Mass Effect Legendary edition impressions: Two steps forward, one step back

[CriticalGaming]

Tbf Garrus didn't really have anything to do once you rescued him from the gangs on Omega. His whole squad was dead and if the gangs hadn't tracked him down he probably would have already fled omega before you got there. And IIRC Liara was trying to save her friend who helped recover Shepard's body from the shadow broker who was going to hand it over to the collectors.

Also IIRC Garus is a lot less eager to join you in ME3 because of the reaper invasion of the Turian homeworld itself. Not 100% on that though, but I think that's the case.

Also can I point out that now that I've begun ME3, the plot of ME2 is fucking meaningless. The collectors ultimate plan wasn't to bring forth the reapers in anyway, at the end it is revealed that they were using the human bodies to make another reaper (somehow). So stopping them basically does absolutely nothing towards delaying the Reaper threat, nor does it actually do anything in regards to studying and preparing for when the Reapers do arrive.

I realized that once I began ME3 and Earth immediately comes under attack, that all of ME2 could have been skipped completely and nothing in ME3 would be different. Also if the Reapers are coming from the Terminius systems, why would they not attack the alien worlds first? They seem to make a B-line for Earth directly ignoring the races with better and bigger armada's that could pose a threat to them directly. Additionally going to the council they all basically say, "Sucks to be you dude." And still somehow downplay the Reapers as a Shepard problem. Which just doesn't make any sense.

Was Mass Effect always this badly written? I'm beginning to wonder why this series got so big.

 

[meiam]

Was Mass Effect always this badly written? I'm beginning to wonder why this series got so big.

Well 2 reason:
ME1 is much better written than 2/3 (by written I mean the world building, dialogue were a bit better in 2/3), pretty much every interesting piece of lore comes from ME1.
The bar for video game writing is shockingly low.

But yeah ME2 is essentially pointless, you could skip it and the story would make about as much sense. None of the character you recruit in ME1 make it on your team, the final decision at the end of ME2 is literally pointless and Shepard never find any information to stop/fight the reaper. Even the human reaper thing is abandoned and even clash with the final outcome of ME3. You could claim that you did all of it to save people in the border region from getting abducted by collector, but more human must die every minutes in ME3 than in all of ME2, so its extremely questionable if the time wouldn't have been better spend looking for a solution (and then the solution could be smarter than the crucible which is one of the dumbest thing in a video game story, right next to Kai Leng). Also, if you play arrival DLC, Shepard nuke an entire world (of dirty Xeno) just to delay the repear, which then show up anyway a few days later (in a way that's never actually explained).

The reaper are obsessed with human/earth for no reason other than human have to be the hero for the story to be popular. They ignore the citadel and only care about earth because it'll be more popular to have the final showdown on earth.

 

[CriticalGaming]

The reaper are obsessed with human/earth for no reason other than human have to be the hero for the story to be popular. They ignore the citadel and only care about earth because it'll be more popular to have the final showdown on earth.

Yeah I mean if the Reapers do this every 50k years as the lore states, then you'd think they'd have better plans for it. Attack the citadel first, destroy leaderships and leave the rest of the people running scared and with no direction then simply pick them off as you deem fit.

 

[laggyteabag]

Yeah I mean if the Reapers do this every 50k years as the lore states, then you'd think they'd have better plans for it. Attack the citadel first, destroy leaderships and leave the rest of the people running scared and with no direction then simply pick them off as you deem fit.

That literally is the plan - or at least, it was. The Citadel is secretly a giant mass relay, that links to somewhere in Dark Space, where the Reapers lay in wait.

For the previous cycles, a signal would be sent to the Citadel relay, which would allow the entire Reaper fleet to appear at the Citadel, and immediately destroy the galactic leadership, before travelling to all of the other systems, and purging the rest of the galaxy amongst the chaos.

After the Prothean cycle, a number of surviving Prothean scientists hid in stasis on Ilos, until the Reapers had finished purging the galaxy. Once it was safe, they used the conduit to travel to the Citadel, and disabled the signal.

