Mass Effect Legendary Edition remaster trilogy

[Nano]

The Illusive Man is really more the main villain in ME2 and ME3, and he's a great villain as he has clear motives, but he's properly conflicted and working in an area of grey morality most of the time.

The problem with the Illusive Man is that he explicitly asks you to join him, only for Bioware to take control away from you and refuse to allow you to do it. And afterwards you actually can execute TIM's plan of controlling the Reapers, but only at the very end and after he's dead, as if it took until the ending for Bioware to remember this is an RPG and not a movie. It's all so stupid and railroaded.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The Illusive Man is really more the main villain in ME2 and ME3, and he's a great villain as he has clear motives, but he's properly conflicted and working in an area of grey morality most of the time.

The problem with the Illusive Man is that he explicitly asks you to join him, only for Bioware to take control away from you and refuse to allow you to do it. And afterwards you actually can execute TIM's plan of controlling the Reapers, but only at the very end and after he's dead, as if it took until the ending for Bioware to remember this is an RPG and not a movie. It's all so stupid and railroaded.

hey just because most of the aliens hate and resent humans doesn't mean you should look out for humanity's interests first! what are you, some kind of bigot?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Why would you make your setting unusable with a shitty plot and dumb ending, though? This is essentially what Bioware did. They probably spent an inordinate amount of time creating the universe for ME, only to destroy it with a galaxy-spanning event. Playing a neo-noir story with Garrus as the MC would've been better.

I still say the easiest way to salvage it is to simply create a split timeline at the end of ME1. Just use some handwavy plot device, who cares

 

[Gregz]

Is anyone playing this?

I am lmao, I am actually having fun, gunplay feels waaaay better than it did on the original, also I do agree that turning brightness down a bit helps a lot.

Glad to hear, I'm looking forward to replaying ME1.

 

[Tyrr]

I try to forget about ME3, but didn't one of the colors endings proved that the Illusive Man's plan would have worked?

 

[Twiglard]

They still haven't cracked it. What a shame.

 

[baud]

I try to forget about ME3, but didn't one of the colors endings proved that the Illusive Man's plan would have worked?

one of the endings (the green one, I think) showed that one could control the reapers, though I don't think it would have worked with the illusive man, as he was already controlled by the reapers

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Why would you make your setting unusable with a shitty plot and dumb ending, though? This is essentially what Bioware did. They probably spent an inordinate amount of time creating the universe for ME, only to destroy it with a galaxy-spanning event. Playing a neo-noir story with Garrus as the MC would've been better.

I liked this. It shows that they were telling a contained story. They weren't designing a franchise to milk endlessly, although that seems to be what they plan on doing with ME4.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Why would you make your setting unusable with a shitty plot and dumb ending, though? This is essentially what Bioware did. They probably spent an inordinate amount of time creating the universe for ME, only to destroy it with a galaxy-spanning event. Playing a neo-noir story with Garrus as the MC would've been better.

I still say the easiest way to salvage it is to simply create a split timeline at the end of ME1. Just use some handwavy plot device, who cares

Mass Effect Andromeda was actually a brilliant solution to this problem. The only issue was that ME: Andromeda kind of sucked and it never lived up to what I thought was an awesome premise. Think of how great the game could have been if they made it about actively fighting for survival while exploring a truly alien galaxy. Instead, the villains were lame retreads and there were almost no new aliens. The universe they found themselves in seemed very similar to the one they came from, to the point that aliens even used guns and spoke intelligible languages. Plus, the survival premise barely factored into the gameplay at all.

I just want them to remake Andromeda, but make it good this time.

 

[Lacrymas]

I liked this. It shows that they were telling a contained story. They weren't designing a franchise to milk endlessly, although that seems to be what they plan on doing with ME4.

Virtually nobody creates a single-use setting, though. Even Tolkien had his Hobbits and Silmarillions. It's myopic to do so, especially for an AAA company which has to answer to their ovEArlords. I'm sure they were very upset with how the ME storyline went after they realized they have to make ME4.

 

[Orud]

Can't we all just agree that whatever happens, the green ending is the dumbest shit ever and should never be the canon ending.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

They were never working on a 'contained story', there was a spinoff being developed actively alongside ME2 -- and which would have taken place concurrent to the main story -- that was canned. The idea that they had the "entire story" already written is PR bullshit. At one point, the reapers were supposed to align with Shepard to stop dark energy anomalies from destroying the galaxy. Parts of this storyline are still in the game, btw. Specifically, in ME2, dark energy fucking with things is mentioned quite a few times(that you've probably already forgotten) and it's never followed up on.
Also, there was originally a somewhat-similar ME3 ending would have been less ridiculous and more sci-fi. The crucible would have been based on real world physics rather than space magic. I guess hiring a physicist to help flesh the idea out was too much for EA so therefore space magic.

essentially, they wrote themselves into a corner due to time constraints, shit writers, and having too many cooks in the kitchen.

