Just a few words before dealing with said topic:
This one is either going really long - or rather short, if I lack proper words. I want to show that ME2 got rushed and therefore, the entire series suffers because of cut content and too many characters.
The idea came when discussing about the VS and Horizon - for something like fifty times. It's growing old, but I need to talk about that too. However, Horizon is not the main issue - it's just one of many.
Fans of certain squadmates, storyelements and such should not "nerdrage" if I write stuff about them that doesn't work for you. I try to be as neutral as possible, even as Ashley fan I won't put her above others.
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Sometimes less means more
Issue: Squadmates in ME2.
One of the main issues of ME2 that will (or does) backfire in the series is the cast of that game. The vanilla ME2 comes with this roster:
- Garrus (sniper) - returning squadmate -
- Tali (tech, close combat) - returning squadmate -
- Miranda (squad support, biotic) - new -
- Jacob (soldier, biotic) - new -
- Jack (biotic) - new -
- Samara (biotic) - new -
- Morinth (biotic) - new alternate -
- Legion (tech, sniper) - new -
- Thane (sniper) - new -
- Mordin (tech) - new -
- Grunt (soldier) - new -
Plus:
- Zaeed (soldier / sniper) - DLC -
- Kasumi (infiltrator) - DLC -
Plus:
- EDI as non-squadmate
The last two are optional - neither you need their DLCs nor do they drive the main plot. Therefore, you can consider them as "nice to have" but not "essential". I'll ignore them for the rest of this part of the text. However: BW spent resources to add two more characters to the series. They will have some kind of a role in ME3, even without the DLCs. The difference - as far as I know - will be, that you can't recruit Kasumi and Zaeed without their
DLCs. Still, BW had to spent resources (time and money) to give them dialogues and a (minor but still need-to-be-developed role) which means less resources for other parts of the game.
That's being said, I won't talk about Zaeed and Kasumi anymore.
Lets go through the "vanilla" cast. They're the guys I marked orange.
Out of ten (eleven) squadmates, two are returning from ME1, the rest are "new guys". I think it's never a bad idea to add new faces to a series, as long as every face has a purpose. It's a common rule writers create only as much characters as needed for the story and do only that much development as needed for that particular role.
In that case, BW did a huge mistake: they created a lot of new characters, spent a lot of time and money to develop them - and in the end, half of them have no other purpose than fill the roster. They're there, but that's it.
Before I get shot by fans of a particular character: keep in mind you wouldn't miss that character if s/he got never introduced to ME series. I don't hate that character - I'm just saying what I think and try to be fair & neutral.
In my opinion, only following new characters are absolutely essential to
the story:
Miranda, as your XO and TIMs eyes and ears.
Jacob, as another Cerberus operative (still far less important than Miranda)
Mordin, as the guy who can cure the genophage.
EDI, because of *spoiler, don't ask*
Legion, because of *spoiler, don't ask*
Samara, because of the biotic shield dome in SM.
And what about the rest? Aren't they important too?
In my opinion, they only fill the roster. You can argue if Samara is needed for that biotic dome, Miranda could do that as well, it's just the way how to write the suicide mission. But okay, I put Samara on that list too, so you can choose between her and Miranda.
Jack is pretty much redundant: she fills the same role as Samara (and even more as Morinth).
Although Grunt does not look much like Mordin, he fills the same role - the Krogans and the genophage. Of course, it's the Krogan PoV, but that's what we had Wrex for in ME1. Grunt is good on the field, but doesn't drive the story that much.
Thane is another character that does not drive the story forward. Not only BW had to design his character, they also had to develop a new race for him, the background of Drell and Hanar etc. Works fine, sounds nice, but is entirely not necessary for the story. It really sounds mean, I like Thane. He is, however, not really needed for the story.
