I knew this will happen, but it didn't hurt any less when they are finally gone, after I played the first and second game, Saints Row The Third became the first game I ever pre-ordered, I remember how excited when I first played it on my Xbox 360, and Laura Bailey's excellent performance made me really attach to my playa, it's the best game in the series and I will always argue with anyone else who disagree. I also met a friend in the college because of this series. Also they made the best original Xbox game The Punisher 2005.
Farewell Volition, and memento mori.
Well I don't wish to argue with you. And for the most part I agree and even share some of your story, like SRTT being the first one I pre-ordered. But after playing SRTT all the way through and finding out that Mission Replay was no longer a thing, I went straight back to SR2.
But I have a biased view, because SR2 was the first in the series I played, due to being a Play Station gamer at the time. So once my friend got sick of The Simpsons Game and Little Big Planet, those being the only two Co-op games I ever played, he dug through the massive mountain of untouched PS3 games I had in the corner of my room, he found SR2 and told me I just had to play it. So I did.
And honestly, being used to only GTA SA & GTA 4 as my open world games with character customization, this game blew my mind, especially after the initial cutscene when I was met with a fully customizable character that could look like whatever my imagination could come up with. I chose a female red head, that would later turn out to be my very first prototype for virtual Lexy, and my first real realisation that I'm unhappy being a man.
Then upon reaching the open world of Stilwater, I was in awe of how much detail every single street had that made no street feel too similar. The 4 upper layers of clothing and 4 lower layers of clothing were my next discovery. And each and every day I played the game I found I was never doing the same thing, there was so much to do.
But after a few months, I realised that it's called "Saints Row 2"... So logically there must be a game that came before it. Upon finding out that SR1 was only available on the Xbox 360, I got myself an Xbox 360 and bought SR1, I loved the story, even though Dex's betrayal, Troy's undercover cop plot twist, and Julius's boat bomb were all ruined because it was all revealed or recapped in SR2. So it felt more like I was playing a prequal.
It sucked that I could only be a male character in SR1, but I did make the character look as close to me as possible, and being unaware of the trans community at the time, I just decided that me being male in the first game was non-canon or a continuity error. But upon seeing the return of Saints Row for The Third instalment, I was so excited to see Steelport, and what new clothes we'd have in the multi-layer system, and what new diversions there'd be, like EMT, Firefighter, Poker, etc...
And we all know none of those features made the cut, so I was pretty bummed. But I still wanted to see what the game did have to offer. Though layered clothing was not really a thing anymore, they still gave us a large selection of clothing items to choose from, and I kept designing outfit after outfit. I did think the vehicle customization was better, though I do miss spinners.
And Johnny Gat... And Pierce and Shaundi got a lot more screen time and character development. But once the story and the city takeover was completed, there really wasn't a lot to discover in Steelport. Maybe a reference here, or an Easter egg there, but I found myself getting quite bored trying to explore Steelport without any particular goal in mind... So I did what I always do, I returned to SR2 and just freeroamed around Stilwater.
I'll agree that SRTT is more refined and is definitely enjoyable. But SR2 is like my origin story at this point.
