers are teens and Matt Miller himself is only 16. Also Jimmy Torbitson from the Trouble with Clones DLC, who's a really nerdy Teen Genius (even though he apparently can drive). Still no one clearly before puberty though.
• A Homeowner Is You: Every game in the series has this, but the way it is used varies from game to game. In the first game, all of the cribs are rewarded with story progression, with most being unlocked after beating a rival gang. In 2, a few cribs are unlocked at the start and the rest must be bought at different locations around the city. They can also be upgraded with different decorations that are bought from within the crib itself. In The Third, cribs are unlocked in a similar way as the first game along with a downgraded form of crib customization that only changes the exteriors of the buildings. Finally, in IV, cribs were removed from the sandbox in favor of a single spaceship hub outside of the main world.
• HUD: Shows you a route you can take to your next waypoint, said waypoint, mission-critical targets, and the car or hit you need to complete for the Chop Shop or Hitman activities. If you discover a short cut, e.g. go through someone's back garden, the game will send you down there next time you're going that way. In The Third, when you've set a waypoint and are driving to it, green arrows pointing in its direction are overlaid over roads that don't lead to it.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: The first two games have players chowing down on fast food to restore health quicker. The later games replaces them with a better Regenerating Health system. Saints Row IV even includes the President expressing surprise that Freckle Bitch's never opened in Steelport.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: I'm sure they were carrying a machine gun and not an RPG-7 just a few seconds ago…
• Idle Animation: You twirl your handgun or submachine gun if you're brandishing one.
  • Your character will also pull out a cigarette and smoke if left to their own devices, other areas (such as the prison yard) also have their own specific animations.
  • In the second game, left to their own devices, the Boss will make a number of comments, from musing that her father used to say you could never have enough guns to pondering why they can't write a book if King did. The following games also have comments for each voice option when you stand idle (though no animations like the previous ones)
• Inescapable Ambush: Subverted a couple of times - you generally can or are expected to lose them, but also played straight in a couple of missions.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Donnie, especially in Saints Row 2. He's a nice fellow who never really got over losing a girl he cared about to the gang wars.
  • After being indirectly responsible for an important gang member's death? Generally, I don't blame Donnie, but the man's a jinx.
  • Matt Miller to some degree too. In the real world, he is extremely shy and careful; only in cyberspace is he powerful and even that gets destroyed by the Boss and Kinzie.
• Jiggle Physics: The Penetrator in Saints Row: The Third is essentially a large rubber dildo, that "has a mind of its own, wobbling around in a disturbing display of physics." Saints Row has it all, doesn't it?
  • In the fourth game the Penetrator makes a return (with new colors!) and added in is a "tentacle bat". For anime fans perhaps?
  • In Saints Row, boobies jiggle on most of the women.
  • And in Saints Row 2 and The Third, The Boss' booty (if you're playing as a female) can bounce when you walk.

In TT and IV, loose clothes jiggle.

• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope:
  • The Protagonist themselves went from an ordinary minion who does what their bosses in the Saints tell them to do, to an insane individual who is only interested in taking the city and not liberating it for peace.
  • Johnny Gat didn't so much as to lose his sense of morality when it's revealed that his girlfriend, Aisha, was killed by a Ronin enforcer.
• Law of Conservation of Detail: Hardtop cars with two doors but four seats can't be used to carry more than two people, but the same seating arrangement for convertibles can be used since gang members hop over sides.
• Left Hanging: Both of the DLC storylines from Saints Row 2 create Sequel Hooks that The Third completely ignored. IV sometimes takes the time to lampshade it.
• Life Meter: Run out, and you're "Smoked."
• Lighter and Softer: After the second game, the series steadily progresses in this direction, but How The Saints Save Christmas in the fourth game is a completely heroic story about the Saints saving Santa Claus and the Christmas spirit, and learning the true meaning of the holiday season.
• LOL, 69: Given the series' sense of humor, the F-69 VTOL jet introduced in Saints Row The Third is definitely meant to be a reference to the sex position.
• Lured into a Trap: A mission in the first game's West Side Rollerz chain features you being lured to a pool hall only to be attacked by Rollerz.
