Mass Effect Trilogy

[Enoch]

 

 

I finished it twice, because apparently shooting Catalyst in his stupid little head wasn't proper way to end things. You wont get "long service medal" or "legend" achievements from that.

 

I did the same thing when I played it, and was infuriated that the last save point was just before jumping into the beam-thing on Earth.  Stumbling forward very slowly down long corridors is not a fun way to end a video game that is mostly about being a kickass sci-fi commando.  Doing it twice, doubly so. 

 

 

As you might see if you look back at the earlier part of this thread, my bottom line on the game was similar-- apart from the plot nonsense it was a good game, but not as good as ME2 was.  The 3rd game had less enemy variety, less encounter-design variety, and fewer and less-interesting companions.  But the core formula of pausable 3rd-person powers/guns combat, paired with in-depth character-focused dialogues and solid sci-fi world design remains enjoyable. 

 

 

Pretty much could've written this myself, but I didn't feel like there was less variety in encounters... but I did find the ending from Thessia onwards (Horizon was good, but Thessia, earth and the ending were pretty dire) very disappointing. Agree that fewer companions was another critical failure, even if the citadel dlc patched something back in.

 

Remains the biggest gaming disappointment I have endured. And that includes not getting NWN to ever work properly.

 

 

The bit about encounter design is, I think, the influence of the multiplayer.  The default "big fight" was defending an area against successive waves of opponents-- just like the multiplayer setup-- and it felt like they went to the well with that a few times too often. 

 

There were some variants in environment and opponent, like the run to summon the sandworm at the end of KroganPlanet or the fight inside the gun barrel of the Geth ship, but apart from the Leng fights (of whom the less is said, the better), the game lacked for interesting setpieces.  (The Geth TRON mission was pretty cool, though.)  And ME2 had lots of both of those.  The sun on Haestrom, the prison warden's shielding system, the biotic-enabling toxin on Samara's recruitment mission, the thresher maw fight, the moving platforms on the Collector ship, the 2 great boss fights in the Shadowbroker DLC, etc.  Hell, ME2's main boss fight was a hilariously lame concept, but at least there was some kind of unique combat challenge at the end. 

 

I confess that I don't remember Horizon very well, but I'll certainly agree that Priority: Earth was a slog. 

 

 

But, as I said, it wasn't all bad.  I've actually been working myself up to playing it again, with Leviathan and Citadel installed.  The question is whether I go into ME3 with everybody alive.  I'm somewhat tempted to engineer Tali's exile and/or death in ME2, which would free me to treat the Quarians as pure villains in ME3. 

Edited January 28, 2014 by Enoch

[213374U]

 

 

Yeah... the ending was universally panned, with good reason. I get that the game is not supposed to be about a feel-good trip, but slapping you across the face by ignoring everything you have done so far for the sake of an "artistic vision" is a huge step back in this medium. This is also without getting into how nonsensical, quackish, and generally awful the writing that facilitates it all is.

 

A collection of cool and touching moments, brought down overall by writer egomania. Certainly not the climactic finale it was set up to be.

I can't help but think the game would have been so much better if it all ended there on Earth. You're actually defeated (so no happy ending), the enemies have won, and all of that which they wished to portray happened.

 

But noooooooooo, they had to add spacekid rather than a proper "you're screwed over, here are the results of your loss" (an awesome thing Game of Thrones had when loosing the bossfight, but here it would be just the generic ending, taking in account what you did in the past).

 

I'm sure some people still would be dissapointed (as always seen with non-happy endings), but it wouldn't be as **** as the current way.

 

 

The way I see it, if you're going to man up and write something that deviates significantly from the "and they rode off into the sunset" formula, you need to be very careful with a buildup that justifies the final nut kick and make it consistent with the overall mood of the setting. The whole ME theme seems to be about good ol' human ingenuity and courage saving those poor silly aliens (from themselves, often) and overcoming apparently unsurmountable obstacles. It's basically one huge ego stroking journey. That's why I don't think a "you lose!" ending could ever work in this context.

