Terror_K wrote...
The ending(s) aren't ME3's only flaws, they're just one of the biggest, most detracting and the ones everybody is going on about.
For one thing, there's the character face import, which has gone beyond a fiasco. Given the promises from BioWare and intent of the trilogy, the fact that it was broken at launch was unforgivable as it is, but to make matters worse we've since been given a patch that claims to fix the issue but just outright doesn't, and not only that, people have discovered that some Shepard faces are literally impossible to create or recreate in ME3 because the facial options are simply not there. That is beyond ludicrous and to state how mind-boggingly bad that is can't be put into words. You've got a series based entirely around carrying a completely customisable character through a trilogy, and not only do you guys not have this working at launch, but whoever designed the CC cut out options entirely? Seriously?! The term "WTF?!!" does not even come close to covering how poorly planned, programmed and designed this major fubar is. So right out of the box, before the player is even into the game, if they're importing in the manner the series was designed for, they're already screwed over. It's the equivalent of trying to build a world class soccer team to take on the best in the world, but not even picking a goalie and leaving it completely undefended for the entire game. That's how bad the planning was here and how outright stupid whoever was in charge of the CC design was. What's the point of wasting time making a brand new default Femshep and adding more hair options if a quarter of the options from the previous titles aren't even there.
And that's before we even get into the gameplay. ME3 nailed the shooter mechanics and combat, I'll give it that, but at the cost of pretty much everything that made the original games what they were. I'd even go so far to say it was the core gameplay that suffered and was greatly reduced in ME3, which is NOT the combat, but the roleplaying, dialogue and choices.
For starters, only two dialogue options 90% of the time, even with "Full Decisions" on. Why "Full decisions" is so damn simplified and watered down compared to just the default way things were in ME1 and ME2 that "Full Decisions" is supposed to represent is beyond me. The third neutral option barely makes a showing at all, not to mention that the amount of Charm/Indimidate options in the entire game equates to such a pitiful amount I could probably count them on both hands and not run out of finers. As I've said before, there were more Charm/Intimidate opportunities on Noveria in ME1 alone than in ALL of ME3.
Then there's the autodialogue, with Shepard running his/her mouth off without me, the player, doing a damn thing. This happens far too often, so much so I wonder why there's any dialogue choices at all. I'm never going to touch "Action Mode" but I get the strong feeling that given how much Shepard yammers on without me picking a damn thing and the amount of times I'm just given two options that are either not that different or simply "Jesus or Hitler" that I'd barely be missing out on anything. Why you guys wasted your time programming the different game styles (Narrative, RPG, Action, etc.) is beyond me given how little effort seemed to be put into the dialogue itself.
Then there's the fact that 80% of the time you talk with your crew, they're Zaeed and Kasumi all over again. Here's a test for you Stanley (or any other BioWare employee who may be reading) to see how much BioWare supposedly "listens" to its fans: while Zaeed and Kasumi were generally enjoyed by fans as DLC companions for ME2, what was the most commonly griped about aspect about them? Here's a clue... it's something you did to the entire Mass Effect 3 crew whenever you talk with them more often than not! I go to talk with my L.I. after a long absense for the first time, and do I get a proper cutscene with a dialogue wheel and choices? No... I just get her standing there saying something I have no control over as I click on her, pressing her like a button. I finally get Ashley back after her accident and onto the Normandy again, and does she have anything to say and do I get a dialogue wheel and a cinematic scene? No, I just get, "Hey, Shepard" and that's it. With the rare exceptions here and there, my crew have become less like squadmates, friends and companions and more like talking plush toys I can go around and squeeze or yank the pull string on every so often. I enjoyed that they moved around a little more, there was inter-party banter and we got the odd moment on The Citadel with them, but it wasn't worth it to get "Tickle Me Garrus" and "Speak and Say Liara."
On top of it all, the ship ended up becoming boring in the end, as you had to run all around it every visit from top to bottom and back again, just to make sure you'd found everything. The Citadel had the same issue. For example, if you speak to everybody else aboard the Normandy before coming across drunk Tali at the bar and you have to go back and revisit them all just to see if it unlocks some drunk Tali banter, because it won't happen if you don't see her first. And then you slog all the way back just to find that all that happens is James say, "hey" again. *sigh*
The Citadel and the Normandy were highlights in the other games, but the execution of them in ME3 made them into a chore I was sick of dealing with. Not to mention all the samey fetch-quests that took up 90% of the sidequests (with the rest pretty much just cheap rehashes of MP maps as you just kill guys). It was the most tedious and hamfisted, lazy-ass pieces of DA2 all over again, as you hunted down every race's lost artifacts from random scans and brought them back. What's this? An interesting quest to the elcor homeworld to rescue some elcor? Wow! That actually sounds like... oh wait, it's just another fetch-quest where you click on the planet and it's all done for you. Oh, and half of them are just found sitting in the Spectre terminal. All in all, ME3 sidequests were the worst of the trilogy.
