YMMV / Serious Sam 4

• Adorkable: Kenny. He's a college student with a big love of frogs and stumbles himself through the early parts of the game, as well as the only one who is openly intimidated by the chaos going on around him. All of this makes him incredibly endearing and his death at the hands of Lord Achriman even more painful.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Why did Brand decide to betray all of humanity to Mental? Even Sam admits that he asked himself that question. Was he simply a coward who wanted to escape Mental's genocide, was he delusional enough to think it was the only correct choice or did he just want power for himself? Or maybe all three are true? The one thing that is absolutely clear is that Brand did it for his own selfish benefit.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Ugh-Zan VI looks imposing and is one of the largest bosses in the series, but he moves so slowly that his attacks barely pose a threat. It doesn't help that he takes Brand's place as the final villain at the last second, leaving him The Unfought until Siberian Mayhem. Brand's position as Best Boss Ever makes Ugh-Zan VI even more anti-climactic in retrospect.
• Audience-Alienating Ending: Siberian Mayhem is regarded as one of strongest Serious Sam entries since the two originals, but its ending has been less than favourably received. Right after Sam kills Brand, Future Sam shows up and reveals that the entire expansion takes place in an Alternate Timeline, stating that this version of events doesn't end well and taking this Sam with him for an unknown mission. For many fans, this revelation rendered the entire journey and the sacrifices of Ledov's Squad as All for Nothing, since they only contributed to a doomed timeline. A sour aftertaste to an otherwise strong finale.
• Awesome Music: Damjan Mravunac once again knocks it out of the park for both 4 and Siberian Mayhem, providing several incredible tunes that capture the grandiose scope of the conflict beautifully. See more on the series-wide Awesome Music page.
• Best Boss Ever: The Final Boss of Siberian Mayhem is often considered to be one of, if not the best boss fight in the entire series. He has a wide variety of attacks, a spectacular Desperation Attack involving two giant, flaming cobras swinging explosive laser beams around the arena in his second phase, is intensely difficult and features an awesome remix of Kukulkán's theme from ''The Second Encounter''. The fact that it is the one-on-one duel with the traitorous, mutated General Brand that we didn't get in the main game just sweetens the deal.
• Breather Level: "The Package" is a fairly short level sandwiched right between the Wham Episode and the final level. Most of your guns are taken away and, as such, the combat encounters are a lot easier to compensate. Even the Side Quest is a simple text adventure with no threat whatsoever.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • The gunplay in this game feels a lot more impactful and satisfying than that of the previous Sam game, which makes killing enemies in this game feel even more fulfilling. It also helps that you can now duel wield all the weapons (including the cannonball launcher!)
  • After being responsible for most of France and Italy being in ruins, converting humans into processed zombies, taunting Sam throughout the game and then killing Kenny, watching Lord Achriman get his head blown off by Sam is incredibly cathartic.
  • A special mention also goes to General Brand's death. He reveals himself to be a treacherous scumbag by not only betraying humanity by joining forces with Mental and his army in order to become "the last human", but he also murders Father Mikhail just for the sake of being evil, so when Brand gets tied to a rocket and fired into a portal at the end, one can't help but get satisfaction from his fate after all the crap he pulled.
  • And for those that were disappointed by Brand being relegated to Cutscene Boss in the main game, getting to fight him as the Final Boss of Siberian Mayhem finally gives the satisfaction of unloading your entire arsenal in the traitor's face. The headshot Sam delivers to him in the final cutscene only adds to the catharsis.
• Cheese Strategy: Some areas have places where it is possible to hide, picking off enemies one by one.
• Complete Monster:
  • Lord Achriman is the chief strategist and propagandist of the alien overlord Tah-Um, better known as "Mental", who on his master's behalf has made a thousand worlds across the galaxy cow and burn, their races either exterminated or enslaved. Achriman spearheads a similar assault against Earth, razing entire cities like Paris and Rome while having people either killed by the millions or converted into mindless, mutated fodder for Tah-Um's armies. Achriman even personally murders Sam's rookie friend Kenny in front of Sam's face just to hurt him. Unusually and distinctly dark for the World of Ham he lives in, Achriman is the vilest ever yet seen of Mental's armies.
