Something I've been wondering.
With Mass Effect greatly inspired by Star Wars (among other sci fi media)...
Why did everyone seem to hate so much on this character because he had a sword...ridiculing his character with things like "space ninja".
It's clear that his character was a nod to Star Wars sith-like characters. Wielding a sword (lightsaber) and using biotics (the force).
Something I've been wondering.
With Mass Effect greatly inspired by Star Wars (among other sci fi media)...
Why did everyone seem to hate so much on this character because he had a sword...ridiculing his character with things like "space ninja".
It's clear that his character was a nod to Star Wars sith-like characters.
Character with sword = Sith? I don't think that's the case, maybe if it was a laser sword or Kai Leng fought upright instead of that crouch he does that's reminiscent of Japanese animation. There's a lot of reasons to dislike the character, the sword is just the tip of it. It was a bad design decision from almost any perspective, be it from combat mechanics to how it fits in the setting.
Character with sword = Sith? I don't think that's the case, maybe if it was a laser sword or Kai Leng fought upright instead of that crouch he does that's reminiscent of Japanese animation. There's a lot of reasons to dislike the character, the sword is just the tip of it. It was a bad design decision from almost any perspective, be it from combat mechanics to how it fits in the setting.
I never said any character with a sword = Sith.
I'm just saying that an enemy character wielding a sword and using Biotics is very reminiscent of a star wars character wielding a lightsaber and using the force.
Though I do understand what you mean about the Japanese type animation.
I can name so many Star Wars references in Mass Effect that it IS funny... Which is fine by me sense Star Wars is where my heart is, but Mass Effect is runner up.
Anyway, I believe Kai Leng is part Japanese. And he seemed okay in the books, but not in Mass Effect 3. From my point of view.
I never said any character with a sword = Sith.
That's exactly what you said, immediately calling Leng a 'Sith-like' character, and immediately stating that a sword is similar to a lightsaber.
That's exactly what you said, immediately calling Leng a 'Sith-like' character, and immediately stating that a sword is similar to a lightsaber.
Please quote me where I said "Any character with a sword = Sith" exactly.
I said he was a nod to Sith-like characters because of the similarities. (which I shouldn't have said was clear, and instead just my opinion)...but I never once stated any character with a sword = Sith.
Something I've been wondering.
With Mass Effect greatly inspired by Star Wars (among other sci fi media)...
Why did everyone seem to hate so much on this character because he had a sword...ridiculing his character with things like "space ninja".
It's clear that his character was a nod to Star Wars sith-like characters. Wielding a sword (lightsaber) and using biotics (the force).
People didn't hate the aesthetics. They hated the fact you could crush him with minimal effort, yet he still survived thanks to plot armor and proceeded to mock you as "weak".
It's clear that his character was a nod to Star Wars sith-like characters. Wielding a sword (lightsaber) and using biotics (the force).
Right here.
You equated the sword and the biotics as interpretations for lightsaber and the Force, and showed them as inherent elements of sith-like characters.
People didn't hate the aesthetics. They hated the fact you could crush him with minimal effort, yet he still survived thanks to plot armor and proceeded to mock you as "weak".
This is definitely one of the reasons I disliked it. I never felt like I was getting beaten, I felt like the story just FORCED me to get beaten. This is likely largely due to the clashing of gameplay elements. Mass Effect is clearly a shooter and then they throw in this space samurai. The entire fight, for me, was just shooting his plotarmor biotic recharging bubble and staying out of cover for the air support that conveniently leaves the moment Leng gets his space juice back.
Know what was a more difficult boss battle? Citadel DLC. The final battle with clone Shepard was actually a bit of a challenge depending on your difficulty setting. He was running around, cloaking (depends on class I know) and managed to trap me into a CQC scene many times. I actually had to use medigel for a change.
No such challenge was ever had with Leng, imo. Not even whe dealing with the phantom squad
Another thing I disliked was the complete loss of potential. Leng was a bit of a badass in the novels. They could had done so much more with the character. They could have actually made me hate the character instead of forcing on this hamfisted attempt of creating this arch nemesis clown.