As for why the Reapers didn't just travel to the Citadel using the normal mass relays... I couldn't tell you off the top of my head, but that seems like such a glaring question that must have an answer.

Its probably explained in ME3.

 

[meiam]

As for why the Reapers didn't just travel to the Citadel using the normal mass relays... I couldn't tell you off the top of my head, but that seems like such a glaring question that must have an answer.

Its probably explained in ME3.

Unless its in one of the book/comic adaptation, no it wasn't explained. ME3 writing was realllllllly poor.

But yeah the reaper abandon their plan just to focus on earth, they even move the entire citadel (so not only can they travel to the citadel they can even move the citadel itself) to earth for absolutely no reason. Sometime it feel like ME3 writer went out of their way to piss on ME1 lore.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Unless its in one of the book/comic adaptation, no it wasn't explained. ME3 writing was realllllllly poor.

But yeah the reaper abandon their plan just to focus on earth, they even move the entire citadel (so not only can they travel to the citadel they can even move the citadel itself) to earth for absolutely no reason. Sometime it feel like ME3 writer went out of their way to piss on ME1 lore.

This is further ruined in the gameplay, because Reapers are literally in every fucking star system and will chase you down if your ping your scanner for assets too much. Like if there are that many reapers that can be everywhere at once (basically) then why the fuck are they not attacking the citadel and every mother world at once. Instead of trying to chase down a small vessel like the Normandy at the drop of a hat. Obviously it is so gameplay can happen, but it also means that you've spend two full games build these enemies as uber intelligent all-powerful unbeatable enemies only to have them behave like a bunch of morons the moment they actually arrive. How they managed to continuously wipe out civilization is beyond me.

Not to mention they have literally no motivation for doing so. In ME1, Soverign litterally says some shit like, "Our reasonings our beyond your organic understanding. You cannot understand, you do not need to understand." Which means that the writers couldn't think of a reason at all and didn't bother to try.

Here let me rewrite the Reapers reasoning off the top of my head. "We cultivate the galaxy, seed it with organics. We watch them expand and grow, building resources, modifying technologies from previous cycles. Then when they've reached their peak, we purge them and reset galatic life. Every cycle we use this growth to modify ourselves growing more powerful with each cycle."

 

[meiam]

Yeah its pretty easy to give the reaper a better goal than what was given in ME3. It's clear that ME1 didn't have a goal set yet but the writter probably left it vague so they could explore it fully in ME2, but that never happened. It sorta left two potential area that could have been expanded upon, there's a few mention of some dark energy anomaly peppered here and there and there's the human reaper at the end of ME2. But neither were pursued in ME3, instead they went with the organic vs robot thing which was never properly setup and fly against the Geth vs Quarian storyline, not to mention it means robot are killing organic to avoid robot killing organic...

It's honestly hard to think of a worse goal, I think not revealing the reaper goal would have been a better outcome.

Personally I think the more interesting goal (If I could only change the very end of ME3) would have been that reaper are trying to prevent large scale colonization of the galaxy because doing so would mean that every potentially habitable world would be terraform which would prevent new native life form from coming into existence on their own and severely reduce the amount of biodiversity in the galaxy. When they do a reap they absorb people from every advance lifeform to create simulate the galaxy running on computers in the various reaper ship where the civilization get to continue existing in the simulation without the reaper showing up. They could then point out that if the reaper had never wiped the previous galaxy then human/quarian/asari/etc. would never have existed in the first place. You'd then be given the choice of wiping them out (which would also kill all the simulation of all previous version of the galaxy) and would inevitably lead down a path where no more advance civilization will be evolving in the milky way.

Or you could have the reaper having being programmed to try and make a certain event happen. After trying the regular way and deciding that the state of the galaxy at the time would never be able to achieve the goal they were given, they'd decided that it was more efficient to just hit the galaxy reset button every 50 000 years and see if civilization that would be able to fulfill their goal would naturally appear, since they can just spend the 50 000 years asleep.

 

[Lykosia]

Yeah its pretty easy to give the reaper a better goal than what was given in ME3. It's clear that ME1 didn't have a goal set yet but the writter probably left it vague so they could explore it fully in ME2, but that never happened.