• Made of Iron:
  • The player character. This is taken to ridiculous extremes in the Insurance Fraud actvities, which involve throwing yourself into traffic repeatedly and being scored based on how far you get sent flying, with bonuses for getting hit multiple times before hitting the ground. As long as you go limp, you're invulnerable.
  • Also Johnny Gat, considering how little getting impaled on a sword really slows him down.
• Model Planning: Used to plan a casino heist in 2. Then Gat decides to ignore the carefully-crafted plan and just "shoot the motherfuckers that are between [them] and the money", a Take That! to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, where a long series of quests are taken to plan and prepare a casino heist.
• Mega-Corp: The Ultor Corporation. Word of God and the Ultor Exposed DLC confirms this is the same Ultor Corporation from Red Faction.
• Meaningful Name: Ultor as in Ulterior Motives
  • The Third. They are the Third Street Saints.
• Motive Decay: The Vice Kings started out as a vigilante team formed to fight back against the atrocities Los Carnales inflicted upon their neighborhood and slowly started down the slippery slope to what they become in the game. Exactly like what happens to the Saints. And to make matters even worse, you are the main cause of that decay.
  • It's a bit more complicated than that. Julius saw that you would become that, and had the bomb on the boat in an effort to prevent it. Arguably, though, that action did destroy the Saints, but it leaves a power vacuum that was soon filled by other violent gangs, causing the Boss (having survived the explosion) to rebuild the gang as they see fit, leaving Julius to be Hoisted By His Own Petard.
  • By the time 2 comes to pass, it's an aversion: the Boss knows why they want the Saints back, and it isn't for much of anything nice. You can't decay good will that isn't there.
• Mugging the Monster: At the beginning of 2, right after the Boss breaks out of prison after being in a five-year coma, they go to a bar and watches the news. A member of the Brotherhood has the TV turned off and when the Boss tells him that they were watching the TV he responds, "I guess you're not watching now, are you bitch! He promptly gets his own beer bottle smashed into his face.
  • Returns later as an amusing aversion of Gameplay and Story Segregation: A Son of Samedi gang member ambushes you from behind and knocks you over with a a single hit. Exactly as it does in-game.
• Neck Snap: While not present in the first game, the second one allows you to execute human shields like this (provided you're unarmed or holding a thrown weapon), and, in the Fight Club activity, this is the only way you can defeat your enemies (and vice versa).
  • In The Third, after the end of the mission "Trojan Whores", Kiki commits one act of insubordination too many, leading to Killbane grabbing her by the neck, and, with a twist of his hand, breaks it. This plays a role in Viola's later Heel–Face Turn. Oh, as an aside, it's also the only way to execute human shields (outside of throwing the victim off a roof), probably so you don't waste ammo on them.
  • Incidentally, in the Dark ending of The Third, you finish off Killbane with a neck snap of your own.
• News Travels Fast: After completing a mission or activity, Jack Armstrong or, in the second and third games, Jane Valderrama might be commenting on your recent exploits.
• Nitro Boost: You can purchase it for almost any car at the garage.
  • You can even install it on the Awesome Personnel Carrier in 2, The Third, and IV. 2, The Third, and IV have a perk where every vehicle you drive suddenly gains nitro.
• No Name Given: The Player Character is addressed as Playa by his homies, and pretty much nothing else - their name is never brought up, despite their eventual fame. Even in the newspaper clippings in the second game, they're only referred to as "The leader of the Third Street Saints". Their Fan Nickname is "Boss". Carlos tends to call them that as well.
  • Almost gets averted in the third game. In one of the Heli Assault missions, Kinzie mentions that she knows the Boss's real name, but they will tell her to shut up before she says anything.
  • The Boss asks Zimos for his real name, only to dodge when Zimos asks the Boss the same question.
  • In the fourth game it has most assuredly become Boss as everyone now refers to the player as Boss or The Boss.
• No Communities Were Harmed: Stilwater is based off both Chicago and Detroit.
  • In Saints Row 2, it bears some resemblance to Manhattan and a few "modernized" cities.
  • The third game's Steelport is a pastiche of New York City and Pittsburgh.
• No-Gear Level: Getting "Canonized" in the first game (which is just the rest of the Saints trying to whup your ass), and the "Fight Club" activity in the second one.
  • Truth in Television on the first one. Gang initiations frequently consist of getting the crap beat out of you by the other gang members until the leader calls for it to stop.