I felt like the character deserved to be far more challenging than he was. Maybe also have him take your LI or one of your squad hostage or something. For a racist he sure had a tame tongue considering my Shepard was cruising around with two aliens all the time.
I didn't like he's called an assassin when he clearly isn't one. He's just a regular Cerberus trooper with a sword
I kind of thought that Mass Effect borrowed more from Farcry while Kai Leng was more of a wanna be cheesy type nod to the Assassin Creed series. But for me he is the type of character that should of just stayed in the comics since his in game implementation of trying to be Shepard 2.0 didn't translate to well for my taste.
The sword actually isn't a bad weapon, all things considered. In an era where everybody(and their little dog) comes equipped with personal barrier generator that deflects projectiles shot at you at the speed of light, a weapon that easily bypasses the said generator might actually be a great advantage to the user.
Like others have said, it was plot armor that made Kai Leng be hated so much. That and he never felt dangerous in the first place. He was supposed to be this super assassin dude(I never read any book), but he felt like an elementary school bully that never grew up. I never felt anger or hate for him. I wanted to feel pity for him... I didn't even felt that. And when supposedly a big villain can't evoke any feelings whatsoever in me, I consider him a proper failure. Truly, a waste of Troy Baker's talents.
There's a reason fandom refers to him as Kai Lame.
My problem with Kai Leng is that IN THE GAME he was given almost no background whatsoever and we were expected to be overawed by him.
I think that books that are produced as cannonical alongside the main media can be good for fleshing the universe out. They should never be required to be read by every participant in order to understand what is going on in the visual media, because the vast majority of the population isn't interested in that level of commitment.
For the record, I have no idea who Grayson is/was. The couple of lines in ME3 that refer to him/her annoyed me as well, because we were clearly meant to know what they were referring to.
It's the same problem people have with movies that are poorly adapted from books. If not done right, only the people who have read the book know what is going on, and everyone else left to try and muddle through because someone in the adaptive process decided to be lazy.
@Nero
While I agree with your general sentiment I wouldn't apply it to Mass Effect. Kai Leng in the game is drastically different from what he was in the novel. You get adequate enough backstory about the character in the game when you take with it the context of how much the character has changed. Nothing that happens in the books is really needed to be known in this case. They barely used the subject material from the books anyway. He wasn't even a space ninja cyborg in the novels.
As for Grayson, again, nothing was really done with the character in the game for you to need to know the novel. You're not missing out on anything. The only reference Grayson had to the plot was the fact that those experiments taught Cerberus about the importance of Dragon's Teeth. Something Miranda's faddah is quick to mention right after bringing up Grayson. It was more a cameo than anything else. You don't need knowledge of the novels to understand it.
I didn't mind him. I liked being put up against Cerberus' best, having him kill one of my ME2 squadmates, and him email trolling me to ****** me off. So killing him put a smile to my face. Wasn't asking for anything more then that. I guess if anyone was pro Cerberus, they'd wish he had more braincells, had good opinions, and was more then just a dude we fought. But I didn't care.
@Nero
While I agree with your general sentiment I wouldn't apply it to Mass Effect. Kai Leng in the game is drastically different from what he was in the novel. You get adequate enough backstory about the character in the game when you take with it the context of how much the character has changed. Nothing that happens in the books is really needed to be known in this case. They barely used the subject material from the books anyway. He wasn't even a space ninja cyborg in the novels.
As for Grayson, again, nothing was really done with the character in the game for you to need to know the novel. You're not missing out on anything. The only reference Grayson had to the plot was the fact that those experiments taught Cerberus about the importance of Dragon's Teeth. Something Miranda's faddah is quick to mention right after bringing up Grayson. It was more a cameo than anything else. You don't need knowledge of the novels to understand it.
Except that these things aren't done with any subtlety in ME3. They are meant to be knowledge that the player has vs. the character. You don't bring up something like a Grayson with NO explanation in the main game where so many little details HAVE been spelled out. It's an example of being done poorly.
