Mass Effect Thoughts

[Name_Here]

I dunno--after the absolute pig's ear of a main plot that was Mass Effect 2 it would have taken something pretty special to rescue the series storyline, IMHO, and we never got it.

Mass Effect 2 was the absolute best part of the series. They dropped the ball in pretty much every way for the third and worst installment.

[Morty]

Although I have only played the first game, and not even to completion (although I did enjoy the experience overall, even though I thought the combat in 1 was a bit clunky, or was it just me being bad?), I think their frustration has nothing to do with hate/spite/etc., but with passion. This is the kind of situation that only ever happens when you where so much into something, because you strongly liked it, that the let down is spirit crushing.

It was pretty disappointing, sure. It was also eight years ago. I find it hard to hold on to outrage this long, I don't know about anyone else.

Mass Effect 2 was the absolute best part of the series. They dropped the ball in pretty much every way for the third and worst installment.

It doesn't matter if it was good, bad or average. In the context of the series' ending, it matters that ME2 spent the majority of its main plot avoiding engaging with the Reapers' origins, nature, motivation or anything else. What engagement it does have comes in the form of the Collectors' attempts to create a human Reaper, a plan that doesn't make a lick of sense. So it leaves ME3 to pick up the pieces and we know how it ends.

For as long as the game lasted, it was good. It let us experience the universe and characters without the Reapers breathing down our necks. But it stalling for time, and the next game had to pay the bill.

[Name_Here]

It doesn't matter if it was good, bad or average. In the context of the series' ending, it matters that ME2 spent the majority of its main plot avoiding engaging with the Reapers' origins, nature, motivation or anything else. What engagement it does have comes in the form of the Collectors' attempts to create a human Reaper, a plan that doesn't make a lick of sense. So it leaves ME3 to pick up the pieces and we know how it ends.

For as long as the game lasted, it was good. It let us experience the universe and characters without the Reapers breathing down our necks. But it stalling for time, and the next game had to pay the bill.

The next game didn't though. ME3's sins were all it's own. Namely wasting time on stuff I couldn't care less about and focusing on a literal deus ex machina instead of character interaction and satisfying encounters.

[Morty]

The next game didn't though. ME3's sins were all it's own. Namely wasting time on stuff I couldn't care less about and focusing on a literal deus ex machina instead of character interaction and satisfying encounters.

That's... really not the point. Of course ME3 failed, but its failings were set up well in advance.

[Name_Here]

That's... really not the point. Of course ME3 failed, but its failings were set up well in advance.

How is that ME3's faults were all it's own not the point? The only way that ME2 failed ME3 was setting expectations for the finale higher than the development team was capable of producing.

[factotum]

Mass Effect 2 was the absolute best part of the series. They dropped the ball in pretty much every way for the third and worst installment.

In terms of gameplay and the side missions I won't argue with you, ME2 was a great game. The main plot was absolute garbage, though. It spent the first couple of hours destroying anything that could have been left as a sequel hook from the first game and then rebuilding everything so it was more or less exactly the same as before, even to the extent that all the same crew members from the old Normandy decided to jump ship from the Alliance and join Cerberus at the same time--and let's not go into how Cerberus had somehow gone from being an outlawed terrorist organisation to a group who had enough money, power and resources to build a bigger, better version of the most advanced ship the Alliance ever built. It then went away and didn't bother us overmuch while we did the much more entertaining side missions, then came back with a vengeance when all of the main crew members crammed into a shuttle to go and do something--a shuttle not possibly big enough for all of them, if you had a full crew--so they'd all be away when the Collectors attack.

Speaking of which, why did we need the Collectors again? A single Reaper had shown itself capable of destroying nearly the entire Alliance fleet at the end of ME1, and we knew there were dozens of the things out there--so why did we need some second-rate organic losers whose entire plan was to melt humans down into a semi-organic Reaper clone? Compared to Sovereign the enemies in ME2 were laughable.

