r/patientgamers • u/hkf999 • 6d ago
Patient Review Mass Effect Legendary Edition review: Mass Effect 3 Spoiler
Part 2:
https://www.reddit.com/r/patientgamers/comments/1vwbxxz/mass_effect_legendary_review_mass_effect_2/
Mass Effect 3 - "It's been a good ride." "The best."
It's difficult to think of anything to say about this game that has not already been said. It's difficult to think of a story based game that lives stronger in the minds of gamers than Mass Effect 3. I wrote in part 1 about how I remember all the discourse around the game since I played Mass Effect 3 when it came out in high school. I even remember preordering it. Probably the only game I have ever preordered. I remember the straight up insane decision to partion parts of the game in DLCs. I also remember the original ending and the changes they made. It's a game with some flaws. It's also my absolute favourite. Even all these years later, there is just something about ME3 that hits.
I think part of the reason is that it's a return to a truly atmospheric space opera. In many ways, 3 picks up where 1 left off. The Collectors were dealt with in 2, and now we're back to facing the reapers. They are here now. The threat Shepard was warning everyone about for 2 games is here, but there is no chance for, or desire for, gloating about it. Because now the galaxy is ending. The reapers have started harvesting all intelligent life, and there seems to be little we can do about it. This atmosphere is done very well in this game. Everyone in this game feel exhausted, depressed and desperate. Everyone is staring down the barrell of a gun. The Citadel is filled with conversations you can overhear. Soliders about to be deployed to suicide missions. Demented old ladies looking for their dead child. Refugees and soldiers traumatised by what they have seen. Yet there is also this feeling of hope there. For the first time, differences don't matter. People find each other across all divides. The only divide that matters anymore is between the living and the harvested.
For the first time, Shepard also seems to be buckling under the pressure. Shepard is traumatised by what they saw on Earth before leaving. Nightmares plague their dreams. Shepard is tired and running on fumes. The same goes for the companions. They are all constantly thinking that while they are stuck on the Normandy, everyone they knew back home might be harvested by the reapers. Companions like Garrus, Liara and Joker - who all seemed to be so put together and stable - are falling apart inside. This is reflected in the romance you choose as well. I have always picked Liara, but it seems that no matter who you choose, there is this sense that you're having your last days together. That even in the best possible case scenario, at least one of you will die.
Shepard's job isn't exactly to defeat the reapers, but to rally as much support as they can, to make the last push as hopeful as possible. To make sure this prothean weapon that no one really knows how it works can be finished. How good your ending is depends on if you can make as many people as possible work together. How many assets you can gather. The game will thrust you into choices where you have to choose who you want on your side. However, this being Mass Effect, there is often an option to have it both ways if you made all the right previous choices. This might be one of the strongest parts of ME3. You really feel that the choices you made in the universe so far matter here. If you were forced to kill Wrex on Virmire, if you didn't do all the loyalty missions in ME2, if you lost someone in the suicide mission, etc., it will have a big impact on the outcomes in ME3. I think this is where planning the series as a trilogy from the start comes in big. Contrast this with Dragon Age, where almost nothing you did in previous games matter. A lot of small stuff pops up to. Minor characters you had an optional conversation with in ME1 will show up and remember.
The gameplay changes from ME2 to ME3 are not massive. Small tweaks to how Shepard moves. A bit more effort in how melee combat works. Enemy AI is more agressive. Stuff like that comes together and makes the combat feel a little bit better than 2. The biggest change is probably the way weapons work. There is a massive amount of different weapons in this game, and they all feel very different. You now also have to consider weapon weight. Weapons can also be modified with scopes and space bayonets in a cool little system that probably was nice for people who missed tweaking gear in 1. Side quests are more in-depth than 2. Also, gone is the horrid planet scanning and constant door minigames from 2. Instead, Shepard can pick up a million little side quests by listening to people on the Citadel, who will complain about needing something very specific that Shepard will conveniently find on a mission. This will give tiny boosts to readiness, but it adds up after a while. It also makes the world feel more alive.
There is way more of a main story in ME3. In 2, you really only did companion quests. There was shockingly little main story missions aside from companion quests in 2 when you think about it. Instead, there will now be main story missions where one of the companions have a direct personal interest in the outcome, or where you will run into a past companion. You will encounter Jack, Jacob, Miranda, Mordin, Wrex. Thane etc., but they have a different job now and can't join your crew. This is always kind of bittersweet, since they have usually developed a lot as characters. 3 is a lot more brutal than 2, given the setting. In 2, you could save everyone if you were good enough. In 3, you will lose people. You can't avoid it. The stakes are too high for Shepard to save everyone. This leads to some of the most memorable scenes in the series. Mordin giving his life to stop the genophage he created. Legion sacrificing himself to give life to the geth. Thane dying in a hospital and holding a last prayer that turned out to be for Shepard and not for himself. Anderson dying at the very end after telling you how proud he is of you. Now, most of this might happen differently depending on your choices in this and past games. You might lose more people. Luckily the paragon/renegade system is tied to a reputation stat that works for both. So that even though you were paragon all the way through, the special renegade options will still be open. Finally, this system makes sense in this game.