  • In the third game, you can complete a challenge by beating 25 enemies to death bare-handed.
• Nostalgia Level: Recruiting Benjamin King in the fourth game revisits the opening scene of the very first game and spends time revisiting characters and setting elements from the original. Shaundi's recruitment revisits parts of the second and third games.
• Once per Episode: The leader of the Saints (Julius in the first game, the Boss in all the sequels) will deliver a Rousing Speech ending with, "It's our time now! Let's get this shit started!"
• Optional Traffic Laws: It's hard to actually follow traffic laws when you're listening to Wolfmother. Moreover, every game in the series gives bonus points for power sliding, near misses, and driving in the wrong lane.
• Phone Word: The first two games allow you to dial various phone numbers on your cell phone. Most of them follow this trope. For example, the number for Haz Mat is 555-6677 or 555-OOPS.
• Pimp Duds: A clothing option is the classic fur-trimmed pimp coat from The '70s. In the original game, you have to earn it by completing Snatch missions, but in the second game, it's available for sale at Impressions right from the get-go. Zimos wears these in the third game.
• Pink Is Erotic: The sex stores all have a mix of red and pink, some clothing from those stores also has a pink design by default. Technically Legal, a strip club in Steelport and Stilwater also uses pink as part of their aesthetic.
• Pretty in Mink: In addition to the Pimp Duds, females (or males) can go for a regular fur coat.
• Protagonist Without a Past: The history of the player character before the crossfire is never explained. However, in the first game, your character goes through quite a lot, which is referenced all over the shop in the second game, from them introducing Mr. Wong as the guy who had them kill guys in hot dog suits, to Monica Hughes commenting on being thankful they're not meeting on a boat.
  • Well, it's revealed in SR2 that the Boss frequented an Asian massage parlor during high school.
  • And that their family was into guns, so that could explain why the Boss is so good with guns.
  • And, at least for Saints Row: The Third's Female Voice 2, The Boss had to fight their father's dogs for dinner.
    • And she also went to college.
  • Speaking of The Third, five out of the seven voice options say that the sex toys on "The Ho Boat" remind them of their freshman dorm. Think about that, and good luck sleeping tonight...
• Pimped-Out Car: You can customize every car in the second game, like putting on custom camouflage on a SWAT truck and giving it bling rims. that extend spikes to blow out tires of civilian cars or make running them over easier.
  • You can't customize many of the unique vehicles you earn. This isn't much of a problem as the unique vehicles are generally insanely fast, nigh impossible to wreck, or both.
  • For fun you can pimp out what is basically a golf cart and drive it around on the street, popping other people's tires, burning NOS, ramming them off the road.
• Product Placement: 1 and 2 had expansion packs consisting of tattoos and clothes from Ünkut, a streetwear brand created by French rapper Booba.
• Purple Is Powerful: The Saints' main color, and boy are they powerful by the end of 2. They only get more powerful from there, too.
• Rainbow Pimp Gear: Although it can be avoided if you can choose the color of any clothing you purchase. In the first game, choosing purple (the Saints' color) increases the amount of "Respect" you earn during activities if you're wearing it.
  • Also averted by the second game - bonuses are just for owning gear, not for wearing it, this time.
• Really Gets Around: Shaundi. A running gag involves her getting near-constant info on rival gangs or Ultor from people she's had sex with.
  • Civilians will comment on it. Doctor NPCs you pass by will tell you to have Shaundi call them, because her blood test is probably more potent than HIV, cancer, and hydrochloric acid combined.
  • Then there's the Show Within a Show I Wanna Sleep with Shaundi... Sure, it's only mentioned, but that alone is enough.
  • In a more villainous case, Tanya Winters used her, uh... "talent" to climb up the ranks of the Vice Kings and eventually take it over in a coup. To quote Johnny Gat: "Turns out Tanya's been fuckin' people in every sense of the word. Not only is she blowin' King's bodyguard Big Tony, but she's fuckin' Warren Williams, their numbers guy, whenever Tony ain't lookin'. Between Tony and Warren, the only person she isn't leading around by their cock is King."