So, yes, I stand by my statement--the main plot in ME2 was laughably bad, and as Morty points out, it set ME3 up for failure by not addressing any of the overarching concerns of the trilogy as a whole. It behaved as an almost entirely self-contained episode that didn't inherit anything from ME1 and didn't pass much along to ME3.

[Eldan]

Yeah, that. ME1 managed to excellently merge space opera and cosmic horror into an excellent plot. ME2 let you **** around a bit and then tried for shock moments.

[Morty]

Of course, ME1 also didn't make things easy for subsequent games. It's difficult to follow up on "there's an army of nigh-indestructible god-machines waiting to destroy all sentient life" without getting into problems of escalation... which we see happen in ME3. The whole idea of the Reapers made for some good "whoa" moments at first, but proved unwieldy later on. Not to mention overshadowing just about everything else. The great paradox of Mass Effect is that it shows us a rich space opera galaxy to explore... and a main plot that eclipses it.

[Narkis]

Of course, ME1 also didn't make things easy for subsequent games. It's difficult to follow up on "there's an army of nigh-indestructible god-machines waiting to destroy all sentient life" without getting into problems of escalation... which we see happen in ME3. The whole idea of the Reapers made for some good "whoa" moments at first, but proved unwieldy later on. Not to mention overshadowing just about everything else. The great paradox of Mass Effect is that it shows us a rich space opera galaxy to explore... and a main plot that eclipses it.

Really? ME1 ended at the perfect moment for a sequel: The immediate threat is over, but the Reapers are still out there and they're gonna kill us all if they get here. The clock is ticking, only we don't know how much time we have. We don't know anything, in fact. Who are the Reapers, why are they killing everything, why in fact are they using such a convoluted method to kill everything instead of permanently occupying the galaxy and nipping all developing species in the bud, how do we stop them, can we even stop them, and if not can we reason with them?

Mass Effect 2 should have been an adventure exploring the unknown, ancient regions of the galaxy to answer these questions. And Mass Effect 3 should have been the desperate attempt to implement such knowledge as all **** hit the fan. Instead, ME2 was essentially a giant sidequest that left us at the exact same point as we were at the end of ME2. And ME3 had a lot of issues even before the ending. It all felt as if the writer for ME2 was more interested in telling a story about his Cerberus pet villains instead of continuing the story ME1 left, and both latter games suffered as a result.

[factotum]

Really? ME1 ended at the perfect moment for a sequel: The immediate threat is over, but the Reapers are still out there and they're gonna kill us all if they get here.

Yeah, isn't one of the last things Shepard says in ME1 "The Reapers are still out there, and I'm going to find a way to stop them!" or something like that? After all, the cycle this time has already been disrupted by the Protheans shutting down the mega-relay in the Citadel, which means we have both time and foreknowledge of what's coming, something that previous participants didn't have. We also have a Shepard who can understand Prothean gizmos and Liara, an expert in Prothean archaeology, to lead us to other information they might have left behind--Vigil says it took centuries for the Reapers to destroy all Protheans, who knows what they might have discovered in that time?

But no, we have to kill and rebuild Shepard and turn a meek archaeologist into one of the shadiest people in the galaxy instead. (I mean, Liara as the Shadow Broker is quite possibly the most ridiculous retcon in the whole of ME2, and it has a lot of competition there).

[Name_Here]

In terms of gameplay and the side missions I won't argue with you, ME2 was a great game. The main plot was absolute garbage, though. It spent the first couple of hours destroying anything that could have been left as a sequel hook from the first game and then rebuilding everything so it was more or less exactly the same as before, even to the extent that all the same crew members from the old Normandy decided to jump ship from the Alliance and join Cerberus at the same time--and let's not go into how Cerberus had somehow gone from being an outlawed terrorist organisation to a group who had enough money, power and resources to build a bigger, better version of the most advanced ship the Alliance ever built. It then went away and didn't bother us overmuch while we did the much more entertaining side missions, then came back with a vengeance when all of the main crew members crammed into a shuttle to go and do something--a shuttle not possibly big enough for all of them, if you had a full crew--so they'd all be away when the Collectors attack.

