253 réponses à ce sujet

[The Eruptionist]

Snovicus wrote...

The Eruptionist wrote...

I see Shepard's reaction to the kid as the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. She's seen a lot of her friends die and has had the entire galaxy put on her shoulders; seeing that kid die finally brings up the emotions that have been building up through the trilogy. When Shepard looks away as the kid dies it's not so much because of the death of a relative stranger but because of the amount of emotion that Shepard has kept in check up until that point. Seeing yet another person that she failed to save was just too much and forced out some of that built up emotion.

It makes sense for Shepard to dream about the child as he represents the final point of Shepard's ability to stand the amount of pain she must've been carrying over the past couple of years.

That makes sense. Although, I wish there were an option to have Shepard be unmoved, as per usual. After all, Shepard's robotic emotional state, coupled with the horrible face I had (accidentally) designed for him, became oddly endearing to me. Next thing I know, face import doesn't work, and Shepard starts having feels.

Fortunately for me the face import bug wasn't a problem for my first playthrough Shep since it was default male anyway. But I can see how some people would not want their Shep to react to the child's death. But as I said above, it's not the kid per se but everyone else that your own Shep cares about which really underlies the reaction and the dreams. If you don't want you Shep to portray that emotion then that's fair enough but there a lot of moments throughout all three games where the character of Shepard is dictated to you e.g. in ME1 when Shep is all gloomy and depressed after having the Normandy grounded before going to Ilos. 

It is a gamble when you're trying to create and tell the story of a character whilst still giving players agency in determining that character's personality for themselves. I guess they could have just made the reaction to the child determined perhaps by some earlier comment that Shepard makes e.g. a renegade response means Shep shows no reaction and a paragon response means that he does. 

But it is Bioware's story and I just happened to really enjoy it - including that scene.

[Xellith]

When shepard is "gloomy" in ME1 on the Normandy I do believe you are given 3 options to choose from when responding to Ash/Liara/Kaidan. I cant say for sure if its just just the same thing with each option however.

[High Kicks]

to be honest, that kid irritated me on the first playthrough. i was kinda like "oh ****" when i saw the shuttle explode with him on it then "thats ****ed up" afterwards. the dreams where interesting in the beginning, but just got irritating. i kept wondering "wtf is everybody else that died? i hear them, but i can't see them." I always thought Jenkins or Nihlus or VS or anybody other than that kid would be more appropriate for those sequences.

[Shadow Storm]

Snovicus wrote...

 My question is, did anyone actually have some kind of emotional response to the kid getting blasted out of the sky the first time they played the game?

 Because I thought it was some pretty weak writing that we were intended to be upset by the fact that "a kid died". Besides being fictitious, he had no depth to speak of, which made for a laughable excuse at drama, in my opinion. And that's not even getting into the dream sequences or the ending.

At first i felt kind of sorry for him but not sad! Now however i hate him with every fibre of my being and will hunt him down and shoot him in the knee myself if i had the chance. (Not really but my thoughts are not pleasant towards him all the same) In many aspects i wish i never had the misfortune of running into him. I ask myself if i had not met him who would take his place? Kaiden/Ashley, Mordin, some random Colonist, all of which would have been a better option then that brat. lol

[M2S SOLID JOSH]

*kid blows up* me-...."thats for being a ****** lol". then he haunted my dreams and got his payback for me laughing at him T_T. if they wanted us to really care there shouldve been some connection with him. shepard befriending him while on earth for whatever reason, have some paragon/renegade options with him and then let him die. so much potential in this game down the drain

[Sebby]

I care more about snails I accidentally step on IRL than I did about vent brat.

[Gewehr_fr]

I didn't need a random kid to tell me Earth can not be saved ("You can't save me") to have my Shepard feel guilty about letting go her homeworld to the reapers. That was basically what he was there for, a cheap way to get the player invested into the story.

I was fine with the scene itself when he dies though, it was actually sad, but then having the child coming back to haunt my Shepard's dreams was too much. Shepard has seen much worse.

I think the whole thing could have worked if we had the kid die in Shepard's hands, while she was trying to protect him / bring him aboard the Normandy. Shepard could actually feel guilty about his death and be unable to get this out of her mind.

[High Five Revival]

The Eruptionist wrote...

JasonShepard wrote...

