Do-Overs

[L. Declis]

I think for your first run with these kinds of games, you should stick with the choices you've made. This is the "canon" of your run, in my mind, where choices are made in the moment with no more knowledge than presented. If you're playing these games so you can get the "bestest" result, there are games that'll do that better than choice based games.

In my first run through, I had Ashley and Wrex killed, and I never even bothered to do the side missions about Cerberus, EVA or Garrus. Second playthrough, Grunt and Mordon died. However, I got to see Wreave and the replacement Krogan and Solarian who I don't remember, and it felt my choices mattered more.

Honestly, what I found most disappointing about it was when I replayed and saw just how little difference there is, kinda shatters the choices illusion. Same with Telltale, first time I played was magical, and then I realised that if there is an option for someone to die, then that's it. That character may as well cease to exist and they'll get killed off as soon as possible.

Back on topic, I'd say don't restart. Play this through, and then replay it with the foreknowledge of how to not fuck shit up.

 

[FPLOON]

Nope... I reload until I get the results that either make me extremely happy or make me go "meh, I can live with that... for now"... It's one of the reasons why I took me longer than I needed to to finish Persona 3 FES for the first time...

Other than that, I play through...

 

[SoreWristed]

This is why i hate games by telltale. Not real hate because the actual game part is usually more than okay, but i find it terrifying that i have very limited time to make a choice between dialogue options. I know they want me to make a choice based on gut feeling, but i want to make sure i don't piss off any characters that i don't want to have pissed off.

Besides that, the dialogue options are very obscurely summarised. More than once i'd go 'no, that's not what i wanted to say.'

But even so, I almost never reload from a previous save.

On the occasions that i do, it's because of some mini game or dialogue that gives me items based on performance or choice. Just because i want to know what items are in the prize pool, and to make sure i got the best deal. These are usually not options that affect the story in a major way.

Prime example would be stuff like the monster hunting tournament in Lindblum in FFIX. I played that several times until i got 'the ogre' from that. Even had to rely on RNG a couple of times until vivi won, because i wanted to see what card he got for winning.

 

[Casual Shinji]

My first Mass Effect 2 playthrough I completely neglected the Normandy upgrades, so by the time I got to the big climax... yeah. In that particular instance, I swallowed my pride and just reloaded.

Thankfully, I had done all of that!

When I was going through those scenes I was waiting for everything to go horribly wrong. XD

Like with every other game I fully expected the magic of cutscenes to keep me safe. Then Thane and Jack just get brutally killed and there's nothing I can do but watch it happen. And the actual mission hadn't even started yet. D:

 

[MysticSlayer]

If I feel like the choice was made because of unclear presentation, then I may restart from an earlier save. This is particularly a problem in dialogue choices, especially in games like Mass Effect or The Witcher 2 where what you're going to say isn't 100% clear, so what comes out can be entirely different than what you intended. Even with the entire option laid out, the protagonist may say it in a way that is completely different than you imagined them saying it. Either way, if it appears a major choice was made in those instances, I reload. Granted, it doesn't happen that often, but it still comes up occasionally none-the-less. At the very least, I had it happen a couple times in both The Witcher 2 and The Walking Dead, and it maybe have happened once during the Mass Effect trilogy.

Other than instances like that, though, no. I deal with the consequences. Sure, there are times where I really, really want to go back and make a different choice. Mass Effect in particular brought this desire up plenty of times. However, my enjoyment from these games comes from making choices and dealing with the consequences, not in getting the "perfect" story, so constantly reloading would just ruin the enjoyment for me in the end.

 

[happyninja42]

Personally, I think it's fine to redo it. I personally didn't feel that the end results of those "choices" in the ME 2 finale were all that organic. It was sort of a crap shoot really. I played it multiple times, and did multiple team combinations, and as long as I had done everyone's personal mission, and upgraded their gear to the max, it was pretty damn easy to keep them all alive. There was apparently some random percentage chance aspect to it, where they could still die, and I personally think in a game where you are basically just playing gambling odds on who will live/die in any given scenario, to roll again is fine.

Sidenote: To this day, I still laugh at the description of that mission as a "suicide" mission, in the context of "Shepherd CAN die!". I tried, tried to get him killed, and the amount of intentional self-sabotage I had to engage in was ludicrous. I actually had to work harder to get Shepherd killed, than I did to keep them all alive.

If I feel like the choice was made because of unclear presentation, then I may restart from an earlier save. This is particularly a problem in dialogue choices, especially in games like Mass Effect or The Witcher 2 where what you're going to say isn't 100% clear, so what comes out can be entirely different than what you intended. Even with the entire option laid out, the protagonist may say it in a way that is completely different than you imagined them saying it.

Oh yes this. This more than anything, is my biggest gripe with Bioware's dialogue system. It's so nebulous what you will actually say, and how it will be conveyed. Deus Ex: Human Revolution at least had the decency to have the dialogue choices actually match what Adam Jensen would say. There was no ambiguity.