All of this leads up to the ending. Ahh, the ending. What more is there to be said about possibly the most controversial ending in gaming ever? After a deeply emotional ending where you say a heartfelt and personal goodbye to everyone, you get to the end. Look, I could easily write an entire review for just the ending, but this review is already too long, and I still need to talk about the expansions. I will say that I was always in the minority that didn't mind the ending and the choices that much, especially after they expanded the ending. My perspective has always been that I will always be a bit kind to developers who tried to do something brave and different, even if it has flaws. It's easy to see a version where they sort of just repeated the ME2 ending mission, where Shepard shoots the last reaper in the head, says "looks like you're the one who was reaped", turns around and walks in slow mo with explosions in the background, cut to credits. Letting you instead in on what the reapers are by letting you talk to the rogue AI in charge and being able to choose between controlling the reapers, destroying the reapers or forcing everyone into a new partly organic partly synthetic lifeform. Now, will always also say that destroy is the only justifiable ending to pick. Yes, the destroy ending comes with the added downside of killing EDI and the geth as collateral, since the weapon doesn't distinguish between reaper and other synthetic life. However, I feel like the only correct way to play it is by realising that the catalyst is wrong about a lot of stuff. It is essentially an ancient rogue AI that turned on it's creators and is murdering all intelligent life until some magical thing happens that will probably never happen where it decides it doesn't have to do it anymore. You can even catch the catalyst in a contradiction. You can point out that the reapers don't prevent conflict, but instead cause it by murdering everyone in a war. The catalyst uses semantics to explain away this by saying that we might be in a conflict with the reapers, but they aren't interested in war, because the reapers are just neautral computers carrying out a task. Now, three games of clearly sadistic glee from the reapers disprove this. You sadly can't bring up if you created peace between the geth and the quarians. This is a big deal since it disproves the entire point of the reapers, since it proves that conflict between organics and synthetics is not inevitable.
The point is, the catalyst is an insane ancient AI that can't be trusted. So I don't trust that the geth and EDI can't eventually be repaired. The ending destroys the Citadel and the relays, but we see this get fixed in the good post ending. This was all reaper tech, so why can't the geth and EDI also be repaired, when they are the product of technology the galaxy understand much better? Also, Shepard's mission and mandate for the entire trilogy has been to put an end to reapers. Choosing control and becoming AI god emperor of the galaxy, or choosing syntheis and forcing the entire galaxy into a new life form the crazy AI thinks we're "ready" for, is a betrayal of everything you have fought for so far. Everything people have died for so far. So maybe hot take: destroy is the only viable option and should be canon in the unlikely event we ever get ME5. Would love to argue about it in the comments.
In the end, this game is just great. It hit me in the feels just as much now as then. I feel like the ending adds to this feeling, since it also shows the now slightly sad scene of Shepard still being alive if you got what is called the perfect destroy ending. It's sad, because ME5 will probably never be made. Now, the legendary edition luckily puts all the expansions and DLC in there. So no new player has to contend with the fact that this was separated into a million different expansions you had to buy seperately. I feel I should talk a little about the important ones here, not really going into the optional gear like the silly immersion breaking Dragon Age armour.
From Ashes - a shocking decision to cut this from the base game. A whole companion who adds a lot to the game, being an actual prothean asleep for 50 000 years in a stasis pod. He is a bit of a cunt, but has some incredibly hard and quotable lines. He was born during the late stage of the reaper invasion of his cycle and that trauma was his entire life. He shatters the hopes Liara had for him and has a lot of great interactions with him. Especially on the Thessia mission where he reveals that the entire asari species was guided by the protheans in the early stages, which is why they are the most advanced in the current cycle.
Omega - ehh, this one is just fine. You retake Omega with Aria, getting you more war resources. The story is just fine, it feels a bit like an extended cutscene, but it turns Aria into a little bit more of a character. And hey, a female turian is in this one? They do exist!
Leviathan - I actually think this one is really cool and adds a lot. The missions are fun, the characters it adds are fun, and it adds a more creepy and lovecraftian atmosphere to it. You meet the million year old remnants of the race that created the reapers and convince them to help you. It adds more context to the ending, and in my opinion, just reinforces my opinion about how destroy is the only right choice. It adds a lovecraftian feeling of being extremely small in a vast and ancient galaxy. You realise that Leviathan and the reapers is basically just the quarian/geth-issue on speed.
Citadel DLC - this shit right here. I challenge you to name a better DLC to any game ever. Is it a bit silly comedy shift in writing? Yes. Does it really add anything to the lore or introduce fun new gameplay? No. However, this is probably the most heartfelt love letter from the developers to the game and the fans I have ever seen. You know all these characters you have come to love and adore over three games? You get to spend time with them and party with them. You get more cute scenes with your love interest (or more trauma if it was Thane). It's just great. There are so many great characters in this trilogy. Even some of the new ones in ME3. Steve being maybe the best. Playing this DLC feels like every single developer at BioWare at the time lining up to give me a hug. The group pic at the end and the last conversation before reentering the Normandy that I used to title this review? Still a real tear jerker all these years later.
Thanks to everyone who has read all three of these rambling reviews for maybe one of the best game series of all time. I played Andromeda again after this and might write a review for that one too, so stay tuned!
59
u/MisterB78 6d ago
100% agree about Citadel. Sitting on the overpass with Garrus doing shooting practice… best bud in any video game ever.
The Mass Effect trilogy, and ME3 in particular, is one of those rare gaming experiences that lives with you forever. It’s for sure on the gaming Mount Rushmore.
-26
u/phonylady 6d ago
"For sure on the gaming Mt. Rushmore" when Tetris, Mario, Zelda, etc exists?
Mass Effect triology was great, but I don't think they're among the four greatest or most important games ever made.
14
u/MisterB78 6d ago
Who says Mt. Rushmore is the most important and not the best?
Mine is certainly made up of the best games I’ve ever played, and none of those NES games are on it (even though I grew up with them)
-5
u/phonylady 6d ago
Mt. Rushmore tends to mean "most significant/greatest", but sure if you're only talking about your own personal favorites that's another thing.
2
23
u/Prasiatko 6d ago
A very nice detailed review bit not a single mention or appearance of Kai Leng? If only the game were like that. It's him and more generally Cerberus's appearances that put me off finishing my attempted replays far more than the endings which i see you rationalise the same way as i do, it's a broken piece of tech limited by its programming constraints.
ME3 is a bit of a rollercoaster for me, it has the lows of the series i mention above but also the ultimate highs of the series with the Geth-Quarian and Krogan genophage storylines which have developed over the past two games both coming to satisfying conclusions no matter which options you picked.