Speaking of which, why did we need the Collectors again? A single Reaper had shown itself capable of destroying nearly the entire Alliance fleet at the end of ME1, and we knew there were dozens of the things out there--so why did we need some second-rate organic losers whose entire plan was to melt humans down into a semi-organic Reaper clone? Compared to Sovereign the enemies in ME2 were laughable.

So, yes, I stand by my statement--the main plot in ME2 was laughably bad, and as Morty points out, it set ME3 up for failure by not addressing any of the overarching concerns of the trilogy as a whole. It behaved as an almost entirely self-contained episode that didn't inherit anything from ME1 and didn't pass much along to ME3.

Well you certainly have a list of very nitpicky complaints there. None of which are very convincing. The closest you get is the Normandy attack which they half assed but doesn't a bad plot make.

As for the concerns of the trilogy ME3 decided to make a whole conflict from scratch in the organic vrs synthetic as the whole basis of the Reapers giving lie to everything that Sovereign had to say on the matter of why the Reapers did what they did. It's also ME3 ignoring the build up for the end game having to do with dark energy. But ME3 decided to do it's own thing rather than following thematically or logically form the rest of the trilogy. Which is a sin all of their own making.

[Morty]

I feel like Mass Effect 2 tried to create a new story, instead of picking up where ME1 had left off. Which is valid, but it tried to do so while also keeping Shepard as a central character. Which necessitated a two-year timeskip, sidelining various characters, severely changing others, et cetera. Making Cerberus edgy anti-heroes with resources to rival the Alliance's was a means to an end here, not an end in itself, I think. A slower-paced story where we don't work for the Alliance/Council and have to rub shoulders with the galaxy's less savory elements might have worked better with a new protagonist - like, say, a promising Cerberus agent.

[Forum Explorer]

Well you certainly have a list of very nitpicky complaints there. None of which are very convincing. The closest you get is the Normandy attack which they half assed but doesn't a bad plot make.

As for the concerns of the trilogy ME3 decided to make a whole conflict from scratch in the organic vrs synthetic as the whole basis of the Reapers giving lie to everything that Sovereign had to say on the matter of why the Reapers did what they did. It's also ME3 ignoring the build up for the end game having to do with dark energy. But ME3 decided to do it's own thing rather than following thematically or logically form the rest of the trilogy. Which is a sin all of their own making.

The complaint I see as most valid about ME2 is that it didn't actually advance the trilogy in any way. By the end of it, the galaxy is about as prepared as it was at the start of it for the Reaper invasion. It did give us a tantalizing hint of the Reaper's motivation (which ME3 didn't explore), but was otherwise basically a character study and exploring the universe.

Which actually could work fine. It'd give you a good idea who 'your' Shepherd was and raises the stakes because now you care a lot more about the galaxy.

ME3 was also fine, if a bit lower quality. The biggest problem with ME3 was that it promised a lot more than it delivered. If you didn't read any advertisments about it, it'd be a fun action sci-fi game with a little bit of a sterotypical plot about using a superweapon to destroy the enemy. I mean, there's some hypothetical dream game where they made three different routes where you had the superweapon plot as route A, defeat the Reapers conventionally as route B, and I don't know, a Cerberus route where you do shady stuff to wipe out all of the aliens while somehow saving Humanity, or at least a bit of it.

But that would be a lot of work. Like a crazy amount of work. It's basically three games mashed into one. The base game worked just fine as a game in of itself, it was the weird expectations people put on it that brought it down. Oh, that's not to say it didn't have flaws. The whole Kai Leng thing for example, and they really could have done a better job explaining the Reaper's motivation. Personally, I wish they had the Reapers viewing themselves as saving the galaxy. They are forcibly ascending species to a higher existence by turning them into Reapers, a state where they're culture and achievements are preserved for eternity while also removing all risk of extinction from resource overuse, wars, or natural disaster.

I digress. Point is ME3 was a good game, just not as good as ME2. But ME2 didn't try and advance the story so it had a much easier job.