 

I've for years praised Lacroix's and Ming Xiao's endings in Bloodlines. They made perfect sense within the lore and the setting, and by choosing either the player shows to have been, deliberately or not, ignoring the writing on the wall. No such thing in ME3. You just jump through the last hoop... to fall flat on your face. Unjustified shoehorning brought about by a writing inability to bring the plot under control and the divorce between a not-so-clever unfathomable evil and a medium that is all about interactivity.

 

 

 

I finished it twice, because apparently shooting Catalyst in his stupid little head wasn't proper way to end things. You wont get "long service medal" or "legend" achievements from that.

 

I did the same thing when I played it, and was infuriated that the last save point was just before jumping into the beam-thing on Earth.  Stumbling forward very slowly down long corridors is not a fun way to end a video game that is mostly about being a kickass sci-fi commando.  Doing it twice, doubly so. 

 

 

That was dreadful. Funny thing is, that's actually not the last savepoint. The game autosaves just before the conversation with the kid... only to automatically overwrite that save when the conversation ends. It's possible to alt+tab and manually make a copy of the autosave and reload it later to avoid the tedium that is fighting Marauder Shields and dragging yourself through the Citadel corridors... I wonder what the hell they were thinking.

[Serrano]

 I wonder what the hell they were thinking.

 

 

Probably something like, "This isn't ready yet but we need to ship it". Did they ever say how much work was lost with that whole dark space ending being leaked and needing to be re-done?    

Edited January 28, 2014 by Serrano

[Zoraptor]

I do wonder how much of the failure* of the ME ending was due to Bioware not really having done an epic continuation tale since Baldur's Gate/2/TOB more than a decade previous. The cracks in the narrative for both Dragon Age and Mass Effect were pretty evident between DAO/2 and ME1/2. ME2 tends to avoid or get only muted criticism nowadays for its wtf? moments like working for Cerberus and DA2 was at best a parallel narrative to DAO. I've said in once (well, once every time in comes up, so probably several dozen now) but I'll say it again, ME2 failed to do its job properly in either setting up or progressing the narrative, which left ME3 with far too much to do in that regard. Introduce the stuff used in ME3 which was just about literally deus ex machina earlier and you can avoid the jolt from it a lot. *** **** is still likely to be a complete waste of space and you'll still have the moronic Malak Moment of kicking his butt then 'losing' by cutscene but if he had been set up as a credible threat from the first or second game at least it may have been more credible dramatically.

 

What ME desperately needed was proper planning for the whole trilogy. Another thing I say every time is that the ending is not fundamentally flawed, the same ending style worked for Deus Ex itself because it was set up properly through the game and not just sprung on you towards the end. There were hooks for the set up given you talk to reapers and prothean databases and the like.

 

*I do also wonder what people really expected as well. As someone who basically dropped Babylon 5 after the ludicrous "Get the hell out of my galaxy speech!" I'm at least glad they did not do the equivalent to that.

[Tale]

 

I wonder what the hell they were thinking.

 

Probably something like, "This isn't ready yet but we need to ship it". Did they ever say how much work was lost with that whole dark space ending being leaked and needing to be re-done?

 

The dark energy ending wasn't what was leaked. The only reason we even know what was intended for dark energy is because Karphasyhn mentioned it was an idea he floated in an interview.

 

The leaked ending was pretty much not redone compared to what we got. The biggest change was Javik's removal where he ended up becoming DLC.

 

Time wasn't really the issue.

[Serrano]

That's just depressing then and I echo the sentiment of "What the hell were they thinking".

[Enoch]

I do wonder how much of the failure* of the ME ending was due to Bioware not really having done an epic continuation tale since Baldur's Gate/2/TOB more than a decade previous. The cracks in the narrative for both Dragon Age and Mass Effect were pretty evident between DAO/2 and ME1/2. ME2 tends to avoid or get only muted criticism nowadays for its wtf? moments like working for Cerberus and DA2 was at best a parallel narrative to DAO. I've said in once (well, once every time in comes up, so probably several dozen now) but I'll say it again, ME2 failed to do its job properly in either setting up or progressing the narrative, which left ME3 with far too much to do in that regard. Introduce the stuff used in ME3 which was just about literally deus ex machina earlier and you can avoid the jolt from it a lot. *** **** is still likely to be a complete waste of space and you'll still have the moronic Malak Moment of kicking his butt then 'losing' by cutscene but if he had been set up as a credible threat from the first or second game at least it may have been more credible dramatically.

