Mass Effect Legendary Edition remaster trilogy

[Caim]

Please tell me this gets good.

It is you who's gonna get got, especially once you hit the DLC.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Who the fuck's Vega?

hamburger hepler's virtual dildo.

 

[Nano]

What did you think of the suicide mission, Lemming42?

 

[Dishonoredbr]

I disagree, ME3 starts off terrible but it becomes pretty okay in the middle and then rapidly turns into ass cancer in the last few missions. Shepherd being literally retarded and saying we should fight the Reapers with a bayonet charge is at least better than Shepherd being both literally retarded and a cuck following Martin Sheen's orders.

Also the combat is actually really good.

ME3 is super fun to play as a Sentinel , Charge and Nova is legit a really cool playstyle and totally different from the rest. I played 90% of the game but for some reason my game would always softlock during the last mission. And i thought that the game was really enjoyable gameplay wise , even if Cerberus, Ninja Asian OC and entire plot about the Kid are just really bad.
It's enjoyable Fun Action Movie that barely tries to be a RPG

 

[Lemming42]

What did you think of the suicide mission, Lemming42?

Mixed feelings, I liked the overall concept a lot and the tension of knowing that anyone could hypothetically die. Couldn't really follow the plot - the Collectors seem to only have one ship, and it's the same one that destroyed the original Normandy and attacked Horizon, and we kick its ass in two shots which makes me wonder why we didn't just camp at our end of the relay and blast them as they came through. Not to mention the Human Reaper stuff.

Making the decisions about who to assign to what task was really cool though and genuinely felt like pressure was being put on me, even if I'm not really sure what the hidden mechanics behind each choice were and how much things could have changed if I'd made the obviously-wrong choices. Like at one point, Miranda (who was leading some diversion squad) got shot in the stomach but just shrugged it off, and as I understand it, if I hadn't done her loyalty mission she would have arbitrarily died from the same shot. Similarly, Samara (who was doing the biotic shield) got exhausted and nearly collapsed near the level exit, but then suddenly got a burst of strength and made it through the door, so I'm guessing she'd have died there if she'd been unloyal. I had everyone loyal except Thane, who survived anyway, and all the ship upgrades, so I didn't get to see any of the hilarious death scenes.

The end result feels a bit thin - if you buy all the upgrades and do everyone's missions, they seem to be guaranteed to survive, which removes a lot of the appeal - but I'm not really sure how they could have done the same thing in a way where squadmates die as a result of your actions without it feeling fairly arbitrary.

EDIT: Oh, I also liked that the game seemingly made me pay for doing an extra loyalty mission after the big kidnapping, where Jacob says we should go to rescue everyone immediately and Miranda says we should do more loyalty missions. I chose to do Legion's mission first, and (I assume) as a result, Chambers died and Chakwas had a go at me for taking so long to come save everyone. That was cool, I honestly assumed the Miranda and Jacob debate was just for show and that the game would impose no consequence on me for taking my time, and it was a nice surprise to be proven wrong.

 

[Nano]

the Collectors seem to only have one ship, and it's the same one that destroyed the original Normandy and attacked Horizon

I don't see anything in the plot that says they only have one ship. They only sent one ship after you in the suicide mission because you reach their base right afterwards.

Making the decisions about who to assign to what task was really cool though and genuinely felt like pressure was being put on me, even if I'm not really sure what the hidden mechanics behind each choice were and how much things could have changed if I'd made the obviously-wrong choices. Like at one point, Miranda (who was leading some diversion squad) got shot in the stomach but just shrugged it off, and as I understand it, if I hadn't done her loyalty mission she would have arbitrarily died from the same shot. Similarly, Samara (who was doing the biotic shield) got exhausted and nearly collapsed near the level exit, but then suddenly got a burst of strength and made it through the door, so I'm guessing she'd have died there if she'd been unloyal. I had everyone loyal except Thane, who survived anyway, and all the ship upgrades, so I didn't get to see any of the hilarious death scenes.

The end result feels a bit thin - if you buy all the upgrades and do everyone's missions, they seem to be guaranteed to survive, which removes a lot of the appeal - but I'm not really sure how they could have done the same thing in a way where squadmates die as a result of your actions without it feeling fairly arbitrary.

Nope. People made a whole ass chart for the mission.

The ideal choices here seem obvious, but some people still get tripped up. One of the classic mistakes is making Miranda do the biotic shield because she says she can handle it, but then you find out she isn't quite up to the task.