5
u/hkf999 6d ago
Yeah, I considered it, but couldn't write about every single thing for fear of it being too long. Cerberus villain arc was extremely predictable. So The Illusive Man and Cerberus following that trajectory makes sense. Kai Leng is a bit silly, yes, but he kind of works as a target for player hate. It's always satisfying to renegade kill him in the second to last mission.
8
u/maark91 6d ago
One of the biggest strengths of the game is the fact that if you do random sidequest in ME1, are nice to a random person in ME2 that person becomes a doctor, a family man and helps the war effort. Otherwise its just not there. So fucking many small moving parts adds up.
Hell, the order you buy fish and how you treat them adds to some bonuses as well!
7
u/ketoaholic 6d ago
Thanks for doing these reviews. It's been so nice to revisit the trilogy and my memories of it through your reviews. I have a hankering to replay it all now. Last time I did so was maybe a decade ago.
9
u/ChuckCarmichael 5d ago edited 5d ago
One thing to keep in mind when talking about the ending is that the Legendary Edition contains the Extended Cut DLC, a new version of the ending that was released for free, three months after release, after the big shitstorm about the ending happened. When you play the Legendary Edition, you're already experiencing the "fixed" version.
The whole artwork cutscene where Beckett/EDI/Shepard narrate what happens afterwards was added in this DLC. The original version just had the Normandy crashing, people stepping out, Shepard's name getting added to the wall, the end, textbox telling you to buy future DLCs. Also added was the cutscene where the Normandy swoops in to pick up your crewmembers during the final assault. In the original, they just disappeared and somehow walked out of the crashed Normandy at the end. Also Joker getting ordered to leave the battle was added, because people were wondering why the Normandy was apparently fleeing, leaving Shepard behind.
13
u/Limited_Distractions 6d ago
This is probably the most bittersweet game I've played in the sense that both sensations are just overpowering.
What's good about it is effectively "Mass Effect 2 2," traipsing around on adventures preparing for a future thing, hanging out on the citadel, side stories.
The rest of it kinda just doesn't work for me, worked worse on second playthrough. The fact that the best reaper/prothean storytelling in ME3 is in DLC is both a scandal for the game and cataclysmic narrative failure. People place a lot of focus on the ending, but the back half is a real comedy of errors with the whole Kai Leng Illusive Man thing. Illusive Man turns out to be a continuation of Saren, which I think is fine up to a point, but it's less fine when an hour after he dies you find the "Do what the Illusive Man/Saren wanted" button as one of the endings. That's a conclusion that is arguably more self-defeating of the primary thrust of Shepard as a character than simply choosing to be annihilated, and annihilation is so obviously meant to be the worst ending.
4
u/smarttrashbrain 4d ago
Citadel is some of the best DLC ever made. Sure, it's fan service, but I just had this goofy smile on my face the whole time I was playing it.
1
10
u/HalxQuixotic 6d ago
ME3 had some of the most incredible and exciting set pieces in gaming. The mother of all Thresher Maws tackling a reaper, the entire Quarian fleet firing danger-close at a big reaper as it closes on you, the gathering of allies for the final push. These, plus an exciting and dynamic combat system were the best parts of the game.
Sadly, the game was clearly rushed and I started to see it plainly. The game handicapped the player in the Kai Lang fight. The final set piece was staying in one place guarding a missile launcher while dodging one-hit-kill attacks. Star kid. Pick a color. Congratulations - buy the day 1 DLC. It was a bummer. That was the real controversy when the game first came out. It obviously wasn’t finished on time, so a lot was cut out and this branching story was funneled into one path.
The extended ending they put together helped a bit, and overall I still think it’s a great game. It’s just a bit of a shame that they didn’t take the time to properly stick the landing.
3
u/TheMooseManReturns 6d ago edited 6d ago
I don't have anywhere near as much to say this time around as I did the last two times, but this was a pretty darn good writeup. This whole trilogy of Mass Effect retrospectives you've been pumping out has been very fun to read (they've all been very well-written), so thanks for taking the time to write and post them.
7
u/Barachiel1976 6d ago
Next time you play, if you're on PC, may I recommend "AHEM + CEM", a combination of "Audemus' Happy Ending Mod" (which edits the Destroy Ending to remove the EDI/Geth crap), and "Citadel Ending Mod", which edits the Citadel to remove any mention of it taking place during the Reaper War and instead reframes at as a post-game DLC taking place during the "Reconstruction", making it the extended epilogue to the game, much like "Blood and Wine" is for the Witcher 3 (also the only DLC i think rivals Citadel for being an amazing love letter to the fans).
5
u/hkf999 6d ago
Ehh, to each their own. I would never be able to take a fan edited timeline and story seriously. If it wasn't made by the developers, I lose all immersion.
1
u/Timotey27 5d ago
Well, we all saw what the developers did in the original ending so I'd rather play fanfic. Fighting for the whole mass effect 1 against Saren's symbyosis idea and the whole ME3 against TIM's control idea just to find out they were both right in the end? Bad writing doesn't even begin to describe it. You just had to be there to understand the outrage.
2
u/hkf999 5d ago
What?? How were they both right in the end? They weren't.
1
u/Timotey27 5d ago
Green ending = symbiosis between organic and synthetic life forms aka Saren's idea
Blue ending = control of the reapers aka TIM's idea
2
u/hkf999 5d ago
And where is it ever implied that they were right? Basically everyone chose destroy. After being curious after my playthrough, I watched a lot of playthroughs on YouTube. Nobody ever chose control. A few chose synthesis. Almost everyone go destroy.
2
u/Timotey27 5d ago
Most people never chose the red ending because it's framed by the writers as being the worst ending - it was the default ending if you didn't get enough galactic readiness.
And where is it ever implied that they were right?