Additionally, most of the reason Andromeda is so subpar is because of how much of it was cut. At various points of development they had things like manually piloting your ship between planets, dynamic weather/environments, etc., Not to imply that they would have been good features(who knows), but that is a lot of wasted time and effort.

 

[Turbo normie]

I'm sad... People bought this remastered shit and filled Bioware's bank account.
I'm so mad at sheeple.

FUCK FUCK FUCK.

 

[Orud]

They were never working on a 'contained story', there was a spinoff being developed actively alongside ME2 -- and which would have taken place concurrent to the main story -- that was canned. The idea that they had the "entire story" already written is PR bullshit. At one point, the reapers were supposed to align with Shepard to stop dark energy anomalies from destroying the galaxy. Parts of this storyline are still in the game, btw. Specifically, in ME2, dark energy fucking with things is mentioned quite a few times(that you've probably already forgotten) and it's never followed up on.
Also, there was originally a somewhat-similar ME3 ending would have been less ridiculous and more sci-fi. The crucible would have been based on real world physics rather than space magic. I guess hiring a physicist to help flesh the idea out was too much for EA so therefore space magic.

essentially, they wrote themselves into a corner due to time constraints, shit writers, and having too many cooks in the kitchen.

Let's not forget that specifically for the ending, despite writing the rest of the trilogy with a group of writers, Mac Walters (lead writer) and Casey Hudson (producer) locked themselves up in a room and wrote the ending without any other input.

Iirc, weren't these the Mac Walter's notes for the ending?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

I crunched the numbers earlier in the thread and buying the old games with all the DLC is $110 and you have to jump through hoops to get the DLC for ME2

DLC for old EA games has been free for quite a while
https://help.ea.com/en/help/faq/dlc-for-classic-games/

The hoops I mentioned. Instead of them being part of Legendary Edition you need to download and install them all individually.

why would you pay for videogames though?

patches and mods, mostly.

 

[Gregz]

I'm sad... People bought this remastered shit and filled Bioware's bank account.
I'm so mad at sheeple.

FUCK FUCK FUCK.

Not me, I'm torrenting it.

 

[Orud]

Mass Effect Andromeda was actually a brilliant solution to this problem. The only issue was that ME: Andromeda kind of sucked and it never lived up to what I thought was an awesome premise. Think of how great the game could have been if they made it about actively fighting for survival while exploring a truly alien galaxy. Instead, the villains were lame retreads and there were almost no new aliens. The universe they found themselves in seemed very similar to the one they came from, to the point that aliens even used guns and spoke intelligible languages. Plus, the survival premise barely factored into the gameplay at all.

I just want them to remake Andromeda, but make it good this time.

They don't need to remake Andromeda, they just need to pick up where it left off. Andromeda might've been MEH, but it's a foundation you can build upon and improve.

 

[J1M]

They were never working on a 'contained story', there was a spinoff being developed actively alongside ME2 -- and which would have taken place concurrent to the main story -- that was canned. The idea that they had the "entire story" already written is PR bullshit. At one point, the reapers were supposed to align with Shepard to stop dark energy anomalies from destroying the galaxy. Parts of this storyline are still in the game, btw. Specifically, in ME2, dark energy fucking with things is mentioned quite a few times(that you've probably already forgotten) and it's never followed up on.
Also, there was originally a somewhat-similar ME3 ending would have been less ridiculous and more sci-fi. The crucible would have been based on real world physics rather than space magic. I guess hiring a physicist to help flesh the idea out was too much for EA so therefore space magic.

essentially, they wrote themselves into a corner due to time constraints, shit writers, and having too many cooks in the kitchen.

Let's not forget that specifically for the ending, despite writing the rest of the trilogy with a group of writers, Mac Walters (lead writer) and Casey Hudson (producer) locked themselves up in a room and wrote the ending without any other input.

Iirc, weren't these the Mac Walter's notes for the ending?

Given how popular 'restoration' mods are for other games, I am surprised something like an "indoctrination ending" or "happy ending" mod doesn't exist/isn't more popular.

They literally put more effort into a ME3 ending for a Batarian terrorist from a ME1 side mission than the ending of the trilogy.

 

[Seusin]

Mass Effect Andromeda was actually a brilliant solution to this problem. The only issue was that ME: Andromeda kind of sucked and it never lived up to what I thought was an awesome premise. Think of how great the game could have been if they made it about actively fighting for survival while exploring a truly alien galaxy. Instead, the villains were lame retreads and there were almost no new aliens. The universe they found themselves in seemed very similar to the one they came from, to the point that aliens even used guns and spoke intelligible languages. Plus, the survival premise barely factored into the gameplay at all.