  • In IV this can apply to The Boss due to the "romance" options (parodying Mass Effect) with each of the crew.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: The various gangs encountered in each game tend to shuffle around various colors for their outfits, but there will always be one faction who wears red, and black too. In IV, the Zin Empire, the only enemy in that game, wears red and black.
• Red Shirt Army: You can recruit a party of up to three Saints off the street to help you out. They're useful for drawing enemy fire, but not much else. Any time they "die" whilst recruited, you can just "revive" them with a bottle of alcohol, making them passable comrades. Although, god forbid if one of them manages to lay his hands on a rocket launcher...
  • In The Third, you can upgrade their health and weapons, making them harder to kill and more useful in combat. You can also increase the time it takes for them to die for real when you have them as homies.
    • Also, they will pick up dropped weapons if they're better than what they're using. If they stay alive long enough, left to their own devices they can and will pick up rocket launchers... for better or worse.
• Reference Overdosed: IV is this in the most extreme way.
• Regenerating Health: A constant of the series, though the fourth game also has enemies drop health pickups in addition to the Boss regenerating health.
• Retcon: The first game had a male Playa with no option to play as a female, but it is possible to play as a female from the second game onward. Sex changes can be performed at the in-game plastic surgeon. Also the voice options changed in later games removing some and adding others. So if you were X accent in one game, in the next you might have to suddenly have a different accent. Saints Row IV reveals that a certain character turns out to not actually be dead.
• Reverse Cerebus Syndrome: The latter two games throw all seriousness out the window.
• Ring Inventory: Type 2, both for guns (selected with thumbstick) and healing items (selected with D-Pad)
• Rule of Cool: Strictly speaking, half the stuff performed in the entire series wouldn't be possible if this rule wasn't in force. The first is rather tame but the second, third and fourth continually increase it.
  • The series also runs on Rule of Fun and Rule of Funny. Yeah, what the hell, your guy just jumped out of a plane and manages to kill about 50 enemies while falling, save their friend, let her go, fly back to the plane to deal with one more problem, then catch her again and open the chute without ever hitting the ground. No one bats an eye (she complains but only in an exasperated tone and not total and complete bewilderment at your superhuman skills).
• Rule of Three: Each game has three different gangs to fight. (Though technically the three gangs of the third are actually part of a single organization called "The Syndicate").
  • Likewise, there are three lieutenants in the Saints who are assigned to go after these three gangs.
  • Ironically broken as of the fourth installment.
• Scary Black Man: Julius, the first boss of the Saints (voiced by Keith David, to boot) and Benjamin King, boss of the Vice Kings (Michael Clarke Duncan).
  • We have a Scary... Something Man named Maero in the second game, voiced by Michael Dorn, and The General and Mr. Sunshine.
    • Judging by his appearance and the source of his nickname, Maero is probably from an island in the Pacific such as Polynesia or New Zealand.
• Sequel Escalation: In terms of how outrageous it can get.
• The Series Has Left Reality: The series started out as a gang war simulator, got weirder as the series went on, then jumped the rails entirely when the fourth game began with aliens conquering Earth. The fifth game went outright supernatural as Satan himself claimed the protagonist... as his child-in-law.
• Sexy Walk: In the second through fourth games, the lady models for the player avatar do this when walking the slowest speed.
  • And there are options to make a female character walk sexier depending on the choice you make during creation.
• Shoplift and Die: The police respond to streaking by opening fire!
• Shout-Out: McManus sniper rifles, the entire look of Freckle Bitch's, motorcycles named Tetsuo and Kaneda, and more. There's also plenty of references to Volition's Red Faction series, especially in the Ultor Exposed DLC pack. The name of Ultor's "private army" - the Masako - is also a RF reference.
  • Hell, the fact that the main gang is called the Saints and that their logo is a Fleur-de-lis is a pretty obvious shout out to the New Orleans Saints of the NFL. (Might also be one towards the city of New Orleans itself, as it's the city's logo and also has three of them on the city flag.)
  • In the Pyramid, one of the announcements is "Mr. Parker, could you please report to the mining division."
  • In addition, Carlos is possibly a reference to the film The Butterfly Effect. They both wear a purple cap, have an accent, help the protagonist out in jail and later help them against "The Brotherhood".
  • The Swindle and Mixmaster vehicles share their names with Decepticons that use those alt-modes.
