+DIO actually i don't think so. starting with the 3rd part would protect the player from the immense dissatisfaction that comes from getting used to decisions having a great impact during the first two parts and then suddenly being limited to gta4-like decision impact on the third part. when starting with the third part and not knowing about anything of the first two parts, this game can still qualify as an average shooter game, like the already mentioned gta4 or battlefield or something.
+DIO Exactly mate. I played ALL THREE parts straight. Aproximetly 300 hours all three games together plus all addons. Superb feeling after finishing it all and sad a little.
+DIO Sure, in an ideal world, but in our world every installment in the series needs to be able to draw in new players. Hopefully inspiring them to go back and play the previous titles. While I think ME2's opening was really bad in terms of story, as far as introducing the player to the game mechanics I think this video is spot on. ME2 did that perfectly.
I started on the 3rd game. I had never been so emotionally invested in a game in my entire life. I could've cried leaving Earth, I shuddered seeing Palaven, I rejoiced in curing the genophage, I was determined to get the Prothean VI on Thessia, I was involved in life on the Citadel, and so on... as soon as I finished ME3 I rushed out to get the other two so I could get the full experience and get a better ending because mine was one of the worst lol
Started from the very first mass effect replayed it many times, played second part along with all its DLC many times, got spoiled about mass effect 3, I am not liking where the story and plot went. Never played it.
Luzilyo Stormchild I always imagine the opening music to ME1 when I say that. Sometimes when I tell people about it a cue up the music on my phone and play it right in time with THE MASS EFFECT. *bunnnnnnnnnnnnnn*
I think the games would have ended much better if they left the Reapers mysterious. It shouldn't matter why they exist. I know a lot of people would be pissed if they didn't get that "answer"... but in the first game, Sovereign basically tells you that the existence of the Reapers is incomprehensible to organic life. And yet, they come up with an answer to "why" that is just so incredibly simple, it destroys that concept entirely. If Sovereign states that we can't comprehend their existence, then I think it would play off so much better if that question is never answered. They would truly be incomprehensible then. They were evil, they wanted to harvest organic life, and they needed to be stopped. That's really all that needed to be said. The deus ex machina that they used to explain their existence was far, FAR worse than if we were simply given no explanation at all. I played through the first game over 10 times. I played through the second game half as many times (it's where they started losing me), and I played through the third game once. ONCE. They destroyed the love I had for the series in the last 30 minutes.
Anibal Morales I don't understand the rationale behind that. That almost seems childish. Its like don't you dare peak while i'm wrapping your christmas presents or I'll throw them all in a lake and get you shittier versions of all of them. Except these aren't presents, this is the climatic moment in a video game we each paid full retail price for......
+Kevin Walter I kinda agree, but then again I kinda disagree. You're right that made them that much more interesting and intimidating, but at the same time I kinda would like to know why they do what they do. So I really can't decide either way. Like +Jeremiah767 said I really wish they would have went with the dark energy plot.
Agree, the over explain things kills every aspect that makes stories worth to inmerse on them... do you remeber the midiclodians retarded explanation about they been the source of the force... bye to the mistique...
Mass effect 2 suffers the same problem. Lair of the shadow broker and arrival are phenomenal dlcs, but that's why their absences feel empty without them. It makes no sense when a batarian tells you you destroyed the bahak system and seeing liara become the shadow broker in the third game.
I dunmo. The vibe is really really ultra depressing, though the purgatory musics a banger, but me3 as a whole is like if the 1st 2 games were made by some genius indie dev, 3 would be when h wood gives michael Bay the gig.😂
I've noticed that a lot of series make the same mistakes: They start out with something that is both simple and good. It sells really well. Then if they're lucky, they make a sequel or two that is also really good. But as time goes on, they try to "improve" on the base game (or movie - movies do it too) and become so obsessed with "improvements" and "expanding on features" that they lose sight of what made the game work in the first place. In some cases, they manage to "improve" in such a way that they survive by taking on a host of new players, even as they disenfranchise thousands of others. Both Fallout and the Sims series seems to have done this with their latest iteration. Mass Effect, I think, failed at doing this because the storytelling was so intricately tied to the previous games. So it not only disenfranchised players - it also had very little appeal for players new to the series. What these higher ups repeatedly miss is that simple is often a good thing! And new or flashier mechanics don't automatically equal good gameplay. They could learn a lesson or two from classic games. One of the most popular and long-lasting games in history is chess and although tons of complex strategy can be used, the objective is the same every time and it's very simple: Checkmate. Once you understand the objective of chess, the sky is the limit and you can learn at your own pace. When the objective is unclear, or you're given fifty different objectives to sort through while wham-bang flashy features parade across your screen, it gets really frustrating and really exhausting really fast. One example is how the Assassin's Creed series progressed. In the beginning, it was pretty much... kill this guy and this guy and this guy and try not to die while doing it. In the beginning, being sneaky was a pressure you felt because taking the bad guys head on was very difficult. Then in later iterations, they started turning it into "kill this guy and this guy and if they spot you, your mission is failed instantly FUCK YOU WE'RE IN CHARGE HERE." It's so important for players to feel like they have a choice in a game. Even if one of the choices is a terrible one that puts them at a disadvantage, they still need to have the option. Otherwise, it's not a game. One of the fundamentals of gameplay is that the idiotic choices need to be there, so that you can tell what the good ones are by contrast. If you protect your player from shitty choices with instant-fail mechanics, you undermine the point of a game being a game. An example of this in ME3 comes pretty early on the story, when you're on Mars. You're chasing down doctor somebody or other lady, being forced to do a chase sequence that literally has nothing to do with normal gameplay and plays out exactly the same, no matter what you do. That would have been the perfect opportunity to give you a choice that has an impact on the rest of your game. Instead, it's like quick time events... forced and unnecessary and takes choice out of the equation, all so that some art guy with a hard-on for ships crashing into each other can get off for a moment and your crewmate can be forced into a tragic, near-death situation. Part of the issue here seems to be one of storytelling overriding gameplay concerns. I am a sucker for good storytelling in games, but I didn't enjoy the hell out of KotOR back in the day because of a cutscene with a bad guy shocking somebody. The story was great, but what had me in from the first beat was the dialogue choices and the clear impact it had on what sort of environment you were creating. Choice should always be the overriding priority. Always always always. Fuck.
Am I the only one that's mad about how the Batarians aren't given a chance in any ME game or book? The Krogan and Geth were given sympathy and you could help them. But Batarians? Nooooo....
D TheWalshinator That could work pretty well. A paragon would change his mind about humanity and make nice, and a renegade would earn his begrudging respect through sheer badassery.
feco91 The possibilities! Think of a Batarian character's interaction with the rest of the crew! How will they react? Zaeed: A Batarian? Bloody terrorists I said! Mordin: Oh? Batarian outside Hegemony space, working on human ship? Interesting. Javik: Good to see at least one race of primitives has evolved four eyes.
The thing that burns me about mass effect 3 the most is that picture of Tali Zorah. I got to tell you, I tried so hard to forge a relationship with her, and wanted to know what she looked like. Why did they go with a cheaply made stock photo? Could they not just make and original picture for her? Heck, they could have just chosen some woman on the development team and took a picture of her, at least that would have been original and not just some photoshop hack. It just seems REALLY lazy, since there were so many better options for that.
XorFish You know I think you are right about that. I think my whole concept of Tali was ruined by that cheap photo. It probably would have been better if they never put forth that pic.
When I first saw it, I was ok with it as it was pretty, but still somewhat alien. The fan drawings I've seen which are most visually appealing I also have to admit look too human. Once I found they just edited an internet photo instead of coming up with something new, I was disappointed. Then when they made an unmasked Quarian in profile for the Extended Cut Synthesis ending, I was pissed.
XorFish No. Look at Liara,Ashley,Miranda,Samara,and many of the other female squadmates..Are any of them ugly? No, so why should it be left to imagination when Bioware already showed that they were capable of making good looking females? I disagree wholeheartedly..They should've made it an option for her to unmask to those who wanted to see it
Am I the only one who found the opening premise of "all-out-war" against the Reapers, versus an idealistic tactical and story-driven, decision-making title (ME1), completely alienating to the core genre of the same series? The way the story plays out feels as though the initial game's script was scrapped and rewritten. Mass Effect 3 does not transition well when stacked side by side with Mass Effect 2.
In other words, the way the game currently is, I think the game's story could not have been repaired or salvaged, noting that its errors were too great from the start.
Quite arguably, this premise doesn't feel at all like any of its previous games. And by that, I mean the story. It simply could not conclude in tandem with its legacies. Friend or foe, no one knew what the Reapers were. This premise takes them and their "incomprehensible" status quo and turns them into generic CoD bad guys, to which we clear wave after wave of them with no true purpose or clear solution. The only obvious conclusion is to kill them. Thanks Deus Ex Machina. Reviewing the storyline, 2 years after the fact, one can conclude that the Reapers' strategy itself was not well thought out, and their foundational premise for destroying organics was found to be in extreme error - compare to the Geth. One has even hypothesized that Reapers exist solely to prevent organics and their creators from surpassing them in technological advancements, which will likely inevitably happen. Thus someone from some race responsible for the creation of the Reapers and/or Leviathans either did a godawful job in programming them correctly, or deliberately purposed them solely for that task. *Because Reapers destroying organics to "save" organics from their synthetics, which organics' synthetics will inevitably destroy all organics, because synthetics will "always" rebel against their creators* (again, see _geth_), *thus the organics need to die because salvation.* Yeah. Sounds pretty shitty if you ask me. Whoever or whatever designed the Reapers, specifically, is effectively preventing the growth of civilization and technology through neutering any advancements made by intelligent life. Thus, whatever technological advancements which do exist beyond the Reapers' technology will never be discovered because no person or thing will ever advance beyond 50,000 years of existence. And *_whoever_* has researched such technology could have potentially used the Reapers as a tool to prevent others from making the same discoveries. Much like an Illuminati structure, however I'm only using that as a reference. I am no kook.
Originally, the Reapers were supposed to harvest entire species so they could defend against dark energy. Remember the exploding sun on Haelstorm? Tali's recruitment mission? That was because of dark energy. The original ending, which was leaked before the game finished, was supposed to be about choosing to destroy the Reapers, and thus deal with dark energy with what little time you have left, or convert all of humanity into a Reaper.
Anthony Serocco Truth be told, I would much rather have that ending than the one we were given. In fact they were forced to change it because some idiot couldn't keep his (or her) mouth shut. Also I think that by forcing Bioware to change the ending, they also had to change the premise. Though I honestly couldn't say how they'd have made our interaction with the Reapers different, but interacting with the Collectors in ME2 was handled quite well. For instance, Earth being attacked could have been a midway point in the game. Perhaps by making the right choices early on you could save Earth from having to deal with the Reapers head on, and buy them some time by diverting their attention to more 'pertinent' issues. But I digress. Overall the whole game could have been handled better than it was. But I think the publicity ended up hurting everyone in the long run, and thus they were forced to make ME3 into yet another (generic) CoD clone - with a few interesting bits, of course, but mainly consisted of "Move here, activate this, shoot that."
were it went wrong... it was rushed, and it was dumbed down to appeal to the most casual players who didn't want to roleplay. and to be honest the roleplay was never that good in the series. the story was. but you were not roleplaying it, you were reacting to it. i heared the story for ME3 was supposed to be completely different. it had to do with Dark Energy. everything in ME2 was pointing this way, and then in the new game dark energy was not mentioned even once. so something went wrong there. they scratched everything they were heading for with the first two games, and made something new. but didn't have the time, or didn't spend the time to polish it.
UnknownPenguin a game that rely so much on story, will suffer if the story is rushed. they rushed the story of the last one. they dumbed down the dialog, they dumbed down the story itself. it even had plot holes. and to note, it's not just the ending and the dialog. the story during the whole game was suffering. that makes the game unfinished as a whole in my book. don't get me wrong. i enjoyed the gameplay, but it was basically not that different from the previous game. it didn't need much work. they didn't change the engine, they didn't change the core mechanics of the gameplay. they just added some minor new features. the game rely so much on the story, and lifted the level so much with the previous games, that the enjoyment of the game was incredibly reduced, because of the hugely inferior story of the last game. as for was everything else done right. i dont think so. they made some stupid decisions like include a stupid real life journalist. the "readyness" level was stupid in my opinion, and so on. there were some minor issues (not that the previous games didn't had such)
The problem with the writing started with Mass Effect 2. The Story was awesome in ME1. Not without problems, but awesome. It set up the world, the characters, what makes Shepard important to the story and it revealed the reapers as the antagonis. ME2 had almost no connection with its prequel. The reapers almost dont matter, we are never given a good reason why shepard is important, why it should be a suicide mission, and the characters and their plots have almost no relation to the story. Also the opening kills Shepard, which is dumb since nothing ever comes from it. Also you dont kill your protagonist at the beginning lol. One entire entry of the series does no add anything to the plot, so ME3 had to do all the leg work. ME1 almost does not matter in ME2 or even ME3. And the ending of three rendered the rest of the plot meaningless.
@@spacejunk2186 The plot of dark energy was the one that was going to give meaning to the reapers and also a meaning to Shepard and not the meaningless plot of organics vs. synthetics, if this plot had been present it would have been more interesting because the moral implications and ethics would be more interesting. For the rest, the opening where Shepard dies does not bother me.
+Alex Andersson If you're here. I'm automatically assuming you like ME2. And ME2 was ... published by EA. Bioware screwed up, accept it. (that said, still love ME3 though)
Bioware was good with Dragon Age origins, Kotor 1-2 and mass effect 1-2 but after or with releasing Dragon Age 2 EA started to took direct control. Like hitler take his dorect control when they started to lose in east front. They pushed Bioware in everything. Bioware started to make thousands of DLC's cuz of EA lust of money. In 2015 or 2016 EA CEO said that single games are dead and they didnt care about dragon age inqustion or mass effect andromeda they want to make multiplayer games like battlefield, apex legends and ANTHEM. Bioware was good at storytelling, companion desining they werent good at msking Multiplayer co op games they were too blind to see this
Most people who get upset at people calling out the ME3 ending are too stupid to understand why it's horrible. That, or they only played 3 so they see it as good based on only that game, nevermind the other people who are dedicated to the series and spent hundreds of dollars on games, DLC and other things. Spent hundreds of hours in game to get their idea of a good ending, no no no those guys are just complaining they didn't get their "perfect" ending. Yeah yeah suuuuuure having every ending be basically the same cept for the colors, that's totally worth 3 games at 60$ plus 20$ DLC's, loads of hours of gameplay, yeah no you're right this ending is good and not a slap to the face of dedicated players, how could we be so rude to think we deserved an actual good ending for all we contributed?
Supersnow Not really, if you downloaded DLCs, the endings are different, Shepard lives if you have 100% Military Strength and chose to destroy the reapers, Extended cut shows it as a cliffhanger. they may look the same but different because of your actions not just from Mass Effect 3, but all the games make a difference.
mass effect 2 was the best. it had a fantastic ending. everyone could die and you wouldn't be able to get them back. hell, if you weren't careful shepard would die and it would be just a normal ending in the game. awesome stuff and some of the best combat in a video game i have ever played.
yea i lvoed ME 2 the most as well... it had the perfect mix between 1 and 3 i think and the largest squad roster... i was so annoyed at the fact that you can only have like 6 squad mates in ME 3. and vega was a waste of space : / who would ever choose him over the rest of the squad? he is the most insignificant squad mate in the entire fucking series lol.
xyr3s yeah they messed up ME3 in some ways. but i still loved it. i wish they would have just let us have all the mw2 squad mates. doesn't seem like it would be a huge deal. they already had the combat and abilities done.
me 1 was the bets and they got worst from then on out. Mind you the game play was great between all three games but the story and how it was thoyght out seemed to be lacking in the sequils
All these years later i came across this video for the second time due to the recent announcement of the remastering of the ME trilogy, and i must say this is still the best analysis of ME3 on the internet.
I agree 100 %. They simplified the dialogue so much and theres even an option to NOT HAVE IT! Are you kidding me? How much does it take you to press a button if you don't care about the story? They were clearly trying to cater to newer people and to do this they made shepard have a lot of auto responses.
Spot on. What I believe happened was they tried to appeal to a different fan base in order to gather more followers, just like Star Wars did with their latest movies. Both franchises here screwed over all the old fans that made the franchise into what it is today. Still cant forgive ME3 for the massive insult it gave me when I first launched it, that being: If I want to skip the roleplaying element. I mean srsly, why would I even want to play ME without the roleplay element. Imagine playing Kotor without dialog options. What a depressing experience....
I loved the side quests in 3 but I was expecting to actually command my army, to strategize and use what I built. I did every side quest to get 100% and I was pissed that I got nothing for that.
I can't disagree more with you about the opening. You see, if you played ME and ME2, you just basically know what to do, since the controls were not changed. You might say, what if someone plays ME3 and it's his first game of the series. I say, what the hell, why did he start playing a trilogy with the last part?
The thing is, you need to reintegrate players back into the feel of playing the game. Some players may not have played for one to two years and need to get the feel of playing again.
Also, why is there so much blah blah exposition explaining what the Reapers are, what happened, etc. if Bioware was under the impression that we all have played ME and ME2? They open it to try and explain some backstory but then don't really explain much of what's happened during the six months between games, then they throw you into, arguably, the biggest battle the galaxy has seen yet with an unlimited ammo pistol and teaches you jack about how to play. How about a training session where James tries to see if Shepard is up to snuff since his imprisonment or house arrest or whatever? That would be a logical reason for Shepard and James to have bonded over the months, that would be a logical step towards teaching you how to play, that would lead to some much better combat sections rather than the "it's a tutorial, psych it's not but kinda" attitude they had with the opening. Nothing was well thought about this game other than promotion and hype. I fucking bought into it and regret it now.
That's not the point. Even if you've played the previous installments, you start the game by asking questions like "How fast is each walk animation?", "How does this gun handle?", or "Does this game do invisible walls or will I fall off this cliff you've started me on?". I dunno about you, but I had the same experience at the dude who made the video. I felt nothing. I saw a, like, eight year old boy die and left behind my best friend to genocidal robots but felt nothing.
You also have to remember that Bioware constantly talked about how this game would be friendly to newcomers... AND they released it on a console that had never seen the Mass Effect series before. Though I agree with you on not starting on the finale of a trilogy, the fact that Bioware did those two things did make the tutorial VERY important. I do still think giving the option to level up right away is fine and all that, but a better overall tutorial would have been great.
It’s not just the ending, it’s the starting premise of a big McGuffin that’ll stop the Reapers that the entire game revolves around. No longer is it about Cooperation or what makes sense, it’s all this stupid, dumbed-down magic thing that’ll stop Cthulhu because ""reasons"". The entire premise is so dumb, the explanations so bizarre that the writer’s attempts to make the reason for the Reapers doing what they do simply backfires into being so utterly stupid that they’re incomprehensible. Mass Effect 3 has the best-damned gameplay in the series, but playing it is like a mix of absolute nihilistic inevitability and having my intelligence be insulted.
I just hated the writing. I've gone through at least 3 playthroughs per game for 1 and 2, but I couldn't even get halfway through 3 because the dialogue was just terrible.
THANK YOU! Most people just diss the ending's detractors by saying we are fanboys or wanted a "happy ending". But rarely do they mention the moronic approach to the endings themselves. Synthesis is the WORST option because is playing into Saren's entire argument. By making it the best "golden" ending, the devs are saying Saren was right ALL ALONG, since the very first game, and that Shep was just a fool that tricked Saren into commiting suicide. My complain with the endings is that Shepard is the VILLAIN. Starchild is the real hero, and the Reapers are actually trying to save us from ourselves. And you MUST accept all of this at face value. There's no option to refuse or deny or seek alternatives. The ending is just BULLSHIT.
I don't like the ending either, but there's gotta be a better reason to hate synthesis than "Saren wanted it". Saren wanted galactic peace. Does that mean galactic peace is evil because he wanted it? Saren wasn't wrong. He wanted peace, but he was blind. We thought the reapers would come in through the citadel and then bless everyone with synthesis.