EDIT: Oh, I also liked that the game seemingly made me pay for doing an extra loyalty mission after the big kidnapping, where Jacob says we should go to rescue everyone immediately and Miranda says we should do more loyalty missions. I chose to do Legion's mission first, and (I assume) as a result, Chambers died and Chakwas had a go at me for taking so long to come save everyone. That was cool, I honestly assumed the Miranda and Jacob debate was just for show and that the game would impose no consequence on me for taking my time, and it was a nice surprise to be proven wrong.

It is a cool detail. Did you pick up Engineer Kenneth yet in ME3? He'll be a depressed wreck in your game because his girlfriend died.

 

[Lemming42]

Oh wow, the chart is fascinating. I had no idea that there was so much going on behind the scenes, especially the bit where it starts assigning values to see if the defenders survive at the end. That gave me pause when I was playing it, Grunt and Zaeed were both there so I suppose that's what saved the team.

The whole thing is conceptually really cool, especially combined with the countdown to everyone but Chakwas dying which forces you to leave one or two people unloyal and risk their lives. Makes me wish again that it was possible to complete people's loyalty missions in a way that left them disloyal or angry at you, which could feel good in the moment since it'd usually come as the result of following the Paragon path, but would come back to bite you at the end when half the team is totally unsuitable for the final mission. As far as I can tell the only one you can do that with is Tali.

Best thing about that chart though is that it reveals that Chakwas is nigh-invincible.

I don't see anything in the plot that says they only have one ship. They only sent one ship after you in the suicide mission because you reach their base right afterwards.

I doubt it was intentional from the writers, but: the ship you board as part of the Collector trap earlier in the game is stated to be the same one you saw at Horizon, which is also the same one that blew the Normandy up, meaning we've only encountered one Collector ship up until the end. When the ship moves out of the base to intercept you, Joker implies it's the same one again (says it's "an old friend" or something). I assume the writers just wanted the cool factor of a single ship hounding you which you eventually get to cathartically blow to pieces but - if Joker's right - it has the side effect of making it look like it's the only operational Collector vessel.

 

[acidburn]

The story of ME1 and how the setting was portrayed, it felt like a classic old sf space opera, the music and visuals also helped to establish this feeling. The game unfortunately wasn't that fun but I still enjoyed playing it for the story.
ME2 went to a more cheesy territory with the plot but it had better gameplay, it was a simplistic shooter but it was fun. And I did still like the setting, and the parts of the story not directly related to the reaper plot. I also liked and got attached to some of the characters (jack <3).
ME3 was an insult to ME fans, thanks a lot EA.
I don't feel like I want to play the remake, original ME games look ok so what's the point (I know, I know making money on suckers)

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Oh wow, the chart is fascinating. I had no idea that there was so much going on behind the scenes, especially the bit where it starts assigning values to see if the defenders survive at the end. That gave me pause when I was playing it, Grunt and Zaeed were both there so I suppose that's what saved the team.

Its one of the few reasons why the series is good. You can do a goodly amount of insane crap and the game actually acknowledges it. If you do all the paragon actions in ME1 and then do renegade actions in ME2 (or vice versa), people notice.

The whole thing is conceptually really cool, especially combined with the countdown to everyone but Chakwas dying which forces you to leave one or two people unloyal and risk their lives.

You can have everyone loyal by the suicide mission though. IIRC, do everything but one mission before the Legion mission, talk to Legion constantly, do that other mission, then Legion's loyality mission. There's no time limit until you get the IFF.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Its one of the few reasons why the series is good. You can do a goodly amount of insane crap and the game actually acknowledges it.

Speaking of reactivity, one of the high points of ME2 for me was taking Legion on Tali's loyalty mission. Neat to see the absurdity of such a choice being acknowledged.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

seems cool until you realize making squad mates "loyal" just means doing their mission and that's it
so unless you just went straight to the end of the game, the only real thing here is choosing the right person.

One of the classic mistakes is making Miranda do the biotic shield because she says she can handle it, but then you find out she isn't quite up to the task.

She's obviously (lorewise) the weakest biotic in your team.


being "loyal" should have been much more difficult, not binary but some spectrum, and being disloyal for certain characters should have resulted in being backstabbed.

 

[Lemming42]

Protheans have Nigerian accents, wow. That's a big twist.

The plot of this game is confusing me. The Reapers seem pretty shit, they're meant to be these unstoppable forces of annihilation but also Earth's just casually taking weeks/months to get beaten. Anderson, a shitty old man, can "hold them off" indefinitely. The fuck? Also, how did they get out of dark space?