 

What ME desperately needed was proper planning for the whole trilogy. Another thing I say every time is that the ending is not fundamentally flawed, the same ending style worked for Deus Ex itself because it was set up properly through the game and not just sprung on you towards the end. There were hooks for the set up given you talk to reapers and prothean databases and the like.

 

*I do also wonder what people really expected as well. As someone who basically dropped Babylon 5 after the ludicrous "Get the hell out of my galaxy speech!" I'm at least glad they did not do the equivalent to that.

 

Yeah, my expectations were never that high, plot-wise.  I mean, the plot to ME1 was basically Crtl-C'ed from Michael Bay's powerbook. The narrative strengths of the first 2 games were purely in cheesy heroic wish-fulfillment.  (The endgame cutscenes never fail to make me laugh at how over-the-top the ego stroking gets.)  I was expecting that the 3rd would have more-of-the-same, but that's far from the primary reason why I play these games. 

 

Part of me is glad that they got tired of militarist hero stories and tried something new.  Unfortunately, the execution was botched to a degree that is hard to ignore, and springing that on the player in the 3rd installment just doesn't feel fair.  To the extent that they wanted to do a "down" ending, the middle chapter was the place to put it.  

 

Interestingly, the area where they did seem to do their planning is in the character relationships.  Bioware "romance" fans got a nice little melodrama out the ME1 sex-recipients being absent in ME2 (and replaced by other tempting targets), but returning in the 3rd game. 

 

 

Also, what was Chris A.'s comment post-KotOR2 about how he was never going to attempt an Empire Strikes Back ending in a video game again? 

Edited January 28, 2014 by Enoch

[Zoraptor]

The other area where it is very obvious where there was long term planning- parts which are, generally, praised even by those who hated the ending- are the genophage and Quarian/ Geth storylines which were interwoven throughout the plots of all three games and met a logical denouement where the 'not quite perfect' resolution felt far more natural and, er, organic. It's a shame the main plot was not treated the same way.

 

I genuinely don't know whether a more ME1/2 style gung ho, humanity asterisks yeah! ending would have been preferable to what we got, but I bet I would not have liked it in any absolute sense.

Edited January 29, 2014 by Zoraptor

[ManifestedISO]

My only gripe was that Morinth never becomes a squad member, even if you off Samara. Evil FemShep really wanted a wicked partner.

[Calax]

Personally it sort of felt like the Genophage/Geth/Quarian/Rachni was all there as background and worked into the characters backstories, but it was more like Vietnam or WW2 would be worked into a game set 20 years later. 

 

IMO the reason ME2 was loved by fans is because it's a character piece... you could almost call it a "Bottle episode" if it were on TV. The overarching plot is nothing more than a macguffin to drive everything while the real meat of the game is how your characters bounce off one another. My memories of ME1 were that it felt more like a vast exploration of this world, using your chase of Saren to introduce the universe to you, while 2 fleshed out the characters that you'd be working with. Ideally (were I to magically write the trilogy with those two games "as is") you'd probably see ME 3 be the ME2 squad either fully meshed as a crew, or split up to tackle side objectives while Shepard got a semi-new squad to help out with his own objectives. Sort of like how it is now in ME 3 but with your ME 2 squad being less "we all went our own path" and more "Shepard gave me an objective and I will tackle it!"

 

The problem with 3, to me, is that they didn't actually have a solitary story that you follow through the game. Instead it's a vague objective (save the earth) with little episodes that were mostly disconnected from the overall narrative. Part of this is probably the fault of how they built up the Reapers, it's hard to write yourself out a "Win" when you've made the enemy into an unstoppable force. But the way they got around it is just painful and the whole "War Asset" nonsense is boring. With the way it's structured now it feels like you're not actually progressing towards a victory, it's hard to put my finger on really why (best I got is probably that you don't really feel the effects of what you do in each "episode" after it's done), but it makes what's supposed to be crowning triumphs feel rather hollow.

