His level of bullshit was overshadowed by the ending's.
But I agree, he deserves more flak than he got.
But I agree, he deserves more flak than he got.
Why didn't more people complain about Kai Leng in Mass Effect 3?
- Thread starter Guitarmasterx7
- Start date
my thoughts on Kei Leng?
ok, he could have worked...he is apparently an established character of the books
but the problem is if you Havant played the books he comes right the fuck out of nowhere...you know he's supposed to be important (due to his detailed character model) but you don't really know why
and he does and doesn't work at the same time....he fails because he's full of bullshit, BUT he fulfils his role in the story, in that he;s our enemy and we HATE the fucker for both the right and wrong reasons
...which I know isnt an excuse but it makes thing less annoying I guess (and ME3 had a certian bigger more :child like: probelm) so in comparision to that I really do not care about Kei Leng (I mean his charachter...not his plot armour)
imagine if instead of Jacob in ME2 we got Kei leng.....we could have gotten to know his charachter and it would have made his involvement in ME3 have alot more meaning
*sigh* I need to stop coming up with Ideas...its depressing
ok, he could have worked...he is apparently an established character of the books
but the problem is if you Havant played the books he comes right the fuck out of nowhere...you know he's supposed to be important (due to his detailed character model) but you don't really know why
and he does and doesn't work at the same time....he fails because he's full of bullshit, BUT he fulfils his role in the story, in that he;s our enemy and we HATE the fucker for both the right and wrong reasons
...which I know isnt an excuse but it makes thing less annoying I guess (and ME3 had a certian bigger more :child like: probelm) so in comparision to that I really do not care about Kei Leng (I mean his charachter...not his plot armour)
imagine if instead of Jacob in ME2 we got Kei leng.....we could have gotten to know his charachter and it would have made his involvement in ME3 have alot more meaning
*sigh* I need to stop coming up with Ideas...its depressing
This is one of those tropes thats older than dirt. Gameplay and Story Segregation.
The Guy is supposed to be well the bad guy, he is essentially the next Saren, except he is neither intimidating or threatening. He doesnt have experience, or special skills or anything that could become actually a problem for the party at that point. The problem really isnt that it was done, but that it was done badly.
Remember Kotor? The Leviathan after you finish the third planet and meet Malak? He's supposed to be THE evil guy, the big bad, the universal threat. And you dont feel very intimidated by him because you have learned the whole backstory by then, i.e. you being his old Master and so forth, at that point its more about teaching Malak a lesson, just for the sheer sake of him shooting on your ship, even if you are totally lightside i think thats a normal reaction. So anyway you fight him and even at that point he isnt really much of a big threat, the only nasty part is his force whirlwind which takes out a party member 90% of the time for a couple turns, still he is a pushover. Of course instead of getting his ass beat he escapes and takes your Jedi/Loveinterest if male with him, so you do hate him, but for totally different reasons than sheer "he is the evil guy". Same with Saren in ME1, you hated him because of his character, not because he was evil.
Kai Leng? He isnt anything, he has no real characterization, he isnt evil, badass or anything, he doesnt have any special experience, or skills that make him dangerous. All he has is the plot shield, and even that could have been done better. After all, as with the example of Malak, he also had a plot shield, but you didnt care about it at that time. How about, as Shepard you could do all the renegade interrupts, like throwing him off the car, shooting him etc? And he still keeps coming against you time and again in a sort of "why wont you die?" way. Maybe he's a machine, or a clone, or he's just ridiculously durable and can shrug off almost anything you throw at him because thats his ONLY strength, he can take damage and keep going, like a infinite healthbar, or for the Kotor Fans, essentially Sion without the scars. I mean if you're going to pull shit out of your Ass, at least pull shit out of there that at least makes sense somehow to make him actually dangerous, rather than being shown how "awesome" he's supposed to be and then he isnt at all anywhere during the times you actually fight him.
Just a waste really.
The Guy is supposed to be well the bad guy, he is essentially the next Saren, except he is neither intimidating or threatening. He doesnt have experience, or special skills or anything that could become actually a problem for the party at that point. The problem really isnt that it was done, but that it was done badly.