  • General Howard Brand secretly allies with the forces of Mental to help them invade Earth. Sacrificing any troops and allies of Sam's he needs to supposedly for the greater good, Brand soon enough reveals his treachery as he impales Sam's friend Mikhail then orders the rest of his partners be devoured. Brand ultimately plans to pave the way for Mental's forces to wipe out all life on Earth, hoping to hand Sam over to serve as a slave while Brand gets promoted and helps bring about "the end of history". Brand is downright cheerful at his self-proclaimed status as the "Beast of the Apocalypse" and "The Last Human."
• Contested Sequel: Much like Serious Sam 2 and Serious Sam 3: BFE, Serious Sam 4 has been quite a base-breaker for many fans. One half of the fandom feel the game fixes all the problems the third game suffered from, and that it has the best gunplay in the entire franchise, while the other half of the fandom consider the game a massive letdown for its outdated grapics, content outside the core gameplay not adding much to the game, bugs and glitches, and that it looks too much like Serious Sam 3.
• Genius Bonus: The secret for Big Rocket Man Pyrone involves collecting health items. The number of these items follow the Fibonacci sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8...).
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • One of the first side-missions you get is to help out the Italian Resistance, after the battle a soldier named Paolo thanks you but is heartbroken to find out that the leader Massimo Murena had died in the attack and despairs over how it does not seem like a fitting end for an impressive figure like him, to which Sam tells Paolo that HE is Massimo and that the guy who died is named Paolo, thus convincing Paolo to keep the legend of Massimo alive to help inspire others.
  • The friendship between the members of the AAA Team in general is fairly sweet. They make dumb jokes and rip on each other, but it is clear none of the insults are meant seriously and that they care a great deal about each other's safety. It makes their abrupt deaths throughout 4 and Serious Sam 3: BFE all the more tragic.
  • While the subtitle Serious Sam 4: Planet Badass was ultimately dropped before release, the game does well to show why it was called this in the first place. For perhaps the first time in history, everyone on Earth stands united. Whatever differences humanity may have had with one another no longer matter in the face of Mental and his servants, everyone doing their part in surviving this crisis. Everyone is also united in their hatred for a Dirty Coward like Brand.
  • Scattered throughout the entire game are several radios that broadcast messages from Radio Free Earth. Bill Corwin, Radio Free Earth's host, encourages people from all across the world to keep up hope, help out their fellow man and remember what life before the war used to be like so we don't forget what makes us human in the first place. His speeches manage to be a powerful antithesis to Lord Achriman's propaganda, to the point that Siberian Mayhem reveals Achriman even put Corwin on number one in his list of "Most Wanted Earth Propagandists".
  • The "Hide and Seek" side-mission in Siberian Mayhem, which also doubles as a Tear Jerker. Right in the middle of traversing a heavily fortified section of the Siberian landscape, Sam finds a missing poster for a little girl that was seen nearby and decides that it is best if he checks it out to see if he can help. He does find the little girl in a shack nearby, but she lost some of her belongings at a frozen lake not too far away and is too scared to come out, so Sam promises to bring them to her. When he gets back, the little girl does finally open the door only to reveal that she was Dead All Along. Giving her lost toys back to her finally allows the girl to pass on to the afterlife, but not before revealing some supplies for Sam.
  • Doubles as Tear Jerker, but Sam honors the members of Ledov's Squad laying down their lives for him by taking the time to make graves for every one of them at the end of Siberian Mayhem.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: The store description for the standalone expansion Siberian Mayhem outright spoils the twist that General Brand is a traitor.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Lord Achriman crosses this when he murders Kenny in cold-blood for no reason other than to spite Sam. Even before this, his enthusiastic support for Mental's genocidal campaign and what he did to the Witch-Brides marked him as a despicable tyrant.