 

I think they would have done better with a "Chase the macguffin ex machina!" story, it fits with what Shepard is supposed to be (a single agent for the galaxy spanning coalition of governments), and would suit the "small squad of elite operatives" style much better than a "You are a soldier in a war effort" tale. The engine feels like it's not really designed to have a larger scale engagement, and ultimately the enemy they have for that is just to powerful for a ground fight to be plausible. Maybe if we actually saw reapers going down in space battles i'd believe that this could be a war story, but with how "invincible" they are, it'd be stupid to try to make players think that "warfare" will win the day.

[exodiark]

Did we ever know why the Reapers saved the Citadel for last?

 

In the beginning of ME3, they sacked the most militarily active races in the galaxy: human, turian, and batarian. They also have enough goons to conquer earth (converted batarians). They are also ONE mass relay away from Citadel.

 

Conquering Citadel, the center of Galactic government would ensure their success. But they kinda ignored it. Massive plot-breaking hole?

 

IMO, it's better if ME3 ended as cosmic horror story, instead of relying on space magic. The Reapers will always win, but depending on how much they like your Shepard, the ending will be less bleaker and bleaker.

Edited January 29, 2014 by exodiark

[Janmanden]

 

I finished it twice, because apparently shooting Catalyst in his stupid little head wasn't proper way to end things. You wont get "long service medal" or "legend" achievements from that.

 

I did the same thing when I played it, and was infuriated that the last save point was just before jumping into the beam-thing on Earth.  Stumbling forward very slowly down long corridors is not a fun way to end a video game that is mostly about being a kickass sci-fi commando.  Doing it twice, doubly so. 

 

You can actually cheat a little. The game makes autosaves along the way and by hijacking one of those autosaves and renaming them you can pick up where you left off.. The game makes one too after talking to moonshine.. moonboy.. moonwalker; no wait that's you, hmmm.. whatever. There.

 

--- Edit - Damn editor, either I turn off script debugging or it's even more painful than playing the ending of ME3 to fix typos. ---

Edited January 29, 2014 by Janmanden

[Hassat Hunter]

Aye, the "we planned all this" really took a gnaw when ME2 had... no plot. At all.

It was just, characters quests. Side-quests. All of it.

 

And most of them weren't even on your team in ME3, making you wonder... why all this effort? Collector's came, collector's vanished. Did they ever get mentioned in ME1? or ME3?

Probably also why I dislike ME2 the most, the absolute lack of a plotline.

Which you kinda want if you make an overachieving story. I think ME3 might have been better if it compeltely ignored ME2 and just went on with ME1's story, but I guess it was too popular to do so, and they want adding all the retconning and useless filler into the actual plot, weakening it.

 

Also I would dread if people took this as "bad endings are bad, we always need happy go-goodie endings." That would be pretty bad. Not all stories need to end good. And there are plenty of stories which were weakened or even ruined by their feel-good endings. For all the bad The Walking Dead was, it's ending (you die) was pretty nicely done. No everybody lived happily ever after, that just wouldn't fit...

[NOK222]

That's just depressing then and I echo the sentiment of "What the hell were they thinking".

 

Blame the lead writer that replaced Drew. 

 

The director also got his head up his ass. 

 

 

 

Collector's came, collector's vanished. Did they ever get mentioned in ME1? or ME3?

 

Ehh, a party member is an uncorrupted collector (prothean), his flashbacks has him fighting against collectors. 

 

Now apparently there was more than one collector ship, and they were being used in the war, but you never encountered them in single player. 

 

But yes, Mass Effect 2 felt a bit weird when compared to what came before and after. Once again, blame Mac Walters. 

 

At least Mass Effect 2 didn't have Kai Leng. 

Edited January 30, 2014 by NKKKK

[Nepenthe]

I found ME2 a welcome departure from the usual bioware formula... even though DA2 did it more.

[GhostofAnakin]

I found ME2 a welcome departure from the usual bioware formula... even though DA2 did it more.