Not that the main quests were much better. The writing was fairly solid, they had some great epic and emotional moments and the level-design was definitely better than ME2's. But damn... were they linear as all hell. Not only were there barely any choices during them so they ended up almost all playing out the same, but the entire structure was linear throughout the entire game. No freedom for the player to go where they want when they want... it has to be Mars, Palaven's Moon, Sur'Kesh, etc. in that order without fail in every playthrough. As much as some people may moan about the BioWare pattern of, "Tutorial Place, Forced Secondary Place and then 3 to 5 Locations You Can Do In Any Order" at least that pattern gave the player some freedom. That's non-existent in ME3. Yes... players said they wan't a more focused story than ME2's was, but that doesn't mean completely on the rails from A to B to C to D, etc. ME1, KotOR and DAO all proved you can have a focused story that unfolds without forcing the players where to go. BioWare said this was supposed to be the most diverse of the trilogy and give players the most freedom since it was the last part, but were' restricted far more than in ME1 or ME2 in ME3.
Which leads to another promise that was broken: our choices mattering. They just outright didn't. ME2 was already guilty of BioWare's lazy way of dealing with variations: either trivialise it, sweep it under the rug or offer a weak substitution. ME3 suffered this even worse, and it was, again, supposed to be the part where all our choices were shown to matter and had real diversity. Save the Rachni Queen or kill her? Doesn't matter, same result. How about those people who lived or died in ME1 and ME2? Doesn't matter, somebody will just step in and take their place and dialogue on the exact same mission. This goes for the likes of The Council, Wrex, Mordin, Grunt, etc. It doesn't matter what you did in ME1 or ME2, it's still exactly the same game with the same missions done in the same order and the same outcome and same ending. Even the Virmire Survivor was cut out of half the game so the devs didn't have to put any effort into their return it seems. No wonder the endings didn't reflect our choices, because they never matter in any of the rest of the game either, so why should they at the end. All they countered towards was a stupid, arbitrary number called "Galactic Readiness" that has no real bearing on anything and is just a counter to indicate whether once the end comes you're "Kind of Screwed," "Really Screwed" or "Totally Screwed." Again, this was the final part where BioWare said they could "go nuts" and that our choices would be really diverse. Another lie.
And then there's the endings. 'Nuff said there. It's all been covered more than enough times.
The point is, ME3 has major issues even without the endings, and it seems largely because the focus has shifted away from what really mattered and when to other things that were less important. Kinect Support, Multiplayer, Different Game modes, etc. and even the combat all seemed to be far more crucial than the factor that to me (and thus I'm sure many other Mass Effect fans) was supposed to be the most crucial, key and core of the series: the dialogue, the roleplaying, the choices and satisfying consequences that should come from those things.
And yes, I was calling for more statistical RPG elements, such as power evolutions and diversity, weapon modification and more customisation as a whole. But that was because despite my concerns about the direction ME3 was going, I didn't really think for one second that the dialogue, choices and other roleplaying elements were going to take as much of a hit and be watered down as much as they were. I suspected after ME2 that the choices and consequences weren't going to be as fulfulling as I'd hoped and we were promised, but I still expected a far better job than this. I didn't expect things like the Rachni Queen choice to be so utterly pointless as they turned out to be. But I certainly didn't expect as much autodialogue as we got, the ME2 DLC Squaddie treatment we got for the whole crew and the complete lack of dialogue choices, not to mention so few Charm/Intimidate opportunities.
ME3 took all the things I loved most about the other two games and watered them down, and as much as I complained about ME2's lack of hardcore, statistical RPG mechanics, it at least didn't skimp on the roleplaying and dialogue choices. ME3 just felt so half-assed and dumbed down in this regard. And that's why I think it's the worst of the trilogy, even if it did nail the combat, have better designed levels, bring back modding, diversify skills more, get rid of Mission Complete screens, arbitrary XP gains and other annoying aspects of ME2.
Are you me? Thats seriously just about everything I didnt like about the game and what I did like.
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