But ME2 is all about finding their true goal. And it's revealed there: harvest materials for new Reapers. That's the whole point of ME2.

 

[laggyteabag]

Yeah its pretty easy to give the reaper a better goal than what was given in ME3. It's clear that ME1 didn't have a goal set yet but the writter probably left it vague so they could explore it fully in ME2, but that never happened. It sorta left two potential area that could have been expanded upon, there's a few mention of some dark energy anomaly peppered here and there and there's the human reaper at the end of ME2. But neither were pursued in ME3, instead they went with the organic vs robot thing which was never properly setup and fly against the Geth vs Quarian storyline, not to mention it means robot are killing organic to avoid robot killing organic...

It's honestly hard to think of a worse goal, I think not revealing the reaper goal would have been a better outcome.

I have never had an issue with the explained goal of the Reapers in Mass Effect 3.

The Reapers believe that it is inevitable that organics will create synthetic life that will eventually surpass organic life, and those synthetics may then exterminate all organic life.

The war between the Prothean empire and a separate machine race, as well as the near-destruction of the Quarian people by the Geth, indicate that this may indeed eventually come to pass.

To prevent this, the Reapers exterminate all advanced organic species at their prime, but don't meddle with the primitive species, to allow them their chance to develop.

In theory, this allows life in the galaxy to always flourish - even if it means killing trillions, every 50,000 years.

I would have liked to have seen whatever the original plan was, with what was setup in ME2 surrounding dark energy - supposedly it was something to do with the use of Biotic powers hastening the end of the universe, and the Reapers are trying to cultivate the perfect Biotic race to stop the end of the universe, and exterminating those races that aren't perfect - but im overall happy with the explanation that we got. Maybe we will see Dark Energy explored in ME4, or whatever that game ends up being.

 

[deleted20220709]

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[CriticalGaming]

But ME2 is all about finding their true goal. And it's revealed there: harvest materials for new Reapers. That's the whole point of ME2.

Except that logic is flawed.

Why don't they harvest for new reapers during the extinction invasion. Why are the collectors only harvesting humans? Surely they could hit the other races?

If the reaper at the end resembled a humanoid machine because they were only harvesting humans, does that mean the original reaper race was harvest from some sort of giant hand race?

IMO the bottom line is this. The real reason why Mass Effect became such a coveted series is strictly based on the crew members. It's your interactions with the crew and their personal missions that elevated the series for people, not the overall plot. Which is ironic because people ended up so upset with the ending to the triology but didn't realize that the overall plot has been poor this whole time.

The character writing is great, it really is. And the world building is great. But the actual main plot is really rather ass and most plot points specifically around the core problem are poorly done.

 

[sXeth]

Except that logic is flawed.

Why don't they harvest for new reapers during the extinction invasion. Why are the collectors only harvesting humans? Surely they could hit the other races?

If the reaper at the end resembled a humanoid machine because they were only harvesting humans, does that mean the original reaper race was harvest from some sort of giant hand race?

IMO the bottom line is this. The real reason why Mass Effect became such a coveted series is strictly based on the crew members. It's your interactions with the crew and their personal missions that elevated the series for people, not the overall plot. Which is ironic because people ended up so upset with the ending to the triology but didn't realize that the overall plot has been poor this whole time.

The character writing is great, it really is. And the world building is great. But the actual main plot is really rather ass and most plot points specifically around the core problem are poorly done.

Bioware doesn't do great narrative writing, news at 11?


Baldurs Gate.... hell, people barely remember the actual main plotline of the first one. The second one barely has anything to do with it, and the tacked on ending is basically two short cutscenes with a boss rush sandwiched between.


Neverwinter Nights - Litlerally none of the expansions have anything to do with each other, other then some characters popping up in the 3rd one. (NWN2 also has nothing to do with anything, though that was Obisidan under Biowaare).


Dragon Age, I never actually played cause Origin wouldn't let me authorize it. But to my understanding all 3 are basically disjointed from each other for the most part.


