History YMMV / SaintsRowIV

** [[spoiler: Roddy Piper]] is treated like a mysterious guardian angel in the mission that introduces him as a callable Homie. The real [[spoiler: Roddy]] would pass away just two years later.

** One of the developers said he didn't want [[spoiler: Creator/BurtReynolds to be dead in the Saints Row universe. Well, he apparently had no choice in the matter, because Reynolds dies in this game. Having your home planet explode will do that.]] Even sadder as of September 2018, as the real [[spoiler:Burt]] is dead.
** One of Wrestling/RoddyPiper's idle monologues ends with him realizing that [[spoiler:he is dead along with everyone else on Earth.]] Real life Roddy Piper died in 2015.

** Many of the new gameplay mechanics around the super powers highly resemble those of the ''VideoGame/{{Crackdown}}'' series. Including starting weak and needing to collect orbs on rooftops to improve them.

* DesignatedVillain: Whenever Julius gets brought up, people talk about him with the same amount of disgust usually reserved for bloodthirsty tyrants like Zinyak. Sure betraying the Boss in the first game was a dick move, but you can't fault the guy's motivation at the time. Although the game seems to go with the "he backstabbed you to save his skin" interpretation.

!! Index: All Games | ''YMMV/SaintsRow1'' | ''YMMV/SaintsRow2'' | ''YMMV/SaintsRowTheThird'' | ''Saints Row IV'' | ''YMMV/SaintsRowGatOutOfHell'' | ''YMMV/AgentsOfMayhem''

* FoeYay: Mocked by the Boss when dealing with Zinyak. "Are you trying to kill me or sleep with me?"

** Super-Powered freaking Fight Club. Especially the one with that guy who killed Gat's girlfriend. Nnnngh. Okay, timed mission? Yup. No Weapons? Yup. Several waves? Oh yes. The last wave (the boss) is this guy with an energy sword, and all of his minions have energy swords too. They all have sprint superpowers, and the boss himself also has super jump and if they so much as touch you, they shear off large amounts of life (even on Normal!) and cause you to stagger and they try to trap you so you can't move. It can take several fireballs to kill one, and your health does not regenerate in battle unless you kill someone and take the health item.

* DesignatedVillain: Whenever Julius gets brought up, people talk about him with the same amount of disgust usually reserved for bloodthirsty tyrants like Zinyak. Sure betraying the boss in the first game was a dick move, but you can't fault the guy's motivation at the time. Although the game seems to go with the he blew him up to save his skin interpretation.

** The ship that the Saints use as their base of operations has no official name, but has been affectionately dubbed by the developers "The [[TheMatrix Nebuchad]][[Franchise/MassEffect normandy]]".

* CrazyAwesome: Whether it's scarring a mobster with nuclear waste, leaping plane to plane without a parachute, or robbing a bank with the gang dressed as themselves, the plans only work because the Boss is crazy. There are only two ways to do things: the easy way and the awesome way. And in their own words, "since when have we done things the easy way?"

** Gats revival proved to be rather contentious. While always a fan favorite character, arguably the most popular of the series, fans were split over whether his death was needless or a nice dramatic twist in ''The Third.'' The retconing of his death hear proved to be even more divisive; with people either happy that their favorite character got revived or upset that this was another in the line of the series abandoning series story telling in favor of irreverancy.

** There's a minor one over whether Johnny Gat should've been brought back from the dead.

** The Mind Over Murder activities, when playing on higher difficulties. The time limits are extremely stringent, so you have to perform almost flawlessly if you want the reach the gold target.

* AndYouThoughtItWouldFail: When the game was announced and revealed the whole alien invasion plot, many long time fans just deemed the series unsalvagable by this point. Granted ''Saints Row the Third'' was considered a decent game in it's own right, but the whole clones, lucador enemies and more lewd joke direction wasn't what many were hoping for in a ''Saint's Row'' sequel. So this direction certainly didn't sit well with many and people just figuring the developers having given up entirely. But once played, the tongue in cheek nature and over the top madness of the game quickly won over many. Ultimately it's considered one of the better entries in the franchise.

** The Simulation is a fascinating virtual mind-space which the protagonists can hack to reshape the rules of to their whim, resulting in fancy things like superpowers and energy weapons. This hacking process for the most part takes the shape of the series' gameplay tradition of conquering neighborhoods to strengthen your gang and expand your criminal empire. However, because it is also a prison complex, the protagonists [[spoiler: nonchalantly destroy it]] near the end of the story, making all the expansion you did seem like a ShootTheShaggyDogStory. How awesome would it have been had all the work instead resulted in such high-level hacking capacities that the Simulation could have been rewritten entirely into something more useful and beneficial for the Saints? For instance, it could have become a [[spoiler: complete virtual recreation of the destroyed Earth and its inhabitants if you didn't get the GoldenEnding]].

** Many of the homies from the previous game, such as Oleg and Viola, considering how they got the [[spoiler: DroppedABridgeOnHim treatment]]. They weren't fully fleshed out yet in the previous game and this game's concept of loyalty missions would have been a great opportunity to remedy that.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: The Boss becoming President could have easily been the plot of a game of its own. This game covers it and pretty much disposes of it in the space of two missions.

** They Wasted a Perfectly Good Game Mechanic: Playing around with your StockSuperpowers is great fun - too bad most story missions disable them.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: Related to below, Cyrus Temple and Killbane. The ex-STAG commander turned terrorist and the former leader of the Luchadores would be great main antagonists if they joined forces and the game focused on The Boss being the US President, opening the possibility of satisfying final confrotation with both of them, since both walked off free in the canon ending of the first game. But, instead, Cyrus is offed right at the prologue and Killbane only has a brief appearance in the simulation.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: Related to above, Cyrus Temple and Killbane. The ex-STAG commander turned terrorist and the former leader of the Luchadores would be great main antagonists if they joined forces and the game focused on The Boss being the US President, opening the possibility of satisfying final confrotation with both of them, since both walked off free in the canon ending of the first game. But, instead, Cyrus is offed right at the prologue and Killbane only has a brief appearance in the simulation.