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Mass Effect BioWare Montreal's Mass Effect: Andromeda - where element zero meets trisomy 21

Storyfag

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On that point, would the Mass Effect franchise have been better without the Reapers to begin with? I honestly think so. They built a great world and it had so much room for any number of compelling stories involving you as a Spectre, be they war, political intrigue, crime, whatever - take your pick - and they settled for "an ancient evil returns."

I get that it's BioWare and they have always just sort of reused the same plot, characters, and game structure, but come on.
Yes, the Reapers and Shepard's Vision bring great shame to the original Mass Effect.

I'm tempted to say no. The Reapers were fine. But not as the nemesis of the whole series - just of ME1. ME1 even outright states that the *only* way for them to get back to the galaxy in a reasonable timeframe is to use the Citadel relay. With that prevented, parts 2 and especially 3 make no sense. Instead, there should have been a different crisis to fix, possibly in each.
 

EverlastingLove

Learned
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On that point, would the Mass Effect franchise have been better without the Reapers to begin with? I honestly think so. They built a great world and it had so much room for any number of compelling stories involving you as a Spectre, be they war, political intrigue, crime, whatever - take your pick - and they settled for "an ancient evil returns."

I get that it's BioWare and they have always just sort of reused the same plot, characters, and game structure, but come on.
Yes, the Reapers and Shepard's Vision bring great shame to the original Mass Effect.

I'm tempted to say no. The Reapers were fine. But not as the nemesis of the whole series - just of ME1. ME1 even outright states that the *only* way for them to get back to the galaxy in a reasonable timeframe is to use the Citadel relay. With that prevented, parts 2 and especially 3 make no sense. Instead, there should have been a different crisis to fix, possibly in each.

I agree. This is why the Arrival DLC and the beginning of ME 3 were so retarted. They contradicted everything that was previously stated about the Reapers trapped in dark space and pretty much made the whole ME 1 redundant.
 

Mark Richard

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1,192
The most obvious problem with Mass Effect 3 is the tone. Bringing law and order to the frontiers of space as a galactic lawman is the cool fantasy the series leverages. The core of that fantasy is freedom and autonomy. Mass Effect 3 is about a hopeless war where millions of people die each hour that you aren't engaging the final suicide battle. It is too dark.

Also, good games contain boss battles.
That's a problem with trilogies in general - everything has to be bigger, and to a creatively bankrupt mind there's really nothing bigger than all out war. The road was always going to lead to bloated Hollywoodesque battles regardless of how little sense it made for a series. Mass Effect was supposed to be about an elite team of agents operating above the law on the fringes of space, unravelling galactic conspiracies and preventing wars instead of participating in them. Instead ME3 had about as much imagination put into it as The Matrix Revolutions.
 

Freddie

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This has been discussed many times, but ME3 IMO wasn't good game despite the ending. It's campaign was really uneven experience.

Even beginning left lot to be desired, that's a lot to do with ME2 though, that didn't really advanced the plot. Original lead writer Karpyshyn had idea for the trilogy ending which ironically got partially used by Hudson because Walters couldn't deliver.

From beginning we get to Mars which was somehow shallow, also the first silly 'cinematic' scene where bot runs from you. Well, so what if character happens to have biotic charge, but you can't. What about stasis or lift? Nope, because we must have this cinematic shit here.

In other hand the Citadel was very good. It changed during the story, dialogue changed, new NPC's popped up. Mostly very good except stupid story line about Cerberus getting platoon of soldiers inside trough kitchen door without anybody noticing and again forced cut scene stupidity.

For main campaigns Genophage plot continued from ME2, which was IMO it's better parts. I think it was written by Patrick Weekes in both. Geth/Quarian storyline was alright to passable, but it was downhill from there. Last missions before Earth are on Cerberus installations, which latter was quite empty and outright bad experience, but we get to kill Kai Leng. Design is similar to Asari monastery side mission. Lot of potential but then nothing really happens until the end.

I think main content really suffered from having Omega cut as DLC*, which then didn't really integrated into main campaign and that everyone was expecting to fight the Reapers but instead it's Cerberus everywhere, which started reducing them to cheese faction from the beginning. Really poor choice to have two final stated before Earth on their facilities. If only we had campaign arch where we fight Cerberus missions, to point of Omega, where we get location of Cerberus installations, raid them and are done with that. For the rest of the campaign Cerberus could be replaced by Reaper troops.

But that's not what we got but game with horrible pacing issues, which was buried in negative feedback due ending. IMO TIM on Reaper Citadel was just final insult to injury.

Dragging Citadel to Earth was another huge mistake. For those who played through the series, Earth was quite distant and IIRC didn't even appear but one of default backgrounds in ME1. Getting it dragged into mess was unnecessary and meant losing everything players really connected to. Terrible choice.

For end game, I think it was even in Karpyshyn's original vision, Biotics. It's hinted many times and Javik says it outright, Asari were supposed to be the solution (but again DLC) but Reaper don't really have good defence against Biotics but shields. Corrupted Asari are only biotic option they have and those are few. What I might have been done might have been digging corporations from ME1 back to stage and joint development of better biotic amplifiers. So fleets had Thanix cannon tech for offence and then for defence some ships could have used at least partial biotic barriers with personnel trained for that. Thanix enhanced by warp ammo like properties is interesting idea too.