Morinth was intented as alternate to Samara. Although it's a nice idea to have squadmates you can't pick when supporting another one (a true choice), Morinth never got a real development. You can sense BW had neither time nor money to fully develop her and it shows. That's why Morinth does disguise as her own mother, that's why she uses the same lines, that's why the rest of the crew does not realize that Morinth isn't Samara. Cheap writing, that's what I can say about Morinth: a poorly implemented character. The so called "true choice" is none and I can't see why I should sacrifice Samara for her daughter when there's no real difference between both.
Why and how does it backfire?
Any of those newly introduced characters can die in ME2. That means, none of them CAN play a significant role in ME3 storywise. If the main plot depends on survival of any of them, the player can't beat ME3 without that particular
character. Therefore, you must not let die any of them in SM, making decisions who to recruit and loyalize entirely obsolete. You MUST because ME3 can't work if done otherwise. Chilling thought.
Of course, Tali and Garrus are needed somehow *spoilers, won't tell*. Same for EDI or Legion.
BW simply can’t sideline any newly introduced characters of ME2 without upsetting a particular fanbase. Therefore BW needs to include some story lines for those characters, even if those stories are reduced to only one mission. Also if those squadmembers are meant to be part of your crew, they need own "unique" lines and dialogue options as well.
Doing all that means BW has to spend time and money. Both is not available in infinite numbers. So any spent resources for additional characters from ME2 mean that those resources are missing for other development.
Lets do the math: each additional character you don’t really need for the story comes with at least one mission (Zaeed, Kasumi, sort-of Morinth), two for “vanilla” characters (Thane, Grunt, Jack). That means eight missions (nine, if you consider Samara’s LM as Morinth’s recruitment mission). Just keep in mind the main story consists mainly out of two beginning missions before the Normandy, Horizon, Collector Cruiser, IFF and Suicide Mission. Yep, basically that’s it – the main story arc in ME2 consists out of six missions. The rest of ME2 is made up by recruitment and loyalty missions and some assignments.
Now think of it how the story could have been with fewer characters to worry about: lesser distractions by recruitment and loyalty missions, more focus on primary story arc, on assignments indirectly related
with the story arc, on character development and romantic story arcs. Don’t you think a smaller roster could have been better for the entire game?
What could have done to avoid this?
Less means more. All I can say BW tried too hard to add new and interesting characters to the series. However, half of the new guys are redundant and not important for the story and all of them got only a half-baked
background. ME2 would still work without them, maybe even better because additional resources could have been spent on more important characters or additional primary missions.
Just in case BW will do a reboot of the series, the staff should get rid of any “additional” characters not needed for the story. That means at a reduction by at least four (six, including DLC) characters.
Less means more …
Once upon a time …
Issue: Plot holes in main story arc
Just one word: any of these plot holes are caused by lack of writing. I don’t think BW left them open for player’s imagination – they’re far too big, far too obvious and have far too much influence on the story.
I’ll pick three examples of plot holes out of many, many more, just to show you what I am talking about, plus one “bad writing” example for Morinth.
Social awkward Shepard – why does s/he never call mom?
One of smaller but still obvious plot holes is the lack of interaction of Shepard with those s/he should care for. That is, for instance, his or her mother. She only appears in case Shepard has the Spacer background in ME1, but
I’m sure at least the colonist Shepard has a mom s/he cares for AND is still alive. Also Shepard never called old friends – the VS, Anderson, you name it. If there’s any communication, it’s one sided: Shepard receives mails, but does not answer any of them.
You can call it “missing feature” or claim it “does happen off screen” or “Cerberus was blocking outgoing messages” but that’s not correct. Reaction of Ashley or Kaidan shows Shepard never tried to contact them. Cerberus might block outgoing messages, but TIM does not prevent Shepard talking to Anderson or using public terminals for communication. It seems as if Shepard never ever thought of contacting old friends, lovers or family.
Funny enough: some scenes could have been enough to explain that issue: Kelly should have say at some point that Shepard’s mails don’t go out as long as the job isn’t done. That would explain at least why Shepard does
not contact anyone when in board of the Normandy, but not when s/he is on Illium or on the Citadel – there are public terminals available and TIM does not control them. So Shepard is still able to answer incoming mails. It should have been possible for him/her to get in touch with the VS after Horizon (maybe a meeting in the Flux?) or his/her mother etc.