And yeah, Mass Efffect. Every game has the Council not trusted Shepherd... again. You must gather allies to fight the Reapers... again. You will achieve a barely-win over the Reapers but still be loomingly outmatched.... again. (And of course, Andromeda has nothing to do with any of it)

 

[stroopwafel]

IMO the bottom line is this. The real reason why Mass Effect became such a coveted series is strictly based on the crew members. It's your interactions with the crew and their personal missions that elevated the series for people, not the overall plot. Which is ironic because people ended up so upset with the ending to the triology but didn't realize that the overall plot has been poor this whole time.

Most people don't gloss over details like an obsessive nerd. I'm a casual fan of the series and really enjoy it's 80s sci-fi aesthetic, the atmosphere, the characters and the looming threat of the reapers. It's just really enjoyable and immersive sci-fi pulp. The second game unites all the elements I like most about the trilogy and is really the strongest in terms of narrative and atmosphere. I never played the original until now but it greatly builds up to ME2. The third game I found slightly disappointing and not because of the ending but because it lost what made the previous game so good; that sense of ambiguity and mystery. These kind of stories tend to be better when some things are kept deliberately vague and ME3 overexplained. I also didn't really like Mordin's character change who went from this amoral scientist in ME2 to kind of a simp in ME3. There were more small things that felt like ME2 was written by a different person than ME3. But other than that it's a great trilogy of games. They really don't make them like this anymore.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Most people don't gloss over details like an obsessive nerd.

That is why I am CRITICAL gaming .

 

[laggyteabag]

There were more small things that felt like ME2 was written by a different person than ME3.

Mass Effect 3 was written by someone else.

The lead writer for ME1 and ME2, as well as three of the four novels, left BioWare just before ME2 shipped, IIRC.

Most people don't gloss over details like an obsessive nerd. I'm a casual fan of the series and really enjoy it's 80s sci-fi aesthetic, the atmosphere, the characters and the looming threat of the reapers. It's just really enjoyable and immersive sci-fi pulp. The second game unites all the elements I like most about the trilogy and is really the strongest in terms of narrative and atmosphere. I never played the original until now but it greatly builds up to ME2.

...

...it's a great trilogy of games. They really don't make them like this anymore.

A lot of this really hits the nail on the head, for me.

Sure, you can analyse the details of the Reaper's tactics. Sure, you can discuss the obvious plot points that were dropped between games. Sure, you can debate the logic of the Reaper's overall goals. As well as whatever other questions that the trilogy presents - but at the end of the day, im not sure I really care about these things.

Like, yeah, it would be lovely to have all of these questions have answers, and these are all certainly valid questions to ask - and I don't fault anyone one bit if these ultimately pull them out of the games - but for me, the logic of the universe pales in comparison to the plot, the characters, the tone, the atmosphere, the music, and whatever else.

I dunno - its weird. When it comes to something like Star Wars: The Last Jedi, I cannot get over the pesky detail of why that lightspeed jump attack hasn't been used in literally every engagement ever. Yet in Mass Effect, a similar plot-hole/question, doesn't really bother me.

Maybe it is just my dumb-dumb lizard brain.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Maybe it is just my dumb-dumb lizard brain.

Okay NakeyJakey.

But in all seriousness digging into most stories yields countless plotholes most of the time. It's just the nature of entertainment and video games. Why are the characters doing this? So the game can happen. Pretty simple.

Usually it's not that bad or noticable in the moment. However what is striking about the ME trilogy now, is that i've played these games already, some of them I've played more than once for the platinums. So playing them yet again, I'm less invested in the actual characters and what's going on and more noticing the actual flaws of the game. It's not really taking away from the legacy of the games, because i still think they are good games and despite my complaints I think ME3 is easily the best of the bunch because it has the most refined gameplay out of all of them.

Me3 is nice because everything is streamlined, the discovery scanning is simple and quick making the hunt of resources no longer a drag. By making everything cost credits, it's much less tedious than ever. Plus by removing the various metals, they've made everything you discover unqiue and interesting for the most part. All contributing to your war effort total for the good ending. It also means more gameplay time can be spent either talking to the crew or shooting people, which is the core of what matters in the game.