In ME1 properly build Liara could temporarily fuck up entire Geth platoon including their heavy tanks.

IMO, it's not about winning but that going by original vision, Reapers weren't robots but AI's which mission was to find solution for dark energy spreading in galaxy. It doesn't matter what it was but they had a mission, AI's can be negotiated with especially when in position where Reaper losses during this cycle would compromise their primary mission.

Doesn't matter really but that they had pieces necessary in the series already without needing to pull Crusible from their asses. In worse scenario they could had used 'cut scene powerful' cheese scenes like in ME2 and even that might had been excused by audience but they didn't see it as opportunity, nor wanted to do it.

* I was stupid enough to pre-order the collector's edition which came with short comic book. It's quite evident that Omega was originally supposed to be part of the main campaign.
 

raz3r

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Mar 3, 2019
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Too bad that video doesn't have the blonde sidekick in it. They made her into an uggo too.
eric-bellefeuille-a3.jpg
Both Peebee and Cora look way better in that version of the game, even Liam seems more professional.
 

Crane

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Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath
Peebee looks like they tried to make harley quinn or the joker or some shit, and Liam looks like Donald Glover.
 
Self-Ejected

c2007

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... In other hand the Citadel was very good. It changed during the story, dialogue changed, new NPC's popped up. Mostly very good except stupid story line about Cerberus getting platoon of soldiers inside trough kitchen door without anybody noticing and again forced cut scene stupidity.

Ok, had to snip your post, because I both agreed with most of it and had bleeding eyes from that wall of text.

The quoted portion above though? The entire plotline and enemy interaction was Andromeda level trash. I enjoyed the interaction with my crew, and having some light moments that weren't totally ham-fisted, yet the times I have replayed Citadel I liked it less by playing it again.

Fucking wheels fell off man. :(
 

DalekFlay

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I've gone back to this for a bit. It's a shit game but I like sci-fi enough to get something out of it. I just did a mission where they mention that the obligatory ancient advanced race was from far away because of their ships, and I just want to go on record right now saying that if they turn out to be humans that would actually be a great twist. You left 600 years ago so humans could have developed advanced technology in that time and beat you there by hundreds of years. That would be a cool twist, the rest of the story being shitty aside. I doubt this is actually the case, and I have no idea if it is, but just wanted to record that for posterity on the 1% chance I'm correct.
 

Padzi

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:necro:


I know you probably don't give a rats ass but I'm currently reading this "masterpiece" and I'm halfway in. It was sitting on my shelf for something around two years.

Like I said I'm halfway in and there still wasn't a single male lead character. And every position of power is occupied by a woman.

hqdefault.jpg
 

Padzi

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I don't know whose idea was this hers or maybe Walters but in the book there is a scene where an Asari commado (the one that made Cora think she is an Asari too) is working and behind her, her two husbands are sleeping in a bed together. A Turian and a Krogan.

I know the lore of this damned game pretty well and I don't believe an Asari, Turian and a Krogan would share a bed so casually. And have threesomes.
 

Tytus

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I don't know whose idea was this hers or maybe Walters but in the book there is a scene where an Asari commado (the one that made Cora think she is an Asari too) is working and behind her, her two husbands are sleeping in a bed together. A Turian and a Krogan.

I know the lore of this damned game pretty well and I don't believe an Asari, Turian and a Krogan would share a bed so casually. And have threesomes.

:codexisforindividualswithgenderidentityissues:
 

Padzi

Arbiter
Joined
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Messages
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I don't know whose idea was this hers or maybe Walters but in the book there is a scene where an Asari commado (the one that made Cora think she is an Asari too) is working and behind her, her two husbands are sleeping in a bed together. A Turian and a Krogan.

I know the lore of this damned game pretty well and I don't believe an Asari, Turian and a Krogan would share a bed so casually. And have threesomes.

:codexisforindividualswithgenderidentityissues:

May I offer you a napkin? A toilet paper? A sock?
 

Tytus

Arcane
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I don't know whose idea was this hers or maybe Walters but in the book there is a scene where an Asari commado (the one that made Cora think she is an Asari too) is working and behind her, her two husbands are sleeping in a bed together. A Turian and a Krogan.

I know the lore of this damned game pretty well and I don't believe an Asari, Turian and a Krogan would share a bed so casually. And have threesomes.

:codexisforindividualswithgenderidentityissues:

May I offer you a napkin? A toilet paper? A sock?

Bend over, bend over, let Tytus come over.
 

Padzi

Arbiter
Joined
Feb 24, 2017
Messages
937
Location
Auschwitz-Birkenau
I don't know whose idea was this hers or maybe Walters but in the book there is a scene where an Asari commado (the one that made Cora think she is an Asari too) is working and behind her, her two husbands are sleeping in a bed together. A Turian and a Krogan.

I know the lore of this damned game pretty well and I don't believe an Asari, Turian and a Krogan would share a bed so casually. And have threesomes.

:codexisforindividualswithgenderidentityissues:

May I offer you a napkin? A toilet paper? A sock?

Bend over, bend over, let Tytus come over.

<with The Illusive Man's voice> I won't lie to you it may be a suicide mission if you want to tap that. Better get a team before trying to do it.
 

Padzi

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Feb 24, 2017
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Auschwitz-Birkenau
Ok, anyways one more thing. According to the book Illium turned into a worse shithole than Omega ever was.
 

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