    • All of the available vehicles in the Demolition Derby Mini-Game are also named after Decepticons: Ruckus, Rumble, Frenzy, and Rampage.
  • "I need scissors! 61!"
    • Also, "The Fury!" and "The Pain!" Somebody liked MGS3.
  • If you walk around the prison cells on the prison island, you can occasionally hear a prisoner reading a letter out loud. "Dear sister, by the time you read this letter..."
  • There are several references on The Mix radio station (all '80s, all the time) to the movies of John Hughes. Occasionally a character named Claire will call in requesting Simple Minds' "Don't You Forget About Me", and before playing The Psychedelic Furs' "Pretty in Pink", the DJ will call out "Ducky, this one's for you!"
  • "We can't stop here! This is bat country!"
  • Does that angel statue that Boss stands in front of in the underground mission remind you of a certain movie?
  • Seen on banners around the arena in the second game: Stilwater Sharks: You're gonna need a bigger boat.
  • The music for the radio news reports actually is the music from ITV news.
  • Battle Royale as Akuji and his son's first names are Kazuo and Shogo.
  • The simple fact that the city is named Stilwater, making it the coolest city based on a fictional rock band ever.
  • The expressions/taunts in Saints Row 2 have shoutouts to Michael Jackson and the Fonz.
  • Also, when passing random couples, you may hear "Do you really have to shout 'OBJECTION!' every time we have sex?"
  • One of the neon signs in Chinatown is a sad panda. "Sad Panda" is also a character in Professor Genki's Super Ethical Reality Climax.
  • When doing the "ho-ing" diversion as a male, you will sometimes hear your partner say, "Call me Kikyo! CALL ME KIKYO!"
  • The achievement for killing all the Hitman targets in The Third is called "Everything is Permitted." In the second game, the same feat got you the achievement "Hello 47"
  • During the ending cutscene of the first Samedi mission in 2, Veteran Child calls Mr. Sunshine "Papa Shango".
  • A few buildings around Stilwater appear to be offices for Dewey, Cheatem & Howe.
  • Some of the cars in Third are manufactured by Wasabi, the manufacturer's of Newt's Alleged Car from Good Omens.
  • IV is basically Shout Out: The Game. Here is the main page for them.
• Sniping Mission: Each game has one.
• Spicy Latina: One of the options for Boss. Read this Badass Boast then claim it doesn't qualify.

  I got the biggest balls in this whole city. That's right, I said it.

  • Unfortunately averted in the fourth game since the voice option was removed (and "replaced" with a Southern US accent).
• Spiteful A.I.: The one thing you can expect a panicking civilian car to do is run over you if you're on foot or force you off the road if you're in a vehicle, regardless of where you are and what's in the way. The police are even worse especially with a higher wanted meter. They'll keep smashing into concrete barricades in a bid to run you down, and if they miss they won't stop and get out, they' back up or turn around for another go. Seeing as it's usually a One-Hit Kill this gets rather annoying.
• Sprint Meter: As you complete Tagging Activities, your Sprint Meter recovers faster. Complete all the tags, and you get infinite stamina.
  • In the second game, this is accomplished by completing a series of insurance fraud missions. In the third game, it's part of the respect bonuses. In the fourth game it is a bonus unlocked by completing specific challenges for a specific Homie.
• Staged Pedestrian Accident: The insurance fraud minigame requires you to jump on cars to collect money from insurance settlements. You still get money even if you ragdoll when there's no cars around.
• Streaking: You actually get cash and respect for running around balls naked.
• Suicidal Overconfidence: Setting aside the usual issues with this trope, if you get your Notoriety level high enough, enemies will drive straight at you in their respective gang-vehicles at breakneck speeds. They will do this even if you're currently driving an Awesome Personnel Carrier which would shrug off the impact, which could potentially result in the driver of the enemy vehicle getting thrown through the windshield and killed.
• Take Over the City
• Take That!: The K12 radio station, which plays Electronic Music. Its logo is a dead horse.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: "Saints Row, Bitches!" is the gang Catchphrase.
• Timed Mission: Every game has several.
• Troperiffic: This series cranks up elements that GTA has been toning down.