 

[deleted20220709]

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[Gordon_4]

As Shamus Young has said several times Mass Effect began as anything but Sci-Fi Pulp. Rather it was a relatively hard sci-fi story with incredible attention to detail and world building. It was very Details First and it established a cohesive and consistent universe. Just look at how the Rachni Wars informed the policy of closed gates, the Krogan uplifting, the genophage and set the tone for the Salarian species as genius but short sighted. It made the ME universe feel plausible and it grounded a story that was essentially Space Opera. Then ME2 came along and suddenly it was all Drama First. Which in itself isn't too bad but doesn't work as a follow up to a Details First first entry.

Playing through the Mass Effect trilogy for me goes something like: ME1 feels like playing the first two seasons of Battlestar Galactica 2003, it is a grounded take on sci-fi constantly strives to explain why and how things happen the way they do. ME2 then shock swerves into Star Wars. I am no longer expected to ask questions like "how does a thermal clip work?" or "How did a terrorist organization build an improved version of a cutting edge stealth frigate that was one of a kind and a super secret collaboration between Humans and Turians?" because I am just meant to buy into the emotional drama at hand. ME3 keeps up the Drama First Star Wars schtick until its last 15 minutes when it trips balls and goes complete 2001: A Space Odyssey on me.

Like laggyteabag I can disconnect my brain and just enjoy ME2 and 3 for their solid moment to moment gameplay and riveting side quests. But if I start thinking about the transformation of Mass Effect, I also realize that no one in Bioware had a plan for the series. No one was in charge to maintain tone, themes and focus. Instead all three games do their own thing and none of it lines up.

The thing with Cerberus is that a lot of their details are hidden in the fluff and the codex. For example, a lot of their funding comes from private industry - including the contracted shipyard that builds ships for the Alliance Navy, not coincidentally I'm sure. Then there's Henry Lawson; richest human in the galaxy or so we're told who's actively funding them. And like, the four billion credit cost of Shepard's resurrection sounds like a massive sum of money - and it is - but when you consider just how many fingers and toes Cerberus has in what is surely every bent and stolen pie in the galaxy then suddenly its not so unbelievable. As for the improved Normandy, well as was once said of AIDS medication: the first pill cost three billion dollars, the second, seventeen cents. They already have the schematics for the important parts of the Normandy - its stealth system - and EDI was developed on Luna and then extrapolated on later. And given the SR2 is not only bigger but differently designed than the SR1, the space frame was likely developed by an in house ship building team. At that point its just a case of raw materials which are abundant in the universe. I mean fuck, they could have gotten all their raw materials, Eezo included, from Omega: like Aria gives a shit where her money comes from.

Don't get me wrong; having to work with Cerberus in Mass Effect 2 is one of the most aggravating parts about it. In a sensible game I'd have been able to shoot Jacob and Miranda in the head on the Citadel after having my Spectre status re-established and hand the SR2 over to the Alliance. Its also maddening that certain confrontations even occurred between the crew at times. I feel that taking Miranda on Jack's loyalty mission should have driven home for her, rogue cell or not, what Cerberus did to Jack was not only horrific and wrong but even at odds with version of Cerberus' mission statement she believes in.

Also the more science fiction can divest itself from BSG03 the better; that stupid fucking show ruined a perfectly good pulp space opera AND by extension took its deconstructionist club to Star Trek because its writers used Deep Space Nine as a proving ground for all the stupid bullshit they put in that.

 

[meiam]

The thing with Cerberus is that a lot of their details are hidden in the fluff and the codex. For example, a lot of their funding comes from private industry - including the contracted shipyard that builds ships for the Alliance Navy, not coincidentally I'm sure. Then there's Henry Lawson; richest human in the galaxy or so we're told who's actively funding them. And like, the four billion credit cost of Shepard's resurrection sounds like a massive sum of money - and it is - but when you consider just how many fingers and toes Cerberus has in what is surely every bent and stolen pie in the galaxy then suddenly its not so unbelievable. As for the improved Normandy, well as was once said of AIDS medication: the first pill cost three billion dollars, the second, seventeen cents. They already have the schematics for the important parts of the Normandy - its stealth system - and EDI was developed on Luna and then extrapolated on later. And given the SR2 is not only bigger but differently designed than the SR1, the space frame was likely developed by an in house ship building team. At that point its just a case of raw materials which are abundant in the universe. I mean fuck, they could have gotten all their raw materials, Eezo included, from Omega: like Aria gives a shit where her money comes from.