Ok, put it this way. Back in ME2, Shepard was - in some ways - a walking automaton. He/she VERY rarely shows emotion, accepts the whole 'brought back to life' thing without a batted eyelid, and... well, you get the picture. Even some of the Suicide Mission deaths cause him/her little more than a brief look down.

I liked that ME3 had something phase Shepard. I liked that he/she was shown to still be human. Maybe, as a plot device, using a dead child was a little contrived. But from an in-universe perspective... seeing that would cut me. ESPECIALLY with the knowledge that it was happening planet wide. (Thank-you Bill Casey for pointing out the zoom out they used - I hadn't noticed that before)

So yeah. With Clint's epic music, and with seeing all that was happening, YES. I felt something. I cared.
Though to be honest, I was only truly impressed when we got the first nightmare. Because that was when I realised that Shepard was hurting. Maybe you reckon your Shepard wouldn't have hurt - mine would have. Mine did. And I appreciate that.

Agreed. I thought they managed to show a deeper aspect to Shepard's personality all through ME3 and the child played a role showcasing that emotion. One of my favourite parts is after Thessia when Joker says that Shepard is under more stress than during the Skyllian Blitz. Great moment.

I agree completely with both of these posts!    I also agree with another post where they state that the Catalyst likely chose the child because of the emotional connection, which makes sense, but I don't want to get sidetracked here.   That is a separate issue altogether.

The question is did I care about the death of the child - yes.  It really did surprise me (Yes - the music definitely helped!) and perhaps working with children for a living helped it to really have an impact on me and my character.  I loved the moment after Thessia where Joker shows his concern for Shephard's emotional well-being and they really knocked the emotions out of the park in Mass Effect 3.   I really appreciate everything Bioware did to show the effects of the war on Shephard and that type of response was what I expected from my Shephard.    During several moments in the game, he talks about the number of deaths, sacrifices and moments through the series that have stuck with him.    The death of a child - an innocent he couldn't save - is another one that he was unwiling to accept.    Even if you played the game as a renegade, I can't imagine that kind of indifference to a child dying - though I can understand your desire to have your character react differently (or not react as the case may be).

But, throughout that final game, they showed the way that the events of the preceding two games had made on Shephard and the way the war was wearing him down.    Thank goodness he had friends like Garrus, Liara, Joker ( for my Shephard, Miranda) and others to help him out.   In my opinion, good job Bioware on a really gripping scene and story throughout ME3 to showcase the havoc of the war on people, especially on the one they are counting on to save them all!

[spockjedi]

This stupid kid refused help from the BIGGEST HERO IN THE GALAXY. Did Bioware really want me to be sad about him?
If that wasn't stupid enough, there were the stupid slow-motion dreams, all of them annoying, especially the one RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROMANCE SCENE. Argh! I just wanted to enjoy my time with Liara, not being forced to fell sorry about the Haley Joel Osment guy
Last time I finished ME3 I turned off my screen and my headset during the dreams and the catalyst "confrontation", just because I couldn't bring myself to see his face and hear his voice anymore.
I think the major causes for the reduction of replaying value in ME3 were the ending, the dreams and the fetch quests.

[darthoptimus003]

not really

[mumba]

I can't be the only one who was laughing when the shuttle got shot to sh*t. Right?

[M2S SOLID JOSH]

Mumba1511 wrote...

I can't be the only one who was laughing when the shuttle got shot to sh*t. Right?

nope

[legion 21]

Xellith wrote...



Nope.

lol  this is great

[The Eruptionist]

spockjedi wrote...

This stupid kid refused help from the BIGGEST HERO IN THE GALAXY. Did Bioware really want me to be sad about him?
If that wasn't stupid enough, there were the stupid slow-motion dreams, all of them annoying, especially the one RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROMANCE SCENE. Argh! I just wanted to enjoy my time with Liara, not being forced to fell sorry about the Haley Joel Osment guy
Last time I finished ME3 I turned off my screen and my headset during the dreams and the catalyst "confrontation", just because I couldn't bring myself to see his face and hear his voice anymore.
I think the major causes for the reduction of replaying value in ME3 were the ending, the dreams and the fetch quests.

The kid most likely just saw hundreds of people, including marines, getting murdered and turned into husks. Not wanting help from Shepard is understandable. 