Remember Kotor? The Leviathan after you finish the third planet and meet Malak? He's supposed to be THE evil guy, the big bad, the universal threat. And you dont feel very intimidated by him because you have learned the whole backstory by then, i.e. you being his old Master and so forth, at that point its more about teaching Malak a lesson, just for the sheer sake of him shooting on your ship, even if you are totally lightside i think thats a normal reaction. So anyway you fight him and even at that point he isnt really much of a big threat, the only nasty part is his force whirlwind which takes out a party member 90% of the time for a couple turns, still he is a pushover. Of course instead of getting his ass beat he escapes and takes your Jedi/Loveinterest if male with him, so you do hate him, but for totally different reasons than sheer "he is the evil guy". Same with Saren in ME1, you hated him because of his character, not because he was evil.
Kai Leng? He isnt anything, he has no real characterization, he isnt evil, badass or anything, he doesnt have any special experience, or skills that make him dangerous. All he has is the plot shield, and even that could have been done better. After all, as with the example of Malak, he also had a plot shield, but you didnt care about it at that time. How about, as Shepard you could do all the renegade interrupts, like throwing him off the car, shooting him etc? And he still keeps coming against you time and again in a sort of "why wont you die?" way. Maybe he's a machine, or a clone, or he's just ridiculously durable and can shrug off almost anything you throw at him because thats his ONLY strength, he can take damage and keep going, like a infinite healthbar, or for the Kotor Fans, essentially Sion without the scars. I mean if you're going to pull shit out of your Ass, at least pull shit out of there that at least makes sense somehow to make him actually dangerous, rather than being shown how "awesome" he's supposed to be and then he isnt at all anywhere during the times you actually fight him.
Just a waste really.
Meh - I was already familiar with the character from the books, where Drew Karpyshyn did a reasonable job of making Kai Leng out to be a legit badass. So I didn't find his introduction as such in ME3 to be too jarring. I was actually looking forward to finally seeing him in a game.
One he was actually in the game I found him to be pretty flat and underwhelming but I never really saw him as the big problem that so many other people seemed to see him as. Yes the way he escapes every time is cheap but if we're willing to suspend disbelief on all sorts of other stuff to keep the story on track (the way nothing ever happens until Shepard turns up to see it is my personal pet peeve...) then I don't see why we shouldn't be willing to cut some slack on Kai Leng's plot armour.
Plus I never got the impression he was supposed to be a major boss-type character on a par with Saren or Harbinger or anything - maybe I was wrong and that's exactly what he was meant to be?
One he was actually in the game I found him to be pretty flat and underwhelming but I never really saw him as the big problem that so many other people seemed to see him as. Yes the way he escapes every time is cheap but if we're willing to suspend disbelief on all sorts of other stuff to keep the story on track (the way nothing ever happens until Shepard turns up to see it is my personal pet peeve...) then I don't see why we shouldn't be willing to cut some slack on Kai Leng's plot armour.
Plus I never got the impression he was supposed to be a major boss-type character on a par with Saren or Harbinger or anything - maybe I was wrong and that's exactly what he was meant to be?
I was just glad to kill the douchebag, but I did have an issue where he was pretty much an asshole for no coherent reason; he ended up screwing Thessia over, and then gloated about it in an email.
When you make a villain, give them clear and logical motivations. Don't just have them kick puppies for the fun of it.
When you make a villain, give them clear and logical motivations. Don't just have them kick puppies for the fun of it.
I agree, he was by far the worst thing about ME3. Clichéd "ninja" assassin put in there to put same fake sense of mystery or danger into the game, but it's a cringe-making mess.
His only good quality is the 'coolness' of samurai ninja cyborg or whatever he was supposed to be. I hated the fact that after beating him in every encounter quite easily a cutscene would pop up and boom, i lost, because a floor collapsed or some shit like that. The whole game was more or less a linear experience for me, stuff happens and you hardly can change any of it so you just go where it takes you.
So, after reading a lot of comments in this thread...I'm kind of confused.
People have a problem with Kai Leng not being 'realistic' as far as gameplay and story segregation (That he's weak ingame but cutscenes and stuff show him to be strong), but they don't have a problem with Shepard being able to tear their way through hundreds of Cerberus soldiers without getting a single hair out of place, despite the fact that a single platoon of Cerberus agents were capable of bringing down the Citadel. Then all of the time that small-ish squads are shown kicking everyone's collective ass while barely trying. (Jack's school, Sanctuary, etc) Basically, Cerberus troops were pretty strong in their own right who are then further augmented with Reaper tech, making them far stronger than any human really has a right to be. But that apparently doesn't matter to Shepard or their non-augmented buddy-buddies. (Liara, Garrus, etc)
While that's not gameplay and story segregation, it's kind of more ridiculous than Kai Leng ever was on the grand scale of things.
