329 réponses à ce sujet

[crimzontearz]

Rejoice guys...I'm fairly sure we willget the chance to kicks Harbinger's butt in ME3 and ventour collective frustration

[Yuoaman]

Sovereign was a shocking twist when its true nature was discovered, all along we had thought it was just some of the Reapers' technology or something, and he sounded intimidating. Harbinger was awesome for his more active role, but he wasn't very subtle - and he became almost silly when you could headshot and kill him with the Widow before he ever hit the ground every time he appeared.

[Last Vizard]

  Might have something to do with this conversation with Sovereign.  I personally don't care for either, they're just Dreadnaught AIs with God complexes.

[Rudy Lis]

For me Harbringer's VO (with all due respect to Keith Szarabajka (I mean real respect, I like his other VO, including Joshua Graham, Xardas or Biggs)) is inferiour to Sovereign's VO - former sounds practically human-alike (plus Keith's special voice so easy to notice on Delan and Elias Kelham), while latter sounds unnatural, metallic, practically Necron-alike (for those who played WH40K DaW: Dark Crusade/Soulstorm), only better. One of my favorite VO, in fact. Not just in ME - in other games, movies, cartoon, whatever.

[saracen16]

Last Vizard wrote...

  Might have something to do with this conversation with Sovereign.  I personally don't care for either, they're just Dreadnaught AIs with God complexes.

Yeah, but Sovereign's God complex is much more terrifying. He carries with him a more automatonic aura, one that is based on emotionless logic and calculation. Harbinger is just a control freak.

[Haasth]

I prefer Harbinger.

Seemed more of an intelligent fellow.. robot.. err.. thing. As opposed to the tough-guy attitude Sovereign had (They were both pretty tough-guy of course) but I guess that goes to show that Sovereign was the vanguard whereas Harbinger felt more like a mastermind. 

Plus there's Scatman Harbinger (Harbinger is wildly inappropriate). But alas that video (account closed) is no longer on YouTube to be found. 

Modifié par Haasth, 06 février 2012 - 02:15 .

[Indoctrinated Spectre]

This hurts you? Come on lol. Sovereign because he was the first Reaper we faced, and the conversation on Virmire was epic.

"We are infinitely your greater." Cool line.

Nazara for the win!

Modifié par Indoctrinated Spectre, 06 février 2012 - 02:15 .

[Ramus Quaritch]

Sovereign is something to be feared. Harbinger is a super-troll.

[Zkyire]

Wulfram wrote...

Sovereign wasn't over used. Whenever he shows up, it's a big deal.

Whereas you fight Harbinger all the time, which reduces the impact. And his trash talking comes off as petty.

If they'd kept him quiet when possessing things and all we'd had of him was the "we are your salvation through destruction" speech, we'd think he was really cool.

This. Though I am looking forward to Harbinger actually joining the fight rather than just using puppets.

"Oh it's just Harbinger no big OH MY JESUS **** THAT IS ONE BIG ASS REAPER!"

[Dreadwing 67]

I think Harbinger shows how menacing he CAN be with our conversation on Arrival.

Whereas when we get him possessing some collector, all I here is "HAHA Shepard, I tied Ashley up to a railroad track whilst twirling my mustache."

Modifié par Dreadwing 67, 06 février 2012 - 02:21 .

[Chuvvy]

Neofelis Nebulosa wrote...

Slidell505 wrote...

Sovereign: A lovecrafting techno monster,[...]

That sounds soooo wrong

lovecraft'ian is the better word I think, unless it was explicitly planned to elicit such thoughts. ... Damn, I know I will be dreaming sh*t tonight ...

That's what I meant, I didn't sleep tonight.

[GnusmasTHX]

SykoWolf wrote...

Because sovereign decimated the ciadel fleet,brainwashed the best turian spectre then used him (literally) as a puppet against shepard, and because he chose to stay in the milky way galaxy to unleash the reaper fleet on the galaxy, in other words he's patient,smart and LETHAL

But... Nihilus wasn't indoctrinated...

[Relix28]

ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROLOLOLOL

I don't think you can take Harbinger seriously. It was almost as, if Harbinger was meant to be a joke. Instead of being this scary and menacing sentient machine of doom, he was a ridiculous and annoying trollbot.

That line at the end of Arrival, "you have become an annoyance Shepard" is pretty damn ironic, coming from him. I wish Shepard could say something like "lol, look who's talking".

[GnusmasTHX]

Yeah. Harbinger is to Mass Effect what Red Hulk and Spider-Ham are to Marvel.

[Scary Shepard]

saracen16 wrote...
Yeah, but Sovereign's God complex is much more terrifying. He carries with him a more automatonic aura, one that is based on emotionless logic and calculation. Harbinger is just a control freak.

Indeed. Perhaps the most intimidating attribute of Sovereign was his utter indifference to Shepard and chums. To Sovereign, they were nothing, insignificant. Harbinger's trash-talk and condescension belies the fact that the Reapers have been forced to recognise Shepard as a threat ("Shepard. You have become an annoyance.") which although makes him no less dangerous than Sovereign, it demonstrates a ****** in the Reaper's apparently omnipotent view of themselves, and makes Harbinger a lesser villain as a result.