I just want them to remake Andromeda, but make it good this time.

They don't need to remake Andromeda, they just need to pick up where it left off. Andromeda might've been MEH, but it's a foundation you can build upon and improve.

No the problem is that Mass Effect never had especially good writing or a notable setting. Mass Effect having a notorious bad ending in the 3rd game is an extension of the lack of talent. Between the bad villains (worse version of the Inhibitors, Space Nazis), lazy chosen one writing, romances, Globohomo vision of the future. Mass Effect always has been.

 

[Semiurge]

Nah here's what would've worked: from the end of ME2 the team discovers how to make reapers. Me3: the races band together to make an army of reapers to fight the incoming enemy reaper fleet. Finale is a massive showdown of reaper vs reaper. Depending on the choices made during the series, the end result is either

• You lose because you didn't build enough reapers
• You lose because the Geth build some reapers and side with the enemy
• You win but Shepard dies because one of the races backstabs him with their reaper
• You win but all the races start fighting each other afterwards with their reapers
• You win and there's peace

Or something like that

Or another way of doing it is Shepard finds some way of corrupting the reapers maybe with a virus or maybe just convincing them to fight on his side I dunno how. So there's a reaper civil war if you like

Either way the most important thing about the ending is that it must find some way to incorporate all the decisions Shepard has made during the series and reflect them in the ending result somehow.

One example could be, if you never gave the Krogans their fertility back, they're the ones who backstab Shepard.

Another thing that could have happened is Illusive Man ends up controlling the galaxy because he has all the new reapers under his control using some backdoor that he built into the design. If you don't discover it and stop him in me3 of course. Cerberus enslaves all races basically.

I don't know. I've only played Mass Effect 3 twice, and the first time without the DLC, so I can't remember everything about it. However, I've always seen it as my favorite game in the series. I think this is because, unlike 95% of the people who played it, I saw the entirety of the game as its ending. I was so amazed by how many threads the game tied together and payed off, that by the time I got to the ending, I honestly didn't give a fuck about the Reapers. That said, the first time I played it, I loved the ending. Why? Because (1) it suprised me, (2) it was really, really fucking dark, and (3) it left a massive amount to interpretation. The reapers were such an ominous and inhuman enemy, that their motives always need to be left a bit vague. I liked the original ME3 ending, because it didn't over explain anything.

When I played ME3 a second time, the redone ending had been released and I recall hating it. They made it very difficult for anyone to die (When I played the first time, the original release had a bug where your entire team dies rushing the teleporter, regardless of what you do, which I loved because it was a massive gut punch and fit with the suicide mission tone the game was building), and they overexplained everything, which collapsed it all into absurdity. In the original, the synthesis ending worked for me because they kept it vague. Is synthesis a metaphysical idea? A shift in perspective? A sort of Hegelian dialectical process that's ongoing? You could interpret it in multiple ways. I interpreted the final shot of EDI and Joker emerging from the wreck on the planet to be the "synthesis," with their union restarting a new race, almost Adam & Eve like.

However, in the redone ending, synthesis is shown to be a massive wave of energy that gives organics, synthetic bits, and synthetics, organic bits. Which is just fucking retarded. It smacks of some suit panicking and saying, "Oh shit, they completely hated our vague and abstract ending, we need to make it as literal as possible ASAP." I think I'm the only person in existence who liked ME3's ending better than the redone ending. I know some people dislike both, but the original genuinely was objectively better in many ways.

All that said, I'm excited to replay ME3 because I genuinely cannot remember huge chunks of it, especially the stuff from the DLC, so my opinions may change entirely once I replay it.

Why just reapers, when they could make

Spoiler

HUMAN REAPERS!

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i wonder why people stuck on the "the problem with me3 is the ending" while whole "weird dreams" and "i've seen millions die but one nameless kid changed me forever" catastrophes stand still there along the entire path.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

while whole "weird dreams" and "i've seen millions die but one nameless kid changed me forever" catastrophes stand still there along the entire path.

Do a playthrough where you actually let squadmates die, the dream sequences aren't the same.

 

[DeepOcean]

One big mystery of Nature of ME 3 is how the devs playing their game for years couldnt see the mountains of cringe every time that generic little kid shows up.

 

[antimeridian]

while whole "weird dreams" and "i've seen millions die but one nameless kid changed me forever" catastrophes stand still there along the entire path.

Do a playthrough where you actually let squadmates die, the dream sequences aren't the same.

Please tell me Jacob shows up in your dreams or something

 

[Trojan_generic]

One big mystery of Nature of ME 3 is how the devs playing their game for years couldnt see the mountains of cringe every time that generic little kid shows up.

To me it looked exactly like the ending was written by the CEO. Or his retarded offspring.