Don't get me wrong; having to work with Cerberus in Mass Effect 2 is one of the most aggravating parts about it. In a sensible game I'd have been able to shoot Jacob and Miranda in the head on the Citadel after having my Spectre status re-established and hand the SR2 over to the Alliance. Its also maddening that certain confrontations even occurred between the crew at times. I feel that taking Miranda on Jack's loyalty mission should have driven home for her, rogue cell or not, what Cerberus did to Jack was not only horrific and wrong but even at odds with version of Cerberus' mission statement she believes in.

Also the more science fiction can divest itself from BSG03 the better; that stupid fucking show ruined a perfectly good pulp space opera AND by extension took its deconstructionist club to Star Trek because its writers used Deep Space Nine as a proving ground for all the stupid bullshit they put in that.

The big problem with cerberus is that it was completely unneeded in the story, yes you can do a ton of retcon/waving/codex to justify how a terrorist organization is seemingly better equipped/funded/technologically advanced than entire races. But why did they do this? It really seem like it came down to focus group saying they wanted human to be the most important race ever so writer just contrive a human centrist organization just so they can make the big bad a human and make it so you spend most of your time interacting with and shooting human. Worse the writer then spend all of his time saying that cerberus is the most awesome organization ever but at the same time every single time you deal with cerberus they're just comically inept at everything they do, this is literally tell don't show.

 

[Gordon_4]

The big problem with cerberus is that it was completely unneeded in the story, yes you can do a ton of retcon/waving/codex to justify how a terrorist organization is seemingly better equipped/funded/technologically advanced than entire races. But why did they do this? It really seem like it came down to focus group saying they wanted human to be the most important race ever so writer just contrive a human centrist organization just so they can make the big bad a human and make it so you spend most of your time interacting with and shooting human. Worse the writer then spend all of his time saying that cerberus is the most awesome organization ever but at the same time every single time you deal with cerberus they're just comically inept at everything they do, this is literally tell don't show.

Cerberus are not better equipped than some races. At all. They're on par with the Systems Alliance tech wise but numerically they're Australia while the Systems Alliance are the United States. To contextualise that, the US Marine Corps has more troops than the Australian Army, ships than the Royal Australian Navy and more aircraft than the Royal Australian Air Force. In a context other than the Reapers tearing around the galaxy like a bunch of drunken sailors, they'd get stomped into atoms by any single power other than maybe the Salarian Union. Maybe.

And yes, Cerberus is the writers of the 2010s trying to assuage players that humans are special and we totally would have won the First Contact War if someone like the Illusive Man had been leading. Utterly ignoring that the Turian Hierarchy are a literal military society to the point where they don't have a concept for adult non-combatants and civilian is a synonym for reservist and have enjoyed military supremacy in space for longer than we've had the light bulb. Humanity only dodged being a client race with the Volus because the Asari Republics reined the Turians in. Its like in Babylon 5 some Earthforce charaters talking about the Earth-Minbari War and saying we could win it now we've had five ten years to recover, and then never cutting to John Sheridan saying flat out that no, even now the Minbari would stop us into gravy. Mass Effect 3 also did the Asari super dirty twice over with Javik revealing all their religion is a lie and it was the Protheans, and that the Asari are incapable of the heavy lifting militarily. Uh, what? Okay so they're better at small unit tactics than large ones but bodily the Asari don't seem different to the human women in the Systems Alliance like Shepard or Ashley or Mel in a physical sense. And whatever shortcomings they have can be made up for by the fact that every single Asari is a natural biotic and given what Liara or Samara are capable of, Thessia is the last fucking planet I'd want to try a ground invasion of.