Also, am I on a timer? There's lots of mini-reapers on the galaxy map so I assume that I'll get fucked over if I ignore the main quest and fly off to talk to Aria or whatever, but at the same time the game is just spamming content at me which makes me suspect the reaper invasion is purely pretend.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The plot of this game is confusing me. The Reapers seem pretty shit, they're meant to be these unstoppable forces of annihilation but also Earth's just casually taking weeks/months to get beaten. Anderson can "hold them off" indefinitely. The fuck?

I'm pretty sure they just want to exterminate the sapient life on the planets without too much other disruption which can take time

 

[Nutria]

The good thing about the suicide mission is that it actually expects you to know the characters, so the story is part of the game, not just a decoration. And it's not just about their skills. Miranda says she can do the biotic shield, but if you've been paying attention you realize that she tends to promise more than she can deliver.

The Reapers seem pretty shit, they're meant to be these unstoppable forces of annihilation but also Earth's just casually taking weeks/months to get beaten.

At the start of ME3 the Reapers abruptly change from a cosmic horror to a peer adversary. This is never mentioned in the game. Just know that suddenly you're fighting WW2.

 

[Nano]

She's obviously (lorewise) the weakest biotic in your team.

Not really? She's stronger than Jacob and Thane, so she's in the middle.

seems cool until you realize making squad mates "loyal" just means doing their mission and that's it

There are several loyalty missions where you can fail to gain it. Zaeed, Samara, Thane, etc. Also you can lose it during the companion confrontations. So it's not quite that simple.

 

[Grimlorn]

The ideal choices here seem obvious, but some people still get tripped up. One of the classic mistakes is making Miranda do the biotic shield because she says she can handle it, but then you find out she isn't quite up to the task.

Zaeed not being able to lead a squad tripped me up. I assumed that the tech I was selecting was wrong and too slow before finding out online you had to select Garrus or someone else, then watching as suppression fire was suppose to be laid down to cover the engineer. Imagine a guy like Zaeed not knowing what suppression fire was or how to use it. Probably has more to do with him being a DLC character thrown in than anything else.

I mean look at that list. Miranda and Jacob are 2 out of 3 of the options for leader. Jacob was a big pile of boring shit that showed no inclination for leadership, and Miranda is a genetically engineered woman with a bunch of Daddy issues. None of them should be qualified to be leader.

 

[Semiurge]

I've never seen this fucker before in my life.

Of course not. Not from this point of view:

Spoiler

 

[Lemming42]

After the terrible start, surprised to report that I'm lukewarmly enjoying ME3. A few random thoughts:

- This would be a lot better if the Reapers weren't actually here, but were just on their way. Then you could still have this dumb premise of Shepard whizzing around trying to get everyone to form an emergency alliance, but without the stupidity of going and hanging out in the Citadel bar for an hour while Anderson gets anally savaged by Reapers off-screen on Earth. If they really had to do the stupid Michael Bay opening with Earth being destroyed, they could make it so that just one Reaper is currently in the Milky Way, floating around ominously and causing unstoppable havoc, which would keep the ME1 version of the Reapers intact where they're unstoppable demigods.

- I still don't know how they got out of dark space btw. Wasn't the whole point of the ME1 ending that Sovereign had to suck the Citadel's cock or something in order to open a gateway that would let the assembled Reaper fleet through? And the Keepers were in on it or whatever? Where are the Reapers coming in from now? I still don't really get how they were going to come through the relay in Arrival either.

- I really like Eve the Krogan, the conversation with her in sickbay feels a lot like ME1 conversations, where you get a loredump through the lens of a character with a cohesive worldview. I also like the idea that the Krogan males are just genetic misfires who are actually biologically really stupid and helplessly committed to doing the embarrassing Klingon LARP, while Krogan females are just normal people who are desperately trying to hold the giant ball of shit that is Krogan society aloft despite the males doing their best to absolutely ruin what's left of it.

- I'm wondering what this game's like if you got everyone killed in ME2. Some of the returning characters just feel shoehorned in - Jack's in that one mission for no real reason, Miranda and Thane are just stood on the Citadel, etc - but what if Garrus or Mordin are dead? They're both central to the game.

- The new body for EDI is so dumb. Why does it have false lashes on, and why are those false lashes like, a single block of colour? Are they made of metal? But also, are AIs just commonplace now? The original AI in this body was apparently able to seamlessly blend in as a human, and EDI is apparently fully self-aware. The Geth really look like total crap when even fucking Cerberus can knock out a better AI in 10 minutes.