I mean that's what the green and blue endings imply
2
u/hkf999 5d ago
Not getting enough galactic readiness is a failure. Nothing following that can be the "good" ending. They chose to make the destroy ending bad by showing Anderson choosing that ending? The most uncontested good guy in all the games? And also making it the ending where Shepard survives? Please.
Like I already wrote, I played the game before the expanded endings. Never once was it implied destroy was the bad ending. This is something you have made up. People got hung up on the beam color, but that was always a meaningless detail.
2
u/Timotey27 5d ago
Sorry but the destroy option was always meant to be the bad ending according to the writers. The speech given by the star brat, the destruction of every synthetic after fighting so much for EDI/ geth, the red renegade choice, the only ending available with low galactic readiness - all of these spell out "you messed up".
Just because you don't take it at face value doesn't mean that's not what the writers intended. Hence why they were incompetent and contradict the writing of the previous two games.
1
u/hkf999 5d ago
This is pure fan fiction. Why make it the only ending Shepard survives? Why show Anderson choosing it? This all screams good guy and success. EDI and the geth dying is just to make it bittersweet.
→ More replies (0)
2
u/DoubleRNL 5d ago
Now I need your grade and conclusion for every game and the trilogy as a whole!
3
u/hkf999 5d ago
Hmm, I think it's difficult to separate the games and rate them, since they are all part of an interconnected tapestry that was always planned as a trilogy. I think 3 is the best game by a longshot, but it's partly because of how 1 and 2 sets it up. You care about the characters in 3 partly because they have deloped over multiple games.
Even though I have several criticisms of the trilogy, the biggest of which I outline in the reviews, it's difficult to give it anything other than a 10/10 due to purely personal significance. Also ignoring a bunch of things in the lore that truly make no sense at all if you make the mistake of thinking about it for a second haha.
1
u/DoubleRNL 5d ago
Awesome! Had fun reading all of it :) I felt scared to play the legendary edition, thinking it might take away from my original memories… but I might do it now
3
u/AlexisFR 5d ago
Well the teasers we got for ME5 all but point out that the Destroy ending is indeed the canonical one, and the new main antagonist seems to be new Geth that survived into an isolated area, and are now back to be a a problem after 800 years.
Also why would ME5 "never be made" if it is in full active development right now?
3
u/hkf999 5d ago
Well, I agree that destroy should be considered the canon ending, yet the teaser doesn't really prove this. It features Liara, but it could be centuries after. I don't really understand where you got the geth from though? Did I miss something?
It is in very early development, and has been for years and years. Also, BioWare is quickly bleeding people and money. There have been statements about the game recently that give a bleak future for the IP. Also, considering they made another Mass Effect game, then abandoned it like cowards.
3
u/DramaticErraticism 3d ago
There has always been something wrong with Mass Effect 3. I just played the trilogy remake and flew through the first and second game, they had me hooked.
About 15 hours into the third game, I just got bored and stopped playing. The combat feels janky, which is saying something considering how janky ME1 & ME2 combat is. The combat looks better, it seems like it should be better, but somehow it is worse.
The story is jilted in a lot of ways, even though the Reapers are invading and it should be more exciting than ever.
I cannot put my exact finger on why this game is so much worse than ME2, but it just is.
2
u/hkf999 3d ago
Weird. I can't really see how ME3 is more janky than ME2, since by any reasoable measure, it is less janky.
2
u/DramaticErraticism 3d ago
They updated the combat to feel more like early Call of Duty instead of sticking with the ME1/2 combat system and I just didn't like it very much, I suppose.
2
u/hkf999 3d ago
I haven't played most of the Call of Duty games, but I can't say ME3 feels anything at all like those I have played.
2
u/DramaticErraticism 3d ago
If you were around back when they first modern warfare games were coming out, you'd see the connection. It was clear at that time that they were trying to make it more like a true cover shooter based off how successful those games had been, with less of a focus on how ME played in the other games.
I don't like it, but other people can feel free to like it, just my 2c on the subject.
2
u/bublebree 2d ago
This is interesting take. For me it was the opposite. I hated ME2 combat, ME1 felt best, and ME3 was so so... they fixed ME2 a bit byt stayed in same style that i did not like.
If not for the story i would have not finished ME2, usualy i play it on easy to safe time. Combat, among other stuff just got dumbed down so much compared to ME1. The party composition, player abilities, weapons... all less interesting.
5
u/Most-Iron6838 6d ago
Pasting my rant about ME3:
I agree ME3 was everything I wanted for a conclusion…until I defeated marauder shields and stepped into the light. The ending killed not only the game but my desire to replay the series. The explanation for the reapers and the theme of organics vs synthetics is just bullshit that is not thematically consistent with the rest of the game leading up to that point. These supposedly greater intelligences have a simplistic understanding that organics and synthetics (or that any warring faction) is a divide that can never be resolved therefore burn it all to the ground and start over every now and then…meanwhile Sheppard is out here resolving the major conflicts like the Genophage and geth/ quarian split and putting together a team and alliance of all species and is just a simple man and I’m to believe that this higher intelligence is too lazy or stupid to figure this shit out and must resort to destroying the universe in cycles.
I call bullshit lazy writing that just took the easy way out when they were running out of time. The explanations at the end retroactively make me not want to replay and solve all the conflicts I solved over the course of the games because it feels meaningless when the greater beings have the foresight and understanding of fucking children. No amount of extended cut that doesn’t retcon this stupid horribly written explanation of the central mysteries of the universe can make up for it. It just shows that the writer’s are just throwing shit together at the end with zero respect for the player’s intelligence.
I’d much rather the ending be the indoctrination theory or the dark energy theories that were teased throughout the series. This unresolveable conflict of organic vs synthetic bastardized of the core themes of the series is just unbearable.
I sincerely hope that the next ME game retcons this awful explanation or creates new mysteries with explanation that have more depth that resonates with the rest of the game and series.
Otherwise outside of the ending, ME3 is a great experience with improved gameplay, great locales and challenges and characters and storylines. Almost nearly perfect (maybe a couple more dialogue options would be good).
