- Joined
- Aug 11, 2019
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the student loan plot point. Starting a murderous street gang that kills innocent people over student loans is way more evil and psychopathic than anything the original "problematic" Saints from the OG games did.
You know what game did that type of setup better?
Borderlands The Pre-sequel with Timothy Lawrence (aka, Jack's Doppelganger)

The hook for Timothy's backstory was that he was extremely average in comparison with everyone else.
He was just a random college student wanting to pay his loans. Thats it, not much else to him, being an average joe and all.
The absurdity came from how "average and grounded" his backstory was in comparison to the usual high stakes epicness insanity of the borderlands universe. Besides, Timothy was fun to play as and his dialogue reflects that down to earth-ness to him.
I think it also helped that he was a DLC Vault Hunter instead of the only one, he truly felt like an "alternative" to the main experience with the regular vanilla ones.
In the new one, they are playing this straight, as if to say "urgh, #relatable, right?!"
TPS draws attention to it over how absurdly "normal" Timothy is, with Saints Row, its played straight like its this amazing idea.