- Cerberus make literally no sense as an enemy. Like, putting aside the fact they now outclass the Alliance and have trillions of troops, mechs, ships etc at their disposal, I genuinely can't understand what the fuck they're doing. Humanity is under attack so they waste time attacking humanity's military and causing problems for Shepard. Why?! It feels like the writers are trying to apologise for the awful main plot of ME2, but the best way they could think to do it was to just let you shoot lots of guys from the organisation you didn't like, regardless of how little sense the whole thing makes. Bonus points for ASh Ash and Jack still having a go at you for ever trusting Cerberus anyway lol, so it's the worst of both worlds.

 

[Caim]

If you get someine killed in ME2 they are either replaced by other people (Mordin, Grunt) or just talked about (Garrus, Kasumi). Mordin's replacement stands out for a scene where he talks about Krogan sex:



As for EDI's sexbot body (this is never mentioned overtly, but she is modeled after a woman the Illusive Man knew way back so this carries the implication that Joker's getting Martin Sheen's sloppy seconds)... it's just a shortcoming of the model.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

EDI sexbot body is something that no major dev would have the balls to do now.

 

[Mauman]

The sexbot criticism always confused the hell out of me.

If you were put into a humanoid artificial body, wouldn't you WANT it to be a body of good/peak physcial condition? No one wants a blue-haired landwhale body. Not even the blue-haired landwhales (as much as they may lie to themselves otherwise).

 

[Heroic Liberator]

If you were put into a humanoid artificial body, wouldn't you WANT it to be a body of good/peak physcial condition?

Why would you want a humanoid body tho?

 

[Lemming42]

The problem with the sexbot is that everything about it is brain-twistingly retarded:
- This thing blended in with a research facility and passed itself off as human? Nobody noticed the fucker's made out of metal? I know it originally had some kind of synthetic skin covering, but like, her hair is made of metal. Her hair is just solid metal in the shape of a hairstyle. She has METAL FALSE EYELASHES for fuck's sake. Nobody ever came into physical contact with Eva Core and noticed that her hair was solid metal? Her eyes, her lashes, her face, her breasts, her limbs, nobody noticed?

- How did it get repaired? It was a flaming wreck when we recovered it but EDI polished it up somehow, I dunno. Come to think of it, it would have looked way cooler if EDI just possessed the broken burnt shell of a body, like if it had a Terminator-like skull or some shit and looked absolutely horrifying. Could be pretty funny to have the body be utterly grotesque and EDI, being a computer program with no social skills, doesn't get why people are freaked.

- EDI's personality seems to change. She doesn't act like an AI at all now, she acts like a person with downs syndrome who's spent her whole life locked in a small room, and asks you for advice on how to go on a date with Seth Green and other ridiculous stuff. This is really stupid and hackneyed beyond belief.

- It looks so weird and un-lore-friendly following you around. Granted, this is recurring with Mass Effect and not usually a big problem (ie nobody in Tuchanka in ME2 cares if you bring Garrus or Mordin along, nobody except the Migrant Fleet cares if you've got Legion following you around, etc) but it looks really weird here because there's no other AI like EDI and there's no other mechs in that style. You've got this one-of-a-kind AI that's better than anything anyone's ever seen and stands out like nobody's business and nobody gives a shit.

Like a lot of things in ME it just feels like a big missed opportunity to do something much more interesting than they ended up doing. There's a lot of things you can do with the classic sci-fi story beat of an AI getting a body for the first time, and a lot of new ideas you could bring in and cool twists on the cliche. Instead we just get served the most boring and tired possible version of it, to the detriment of EDI's character (which wasn't exactly great start with).

 

[Caim]

The hair thing is explained as the body being able to turn the metal hair into a series of strands that looks like hair, but can be harned into the shape you see it as to serve as a helmet. EDI probably doesn't make it look like hair because it'd look weird on a robot. As for the other points... yeah, you're right.

 

[Nano]

- It looks so weird and un-lore-friendly following you around. Granted, this is recurring with Mass Effect and not usually a big problem (ie nobody in Tuchanka in ME2 cares if you bring Garrus or Mordin along, nobody except the Migrant Fleet cares if you've got Legion following you around, etc) but it looks really weird here because there's no other AI like EDI and there's no other mechs in that style. You've got this one-of-a-kind AI that's better than anything anyone's ever seen and stands out like nobody's business and nobody gives a shit.

This problem would've been solved if they made her look like Eva Core for the whole game.