Oh and factotum, Liara becoming the Shadow Broker isn't a retcon, it's character development. A retcon would be if Liara was suddenly revealed to always have been the Shadow Broker all along. I hate it when people use the term retcon incorrectly.

[Kish]

It occurs to me, reading this, that while it is hugely unpopular there is no consensus on exactly what makes Mass Effect 3's ending bad. (Or even whether that sentence should actually have ended in "3 bad," rather than "3's ending bad.")

[Rodin]

It occurs to me, reading this, that while it is hugely unpopular there is no consensus on exactly what makes Mass Effect 3's ending bad. (Or even whether that sentence should actually have ended in "3 bad," rather than "3's ending bad.")

You could say that about the entire franchise. For some people it ended after Mass Effect 1. For others, Mass Effect 1 is a janky mess and you're better off getting the story summary and moving straight into 2 and 3. For some, Mass Effect 2 is bad because it didn't advance the main plot. I find it to be the best of the games because it doesn't touch the main plot. And 3 has been analyzed every way under the sun.

I don't think the games could have been made better. At least, not without ignoring realistic expectations for a game developer. If they'd done things differently, we would just be complaining about THAT instead.

[Kish]

I couldn't say that about the entire franchise. It didn't start being unpopular until Mass Effect 3 came out. So the only even vaguely related statement that could be made about the entire franchise would be the utterly vacuous "some people like it, and others don't, citing a wide array of reasons on each side."

[Morty]

You could say that about the entire franchise. For some people it ended after Mass Effect 1. For others, Mass Effect 1 is a janky mess and you're better off getting the story summary and moving straight into 2 and 3. For some, Mass Effect 2 is bad because it didn't advance the main plot. I find it to be the best of the games because it doesn't touch the main plot. And 3 has been analyzed every way under the sun.

I don't think the games could have been made better. At least, not without ignoring realistic expectations for a game developer. If they'd done things differently, we would just be complaining about THAT instead.

That's kind of where I've arrived at myself. The games are what they are, I prefer to think about the good times I've had with them instead of rehashing what could have and should have been. Hindsight is 20/20. Though as evidenced by this thread, I don't always succeed.

That being said, I don't see anything surprising by there not being a consensus about the endings. People expected a great variety of things from it and the ending didn't meet most of those. So they were disappointed in different ways. People might not agree what the ending should have been, but they can agree that it shouldn't have been the way it ended up.

[Name_Here]

The complaint I see as most valid about ME2 is that it didn't actually advance the trilogy in any way. By the end of it, the galaxy is about as prepared as it was at the start of it for the Reaper invasion. It did give us a tantalizing hint of the Reaper's motivation (which ME3 didn't explore), but was otherwise basically a character study and exploring the universe.

Which actually could work fine. It'd give you a good idea who 'your' Shepherd was and raises the stakes because now you care a lot more about the galaxy.

And it has always struck me as a pretty silly complaint because it's only true because ME3 decided not to follow up on anything in ME2. Like you went all over the place in ME2 and did a ton of stuff how is it possible that there isn't a single thread to pull on? Not even the dark energy throughline of the entire game?

In the end this complaint is just that when it came down to it Bioware wasn't imaginative or good enough to make a good conclusion to their marquee game. Which isn't the fault of ME2.

ME3 was also fine, if a bit lower quality. The biggest problem with ME3 was that it promised a lot more than it delivered. If you didn't read any advertisments about it, it'd be a fun action sci-fi game with a little bit of a sterotypical plot about using a superweapon to destroy the enemy. I mean, there's some hypothetical dream game where they made three different routes where you had the superweapon plot as route A, defeat the Reapers conventionally as route B, and I don't know, a Cerberus route where you do shady stuff to wipe out all of the aliens while somehow saving Humanity, or at least a bit of it.

But that would be a lot of work. Like a crazy amount of work. It's basically three games mashed into one. The base game worked just fine as a game in of itself, it was the weird expectations people put on it that brought it down. Oh, that's not to say it didn't have flaws. The whole Kai Leng thing for example, and they really could have done a better job explaining the Reaper's motivation. Personally, I wish they had the Reapers viewing themselves as saving the galaxy. They are forcibly ascending species to a higher existence by turning them into Reapers, a state where they're culture and achievements are preserved for eternity while also removing all risk of extinction from resource overuse, wars, or natural disaster.