 

I liked it on its own, but I didn't like how it fit within a supposed 3-game story arc.

 

It did, however, have the best sidequest missions in any of the three games.

[Zoraptor]

I found ME2 a welcome departure from the usual bioware formula... even though DA2 did it more.

And for the trifecta of things I say every time it comes up, ME2 should have been Mass Effect: Colon Subtitle, though it certainly wouldn't be perfect even as that.

 

ME2 is the game equivalent of the person that borrows a car in order to do an important job but instead drives around having fun and picking up a bunch of friends while promising them all lifts later, then returns the car having failed to do the tasks it borrowed it for with the tank nearly empty plus said big list of people who've been promised lifts. It's the 16 year old spoiled middle class teenager who's just got their drivers licence, in other words.

 

Then again I'd be more forgiving of the departure from the usual Bioware formula if it didn't focus on the thing that I typically don't like in BW games- the recruitables in ME2 are like the plot/ gameplay in DAO, fine up to a point but there's just 20% too much, 20% too same and holy smokes is there anyone who doesn't have daddy issues? I far prefer fewer, more in depth NPCs.

 

It probably did a better job as a sequel than DA2 did though, especially as they are (sensibly, imo) using a Colon Subtitle for DA3.

[Tale]

 

I found ME2 a welcome departure from the usual bioware formula... even though DA2 did it more.

 

I liked it on its own, but I didn't like how it fit within a supposed 3-game story arc.

 

It did, however, have the best sidequest missions in any of the three games.

 

Mass Effect 2 actually fits the second act formula for a particular type of a three story arc. Same as Star Wars, for instance. It's kind of common with stories that plan for trilogies, but don't really PLAN for the trilogy if that makes sense. The second part doesn't really make any headway in concluding the arc, it just fleshes things out. People criticize it because "Mass Effect 1 ended with the Reapers coming to the galaxy, Mass Effect 2 ended with the Reapers.... coming to the galaxy." But, The Empire Strikes back didn't end with the Empire on the run. It ended with Luke knowing more about Vader. And in context of Mass Effect 2, we learn more about the Reapers.

 

If the Collector base had paid off similarly, it could have been that connection the trilogy needed. The reason Mass Effect 2 fails to push the story forward is Mass Effect 3's fault, not Mass Effect 2's. As if Return of the Jedi had all but ignored the family connection, save for a passing mention during the final battle. ESB would have turned into the weird midqual where they just meet the guy who blows up the second Death Star.

[Zoraptor]

Can't agree- most of the reasons why those plot elements did not carry across are self contained within ME2. The base for example is either destroyed or handed over to Cerberus depending on the choice made in ME2, not by a choice made in ME3. And those choices effectively remove it from consideration for ME3. Similarly, it is ME2 that established that while Collectors may once have been Protheans they aren't now. We already knew that Reapers used organic tools since Saren in the first game so that isn't quite an earth shattering revelation.

 

In terms of SW ME2's plot is more like finding out that the stormtroopers are clones rather than an "I am your father" moment. And then not seeing a single stormtrooper in RotJ.

 

It's not like there weren't opportunities for developing the Reapers more- you talk to both Sovereign and Harbinger, and meet 'Protheans' at least as holodevices. But BW really ducked committing in those conversations and ultimately that left ME3 having to fill in the gaps far more than it should have and made the whole thing look rushed.

[Malcador]

ME2 should have been about finding the Crucible with your team of badasses with family issues.  Course not sure what 3 would be then, I guess you just running around getting the other races on board

[Enoch]

Eh.  The journey is more important than the destination in my book. 

 

Long-axis plot development is well behind character writing, level design, encounter design, world-building, and atmosphere on the list of things I look for in this kind of game.  And ME2 was easily the strongest entry in the series in those areas.  The point that ME3 suffered because of ME2's failure to advance the ball, story-wise, is a fair one, but it doesn't change my opinion that ME2 was still the highpoint of the franchise to-date. 

 

If the plot arc was too underdeveloped for Bio to wrap the series up in a satisfactory manner in ME3 (and it probably was), they should've stretched it into a 4-game series. 