• True Companions: Though the protagonist is at best a hardened criminal, and at worst a total monster, the Boss will go to hell and back for any loyal Saint. And if you hurt them, then God have mercy, because the Boss won't
• Undressing the Unconscious:
  • In Saints Row: The Third, during the "Pimps Up, Hos Down" Stronghold mission, The Playa wakes up inside a Morningstar BSDM club naked and drugged up and goes on a Full-Frontal Assault against them.
  • In IV, after getting abducted by the Zin, The Playa then wakes up alone and naked in a tank on the Zin mothership. Once again, they go on a Full-Frontal Assault for the rest of the mission upon escaping.
• Vice City:
  • Stilwater in the first two games. There is a stark contrast between the north side of the river and the south side.
  • Steelport in the third (and, technically, the fourth). The Boss even comments that the city's mix of casinos and sex clubs make it a divorce lawyer's wet dream. Shaundi calls it "Bangkok's drunken, abusive step-father." They even have a billboard saying "Welcome to Steelport. Bangkok is for pussies."
• Villainous Breakdown: A few:
  • On the first game, the Lopez family (the leaders of Los Carnales) grows more aggressive and vengeful as the Saints kill them one by one, turning from directly attacking Saints Row, to outright trying to escape from the city.
  • Joseph Price, of the Rollerz, also seems to suffer one when the Protagonist screws up the Rollerz' plans for a shipment, when his Smug Uncle is killed, and after his car robbed by the Saints. It ends with him challenging the Playa to a showdown on the freeway.
  • In the second game, it's possible that the Ronin were also suffering one near the end of their arc, when the newspaper on one of the missions reads "RONIN BECOMING DESPERATE" after their failed assault against the Saints' hideout.
  • In the third game, Killbane beats the crap out of his own gang members in the ending cutscene for "Murderbrawl XXXI", regardless of whether you unmask him or not.
  • Averted in the fourth entry as Zinyak assumes he is going to win the entire time right up until The Boss rips his head out of his body with his spine still attached!
• Villain Protagonist: In the first game, you're apparently destroying the other gangs to unite and clean up Stilwater. In the second though, during a confrontation with Julius, your character pretty much flat-out states they want nothing more than to be the undisputed Kingpin of the city, right before shooting Julius in the head.
  • Likewise, Troy is also a bit of a corrupt chief as when he acts as a homie, he tells Boss that Stilwater is his city occasionally. Apparently, the Boss is fine with the arrangements of Troy running the legal side of things.
• Virtual Paper Doll: Loads of clothing options in these games.
• Wanted Meter: How much notoriety you have with a gang and the cops. Between one and two icons, they come after you if they're on screen; beyond that (up to five), they spawn randomly, trying to run you down/off the road. As cop notoriety increases, FBI vans spawn, SWAT vans block the roads, and a helicopter follows you. Also, the Respect meter allows you to do missions.
  • If you're in an Ultor controlled area they step it up a notch, with Ultor security doing what normal police do at one star rating higher. At 5 star rating (the maximum) they actually send SWAT APC's to hunt you down, where normal police would just have them block the roads.
    • This holds with the third game, except STAG throws firepower at you Ultor can only dream of. Before STAG arrives (and after the main game), the Steelport National Guard uses Ultor-level weapons, with the added joy of actual tanks in addition to the usual APCs.
  • In the fourth game this changes slightly in that there is a new sixth level where you take on a mini boss of sorts and then your wanted meter resets to zero. Otherwise, no major changes in the basic structure.
• We Cannot Go On Without You!: Apparently, only the Boss is allowed to carry the magic liquor bottle that can restore someone to the peak of health after being hit dead-on with an RPG round (or whatever).
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Stilwater in the first game. We learn it's in Michigan, revealed in a developer interview. The city itself is based on cities like Chicago and Detroit. On top of that, the city is theorized to be located on a lake, if one ped is to be taken seriously.
  • Steelport has some similarities to Pittsburgh.
• You All Look Familiar: Each gang only has eight different generic members: male and female Caucasian, African, Hispanic, and Asian. This causes White Gangbangers.
  • Lampshaded in a drug activity in the second game, in which the drug dealer may say "Maybe I'm just high, but I swear to God you killed that asshole before."

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Saints Row 2 How To Create Johnny Gat

Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/SaintsRow

Posted by: parentdights.blogspot.com

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