I digress. Point is ME3 was a good game, just not as good as ME2. But ME2 didn't try and advance the story so it had a much easier job.

Nothing in your post defends the position that ME3 was a good game. And id you took out all the history of everything Sheppard had done in the past 2 games I don't think it would be at all a pleasant experience to play through.

[gomipile]

(I mean, Liara as the Shadow Broker is quite possibly the most ridiculous retcon in the whole of ME2, and it has a lot of competition there).

But that wasn't a retcon. It was a thing that happened in ME2 and wasn't true yet in ME1 according to any canon. Granted, it happened in a DLC, not in the main game.

[factotum]

But that wasn't a retcon. It was a thing that happened in ME2 and wasn't true yet in ME1 according to any canon. Granted, it happened in a DLC, not in the main game.

OK, I used the wrong word. Liara going from meek, nerdy Prothean archaeologist to the most powerful and shady information broker in the galaxy isn't character development, though, it's character *rewriting*--there is absolutely no hint about her character in ME1 that she is capable of such a transformation, and there are only 2 years between the two games, which is barely an eyeblink for an Asari.

Thing is, ME2 is a good game, and all the stuff that isn't directly related to the main plot is at worst serviceable and at best fantastic--all the character recruitment and loyalty missions between them have some of Bioware's best ever writing. And let's not forget, that stuff forms a much larger part of the game than the main plot does--IIRC the main plot in ME2 is a total of six missions long, whereas there are eight recruitment missions (assuming you don't have any DLC) and ten loyalty ones.

As for the mention of dark matter? As I recall, there is *one* reference to that (the mission where you somehow find Tali by an astronomically unlikely coincidence) in ME2, and I'm pretty sure I recall an interview with the lead writer of ME2 where he said the dark matter thing was an idea they played around with but decided not to go with in the end.

[Forum Explorer]

And it has always struck me as a pretty silly complaint because it's only true because ME3 decided not to follow up on anything in ME2. Like you went all over the place in ME2 and did a ton of stuff how is it possible that there isn't a single thread to pull on? Not even the dark energy throughline of the entire game?

In the end this complaint is just that when it came down to it Bioware wasn't imaginative or good enough to make a good conclusion to their marquee game. Which isn't the fault of ME2.



Nothing in your post defends the position that ME3 was a good game. And id you took out all the history of everything Sheppard had done in the past 2 games I don't think it would be at all a pleasant experience to play through.

Because very little of it did anything with the Reapers. I mean, ME3 did wrap up a bunch of stuff from ME2, but it was all only a minor part of dealing with the Reapers.

One of the writers for Mass Effect actually called out the dark energy plot thread as being 'something that wasn't super fleshed out.' He even then goes on to call out fans of the theory saying 'It's like Vaporware-vapourware is always perfect, anytime someone talks about the new greatest game. It's perfect until it comes out. I'm a little weary about going into too much detail because, whatever we came up with, it proboaly wouldn't be what people want it to be.'

Which sounds like they did think of something involving the Dark Matter plotline, and decided that it was a bad idea. Or they couldn't come up with something good that involved it. Either or.


Okay, an actual defense of the ME3?

First off, it's gameplay was solid. The level design was good, the enemies were great, the combat was as challenging as you wanted (except for Kai Leng who was stupidly easy for how hyped up he was), and they cut out the fiddly bits that was resource grinding. Secondly, the Reaper boss fights were incredible. They were fun and intense, even if the second one was actually kinda silly in retrospect. Third, the plot did a very good job of selling the Reapers as a threat. One Reaper was enough to almost exterminate the Krogan. Ditto with the Quarians. It felt like the galaxy was under siege and that our only hope was the Crucible.

