History YMMV / SaintsRow2

* HesJustHiding: Some fans needed a lot of convincing that Aisha really did get [[OffWithHisHead decapitated]]. Despite the fact that Gat giving Shogo Akuji the chance to walk away from her burial service would be ''extremely'' out-of-character if he wasn't truly bereaved. This seems to be a theme among some fans given the same can be said for Julius, Lin, and even Shogo and his father. The latter vows revenge despite being impaled on a boat moments before it explodes and the former is buried alive.

** The DumbassTeenageSon of a foreign crimelord having one of the loved ones of a OneManArmy criminal of Asian descent killed out of spite, then antagonizing said OneManArmy further, which directly causes his death, and that of his father afterwards? Are we talking about Shogo Akuji or [[Film/JohnWick Iosef Tarasov]]? Bonus points for Shogo [[TemptingFate telling his father that he can "finish what I started" by murdering Johnny]], which is similar to what Iosef says about John.

*** However, during an 11th-Anniversary stream for the game in October of 2019, Creator/{{Volition}} announced that they had found the source code that had been lost and are working on a patch/rerelease to try and turn the porting disaster into a PolishedPort, fixing many performance issues, integrating several features of the ''Gentlemen of the Row'' mod (since its creator was one of the people involved with creating the patch) and even adding the [=DLCs=] to the game. As the project is a two-man job working outside of office hours and one of those two has since passed away, time will tell if the AuthorsSavingThrow works.

*** The presence of the AR-50 XMAC can be seen as a dated aspect, as the XM8 was ubiquitous in games (and occasionally movies) made between the mid-2000s and early-2010s before game developers started looking to even more recent and actually-adopted weapon systems like the FN SCAR and Kriss Vector as a quick and easy way to symbolize "the future".

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: In the epilogue level, the Boss' shooting of Julius, right after Julius states that he tried to kill the Playa back in the first game because he saw that the Saints were becoming just another terrorizing gang instead of cleaning up the city as he'd intended is supposed to be the Boss crossing the MoralEventHorizon by shooting their former mentor, and we're supposed to sympathize with Julius. However, looking at the events of the first game closer, Julius' antics come across as less well-intentioned than he presents them. He never tried to kill any of the Saints apart from the Playa - not even [[BloodKnight Johnny Gat]], who you'd think would be the Saint who most warranted being killed, instead getting sent to jail for trying to kill Troy. Also, for most of the original game, the Playa had no visible influence on the direction the gang took in its entirety, apart from in the loosest sense of propelling the Saints upward by pulling the other, more overtly evil gangs down. Also, despite Julius naming the Playa his right-hand man towards the end of the game, everything they did after that they were forced to do because Julius was arrested in the same cutscene he promoted the Playa in, and Alderman Hughes manipulated them into murdering his political rivals in exchange for Julius' freedom. At that point, Julius' actions look less like IDidWhatIHadToDo by killing a psychopath before he destroyed the city, and more like having a predetermined notion of what the Playa was like without Julius' influence, and then, when the Playa proved that [[TrueCompanions they still cared about other people than themselves]], blowing them up [[DisproportionateRetribution for not following his script]]. In other words, Julius was [[BlamedForBeingRailroaded blaming the Playa for being railroaded]], and the Boss shooting him is more justified revenge - indeed, [[CreateYourOwnVillain their betrayal at his hands in the first game may have been what turned them into a more ruthless gangster in the first place]].

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation:

** I have some pictures that I would like to show your audience if you don't mind.[[labelnote:Explanation]]A quote said by Dane Vogel on [[ShowWithinAShow The Anna Show]] during the game's opening cutscene, where he showcases Ultor's renovation of the Saint's Row district. The line is ubiquitous in WebAnimation/YouTubePoop-esque videos, particularly those by WebVideo/{{MasakoTeam}}, where Dane is [[CargoShip shown to have an obsession with showing his pictures off]].[[/labelnote]]

* HesJustHiding: Some fans needed a lot of convincing that Aisha really did get [[OffWithHisHead decapitated]]. Despite the fact that Gat giving Shogo Akuji the chance to walk away from her burial service would be ''extremely'' out-of-character if he wasn't truly bereaved, and they also left in a brief view of her headless body. This seems to be a theme among some fans given the same can be said for Julius, Lin, and even Shogo and his father. The latter vows revenge despite being impaled on a boat moments before it explodes and the former is buried alive.

