Is it worth playing the Mass Effect trilogy for the 1st time in 2024?

[BosanskiSeljak]

I think Reapers work best as a background threat, which means ME2 had to be about something else. Once the Reapers appear for real in ME3 the writers apparently had to trivialize them into ordinary military opponents (as opposed to invincible eldrich horrors) to make a shooter game of it, which is the real decline of the trilogy. I would have liked ME3 to be an apocalypse horror game (similar to SOMA), but of course then nobody would have bought it.

I agree with first point, but there's plenty of ways to do that and make it good.

ME2 failed at that.

How it should've worked:

ME1 Discovering the Reapers --> ME2 Exploring/Researching How to Beat the Reapers --> ME3 Fight the Reapers

There is so much they could've done with this, keeping mystery. ME1 set up so many potential exploration, plot points, etc. (Shamus Young has a good video on that). Hell, you could still keep the soap opera, character focused vibe. They didn't have to kill off everything & start from scratch with something disjointed, terrible pacing and illogical.

What the series really boils down to is

ME1 We found out Reapers!!!!! --> ME2 ?????? ----> ME3 Oh fuck we still have to fight Reapers

I agree that the above ruins the pacing, if they had cut a few more characters and their associated loyalty missions the game might have been 5/5 (and of course much shorter). The game's obsession with daddy issues is indeed laughable, but I don't think that makes the quality inconsistent; the daddy issues are well written (for being a game), it's just that we're too old to be the game's target audience.

They made writing easy for themselves by making every story disconnected from the other, so it's inexcusable when they write in lore destroying things into a daddy issues story (ex. Jacobs loyalty missions). That's amateur hour.

 

[Iucounu]

what a load of horseshit kremlin lies

It's not. Most of the characters in ME1 are just walking Codex entries in a way that reminds me a lot of the lore dumps in Pillars of Eternity. The plot is retarded in both games

Most people view the Reapers as ME1's plot, but that part is only revealed late in the game. The main missions before that are almost completely detached from both the Reapers and each other:

Recruit Liara - most of this mission is just driving on a road shooting geth, many of whom you can simply drive past (depending on difficulty?) since they won't follow you. Once you've met Liara at least there's a decent boss fight ending.

Feros - again drive on a road shooting geth, then fight an intelligent plant. At least there's a bit of writing related to the plant.

Noveria - here you must first run back and forth in a big empty atrium talking to NPCs (at least I belive you can solve this part in multiple ways, but who cares?). Next is more driving on a road shooting geth. Finally there's fighting in the lab section, which has relatively complex (or confusing) level design and writing.

Virmire - more driving along a road shooting geth, followed by some fighting on foot. Reapers first mentioned.

Ilos - fighting on foot in a labyrinth ruin, followed by more driving on a road shooting geth. Plot reveal.

Citadel - finally a decent fighting level ending the game.

 

[Iucounu]

How it should've worked:

ME1 Discovering the Reapers --> ME2 Exploring/Researching How to Beat the Reapers --> ME3 Fight the Reapers

I think that's more or less what they did, except they added Collectors as a proxy for the Reapers; that way the Reapers could remain a mystery, literally in the background of the Collectors. What else could Shepard research, when the Reapers had not yet arrived?

They made writing easy for themselves by making every story disconnected from the other,

Surely not more disconnected than the main missions in ME1 (see post above)?

lore destroying things into a daddy issues story (ex. Jacobs loyalty missions).

What lore is that?

 

[Nano]

what a load of horseshit kremlin lies

It's not. Most of the characters in ME1 are just walking Codex entries in a way that reminds me a lot of the lore dumps in Pillars of Eternity. The plot is retarded in both games

Most people view the Reapers as ME1's plot, but that part is only revealed late in the game. The main missions before that are almost completely detached from both the Reapers and each other:

Recruit Liara - most of this mission is just driving on a road shooting geth, many of whom you can simply drive past (depending on difficulty?) since they won't follow you. Once you've met Liara at least there's a decent boss fight ending.

Feros - again drive on a road shooting geth, then fight an intelligent plant. At least there's a bit of writing related to the plant.

Noveria - here you must first run back and forth in a big empty atrium talking to NPCs (at least I belive you can solve this part in multiple ways, but who cares?). Next is more driving on a road shooting geth. Finally there's fighting in the lab section, which has relatively complex (or confusing) level design and writing.

Virmire - more driving along a road shooting geth, followed by some fighting on foot. Reapers first mentioned.