Take the Marvel films as an example of this same type of thing done well. All of the movies in the MCU are full of references to other Marvel properties and are mostly done in the background where rabid fanboys will notice them and get excited, but they go unnoticed by people who know nothing of the Marvel COMIC Universe and their experience is not cheapened by not knowing. It's the difference between "Wait, did I just see. . . ?" and "Ho, HO, did you see what we just did there? Aren't we cool?". The first is cool, the second isn't.
An example in ME3 of this sort of thing being treated properly would be Gavin Archer. If the player didn't play Overlord, he INTRODUCES himself and gives a bit of an explanation of what he previously did for Cerberus. If the player DID play Overlord, then you can go straight to regular interaction. Kai Leng and Grayson both deserved that kind of introduction. Leng sort of gets it from Anderson, but then he refers to Grayson as a point of comparison as if he's a known quantity when he isn't. Annoying.
Except that these things aren't done with any subtlety in ME3. They are meant to be knowledge that the player has vs. the character. You don't bring up something like a Grayson with NO explanation in the main game where so many little details HAVE been spelled out. It's an example of being done poorly.
The only thing relevant to Grayson in the story, however, WAS explained to you. You didn't need to know anything else to understand it because Mr. Lawson explicitly told you what relevance it had to the situation.
An example in ME3 of this sort of thing being treated properly would be Gavin Archer. If the player didn't play Overlord, he INTRODUCES himself and gives a bit of an explanation of what he previously did for Cerberus. If the player DID play Overlord, then you can go straight to regular interaction. Kai Leng and Grayson both deserved that kind of introduction. Leng sort of gets it from Anderson, but then he refers to Grayson as a point of comparison as if he's a known quantity when he isn't. Annoying.
But again Leng is so different from the novel that it doesn't matter either way. Anderson tells you all you need to know, considering they the completely failed to utilize the character in any meaningful way. Nothing about him from the novels holds any relevance to the story because the two characters so very different from one another. Hence why I said that Anderson gives you all you need to know in regards to all thats needed to know to understand the story. You're not missing out on anything here.
I posted this in another thread.
I think part of the reason why Kai Leng comes out as weak is because of his design as an enemy. He has health and shields - protection layers associated with Marauders and Centurions but not boss-type characters which have armor and shields. Even Phantoms have barriers, not shields. That alone makes player to view him as just another mook.
Then it comes to the actual fight. Leng goes after the closest person he sees which usually are the squadmates leaving you to shoot him freely. That can lead to amusing situations such as this. He is also weak in the very combat style he is supposed to be unbeatable in - melee. Just look at this - Link. His shields are tough against weapon fire but the devs probably didn't consider the damage that tech explosions can do. Overload + Warp and he needs to recharge. That practically removes all the challenge from the fight.
I'd make him more challenging by addressing these points. I'd make his protection layers armor & barrier like Banshees (also make the barrier stronger so it doesn't come to the "recharge point" after one tech explosion, more like 3), give him Banshee bubble of denial, give him cloak that he will use during the fight, make him use his palm gun more often and have him focus on Shepard.
I think the sword was the least of Kai Leng's issues. If that was the only gripe people had about the character, I don't think he would be the focus of so much fan hate/mockery. When ME1 first released people poked fun at Saren's Green Goblin glider as much as they did Kai Leng's sword, but because they didn't have much to complain about beyond that Saren was a much more popular character.
Kai Leng was the like the perfect storm of all that could possibly go wrong for the devs in creating an interesting villain.
He has very little dialogue in the game, and what dialogue he does have is very poorly written.
He is given a ridiculous character design that makes it hard to take him seriously. He looks like a ninja from some comic book series. On that note I think the series has consistently stumbled whenever it veered away from hard sci fi into a comic book aesthetic.
His boss fights are not well designed and underwhelm.
That email
On top of all that people were also frustrated that Shepard and the squadmates are effectively passive spectators while Kai Leng kills Thane. While I think Bioware had the right idea in killing Thane, I do think that scene should have been written slightly differently to give Shepard & the squadmates some distraction that explained why they couldn't intervene. Kai Leng should have had back up from Cerberus troops. Having Shepard and the two squadmates dealing with the reinforcements while Thane fights Kai Leng would have worked as an easy explanation for why they couldn't save Thane.
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