Everyones' Shepard cares about saving the galaxy, whether renegade or paragon. Both of those character types have the weight of the galaxy on their shoulders and want to preserve life. They just have different means of achieving that end. I stated this earlier but I think if you look at the boy simply as the representation of all those lives you couldn' save as opposed to an individual that you don't have much attachment to then it puts the emotional response of Shepard in a different light. The reaction to the boy is simply the final straw and Shepard releases some of the emotion that's been building over the last two games.

[element eater]

nope

[Mahrac]

Short answer; no, not really.

Long answer;
1) My Shepard knew that people were going to die, including kids, and he would see a lot of the deaths. He'd also accepted that he had to compartmentalize until the war was over.
2) I just have no connection to the kid, except that knowing he's dumb enough to not let Shepard help him and the dream sequences/catalyst.

[David7204]

Gosh, there's nothing like hindsight bias to get people to take sides on a topic, is there?

[Kataphrut94]

I felt sad when I saw him die the first time. If that had been the end of it, I would have thought it'd been okay. Then the dreams happen and they keep beating you over the head with it and the Catalyst decides to look like the kid and I ended up hating the blatant emotional manipulation.

Why did they need this? Virmire, Thane, Mordin, Legion & Anderson were all so well done, they didn't need to resort to such cheap tactics to get the audeince feeling sad. That said, I do think the 'Leaving Earth' music is enough to make me well up.

[Jadebaby]

I did in the Demo.

After that, nope.

[Jadebaby]

Yea, it was definitely that music that drew out the emotion from me in that scene. When you first see him on the spaceport and the destroyer reaper comes in.

[yukon fire]

crimzontearz wrote...

yukon fire wrote...

The kid, he just shows how impersonal this game set out to be. When there are so many characters in the Mass Effect Universe that we as Shep have had connections to, for Bioware to pound away at this with the sufistication of a small child banging on one note of a xylophone over and over (the Dragon Age 2 method) not only drives a wedge between Shep and the player but it is some of the worst writing I have ever experienced.

I blame EA.

And Mac and Casey

Why stop there? Many more at Bioware should be held responsible.

[Mathias]

I did at first, until the nightmares started happening. I think that's where they took the kid thing way too far and it became an annoyance.

[LanceSolous13]

The Eruptionist wrote...

spockjedi wrote...

This stupid kid refused help from the BIGGEST HERO IN THE GALAXY. Did Bioware really want me to be sad about him?
If that wasn't stupid enough, there were the stupid slow-motion dreams, all of them annoying, especially the one RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROMANCE SCENE. Argh! I just wanted to enjoy my time with Liara, not being forced to fell sorry about the Haley Joel Osment guy
Last time I finished ME3 I turned off my screen and my headset during the dreams and the catalyst "confrontation", just because I couldn't bring myself to see his face and hear his voice anymore.
I think the major causes for the reduction of replaying value in ME3 were the ending, the dreams and the fetch quests.

The kid most likely just saw hundreds of people, including marines, getting murdered and turned into husks. Not wanting help from Shepard is understandable. 

Everyones' Shepard cares about saving the galaxy, whether renegade or paragon. Both of those character types have the weight of the galaxy on their shoulders and want to preserve life. They just have different means of achieving that end. I stated this earlier but I think if you look at the boy simply as the representation of all those lives you couldn' save as opposed to an individual that you don't have much attachment to then it puts the emotional response of Shepard in a different light. The reaction to the boy is simply the final straw and Shepard releases some of the emotion that's been building over the last two games.

First of all, No. The bolded is incorrect. Renegade Shepard seems to more or less care about getting the job done over anything else and cares about nothing more than the goal/prize/etc. Now, this can be subject to interpretations and varries on a case by case basis due to Shepard being 'x' variable and this is only the face value Renegade.

Second off, Shepard is a VARIABLE! He has no set persionality. He can be written five million and 3 different way and interpretations. That may be YOUR interpretation of YOUR Shepard, but that DOES NOT apply to all other Shepards. Many people play Shepard as a near psyho loonatic who has not a care in the world for life at all, but they're still extremely charismatic.

If you cared about the child and that direction of PTSD was perfect for your Shepard, good for you. If it wasn't, Bioware did what NO RPG is ever supposed to do and God mod'd our Shepards into caring.

To an above arguement over Shepard being moody after the Normandy is docked, that is not a case of god modding as every Shepard is going to care about that.

[dreamgazer]

No. But you're not really supposed to.