Replay the first game. It's not wrong because "Saren wanted it". It's because you have the entire game and particulary three conversations with him about it, finally culminating in showing him the error of his ways. That's why he commits suicide in that scenario, because Shep's words ring true in Saren's indoctrinated mind, that Sovereign and the Reapers are NOT our saviors, that they don't have our best interests in mind. That we as sentient beigns blessed with will and intelligence must find a better way, our own way. ...But then comes the third game and SURPRISE! He was right, ALL ALONG. So Shep was the bad guy, Saren was the true hero of the franchise, advocating for Synthesis the whole time. But Shep just had to rain all over their parade and cause a lot of sensless sacrifice, because in the end, they were doing it RIGHT. Some people have said to me that was different, but I ask how? How is the Starchild's promises different than Sovereign's? Because of the crucible? Nobody knows how that works, we only know that's what the crucible does because Starchild itself tells us, so it's a circular argument, what Starchild says it's true because Starchild says it's true. Personally that kind of logic doesn't fly with me. The Starchild is behind the Reapers, and there's no evidence of what the Starchild says is true, aside from it's own words. The game expects you to accept it at face value, even if you painfully manage to bring the Geth and Quarian back together, the Starchild just dismisses it saying "but that peace won't last". And again, you must accept that fate as true. So how can we know that Saren was not right? And, by proxy, we were wrong in going against him and Sovereign? It's the kind of retconn you expect in the worst kind of fan-fiction. Same with Legion. In ME2 if you even bother to speak to Legion, you get this cool convo were Legion explains that those platforms that aided Nazara (Sovereign's name) are NOT Geth, that they are heretics in their eyes. That the true Geth search for self fullfillment and to achieve augmentation by their own means, that doing so with Reaper tech, by taking Sovereign's offer and serving it, is such a betrayal to their core believes that they are branded HERETICS and killed on sight. Legion is not the rebel Geth that goes after Shep because of some weird obsesion. Legion is practically the Geth's version of Shep, and the Geth that helped Sovereing are actually the rebels, the ones that are not like the rest of the Geth population. Comes ME3 and what do you know? Legion uses Reaper Tech to upgrade the Geth in the climax at Rannoch. So much for that piece of lore and character development I guess... And before someone brings Leviathan, that's a payed DLC that's outside of the game and was made after the ending debacle, clearly so it can cover the bases of the Starchild nonsense. It's optional and doesn't come with the game, it's like asking someone to read a 20 page comic so they can understand the ending of a movie. No. As with all media, the story must hold up on it's own under scrutiny if it wants to be taken seriously. And that's the whole problem with the "artistic license" cop out. ME3 betrays the themes the franchise was building up from the beginning because they needed a bottle neck for the ending to work. And they needed the bottle neck because they themselves hyped the ending it to no end that it would be sooooo wildly different it was not even funny. So they get no free pass on this one. They dropped the ball, and while the Extended Cut was "better", it was not the ending the franchise deserved, and certainly it was leagues away from the ending that was PROMISED. I didn't bought on the hype, I knew the ending was going to be a bottle neck, but I did expected at least two different endings, with some very little variations here and there, instead of the same nonsensical ending with some degree of variation.
Gabriel Rodriguez Menendez Saren WANTED synthesis. The reapers fooled him. They told him they'd do synthesis, when they'd just harvest. If synthesis was a REAl option back in ME1, why should a paragon shepard stop Saren? You didn't really have to tell me everything wrong with the ending and the retcons... I already KNOW the ending is shit. I was just asking about all the SPECIAL hate for synthesis. I'll simplify it.... Saren goes to a restaurant. he orders synthesis. The chef lies to him and says yes but he's actually gonna kill him and everyone. Does that mean synthesis was a bad thing? No. It just means Saren was misguided. Also, about the geth. They were never ordered to be killed on sight. They let them leave. You're not with us? Fine. Just leave. We won't kill you. Also, it was never implied that nazara upgraded their programming or tech. besides giving them the husk spikes in ME1, Nazara didn't gift them with any tech or programming.
Thank you for your response. I want to apologize if I came off too strong, I didn't want to be rude, but I was, sorry about that. Legions mentions that they served Nazara because Sovereign upgraded them with Reaper tech, that's why the final scene with rannoch is so wrong. You are right, I was wrong on the heretics stance, but still, Legion mentions that using reaper tech to achieve their goals is not the way of the Geth, and that's the problem with how the quarian/geth conflict resolution. And on the misguided Saren's front, I see your point more clearly now, thanks for elaborating on that. But that leads into what I said, how can WE know the starchild is for real? Synthesis is protrayed as the "golden ending", requiring the most amount of asset points in order to be achieved. But what makes it different than what Saren went through? As I said before, what's the difference between Sovereing's offer versus the Starchild's? For all Shepard knows, it's the same thing. That's why I dislike green light the most. Because it's painted like the best version of the ending, but I really don't see how that's better than accomplishing the goal that the three games, and specially the last one, are building up to. That is destroying the Reapers. It betrays all the development between EDI and Joker, I know that's optional as well as uniting the Geth and Quarian. That in some scenarios you wouldn't have those very strong points to contend against the points of the Starchild, but that's exactly why it is a problem for green to be the "best" choice. The very fact that the Starchild so casually dismisses your reunion of the Geth and Quarian is a slap in the face, like saying everything was for naught, you might as well shouldn't even bothered. I mean, we might as well just let the reapers continue preserving us then, if what Starchild says it's true (and from the way the game portrays it, it must be) then we are the bad guys actually, and we thwarted it's good will and intentions. That's my problem, synthesis is Starchild's "solution", by accepting it you accept what Starchild says as true and validate the whole revelation. However, in doing so, I feel that invalidates the themes the franchise was about. Leaving our petty differences aside to face a common threat, united we stand divided we fall, there is room for our own will to shine in the universe, and we are all connected and instrumental to it's endurance. But in one swift move, turns out the only way for us to get along is not to see beyond our differences, but to entirely change ourselves to become "alike". And that's another problem, it really doesn't say what it does for us. Do we retain free will? And if so, how can Starchild assure that this peace will last? But somehow the peace Shep made with the Quaria/Geth was flawed? Honestly, I want to apologize if I came off a rude before, I actually enjoy discussing such things with people with an actual point of view, so thanks for your reply and if you don't mind I would like to see your take on what I said.
Gabriel Rodriguez Menendez Yeah. It is pretty bullshitty. This machine can alter life at a molecular level? And implant being of metal and electricity with organic parts? Galaxy wide? Bullshit.
Thank you so, so much for making this. It's the one question that would not stop ratting in my head, what went wrong. I think I can finally have some closer now lol I do hope over all Mass Effect will be positive learning experience for all games in the future.
Where it wrong? EA being involved number one right there. The ending and the stepping away from story telling/talking to be more action oriented. You can step up the action all you want, fans wouldn't mind I don't believe but don't lessen the need to talk and interesting side missions. This game went backwards on the story interaction in other words. These are the 3 biggest complaints I've heard and agree with from other gamers, LOTS of other gamers. EA, ending and less interaction/talking/story.
***** Whoa,, where did you hear that? They most certainly did not.. When has EA ever bought in and given total control, never.. EA bought and owns Bioware. Oh, maybe you heard an EA rep that is now in a top position at Bioware saying they had full control, meaning EA has full control. And lastly just go to there website. The original Canadian owners were still with the company, EA, but redistributed and "other" meaning EA personnel were put on ME3 with a few of the old staff. Look up Mythic Entertainment and on n on.. Bioware is still owned by EA and can't say, oh, EA did this. But yes, they did. This is reported on by, numerous groups. and, ah hell. Believe me or not it's all good. But yea. EA was most definitely at fault. Bing, did EA ruin ME3, brings up like a dozen different news groups that comment and explain longer and even more boring that I.. :)
The hate the ending gets is a bit too ridiculous to me. But I didn't like how there wasn't away to make the humans and synthetics to co-excist. You were working to make it work between the Quarians and Geth. Legion even gave his life for that cause and Tali began to understand him and the Geth. They then started to live side by side and at the ending that's all erased. I wish there was an option at the end to just choose the Reapers to die. Option 1: controlling the Reapers and saving Shepard. Option 2: Letting humans and synthetics synthetize together and saving Shepard. Option 3: Killing all synthetics and saving Shepard in the proces. Option 4: All the Reapers die. But the Geth live. The Humans live. All the other aliens also live and co-excist together. BUT Shepard must give his live in return. I would've chosen this and have Shepards life be the prize for it. Having to let Shepard die would cause a dilemma but you would be doing it for the greater good. I also would've let Shepard go down in a spectacular fashion while kicking Reaper ass.
Loved this critique. BioWare seems to develop amnesia whenever they continue a highly succesful game. You mentioned Dragon Age. One of the most fulfilling parts of Dragon Age (like with ME1 and ME2) is just how much you can shape the ending. Yeah, there's the big battle or whatever (you must defeat the Big Bad) but the interactions have long reaching affects in the world. Why then did DA2 feature none of that? Nothing you did changed anything. You weren't even given the basic choice of saving your sister or brother. The choice was made for you. I liked ME3 too but there's no reason to pretend the game did fuck up as often as it did things right. The entire Earth Sequence final battle was a slap to the face. Suppose you'd chosen Geth over Quarians because the Geth could field much better infantry and you already had an abundance of ships. It's a valid rational. And it's completely reasonable to expect the type of units you picked would impact which aspects of the final battle you struggled with. Kinda like in DA:O.
Yeah... Or continuing to use your example, if you chose to destroy the heretics and destroyed that geth fighter base, but still chose the geth over the quarians, a crippled geth (since they didn't really have that much time to replenish their numbers before the final battle) struggle more against the Reapers then if you rewrote the heretics and never did the fighter base sidequest. Thir were a lot of ways Bioware could have gone with the final battle honestly... I don't believe in blaming EA for everything, but the rushed development of the game most certainly hurt them there.
The fact that people resort to that theory to make sense of a game that clearly kicked them in the ass shows how desperate people are. I know people complain endlessly about ME3, but in reality, all of the games are shaky. Good in some spots, but overall shaky.
I have some fixes that I believe would save the game: 1. Remove the "Shepard unifying the galaxy bullshit". Shepard is an agent, special forces soldier. He goes on highly dangerous missions where he often have to gather information, persuade people and make hard decisions. He is not a diplomat. Not on a high level at least. Two exceptions, Tuchanka and the Quarian/geth conflict. Those were essential. 2. The main mission in Mass Effect 3 should be finding out a way to destroy the reapers. The mystery of what they are and their weakness. It should not be to take earth back with a huge unified fleet. Fuck earth, the reapers are trouble everywhere. 3. Unifying the galaxy should be determined by your actions in the previous games. Let the politicians take care of that. Perhaps Kaiden holds political office in 3 and will help unifying two races but only if you save him. 4. No auto dialogue and always three dialogue options, also bring back investigate ffs 5. Fuck the crappy weapon modding system, bring back the old customization if anything 6. Give us at least 20 vastly different endings, ranging from sad, bittersweet, and happy. All choices should matter. Make us want to replay the trilogy over and over again. Also if Bioware had a happy ending they could have made so many post game DLCs
The first is ridiculous and stupid. Why would you buy the 3rd game and start at that point?! If you've played the other two you know how it goes. Also Bioware stated shepard has been around and should have all of these powers anyway.
There's nothing ridiculous about tutorial missions, even in later installments (and ME3 started with just as heavy a tutorial mission as ME2 did, it was just done worse). Even assuming that nobody will ever start a series on a later instalment (a generous assumption to give you), the 3rd game will inevitably play differently from the 2nd. ME3 introduced a lot of mechanics (and removed a lot as well), so while the experience is similar to ME2, it isn't identical.
I just finished playing all three Mass Effects back to back. The story is great all the way through up to the end where I agree the choices for endings were all questionable and somewhat stupid. However still one of my favorite game series ever.
Not explaining the game mechanics at the beginning of the game was fine. ME3's controls were nearly identical to ME2's controls. The only new things were climbing ladders, jumping gaps and a slightly better cover-jumping mechanic. As for everything else, that's on the player, man. If you're playing the third entry in a series before playing the first two, you're doing it wrong.
Bioware is dead. All of the people who made it great in its prime are gone, and scattered. The Bioware of today is the same company in name only. It's only a subsidiary of EA now. It will die or continue in some horrible form, like all great video game companies acquired by EA. edit. Like Bullfrog, Westwood, Maxis, etc.
UnknownPenguin That shit ending was not fixed. It went from endings 1,2 and 3 to having a 4th option. It still had the problem of the choices made throughout the game not mattering. ME3 was also dumbed down. EA also has a longstanding history of ruining companies after buying them out. Just look at Maxis, Westwood and Bullfrog. Also, WoW is a ruined game.
UnknownPenguin Watch the video over here, Where Mass Effect 3 Went Wrong. Also, all of the people who made Bioware great in its prime have left the company. Bioware isn't the company it used to be. I already said that.
That explains nothing...in fact BioWare is still both financially and story wise still a strong company. I think you like all the other so-called naysayers are trying way too hard to make your point remotely valid, which...it's not
Clutch28 The people who create the games are the company. They're not interchangeable no matter how much EA thinks they are. The people who lead the company and were responsible for the big decisions to make the games great have left. Also, Bioware is not its own company anymore, it's a subsidiary of EA. Again, look at what happened to previous subsidiaries like Bullfrog, Westwood and Maxis. Bioware is not a strong company anymore. I've explained to you why but that doesn't guarantee that you will get it.
UnknownPenguin I expect ME3 to turn out worse than Dragon Age Inquisition, as BioWare continues to get worse and worse. That's due to the effects of EA's control over its subsidiary. Again, the people who made Bioware great are gone. What don't you get about that after I keep repeating it? It's not the same company anymore. You also have me wrong if you think that I can only see downsides. I have a balanced perspective, it comes from not being a mindless fanboy.
Well, for me the best game of the series was the first one. While it was far from perfect, especially from technical standpoint, the whole roleplaying aspect and decision making was most logical of all the games in the series. Mass Effect changed this, aside from taking out exploration on planets (gief mako plox) and mad loot, it also changed the whole decision/consequence system for the worse - seriously, what the hell does being an asshole to some random guy in a side mission have to do with a crewmember being killed/surviving during the finale... And Mass Effect 3... Mass Effect 3 is a braindead child of Call of Duty: Ghosts and Star Wars Episode I.
+fallenfanfiction ME3 came out before Ghosts, and episode 1 has nothing in common with the original star wars movies, which are the ones that actually inspired ME. You cannot give the player full control over every interaction and still have a linear story. Its logically impossible. The combat in ME3 is actually much smoother and responsive from ME2 or ME, despite what everyone's memory tells them. There are three mass effects, they cant all be the best one. One of them has the be the worse, despite how much fun it still is. I'd much rather play the worst installment in an amazing trilogy, than the best installment in a horrible series.
I never said for them to have everything interactive, I said it should make sense. In ME2, it was just so-so, in ME3 it was shit. From three decisions to two in most cases, from vast amount of side info on which you could base your decision to almost none, huge amount of auto dialogue where it shouldn't be and the overall stupidity of the dialogues themselves. Combat was smoother, yes. But as in ME2, the amount of tools you could use was dissapointing. Some design/gameplay choices were also retarded - and don't try to deny this. If the whine about the ending of all retarded endings wasn't so strong, the extended/better/whatever one would never exist - and even then it was still pretty bad. Logic dictates last part of a series should be the best, since you have the most time to find what works and what does not - I highly doubt dumbing down Action/Adventure RPG into FPS with RPG elements counts as improvement.
+fallenfanfiction I agree, the combination of the over-simplified dialogue wheel, auto-dialogue, the Gears of War clone combat. and just how out of place the story and the endings felt over-all. It leaves Mass Effect 3 as the worst entry of the series imo. I enjoyed Mass Effect 2 a lot. Mainly from the interactions in the dialogue wheel with other characters. The role-playing aspect was still alive and strong. I did feel a little indifferent from the the combat, but the combat worked with the feel of the story, and even known it was a little more action oriented than the original mass effect. It worked well, and the game as a whole did feel like a nice balance between Role Playing and Combat. Though I will always hold Mass Effect 1 with the highest regard. Mass Effect 1 had a sense of wonder that the other 2 games could not replicate, and it was clear from the menu screen when you see the backdrop of that planet and the Vigil theme playing in the background that you were about to experience something awe-inspiring and magical. It was when Mass Effect truly emphasized humanity's realization of the vastness of the galaxy. Everything felt new, mysterious and always had a sense of wonder. Even the clunky Mako in the planet exploration felt special and free, even though those spaces were mostly empty. Yes, the combat was a bit clunky too, but it still worked, and it didn't feel as... I suppose, on-rails or static as 2 and 3. Being able to crouch and disarm your weapons so you could walk around freely, something that was taken out of 3 for a stupid auto-save button. And it had the customization of weapons and armor too, and while 2 and 3 was more seamless, Mass Effect 1 held the RPG framework of the series at it's strongest. Mass Effect 1 represents what the series could of been, a vast open, non-linear voyage out into to cosmos. Space travel in 2 and 3 ended up being something that was largely taken for granted, as was most of the Exploration. I can only hope Andromeda can revive what the series stood for back in Mass Effect 1
Personally--though I LOVE the ME series--I think many of their problems existed going back to the first game. First, the Reapers are an over-the-top enemy for a game series that already has plenty of "bad guys" in it. The Geth, the Krogan, the Batarians, the Turians, the Collectors or even simply Cerberus--these all would have made sufficient enemies for the protagonist to conquer. Now, before we get into the debate about "unity" being the theme of the Mass Effect series, this theory does not discount that point. I'm talking the antagonist for the FIRST game. To me, that antagonist should be simple, mundane and within the recognized enemies of the known rogues gallery. Somewhere in the plot of the first installment, the protagonist discovers the threat of the Reapers hanging over them all. This threat does not end the threat represented by the Batarian Hegemony--for example--because that threat still must be dealt with. However, it throws that threat into perspective which actually serves to further the moral theme that "unity is a strength." Then, in the second game, Shepard pursues the threat of the Reapers in order to come up with a counter to the threat. The antagonist there is still another in-galaxy foe with a grudge against Shepard, the Alliance or the Council. Finally, game three sees the culmination of the theme "unity is strength" as Shepard turns out to be right about the Reapers and now old enemies like the Turians and Batarians must unite with the Alliance to defeat a more powerful foe. Good story telling is to gradually unveil the real threat and in a three game story arc the Reapers should have been shadows cast over the galaxy without actually being seen until ME3 Second, Mass Effect didn't have nearly as well-developed characters as it could have. I'm always disappointed by how little you can interact with Garrus in the first game. They redeem him utterly in ME2 but he always seemed stale in ME1. While Tali, Kaidan, Liara and Ashley all have very interesting backstories you can explore in depth going all the way back to their childhoods in many cases, Wrex and Garrus seemed to fall short. As was said in the video: don't assume anything about your player. Don't assume your player is going to gravitate toward those that look the most human. Garrus was AWESOME throughout the series so give him the respect he is due. Legion was the same way in ME2. I have a geth on my team. I have a freaking GETH on my team but I don't get him basically until the very end because as soon as I get him the story progresses so I can do a few missions with him and then I have to go chasing after the Collectors or my crew dies. More on ME2's problems in a sec. Third, galactic politics had almost no connection to you at all except to say, basically, "Go to hell, Shepard, you filthy human." You are a Council Spectre--one of 100 in a galaxy of hundreds of billions of people and anything you want or say has virtually no effect on the galaxy at large. Now, in the first game, this kind of makes sense. Humans are new-comers and talking about a shadow of a threat instead of the threat we can all see. But after ME1, the fact that the Council continues to ignore the OBVIOUS fact of the origin of Sovereign just smacks of being forced to create conflict where there wouldn't actually be any. Maybe the Council would make the "official" story something along the lines of "Sovereign was of geth origin" but c'mon. Depending on how you played, Shepard being right was what saved the Council's life in the first place (or them being wrong got them all killed). Fourth, in a lot of cases, major plot points seem cyclical or unnecessary. Like in Mass Effect, we leave the Citadel to chase down Saren whose looking for what turns out to be a way to get to the Citadel. Wait... couldn't I have just waited for Saren at the Citadel and killed him when he showed up? The entire trip to Ilos is completely wasted. Shepard knew of the Reaper invasion because of his conversation with Sovereign. Vigil's entire conversation really just summarizes what we learned throughout the first game. It's the same thing in ME2. The entire game is just you building your team and babysitting their personal demons. With rare exceptions--like Tali's loyalty mission--your squadmates seem like they're placed on these pedestals of being totally boss only to realize that they have daddy issues or they're harboring 30 year grudges or some crap. Then, don't pigeon-hole us. Don't force us into playing the way YOU think we should play. The Assassin's Creed series became notorious for this: Oh, I have to assassinate my target the way YOU think I should or you stiff me on story advancement and rewards? Forget you. In Mass Effect, you got to play pretty much however you wanted. Want to do Feros first? Knock yourself out. Don't give a crap about Liara as a squadmate? Cool. Do Therum last. Want a completely different experience? Start again and make all different choices. Then ME2 hit and forced you to play a certain way. Right down to the dialogue options, your playing was hindered by artificial consequences that made no sense. Just because my Shepard is largely a good person doesn't mean he wouldn't be ABLE to intimidate someone if he felt like it. In Afterlife when the bartender poisons you, you can only intimidate him into drinking his own concoction if you're renegade? Da heck is that? I have a freaking flamethrower on my back, fool. It doesn't take much else to intimidate a bartender. Storylines for ME2 and ME3 were the same way. In ME2, game experience is limited by what you "have" to do next. Why do I *have* to go to Horizon now? Sure my Shepard might CHOOSE that option but he might choose to tell the Illusive man to go fornicate himself with an iron stick. If my Shepard is a biotic (which ME2 went WAY overboard on the number of biotics on my team) why do I need Jack? Da heck strategy includes an unstable criminal psychopath on my team in the first place? A paragon Shepard wouldn't likely recruit her at all. ME3 made the same mistake. Why do I have to help the Turians first? Why does 2/3 of the game go by before I come into contact with a potential romance from the previous game? Three of four of the homeworlds of COUNCIL RACES are under siege and yet the Council fleet and the Asari are on the sidelines and can't be accessed until 3/4 of the game is over? That pigeon-holing is what forced us into the "three choice" bullcrap everyone hated. Everything you experienced in ME3 stood in testament to the fact that that annoying little twerp was full of crap. Organics will always destroy themselves? Fool, I got the Turians and Krogan to fight together. Organics and Synthetics will never get along? I got geth and quarians delivering rounds of evidence to the contrary at 1.3% of light speed in orbit over my planet. Introducing that little turd 10 minutes before the end of the story was GARBAGE! Now, had he been the bad guy from the very beginning, that would have been a really cool plot line. This is what happens when you start writing a story and you don't know where's it's going to end up. FINISH your story before you start releasing the games to make sure it makes sense. Lastly, the main character doesn't always have to die. Let me say that again since the entire entertainment industry seems to have forgotten this truth. THE MAIN CHARACTER DOESN'T ALWAYS HAVE TO DIE. Yes, certain choices may have the natural consequences of the main character dies. ME2 did this in spectacular fashion. Incidentally, it would have been really cool to load an ME2 playthrough in which Shepard dies and have an in depth 10-15 minute movie of what happens without Shepard. Back to the point though, I know "happily ever after" is used as a cliche but...well..."happily ever after" works. Seeing an epilogue with Shepard and Garrus kicking back on a beach is called "rewarding your players." A snapshot of Shepard and his little blue daughters would have been a nice. A playthrough that does everything "right" should have the option of the "happily ever after." Like the point above: DON'T PIGEON-HOLE US! Let us play the way we want to. "Happily ever after" may be cliche but "and everyone died at the end" is a lot worse. And don't sell successful titles to Electronic Arts. They suck. They know it and so does the entire gaming industry.
