I always wonder how much conversation about the stories of their games Bioware actually
should have with the fans.
Consider this: ME is very much a framework for your own imagination in a meaningful way. There's all this lore (also backed up via an extensive codex, which probably only few actually read – If there was anything a purely profit-oriented designer should cut, it's probably this), there's the story and the character developments that leave many details open, more like a skeleton for you to flesh out: People discuss an abundance of implications about the endings, but there's also been lots of discussion about off-screen character traits in the now-defunct romance forums etc… I wouldn't want all of this to go away by the developers randomly adding "canon" information whenever somebody asks for it.
With the "artistic integrity" comment, Bioware only solidified that they want to stay true to this core framework they have created, but leaving it open for (and actually encouraging) you to fill in the gaps. "The best stories don't end on the last page". They didn't force a certain interpretation of
anything onto you, so no, neither the "artistic integrity" comment, nor the EC was a "conversation-ender". They never denied or canon-ized IT, as an example. If anything, Bioware knows very well that the "commercial" aspect of their writing, if you want to call it that, is to craft stories where the player can
fit in, rather than just
telling a story, and I think they did that very well with ME1-3.
However, that doesn't mean that everything they did with ME3 is perfect: They had a direction of where things should be going, and I am fine with that (or actually, I expect them to have this direction, rather than having the story drift entirely apart due to player choices/preferences), and even within that framework, some things could have been handled better
a lot.
- ME3 is, to my mind, much too epic for its own good. Shepard pretty much fixes all the major, centuries-lasting conflicts in the game universe within just a couple of in-game days. I would have found it more believable and respectful to the lore if the actions on Tuchanka and Rannoch only lead to a glimpse of hope, a "first step" to ending the genophage and the Geth/Quarian war, rather than outright "solving" them. It sort of devalues the gravity of these conflicts, which have been lasting for centuries, no less. If I was cynical and picked up on the "commercial writing" topic of this thread, I'd be inclined to call them "fan-service" ;-)
- ME3 was the one story in which the Reapers should shine, this awesome machine race that has been around for billions of years (*gasp*, I mean, isn't that timeframe alone awe-inspiring), shaping pretty much everything you know about the in-game galaxy. Yet within the game, it felt as if the Reapers pulled off all their great feats while Shepard wasn't there. I know it's controversial, but at least the endings captured that awe again (for me): I thought it felt very inspiring for the reign of the Reapers, which lasted billions of years, to be ended once and for all by Shepard, right there above London. I would have preferred that feeling to be present the entire game, not just in the last few minutes.
- I hated how the game tutorial coincided directly with the Reapers invading Earth: I mean, just while the Reapers are touching down on Earth, this moment that ME1-2 have been building up to, which should be one of the most incredible moments in ME, I need to be told how to jump across gaps and climb up ladders? It was one of the scenes that ME fans have been waiting for, and intermingling this with the game mechanics tutorial greatly cheapens it and pulls you out of the situation entirely.
- The battle in London was just a shadow of what it should have been: The cutscene preceding it showed how it could have been done, with Sword fleet cutting through the relay and showing all the different fleets attacking the Reapers (which genuinely appeared to be startled a bit, I felt, which just added to the gravity of the scene). That scene felt like the galaxy uniting. On the ground, though, it was just Shepard with his squad of two crawling through the ruins, pretty much like it has always been: This was not supposed to be a small infiltration quest like all the other missions in the game, this was supposed to be the final uprising of the entire galaxy. It felt like my trusted "army of three" won this, rather than the combined forces of the galaxy. That was a huge missed opportunity and would have also provided a good contrast to the final scenes, which Shepard had to face alone.
- The Tali face-reveal scene was… discussable. Now, I certainly don't adore this character as much as others on here, but even just from reading these forums, it was obvious that people cared a whole lot about Tali. The simplistic photoshop job was bound to hurt people, and I can't happen to see any merit in the way it was presented. Referring back to my top comment, this was an instance of Bioware taking away the ability to imagine your own details for the worse.
- I was severely disappointed by the "Morinth" Banshee. I understand that only few people picked her over Samara in ME2, but again, why did Bioware need to close off a potential for personal story-shaping here by invariably making her an "Easter egg" Banshee in the London mission? I don't see any merit here, other than risking to hurt people who cared about the character: If you don't know anything to do with the character, just leave it out, but don't invalidate people's own stories for no reason.