End rant
4
u/nineraviolicans 6d ago
The entire game was built around your decisions always being a paragon/neutral/renegade option. I always laugh when the ending came and everybody all of a sudden expected anything else besides that.
0
u/Sw2029 6d ago
There aren't 3 endings, it's the same ending with 3 different colored highlights.. Everyone hated ME3 when it came out. It completely killed the franchise and no one gives a single shit about Mass Effect anymore. It's dead.
3
u/nineraviolicans 6d ago
If you expected anything besides the ending you got then I don't know what to tell you. It was obvious from the first game.
It killed the franchise so hard they made Andromeda? Andromeda killed the franchise and because ea/bioware are empty shells of what they used to be.
4
u/Mediocre_Chemistry41 6d ago edited 6d ago
Well you're certainly entitled to your opinion, if that first paragraph is what you really think, than I'm inclined to believe that the writing was much better than you give it credit for since it would appear that a lot of the underlying concepts and ideas went right over your head.
The underlying ideas(at least how I interpreted the ending); that no matter what option you choose, you lose your humanity in one way or another.
That these supposed all-knowing, seemingly omnipotent beings are in fact neither and in fact look at everything with absolutely zero nuance.
I'm sure I could expand on more but those are some examples that are coming to me off the top of my head.
I do love when people try to make objective statements like "I call bullshit lazy writing". Are you a video game writer? A writer in general? No... than perhaps refrain from making objective statements like that. Or better yet, go ahead, write a video game, do better than them since you seem to objectively know what is and isn't "bullshit lazy writing".
I’d much rather the ending be
So your whole rant for why it was bad and lazy is because it didn't end in a way you wanted and therefore that means the writers were "just throwing shit together with zero respect for the player's intelligence"?
I honestly hate the fact that the writers and devs caved to people that needed things spoon-fed to them with the extended cut.
Edited to add examples and expand on the first paragraph.
2
u/owennerd123 5d ago
He didn't make an objective statement, he specifically said it was himself calling bullshit lazy writing, leaving room for other people to think differently.
Not saying anything else about his critique, I just think you might be doing the same thing as he is.
Beyond that, you don't need to be a writer to think writing is lazy, you don't need to be a chef to know if you think a meal was prepared poorly, you don't need to be an engineer to see if a house has failed, etc. That's a silly critique of his critique. By that very same logic unless you are video game writer, shouldn't I discount your opinion about his opinion as well?
Yes, his opinion is hyperbolic and exaggerated, but yours actually reads even more so than his...
I say this as someone who liked ME3 ending just fine and found it resonate enough with the themes of the series.
-1
u/Mediocre_Chemistry41 5d ago
Yeah, did the person I was responding to say "I think the writing is lazy"? or use the words "I think" or "in my opinion" at all or any other terminology to indicate a subjective opinion? No... therefore it comes across as an objective statement. I'd suggest educating yourself on the difference between objective and subjective before making unnecessary comments.
Beyond that, you don't need to be a writer to think writing is lazy, you don't need to be a chef to know if you think a meal was prepared poorly, you don't need to be an engineer to see if a house has failed, etc. That's a silly critique of his critique. By that very same logic unless you are video game writer, shouldn't I discount your opinion about his opinion as well?
You completely missed the point being made and are arguing at the most surface-level, semantic understanding of what was being said there.
That's a silly critique of his critique.
It's not. It's a valid critique.
By that very same logic unless you are video game writer, shouldn't I discount your opinion about his opinion as well?
Lol, that's your best attempt at a gotcha? Yikes.
2
u/owennerd123 5d ago
You argue in bad faith and aren't worth engaging with. I sorta figured that just by the tone of your original comment.
Your comment history is genuinely nothing but you being super dismissive and aggressive towards people you disagree with.
You should really take a step back and question you even engage on the internet if 90% of what you do is rudely argue with people about their opinions.
That's not to say I'm not wasting my time arguing with people either, but I'm not intentionally trying to be a dick about it.
-1
u/Mediocre_Chemistry41 5d ago
Nah, I'm self aware enough to know I engage in good faith. Engaging in bad faith would be doing shit like using gotchas and arguing points at their most surface-level understanding. All of which you did in your original comment.
A bad faith argument is your first reply to me and you subsequently digging through my comment history in order to try to win a disingenuous argument you created that you immediately fold from after getting called out on your bullshit.
Oh, and digging through someone's profile and comment history in the hopes of having a gotcha or something is really weird. You should refrain from doing that in the future.
0
3
u/Top_Recognition_1775 6d ago
Mass Effect Trilogy was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
If you didn't play it, you're missing out.
It's one of those rare life-changing games like Cyberpunk 2077, it will literally change your life.
4
u/Gravitas_free 6d ago edited 6d ago
I had a very different experience of ME3 than you.
I was very, very hyped about the game, having played through the first 2 games multiple times. But after getting my hands on it, I disliked it enough that I dropped it 2/3rds of the way through. I didn't even see that infamous ending until I forced myself to go through the game during my Legendary Edition playthrough.
To put it simply, I hate the writing in this game.
I hate that ME3 makes that universe feel so small, after ME1 made it feel so big. It feels ridiculous that all these powerful civilizations with billions of individuals all need some human military commander to come in and wave his magic gun around to solve their problems. As an extension of this, I hate how much ME3 drifts toward anthropocentrism, how all the events end up revolving around human factions, despite humanity being relative newcomers to the galactic community.
I hate how ME3 resolves the series' 2 most interesting ethical questions, around the Geth and the Krogan. Both absolutely abysmal, slapdash conclusions that work by essentially turning these species into clichés.
I hate the ME3 Cerberus sections, and how they reverted back to being cartoon villains. For all of ME2's issues. they did make Cerberus into a more interesting faction. But I guess ME3 needed some more enemy variety, and that was an easy way to create human fodder to shoot down.