And the whole Crucible plot line itself? Well that's a pretty classic story, of building/finding the Mac-Guffin to destroy the otherwise invincible foe. It doesn't bother me because that is the plotline that keep Shepherd relevant to the war at hand. Otherwise in the final fight you are just another solider, and the Reapers don't have some BBEG you can directly fight and kill to save the galaxy.

[Draconi Redfir]

I will say this: I loved the fact that the Crucible wasn't JUST designed by the Prothians, but was actually piece by piece built and designed by thousands of civilizations over trillions of years. Galactic cycle after cycle finding the blueprints and adding on to it, stretching as far back as the reapers themselves. It gives a sense of poetic justice to the whole thing, it's not just your cycle that's building the crucible to defend itself, but every civilization that came before you as well, come back from the dead for but a brief moment to avenge itself and all the others.

[Name_Here]

Because very little of it did anything with the Reapers. I mean, ME3 did wrap up a bunch of stuff from ME2, but it was all only a minor part of dealing with the Reapers.

One of the writers for Mass Effect actually called out the dark energy plot thread as being 'something that wasn't super fleshed out.' He even then goes on to call out fans of the theory saying 'It's like Vaporware-vapourware is always perfect, anytime someone talks about the new greatest game. It's perfect until it comes out. I'm a little weary about going into too much detail because, whatever we came up with, it proboaly wouldn't be what people want it to be.'

It's not about being perfect it's about being consistent. I mean the climax of the game was about how Synthetic and Organics could never live together which up until then had never been a thing.

Would it have been flawless? No. Would it have caused a huge outcry by being completely out of the blue? Also no.

Which sounds like they did think of something involving the Dark Matter plotline, and decided that it was a bad idea. Or they couldn't come up with something good that involved it. Either or.

Sounds like some sour grapes from somebody who couldn't get the job done .

Okay, an actual defense of the ME3?

First off, it's gameplay was solid. The level design was good, the enemies were great, the combat was as challenging as you wanted (except for Kai Leng who was stupidly easy for how hyped up he was), and they cut out the fiddly bits that was resource grinding. Secondly, the Reaper boss fights were incredible. They were fun and intense, even if the second one was actually kinda silly in retrospect. Third, the plot did a very good job of selling the Reapers as a threat. One Reaper was enough to almost exterminate the Krogan. Ditto with the Quarians. It felt like the galaxy was under siege and that our only hope was the Crucible.

I actually thought everything was a step back from ME2 in terms of gameplay. I remember multiple parts of ME2 that were challenging and fun but put a gun to my head and I couldn't remember a single set piece from ME3.

Also I think it really proved that the Reapers were all big talk and hype. They never felt overwhelming. I mean I killed one on foot pretty easily. What's the threat here?

And that's not even getting into why I played the games in the first place, what got me through the shakey ME1 the characters. I was hyped when I heard that Liara my lady love was back in the crew. I had romanced her in the first and kept the torchlit throughout the second. This was going to be great. Only for her to have a handful of scenes none of which were memorable. Repeat for most of the people on the crew where interaction was severely limited and lackluster when it was there.

And the whole Crucible plot line itself? Well that's a pretty classic story, of building/finding the Mac-Guffin to destroy the otherwise invincible foe. It doesn't bother me because that is the plotline that keep Shepherd relevant to the war at hand. Otherwise in the final fight you are just another solider, and the Reapers don't have some BBEG you can directly fight and kill to save the galaxy.

Mcguffins are things that kick off the plot but aren't important to the plot. In this case the crucible wasn't a Mcguffin it was the plot. With everything we did somehow being either to advance the building of the crucible or being utterly worthless. It was a half baked mechanic that largely ended up being worthless since no matter how complete or incomplete your crucible was all it accomplished was the complete destruction of the ME universe and salted the ealrth so that nothing could ever grow in that once fertile soil.

[factotum]

The major bit that annoyed me about ME3 was that everything seemed to be about humans. When Shepard goes to the council to ask for their help defending Earth, he comes out saying how self-centred they all are...when their OWN worlds are under Reaper assault just as much as Earth is. Then we have the writer's pet bad guys Cerberus being more often our opponents than the ruddy Reapers are--it was silly enough in ME2 when Cerberus could build a single ship better than the best the Alliance could offer, but in ME3 they had more ships and armies at their command than most of the major galactic powers.