In short: it’s just a detail plot hole, but one no one can talk away. It is there and it causes issues.
Death of Shepard
The biggest plot hole is the most obvious one: Shepard dies right before ME2 begins. It’s part of the prologue I simply call the “Lazarus project” – like the game does. I think there are a lot of theories going how Shepard was
brought back. Technically it is no real problem to reconstruct a human by using its corpse and genome. That can be done even by today technology if you’re not too picky: cloning is possible, it should be possible to clone either an entire body or body parts and organs and put them together.
However, there’s no way how to reconstruct a brain and put in that brain any memories and even the entire personality of a dead person. If someone dies, his or her intellect is lost. There’s no way to bring it back, or
“brain damage” weren’t an issue at all …
So how do we get Shepard’s personality back? That’s the big mystery ME2 does not solve. Maybe it’s going to be solved in ME3, but till then it’s open for fan theories. My own theory is that Shepard got a greybox earlier
and simply can’t remember / that memory got deleted. With that greybox it should be possible to reconstruct any memories of Shepard and maybe even his/her personality.
At least then that issue with Shepard’s death is solved, however, the explanation why and how Shepard got his/her greybox is still missing and needs to be addressed. And why couldn’t Chakwas find that greybox when updating Shepard’s medical file?
Does she know and has to keep it secret?
If you ask me, that plot hole is so incredible huge you could park the Normandy in that one and she won’t touch the edges. Even worse: that entire plot of Shepard’s death is unnecessary. If BW wanted to put Shepard
to Cerberus, they could have done it differently. For example Tali hopes Shepard is an agent that tries to destroy Cerberus from inside. Why not making that guess to the new plot? Shepard is an agent of the Alliance. At some point Shepard can decide to defect to Cerberus (renegade path) or to stay with the
Alliance (paragon path). In both paths s/he still would have to do the job for Cerberus, but in one outcome s/he ends as agent working FOR Cerberus, in the other one s/he returns to the Alliance.
Does this make sense? Of course it does! At least more than “Lazarus” does.
The one who talked down Saren and Wrex fails when talking to the VS.
Horizon. I guess it got talked to death. It’s not just death, it’s already smelling awfully. Therefore I keep it as short as possible.
We know the dialogue between VS and Shepard wasn’t written well. To be honest, Shepard feels as if all of his/her intellect dumbed down to a potato while talking to the VS. Seriously – why did s/he try to recruit the
VS for the mission? Why not asking “betray the Alliance and come with me?” No go. Bad writing. Entirely out of character. Enough said about that issue.
I believe that scene was intended to be far longer. Maybe Shepard explained a bit his/her missions and connection to Cerberus. Maybe THEN s/he tried to recruit. Who knows. All I can sense is a lack of dialogue, sudden jumps in emotions and more important, no feedback beyond that point except a message from the VS in case s/he got romanced in ME1. Other players don’t even receive that message. Also the VS and his or her fate is not mentioned for the rest of the game. Did s/he return to Anderson to tell what happened on Horizon?
If s/he did, why can’t Shepard ask Anderson for a meeting with him or her? It is as if a lot of content is missing regarding the VS. Liara got her own DLC dealing with her fate, you know what happened to her, you’re part of that event (and it also happens without the DLC, similar to “Arrival”).
The plot hole here is relevant enough to ask questions in my eyes. What happened to the VS? Why does Shepard not care about his or her fate? The VS is not mentioned in the Shadowbroker’s dossiers. Seems as if the guy who
was responsible for writing the story arc for the VS had been sick for months and when he returned, there was no time to complete it.
”My name is Morinth and I will act as if I were my own mother.”
Okay. I’ve talked about “redundant” characters in first part of this posting. But this one needs to be treated separately because of obviousness how bad writing spoils a character entirely. It is also no plot hole, but this example shows how plot holes work: by lack of development and information.