On point all around. Your comments on the ending are exactly what I've been telling people when I argue how bad it was, particularly how you rank the choices and what they should have meant. The only disagreement is that I'm fine if Destroy kills all synthetics if it's properly explained, say by the incomplete or unknown nature of the Crucible . I would still want a way out of it, so perhaps split the Destroy endings into those two options based on Crucible EMS. I also liked your comments on the opening. Your example of ME2 as better was correct, but also funny because of how bad that scene was from a story perspective, even though it was a nice "player punch", emotional scene.
I never played any of the 3 games when they came out. I actually just started playing them a month ago. I got ME3 first because I feel the latest games in a series are always more modern and entertaining than older prequels. However, i didn't know they tied the 3 games together and that basically it was one big story spread into 3 games. So I went back and got ME1 and 2 and played through each game back-to-back. With that, it's a lot easier to dissect the issues compared to having played each game years or months apart. In played all 3 games back-to-back, it gave me a whole different perspective that I believe anyone who's only played the 3rd game can't appreciate or understand just how awful things became. With that said, I do believe the series started downhill from the opening sequence of ME2. When people play a game where you only have one main character, you get invested and attached to that character. So to have shepard killed in the very first 5 minutes of the game was just a terrible choice and it took something out of the game for me. I always felt like I was a clone and not the actual shepard I was in ME1. So with that feeling, it was very understandable how Ashley treats you in ME3. I actually liked that part of interactions with her. Not only were you cerberus but you were dead for 2 years, who the hell would trust you then? Then another thing that pisses me off about the series is how you not only prove to the council that reapers exists but you save their ass from dying (which I chose to do) and in ME2 they still act like the reapers don't exists. Then in ME3 the whole galaxy is being invaded and they still act like reapers don't pose enough threat to help you in any way. The council does absolutely nothing to aid you in any of the 3 games and it makes me question what their worth is to the story at all. If I could skip the stuff related to the council I would because the whole thing is 1000% pointless. On top of that they give you spectre status back and C-sec reinstates you with little to no questions. Like you've been dead for 2 years and then you show up and suddenly are given access to some of the most important positions and information again. But wait, it gets worse. Having spectre status doesn't play a single significant role for the rest of the game as far as immersion with the story goes. Like what's the point of having spectre status if it does nothing to enhance the story or gameplay for the rest of the game. There's many other things in ME2 and 3 (both story and mechanic wise) that were just horrible. As for the story, it always feels like I'm forced into decisions that I wouldn't have made if I were given a choice of how to respond. I felt forced into scenario's that weren't satisfying at all and this happens in almost every single cutscene in the game. Overall, ME3 could have been a ton better. ME2 beats it by a mile and ME1 is in another stratosphere compared to ME3. ME3 only has great graphics, cutscenes and better character movements. It lacks in everything else compared to ME1 and 2.
Most of these points are pretty well backed up, though I disagree wholeheartedly with the intro bit. There are control prompts spread throughout the entire intro telling the player how to play, so it's not like that's a mystery or anything. As for story and choice in the intro, you do realize that your choice of dialogue in the intro of ME2 does not effect anything at all in the rest of the story, right? Neither does it effect the story in ME3, with what little choice there is. An intro is supposed to do one thing, get a player used to the setting of the game quickly. ME2 had the luxury of taking it's time because there was no apparent threat in story before the collector's showed up. ME2 Ended with a cliffhanger that the reapers were RIGHT THERE ready to strike at any time. To start ME3 with a slow disaster not only would not make sense, seeing as though 1: the reapers are right there and attacking, 2: Talking to earth council that does not believe in reapers wouldn't make an difference since they're about to find out about it anyway, and 3: Having selectable dialogue with characters you don't know would make any sense because you as a player has no context to who those other character are or what your relationship with them is.
@@ElUltimoLeviathan7901 Agree man, the MEOT was like 85% great, even awesone, but the rest was meh. Bio droped the ball from and since ME2 on many instanses, because EA and Mac "gamey" Walters, but this year Dead Space Remake is the prime example of how great a ME remake should've been, showing us how to do things right without messing a lot with the core essence of the original and improving many things in the process.
@@Hellion73 Bueno para rece que también hablas español así que te responderé en español. De EA ya no confío en ellos absolutamente no me importa si dead space remake fue bueno y dejame decirte que me encanta la saga de dead space los jugué incluso antes de mass effect pero de ellos ya no compro nada y no quiero un reboot/remeke o secuela de el actual EA/bioware para mass effect. Mac Walters ya se fue del estudio al igual que lo hizo en su momento Drew Karpyshyn y de todos modos puedo apostar que el proximo juego de mass effect sera basura el propio Drew Karpyshyn dijo que la industria del video juego se esta volviendo muy avariciosa, y si te soy sincero no puedo culpar del todo a Mac Walters pese que reescribió toda la trama original, EA queria que mass effect 2 fuera un megaexito como una pelicula de marvel donde el espectaculo es mas importante que lo que tiene sentido, EA queria que saliera mass effect 3 lo mas pronto posible y esto hizo que el juego fuera una mierda, lo mismo paso con dead space 3, dragon age inquisition y star wars battlefront 2 (2017) donde las historias ya no tenian sentido y no hubo un Mac Walters en esos juegos pues se sabe que EA se entromete en los guiones/tramas de sus juegos.
@@Hellion73 Yo sigo esperando una mejor historia pues en los tres juegos de mass effect tienen grandes errores argumentales y muchas cosas no tienes sentido. mi sueño húmedo es que bioware se salga de EA y hagan un remake/reboot de la tribología original y que cambien la trama de los sintéticos vs orgánicos por la trama de la energía oscura que tenia Drew Karpyshyn en mente.
i liked it :) but it gets old lol... specially since most of the time you only mostly get 1 type of resource per planet. and that's also only like 5-6k total i think.
1 the mako handled like a drunk snake 2 the mako had absolutely horrible aiming mechanics, even by me1 standards. 3 f that one mission with the thresher maw.
I might get hated for this comment but I never thought Mass Effect 3 was terrible. I do believe people have gone over the top with Mass Effect 3. When they say it gives everyone the controls of everything. I think it is because Bioware did not assume players would play a sequel without playing the first games and Mass effect players are already familiar with controls as mass effect 3 uses controls as mass effect 2. The ending was okay to me but I am speaking my opinion. Overall, to me, you have to play all 3 games, do all side quests and download the DLCs in order to truly understand the games. Let the hate begin but I enjoyed the series.
PropSpairGaming yeah it didn't take me very long to get warmed up to the combat, plus they did warm you up a little bit with the husks that would climbing walls and banging on things... and maybe I'm just a softy but when those shuttles got vaporized that was moving for me, as was the majority of the beginning and the end(all the time spent on earth)
PropSpairGaming I had no problem with the gameplay. In fact, I consider it the best of the series - ME1 and ME2 had very different playstyles, and I think ME3 cherry-picked the best things from them both, while also improving on them. The ending, though..... I don't think somebody could make a more ill-fitting ending for this series if they tried. The two main themes of this entire series as I see them are: a.) You make your own destiny (evidenced in the choice system, Shepard's resistance of indoctrination, the unshackling of EDI, the curing of the genophage, the freeing of the Rachni and the debate over whether or not to reprogram - or "brainwash" - the geth). b.) What worth is an AI? (evidenced in Shepard's talks with Legion and EDI, EDI's relationship with Joker, the Quarian/geth conflict, and paragon Shepard's aversion to controlling the geth or EDI). The ending railroads you into one ending (with slight variations). Control enslaves the synthetics, Destroy kills them, so neither of those agree with the second theme, and Control goes against both themes. Synthesis agrees with the second theme, but basically forces every individual in the galaxy, synthetic or organic, to change against their will. And they really try to hint that Synthesis is the GOOD ending! Simply put: Synthesis: Ruins Theme A Destroy: Ruins Theme B Control: Ruins Both
I've got no thing against the gameplay in the third game (except those awful useless turret segments, I'd rather have Mako over these) , in fact it has more variations and overall well designed (Except for the level clusterfuck that is the battle for earth). The characters are better than never before, the dialogue on the other hand too limited... in fact slightly more limited than ME1. It's nice to see some decisions carry on through games. Yet here is the bullet in the heart, the overall story, lost all its charm and consistence, the ending wasn't The Mist (you get it? Lol) dissapointing thing storywise... that's what makes me think that ME3 is the polar opposite in ME1, the first was more into the story and environment building, along with personal character building, your Shepard. ME3 was more into gameplay and building other characters.
1) Maybe they could have had an optional tutorial (and, y'know, if you pay attention to the text you kinda do), but I think it would be a mistake to force a mandatory one on players who have played ME1/2. As such a player, I was invested from the word "How". (On subsequent playthroughs, I was annoyed by the length of the unskippable non-interactive intro, though. So I'm not saying the intro was great--I just choose different flaws to emphasize.) 2) If lacking a middle option is a complaint, it was a complaint from ME1 onward. The fact is, being neutral as Shepard was heavily stigmatized by the game mechanics, and the middle option was unfun. Who wants to be locked out of interrupts and conversation options because they were wishy-washy? If you want a neutral option, you need a neutral conversation score--Arbiter or similar--to go with Paragon and Renegade. There needs to be value attached to neutrality. Otherwise, having neutral options is a waste of time. As it is, while there are really only two paths if you want the highest EMS (just as there are really only two paths in ME2 if you want the most survivors), there are a variety of ME3 Shepards both Renegade and Paragon in a variety of universes. You can be a Renegade Jerk with a Heart of Gold and save everyone, or you can actually be an asshole; you can be Paragon and miracle worker, or Paragon and crushed by the weight of loss and death; and a variety of states exist in between those four corners. There are actually MORE of these meaningful choices in ME3 than in previous games, even though the wheels have fewer spokes on them. (I can just hear the complaints that "There are no meaningful choices if the ending is the same!" Screw that. The journey is more important than the destination.) 3) On the one hand, sure, the sidequests are annoying and trivial. On the other, can you imagine trying to sell players on spending lots of time on irrelevant combat missions while the galaxy is being destroyed? In previous games the threat was nebulous enough in the time scale that you could justify sending Shepard all over the galaxy exploring random mines and scanning for minerals. Here? Much more difficult. And yet including optional cluster-hopping sidequests is (ironically) mandatory, because it's a Mass Effect game. At least in this format they don't take up much gameplay time; I'm pretty sure the entire difference in time between my first ME2 playthrough (39 hrs) and my first ME3 playthrough (32 hrs) was goddamn scanning, and I don't even want to check how many hours I spent in the Mako. (inb4 someone tells me I'm a noob who plays too slow, or a completionist who plays too much.) 4) The Reapers were never a villain. They were a menace. In ME1 and ME2 they had surrogate villains, Saren and the Collectors, standing in for the overwhelming menace lurking beyond the fringes of the galaxy. In ME3, though, the villain is abstracted one step from reality, and it still isn't the Reapers. It's dissension. It's the implosion of the galaxy under pressure from the Reaper menace. It's the geth and quarian fleets destroying each other, Wreav leading the krogan race towards a much-anticipated but unsustainable war of conquest (or the salarians destroying Wrex's dreams of krogan legitimacy), the Illusive Man undermining the Crucible project. It's a villain built on the themes of ME2, where team unity And it's a villain you fight with almost every conversation option and almost every bullet. But what else is it? It's also the exact same thing the Reapers are designed to fight! Reapers harvest organic sapients to maintain the orderly cycle of death and rebirth on the scale of galactic civilization, in the face of the chaos of organic life. That's been built up as a theme throughout the series. Shepard's real journey in ME3 is in leading the galaxy to outgrow the Reaper-controlled cycles. And that brings us to... 5) I agree with your complaints about the final fight. Shepard's success in uniting the galaxy should have paid off in terms of boots on the ground and visible support. It would be difficult to design, but it would have been much better than what we got. However, I disagree with your opinion about the ending on several points. A conventional victory was never going to happen. With respect to the story, the Reapers have been built up throughout the series as undefeatable by conventional means. Thematically, Shepard's victory is not in bombs or bullets, but belief; organic civilization does not break the cycles with brute force, but outgrows them. Could the Reapers have been built up differently, and the themes laid out differently, to allow for conventional victory? Perhaps; but in my opinion it would diminish the story, even if the explosions would be more entertaining. We might destroy the Reapers, but we wouldn't understand them. The basic questions that the writers of ME had to answer with the ending were, why do the Reapers exist, and what does it mean to defeat them? Not "Where did the Reapers come from?"; the Reapers are written as far enough beyond human capability that their creators must be beyond human understanding, and therefore unworkable as a story element. And not "How can the Reapers be defeated?"; once the question actually asked is answered, this is trivial. Making the Reapers ruthless arbiters of a cycle that can be outgrown neatly answers both questions. The choice of HOW to break the cycles is the final expression of the Shepard we choose to play. Yet because each choice represents the destruction of the cycles, they have an essential commonality--a tremulous, uncertain beginning to a new age. That's not to say I liked everything about the ending. The geth shouldn't be wrapped up in the Destroy option, for example. But I really don't think it's the gamebreaker people have made it out to be.
One thing I will say is that the combat is under appreciated big time. There's basically far more depth and controllability to every aspect of combat than there was in Mass Effect 2 . And let's not even get into Mass Effect 1's gameplay. It's was mediocre in 2007 and it hasn't aged well. People need to understand to difference between "dumbing down" and extracting all the unintuitive padding and general bullshit.
Not really... I played Mass Effect 1 and used all the tricks to make my ammo "infinite" with as few cooldowns as possible. Was definitely NOT easy mode. Except for, you know, if you played it on Easy. By the time I maximized my effectiveness in combat to that degree, I was rolling in the two hardest difficulty settings of the game. In Mass Effect 1, your options were basically "maximize damage at the cost of needing to cooldown the weapon frequently", "maximize heat efficiency so well that you'll rarely ever have to cooldown, but it amounts to thousands of papercuts to kill most enemies due to underpowered shots", or "somewhere between the two". I opted for the "death by a 1000 papercuts" because I was often engaging in multiple enemies at a time who didn't really respect "cover" and tended to rush your position regardless. A gun that puts a bajillion papercuts down-range is much better than a cannon that puts two or three TNT sticks down-range every minute or so. Unless you're playing tactically... or are fighting tough opponents like the giant Geth walker things. Then, your sniper rifles and shotguns are more valuable than your infinite ammo Assault Rifle. The problem in Mass Effect 2 and 3 is that there's not only no justification (even with the flimsy story excuse bullshit) to swap over to an ammo mode from mini mass effect fields that strip tiny slivers of metal shards off of a block to create projectiles that cause more damage and fire faster than actual bullets (when your Codex says most guns never need more than a SINGLE BLOCK OF RAW METAL as ammo in nearly its entire lifespan as a weapon, you know that it's much better than some faggot Heat Sink mechanic in any futuristic setting because one option is BETTER IN TERMS OF COMBAT than the other) and your weapons suddenly started being LESS EFFECTIVE than they were in Mass Effect 1 to boot. Weapon choices even dropped from nearly 25-30 models per weapon to like... 4... and only one in those 4 was ever worth using in each category so... no real option to "upgrade" your gun to a better one when you got the best one you could get about midway through the game... or in the first two hours of the game if it wasn't one of the ones you found on the Collector Ship. Even worse was that your clip sizes were even much smaller ALONGSIDE the weaker abilities of those weapons. It only got really super bad when you remember that Mass Effect 1 had "mod slots" for all of your equipment. You know? That thing so you can personalize it to your playstyle? So you could shore up weaknesses of equipment? Or so you could swap out equipment for specific instances (like swapping out a mod for extra damage against fleshy targets to one that does more damage against synthetic targets when you go on a mission to fight Geth). Just... gone! POOF! Oh, and some of those mods were suddenly turned into actual powers... and 90% of the skill tree and passive abilities were removed in service of this nonsense. Instead of throwing two points into "Shotguns" to get a 6% boost in damage and accuracy to those weapons... Now I had to spend the finite amount of credits I had for a playthough to BUY AN UPGRADE THAT DOESN'T CARRY OVER ON NEW GAME + to do the same goddamn thing. Because, who wants to build a character when you can buy non-permanent upgrades instead! Who doesn't want a 6 skill, skilltree in which you'll obtain every upgrade in it, except for TWO in Mass Effect 2... and in which you'll get a 8 skill skilltree in Mass Effect 3 and max every single one of them out anyway? I mean... who DOESN'T want that? Mass Effect 1 was anything except "easy mode". Mass Effect 2 and 3, even on Insanity? Easymode throughout because there was almost no way to ever screw up anything. I found combat to impressively easy that there was only one time I had problems with it in Mass Effect 2 (which was simply a result of not getting Jack before Garrus... because Jack wrecks everyone on Insanity when you leave her to guard Garrus... which only becomes a problem if you're playing on Insanity and isn't a problem any difficulty before that... because the game is so easy mode that party choices are literally pointless save for the hardest difficulty where party composition actually matters during two segments of the game) and never had an issue with combat at all in Mass Effect 3... to the point that about midway through that game, I was bored by all combat and was just cruising through the game to get to the end since the gameplay was so stale and dry. At least infinite ammo in Mass Effect 2 and 3 would've allowed the devs to throw harder shit at us... or more interesting encounters. You know, to try to present a challenge to the players.
I wonder... What if we all worked together to remake Mass Effect 3? I mean, let's start a volunteer group and have everybody pitch in to make Mass Effect 3 how it SHOULD be. Know how to code a game? Step on up. Good at 3d design? Work your magic. Got extra money? Put it in the tip jar. Bioware really spit in our faces with ME3, and we can reverse this. I know this is possible. For example, most versions of Linux are free open source software that were constructed by motivated volunteers and a minimal budget. Mass Effect 3 deserves its own Lazarus Project.
it's not that simple,it requires years of hard work,and even myself would love to collaborate to a RPG remake of ME3,it would require money to kickstart that 'project' ,people wants to be paid or the chances for that project to live it's near 0 % like War for the Overlord,the kickstart it's the only way,and needs to be serious,no turning back i upvoted your comment to start,i sign up and fully agree with you and seriously determinated to do this to be clear i propose rules 1)no turning back,nobody can leave the project once started,unless it's for legitimate reasons 2)an update must held every week\month 3)a legitimate interest in the project i have no programmer experience,but i'm very talented in writing question N°1 who would actually participate? Question N°2 how to start the 'kickstart'? Question N°3 How the game will be called? respond to me if you are really into it
arbiteras And that right there may be a problem. If we're going to be making any money off this (apart from donations to fund the project) we'd need to either a.) Buy the rights to the franchise and its licenses, (We could never afford that) or b.) Put on bulletproof armor because EA and Bioware are going to lose their minds when they find out we've been encroaching on their copyrighted material. In essence, we'd need to distribute it as a "mod" and/or indie game, that is completely free to download, free to play, and free to redistribute with no financial/digital/legal strings attached. And even then, using the original voice acting and coding might come back to haunt us, if EA/Bioware felt like pursuing the issue. (And knowing EA's demeanor... they'd burn us at the stake for that.) So, yeah it would be INSANELY difficult, but if we can get very skilled volunteers and work outside of EA/Bioware's territory, I think the benefits would be worth "reaping". But not until we have an excellent team. I might be able to help in a couple years. I'm taking a course in video game design with a minor political science (Don't ask about my politics. I don't want to cause a flame war here). Let me know what you think, bro.
or it could be a unofficial project much like TES renewal that ports morrowind to skyrim's engine,and changes much of its gameplay. that's allowed,or make a look a like franchise that will do the story as intended,that brings 0 % risk of violating EA and Bioware rights and make everyone happy like Thrive:the game wants to make what Spore failed to deliver.it's like 5 years that's in development,but the game should come out in max 8 years from now. for now it's vital to use a site,maybe free to gather people
Honestly, thank you for having valid points on why the game was terrible. I am a HUGE fan of the Mass Effect series. I loved the build up of the dangers of the Reapers in Mass Effect. I loved how involved we got with the characters and the effect of our choices in Mass Effect 2. And, although there were a few flaws, I loved the story and gameplay of Mass Effect 3. Whenever I played it I honestly thought that overall it was a very decent game (but that's just me!). And because of this, it pains me to see all the complaints the game gets that are just stupid (every single complaint I have ever read or been told, I could easily argue against it with pay attention to the damn story). But this...there is no excuse for these mistakes. I don't mean to say that I know everything about the series and because I like the game its perfect with nothing wrong, because I barely know the game. I play it over and over and learn more every time. I think you should have just made the game yourself so the game would keep its well deserved respect from players fr the first two games
I get where you're coming from. I enjoyed Mass Effect 3,. but there are SO many areas of the game they could have done better. It was clearly rushed out the door.