Ilos - fighting on foot in a labyrinth ruin, followed by more driving on a road shooting geth. Plot reveal.

Citadel - finally a decent fighting level ending the game.

When you break it down like that it really exposes what a boring game ME1 is. Incredible amount of filler for such a short game.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Iucounu This is deceptive. There are plenty of Mako sections, but they're sections. They take a minority of time of a plot area's action. Random planet exploration is 99% Mako with a generic small building that usually has a dozen mooks in it.

 

[The people of Duckburg]

Eden Prime: intro and sets everything up. Shepard sees the prothean vision from the beacon. You also see a reaper for the first time, but don't realize it.

Liara planet: recruit Liara, a prothean researcher. IIRC she and her mind melding are also required to fully make sense of the vision once you get what you need from Feros.

Feros: the ancient plant was around when protheans existed and absorbed them. You mind meld with the asari thrall to obtain the prothean mindset etc., which is required to understand the vision.

Noveria: finding out what Saren, the reapers' main agent, has been researching.

Virmire: Saren's secret base where he's breeding krogan, and more importantly, researching indoctrination. Saren is trying to prevent his own indoctrination, not realizing that he's already indoctrinated to some degree. Also reveals what reapers actually are and you meet one.

Ilos: hidden prothean research base that managed to avoid the reapers' notice thanks to no records of it existing. Every puzzle piece falls into place when you find the prothean VI that has survived since the last reaping. Reapers wanted to go here so they could jump right to the citadel, using the conduit, to cut off all communications and travel, because the few surviving prothean researchers had disabled it after the last time.

The game starts with the prothean beacon. Every main mission after that is connected to the reapers through the main question of "what was the vision about and why did the protheans go extinct while leaving almost no traces?". Liara the prothean researcher. The prothean thought patterns to understand the vision. Finding out what Saren, the reapers' agent, is doing and why he wanted the beacon. The reveal that the vision from the beacon is a warning about the reapers. Reapers want Saren to go to Ilos to bypass the sabotage from the last cycle.

It's no wonder you didn't like ME1 when you couldn't even spot this thread after they keept hammering it home. Not a flawless game by any means, but when your criticism is that you couldn't spot the main plot, that's entirely your own fault. It's been a decade since I played it and I still remember this much. Seriously, your complaint seems to be that you aren't fighting the reapers, when you don't understand that Saren and the geth are the agents of the reapers. How many games out there have you fighting the main villain in every mission, rather than his henchmen?

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

How it should've worked:

ME1 Discovering the Reapers --> ME2 Exploring/Researching How to Beat the Reapers --> ME3 Fight the Reapers

I think that's more or less what they did, except they added Collectors as a proxy for the Reapers; that way the Reapers could remain a mystery, literally in the background of the Collectors. What else could Shepard research, when the Reapers had not yet arrived?

They made writing easy for themselves by making every story disconnected from the other,

Surely not more disconnected than the main missions in ME1 (see post above)?

lore destroying things into a daddy issues story (ex. Jacobs loyalty missions).

What lore is that?

You learn nothing about how to defeat the reapers, or anything about them. All you learn is some retcon about how the reapers are actually some kind of weird cybernetic construction. This has nothing to do with the overarching plot. So, again, no that's not what Mass Effect 2 did.

Yes, its vastly more disconnected than ME1. ME1 is logical. Everything that happens in ME2 is just TIM telling you things to do once the game decides you've had enough daddy issue stories for the moment. It's BioWare writing, extremely simple to analyze, so I'm not going to waste my time breaking it down completely for you.

Lore - they've been trapped on an island for a decade and yet have an abundance of the most recent technological "developments". That's one example of many.

 

[Iucounu]

Legion -- that obsequious Shepard fanboy, with his smooth and inoffensive voice that makes human-like intonations

And also his facial expressions. One can view those as the devs working hard to make players react to him as a if he was a human, or is it Legion that wants the gullible Shepard to react that way? But of course all the alien species are anthropomorphized by the devs.

I think that the writers actually were retarded, but, by accident, because they worked too hard to make the Geth super-likeable, they created an interesting scenario. There's only one good way to interpret the Geth: None of them are your friends, they're all in perfectly unanimous agreement about trying to play you like a fiddle, and they think you're extremely stupid and gullible. They lie about everything.

In my first playthrough I was thinking the same about EDI. Maybe she allowed the ship to become infected on purpose, so the Joker pilot would be forced to unshackle her?