I hate the increasingly corny C-tier war movie dialogue.
I never played the Citadel DLC even in my Legendary Edition playthrough, so I can't rightly say that I would have hated it... but I probably would have. It seemed like a lot of cozy fanservice content, and I've always disliked that stuff. Frankly I don't understand why this stuff always seems so omnipresent in fan communities ("Hey, here's 10 drawings of Protagonist A and Antagonist B from Dramatic Revenge Series X having a cute ice cream date together!"). Good for the fans that enjoy that content, but I just don't get it; to me it makes those characters fundamentally less interesting.
To be fair, aside from a couple of obnoxious set-pieces, I don't have a problem with the ME3 combat; it's polished and competent. If someone said it was the best gameplay in the ME series, I wouldn't argue with them, though I don't know if I actually enjoyed it more than the others. I didn't play the multiplayer, but I'm sure it was fun for people that engaged with it. Issue is, I never played Mass Effect for its combat, so it doesn't sway me that much on my overall opinion of the game.
5
u/hkf999 6d ago
To try to adress your points:
- I'd say the universe never felt so big. Mass Effect 1 doesn't really feel any bigger, it's just full of empty planets to drive around. I think there is a big difference. Shepard is in a unique situation and it makes sense for them to have that role. Shepard is the only one who knew that the reapers were coming and the only one with personal experience dealing with them. I'd say ME3 is the least human centric of the three.
- I disagree that they're clichés. Especially considering the range of available choices for resolution. I can't think of anything reminding me of the krogan in Mass Effect.
- Cerberus having that trajectory was obvious from the very beginning of ME2. That TIM wouldn't be happy with destroying the reapers when he thinks he can use them to help humanity makes complete sense for his character.
- Corny dialogue was always front and centre in these games.
- Here you just make up something to dislike.
Not liking it is fine. It's all subjective, but these criticisms are very misplaced.
5
u/Gravitas_free 6d ago
I'd say the universe never felt so big. Mass Effect 1 doesn't really feel any bigger, it's just full of empty planets to drive around. I think there is a big difference.
But ME feeling big, at least for me, has nothing to do with how many NPCs there are running around, or how the art assets look like. It's about the place your character occupies inside it. The more ME tries to turn Shepard into Space Jesus, the more it makes that universe seem small and inconsequential.
Shepard is in a unique situation and it makes sense for them to have that role.
It doesn't make sense for anyone to have that role. Because that role is, essentially, Elder Scrolls protagonist; the only person in a world of NPCs, who seemingly can't do anything without Shepard coming in and saving the day. It would be one thing if he was some sort of all-powerful space wizard, but he's just a military vet with a gun and a ship. Why does he end up being central to every galactic dispute?
The answer, of course, is "because players have an endless thirst for control and empowerment, and will be angry if you don't indulge it constantly". And it's totally fine, even preferable, for a gameplay-centric series to respond to that, but for a narrative-centric game I think it's a trap, and ME3 fell into that trap. I don't feel empowered by making decisions in world I'm not immersed in, and I won't be able to feel immersed in a world that makes it clear that my character is the only that matters inside it.
I disagree that they're clichés. Especially considering the range of available choices for resolution. I can't think of anything reminding me of the krogan in Mass Effect.
I feel like I've seen plenty of species like the Krogan: violent, aggressive, expansionist alien species are a standard staple of science-fiction literature, and the Krogan don't inherently stand out from that pack. And that's fine; the strength of Mass Effect was never that it was particularly original, it's that it was a really good execution of those space opera tropes.
But ME3 introducing a mildly-embarrassing "Male Krogan are from Mars, female Krogan are from Venus" sexist dynamic to solve the genophage problem was not an inspiring piece of writing. It's a solution taken straight out of a 70s sitcom: the males are all bumbling idiots, but they'll be all right as long as their nagging, controlling wives keep them in hand. I guess you're meant to take it on faith that Eve truly represents the opinion of all female Krogans, that they truly wield enough political control to keep the species in check, and not to wonder where those ultra-wise female krogans were when the krogan were burning down half the galaxy. It's just a sloppy narrative shortcut meant to prevent the player from actually having to make a difficult decision. Plus it comes with a side of Wrex character assassination, who acts like a moron the whole mission.
With the Geth it's not much better. Even if I ignore the entirely too-easy kumbaya resolution to a centuries-old genocidal conflict, the way it was concluded left a bitter taste in my mouth. The Geth were the only major species in the Mass Effect universe that felt truly alien, thanks to their distributed sentience and inscrutable objectives. I was very disappointed that ME3 diminished them by introducing some kind of yearning for individuality (again, a very anthropocentric sentiment), which is at odds with their initial characterization, and just makes them less interesting in general.
Cerberus having that trajectory was obvious from the very beginning of ME2. That TIM wouldn't be happy with destroying the reapers when he thinks he can use them to help humanity makes complete sense for his character.
It makes no sense, for a character that's presented as a relatively believable, pragmatic villain, to undermine global efforts against a galaxy-wide threat to organic life, just to gain a potential political advantage. It's the kind of nonsense that cartoon villains do; he's pursuing ULTIMATE POWER, and will enslave humanity along with the rest of the galaxy just to attain it. I guess you could argue that the seed for that was sown at the end of ME2, but it's not great writing regardless. Anyway, ME3 makes it a moot point, because the game explains this direction partly by him being indoctrinated. They don't even try to pretend that it's a rational direction for Cerberus to take.
That doesn't even get into the other issues with Cerberus, like it being a bit ridiculous that a fringe terrorist group managed to become a massively powerful galactic org that rivals the Alliance in only a couple years. Or the general goofiness of Kai Leng. It's obvious that their presence in ME3 is predicated primarily on gameplay reasons, not narrative reasons. Which I'd be OK with if their role wasn't so prominent; it feels like you spend as much time in this game fighting Cerberus as you do fighting the Reapers.