Overall, if the Crucible had been the result of research done by Shepard and his squad over the whole of ME2 and ME3, rather than being something they find the plans for in a random lab on Mars at the beginning of 3 and then ignored until near the end of the game, it would have felt far more to be a result of the player's agency rather than a tacked-on hack because they couldn't figure out how to end the game properly.

[Anteros]

The thing is, ME2 did set up plot lines for 3. 3 just didn't bother to follow up on any of them. We had things like motivations for the Reapers hinted at, as well as a possible solution with the dark energy plot line and it was all just completely dropped in favor of completely new plot lines that weren't established at all when they changed writers for the sequel. That's a fault of ME3, not 2.

[Morty]

One of the writers for Mass Effect actually called out the dark energy plot thread as being 'something that wasn't super fleshed out.' He even then goes on to call out fans of the theory saying 'It's like Vaporware-vapourware is always perfect, anytime someone talks about the new greatest game. It's perfect until it comes out. I'm a little weary about going into too much detail because, whatever we came up with, it proboaly wouldn't be what people want it to be.'

Which sounds like they did think of something involving the Dark Matter plotline, and decided that it was a bad idea. Or they couldn't come up with something good that involved it. Either or.

Yeah, people really clung to the Dark Energy thing too hard. I did too, at one point. We know so very little about it that everyone can project their own desires on it. If ME3 had gone with it, I find it unlikely it would have miraculously worked better.

First off, it's gameplay was solid. The level design was good, the enemies were great, the combat was as challenging as you wanted (except for Kai Leng who was stupidly easy for how hyped up he was), and they cut out the fiddly bits that was resource grinding.

ME3 gameplay probably was the best of the original trilogy. More dynamic and less "narrow space with chest-high obstacles" than ME2. A better variety of powers, plus combos. Biotics not being stopped cold by defences - though with biotic explosions being so powerful, they may have swung back to being overpowered.

Andromeda gives us even more freedom of movement and dynamic battlefields and removes classes, but it also shoots itself in the foot with the power sets and overnerfs or removes too many powers. So it's really a toss-up.

[LibraryOgre]

It's not about being perfect it's about being consistent. I mean the climax of the game was about how Synthetic and Organics could never live together which up until then had never been a thing.

Except that's what Sovereign told us it was about in the first game... exterminating organic life to prevent it from being overrun by the synthetic. And it's a theme that the quarians embody. And ME2 brings it up with the various Mechs-gone-wild scenarios.

[Azuresun]

you think the premise of the game could have been better if it was made as a completely different genre? Maybe a city-builder or civilization-type to replicate the "rebuilding society" thing?

Originally, it was a different game, built up as a freeform exploration game with loads and loads of planets to explore, and was retooled as what we got later on quite late in the development process. This video has some interesting insights into what happened along the way.

I quite liked MEA, regardless of the flaws. And it was really sad to see gaming media at its absolute worst, with everyone on Youtube fighting to be the most histrionically hateful, when the developers were making good-faith efforts to patch problems and make it work.

[Azuresun]

That's... really not the point. Of course ME3 failed, but its failings were set up well in advance.

Not all of them. Starkid came out of absolutely nowhere--and hadn't even been hinted at for most of ME3! If ME3 had carried forth flawed storytelling, that would have been one thing, but the ending didn't carry forward any kind of storytelling that had been set up.

It occurs to me, reading this, that while it is hugely unpopular there is no consensus on exactly what makes Mass Effect 3's ending bad. (Or even whether that sentence should actually have ended in "3 bad," rather than "3's ending bad.")

For me, the greatest sin of the ending was that it was impersonal, whereas up till then, the series had been intensely personal. Every big storyline up till then, even ones that affected the destiny of billions of people, had been illustrated through characters and their arcs. You find out about the geth through Legion, the quarians through Tali and her father, the krogan through Mordin and Wrex. At every point, there's an individual character acting as a lens and giving these big impersonal problems a humanoid face.