 

[Iucounu]

Iucounu This is deceptive. There are plenty of Mako sections, but they're sections. They take a minority of time of a plot area's action. Random planet exploration is 99% Mako with a generic small building that usually has a dozen mooks in it.

I agree it's not the majority of time in those missions, but still a substantial part considering how boring the are. If they were removed, some of the remaining levels (especially Liara's) would be very small and brief indeed.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

Mako sections on Liara recruitment are a stupid kind of fun with how many insane things you can do with it. Go crazy and skip some turrets because you can fly over and into the Geth compound, and in very next section squeeze through narrow rock formation to get the Mako where the game shouldn't allow it to be.

 

[Old Hans]

Iucounu This is deceptive. There are plenty of Mako sections, but they're sections. They take a minority of time of a plot area's action. Random planet exploration is 99% Mako with a generic small building that usually has a dozen mooks in it.

I agree it's not the majority of time in those missions, but still a substantial part considering how boring the are. If they were removed, some of the remaining levels (especially Liara's) would be very small and brief indeed.

the funniest thing to me, is if you dont do any of those crappy planet missions, chances are you will never run into Cerebrus, which makes mass 2 feel really awkward. I bet most players were like "who the hell is Cerebrus??"

 

[Iucounu]

Eden Prime: intro and sets everything up. Shepard sees the prothean vision from the beacon. You also see a reaper for the first time, but don't realize it.

Liara planet: recruit Liara, a prothean researcher. IIRC she and her mind melding are also required to fully make sense of the vision once you get what you need from Feros.

Feros: the ancient plant was around when protheans existed and absorbed them. You mind meld with the asari thrall to obtain the prothean mindset etc., which is required to understand the vision.

Noveria: finding out what Saren, the reapers' main agent, has been researching.

Virmire: Saren's secret base where he's breeding krogan, and more importantly, researching indoctrination. Saren is trying to prevent his own indoctrination, not realizing that he's already indoctrinated to some degree. Also reveals what reapers actually are and you meet one.

Ilos: hidden prothean research base that managed to avoid the reapers' notice thanks to no records of it existing. Every puzzle piece falls into place when you find the prothean VI that has survived since the last reaping. Reapers wanted to go here so they could jump right to the citadel, using the conduit, to cut off all communications and travel, because the few surviving prothean researchers had disabled it after the last time.

The game starts with the prothean beacon. Every main mission after that is connected to the reapers through the main question of "what was the vision about and why did the protheans go extinct while leaving almost no traces?". Liara the prothean researcher. The prothean thought patterns to understand the vision. Finding out what Saren, the reapers' agent, is doing and why he wanted the beacon. The reveal that the vision from the beacon is a warning about the reapers. Reapers want Saren to go to Ilos to bypass the sabotage from the last cycle.

It's no wonder you didn't like ME1 when you couldn't even spot this thread after they keept hammering it home. Not a flawless game by any means, but when your criticism is that you couldn't spot the main plot, that's entirely your own fault. It's been a decade since I played it and I still remember this much. Seriously, your complaint seems to be that you aren't fighting the reapers, when you don't understand that Saren and the geth are the agents of the reapers. How many games out there have you fighting the main villain in every mission, rather than his henchmen?

No, I was discussing the simple writing and level design of each mission, during the parts leading up to the plot items you list above. Even those plot items amount to very little in-game content; several times the game just replays the same Prothean vision cutscene, until Liara recognizes the planet Ilos.

 

[mastroego]

I beat ME 1 and I thought it was shit.

Sell me on ME2.

Completely different gameplay-wise.
The role playing elements are vastly toned down.
Equipment, powers and stuff are simplified.

Is this really true? After four ME1 runs and a dozen in ME2 I still can't tell (or care). Classes seem similar (but not identical): https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Classes and Talents/Powers are fairly similar too: https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Talents https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Powers

Both games have similar skill trees and dialog wheels, but ME2 has much more C&C than ME1. What other RPG elements are there?

You can fine-tune your Shepard's dialogue less in ME2 compared to ME1.
It's not a dramatic shift, granted, but I noticed it.

Skills are definitely simplified, there's fewer of them and there's less overlap.
But it works better.
AND almost every battle in ME2 is memorable in some peculiar way, whereas in ME1 they are all mostly similar and usually clunky.
Also the difficulty slider basically changes nothing in ME1, while in ME2 the highest difficulties mean some business.

Again, ME1 for the mood, ME2 for the combat.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

The dialogue bit is a moot point since ME1 followed the Bioware template of 20 dialogue options for two real results. In a way, the dialogue wheel made away with the fluff.