 

[Frezzato]

snip

Sorry if I missed it, but did you...

Spoiler

save Kelly?

 

[Colour Scientist]

snip

Sorry if I missed it, but did you...

Spoiler

save Kelly?

Spoiler

I don't think so, I lost half the crew because I was faffing around mining planets and talking to crew members before I left.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

Aww... Man! You are ahead of me! I bought the trilogy and played to the end of the first game... then because I am away so much I do most of my gaming on my laptop now... this means my poor 360 now sits gathering dust, and my Shep is waiting, waiting, waiting...

I will probably have to start agiain... I am actually struggling to remember what gender my Shep was! :S And I know I messed up the role playing a few times and did things erratically in character.

 

[Pyrian]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution at least had the decency to have the dialogue choices actually match what Adam Jensen would say. There was no ambiguity.

But then added the feature where the people you're talking to will make fun of you for taking a long time to decide which choice to make. "Chill, dude, I'm just reading my options."

 

[IamLEAM1983]

I usually stick with my actions. If anything, what's harder is going from a full-Paragon playthrough to a full-Renegade. I'd so gotten used to seeing Shepard as a diplomatic sort who'd take her time to work through problems peaceably that watching my first ManShep essentially go "Eff all o' y'all!" at the drop of a hat was really jarring.

The first few hours were tough, but then I steeled myself and figured I'd commit to staying in character. Sarah Shepard died a heroic and noble death, Nolan Shepard would become the biggest playa-slash-asshole in the galaxy.

 

[murrow]

The last time I played Mass Effect 2 I got everybody killed, even Shepherd. Would it be possible to start a Mass Effect 3 game on that save? I guess it would be pretty cool if you got to play as just some guy instead of Shepherd.

Pretty sure you can only import a save if Shepard survived. That ending is cool, anyway. Had to watch from YouTube, though, as I never had the courage to kill my Shepard.

In my first ME2 playthrough I took my sweet time to rescue my crew and saw them turned to goo by the collectors. And I took the heavy weights with me to face the Human Reaper, leaving the puny tech experts to hold the line. As a result, Tali died. I didn't feel like reloading, mostly because the game had already ended anyway, and also because it felt natural.

OT: If "doing over" is cheating, then I hold a PhD in cheating . I reason that the "load" button is there for a reason. If they didn't want to encourage this style of play, they'd set something like Ironman mode or bring back the old checkpoints.

I like the idea of "living with consequences", and I like my first experience with a game to be raw, with no walkthroughs or spoilers. Lately I've been even avoiding pre-release footage and demos. When I do reload, however, is due to one of these reasons:

- I feel like experimenting/seeing the different outcomes. Mostly happens in second or third playthroughs, or in games I don't intend to replay.

- I screw up in a dumb way (like attempting a sneak attack, accidentally kicking a bucket and setting all enemies in a 1km radius on alert)

- I mess up the commands and end up choosing something else. Very common in Bioware games, when I mean to choose one option but end up clicking another

- The choice is unclear/counterintuitive and lead me to something I wasn't meaning to. Which is generally a result of "fluffy prose" or bad dialogue in general.

 

[happyninja42]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution at least had the decency to have the dialogue choices actually match what Adam Jensen would say. There was no ambiguity.

But then added the feature where the people you're talking to will make fun of you for taking a long time to decide which choice to make. "Chill, dude, I'm just reading my options."

They did that? I never noticed. xD I remember in the Director's Cut, with the commentary in place, they talked about how if you take too long in the hostage mission, they will eventually die, and Taggert will chew you out for letting them die while you poked your nose around every corner of the building. xD Which I thought was a great bit of forethought on their part, and insight into the gamer mindset.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

I don't restart my pairings though, when Chrom/Sumia pairing turns out to a load of crap and pretty subpar stat boosts I dealt with it. This is why we choose the self insert player character/Chrom every time instead! You and Chrom get to make cheesy romance together AND be broken OP together in battle.

I would usually frown on self insert romances because it feels a bit cheap to me and i'm not in the habit of writing terrible fanfiction but fuck it, i'd go gay for Chrom any day.

He's so manly...

I'm actually pretty sure Sumia is Chrom's best pairing, since Sumia learns Galeforce and can pass it on to their children.

Basically, the male Avatar and Chrom both want to marry Pegasus Knights/Dark Fliers, because that makes potentially four characters who start with the most brokenly overpowered ability in the game.

But as for OP, I want my stories to play out the way I want them to, if given the choice. Shoot the bad guy, save the world, bang the hot alien, and live to tell the tale. That's why I normally go for the Destroy ending in ME3. Sure, I lose EDI and the geth, but that's a small price to pay for telling my blue grandchildren how I saved the fucking galaxy.

 

[Pyrian]

I remember in the Director's Cut, with the commentary in place, they talked about how if you take too long in the hostage mission, they will eventually die, and Taggert will chew you out for letting them die while you poked your nose around every corner of the building.

I wonder how much time it takes? I sure took my sweet time getting around to it and never had a problem.