***** know, i have just today watched the compilation videos from wing commander 3-5. To get a glimpse back at my gaming past. (i played those games so much...) Corny as that stuff may have been, it has accomplished do convey a good sotry i nevery case, and it delivered on the ending. And hey, having icons of sci fi act in your videogame is not something that Mass effect did first. Watching the videos back to back i just now realized just HOW MANY actors starred in those wing commander videos. Actors you know from somewhere else. Makes the cinema movie all the more weird. Anyway, i seldom ask much of games storys, but at the end they should make it possible for me to "win". I wanted that momrnt on the citadel overpass, having the gang sit in comfy chairs hitting the booze while the camera zooms away to fitting music. "fin" I am all for "earn your happy/horrible ending" and i hate "you are too dumb to realize my brilliance-writers". Well... sorry for going off the rails here...
idont care about story, to me mass efect has always been a (kinda generic but slightly fun) 3rd person shooter where i press spacebar to skip the talkie stuff(infact i kinda hated tht bit in 1 where u needed to get a pass to open the garage door to find liaras mum), till an action cutscene happens, not counting the mako/firewalker bits ofc, hope vehicles are better in me4. all me4 needs to do to get my money(origin refund and play offline masterrace! so glad i hv multiple hard drives) is look pretty and be a fun shooter(hell maybe even includ some fun zero gravity stuff like dead space1 did), its not easy making a fun shooter, u only need to look at batfield hardline to see how bad it can get. anyways the 'leaving earth' song and cutscene was so well done and pretty much the only time i actualy felt anything from a video game(not counting ending of halo4 ofc, mass effect really needs to catch up on both graphics and their face mocap, maybe even use whateve la noire used..nah too clayface), i enjoyed those nightmare bits shep had with the burning boy and all, hearing kelly chambers voice damn..and thts before i make her take them pills, tht take earth back trailer with the girl in the fields was some kotor dead island oscar shit right there..maybe blur studios should take over writing duties
kinda funny how halo also did the leviathan(precussor/forerunner) being the creator/father of the reapers(forerunner/flood), before being wiped out by the lesser race, but not before hiding caveman humans from eradication. cantt belive u read my whole wall of text, those ME trailers sure beat the crap outta halo's
I was told before playing that I would feel more satisfied if I treated the entire game as the ending. I have to say, doing this really helped me not to be dissappointed.
I highly disagree with the complaint about the auto-dialogue. I believe that this video is looking at it in the wrong way. The problem with ME1 and ME2 was that too often you would have Shepard ask an NPC a question and then they would give a long exposition, and then Shepard would ask another question, and they would give you another long exposition. I love those games, don't get me wrong, but sometimes the conversations didn't feel organic. Introducing little bit more auto-dialogue not only allows the conversations to flow more smoothly, but it removes this whole interrogator dynamic that was present at times in the first two games. Also, the auto-dialogue was rarely anything separate from the dialogue-wheel option. Generally, it was simply the first part of Shepard's question asked, then answered, then the rest of the question asked. It was mostly linked to the same dialogue choice and thus did not create an dissonance for me in terms of role-playing ability. Now, did they perhaps take it a little too far, and add in a little too much auto-dialogue? Possibly. That criticism I could understand. But to say altogether that it was a poor decision is a little narrow in my opinion. Also, the streamlining of the dialogue-wheel also had its benefits. In ME1, too often there would be 5 or 6 different things to say to 5 or 6 different conversations points to 5 or 6 different NPCs in the same room and generally all on the same topic. The result is a lot of repetition and a lot more time spent on unnecessary amounts of information rather than getting to the more important conversation options. This was one of the major pacing flaws with ME1 (after the Mako, of course). And the streamlining of the dialogue-wheel was not unique to ME3. It had already begun by ME2. Once again, did they perhaps streamline it a little too far in this game? Maybe. But I do not see it as being anything akin to a major flaw whatsoever.
That high pitched, eardrum splitting scream during the gears of war section, caught me by surprise. I've never had turn down the volume because of a person's voice before.
I disagree so much with the first point. You care about the beginning of ME 3, because you played the past 2 Mass Effects, so you need no introduction. You know exactly how to play the game, and you know exactly what the robots are. Even if ME 3 was your first ME, you'd still know by virtue of knowing video games what to do. The other points have more merit, but damn, that first point really set the video off on the wrong note.
The ending was perfect actually. It was made in a way to show you that you are not a god and no matter how much you try you will never be one. The game's final choices are the final test not of the character but of the player himself- they were made to break the fourth wall. Suddenly all of your decisions you have made for such a long time ammount up to nothing and you are asked: What would you do if the end was pre-written all along? What do you choose? Did you learn anything about the nature, meaning and purpose of life? What will you do with all the experience you gained about the concequences of your actions on so many occassions? Because that's what life is, a mix of choices that alter it in profound ways and events that would have happened anyway no matter your choices. In the end you are faced with such an event and you are being tested as a person, not a videogame character. It was a great moment for me because I suddenly felt that "shit got real" and I had to make hardest of all the impossible choices I had to make so far, one that simply cannot be made. That's why there was no ending boss in the game, the final boss was the player himself and his/her perception of the meaning, purpose and value of life- a difficulty level out of this world if you think about it. You are suddenly robbed by your ultimate weapon, your ability to shape the fate of the galaxy when you most needed it and you are left with the hardest choice of them all, the one that has no answer. Now that's raising game difficulty for the end battle! Mass Effect is the best game series I have ever experienced just for that fact alone. Cannot wait for Andromeda.
2019 and still pissed off about that game. God damn... how could they fuck it up in the end? Why did they do this to us. Mass Effect 1 and 2 were such beautiful games. Why did they throw it in the mud in Mass Effect 3. FUCKING WHY!!???? FUUUUCK!!
plexx365 He has every right to complain because he bought it. Same as I. That entitles us the right to complain as consumers when you get a degraded experience compared to previous games. You have no arguement, fanboy.
***** I was talking about my comment... You can just skip my comment if it doesn't agree with your point of view. I really couldn't care less if you agree with me or not.
this is a well done video... but after only paying about $25 for the FULL Mass Effect 3 experience (DLC and all). I find that the game is clearly rushed..... but is very very fun! Sure some story points are forced and there are less choices... but the amount of impactfull moments for me at least... gives it a nice nostalgic feel from playing ME2 5 years ago. Maybe its because i waited so long to play it.... but i personally love the game so far...
I want to believe that they just got overwhelmed in ME3 because is such an ambitious project. But the game had a feeling of being rushed, the combat lacked the intensity of ME2 and the end was ok just wasn't properly executed.
he's totally right I actually really liked ME3 myself I just felt they tried to pander to a new audience and totally fucked it up ( the story at least) well actually they didn't more people bought ME2 than ME1 and more people bought ME3 than ME2 I just feel like they spit in my eye and destroyed everything that had me obsessing over the trilogy.. essentially they just walked up to their small loyal fan base and said fuck you we wan't idiots to enjoy are games to, and what did we do well we just bent over and bought another copy fuck you EA and Bioware
i love how in the extended cut, when u refuse to do anything every one dies no matter what, so pretty much finding a cure, building up the army, etc. was all worthless and the fact that its a punch in the face from Bioware saying that youre gonna like our endings, whether you like it or not. they shouldve had shephard live, the reapers get destroyed, no god child, and have shepard put andersons name on the list of people that died, then it would have been great.
I think if they had included leviathan dlc with the original game it would have been more clear, knowing Harbinger was not the true antagonist but rather the AI construct called the catalyst (citadel) Harbinger was just the first reaper created using the harvested Leviathan aliens.
About the issues presented within the first 5 minutes of the video (no handholding tutorial) I strongly disagree. I think what they did was just expect you to have played the previous games, which with the minimal hints presented should be quite enough to get immersed in the feeling of that part of the game. Shepard is a trained soldier who's been stuck with no practice for months and then thrust into the Reaper attack. He knows what he's doing but he's out of practice, scrambling to get his bearings against a significant enough threat. That is exactly the way I myself felt whilst playing this part, and I really enjoyed it. I'm also a fan of giving the player full control of everything immediately, a-la Dark Souls. My idea is that if you don't know that left mouse button is going to shoot a dude in the face, it means you've not played mass effect 2, and if that is the case, I reckon you have little business playing three. You're just spoiling the previous games for yourself, while in the process not experiencing the full value of the one you're playing.
But what about Vega and all the shit that's going on? They thrust you in there. I KNOW Mass Effect. I just finished 2 a couple minutes ago but I'm still fumbling in the dark (in terms of story, not gameplay). Who the fuck is james? how do i know him? why is shepard acting chummy with him without me WANTNG to act chummy with him? How did kaidan/ashely make it to lieutenant commander rank in a short time? What was everyone doing for 6 months?
Siddiq Ismail Well, it seems Shepard met Vega while stuck on Earth. And Ashley/Kaidan were doing some top secret stuff for the Alliance during 2, so I suppose that's probably how they got promoted. It's not narrated terribly well, I'll give you that, but I feel it's decent enough. After all, you should have some more pressing concerns in that oart of the game. Big purple concerns with giant red LAZ0RS.
Poldovico I KNOW that vega and Shepard met on Earth and are now buddies. They kinda make it obvious. However, this is Mass Effect. Your supposed to BUILD a relationship, not be thrown into one. Shepard is supposed to be YOU as a space-marine. Why would I and millions of others be friends with Vega? Look at the chain of command. Ashley got bumped WAY too fast into Lieutenant Commander (that is Shepard's level BTW). That's like 3 or 4 ranks away from admiral. Shepard did HUGE things. Survived a thresher maw attack, attacked a pirate moon, or defended one of the greatest human colonies. What does Ash do? Help Shep, get owned by collectors and saved by Shep again. That's GREAT grounds for promotion.
Siddiq Ismail I have no idea how military ranks work in my own language, let alone in english. I'm not saying it was done well, but it's not the worst thing ever. I just see it like Anderson's introduction in the first, he was just already there. Besides, I'm not really arguing about the story, which has its host of issues. My comment was specifically targeted at the critique of the gameplay tutorial, with which I strongly disagree. However, it's past four thirty in the night here. I might come back to this discussion in the morning if I remember, but until then, good night.
Poldovico Oh, ok. I have no problem with gameplay. I played mE1 and 2, so it was simple for me to pop into the action in 3. Military ranks in the alliance re explained in the codex of mE1. I'm not gonna explain but 'll just say Ash/kaidan made an impossible promotion for doing nearly nothing. I don't really have anything to argue, so enjoy your night.
While I totally agree, the thing is that the intro to the game was not done with story telling in mind. Mass Effect 1 and 2 take time to get into the "action", and give the player some time to get immersed in the universe. ME3 should really have started out with the Alliance HQ as a hub so you could get to know Vega and the state of the Galaxy at that point. Get to know Earth, so that when the Reapers DO arrive, it actually has the impact they attempted to make with the little brat.
hahaha, the yo-dawg-meme at 02:20 though. XD haven't seen that one before, thanks XD that aside, it was a very good video and i agree with it a lot. one thing you missed is the loose ends in story telling. for example, in mass effect 2 there was this mission with tali, where you were supposed to find out something about the sun of a previously quarian-inhabitated planet being strangely influenced in unknown ways and thus behaving in a way that can't occur normally. there were guesses about the geth being the cause of this and i've always wondered when i'll be able to find out more about this. but nope. nothing. it was just this one mission and then no one ever cared about it anymore at all. and that's just one example. there were other things that seemed to inentionally been given the potential to build up to something larger and then just got completely ignored. and i completely agree with the endings. basically the "good" ending would be to agree with saren, making everything you did since the first game completely irrelevant. you could just have let saren go on and keep doing his stuff and it wouldn't really have ended differently. basically, there's too little diversity in any of the endings, in my opinion. after playing that game i honestly felt like nothing would have really changed if i had died at the end of mass effect 2. maybe a few small things here and there but overall it would have been the same. the only thing that actually changed was the cycle being stopped, but it didn't really feel like i did this. could have been done by any casual super-soldier with enhanced stuff and things like that. which is, i suppose, what you meant by saying shepard not really being my character anymore. there were just too many casual linear things. personally, i don't have a problem with linear storytelling in games but sometimes the decision-making ability of me3 felt like that of gta4. shoot this guy or don't shoot this guy and based on what you chose to do, you will be able to see a news article on the internet. [spoiler alert] take this mission or that mission and based on what you chose either your cousin or your girlfriend dies and you have to fight either this guy or that guy as the last enemy [spoiler end] in gta4 this was fine and completely acceptable, since that game was based on shooting guys for random reasons or sometimes no real reason at all. mass effect however was based on talking a lot and making decisions. so mass effect 3 seemed like an attempt to transform a decision and dialog based game into a basic shooter game with rudimentary decision making ability. another good example would be dead space. i don't remember having any choice at all in those games (or maybe sometimes i had minor choices and both available options just lead back to the same path anyways) and there were only very few side-missions (actually, i think side-missions didn't really get introduced at all untill dead space 3) with pretty much zero influence on the story and still it was a pretty good game/series. and even though in the ending of dead space 3 i still feel a bit like nothing i did actually mattered and i merely delayed the inevitable, i was pretty ok with this, because it didn't try or want to make my decisions matter. it was more like reading a book or watching a movie. the story is already set and there's only one way it can go because it has been written this way. so, while dead space is comparable to a good book or movie, mass effect is more like something that starts as an interactive story and then, in the last third, the author decides that it actually needs some pre-set path and greatly limits the influence that your decisions have on his story.
What he refers to as a solution isn't permanent is what I meant, as the problem persists in each cycle. The Reaper cycle isn't a permanent solution. And if Shepard resolved the conflict on Rannoch, then the entire sequence with the Catalyst is rendered meaningless. If the Catalyst truly believed the conflict could be resolved without the Reapers, he wouldn't use them each cycle, so if that's the case Shepard proved the conflict can be resolved through other means.
The only other known instance of a sentient synthetic is EDI, who declared absolutely unwavering allegiance to the organic crew of the Normandy. As the Child is explaining that synthetic-organic conflict is a fundamental fact of the universe, just outside the Quarians and Geth are working together in the same fleet to fight against the Reapers.
-The transparent kid was a huge plot device. Throughout the second game, Harbinger worked as a "speaker" on behalf of the reapers. I do not understand why suddenly the citadel becomes the central hub for reaper shenanigans, or why Harbinger suddenly doesn't give a damn about Sheppard, whom he directly threatened often during the final half of the second game.
-Sheppard should not have died. That's the main thing that bugged me about the ending. The point is to save life in the galaxy, why you suddenly find yourself forcefully committed to martyrdom is beyond me.
Also, the Mass Effect trilogy actually is ONE game with one storyline. I don`t think anybody would enjoy the 3rd part without playing at least the 2nd.
Exactly. The problem with Shepard's sacrifice is not that he/she dies, but the circumstances of the sacrifice. The sacrifice is forced to end a problem the reapers have. Shepard is also not a tragic figure who needs to die by thematic necessity, or to make up for flaws he/she has. The game does not give you options to live and be a coward, or sacrifice others in your place and allow Shepard to die in their place. The sacrifice also feels meaningless since we did not get to see how Shepard's
-Whether or not sheppard dies, there is still a huge team of people that you hand-picked, esteemed and cared about for a long time. I feel it is hugely inadequate to lack any kind of closure regarding their fates.
Well, to my knowledge, the Catalyst seemed quite confident that any resolution between organics and synthetics wasn't achievable at all without the reapers, and technically the Reapers don't resolve this conflict at all, as it continually persists into the next cycle. Shepard disproved the Catalyst's theory because he stopped that conflict, and more importantly he stopped it without the Reapers' help or using their methods.
Illusive Man WAS the main antagonist in the end... He was an in-genius antagonist because all the way through the game, it makes you think he MIGHT not be totally under their control. The reapers only converse with Shepard to give their prophecy of doom and destruction, and since they're clearly demonstrating that well enough, I THINK the player knows who they're fighting... You're fighting THE REAPERS in the end, not just harbinger, after all.
![KSI - Thick Of It (feat. Trippie Redd) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/At8v_Yc044Y/mqdefault.jpg)
![Natanael Cano - Amor Eterno [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EO4prCs6WpM/mqdefault.jpg)
If you started the ME series on the 3rd game, you're doing something wrong.
+DIO actually i don't think so. starting with the 3rd part would protect the player from the immense dissatisfaction that comes from getting used to decisions having a great impact during the first two parts and then suddenly being limited to gta4-like decision impact on the third part. when starting with the third part and not knowing about anything of the first two parts, this game can still qualify as an average shooter game, like the already mentioned gta4 or battlefield or something.
+DIO Exactly mate. I played ALL THREE parts straight. Aproximetly 300 hours all three games together plus all addons. Superb feeling after finishing it all and sad a little.
+DIO Sure, in an ideal world, but in our world every installment in the series needs to be able to draw in new players. Hopefully inspiring them to go back and play the previous titles.
While I think ME2's opening was really bad in terms of story, as far as introducing the player to the game mechanics I think this video is spot on. ME2 did that perfectly.
I started on the 3rd game. I had never been so emotionally invested in a game in my entire life. I could've cried leaving Earth, I shuddered seeing Palaven, I rejoiced in curing the genophage, I was determined to get the Prothean VI on Thessia, I was involved in life on the Citadel, and so on... as soon as I finished ME3 I rushed out to get the other two so I could get the full experience and get a better ending because mine was one of the worst lol
Started from the very first mass effect replayed it many times, played second part along with all its DLC many times, got spoiled about mass effect 3, I am not liking where the story and plot went. Never played it.
Sometimes sequels get rid of their interesting mechanics and story elements. After years of research I have come to call this, The Mass Effect.
+KaletheQuick actually i don't know if i should laugh or cry about this. it's funny because it's true but it's so true that it's sad.
Luzilyo Stormchild
I always imagine the opening music to ME1 when I say that. Sometimes when I tell people about it a cue up the music on my phone and play it right in time with THE MASS EFFECT.
*bunnnnnnnnnnnnnn*
I thought that is the Mass that my ex Effect-ively gained.
I think the games would have ended much better if they left the Reapers mysterious.
It shouldn't matter why they exist. I know a lot of people would be pissed if they didn't get that "answer"... but in the first game, Sovereign basically tells you that the existence of the Reapers is incomprehensible to organic life.
And yet, they come up with an answer to "why" that is just so incredibly simple, it destroys that concept entirely.
If Sovereign states that we can't comprehend their existence, then I think it would play off so much better if that question is never answered. They would truly be incomprehensible then. They were evil, they wanted to harvest organic life, and they needed to be stopped. That's really all that needed to be said. The deus ex machina that they used to explain their existence was far, FAR worse than if we were simply given no explanation at all.
I played through the first game over 10 times. I played through the second game half as many times (it's where they started losing me), and I played through the third game once. ONCE.
They destroyed the love I had for the series in the last 30 minutes.
Kevin Walter Honestly I think if they had to, they should have gone with the dark energy solution. Advanced life accelerates the end of the universe.
Anibal Morales I don't understand the rationale behind that. That almost seems childish. Its like don't you dare peak while i'm wrapping your christmas presents or I'll throw them all in a lake and get you shittier versions of all of them. Except these aren't presents, this is the climatic moment in a video game we each paid full retail price for......
+Jeremiah767 Yeah I really don't understand they did that.
+Kevin Walter I kinda agree, but then again I kinda disagree. You're right that made them that much more interesting and intimidating, but at the same time I kinda would like to know why they do what they do. So I really can't decide either way. Like +Jeremiah767 said I really wish they would have went with the dark energy plot.