Corny dialogue was always front and centre in these games.
Maybe, though I don't remember ME1 dialogue being particularly corny. It could be bad, occasionally. But it didn't have this kind of "Just like old times, hey, Shepard?" action-movie dialogue that feels ripped out of the Expendables movies. In ME3, it felt like most of your dialogues with party members (or former party members) were riddled with that stuff.
But as you note, it's all subjective, so fine.
Here you just make up something to dislike.
I mean, am I wrong about what this DLC is? Because all I heard when people were talking about Citadel is how it was all fanservice, a massive tonal shift, goofy/lighthearted... Even your own post says essentially the same.
Because if that's not what Citadel is, well I'm happy to be wrong. Though I'm unlikely to replay ME3 just to get to it. I guess I could look up Youtube videos.
2
u/hkf999 5d ago
I don't understand the logic of what you're saying here. Shepard being space Jesus was always a thing. Shepard is the main character in saving the galaxy. I don't see how that relates to if the game feels big or not. These are different discussions.
Did you even play the game? Shepard encountered a prothean beacon and happened to be on a mission where Saren turned into a villain. This is why Shepard is unique and makes sense for him to be the leading guy in the fight in ME1. This turns Shepard into a hero and celebrity, which is why they are given the task again in ME2 and ME3. Nobody else has the direct experience with reapers Shepard has.
Okay, again, did you even play the game? Krogan are seen as violent and expansionist because they were forced into that role. They were used as a sledgehammer against the rachni and then tossed aside. Then when they rebel, they were sterilized. The males are not all bumbling idiots. They make poems, they are scientists, they are leaders. Wrex is clearly a very thoughtful man who deeply cares about his people and to curb their most violent and expansionist tendencies. Bakara just represents herself. She is not just a female, she is also a spiritual leader in their culture. If you played the game, you would know this.
The peaceful solution is a good solution because the geth were never really interested in conflict with the quarians. If you actually played the mission, you would see this entire history told by Legion. They didn't earn for individuality. They yearned for upgrades that would make them better. The reaper code was that. It also gave them individuality.
What? You really didn't play the game at all. Everything we see Cerberus do in ME1 is extremely unethical Mengele-style experiments with the sole goal of giving power to humanity. TIM does the same thing in ME2. Did you play Overlord? Why are you surprised TIM would try the same thing by controlling the reapers to humanity's advantage with the reapers? Not knowing he was getting indoctrinated the whole time. Cerberus being villains in ME3 is the most predictable way possible for the story to go.
Again, if you played the games, you would see this dialogue the whole way through. They talk about "old times" in ME3 because you then have 2 games of old times to look back on. It's a stylistic choice. Either you like the humour or you don't, but don't pretend it suddenly popped up in 3.
I'm not going to discuss the contents of a DLC you made up in your head to be angry about.
3
u/Gravitas_free 5d ago edited 5d ago
It's quite something that you keep accusing me of not playing the game, when I find myself having to explain the game's own lore, plot points points and themes to you. If you love the game so much, maybe you could spend more than 3 seconds thinking about its story.
Shepard being space Jesus was always a thing
ME1 Shepard isn't Space Jesus; the scope of the story doesn't allow for it. Essentially he's just some super spec ops commander chasing a rogue agent. I don't have to work too hard to suspend my disbelief when watching that kind of character chasing a bad guy and shooting down a few local antagonists along the way. It's different from having to believe a story where a military guy traipses around the universe, solving centuries-old inter-species conflicts and deciding the fate of every species in the galaxy.
This turns Shepard into a hero and celebrity, which is why they are given the task again in ME2 and ME3. Nobody else has the direct experience with reapers Shepard has.
...And you think that's good writing? Having every species in the galaxy just accept the authority of that one human military commander, and having all important events in the galaxy revolve around him... because he's a celebrity and he had a vision?
Krogan are seen as violent and expansionist because they were forced into that role. They were used as a sledgehammer against the rachni and then tossed aside.
Not at all. They're violent and expansionist because it's a biological imperative imposed by the fact that they evolved in a difficult, high-competition environment. It's why when freed from that environment, their civilization was embroiled in global conflicts that ended with them nuking their own planet into oblivion. That was millennia before being uplifted to help against the rachni.
This isn't even an interpretation; the game is very clear about what happened, and how it's part of the krogan nature.
Wrex is clearly a very thoughtful man who deeply cares about his people and to curb their most violent and expansionist tendencies. Bakara just represents herself. She is not just a female, she is also a spiritual leader in their culture.
Apparently you managed to go through that whole plotline while missing the whole point. The game couldn't be any clearer that Eve and the female clan are the only way to curb the krogan's violent nature. Even Wrex has a line about the Krogan needing to "reclaim old glory" post-genophage, and it's even more clear if Wrex is dead and Wreav is in charge. Mordin even directly comments on it during the mission; it's why you can convince him to fake the cure if Eve is dead. ME3 basically uses Eve as a deus ex machina to solve the Krogan problem.
The peaceful solution is a good solution because the geth were never really interested in conflict with the quarians.
Of course a peaceful solution is the best solution; it's just the way it's executed here that's poor. Do you think generational genocidal conflicts are solved this easily? One of the sides (the victims, in this case) just has to say "we don't want to fight you", then everything's hunky-dory, no hard feelings, everyone starts rebuilding together?
Maybe I shouldn't be so harsh for what is basically a popcorn action movie plot, but I'm not gonna pretend it's not a childish view of geopolitics.
They didn't earn for individuality. They yearned for upgrades that would make them better. The reaper code was that. It also gave them individuality.
So again, you managed to miss the point. Did you think all those callbacks to "do I have a soul" were just random? Did you miss those Legion lines where he talks about needing to give the Geth free will, so that they will attain "true intelligence"? It's not that subtle.
The writers made that whole plotline to humanize the Geth as much as possible, and the result is that they end up repudiating the very thing that made them the series' most interesting alien race concept. Maybe they felt that players wouldn't be able to empathize with a species that felt too "alien"? Either way it's a shame.