And then at the end, it's about this one character we never met before and a big nonsensical abstract conflict that not only makes no sense in the lore of the game, but which we could have definitively proved wrong earlier in the same game?

Except that's what Sovereign told us it was about in the first game... exterminating organic life to prevent it from being overrun by the synthetic. And it's a theme that the quarians embody. And ME2 brings it up with the various Mechs-gone-wild scenarios.

I'm pretty certain Sovereign says nothing about saving anyone from synthetic life in the first game. Probably because it's utter nonsense that falls apart with 5sec of thought.

"Organic and synthetic life cannot peacefully coexist--we have no proof and you might have just explicitly proved us wrong at Rannoch, plus the geth in ME1 were only being aggressive towards organics because we were manipulating them, so just take our word for this. Anyway, we will avoid the risk of this tragedy by bloodily genociding organic races in pointlessly cruel ways."

[Forum Explorer]

It's not about being perfect it's about being consistent. I mean the climax of the game was about how Synthetic and Organics could never live together which up until then had never been a thing.

Would it have been flawless? No. Would it have caused a huge outcry by being completely out of the blue? Also no.



Sounds like some sour grapes from somebody who couldn't get the job done .



I actually thought everything was a step back from ME2 in terms of gameplay. I remember multiple parts of ME2 that were challenging and fun but put a gun to my head and I couldn't remember a single set piece from ME3.

Also I think it really proved that the Reapers were all big talk and hype. They never felt overwhelming. I mean I killed one on foot pretty easily. What's the threat here?

And that's not even getting into why I played the games in the first place, what got me through the shakey ME1 the characters. I was hyped when I heard that Liara my lady love was back in the crew. I had romanced her in the first and kept the torchlit throughout the second. This was going to be great. Only for her to have a handful of scenes none of which were memorable. Repeat for most of the people on the crew where interaction was severely limited and lackluster when it was there.



Mcguffins are things that kick off the plot but aren't important to the plot. In this case the crucible wasn't a Mcguffin it was the plot. With everything we did somehow being either to advance the building of the crucible or being utterly worthless. It was a half baked mechanic that largely ended up being worthless since no matter how complete or incomplete your crucible was all it accomplished was the complete destruction of the ME universe and salted the ealrth so that nothing could ever grow in that once fertile soil.

I'll fully admit everything with the Star Child was pretty bad. I've got no defense for it. But the outcry was never about it being out of the blue. The outcry was about how each option was effectively the same, gave an almost identical cutscene, and didn't take into account your past actions at all.


K. Insult the guy all you want, but he's the guy writing the game. If he says it's a crap idea, I'm more inclined to believe him than you.


ME2 had some great fights as well. Mind you it also had the mineral scanning which was the worst thing in any of the games. I mean, driving around in the Mako at least was fun, even if the controls were wonky.

But you never do kill one on foot. The best you do is to get something else to kill it for you.

They were limited in comparison to ME2 which was all about the characters. Otherwise we get some decent scenes with most characters, from what I can remember, about the same as ME1, though some characters certainly got less.


I may have used the term wrong, but the point remains, the whole get the one thing that will allow us to defeat the enemy is a classic story and one that lets the main character remain relevant for the entire game. Oh, the mechanic wasn't super well handled, I'll admit, as stuff like being able to get points from playing multiplayer was a problem, and not being able to get the maxed out ending from just playing the core game.

As a plot point, it's no worse than Sauron being destroyed by throwing the One Ring into Mount Doom. And there absolutely is a ton of stories you can still tell in the Mass Effect universe. Well, assuming the Destruction ending is the canon one. If the Reapers are controlled by Shepherd than I can't see any war story working, and Synthesis has all sorts of problems.

But for the destruction ending, the galaxy still exists, and while people might be friends for now, people aren't going to stop being jerks forever. If anything, the galaxy has been left super vulnerable since all the superpowers have been shattered by the war.