Agree, the over explain things kills every aspect that makes stories worth to inmerse on them... do you remeber the midiclodians retarded explanation about they been the source of the force... bye to the mistique...
I really love the Mass Effect Games but to be honest, Mass Effect 3 with totally no DLCs feels so empty when you play it.
Citadel DLC is the only one i bought..the best choice i could make.
Mass effect 2 suffers the same problem. Lair of the shadow broker and arrival are phenomenal dlcs, but that's why their absences feel empty without them.
It makes no sense when a batarian tells you you destroyed the bahak system and seeing liara become the shadow broker in the third game.
The Illusive Man sequence was the worst written exchange in the series?
No way. That goes squarely to the Catalyst.
There is one thing that you CAN'T flaw in ME3. Thats the soundtrack!
JAJAJAAJAJJA The soundtrack is recycled from previous games. except for a few tracks
I dunmo. The vibe is really really ultra depressing, though the purgatory musics a banger, but me3 as a whole is like if the 1st 2 games were made by some genius indie dev, 3 would be when h wood gives michael Bay the gig.😂
I think you missed one major design flaw: The fights against Kai Leng! Why even bother when you lose anyway, because the plot demands it?
Exactly like Kai leng has plot armor WHEN HE LITERALLY DOESNT FUCKING NEED IT
Finally! Someone hates on the decrease of dialogue options in ME3! I could've sworn I was the only one :/
***** Yeah, conversations do increase but the interaction is minimal.
***** True.
+firefox3249
...Doesn't this FUFriendsUnited sound like a salarian?
Jetstream Sampai FU-what now? O.o
firefox3249
The dude that's talking in the video
The person narrating this video seriously sounds like a salarian
He sounds like Todd Howard ngl
The guy in this sounds like a Salarian.
I was just about to say that!!
Not just any salarian!
He's the game salesman on the Citadel from ME2!
That was a joke.
😂
I've noticed that a lot of series make the same mistakes: They start out with something that is both simple and good. It sells really well. Then if they're lucky, they make a sequel or two that is also really good. But as time goes on, they try to "improve" on the base game (or movie - movies do it too) and become so obsessed with "improvements" and "expanding on features" that they lose sight of what made the game work in the first place.
In some cases, they manage to "improve" in such a way that they survive by taking on a host of new players, even as they disenfranchise thousands of others. Both Fallout and the Sims series seems to have done this with their latest iteration. Mass Effect, I think, failed at doing this because the storytelling was so intricately tied to the previous games. So it not only disenfranchised players - it also had very little appeal for players new to the series.
What these higher ups repeatedly miss is that simple is often a good thing! And new or flashier mechanics don't automatically equal good gameplay. They could learn a lesson or two from classic games. One of the most popular and long-lasting games in history is chess and although tons of complex strategy can be used, the objective is the same every time and it's very simple: Checkmate. Once you understand the objective of chess, the sky is the limit and you can learn at your own pace.
When the objective is unclear, or you're given fifty different objectives to sort through while wham-bang flashy features parade across your screen, it gets really frustrating and really exhausting really fast.
One example is how the Assassin's Creed series progressed. In the beginning, it was pretty much... kill this guy and this guy and this guy and try not to die while doing it. In the beginning, being sneaky was a pressure you felt because taking the bad guys head on was very difficult. Then in later iterations, they started turning it into "kill this guy and this guy and if they spot you, your mission is failed instantly FUCK YOU WE'RE IN CHARGE HERE."
It's so important for players to feel like they have a choice in a game. Even if one of the choices is a terrible one that puts them at a disadvantage, they still need to have the option. Otherwise, it's not a game. One of the fundamentals of gameplay is that the idiotic choices need to be there, so that you can tell what the good ones are by contrast. If you protect your player from shitty choices with instant-fail mechanics, you undermine the point of a game being a game.
An example of this in ME3 comes pretty early on the story, when you're on Mars. You're chasing down doctor somebody or other lady, being forced to do a chase sequence that literally has nothing to do with normal gameplay and plays out exactly the same, no matter what you do. That would have been the perfect opportunity to give you a choice that has an impact on the rest of your game. Instead, it's like quick time events... forced and unnecessary and takes choice out of the equation, all so that some art guy with a hard-on for ships crashing into each other can get off for a moment and your crewmate can be forced into a tragic, near-death situation.
Part of the issue here seems to be one of storytelling overriding gameplay concerns. I am a sucker for good storytelling in games, but I didn't enjoy the hell out of KotOR back in the day because of a cutscene with a bad guy shocking somebody. The story was great, but what had me in from the first beat was the dialogue choices and the clear impact it had on what sort of environment you were creating.
Choice should always be the overriding priority. Always always always. Fuck.
That Marauder Shields segment was beautiful.
Am I the only one that's mad about how the Batarians aren't given a chance in any ME game or book? The Krogan and Geth were given sympathy and you could help them. But Batarians? Nooooo....
I personally would have liked to have had a Batarian on my team, just for the hell of it.
D TheWalshinator That could work pretty well. A paragon would change his mind about humanity and make nice, and a renegade would earn his begrudging respect through sheer badassery.
D TheWalshinator Even more interesting if that batarian would have been Balak after he confronts you on the Citadel.
feco91 Indeed
feco91 The possibilities! Think of a Batarian character's interaction with the rest of the crew! How will they react?
Zaeed: A Batarian? Bloody terrorists I said!
Mordin: Oh? Batarian outside Hegemony space, working on human ship? Interesting.
Javik: Good to see at least one race of primitives has evolved four eyes.
The thing that burns me about mass effect 3 the most is that picture of Tali Zorah. I got to tell you, I tried so hard to forge a relationship with her, and wanted to know what she looked like. Why did they go with a cheaply made stock photo? Could they not just make and original picture for her? Heck, they could have just chosen some woman on the development team and took a picture of her, at least that would have been original and not just some photoshop hack. It just seems REALLY lazy, since there were so many better options for that.
Or better:
leave it to the gamers imagination.
XorFish You know I think you are right about that. I think my whole concept of Tali was ruined by that cheap photo. It probably would have been better if they never put forth that pic.
XorFish Agreed, they shouldn't have done anything
When I first saw it, I was ok with it as it was pretty, but still somewhat alien. The fan drawings I've seen which are most visually appealing I also have to admit look too human. Once I found they just edited an internet photo instead of coming up with something new, I was disappointed. Then when they made an unmasked Quarian in profile for the Extended Cut Synthesis ending, I was pissed.
XorFish
No. Look at Liara,Ashley,Miranda,Samara,and many of the other female squadmates..Are any of them ugly? No, so why should it be left to imagination when Bioware already showed that they were capable of making good looking females? I disagree wholeheartedly..They should've made it an option for her to unmask to those who wanted to see it
Am I the only one who found the opening premise of "all-out-war" against the Reapers, versus an idealistic tactical and story-driven, decision-making title (ME1), completely alienating to the core genre of the same series?
The way the story plays out feels as though the initial game's script was scrapped and rewritten. Mass Effect 3 does not transition well when stacked side by side with Mass Effect 2.
In other words, the way the game currently is, I think the game's story could not have been repaired or salvaged, noting that its errors were too great from the start.
All out war with the Reapers was gonna happen as far back as Sovereign's reveal, though.
Quite arguably, this premise doesn't feel at all like any of its previous games. And by that, I mean the story. It simply could not conclude in tandem with its legacies.
Friend or foe, no one knew what the Reapers were. This premise takes them and their "incomprehensible" status quo and turns them into generic CoD bad guys, to which we clear wave after wave of them with no true purpose or clear solution. The only obvious conclusion is to kill them. Thanks Deus Ex Machina. Reviewing the storyline, 2 years after the fact, one can conclude that the Reapers' strategy itself was not well thought out, and their foundational premise for destroying organics was found to be in extreme error - compare to the Geth.
One has even hypothesized that Reapers exist solely to prevent organics and their creators from surpassing them in technological advancements, which will likely inevitably happen. Thus someone from some race responsible for the creation of the Reapers and/or Leviathans either did a godawful job in programming them correctly, or deliberately purposed them solely for that task. *Because Reapers destroying organics to "save" organics from their synthetics, which organics' synthetics will inevitably destroy all organics, because synthetics will "always" rebel against their creators* (again, see _geth_), *thus the organics need to die because salvation.* Yeah. Sounds pretty shitty if you ask me.
Whoever or whatever designed the Reapers, specifically, is effectively preventing the growth of civilization and technology through neutering any advancements made by intelligent life. Thus, whatever technological advancements which do exist beyond the Reapers' technology will never be discovered because no person or thing will ever advance beyond 50,000 years of existence. And *_whoever_* has researched such technology could have potentially used the Reapers as a tool to prevent others from making the same discoveries. Much like an Illuminati structure, however I'm only using that as a reference. I am no kook.
Originally, the Reapers were supposed to harvest entire species so they could defend against dark energy.
Remember the exploding sun on Haelstorm? Tali's recruitment mission? That was because of dark energy.
The original ending, which was leaked before the game finished, was supposed to be about choosing to destroy the Reapers, and thus deal with dark energy with what little time you have left, or convert all of humanity into a Reaper.
Anthony Serocco Truth be told, I would much rather have that ending than the one we were given. In fact they were forced to change it because some idiot couldn't keep his (or her) mouth shut. Also I think that by forcing Bioware to change the ending, they also had to change the premise. Though I honestly couldn't say how they'd have made our interaction with the Reapers different, but interacting with the Collectors in ME2 was handled quite well.
For instance, Earth being attacked could have been a midway point in the game. Perhaps by making the right choices early on you could save Earth from having to deal with the Reapers head on, and buy them some time by diverting their attention to more 'pertinent' issues. But I digress.
Overall the whole game could have been handled better than it was. But I think the publicity ended up hurting everyone in the long run, and thus they were forced to make ME3 into yet another (generic) CoD clone - with a few interesting bits, of course, but mainly consisted of "Move here, activate this, shoot that."
were it went wrong... it was rushed, and it was dumbed down to appeal to the most casual players who didn't want to roleplay.
and to be honest the roleplay was never that good in the series.
the story was. but you were not roleplaying it, you were reacting to it.
i heared the story for ME3 was supposed to be completely different. it had to do with Dark Energy. everything in ME2 was pointing this way, and then in the new game dark energy was not mentioned even once.
so something went wrong there. they scratched everything they were heading for with the first two games, and made something new. but didn't have the time, or didn't spend the time to polish it.
UnknownPenguin a game that rely so much on story, will suffer if the story is rushed.
they rushed the story of the last one. they dumbed down the dialog, they dumbed down the story itself. it even had plot holes. and to note, it's not just the ending and the dialog. the story during the whole game was suffering.
that makes the game unfinished as a whole in my book.
don't get me wrong. i enjoyed the gameplay, but it was basically not that different from the previous game. it didn't need much work. they didn't change the engine, they didn't change the core mechanics of the gameplay. they just added some minor new features.
the game rely so much on the story, and lifted the level so much with the previous games, that the enjoyment of the game was incredibly reduced, because of the hugely inferior story of the last game.
as for was everything else done right. i dont think so. they made some stupid decisions like include a stupid real life journalist. the "readyness" level was stupid in my opinion, and so on. there were some minor issues (not that the previous games didn't had such)
The problem with the writing started with Mass Effect 2. The Story was awesome in ME1. Not without problems, but awesome. It set up the world, the characters, what makes Shepard important to the story and it revealed the reapers as the antagonis. ME2 had almost no connection with its prequel. The reapers almost dont matter, we are never given a good reason why shepard is important, why it should be a suicide mission, and the characters and their plots have almost no relation to the story. Also the opening kills Shepard, which is dumb since nothing ever comes from it. Also you dont kill your protagonist at the beginning lol.
One entire entry of the series does no add anything to the plot, so ME3 had to do all the leg work. ME1 almost does not matter in ME2 or even ME3. And the ending of three rendered the rest of the plot meaningless.
@@spacejunk2186 The plot of dark energy was the one that was going to give meaning to the reapers and also a meaning to Shepard and not the meaningless plot of organics vs. synthetics, if this plot had been present it would have been more interesting because the moral implications and ethics would be more interesting.
For the rest, the opening where Shepard dies does not bother me.
what went wrong? that EA published ME 3
+Alex Andersson If you're here. I'm automatically assuming you like ME2. And ME2 was ... published by EA. Bioware screwed up, accept it. (that said, still love ME3 though)
Bioware was good with Dragon Age origins, Kotor 1-2 and mass effect 1-2 but after or with releasing Dragon Age 2 EA started to took direct control. Like hitler take his dorect control when they started to lose in east front. They pushed Bioware in everything. Bioware started to make thousands of DLC's cuz of EA lust of money. In 2015 or 2016 EA CEO said that single games are dead and they didnt care about dragon age inqustion or mass effect andromeda they want to make multiplayer games like battlefield, apex legends and ANTHEM. Bioware was good at storytelling, companion desining they werent good at msking Multiplayer co op games they were too blind to see this
that last one made me ROLF
whats next a mass effect cereal?
....
right.
I'LL TAKE 20.
The forces of Kellogg's bend to me.
THIS CEREAL HURTS YOU.
THIS CEREAL WILL TEAR YOU APART!!!
THIS CEREAL IS YOUR SALVATION!
and when you flush the toilet, RELEASING CONTROL
Most people who get upset at people calling out the ME3 ending are too stupid to understand why it's horrible. That, or they only played 3 so they see it as good based on only that game, nevermind the other people who are dedicated to the series and spent hundreds of dollars on games, DLC and other things. Spent hundreds of hours in game to get their idea of a good ending, no no no those guys are just complaining they didn't get their "perfect" ending. Yeah yeah suuuuuure having every ending be basically the same cept for the colors, that's totally worth 3 games at 60$ plus 20$ DLC's, loads of hours of gameplay, yeah no you're right this ending is good and not a slap to the face of dedicated players, how could we be so rude to think we deserved an actual good ending for all we contributed?
I played all three games and was fine with the ending. It wrapped up the Reaper problem, what more did you want?
Kaleb Bell Lol, I expected more than the same 3 endings with different colors.
Kaleb Bell LOL they're all the same ending with different colors.
Supersnow Not really, if you downloaded DLCs, the endings are different, Shepard lives if you have 100% Military Strength and chose to destroy the reapers, Extended cut shows it as a cliffhanger. they may look the same but different because of your actions not just from Mass Effect 3, but all the games make a difference.
PropSpairGaming proof?
this guy needs to voice act a salarian
Would be actually cool
mass effect 2 was the best. it had a fantastic ending. everyone could die and you wouldn't be able to get them back. hell, if you weren't careful shepard would die and it would be just a normal ending in the game. awesome stuff and some of the best combat in a video game i have ever played.
yea i lvoed ME 2 the most as well... it had the perfect mix between 1 and 3 i think and the largest squad roster... i was so annoyed at the fact that you can only have like 6 squad mates in ME 3. and vega was a waste of space : / who would ever choose him over the rest of the squad? he is the most insignificant squad mate in the entire fucking series lol.
xyr3s yeah they messed up ME3 in some ways. but i still loved it. i wish they would have just let us have all the mw2 squad mates. doesn't seem like it would be a huge deal. they already had the combat and abilities done.
me 1 was the bets and they got worst from then on out. Mind you the game play was great between all three games but the story and how it was thoyght out seemed to be lacking in the sequils
Evan wheeler me 1 story was great but the gameplay wasnt at all.
ya, i guess i just forgave its game play :P becasue of its great plot.
All these years later i came across this video for the second time due to the recent announcement of the remastering of the ME trilogy, and i must say this is still the best analysis of ME3 on the internet.
I agree 100 %. They simplified the dialogue so much and theres even an option to NOT HAVE IT! Are you kidding me? How much does it take you to press a button if you don't care about the story? They were clearly trying to cater to newer people and to do this they made shepard have a lot of auto responses.
Are you a Salarian? You sound like one....
Deadp00l I laugh so hard
He's the game salesman on Zakera Ward
Spot on. What I believe happened was they tried to appeal to a different fan base in order to gather more followers, just like Star Wars did with their latest movies. Both franchises here screwed over all the old fans that made the franchise into what it is today.
Still cant forgive ME3 for the massive insult it gave me when I first launched it, that being:
If I want to skip the roleplaying element.
I mean srsly, why would I even want to play ME without the roleplay element. Imagine playing Kotor without dialog options. What a depressing experience....
This is an EXCELLENT video! I just wished it lasted another 20 minutes! Well put together!
Someone has 2 accounts...
i Hawkstar What?
I loved the side quests in 3 but I was expecting to actually command my army, to strategize and use what I built. I did every side quest to get 100% and I was pissed that I got nothing for that.
I can't disagree more with you about the opening. You see, if you played ME and ME2, you just basically know what to do, since the controls were not changed. You might say, what if someone plays ME3 and it's his first game of the series. I say, what the hell, why did he start playing a trilogy with the last part?
Was at Playstation + for free....and after half of the game I downloaded the other two ^^
The thing is, you need to reintegrate players back into the feel of playing the game. Some players may not have played for one to two years and need to get the feel of playing again.
Also, why is there so much blah blah exposition explaining what the Reapers are, what happened, etc. if Bioware was under the impression that we all have played ME and ME2? They open it to try and explain some backstory but then don't really explain much of what's happened during the six months between games, then they throw you into, arguably, the biggest battle the galaxy has seen yet with an unlimited ammo pistol and teaches you jack about how to play. How about a training session where James tries to see if Shepard is up to snuff since his imprisonment or house arrest or whatever? That would be a logical reason for Shepard and James to have bonded over the months, that would be a logical step towards teaching you how to play, that would lead to some much better combat sections rather than the "it's a tutorial, psych it's not but kinda" attitude they had with the opening. Nothing was well thought about this game other than promotion and hype. I fucking bought into it and regret it now.
That's not the point. Even if you've played the previous installments, you start the game by asking questions like "How fast is each walk animation?", "How does this gun handle?", or "Does this game do invisible walls or will I fall off this cliff you've started me on?". I dunno about you, but I had the same experience at the dude who made the video. I felt nothing. I saw a, like, eight year old boy die and left behind my best friend to genocidal robots but felt nothing.
You also have to remember that Bioware constantly talked about how this game would be friendly to newcomers... AND they released it on a console that had never seen the Mass Effect series before. Though I agree with you on not starting on the finale of a trilogy, the fact that Bioware did those two things did make the tutorial VERY important. I do still think giving the option to level up right away is fine and all that, but a better overall tutorial would have been great.
It’s not just the ending, it’s the starting premise of a big McGuffin that’ll stop the Reapers that the entire game revolves around. No longer is it about Cooperation or what makes sense, it’s all this stupid, dumbed-down magic thing that’ll stop Cthulhu because ""reasons"".
The entire premise is so dumb, the explanations so bizarre that the writer’s attempts to make the reason for the Reapers doing what they do simply backfires into being so utterly stupid that they’re incomprehensible.
Mass Effect 3 has the best-damned gameplay in the series, but playing it is like a mix of absolute nihilistic inevitability and having my intelligence be insulted.
I just hated the writing. I've gone through at least 3 playthroughs per game for 1 and 2, but I couldn't even get halfway through 3 because the dialogue was just terrible.
***** Problem with that, 360 version.
I'm just content believing the series ended at 2.
THANK YOU!
Most people just diss the ending's detractors by saying we are fanboys or wanted a "happy ending". But rarely do they mention the moronic approach to the endings themselves.
Synthesis is the WORST option because is playing into Saren's entire argument. By making it the best "golden" ending, the devs are saying Saren was right ALL ALONG, since the very first game, and that Shep was just a fool that tricked Saren into commiting suicide.
My complain with the endings is that Shepard is the VILLAIN. Starchild is the real hero, and the Reapers are actually trying to save us from ourselves. And you MUST accept all of this at face value. There's no option to refuse or deny or seek alternatives.
The ending is just BULLSHIT.
I don't like the ending either, but there's gotta be a better reason to hate synthesis than "Saren wanted it". Saren wanted galactic peace. Does that mean galactic peace is evil because he wanted it?
Saren wasn't wrong. He wanted peace, but he was blind. We thought the reapers would come in through the citadel and then bless everyone with synthesis.
Replay the first game. It's not wrong because "Saren wanted it".
It's because you have the entire game and particulary three conversations with him about it, finally culminating in showing him the error of his ways. That's why he commits suicide in that scenario, because Shep's words ring true in Saren's indoctrinated mind, that Sovereign and the Reapers are NOT our saviors, that they don't have our best interests in mind. That we as sentient beigns blessed with will and intelligence must find a better way, our own way.
...But then comes the third game and SURPRISE! He was right, ALL ALONG. So Shep was the bad guy, Saren was the true hero of the franchise, advocating for Synthesis the whole time. But Shep just had to rain all over their parade and cause a lot of sensless sacrifice, because in the end, they were doing it RIGHT.