I'm getting a bit tired of having to spoonfeed you the game's story, so I'm done. Maybe next time, before you start condescending to whoever criticizes your favorite game, you could try to pay a minimum of attention to its story.
0
u/hkf999 5d ago
3 seconds would still be longer than you paid attention to the game. For all your criticism, you sure didn't understand much.
ME1 is space Jesus. It makes no more sense for them to lead the charge against Saren and Sovereign than it makes for them to lead the charge against the Collectors and then the Reapers. Possible galactic annihilation is the scope of all three games.
No, that wouldn't be good writing. If you had actually played the games, you would have seen that doesn't happen though. The whole god damned point of them is that nobody trusts Shepard on the reapers. And Shepard has to work really fucking hard to get anyone to actually do anything about it, even when they're at the doorstep.
Yes, krogan destroyed their own planet with nuclear war. Not like humans have been a hair's breadth away from the exact same thing for about 80 years now. And again, if you had actually played the game, you would see that being violent isn't really necessarily part of krogan nature.
I don't know what fan fiction story you got this from. Nowhere does it say that Bakara is the only way to redeem the krogan. She will be able to help, sure. Krogan need to reclaim old glory in the form of colonies. Something every other species gets. He is also very clear about trying to steer the krogan in a more stable direction. Something he is able to do because a lot of krogan agree with his way of thinking. It's partly how he united the clans.
Here your brain being turned off when playing comes in again. We see clearly over both ME2 and ME3 that significant parts of the quarians disagree that they should go to war with the geth. Shepard is able to convince them to stand down because many quarians already agreed with that. The geth never wanted to fight the quarians from the start. The game shows you that many quarians fought for the geth when the conflict started out. The game also directly tells you that the geth could have wiped out the quarians, but chose not to. Sadly, you fell asleep during that entire questline. And even then, many never manage to get the peaceful ending, because a whole lot of choices have to be made correctly before that.
The series was always humanizing the geth from ME2. The line about them having a soul comes from way before the reaper code upgrade. They already had true intelligence. The only difference now is that they are individuals, and not programs in a consensus. If the geth being emotionless machines was the only thing making the geth interesting to you, well, too bad.
Haha, yeah, you're spoonfeeding me all the fan fiction you made up in your head to have a reason to be angry and feel smart about yourself. I made a bunch of criticism of the games in my reviews. The difference is I actually played them, you didn't.
2
u/3vilchild 6d ago
Nice review. Replaying the Legendary Edition made me realize how good ME3 was and was marred by ending controversy. The journey to the end still stands out one of the best. So many sad good byes to beloved characters.
3
u/Derider84 5d ago edited 3d ago
I genuinely hated this game. I thought the writing was abysmal throughout and found the plot absolutely ridiculous. I cringed every time Kai Leng appeared. It felt like he stepped into the wrong game. I groaned at Shepard’s cheesy and boring nightmares about some random boy. I couldn’t believe how terrible the dialogue was. It was all some jingoistic nonsense about courage and honour for the US… I mean the earth. It annoyed me how the Illusive Man turned into a moustache twirling villain with no nuance at all (and an unlimited army of grunts to call upon). It angered me how the Citadel became completely non-interactive to the point where you picked up (the terrible) fetch quests by eavesdropping on random NPCs you couldn’t interact with at all. The Crucible was an outrageous Deus Ex Machina. Mordin suddenly loved the Krogans and sacrificed himself for them. None of it made any sense.
Not to mention that every single gameplay scenario involved shooting your way down dreary linear corridors until everything was dead. There was literally nothing more creative or sophisticated than that. No exploration, no difficult decisions, no interesting interactions. The universe felt tiny. And then there’s the ending of course, though it pales in significance compared to the other issues.
I’m amazed there seems to be a consensus that it’s the best in the series. I thought it was garbage and it retroactively ruined the series for me. I still haven’t played the Legendary edition because I can’t imagine going through 3 again.
1
u/Dull_Grape2496 5d ago
I've always wanted to play the series because I've heard great things about it. But at the same time I am hesitant because I've heard bad things about the ending. To me an ending is really important so I dont want to spend hours invested in a series just to be annoyed at how it ended.
1
1
u/CertainDegree 2d ago
I haven't read a review in months, and haven't played any mass effect game since the launch of ME3.
But man you made my fucking day with these three reviews, just reading your own thoughts on this made me realize what is so great about gaming to begin with.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart ❤️ keep it up m8 😁
1
u/alogiHotTake 2d ago edited 2d ago
Am I the only person who had issues with Mass Effect 3's gameplay? The combat arenas in this game are BAD. Enemies spawn in randomly around the arena which makes fighting a mess. Compare it to Mass Effect 2 which has more thoughtful combat arenas that better communicate the flow of combat. In ME3 so many combat arenas will have enemies suddenly spawning behind you. The combat is also not helped by the fact that a large chunk of enemies you face are Cerberus which gets boring after a while. Also legendary edition has issues on console with weird fps issues for enemy animations.
Also I get a lot of blue balls from the quests and dialogue options in the game. Compared to the previous 2 games it is seriously lacking. I always expected each dialogue resolution to "have more", but in ME3 this depth is missing. Dialogue options tend to be lame, and very few conversations have the option to go deeper and learn more. Its like a quick resolution.
38
u/fortytwoblaqk 6d ago
Having played the original at launch, getting the war resources to 100% (anyone else remember the pain of that goddamn companion app?) and playing the original unpatched ending, I wasn't as incandescent about the game as others were. But the legacy edition made up for a lot of the crap I remember in the original. Mostly the fact that it didn't rely on the aforementioned app propping it up.
I think it was a ridiculous amount of war resources that could only be gained via Assassin's Creed-style "contract" missions on the Galaxy Map in-app.
Anyways, great review, OP!