  • General Brand somersaults over the line when he betrays all of humanity, kills Father Mikhail out of petty spite and has the rest of the AAA team thrown to the Harvester Drones for processing.
  • Siberian Mayhem reveals that Brand crossed this line before the game even began. When a mining operation in Siberia discovered hints to the existence of the Artifact of Doom, Brand left them all to die to Mental's forces. He even ensured that nobody would come to their aid by keeping the entire thing under wraps and kept them in place by promising a rescue that would never arrive. Sam can't help but voice his disgust when he finds out about this.
• Narm: The animations for enemies and weapons during gameplay are pretty spot-on, but the character animations are incredibly lacking when it comes to the game's cutscenes. Stiff movement and expressionless faces make some of the game's more serious moments hard to take seriously, such as Jones' death early on in the game. A Khnum bites the upper half of his body clean off, but Jones seems oddly unconcerned about his predicament, since he doesn't move or emote at all while it's carrying him in its hand.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Siberian Mayhem, the stand-alone Expansion Pack to Serious Sam 4, has been released and received far better than 4 itself.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The song in the E3 2018 teaser trailer is similar to Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild".
• Tear Jerker:
  • Jones' death early on likely won't move many people due to his lack of screentime and the problems described under Narm. However, the way Rodriguez talks about him later on in the game makes it clear that he was deeply shaken by the death of his best friend, especially since this is one of the few times that Rodriguez isn't yelling like a maniac. He even outright admits that he expects himself to die in some stupid fashion down the line, but thought Jones might survive the war.
  • Kenny's death at the hands of Lord Achriman. Sam, who usually manages to keep his cool, sounds on the verge of tears and doesn't know what to do.
  • Later in the game, a defeated but Defiant to the End Achriman dares Sam to make some last quip as he expects from him. With little hesitation, Sam says "I lost my shoe", paying homage to Kenny and leaving Achriman perplexed before blowing his head off.
  • During the ending credits, Sam and his surviving companions celebrate the temporary victory around a fire, laughing and quipping as they recall the events they went through, but it all goes silent and heavy they moment they talk about Kenny.
  • In Siberian Mayhem, every single member of Ledov's Squad dies at the end. Ivan is torn in half by Brand, Natasha and Vlad are Killed Offscreen and a mortally wounded Ledov blows himself and a whole bunch of enemies up with C4.
• That One Boss:
  • The Swamp Hive is an absolute nightmare to fight against. Not only does it spawn dozens of Zubenhakrabian spiders at you, but its hits are a one-hit kill, resulting in a borderline Nintendo Hard boss fight. It does die surprisingly quickly if you pop a Rage Serum, but that presumes you have one in reserve.
  • The Megalopolyp isn't much better either. Its tentacles can take a lot of health away from the player, not helped by the fact that it throws cars at you at the same time, and then you have Beheaded Kamikazes, Technopolips and Octanian Troopers interfering and serving as a distraction. The Popemobile you pilot against the Megalopolyp with also moves very slowly and runs out of ammo quite quickly (thankfully it recharges, but still), making the boss fight twice as hard.
  • The Final Boss of Siberian Mayhem is as challenging as it gets. He is an absolute Lightning Bruiser, has a varied moveset that makes him unpredictable and goes One-Winged Angel just when you think you've depleted his health bar, making him even more powerful. Thankfully, the game gives you an Auto-Save once you hit his second phase, but one achievement even asks you to defeat him on Serious difficulty without reloading your save file. At least it rewards you with an awesome weapon skin upon completion.
• The Woobie: Kenny is a Nice Guy who's very quirky and adorable, and has a very cute Running Gag about losing his shoe. Lord Achriman kills him right in front of Sam just to be a dick.

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