Mass Effect Legendary Edition remaster trilogy

[Caim]

I still can't believe Harbinger wasn't a boss in ME3. After the build up in ME2 and the DLCs it was very disappointing not to battle him. Overall ME3 was good until you get hit by the beam in a very stupid frontal assault but whatever.

Game would've been better if it ended there.

 

[Orud]

Game would've been better if it ended there.

I would've taken the game a tiny bit further. Walk up the beam, deal with the Illusive Man and then just sit down besides Anderson. Have your talk and then slam the big red button that blows everything up, followed by playing the red ending.

None of the elevator 'up to heaven' shit or the stupid star child stuff.

 

[Semiurge]

Personally, I like the way the Ryder twins looked. They look like average people with expressive faces, rather than the generic, early 1990s action star, look of 99% of all action game protagonists.

Who wants to look like an average person in a game as well as real life? Not I.

 

[donkeymong]

I don't really see how TOW being awful suddenly makes Andromeda worth playing, aren't they both bad? Or are you actually claiming Andromeda is significantly better than TOW?

It is exactly what I claim. Cain and Boyarsky are indeed ended up making worse game than fucking Andromeda. Bioware's "masterpiece" is mediocre but playable when TOW is awful to the point of offensive.

I would really like to have some other sci fi RPG (or anything vaguely RPG-ish) released in last decade so I could point out how much both Andromeda and TOW suck in comparison but alas I know none(

Maybe The Ascent turns out to be good, unlike Cyberpunk.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Vanguard in Mass Effect 3 is so fucking buggy. The charge just randomly doesn't work, so you will have one health bar and no shields and you click "charge" and nothing happens. Despite Vanguard being OP, I die alot on insanity, but 99% of those deaths are just because the fucking charge doesn't work when it's supposed to. It's really frustrating.

 

[Atchodas]

17% discount on steam sale



gonna wait until Christmas i guess

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Finished my playthrough of the entire series (100% achievements). My (very long winded) impressions of Mass Effect 3 after nearly 10 years:

-I still think it's the best in the series. It starts much rougher than I remembered. The first 2-3 levels are very dull, and the game cuts a huge amount of corners in introducing things to the series to get things moving that could have been introduced more elegantly. There also isn't much to do in the first half of the game. However, it opens up considerably after the Genophage storyline is resolved, and the final half of the game still impresses me at how it is, at once, one of the most operatic and grand in scope games I've ever played, yet also how intimate the character stuff is at the same time. Honestly, I've never played any other game series where I was as emotionally invested in the plot and characters as this. The Witcher series definitely surpasses any of the Mass Effect games in terms of writing, plot, and characters, but God dammit, the Mass Effect series has such heart. I don't think I've ever gotten as attached to any of the characters in the Witcher games as I did to these characters. And the Witcher games just don't have the same sense of Scope and C&C paying off across the entire trilogy that the Mass Effect games have.

-The Citadel DLC almost singlehandedly saves the game. So much character stuff is packed into it, and I realized playing this time (for the 3rd time), that I missed a good deal of it during my first playthrough. There were whole character vignettes I somehow missed in previous playthroughs. It took me nearly 6 hours to complete the entire DLC, which is massive. The first time I played ME3, the Citadel DLC hadn't been released yet, and I can't imagine how empty the game would feel without it. All of the real character send-offs are in the Citadel DLC. In comparison, the awkward scenes where Shepard calls all his friends prior to the final assault seem kind of silly and anti-climactic after playing it.

-My view of the ending was much improved this time around, possibly just because I was paying closer attention to it than I have in the past. In replaying the series, I wanted to test a pet interpretation that I had of the Reapers, mainly that they only act like they do because, from the perspective of organics, they are really fucking stupid. The reapers are not a god-like intelligence, nor is the catalyst. They are just AI created by an ancient, inhuman, and somewhat inscrutable race that was given the directive of protecting organic life from synthetic life, and they eventually evolved the cycle of Reaping as a means of ensuring that organic life survives (their logic being, in its simplest form: 1. Organics will always create synthetics, 2. Organics are imperfect, so conflict will always result from this, 3. Synthetics will eventually reach such an advanced state that they will inevitably destroy organics, so 4. as a solution the Reapers decide to harvest and assimilate Organic/Synthetic life that reaches an advanced state of development, ensuring that Organic life will continue). Admittedly, Isaac Asimov this ain't, lol. I don't think all of these premises make total sense, nor does one necessarily logically follow from the previous (the biggest problem being number 2, which I don't think is self-evident or a necessary outcome). However, I think the series does all of the required hand-waving needed to make it plausible. You can forgive a great deal about the Reapers if you keep in mind that: (1) the species that created them is wholely alien (and thus their motives may be difficult comprehend) and (2) the Reapers themselves turn out to be fairly rudimentary AI simply working through their code (in fact, while it's never stated explicitly, I actually think it's arguable that, in terms of AI, the Reapers aren't as advanced as EDI or arguably even the Geth. The reapers are just mindless machines carrying out their ancient objective. They really don't seem to have evolved beyond that, and there's a level of absurdity in the scene where you finally discover their motives that I personally found amusing, but many other players seemed disappointed by. It's like finding out God is just a clockwork mechanism, lol).