People have a problem with Kai Leng not being 'realistic' as far as gameplay and story segregation (That he's weak ingame but cutscenes and stuff show him to be strong), but they don't have a problem with Shepard being able to tear their way through hundreds of Cerberus soldiers without getting a single hair out of place, despite the fact that a single platoon of Cerberus agents were capable of bringing down the Citadel. Then all of the time that small-ish squads are shown kicking everyone's collective ass while barely trying. (Jack's school, Sanctuary, etc) Basically, Cerberus troops were pretty strong in their own right who are then further augmented with Reaper tech, making them far stronger than any human really has a right to be. But that apparently doesn't matter to Shepard or their non-augmented buddy-buddies. (Liara, Garrus, etc)
While that's not gameplay and story segregation, it's kind of more ridiculous than Kai Leng ever was on the grand scale of things.
You see, you can logically explain that one. Shepard is, at this point effectively a war hero, no matter how you slice it. Your Character has seen more shit, more fighting, more blood and gore and guts and generally done pretty everything on the battlefield that you can do, including playing ping-pong with a live grenade. Compared to that sort of experience, well yeah most People pale, i mean imagine you playing on cerberus side, you'd have moped the floor with any of the "good guys" as well, only to have them kick your allies in the butt later.Kopikatsu said:
To be fair, Kai Leng was probably the Anti-Shepard, which would make sense, him being your evil-twin sort of, your opposite. I mean TIM wanted Shepard for a reason, not just to use him/her as a symbol of how awesome humans are, but for the skills Shepard possesses, the experience and knowledge. So it would make sense for TIM to effectively "retrain" one of his agents to be, well you essentially, except he really isnt. He doesnt think like you, he doesnt act and react like you. At least that would have made sense for him to be TIMs #2, or for him to be terribly important to begin with, again, he is neither, so why he is even there, as in physically there is beyond me because he doesnt serve a purpose that some unnamed random guard couldnt have fulfilled.
All feelings of hatred towards him were forgotten after I punched his stupid face through his sword. This was the only renegade option that my Shepard took throughout all 3 Mass Effect games.
I'm pretty sure I complained about him a lot. I mean, come on, you're in space and you've still got Ninja dudes doing backflips and trying waaaay too hard to look "cool" as if the Matrix came out yesterday?
Cyber-Ninja Man was stupid, and I didn't like him. Liked ME3 as a game, but I didn't like him. I dislike "super-cool" ninja's as a rule, because they're not cool. They're some 5-year old's fantasy wish and they just look stupid. Using swords in the gun age is just moronic.
Yes, I didn't like Raidan or the Cyber Ninjas from the MGS series. I don't like Ninjas at all, except when they are in the appropriate time period.
Cyber-Ninja Man was stupid, and I didn't like him. Liked ME3 as a game, but I didn't like him. I dislike "super-cool" ninja's as a rule, because they're not cool. They're some 5-year old's fantasy wish and they just look stupid. Using swords in the gun age is just moronic.
Yes, I didn't like Raidan or the Cyber Ninjas from the MGS series. I don't like Ninjas at all, except when they are in the appropriate time period.
My biggest issue with Kai Leng was how one dimensional he was. He seemed to live only to want to kill Shepard, to challenge them in a duel and defeat them. And yet, he lost his every encounter with Shepard and still thought he was a match for them.
This could have been explained as just his nature as he had nothing else to live for but what made it all the more real was that The Illusive Man went along with Leng's failures EVERY SINGLE TIME. So the head of Cerberus is willing to accept failure that many times from one operative? It makes it look like Cerberus's conspiracy all along was to aspire to mediocrity.
"You messed up just as I'm about to execute my coup de grace? No biggie, we'll get them next time, sport". Uh, no.
This could have been explained as just his nature as he had nothing else to live for but what made it all the more real was that The Illusive Man went along with Leng's failures EVERY SINGLE TIME. So the head of Cerberus is willing to accept failure that many times from one operative? It makes it look like Cerberus's conspiracy all along was to aspire to mediocrity.
"You messed up just as I'm about to execute my coup de grace? No biggie, we'll get them next time, sport". Uh, no.