Some people have said to me that was different, but I ask how? How is the Starchild's promises different than Sovereign's? Because of the crucible? Nobody knows how that works, we only know that's what the crucible does because Starchild itself tells us, so it's a circular argument, what Starchild says it's true because Starchild says it's true. Personally that kind of logic doesn't fly with me. The Starchild is behind the Reapers, and there's no evidence of what the Starchild says is true, aside from it's own words. The game expects you to accept it at face value, even if you painfully manage to bring the Geth and Quarian back together, the Starchild just dismisses it saying "but that peace won't last". And again, you must accept that fate as true. So how can we know that Saren was not right? And, by proxy, we were wrong in going against him and Sovereign?
It's the kind of retconn you expect in the worst kind of fan-fiction.
Same with Legion. In ME2 if you even bother to speak to Legion, you get this cool convo were Legion explains that those platforms that aided Nazara (Sovereign's name) are NOT Geth, that they are heretics in their eyes. That the true Geth search for self fullfillment and to achieve augmentation by their own means, that doing so with Reaper tech, by taking Sovereign's offer and serving it, is such a betrayal to their core believes that they are branded HERETICS and killed on sight. Legion is not the rebel Geth that goes after Shep because of some weird obsesion. Legion is practically the Geth's version of Shep, and the Geth that helped Sovereing are actually the rebels, the ones that are not like the rest of the Geth population.
Comes ME3 and what do you know? Legion uses Reaper Tech to upgrade the Geth in the climax at Rannoch. So much for that piece of lore and character development I guess...
And before someone brings Leviathan, that's a payed DLC that's outside of the game and was made after the ending debacle, clearly so it can cover the bases of the Starchild nonsense. It's optional and doesn't come with the game, it's like asking someone to read a 20 page comic so they can understand the ending of a movie. No. As with all media, the story must hold up on it's own under scrutiny if it wants to be taken seriously.
And that's the whole problem with the "artistic license" cop out. ME3 betrays the themes the franchise was building up from the beginning because they needed a bottle neck for the ending to work. And they needed the bottle neck because they themselves hyped the ending it to no end that it would be sooooo wildly different it was not even funny.
So they get no free pass on this one. They dropped the ball, and while the Extended Cut was "better", it was not the ending the franchise deserved, and certainly it was leagues away from the ending that was PROMISED.
I didn't bought on the hype, I knew the ending was going to be a bottle neck, but I did expected at least two different endings, with some very little variations here and there, instead of the same nonsensical ending with some degree of variation.
Gabriel Rodriguez Menendez Saren WANTED synthesis. The reapers fooled him. They told him they'd do synthesis, when they'd just harvest. If synthesis was a REAl option back in ME1, why should a paragon shepard stop Saren?
You didn't really have to tell me everything wrong with the ending and the retcons... I already KNOW the ending is shit. I was just asking about all the SPECIAL hate for synthesis.
I'll simplify it.... Saren goes to a restaurant. he orders synthesis. The chef lies to him and says yes but he's actually gonna kill him and everyone. Does that mean synthesis was a bad thing? No. It just means Saren was misguided.
Also, about the geth. They were never ordered to be killed on sight. They let them leave. You're not with us? Fine. Just leave. We won't kill you.
Also, it was never implied that nazara upgraded their programming or tech. besides giving them the husk spikes in ME1, Nazara didn't gift them with any tech or programming.
Thank you for your response. I want to apologize if I came off too strong, I didn't want to be rude, but I was, sorry about that.
Legions mentions that they served Nazara because Sovereign upgraded them with Reaper tech, that's why the final scene with rannoch is so wrong.
You are right, I was wrong on the heretics stance, but still, Legion mentions that using reaper tech to achieve their goals is not the way of the Geth, and that's the problem with how the quarian/geth conflict resolution.
And on the misguided Saren's front, I see your point more clearly now, thanks for elaborating on that. But that leads into what I said, how can WE know the starchild is for real?
Synthesis is protrayed as the "golden ending", requiring the most amount of asset points in order to be achieved. But what makes it different than what Saren went through? As I said before, what's the difference between Sovereing's offer versus the Starchild's?
For all Shepard knows, it's the same thing. That's why I dislike green light the most. Because it's painted like the best version of the ending, but I really don't see how that's better than accomplishing the goal that the three games, and specially the last one, are building up to. That is destroying the Reapers.
It betrays all the development between EDI and Joker, I know that's optional as well as uniting the Geth and Quarian. That in some scenarios you wouldn't have those very strong points to contend against the points of the Starchild, but that's exactly why it is a problem for green to be the "best" choice.
The very fact that the Starchild so casually dismisses your reunion of the Geth and Quarian is a slap in the face, like saying everything was for naught, you might as well shouldn't even bothered.
I mean, we might as well just let the reapers continue preserving us then, if what Starchild says it's true (and from the way the game portrays it, it must be) then we are the bad guys actually, and we thwarted it's good will and intentions.
That's my problem, synthesis is Starchild's "solution", by accepting it you accept what Starchild says as true and validate the whole revelation. However, in doing so, I feel that invalidates the themes the franchise was about. Leaving our petty differences aside to face a common threat, united we stand divided we fall, there is room for our own will to shine in the universe, and we are all connected and instrumental to it's endurance. But in one swift move, turns out the only way for us to get along is not to see beyond our differences, but to entirely change ourselves to become "alike".
And that's another problem, it really doesn't say what it does for us. Do we retain free will? And if so, how can Starchild assure that this peace will last? But somehow the peace Shep made with the Quaria/Geth was flawed?
Honestly, I want to apologize if I came off a rude before, I actually enjoy discussing such things with people with an actual point of view, so thanks for your reply and if you don't mind I would like to see your take on what I said.
Gabriel Rodriguez Menendez Yeah. It is pretty bullshitty. This machine can alter life at a molecular level? And implant being of metal and electricity with organic parts? Galaxy wide? Bullshit.
Thank you so, so much for making this. It's the one question that would not stop ratting in my head, what went wrong. I think I can finally have some closer now lol I do hope over all Mass Effect will be positive learning experience for all games in the future.
Where it wrong? EA being involved number one right there. The ending and the stepping away from story telling/talking to be more action oriented. You can step up the action all you want, fans wouldn't mind I don't believe but don't lessen the need to talk and interesting side missions. This game went backwards on the story interaction in other words. These are the 3 biggest complaints I've heard and agree with from other gamers, LOTS of other gamers.
EA, ending and less interaction/talking/story.
Where it wrong?? Geez,, just realized my poor English.. It was late, sorry...
Where it went wrong? There.. :)
***** Whoa,, where did you hear that? They most certainly did not.. When has EA ever bought in and given total control, never.. EA bought and owns Bioware. Oh, maybe you heard an EA rep that is now in a top position at Bioware saying they had full control, meaning EA has full control.
And lastly just go to there website. The original Canadian owners were still with the company, EA, but redistributed and "other" meaning EA personnel were put on ME3 with a few of the old staff. Look up Mythic Entertainment and on n on..
Bioware is still owned by EA and can't say, oh, EA did this. But yes, they did.
This is reported on by, numerous groups. and, ah hell. Believe me or not it's all good. But yea. EA was most definitely at fault. Bing, did EA ruin ME3, brings up like a dozen different news groups that comment and explain longer and even more boring that I.. :)
Yep totally true
fking ea
EA is a publisher you morons....they don't make games....
***** Yea, We're the morons.. You betcha danny..
Good old Marauder Shields, he tried to save us from the ending and the Extended Cut fixed nothing.
Awesome video. Well thought out with emphasis on the entire game rather than just the ending. Best ME 3 critique I've seen yet.
The hate the ending gets is a bit too ridiculous to me. But I didn't like how there wasn't away to make the humans and synthetics to co-excist. You were working to make it work between the Quarians and Geth. Legion even gave his life for that cause and Tali began to understand him and the Geth. They then started to live side by side and at the ending that's all erased. I wish there was an option at the end to just choose the Reapers to die.
Option 1: controlling the Reapers and saving Shepard.
Option 2: Letting humans and synthetics synthetize together and saving Shepard.
Option 3: Killing all synthetics and saving Shepard in the proces.
Option 4: All the Reapers die. But the Geth live. The Humans live. All the other aliens also live and co-excist together. BUT Shepard must give his live in return. I would've chosen this and have Shepards life be the prize for it. Having to let Shepard die would cause a dilemma but you would be doing it for the greater good. I also would've let Shepard go down in a spectacular fashion while kicking Reaper ass.
Loved this critique. BioWare seems to develop amnesia whenever they continue a highly succesful game. You mentioned Dragon Age. One of the most fulfilling parts of Dragon Age (like with ME1 and ME2) is just how much you can shape the ending. Yeah, there's the big battle or whatever (you must defeat the Big Bad) but the interactions have long reaching affects in the world.
Why then did DA2 feature none of that? Nothing you did changed anything. You weren't even given the basic choice of saving your sister or brother. The choice was made for you.
I liked ME3 too but there's no reason to pretend the game did fuck up as often as it did things right. The entire Earth Sequence final battle was a slap to the face. Suppose you'd chosen Geth over Quarians because the Geth could field much better infantry and you already had an abundance of ships. It's a valid rational. And it's completely reasonable to expect the type of units you picked would impact which aspects of the final battle you struggled with. Kinda like in DA:O.
Yeah... Or continuing to use your example, if you chose to destroy the heretics and destroyed that geth fighter base, but still chose the geth over the quarians, a crippled geth (since they didn't really have that much time to replenish their numbers before the final battle) struggle more against the Reapers then if you rewrote the heretics and never did the fighter base sidequest. Thir were a lot of ways Bioware could have gone with the final battle honestly... I don't believe in blaming EA for everything, but the rushed development of the game most certainly hurt them there.
The indoctrination theory explain why the fuck the story is like this.
The fact that people resort to that theory to make sense of a game that clearly kicked them in the ass shows how desperate people are.
I know people complain endlessly about ME3, but in reality, all of the games are shaky. Good in some spots, but overall shaky.
I have some fixes that I believe would save the game:
1. Remove the "Shepard unifying the galaxy bullshit". Shepard is an agent, special forces soldier. He goes on highly dangerous missions where he often have to gather information, persuade people and make hard decisions. He is not a diplomat. Not on a high level at least. Two exceptions, Tuchanka and the Quarian/geth conflict. Those were essential.
2. The main mission in Mass Effect 3 should be finding out a way to destroy the reapers. The mystery of what they are and their weakness. It should not be to take earth back with a huge unified fleet. Fuck earth, the reapers are trouble everywhere.
3. Unifying the galaxy should be determined by your actions in the previous games. Let the politicians take care of that. Perhaps Kaiden holds political office in 3 and will help unifying two races but only if you save him.
4. No auto dialogue and always three dialogue options, also bring back investigate ffs
5. Fuck the crappy weapon modding system, bring back the old customization if anything
6. Give us at least 20 vastly different endings, ranging from sad, bittersweet, and happy. All choices should matter. Make us want to replay the trilogy over and over again. Also if Bioware had a happy ending they could have made so many post game DLCs
I could forgive anything but I won't forgive Bioware for not allowing Shepard taking Tali with him to Rannoch, building a home and so.
Bioware treated Mass Effect 1 like it did not even matter.
The first is ridiculous and stupid. Why would you buy the 3rd game and start at that point?! If you've played the other two you know how it goes. Also Bioware stated shepard has been around and should have all of these powers anyway.
There's nothing ridiculous about tutorial missions, even in later installments (and ME3 started with just as heavy a tutorial mission as ME2 did, it was just done worse). Even assuming that nobody will ever start a series on a later instalment (a generous assumption to give you), the 3rd game will inevitably play differently from the 2nd. ME3 introduced a lot of mechanics (and removed a lot as well), so while the experience is similar to ME2, it isn't identical.
Where Mass Effect went wrong? The running animation
Where Mass Effect went wrong? Andromeda.
I just finished playing all three Mass Effects back to back. The story is great all the way through up to the end where I agree the choices for endings were all questionable and somewhat stupid. However still one of my favorite game series ever.
Not explaining the game mechanics at the beginning of the game was fine. ME3's controls were nearly identical to ME2's controls. The only new things were climbing ladders, jumping gaps and a slightly better cover-jumping mechanic. As for everything else, that's on the player, man. If you're playing the third entry in a series before playing the first two, you're doing it wrong.
Bioware is dead. All of the people who made it great in its prime are gone, and scattered. The Bioware of today is the same company in name only.
It's only a subsidiary of EA now. It will die or continue in some horrible form, like all great video game companies acquired by EA.
edit. Like Bullfrog, Westwood, Maxis, etc.
UnknownPenguin That shit ending was not fixed. It went from endings 1,2 and 3 to having a 4th option. It still had the problem of the choices made throughout the game not mattering. ME3 was also dumbed down.
EA also has a longstanding history of ruining companies after buying them out. Just look at Maxis, Westwood and Bullfrog.
Also, WoW is a ruined game.
UnknownPenguin Watch the video over here, Where Mass Effect 3 Went Wrong.
Also, all of the people who made Bioware great in its prime have left the company. Bioware isn't the company it used to be. I already said that.
That explains nothing...in fact BioWare is still both financially and story wise still a strong company. I think you like all the other so-called naysayers are trying way too hard to make your point remotely valid, which...it's not
Clutch28 The people who create the games are the company. They're not interchangeable no matter how much EA thinks they are. The people who lead the company and were responsible for the big decisions to make the games great have left.
Also, Bioware is not its own company anymore, it's a subsidiary of EA. Again, look at what happened to previous subsidiaries like Bullfrog, Westwood and Maxis.
Bioware is not a strong company anymore. I've explained to you why but that doesn't guarantee that you will get it.
UnknownPenguin I expect ME3 to turn out worse than Dragon Age Inquisition, as BioWare continues to get worse and worse. That's due to the effects of EA's control over its subsidiary.
Again, the people who made Bioware great are gone. What don't you get about that after I keep repeating it? It's not the same company anymore.
You also have me wrong if you think that I can only see downsides. I have a balanced perspective, it comes from not being a mindless fanboy.
Well, for me the best game of the series was the first one. While it was far from perfect, especially from technical standpoint, the whole roleplaying aspect and decision making was most logical of all the games in the series. Mass Effect changed this, aside from taking out exploration on planets (gief mako plox) and mad loot, it also changed the whole decision/consequence system for the worse - seriously, what the hell does being an asshole to some random guy in a side mission have to do with a crewmember being killed/surviving during the finale... And Mass Effect 3... Mass Effect 3 is a braindead child of Call of Duty: Ghosts and Star Wars Episode I.
+fallenfanfiction ME3 came out before Ghosts, and episode 1 has nothing in common with the original star wars movies, which are the ones that actually inspired ME. You cannot give the player full control over every interaction and still have a linear story. Its logically impossible. The combat in ME3 is actually much smoother and responsive from ME2 or ME, despite what everyone's memory tells them. There are three mass effects, they cant all be the best one. One of them has the be the worse, despite how much fun it still is. I'd much rather play the worst installment in an amazing trilogy, than the best installment in a horrible series.
I never said for them to have everything interactive, I said it should make sense. In ME2, it was just so-so, in ME3 it was shit. From three decisions to two in most cases, from vast amount of side info on which you could base your decision to almost none, huge amount of auto dialogue where it shouldn't be and the overall stupidity of the dialogues themselves.
Combat was smoother, yes. But as in ME2, the amount of tools you could use was dissapointing.
Some design/gameplay choices were also retarded - and don't try to deny this. If the whine about the ending of all retarded endings wasn't so strong, the extended/better/whatever one would never exist - and even then it was still pretty bad.
Logic dictates last part of a series should be the best, since you have the most time to find what works and what does not - I highly doubt dumbing down Action/Adventure RPG into FPS with RPG elements counts as improvement.
+fallenfanfiction I agree, the combination of the over-simplified dialogue wheel, auto-dialogue, the Gears of War clone combat. and just how out of place the story and the endings felt over-all. It leaves Mass Effect 3 as the worst entry of the series imo.
I enjoyed Mass Effect 2 a lot. Mainly from the interactions in the dialogue wheel with other characters. The role-playing aspect was still alive and strong. I did feel a little indifferent from the the combat, but the combat worked with the feel of the story, and even known it was a little more action oriented than the original mass effect. It worked well, and the game as a whole did feel like a nice balance between Role Playing and Combat.
Though I will always hold Mass Effect 1 with the highest regard. Mass Effect 1 had a sense of wonder that the other 2 games could not replicate, and it was clear from the menu screen when you see the backdrop of that planet and the Vigil theme playing in the background that you were about to experience something awe-inspiring and magical. It was when Mass Effect truly emphasized humanity's realization of the vastness of the galaxy. Everything felt new, mysterious and always had a sense of wonder. Even the clunky Mako in the planet exploration felt special and free, even though those spaces were mostly empty. Yes, the combat was a bit clunky too, but it still worked, and it didn't feel as... I suppose, on-rails or static as 2 and 3. Being able to crouch and disarm your weapons so you could walk around freely, something that was taken out of 3 for a stupid auto-save button. And it had the customization of weapons and armor too, and while 2 and 3 was more seamless, Mass Effect 1 held the RPG framework of the series at it's strongest.
Mass Effect 1 represents what the series could of been, a vast open, non-linear voyage out into to cosmos. Space travel in 2 and 3 ended up being something that was largely taken for granted, as was most of the Exploration.
I can only hope Andromeda can revive what the series stood for back in Mass Effect 1
Personally--though I LOVE the ME series--I think many of their problems existed going back to the first game.
First, the Reapers are an over-the-top enemy for a game series that already has plenty of "bad guys" in it. The Geth, the Krogan, the Batarians, the Turians, the Collectors or even simply Cerberus--these all would have made sufficient enemies for the protagonist to conquer. Now, before we get into the debate about "unity" being the theme of the Mass Effect series, this theory does not discount that point. I'm talking the antagonist for the FIRST game. To me, that antagonist should be simple, mundane and within the recognized enemies of the known rogues gallery. Somewhere in the plot of the first installment, the protagonist discovers the threat of the Reapers hanging over them all. This threat does not end the threat represented by the Batarian Hegemony--for example--because that threat still must be dealt with. However, it throws that threat into perspective which actually serves to further the moral theme that "unity is a strength." Then, in the second game, Shepard pursues the threat of the Reapers in order to come up with a counter to the threat. The antagonist there is still another in-galaxy foe with a grudge against Shepard, the Alliance or the Council. Finally, game three sees the culmination of the theme "unity is strength" as Shepard turns out to be right about the Reapers and now old enemies like the Turians and Batarians must unite with the Alliance to defeat a more powerful foe. Good story telling is to gradually unveil the real threat and in a three game story arc the Reapers should have been shadows cast over the galaxy without actually being seen until ME3
Second, Mass Effect didn't have nearly as well-developed characters as it could have. I'm always disappointed by how little you can interact with Garrus in the first game. They redeem him utterly in ME2 but he always seemed stale in ME1. While Tali, Kaidan, Liara and Ashley all have very interesting backstories you can explore in depth going all the way back to their childhoods in many cases, Wrex and Garrus seemed to fall short. As was said in the video: don't assume anything about your player. Don't assume your player is going to gravitate toward those that look the most human. Garrus was AWESOME throughout the series so give him the respect he is due. Legion was the same way in ME2. I have a geth on my team. I have a freaking GETH on my team but I don't get him basically until the very end because as soon as I get him the story progresses so I can do a few missions with him and then I have to go chasing after the Collectors or my crew dies. More on ME2's problems in a sec.
Third, galactic politics had almost no connection to you at all except to say, basically, "Go to hell, Shepard, you filthy human." You are a Council Spectre--one of 100 in a galaxy of hundreds of billions of people and anything you want or say has virtually no effect on the galaxy at large. Now, in the first game, this kind of makes sense. Humans are new-comers and talking about a shadow of a threat instead of the threat we can all see. But after ME1, the fact that the Council continues to ignore the OBVIOUS fact of the origin of Sovereign just smacks of being forced to create conflict where there wouldn't actually be any. Maybe the Council would make the "official" story something along the lines of "Sovereign was of geth origin" but c'mon. Depending on how you played, Shepard being right was what saved the Council's life in the first place (or them being wrong got them all killed).
Fourth, in a lot of cases, major plot points seem cyclical or unnecessary. Like in Mass Effect, we leave the Citadel to chase down Saren whose looking for what turns out to be a way to get to the Citadel. Wait... couldn't I have just waited for Saren at the Citadel and killed him when he showed up? The entire trip to Ilos is completely wasted. Shepard knew of the Reaper invasion because of his conversation with Sovereign. Vigil's entire conversation really just summarizes what we learned throughout the first game. It's the same thing in ME2. The entire game is just you building your team and babysitting their personal demons. With rare exceptions--like Tali's loyalty mission--your squadmates seem like they're placed on these pedestals of being totally boss only to realize that they have daddy issues or they're harboring 30 year grudges or some crap.