Is the explanation for the Reapers' motives perfect? Hell no. It's very clear that Bioware was making this series up as they went along, and I think the overall arc, especially, suffers at times because of it. However, I think the place that they arrived at regarding the reapers' motives was fine, in the end, and nowhere the abortion that many hyperbolic fans make it out to be, especially given that.........

-THE REAPERS ARE JUST A MACGUFFIN! Replaying these games has convinced me of this more than ever. 99.5% of Mass Effect 3 involved tying up all of the character and species plot arcs set up in the previous games. About 5% of the game's running time was spent on the reapers, who really don't matter in the end. The reapers aren't even the games' real villain. The villain turns out to be the Illusive Man, and he's actually an awesome villain (he's nuanced, has motives that are intended to do good, but he's corrupted in pursuing them, and you can actually get him to see the error of his ways in the end, which is refreshing). The Mass Effect series is about its characters and species. The reapers are just a motivating device to give Shepard the incentive to go on a picaresque journey where he meets lots of aliens and helps solve their problems. That is the heart of these games and what makes them work, not the central reaper plot.

-To critique the games a bit, the renegade/paragon system is really outdated, and I think Shepard, as a character, suffers considerably because of it. Honestly, I don't really like Shepard. Paragon Shepard is fucking dull as dishwater, while Renegade Shepard is a massive prick. Toward the end of the games, I kind of started to wonder why everyone loves Shepard so much, as he's really bland person. I think it works well enough for these games, as the focus isn't on the main character, but as much as I was ambivelant about Mass Effect Andromeda, I think the smartest change it made to the series' mechanics was having the leads be slightly more defined, as characters, than Shepard was, who ends up being kind of a cypher in the end.

 

[Lacrymas]

With bland people, what you see is what you get, which can sometimes be comforting. They are predictable and that makes them safe. However, Shepard is bland because Bioware can't really characterize them too much because Shepard is us. Paragon/Renegade doesn't really make sense, but it's a game from 2007, binary choices were all the rage back then.

 

[Togukawa]

I can agree that the Reapers are really, really fucking stupid. But ending the game on the main villain explaining their motives and then telling the protagonist to resolve things, that's amateurish and incompetent writing.

Citadel DLC sounds interesting, the characters always were one of the best parts of the series. But there are just so many stupid moments in me3 that I can't bring myself to suffer through it again, just to see the DLC.

 

[Lacrymas]

Yeah, once you've already experienced the writing, slogging through the gameplay for a replay isn't enticing.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

I can agree that the Reapers are really, really fucking stupid. But ending the game on the main villain explaining their motives and then telling the protagonist to resolve things, that's amateurish and incompetent writing.

Citadel DLC sounds interesting, the characters always were one of the best parts of the series. But there are just so many stupid moments in me3 that I can't bring myself to suffer through it again, just to see the DLC.

Personally, I think the Citadel DLC is Mass Effect 3, in that I don't think the game, or the series for that matter, has as big of an emotional impact without it. As I said above, the original "character good-byes" in the final mission of ME3 were lame and seemed tacked on at the last minute. The Citadel rectifies that, giving everyone a proper send-off. It has a pretty good main mission, that's very fun, but the central focus is just a bunch of character hang-out scenes in the form of an extended party involving all the (living) characters from the series, and also a bunch of random vignettes where Shepard can meet up with characters and do stuff throughout the game. Many characters who aren't given much attention in the game, like Traynor, benefit immensely from this, as does EDI, whose whole "AI tries to be human" character arc is given a huge amount of attention.

But, yeah. I think Mass Effect 3 has the best action in the series, so I wouldn't mind playing it again if I had a reason to, but I don't know that I could slog through the awfulness of those Mako levels in ME1 or the super bland, repetitive, cover shooter combat of ME2 again to replay the series. Replaying everything for the 3rd time in ME LE was fun, but it will likely be my last time playing the series, unless they completely remake them from the ground up at some point.