The fact that Harbinger is present throughout almost all of ME2 also detracts from his character, as several people have already said. Sovereign and Shepard had only one exchange in ME1, and Sovereign spoke only once after that. Harbinger's constant "taunting" in combat almost has a smack of desperation about it, not to mention its frequent occurence diminishes its significance.

[Sudsaroo]

 Sovereign was actually introduced to us, for starters, and we conversed with him. You don't actually meet and learn about Harbringer till Arrival.

Now that I type that, it makes me wonder how Shepard knew who Harbringer was, cause at the end of the game he/she can say something like "Harbringer's coming, and I'm gonna stop him.". Maybe a dialogue oversight.

[Revan312]

Sovereign - "We are eternal, the pinnacle of evolution and existence. Before us, you are nothing. Your extinction is inevitable..... We are the end of everything.."

Harbinger - "We are so gonna make you guys like our slaves and stuff.. I'm super gigantic and your like a piece of dust, so... ya... eat it Shepard!"

[Wickwrackscar]

Your words are as empty as your future.
This exchange is over.

[HolyAvenger]

"You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it."


Virmire basically. Harbinger doesn't get lines 1/10th as good as what Sovereign got.

[WizenSlinky0]

You interacted with Sovereign. Spoke with him, all the whole he was kinda outmaneuvering you for most of the game. Always one-step ahead it seemed.

Harbinger...just kinda took people over in the middle of battles you were already going to win. He never really accomplished anything significant.

I mean, really, one managed to almost successfully take over the center of galactic politics and stability....the other abducted a few colonists while hiding.

[PsydonX]

There are a lot of reasons.

1. Sovereign came across as much more mysterious and terrifying than Harbinger. Remember, the Reapers are Mass Effect's version of Cthulu. Cthulu only works when you interact with it as little as possible. This is because it is the definition of "alien"; it is beyond our ability to understand. We only see the effects of what it does and even then we don't know what's going on. If we do speak to it, we only get the barest of glimpses into what makes it tick. This creates discomfort and feelings of dread, because one of our most primal fears is the unknown. If the characters and audience interact with it constantly, we begin to understand it.

2. Saren, being Sovereign's puppet, was Sovereign's mouthpiece throughout Mass Effect 1, whether in a figurative or literal sense. Through him we learned things about the Reapers
without directly interacting with them, preserving their mystery and
the terror that goes with it. Shepard never meets, let alone interacts
with, the Collector General, but she should have because the Collector General should have been ME2's villain, continuing and expanding on the themes of slavery and machine-dominance-over-flesh Saren established.

3. That you repeatedly fight--and defeat--Harbinger shatters his impact as a villain. Yes, the rational part of your mind would tell you "That's not really Harbinger; he's just possessing Collectors." but the emotional part of your mind would tell you "This guy's got nothing on me! Reapers? Pssh. I've already killed him, like, 50 times!" That he continues to do the same th--ASSUMING DIREC--only to be stopped by Shepard (you) over and over again makes him seem ineffectual (why can't he do anything else? Why does he keep trying to kill you knowing you know how to beat this particular method of his?) and more of a personal troll for Shepard than a menacing antagonist. It's the same reason why Samus' complete mental shutdown at Ridley's appearance in Other M made no sense: by that point in the Metroid chronology she's destroyed him numerous times and the player controlling her has destroyed him even more times throughout the series.

Despite being immortal, he's no longer threatening as an antagonist if all he's going to do is show up and get shot down, which is all he ever does. Sound familiar?

4. Their plans. Put simply: ME1's plot is much better than ME2's plot, Sovereign's plan is much better than Harbinger's plan and Harbinger's plan makes no sense. What the Reapers do in Arrival and the beginning of ME3 makes it even worse ("We will find another way...getting off our lazy butts and just flying into the galaxy, which we could have done between the end of the first game and Shepard being revived--two years and change. It would have saved us all this extra trouble, we would have had a Collector army to support us, we could have used the Alpha Relay and we could have still killed Shepard anyway, thus ensuring we would be unstoppable.").

5. Harbinger is rather annoying. He just doesn't shut up (again, he comes across as a troll). It doesn't help that his evaluations of the other species don't make sense half the time, which greatly diminishes his image as some kind of evil mad gene-splicing scientist.

6. Sovereign possessed the main villain of ME1's story, who himself was a unique, interesting opponent. Harbinger possessed his own mooks. Okay, they gained quite a bit of power, but they were still his own mooks.

7. Their voices. Ask yourself, which one sounds more like "evil machine god"? Hell, which one sounds cooler?

[eye basher]

Lets see what people say about Harbinger when his tearing everyones ass apart in ME3.

[jamesp81]

Stardusk78 wrote...

Honest question, have my own opinion but will withhold it.

Familiarity breeds contempt.

Sovereign's one and only claim to fame is that speech he gave to Shepard on Virmire.  Besides that, his dialogue was just as corny and cheesy as Harbinger's.  He just got a lot less exposure so people don't rant about him as much.

On a personal note, I even found Sovereign's speech a bit less epic than it's given credit for.  Part of it was where he claimed to be eternal with no beginning and no end; a statement which is obviously, on the face of it, BULL****.  But that's JMO.

Modifié par jamesp81, 06 février 2012 - 03:01 .

[mkk316]

I think the stuff Harbinger says when he takes control of a collector kinda rubbed people the wrong way, whereas with Sovereign it was one conversation and really your first time ever communicating with a Reaper. And Sovereign's voice is cooler, imo.