Then, don't pigeon-hole us. Don't force us into playing the way YOU think we should play. The Assassin's Creed series became notorious for this: Oh, I have to assassinate my target the way YOU think I should or you stiff me on story advancement and rewards? Forget you. In Mass Effect, you got to play pretty much however you wanted. Want to do Feros first? Knock yourself out. Don't give a crap about Liara as a squadmate? Cool. Do Therum last. Want a completely different experience? Start again and make all different choices. Then ME2 hit and forced you to play a certain way. Right down to the dialogue options, your playing was hindered by artificial consequences that made no sense. Just because my Shepard is largely a good person doesn't mean he wouldn't be ABLE to intimidate someone if he felt like it. In Afterlife when the bartender poisons you, you can only intimidate him into drinking his own concoction if you're renegade? Da heck is that? I have a freaking flamethrower on my back, fool. It doesn't take much else to intimidate a bartender. Storylines for ME2 and ME3 were the same way. In ME2, game experience is limited by what you "have" to do next. Why do I *have* to go to Horizon now? Sure my Shepard might CHOOSE that option but he might choose to tell the Illusive man to go fornicate himself with an iron stick. If my Shepard is a biotic (which ME2 went WAY overboard on the number of biotics on my team) why do I need Jack? Da heck strategy includes an unstable criminal psychopath on my team in the first place? A paragon Shepard wouldn't likely recruit her at all. ME3 made the same mistake. Why do I have to help the Turians first? Why does 2/3 of the game go by before I come into contact with a potential romance from the previous game? Three of four of the homeworlds of COUNCIL RACES are under siege and yet the Council fleet and the Asari are on the sidelines and can't be accessed until 3/4 of the game is over? That pigeon-holing is what forced us into the "three choice" bullcrap everyone hated. Everything you experienced in ME3 stood in testament to the fact that that annoying little twerp was full of crap. Organics will always destroy themselves? Fool, I got the Turians and Krogan to fight together. Organics and Synthetics will never get along? I got geth and quarians delivering rounds of evidence to the contrary at 1.3% of light speed in orbit over my planet. Introducing that little turd 10 minutes before the end of the story was GARBAGE! Now, had he been the bad guy from the very beginning, that would have been a really cool plot line. This is what happens when you start writing a story and you don't know where's it's going to end up. FINISH your story before you start releasing the games to make sure it makes sense.
Lastly, the main character doesn't always have to die. Let me say that again since the entire entertainment industry seems to have forgotten this truth. THE MAIN CHARACTER DOESN'T ALWAYS HAVE TO DIE. Yes, certain choices may have the natural consequences of the main character dies. ME2 did this in spectacular fashion. Incidentally, it would have been really cool to load an ME2 playthrough in which Shepard dies and have an in depth 10-15 minute movie of what happens without Shepard. Back to the point though, I know "happily ever after" is used as a cliche but...well..."happily ever after" works. Seeing an epilogue with Shepard and Garrus kicking back on a beach is called "rewarding your players." A snapshot of Shepard and his little blue daughters would have been a nice. A playthrough that does everything "right" should have the option of the "happily ever after." Like the point above: DON'T PIGEON-HOLE US! Let us play the way we want to. "Happily ever after" may be cliche but "and everyone died at the end" is a lot worse.
And don't sell successful titles to Electronic Arts. They suck. They know it and so does the entire gaming industry.
+John Babylon tl:dr
good rant
On point all around. Your comments on the ending are exactly what I've been telling people when I argue how bad it was, particularly how you rank the choices and what they should have meant. The only disagreement is that I'm fine if Destroy kills all synthetics if it's properly explained, say by the incomplete or unknown nature of the Crucible . I would still want a way out of it, so perhaps split the Destroy endings into those two options based on Crucible EMS.
I also liked your comments on the opening. Your example of ME2 as better was correct, but also funny because of how bad that scene was from a story perspective, even though it was a nice "player punch", emotional scene.
I never played any of the 3 games when they came out. I actually just started playing them a month ago. I got ME3 first because I feel the latest games in a series are always more modern and entertaining than older prequels. However, i didn't know they tied the 3 games together and that basically it was one big story spread into 3 games. So I went back and got ME1 and 2 and played through each game back-to-back. With that, it's a lot easier to dissect the issues compared to having played each game years or months apart. In played all 3 games back-to-back, it gave me a whole different perspective that I believe anyone who's only played the 3rd game can't appreciate or understand just how awful things became.
With that said, I do believe the series started downhill from the opening sequence of ME2. When people play a game where you only have one main character, you get invested and attached to that character. So to have shepard killed in the very first 5 minutes of the game was just a terrible choice and it took something out of the game for me. I always felt like I was a clone and not the actual shepard I was in ME1. So with that feeling, it was very understandable how Ashley treats you in ME3. I actually liked that part of interactions with her. Not only were you cerberus but you were dead for 2 years, who the hell would trust you then?
Then another thing that pisses me off about the series is how you not only prove to the council that reapers exists but you save their ass from dying (which I chose to do) and in ME2 they still act like the reapers don't exists. Then in ME3 the whole galaxy is being invaded and they still act like reapers don't pose enough threat to help you in any way. The council does absolutely nothing to aid you in any of the 3 games and it makes me question what their worth is to the story at all. If I could skip the stuff related to the council I would because the whole thing is 1000% pointless.
On top of that they give you spectre status back and C-sec reinstates you with little to no questions. Like you've been dead for 2 years and then you show up and suddenly are given access to some of the most important positions and information again. But wait, it gets worse. Having spectre status doesn't play a single significant role for the rest of the game as far as immersion with the story goes. Like what's the point of having spectre status if it does nothing to enhance the story or gameplay for the rest of the game.
There's many other things in ME2 and 3 (both story and mechanic wise) that were just horrible. As for the story, it always feels like I'm forced into decisions that I wouldn't have made if I were given a choice of how to respond. I felt forced into scenario's that weren't satisfying at all and this happens in almost every single cutscene in the game.
Overall, ME3 could have been a ton better. ME2 beats it by a mile and ME1 is in another stratosphere compared to ME3. ME3 only has great graphics, cutscenes and better character movements. It lacks in everything else compared to ME1 and 2.
Most of these points are pretty well backed up, though I disagree wholeheartedly with the intro bit. There are control prompts spread throughout the entire intro telling the player how to play, so it's not like that's a mystery or anything. As for story and choice in the intro, you do realize that your choice of dialogue in the intro of ME2 does not effect anything at all in the rest of the story, right? Neither does it effect the story in ME3, with what little choice there is. An intro is supposed to do one thing, get a player used to the setting of the game quickly. ME2 had the luxury of taking it's time because there was no apparent threat in story before the collector's showed up. ME2 Ended with a cliffhanger that the reapers were RIGHT THERE ready to strike at any time. To start ME3 with a slow disaster not only would not make sense, seeing as though 1: the reapers are right there and attacking, 2: Talking to earth council that does not believe in reapers wouldn't make an difference since they're about to find out about it anyway, and 3: Having selectable dialogue with characters you don't know would make any sense because you as a player has no context to who those other character are or what your relationship with them is.
2022 And I still want a better ending
You and me both...but we have to wait to jump into an a alternate reality to that happens🥺🤷♂️😡👍
@@ElUltimoLeviathan7901 Agree man, the MEOT was like 85% great, even awesone, but the rest was meh. Bio droped the ball from and since ME2 on many instanses, because EA and Mac "gamey" Walters, but this year Dead Space Remake is the prime example of how great a ME remake should've been, showing us how to do things right without messing a lot with the core essence of the original and improving many things in the process.
@@Hellion73 Bueno para rece que también hablas español así que te responderé en español.
De EA ya no confío en ellos absolutamente no me importa si dead space remake fue bueno y dejame decirte que me encanta la saga de dead space los jugué incluso antes de mass effect pero de ellos ya no compro nada y no quiero un reboot/remeke o secuela de el actual EA/bioware para mass effect.
Mac Walters ya se fue del estudio al igual que lo hizo en su momento Drew Karpyshyn y de todos modos puedo apostar que el proximo juego de mass effect sera basura el propio Drew Karpyshyn dijo que la industria del video juego se esta volviendo muy avariciosa, y si te soy sincero no puedo culpar del todo a Mac Walters pese que reescribió toda la trama original, EA queria que mass effect 2 fuera un megaexito como una pelicula de marvel donde el espectaculo es mas importante que lo que tiene sentido, EA queria que saliera mass effect 3 lo mas pronto posible y esto hizo que el juego fuera una mierda, lo mismo paso con dead space 3, dragon age inquisition y star wars battlefront 2 (2017) donde las historias ya no tenian sentido y no hubo un Mac Walters en esos juegos pues se sabe que EA se entromete en los guiones/tramas de sus juegos.
@@Hellion73 Yo sigo esperando una mejor historia pues en los tres juegos de mass effect tienen grandes errores argumentales y muchas cosas no tienes sentido.
mi sueño húmedo es que bioware se salga de EA y hagan un remake/reboot de la tribología original y que cambien la trama de los sintéticos vs orgánicos por la trama de la energía oscura que tenia Drew Karpyshyn en mente.
I swear I'm the only one who liked the probe mining in ME2
i liked it :) but it gets old lol... specially since most of the time you only mostly get 1 type of resource per planet. and that's also only like 5-6k total i think.
HappyYodeler4 good idea,bad execution
also they removed the awesome Mako quests and exploration
1 the mako handled like a drunk snake
2 the mako had absolutely horrible aiming mechanics, even by me1 standards.
3 f that one mission with the thresher maw.
it's the PLOT that was the real fuck up...nothing else.
I still get the feeling that script writers were switched somewhere in the middle of ME 3 development
I might get hated for this comment but I never thought Mass Effect 3 was terrible. I do believe people have gone over the top with Mass Effect 3.
When they say it gives everyone the controls of everything. I think it is because Bioware did not assume players would play a sequel without playing the first games and Mass effect players are already familiar with controls as mass effect 3 uses controls as mass effect 2.
The ending was okay to me but I am speaking my opinion. Overall, to me, you have to play all 3 games, do all side quests and download the DLCs in order to truly understand the games.
Let the hate begin but I enjoyed the series.
PropSpairGaming yeah it didn't take me very long to get warmed up to the combat, plus they did warm you up a little bit with the husks that would climbing walls and banging on things... and maybe I'm just a softy but when those shuttles got vaporized that was moving for me, as was the majority of the beginning and the end(all the time spent on earth)
Good sir I applaud you for your bravery and I give you my full support. 👍
PropSpairGaming I had no problem with the gameplay. In fact, I consider it the best of the series - ME1 and ME2 had very different playstyles, and I think ME3 cherry-picked the best things from them both, while also improving on them.
The ending, though..... I don't think somebody could make a more ill-fitting ending for this series if they tried. The two main themes of this entire series as I see them are:
a.) You make your own destiny (evidenced in the choice system, Shepard's resistance of indoctrination, the unshackling of EDI, the curing of the genophage, the freeing of the Rachni and the debate over whether or not to reprogram - or "brainwash" - the geth).
b.) What worth is an AI? (evidenced in Shepard's talks with Legion and EDI, EDI's relationship with Joker, the Quarian/geth conflict, and paragon Shepard's aversion to controlling the geth or EDI).
The ending railroads you into one ending (with slight variations). Control enslaves the synthetics, Destroy kills them, so neither of those agree with the second theme, and Control goes against both themes. Synthesis agrees with the second theme, but basically forces every individual in the galaxy, synthetic or organic, to change against their will. And they really try to hint that Synthesis is the GOOD ending!
Simply put:
Synthesis: Ruins Theme A
Destroy: Ruins Theme B
Control: Ruins Both
I've got no thing against the gameplay in the third game (except those awful useless turret segments, I'd rather have Mako over these) , in fact it has more variations and overall well designed (Except for the level clusterfuck that is the battle for earth). The characters are better than never before, the dialogue on the other hand too limited... in fact slightly more limited than ME1. It's nice to see some decisions carry on through games. Yet here is the bullet in the heart, the overall story, lost all its charm and consistence, the ending wasn't The Mist (you get it? Lol) dissapointing thing storywise... that's what makes me think that ME3 is the polar opposite in ME1, the first was more into the story and environment building, along with personal character building, your Shepard. ME3 was more into gameplay and building other characters.
1) Maybe they could have had an optional tutorial (and, y'know, if you pay attention to the text you kinda do), but I think it would be a mistake to force a mandatory one on players who have played ME1/2. As such a player, I was invested from the word "How". (On subsequent playthroughs, I was annoyed by the length of the unskippable non-interactive intro, though. So I'm not saying the intro was great--I just choose different flaws to emphasize.)
2) If lacking a middle option is a complaint, it was a complaint from ME1 onward. The fact is, being neutral as Shepard was heavily stigmatized by the game mechanics, and the middle option was unfun. Who wants to be locked out of interrupts and conversation options because they were wishy-washy? If you want a neutral option, you need a neutral conversation score--Arbiter or similar--to go with Paragon and Renegade. There needs to be value attached to neutrality. Otherwise, having neutral options is a waste of time.
As it is, while there are really only two paths if you want the highest EMS (just as there are really only two paths in ME2 if you want the most survivors), there are a variety of ME3 Shepards both Renegade and Paragon in a variety of universes. You can be a Renegade Jerk with a Heart of Gold and save everyone, or you can actually be an asshole; you can be Paragon and miracle worker, or Paragon and crushed by the weight of loss and death; and a variety of states exist in between those four corners. There are actually MORE of these meaningful choices in ME3 than in previous games, even though the wheels have fewer spokes on them.
(I can just hear the complaints that "There are no meaningful choices if the ending is the same!" Screw that. The journey is more important than the destination.)
3) On the one hand, sure, the sidequests are annoying and trivial. On the other, can you imagine trying to sell players on spending lots of time on irrelevant combat missions while the galaxy is being destroyed? In previous games the threat was nebulous enough in the time scale that you could justify sending Shepard all over the galaxy exploring random mines and scanning for minerals. Here? Much more difficult. And yet including optional cluster-hopping sidequests is (ironically) mandatory, because it's a Mass Effect game. At least in this format they don't take up much gameplay time; I'm pretty sure the entire difference in time between my first ME2 playthrough (39 hrs) and my first ME3 playthrough (32 hrs) was goddamn scanning, and I don't even want to check how many hours I spent in the Mako. (inb4 someone tells me I'm a noob who plays too slow, or a completionist who plays too much.)
4) The Reapers were never a villain. They were a menace. In ME1 and ME2 they had surrogate villains, Saren and the Collectors, standing in for the overwhelming menace lurking beyond the fringes of the galaxy. In ME3, though, the villain is abstracted one step from reality, and it still isn't the Reapers. It's dissension. It's the implosion of the galaxy under pressure from the Reaper menace. It's the geth and quarian fleets destroying each other, Wreav leading the krogan race towards a much-anticipated but unsustainable war of conquest (or the salarians destroying Wrex's dreams of krogan legitimacy), the Illusive Man undermining the Crucible project. It's a villain built on the themes of ME2, where team unity And it's a villain you fight with almost every conversation option and almost every bullet.
But what else is it? It's also the exact same thing the Reapers are designed to fight! Reapers harvest organic sapients to maintain the orderly cycle of death and rebirth on the scale of galactic civilization, in the face of the chaos of organic life. That's been built up as a theme throughout the series. Shepard's real journey in ME3 is in leading the galaxy to outgrow the Reaper-controlled cycles. And that brings us to...
5) I agree with your complaints about the final fight. Shepard's success in uniting the galaxy should have paid off in terms of boots on the ground and visible support. It would be difficult to design, but it would have been much better than what we got.
However, I disagree with your opinion about the ending on several points.
A conventional victory was never going to happen. With respect to the story, the Reapers have been built up throughout the series as undefeatable by conventional means. Thematically, Shepard's victory is not in bombs or bullets, but belief; organic civilization does not break the cycles with brute force, but outgrows them. Could the Reapers have been built up differently, and the themes laid out differently, to allow for conventional victory? Perhaps; but in my opinion it would diminish the story, even if the explosions would be more entertaining. We might destroy the Reapers, but we wouldn't understand them.
The basic questions that the writers of ME had to answer with the ending were, why do the Reapers exist, and what does it mean to defeat them? Not "Where did the Reapers come from?"; the Reapers are written as far enough beyond human capability that their creators must be beyond human understanding, and therefore unworkable as a story element. And not "How can the Reapers be defeated?"; once the question actually asked is answered, this is trivial. Making the Reapers ruthless arbiters of a cycle that can be outgrown neatly answers both questions. The choice of HOW to break the cycles is the final expression of the Shepard we choose to play. Yet because each choice represents the destruction of the cycles, they have an essential commonality--a tremulous, uncertain beginning to a new age.
That's not to say I liked everything about the ending. The geth shouldn't be wrapped up in the Destroy option, for example. But I really don't think it's the gamebreaker people have made it out to be.
One thing I will say is that the combat is under appreciated big time. There's basically far more depth and controllability to every aspect of combat than there was in Mass Effect 2 . And let's not even get into Mass Effect 1's gameplay. It's was mediocre in 2007 and it hasn't aged well. People need to understand to difference between "dumbing down" and extracting all the unintuitive padding and general bullshit.
Not really... I played Mass Effect 1 and used all the tricks to make my ammo "infinite" with as few cooldowns as possible. Was definitely NOT easy mode. Except for, you know, if you played it on Easy. By the time I maximized my effectiveness in combat to that degree, I was rolling in the two hardest difficulty settings of the game. In Mass Effect 1, your options were basically "maximize damage at the cost of needing to cooldown the weapon frequently", "maximize heat efficiency so well that you'll rarely ever have to cooldown, but it amounts to thousands of papercuts to kill most enemies due to underpowered shots", or "somewhere between the two". I opted for the "death by a 1000 papercuts" because I was often engaging in multiple enemies at a time who didn't really respect "cover" and tended to rush your position regardless. A gun that puts a bajillion papercuts down-range is much better than a cannon that puts two or three TNT sticks down-range every minute or so. Unless you're playing tactically... or are fighting tough opponents like the giant Geth walker things. Then, your sniper rifles and shotguns are more valuable than your infinite ammo Assault Rifle.
The problem in Mass Effect 2 and 3 is that there's not only no justification (even with the flimsy story excuse bullshit) to swap over to an ammo mode from mini mass effect fields that strip tiny slivers of metal shards off of a block to create projectiles that cause more damage and fire faster than actual bullets (when your Codex says most guns never need more than a SINGLE BLOCK OF RAW METAL as ammo in nearly its entire lifespan as a weapon, you know that it's much better than some faggot Heat Sink mechanic in any futuristic setting because one option is BETTER IN TERMS OF COMBAT than the other) and your weapons suddenly started being LESS EFFECTIVE than they were in Mass Effect 1 to boot. Weapon choices even dropped from nearly 25-30 models per weapon to like... 4... and only one in those 4 was ever worth using in each category so... no real option to "upgrade" your gun to a better one when you got the best one you could get about midway through the game... or in the first two hours of the game if it wasn't one of the ones you found on the Collector Ship. Even worse was that your clip sizes were even much smaller ALONGSIDE the weaker abilities of those weapons. It only got really super bad when you remember that Mass Effect 1 had "mod slots" for all of your equipment. You know? That thing so you can personalize it to your playstyle? So you could shore up weaknesses of equipment? Or so you could swap out equipment for specific instances (like swapping out a mod for extra damage against fleshy targets to one that does more damage against synthetic targets when you go on a mission to fight Geth). Just... gone! POOF!
Oh, and some of those mods were suddenly turned into actual powers... and 90% of the skill tree and passive abilities were removed in service of this nonsense. Instead of throwing two points into "Shotguns" to get a 6% boost in damage and accuracy to those weapons... Now I had to spend the finite amount of credits I had for a playthough to BUY AN UPGRADE THAT DOESN'T CARRY OVER ON NEW GAME + to do the same goddamn thing. Because, who wants to build a character when you can buy non-permanent upgrades instead! Who doesn't want a 6 skill, skilltree in which you'll obtain every upgrade in it, except for TWO in Mass Effect 2... and in which you'll get a 8 skill skilltree in Mass Effect 3 and max every single one of them out anyway? I mean... who DOESN'T want that?
Mass Effect 1 was anything except "easy mode". Mass Effect 2 and 3, even on Insanity? Easymode throughout because there was almost no way to ever screw up anything. I found combat to impressively easy that there was only one time I had problems with it in Mass Effect 2 (which was simply a result of not getting Jack before Garrus... because Jack wrecks everyone on Insanity when you leave her to guard Garrus... which only becomes a problem if you're playing on Insanity and isn't a problem any difficulty before that... because the game is so easy mode that party choices are literally pointless save for the hardest difficulty where party composition actually matters during two segments of the game) and never had an issue with combat at all in Mass Effect 3... to the point that about midway through that game, I was bored by all combat and was just cruising through the game to get to the end since the gameplay was so stale and dry.
At least infinite ammo in Mass Effect 2 and 3 would've allowed the devs to throw harder shit at us... or more interesting encounters. You know, to try to present a challenge to the players.
I wonder... What if we all worked together to remake Mass Effect 3? I mean, let's start a volunteer group and have everybody pitch in to make Mass Effect 3 how it SHOULD be. Know how to code a game? Step on up. Good at 3d design? Work your magic. Got extra money? Put it in the tip jar.
Bioware really spit in our faces with ME3, and we can reverse this.