*** 89.0 Generation X's playlist is mostly [[EmoMusic emo rock]], a genre that heavily fell out of favor in the public eye in the early stages of TheNewTens. Several of the bands featured on the station, such as Music/MyChemicalRomance, Music/HotHotHeat, and Minus The Bear have split up over the years, although the first reunited in 2020.

** Despite the game taking place in [[NextSundayAD 2011]] (five years after ''VideoGame/SaintsRow1''), because it only actually came out two years later the setting just screams [[TurnOfTheMillennium 2007-2008]], especially with the fashion, music and cultural references.

*** In-game music is bought from a record store chain that appears to be battling against illegal downloading, and civilians can be heard commenting about new cars having CD players.

*** UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror is referenced various times in weapon stores, with the Brass Knuckles commercial making a reference to freedom fries and post-9/11 patriotism.
*** The mere presence of the AR-50 XMAC can be seen as a dated aspect, as the XM8 was ubiquitous in games (and occasionally movies) made between the mid-2000s and early-2010s before game developers started looking to even more recent and actually-adopted weapon systems like the FN SCAR and Kriss Vector as a quick and easy way to symbolize "the future".

*** The mere presence of the AR-50 XMAC can be seen as a dated aspect, as the [[RareGuns/AssaultRifles XM8]] was ubiquitous in games (and occasionally movies) made between the mid-2000s and early-2010s before game developers started looking to even more recent and actually-adopted weapon systems like the FN SCAR and Kriss Vector as a quick and easy way to symbolize "the future".

* SignatureScene: The ending cutscenes to “Red Asphalt” and “Rest in Peace”, with the former having the Boss [[spoiler:do a MercyKill on Carlos after being brutalized by the Brotherhood]] and the latter having Gat [[spoiler:peforming a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown on Shogo and then [[BuriedAlive burying him alive with the help of the Boss]]]]. These are often used as examples for the first two games’ tone compared to later entries in the series, with the former being a ''massive'' PlayerPunch and TearJerker and the latter being both [[CatharsisFactor cathartic]] and [[NightmareFuel horrifying]].

** Some missions will have enemy cars (police or otherwise) do a suicidal crash into yours in an attempt to run you off the road and even in an improved bear(which is tough but fairly slow), this can be incredibly obnoxious.

** The game was ported to the PC by a subsidiary of Creator/CDProjektRED, before they were well-known for triple-A games. The game suffered from ''enormous'' draw distance issues - try driving a regular car at top speed and one may almost immediately get stuck in an area that hasn't loaded yet. None of the [=DLCs=] made it to the PC, either, because by the time any of it even came out for consoles, Volition had essentially fired the porters from the project and declared it hopeless. The controls (where keys can and will become sticky if held) and audio quality in this port are also really poor. Luckily, there are mods to fix many of these issues (''Gentlemen of the Row'' is very popular) and improve the audio quality, but even the mods can't guarantee that the game will run on any particular set-up, with even high end hardware made years after the game's release didn't help.
** The PC version was then ported to Linux, with the exact same problems as above.
*** However, during an 11th-Anniversary stream for the game in October of 2019, Creator/{{Volition}} announced that they had found the source code that had been lost and are working on a patch/rerelease to try and turn the porting disaster into a PolishedPort, fixing many performance issues, integrating several features of the ''Gentlemen of the Row'' mod (since its creator is one of the people involved with creating the patch) and even adding the [=DLCs=] to the game. As the project is a two-man job working outside of office hours and one of those two has since passed away, time will tell if the AuthorsSavingThrow works.
** The Xbox One version of the game for the most part is perfectly fine, but during many of the beginning missions, the game has a tendency to lag. Not to mention that without [=VSync=] turned on, character textures in cutscenes are infamous for looking quite strange.

** An UpdatedRerelease for Saints Row 2 was worked on, but is now in limbo due to the [[DiedDuringProduction death of Idolninja]], a PromotedFanboy who also worked on the popular "Gentlemen of the Row" mod for the original PC version.