Morinth could be an interesting character and replacement for Samara with a tad more development. However, she shares the same fate as the VS in ME2: there is no real difference between her and her mother (and no difference between Ashley and Kaidan in that scene). Morinth mimics her own Mother while on board of the Normandy, everyone reacts to her as if she were Samara – but seriously, I can sense really cheap writing here. Why should Morinth act as Samara? Why not showing her true self, at least on board of the Normandy? And if you say she does it to protect herself, I would concur if that wouldn’t lead to a new plot hole: why do scanners of the Citadel NOT detect the imposter? After all, they were able to detect Shepard. Also it’s a known fact that Asari do not give birth to perfect clones of themselves but absorb minor parts of father’s DNS. So Morinth’s DNS is –not- identical to Samara’s. That difference should be detected by the scanners.
Why and how does it backfire?
Easy. Since the main plot of ME2 got riddled by plot holes, the plot appears to be unfinished. Basically it’s just a mission about gathering allies and kicking someone’s ass to oblivion: it’s not the most sophisticated plot, at least it’s entertaining.
Therefore I start questioning myself how’s it possible to put so many plot holes in that straight forward story. Because it IS linear. There are no branches, no extras, just a plain plot from A to B. The “big” decisions don’t
alter the course of the main story arc, but might have some influence in ME3. The story of ME1 was also quite linear, but you could pick different paths to the same goal by choose the order of the first missions to Virmire resulting in different reactions of your squadmates (most notably Liara).
In ME2 you can’t pick the order of your missions – you only can choose whom you recruit next and what loyalty mission you want to do and which not. Since only few squadmates are essential to the story at all, it’s no
real drawback to ignore them – you only need to save those few in the Suicide Mission. Decisions do have an impact? Not really.
In short: the sheer amount of plot holes nearly destroys the plot of ME2. I hope BW will do better for ME3.
What could have done to avoid this?
Same answer as for last part: BW should have spent more time and money on the primary story for ME2 and not most of the budget on new characters that won’t play any bigger role than “filling a roster”.
In case of a reboot, BW should really rewrite the story arc of ME2 and even include an option to play the game as either agent of the Alliance in Cerberus, as agent of Cerberus or for the Alliance directly – you name it.
I miss you.
Missing features
I know a lot of stuff got cut from the content list. At some point a game has to be finished, either because any money got used up, or there’s no time left.
In ME2 some features are missing or got cut out last minute – or were implemented half-heartedly. One of the features is planetary exploration. I don’t say that feature is important or a must have. It came back with two DLC: “Overlord” and “Firewalker”. However, I wouldn’t call it sufficient to re-add that feature via DLC for just a couple of side quests. It should have been done differently.
Another missing feature is editing the appearance of your squadmates. You can change their appearance after their respective loyalty mission, but not their armor. Therefore you’ll find your squadmates in their casual attire on the battlefield – suitable or not. To make things worse, some of them show a lot of skin – unsuitable for hazardous environment (which was another feature in ME1 that didn’t make it into ME2). I don’t think a breathing
mask is enough in an area with low atmospheric pressure or a Quarian ship.
Call it splitting hairs, it does not really work, especially since it was no problem to add it in ME1: different outfits for different situations. Why not added in ME2?
Weapons can not be modified – that feature will return in ME3. All you can do is some kind of “global research” for your weapons.
I also talked about the missing feature to answer received mails. Could have been done via “put mail together by picking text blocks” or something, resulting in an answer or two. Maybe even full conversations – who knows?
The only feature I am not missing is the loot system of ME1. It saves a lot of time NOT being forced to sell or liquefy to omni-gel …
I should stop here for now. There’s so much stuff left I’d like to write, but no one would read that far. I’m sure I talked about some issues and hopefully you guys do understand why ME2 (and therefore ME3) suffers
design issues caused by bad or incomplete writing, content cuts and wrong priorities when it comes to spending time and money on certain parts of the game.
Thank you for reading. Maybe you understand my PoV, why I had to write a text with almost 3.500 words.
Modifié par CptData, 30 novembre 2011 - 03:34 .
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