 

[SpaceWizardz]

Bioware can't really characterize them too much because Shepard is us.

Tired and cringe Biodrone "shared player ownership" excuse, never use it again in my presence.
Shepard's bland because anything multi-faceted didn't fit with the reigning Button -> Awesome philosophy that fully took hold with the EA acquisition, iteration to the genre was secondary to adding more whack-a-mole shooting galleries.
idk, I don't want to write a wall of text about this, just go play something like Witcher 1 or Alpha Protocol and compare how those games let the player decide which kind of person the protagonist is to Mass Effect, speaking purely for this sub-genre of cinematic, narrative-driven "KOTORlikes".

 

[Lacrymas]

But Shepard is bland in ME1 too, way before the whole Button -> Awesome nonsense.

 

[Yosharian]

But Shepard is bland in ME1 too, way before the whole Button -> Awesome nonsense.

Can you give an example of a protagonist who isn't bland, or suggest some ways in which Shepard might become not-bland?

 

[Nutria]

the reigning Button -> Awesome philosophy that fully took hold with the EA acquisition

Keep in mind that ME1 was made before that. So like everything else in the series, if this went wrong, it went wrong after the first one.

 

[SpaceWizardz]

We're getting into semantics.
That console commercialism mentality was there before EA in KOTOR and ME1 and went into overdrive after ME2's success.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Wasn't the original ending the one with the Reapers collecting all advanced civilizations to help them find a solution to something made of dark energy or anything like that? And they changed it because it was leaked?

 

[Nutria]

That was a vague concept they had while making ME2 but they hadn't put too much thought into it. If you're willing to sift through it, go back a few pages on this thread and you'll see where we discussed it in more detail.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

But Shepard is bland in ME1 too, way before the whole Button -> Awesome nonsense.

Can you give an example of a protagonist who isn't bland, or suggest some ways in which Shepard might become not-bland?

The Witcher isn't bland. Also, Shepard would be less bland if he was a written character, rather than an empty shell who just reacts to things

 

[J1M]

But Shepard is bland in ME1 too, way before the whole Button -> Awesome nonsense.

Can you give an example of a protagonist who isn't bland, or suggest some ways in which Shepard might become not-bland?

The Witcher isn't bland. Also, Shepard would be less bland if he was a written character, rather than an empty shell who just reacts to things

Maybe Jennifer Hale is bland, but Mark Meer's version is very much a futuristic prophet dragging everyone else along to salvation whether they like it or not.

I never enjoyed the way the visions were handled, but believing in them is central to the way the character is presented.

 

[Nano]

Can you give an example of a protagonist who isn't bland

Mike Thorton. Hawke. JC Denton.

Assuming we're only talking about voiced RPG protagonists.

 

[Atlantico]

The Witcher isn't bland.

It's the blandest of bland. "Oh hey are you from Oxenfurt university?"

That's the university where Alfred Nabel, the gnome, invented explosives.

It even has Harry Potter references.

"Bland" doesn't really begin to capture how bland the Witcher is.

 

[Akratus II]

I continued an old playthrough of modded ME1 recently. Just got to Noveria. Didn't want to talk to that Salarian to get permission to go to the research place at the mountain. Playing full Renegade by the way. Told the lady at the entrance I'll kill Benezia while Liara stands behind me lol. Anyway so I go to the bar and there's a sidequest I totally forgot. This asari wants me to spy on some dude because of copyright on biotic amps or whatever. I say sure, I go to the guy and just tell him her plan. He thanks me, I go back and tell her the job is done. Tells me I get a 500 credit reward. I take the renegade option of course. "For 500 credits I'll just go back to the guy and tell him what you've done!" So now I get 750 credits.

 

[Atlantico]

Mac Walters was a writer and director on all three games — as well as follow-up title Mass Effect: Andromeda. He also served as the director for the Legendary Edition, which required him to sit down and replay the games for a fresh once-over.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition’s director reflects on the trilogy - Polygon

How does this fucking chimp get credit for writing ME1, keeps his job after ME2, ME3 and MEA and is lauded today, plus given the credit as the "director" for the ME:LE?

He's like the JJ Abrams of Bioware. Just keeps failing upwards.

Somebody already fire that prick and blacklist him. Forever.

 

[Ravielsk]

He's like the JJ Abrams of Bioware. Just keeps failing upwards.

Somebody already fire that prick and blacklist him. Forever.

That would be anti-semitic.