I know this is possible. For example, most versions of Linux are free open source software that were constructed by motivated volunteers and a minimal budget.
Mass Effect 3 deserves its own Lazarus Project.
it's not that simple,it requires years of hard work,and even myself would love to collaborate to a RPG remake of ME3,it would require money to kickstart that 'project' ,people wants to be paid or the chances for that project to live it's near 0 %
like War for the Overlord,the kickstart it's the only way,and needs to be serious,no turning back
i upvoted your comment to start,i sign up and fully agree with you and
seriously determinated to do this
to be clear i propose rules
1)no turning back,nobody can leave the project once started,unless it's for legitimate reasons
2)an update must held every week\month
3)a legitimate interest in the project
i have no programmer experience,but i'm very talented in writing
question N°1
who would actually participate?
Question N°2
how to start the 'kickstart'?
Question N°3
How the game will be called?
respond to me if you are really into it
arbiteras And that right there may be a problem. If we're going to be making any money off this (apart from donations to fund the project) we'd need to either
a.) Buy the rights to the franchise and its licenses, (We could never afford that) or
b.) Put on bulletproof armor because EA and Bioware are going to lose their minds when they find out we've been encroaching on their copyrighted material.
In essence, we'd need to distribute it as a "mod" and/or indie game, that is completely free to download, free to play, and free to redistribute with no financial/digital/legal strings attached.
And even then, using the original voice acting and coding might come back to haunt us, if EA/Bioware felt like pursuing the issue. (And knowing EA's demeanor... they'd burn us at the stake for that.)
So, yeah it would be INSANELY difficult, but if we can get very skilled volunteers and work outside of EA/Bioware's territory, I think the benefits would be worth "reaping".
But not until we have an excellent team. I might be able to help in a couple years. I'm taking a course in video game design with a minor political science (Don't ask about my politics. I don't want to cause a flame war here).
Let me know what you think, bro.
or it could be a unofficial project much like TES renewal that ports morrowind to skyrim's engine,and changes much of its gameplay.
that's allowed,or make a look a like franchise that will do the story as intended,that brings 0 % risk of violating EA and Bioware rights and make everyone happy
like Thrive:the game wants to make what Spore failed to deliver.it's like 5 years that's in development,but the game should come out in max 8 years from now.
for now it's vital to use a site,maybe free to gather people
Honestly, thank you for having valid points on why the game was terrible. I am a HUGE fan of the Mass Effect series. I loved the build up of the dangers of the Reapers in Mass Effect. I loved how involved we got with the characters and the effect of our choices in Mass Effect 2. And, although there were a few flaws, I loved the story and gameplay of Mass Effect 3. Whenever I played it I honestly thought that overall it was a very decent game (but that's just me!). And because of this, it pains me to see all the complaints the game gets that are just stupid (every single complaint I have ever read or been told, I could easily argue against it with pay attention to the damn story). But this...there is no excuse for these mistakes. I don't mean to say that I know everything about the series and because I like the game its perfect with nothing wrong, because I barely know the game. I play it over and over and learn more every time. I think you should have just made the game yourself so the game would keep its well deserved respect from players fr the first two games
You sound like a Salarian haha. Nice video
I get where you're coming from. I enjoyed Mass Effect 3,. but there are SO many areas of the game they could have done better. It was clearly rushed out the door.
Xavier Vega EA
Lets see where andromeda will end up because i am not buying anymore bioware titles until they have "finished" their storylines.
*****
Well.
Clearly another reason to sit back and sip more tea.
:)
*****
know, i have just today watched the compilation videos from wing commander 3-5. To get a glimpse back at my gaming past. (i played those games so much...)
Corny as that stuff may have been, it has accomplished do convey a good sotry i nevery case, and it delivered on the ending.
And hey, having icons of sci fi act in your videogame is not something that Mass effect did first.
Watching the videos back to back i just now realized just HOW MANY actors starred in those wing commander videos.
Actors you know from somewhere else.
Makes the cinema movie all the more weird.
Anyway, i seldom ask much of games storys, but at the end they should make it possible for me to "win".
I wanted that momrnt on the citadel overpass, having the gang sit in comfy chairs hitting the booze while the camera zooms away to fitting music.
"fin"
I am all for "earn your happy/horrible ending" and i hate "you are too dumb to realize my brilliance-writers".
Well... sorry for going off the rails here...
idont care about story, to me mass efect has always been a (kinda generic but slightly fun) 3rd person shooter where i press spacebar to skip the talkie stuff(infact i kinda hated tht bit in 1 where u needed to get a pass to open the garage door to find liaras mum), till an action cutscene happens, not counting the mako/firewalker bits ofc, hope vehicles are better in me4. all me4 needs to do to get my money(origin refund and play offline masterrace! so glad i hv multiple hard drives) is look pretty and be a fun shooter(hell maybe even includ some fun zero gravity stuff like dead space1 did), its not easy making a fun shooter, u only need to look at batfield hardline to see how bad it can get. anyways the 'leaving earth' song and cutscene was so well done and pretty much the only time i actualy felt anything from a video game(not counting ending of halo4 ofc, mass effect really needs to catch up on both graphics and their face mocap, maybe even use whateve la noire used..nah too clayface), i enjoyed those nightmare bits shep had with the burning boy and all, hearing kelly chambers voice damn..and thts before i make her take them pills, tht take earth back trailer with the girl in the fields was some kotor dead island oscar shit right there..maybe blur studios should take over writing duties
lzhlzh
Th traielr truly was the best about ME3, which made the game itself such a betrayal.
kinda funny how halo also did the leviathan(precussor/forerunner) being the creator/father of the reapers(forerunner/flood), before being wiped out by the lesser race, but not before hiding caveman humans from eradication. cantt belive u read my whole wall of text, those ME trailers sure beat the crap outta halo's
I was told before playing that I would feel more satisfied if I treated the entire game as the ending. I have to say, doing this really helped me not to be dissappointed.
Man, I'm playing the LE and currently in the third game, and it's problems are so evident in just the opening and second mission :((
The irony of talking about not assuming anything, while assuming that Shepard is Female.
That said, I more or less agree with everything you've said.
For many people she is
+ARecklessSkeptic
Male Shepard for the sole reason; that I don't want to listen to Jennifer Hale's voice for the one thousandth time.
Hale does a much better performance than Meer.
So Thane wouldn't need extreme acupuncture
LOL
Love this video and agree completely with pretty much everything!
I liked mass effect 3 just hated the ending
noob
I highly disagree with the complaint about the auto-dialogue. I believe that this video is looking at it in the wrong way. The problem with ME1 and ME2 was that too often you would have Shepard ask an NPC a question and then they would give a long exposition, and then Shepard would ask another question, and they would give you another long exposition. I love those games, don't get me wrong, but sometimes the conversations didn't feel organic. Introducing little bit more auto-dialogue not only allows the conversations to flow more smoothly, but it removes this whole interrogator dynamic that was present at times in the first two games. Also, the auto-dialogue was rarely anything separate from the dialogue-wheel option. Generally, it was simply the first part of Shepard's question asked, then answered, then the rest of the question asked. It was mostly linked to the same dialogue choice and thus did not create an dissonance for me in terms of role-playing ability.
Now, did they perhaps take it a little too far, and add in a little too much auto-dialogue? Possibly. That criticism I could understand. But to say altogether that it was a poor decision is a little narrow in my opinion.
Also, the streamlining of the dialogue-wheel also had its benefits. In ME1, too often there would be 5 or 6 different things to say to 5 or 6 different conversations points to 5 or 6 different NPCs in the same room and generally all on the same topic. The result is a lot of repetition and a lot more time spent on unnecessary amounts of information rather than getting to the more important conversation options. This was one of the major pacing flaws with ME1 (after the Mako, of course).
And the streamlining of the dialogue-wheel was not unique to ME3. It had already begun by ME2. Once again, did they perhaps streamline it a little too far in this game? Maybe. But I do not see it as being anything akin to a major flaw whatsoever.
That high pitched, eardrum splitting scream during the gears of war section, caught me by surprise. I've never had turn down the volume because of a person's voice before.
I disagree so much with the first point. You care about the beginning of ME 3, because you played the past 2 Mass Effects, so you need no introduction. You know exactly how to play the game, and you know exactly what the robots are. Even if ME 3 was your first ME, you'd still know by virtue of knowing video games what to do.
The other points have more merit, but damn, that first point really set the video off on the wrong note.
i would like to have repear cereal.
The ending was perfect actually. It was made in a way to show you that you are not a god and no matter how much you try you will never be one. The game's final choices are the final test not of the character but of the player himself- they were made to break the fourth wall. Suddenly all of your decisions you have made for such a long time ammount up to nothing and you are asked: What would you do if the end was pre-written all along? What do you choose? Did you learn anything about the nature, meaning and purpose of life? What will you do with all the experience you gained about the concequences of your actions on so many occassions? Because that's what life is, a mix of choices that alter it in profound ways and events that would have happened anyway no matter your choices. In the end you are faced with such an event and you are being tested as a person, not a videogame character. It was a great moment for me because I suddenly felt that "shit got real" and I had to make hardest of all the impossible choices I had to make so far, one that simply cannot be made. That's why there was no ending boss in the game, the final boss was the player himself and his/her perception of the meaning, purpose and value of life- a difficulty level out of this world if you think about it. You are suddenly robbed by your ultimate weapon, your ability to shape the fate of the galaxy when you most needed it and you are left with the hardest choice of them all, the one that has no answer. Now that's raising game difficulty for the end battle! Mass Effect is the best game series I have ever experienced just for that fact alone. Cannot wait for Andromeda.
I wouldn't say a 4th wall break but this is a really neat way to look at it with you experiencing what would be lost with every choice
finally someone who understands the mass effect 3 ending, thank you
2019 and still pissed off about that game. God damn... how could they fuck it up in the end? Why did they do this to us. Mass Effect 1 and 2 were such beautiful games. Why did they throw it in the mud in Mass Effect 3. FUCKING WHY!!???? FUUUUCK!!
it's not Casey's fault. they were doing ME2 and ME3 simultaneously.
I swear, people whine for the sake of whining.
You didn't watch the video it seems, Fanboy.
***** If you don't like it, skip it! Seriously!?
plexx365 He has every right to complain because he bought it. Same as I.
That entitles us the right to complain as consumers when you get a degraded experience compared to previous games.
You have no arguement, fanboy.
***** I was talking about my comment... You can just skip my comment if it doesn't agree with your point of view. I really couldn't care less if you agree with me or not.
this is a well done video... but after only paying about $25 for the FULL Mass Effect 3 experience (DLC and all). I find that the game is clearly rushed..... but is very very fun! Sure some story points are forced and there are less choices... but the amount of impactfull moments for me at least... gives it a nice nostalgic feel from playing ME2 5 years ago. Maybe its because i waited so long to play it.... but i personally love the game so far...
Brilliant
*Cigar Guy Appears*
I want to believe that they just got overwhelmed in ME3 because is such an ambitious project. But the game had a feeling of being rushed, the combat lacked the intensity of ME2 and the end was ok just wasn't properly executed.
he's totally right I actually really liked ME3 myself I just felt they tried to pander to a new audience and totally fucked it up ( the story at least) well actually they didn't more people bought ME2 than ME1 and more people bought ME3 than ME2 I just feel like they spit in my eye and destroyed everything that had me obsessing over the trilogy.. essentially they just walked up to their small loyal fan base and said fuck you we wan't idiots to enjoy are games to, and what did we do well we just bent over and bought another copy fuck you EA and Bioware
This has got to be the worst "critique" video I have ever seen in my goddamn life.
this must be the worst comment i've ever seen in the entire universe
i love how in the extended cut, when u refuse to do anything every one dies no matter what, so pretty much finding a cure, building up the army, etc. was all worthless and the fact that its a punch in the face from Bioware saying that youre gonna like our endings, whether you like it or not. they shouldve had shephard live, the reapers get destroyed, no god child, and have shepard put andersons name on the list of people that died, then it would have been great.
I think if they had included leviathan dlc with the original game it would have been more clear, knowing Harbinger was not the true antagonist but rather the AI construct called the catalyst (citadel) Harbinger was just the first reaper created using the harvested Leviathan aliens.
My ears and probably a few of my neighbors just died at 8:15......
About the issues presented within the first 5 minutes of the video (no handholding tutorial) I strongly disagree. I think what they did was just expect you to have played the previous games, which with the minimal hints presented should be quite enough to get immersed in the feeling of that part of the game.
Shepard is a trained soldier who's been stuck with no practice for months and then thrust into the Reaper attack.
He knows what he's doing but he's out of practice, scrambling to get his bearings against a significant enough threat.
That is exactly the way I myself felt whilst playing this part, and I really enjoyed it.
I'm also a fan of giving the player full control of everything immediately, a-la Dark Souls.
My idea is that if you don't know that left mouse button is going to shoot a dude in the face, it means you've not played mass effect 2, and if that is the case, I reckon you have little business playing three. You're just spoiling the previous games for yourself, while in the process not experiencing the full value of the one you're playing.
But what about Vega and all the shit that's going on? They thrust you in there. I KNOW Mass Effect. I just finished 2 a couple minutes ago but I'm still fumbling in the dark (in terms of story, not gameplay). Who the fuck is james? how do i know him? why is shepard acting chummy with him without me WANTNG to act chummy with him? How did kaidan/ashely make it to lieutenant commander rank in a short time? What was everyone doing for 6 months?
Siddiq Ismail
Well, it seems Shepard met Vega while stuck on Earth.
And Ashley/Kaidan were doing some top secret stuff for the Alliance during 2, so I suppose that's probably how they got promoted.
It's not narrated terribly well, I'll give you that, but I feel it's decent enough. After all, you should have some more pressing concerns in that oart of the game.
Big purple concerns with giant red LAZ0RS.
Poldovico I KNOW that vega and Shepard met on Earth and are now buddies. They kinda make it obvious. However, this is Mass Effect. Your supposed to BUILD a relationship, not be thrown into one. Shepard is supposed to be YOU as a space-marine. Why would I and millions of others be friends with Vega?
Look at the chain of command. Ashley got bumped WAY too fast into Lieutenant Commander (that is Shepard's level BTW). That's like 3 or 4 ranks away from admiral. Shepard did HUGE things. Survived a thresher maw attack, attacked a pirate moon, or defended one of the greatest human colonies. What does Ash do? Help Shep, get owned by collectors and saved by Shep again. That's GREAT grounds for promotion.
Siddiq Ismail
I have no idea how military ranks work in my own language, let alone in english.
I'm not saying it was done well, but it's not the worst thing ever.
I just see it like Anderson's introduction in the first, he was just already there.
Besides, I'm not really arguing about the story, which has its host of issues. My comment was specifically targeted at the critique of the gameplay tutorial, with which I strongly disagree.
However, it's past four thirty in the night here. I might come back to this discussion in the morning if I remember, but until then, good night.
Poldovico Oh, ok. I have no problem with gameplay. I played mE1 and 2, so it was simple for me to pop into the action in 3.
Military ranks in the alliance re explained in the codex of mE1. I'm not gonna explain but 'll just say Ash/kaidan made an impossible promotion for doing nearly nothing.
I don't really have anything to argue, so enjoy your night.
While I totally agree, the thing is that the intro to the game was not done with story telling in mind. Mass Effect 1 and 2 take time to get into the "action", and give the player some time to get immersed in the universe.
ME3 should really have started out with the Alliance HQ as a hub so you could get to know Vega and the state of the Galaxy at that point. Get to know Earth, so that when the Reapers DO arrive, it actually has the impact they attempted to make with the little brat.
And where the hell is my Krogan ? (squad's tank).
+maskirish That would be mister self-loathing-look-my-pecs James Vega.
+Nott Mynaem I liked looking at his pecs.
hahaha, the yo-dawg-meme at 02:20 though. XD haven't seen that one before, thanks XD
that aside, it was a very good video and i agree with it a lot. one thing you missed is the loose ends in story telling. for example, in mass effect 2 there was this mission with tali, where you were supposed to find out something about the sun of a previously quarian-inhabitated planet being strangely influenced in unknown ways and thus behaving in a way that can't occur normally. there were guesses about the geth being the cause of this and i've always wondered when i'll be able to find out more about this. but nope. nothing. it was just this one mission and then no one ever cared about it anymore at all. and that's just one example. there were other things that seemed to inentionally been given the potential to build up to something larger and then just got completely ignored.
and i completely agree with the endings. basically the "good" ending would be to agree with saren, making everything you did since the first game completely irrelevant. you could just have let saren go on and keep doing his stuff and it wouldn't really have ended differently. basically, there's too little diversity in any of the endings, in my opinion. after playing that game i honestly felt like nothing would have really changed if i had died at the end of mass effect 2. maybe a few small things here and there but overall it would have been the same. the only thing that actually changed was the cycle being stopped, but it didn't really feel like i did this. could have been done by any casual super-soldier with enhanced stuff and things like that. which is, i suppose, what you meant by saying shepard not really being my character anymore. there were just too many casual linear things. personally, i don't have a problem with linear storytelling in games but sometimes the decision-making ability of me3 felt like that of gta4. shoot this guy or don't shoot this guy and based on what you chose to do, you will be able to see a news article on the internet.
[spoiler alert]
take this mission or that mission and based on what you chose either your cousin or your girlfriend dies and you have to fight either this guy or that guy as the last enemy
[spoiler end]
in gta4 this was fine and completely acceptable, since that game was based on shooting guys for random reasons or sometimes no real reason at all. mass effect however was based on talking a lot and making decisions. so mass effect 3 seemed like an attempt to transform a decision and dialog based game into a basic shooter game with rudimentary decision making ability.
another good example would be dead space. i don't remember having any choice at all in those games (or maybe sometimes i had minor choices and both available options just lead back to the same path anyways) and there were only very few side-missions (actually, i think side-missions didn't really get introduced at all untill dead space 3) with pretty much zero influence on the story and still it was a pretty good game/series. and even though in the ending of dead space 3 i still feel a bit like nothing i did actually mattered and i merely delayed the inevitable, i was pretty ok with this, because it didn't try or want to make my decisions matter. it was more like reading a book or watching a movie. the story is already set and there's only one way it can go because it has been written this way. so, while dead space is comparable to a good book or movie, mass effect is more like something that starts as an interactive story and then, in the last third, the author decides that it actually needs some pre-set path and greatly limits the influence that your decisions have on his story.
What he refers to as a solution isn't permanent is what I meant, as the problem persists in each cycle. The Reaper cycle isn't a permanent solution. And if Shepard resolved the conflict on Rannoch, then the entire sequence with the Catalyst is rendered meaningless. If the Catalyst truly believed the conflict could be resolved without the Reapers, he wouldn't use them each cycle, so if that's the case Shepard proved the conflict can be resolved through other means.
The only other known instance of a sentient synthetic is EDI, who declared absolutely unwavering allegiance to the organic crew of the Normandy.
As the Child is explaining that synthetic-organic conflict is a fundamental fact of the universe, just outside the Quarians and Geth are working together in the same fleet to fight against the Reapers.
8:15 R.I.P. headphone users.
-The transparent kid was a huge plot device. Throughout the second game, Harbinger worked as a "speaker" on behalf of the reapers. I do not understand why suddenly the citadel becomes the central hub for reaper shenanigans, or why Harbinger suddenly doesn't give a damn about Sheppard, whom he directly threatened often during the final half of the second game.
-Sheppard should not have died. That's the main thing that bugged me about the ending. The point is to save life in the galaxy, why you suddenly find yourself forcefully committed to martyrdom is beyond me.
they did a shit ending on purpose so people would spend money on DLC which will provide a 'better' ending. Its all about money
Also, the Mass Effect trilogy actually is ONE game with one storyline. I don`t think anybody would enjoy the 3rd part without playing at least the 2nd.
Exactly. The problem with Shepard's sacrifice is not that he/she dies, but the circumstances of the sacrifice. The sacrifice is forced to end a problem the reapers have. Shepard is also not a tragic figure who needs to die by thematic necessity, or to make up for flaws he/she has. The game does not give you options to live and be a coward, or sacrifice others in your place and allow Shepard to die in their place. The sacrifice also feels meaningless since we did not get to see how Shepard's
-Whether or not sheppard dies, there is still a huge team of people that you hand-picked, esteemed and cared about for a long time. I feel it is hugely inadequate to lack any kind of closure regarding their fates.
Well, to my knowledge, the Catalyst seemed quite confident that any resolution between organics and synthetics wasn't achievable at all without the reapers, and technically the Reapers don't resolve this conflict at all, as it continually persists into the next cycle. Shepard disproved the Catalyst's theory because he stopped that conflict, and more importantly he stopped it without the Reapers' help or using their methods.
"before an old dragon god decides to attack Saul Tigh"
Hahahaha god that was great.
Illusive Man WAS the main antagonist in the end... He was an in-genius antagonist because all the way through the game, it makes you think he MIGHT not be totally under their control. The reapers only converse with Shepard to give their prophecy of doom and destruction, and since they're clearly demonstrating that well enough, I THINK the player knows who they're fighting... You're fighting THE REAPERS in the end, not just harbinger, after all.