Edited January 31, 2014 by Enoch

[Calax]

What would have made ME2 fit better would be to have the basic plot of the game be to grab all the guys you'll need for 3. Maybe sacrifice one or two for the sake of drama (Jacob) but if you're entire game is basically "characterize a bunch of guys" and you make a sequel where those characters are totally demoted, you're wasting everyone's time in terms of storytelling.

 

Hell, have the same squad at the start of 3 get back together, have Jacob and Samara die on Mars, and their roles filled by the Virmire survivor and Liara and you've got a well fleshed out team who know the steaks and are already fairly well meshed together. Instead they just said "After you gathered your elite team of misfits, for the express purpose of stopping the Reapers, you immediately broke up because Shepard was put on trial for warcrimes!" We didn't need EDI to gain a physical form, or random yahoo number four to show up as the "new blood" to the series. I think EDI became to much of a focus in ME3 (what with being on-ship support as well as a team member), and Freddy Prinze Junior wasn't really needed.

 

Look if you need somebody who you need to use as the "new blood" to ask questions, go grab Ashley/Kaiden and use them. They've effectively been "out" of whatever loop you're in since the first Normandy's destruction.

Edited January 31, 2014 by Calax

[Tale]

The base for example is either destroyed or handed over to Cerberus depending on the choice made in ME2, not by a choice made in ME3. And those choices effectively remove it from consideration for ME3.

Considering the Reaper child shows up in ME3 even if you destroy the base, I'm going to have to disagree.

 

They salvaged it anyway and then refused to follow the plot. There's more than the Collector base that could have been followed. EDI as a Reaper AI. The team that was assembled. The latter of those two being something everyone expected them to follow up with. But then they didn't.

[AGX-17]

Did we ever know why the Reapers saved the Citadel for last?

 

In the beginning of ME3, they sacked the most militarily active races in the galaxy: human, turian, and batarian. They also have enough goons to conquer earth (converted batarians). They are also ONE mass relay away from Citadel.

 

Conquering Citadel, the center of Galactic government would ensure their success. But they kinda ignored it. Massive plot-breaking hole?

 

IMO, it's better if ME3 ended as cosmic horror story, instead of relying on space magic. The Reapers will always win, but depending on how much they like your Shepard, the ending will be less bleaker and bleaker.

Because it was poorly written. Remember how the Prothean ruins on Mars were picked clean of any technology in ME1-2 and then suddenly they happened to be the location of the key Macguffin to defeating the reapers right as Shepard happened to be fleeing away from Earth (and toward Mars) in 3?

 

And it was always reliant on space magic, that's what Bioware called "biotics," even though that's an existing term which refers to living (or formerly living) thing (and not space magic.) Which is a funny mistake for a company called Bioware, founded by two actual medical doctors, to make.

 

 

most of the reasons why those plot elements did not carry across are self contained within ME2. The base for example is either destroyed or handed over to Cerberus depending on the choice made in ME2

The supposedly brain-exploding moral decision around which ME2 revolved boiled down to a change of one line of dialogue with TIM in ME3.

Edited January 31, 2014 by AGX-17

[Nepenthe]

 

Did we ever know why the Reapers saved the Citadel for last?In the beginning of ME3, they sacked the most militarily active races in the galaxy: human, turian, and batarian. They also have enough goons to conquer earth (converted batarians). They are also ONE mass relay away from Citadel.Conquering Citadel, the center of Galactic government would ensure their success. But they kinda ignored it. Massive plot-breaking hole?IMO, it's better if ME3 ended as cosmic horror story, instead of relying on space magic. The Reapers will always win, but depending on how much they like your Shepard, the ending will be less bleaker and bleaker.

Because it was poorly written. Remember how the Prothean ruins on Mars were picked clean of any technology in ME1-2 and then suddenly they happened to be the location of the key Macguffin to defeating the reapers right as Shepard happened to be fleeing away from Earth (and toward Mars) in 3?

I remember nothing of the kind. In fact, my recollections are the opposite. I'll have to check what the planetary description for Mars says in me2.