- The EMS system: This could have worked well if it was an externalization of actual "achievement" throughout the game. As an example, if my EMS rises because I did something within the game mechanics, like playing a mission in a certain way, this could have worked. EMS never felt like something externalizing your success, it just felt like a meaningless resource you had to keep an eye on (I play a lot of multiplayer anyway, invalidating EMS entirely).
- The "overheard" side-quests: I fully understand the reasoning behind this style of presentation (less dialog means they are more economic to add), but it feels incredibly weird to basically jump into your spaceship, go to the other side of the galaxy, scan some planets there, then return to the Citadel, just because you overheard someone complaining they needed some replacement parts. It would have been infinitely better to simply make these characters "clickable" and have them actually ask Shepard to help them. It's just a little thing that breaks immersion badly for me.
- The lack of Harbinger: I'm only naming this tentatively, because I have a gut feeling that he might reappear in a DLC eventually. However, even if Harbinger turned out not to be all too special amongst Reapers, other than being the very first, his role was huge in ME2, and there hasn't been any following up on this. Deciding not to make Harbinger the main antagonist does not mean he shouldn't appear at all anymore. I mean, didn't we actually earn the "attention of those infinitely our greater"? At least a little nod to ME2 players (I don't really count the final beam run as a "Harbinger appearance", because his role could have been replaced by any other Sovereign-class Reaper without any difference in story development or overall feel, at least for me).
- The "Scanning and Reaper evasion" mini game: It's a cute idea, but I'm ambivalent about it. Most of the time, evading the Reapers just feels like a chore, where you constantly exit and reenter a system just to get a quick scan of that last area you're missing. I'd say that if you decide to put a mini game in, said mini game should be fun in its own right. Maybe the Reaper evasion could have been improved by having another mechanic, like using your Reaper IFF or something to distract the Reapers, etc… Right now, I don't see any merit in it, other than giving you a vague sense of annoyance, rather then fear of the Reapers.
Now, I don't mean this list to be exhaustive or anything, but then again, the things irking me most when I only think about it quickly are probably more salient than some nitpicks I would come up with after hours :-)
Also, I prefer to end on a more positive note, so I wanted to include a list of small things I actually did like about the writing and presentation.
- Tiny (overheard) side-stories, like the PTSD-suffering Asari in the hospital, the group of soldiers in Purgatory or the teenage refugee with the Turian clerk in the camp on the Citadel – Those added a lot of depth to the game for me and truly made it feel as if stuff was happening even without Shepard looking. Especially finding Charr's (that dead Krogan in the Rachni mission) last letter to his Asari girlfriend and handing it over, well, that was one of the most emotional moments in the game for me, even though it was probably just what one single writer found interesting to add – Whoever that guy was, thank you!
- The way in which the crew interact with each other, both on missions and on the ship: I enjoy the little banter a great deal, and I always found it odd in ME2 that everybody seemed to stay in their room at all times. I recently played the Eden Prime mission from "From Ashes" again with a Shepard who has a "Colonist" background, and when some squad mate said something about the colonists on Eden Prime needing to rebuild in the future, Shepard replied this didn't happen on Mindoir, referencing that background – Finding such little items in your x-th play-through is certainly a sign of a lot of consideration having gone into the writing.
- I absolutely love how the final scene in the Omega DLC is defined, e.g. not by picking a dialog wheel choice right before it, but by your characterization throughout the entire DLC – I've been missing such a form of more "organic" decision making in ME. I always found it odd how little influence insanely evil (or insanely nice) choices had on NPCs: As an example, I'd expect some of the crew to be disgusted when Shepard executes Shiala in ME1 or murders Samara's daughter in ME3. If there's one wish I could make for ME4, it's something like this, more implicit opportunities to affect the story and characters, rather than only explicit wheel choices and interrupts.
- The settings: The Citadel, the missions, all the maps are stunningly beautiful and feel alive. Well, even the multiplayer maps have such astonishing detail, it's really a far cry from the rather sterile environments in ME1. I can only hope that future ME content will manage to keep up with this quality!
I have fallen more into the Puzzle Theory camp, and I'm hanging on there by a thread.
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