431 réponses à ce sujet

[DarthLaxian]

I'm not sure these are weird, but a few things with ME2:

 

1) I thought ME2 had the worst, M!Shep romances of the series, and downright sexist at times

 

Not going to lie- ME2 gives my the the squicky feeling in a number of cases. Not just because of the aescetics, but because of how many of them revolved around 'fixing' the LI via banging, and how their happiness revolves around Shepherd. Tali is the least squick- except in so much that a ship commander risking the life and limb of a subordinate with a case of hero-worship is not only disturbing and terrible leadership in a story supposedly about how great a leader Shepherd is, but totally unnecessary for an emotional relationship. The sexualization of her space suit (why, Bioware, why?) into something almost bondage-like with hoops and emphasis on Dem Curves was, sadly, one of the more subtle and respectful treatments of female squadmates. But at least Tali seems happy-ish if she doesn't get Shepherd. Miranda 'my those camera shots aren't sexual harassment' Lawson is explicitly 'only really smiling' if she gets to bang the Shep. Clearly the secret to fulfillment and happiness is correcting a lack of Vitamin D. But compared to Jack- a clearly traumatized victim who needs professional therapy, an emotional dependence that's well beyond 'unhealthy,' and the fact that the only character arc in the game that ends with her healing as a person is the one where she's banged...

 

2) Why did we kill a rape-baby without question?

 

Seriously- why did we kill it, and not capture it? At the time of ME2, the Baby Reaper is killed solely on the basis of racism and an inherency argument: it's a Reaper, ergo it's evil. It's creation is an abomination- but the Reaper itself is utterly innocent in that. It is, in fact, a better moral position than Shepherd's crew, as at the time of it's murder it had committed no sin. It wasn't responsible for the abductions, it wasn't enabling or directing them, it wasn't killing people. It didn't even try to attack us, except in self-defense.

 

Destroying or preserving the Collector Base was a pretty stupid decision in the first place, for all the hundreds of pages of forum chatter it generated. The real question should have been 'do we save or kill the Baby Reaper'? Make something good out of it, or abort it because of a racist inherency argument?

 

 

3) The team's 'edgy' nature were totally downplayed to be player and Paragon-friendly.

 

ME2 tried to be edgy with the squad, but it's actually amazingly hard to pin anything particularly bad on them- or find an opportunity to contest them, even when their pasts are brought up. The entire buddy-buddy angle of the story overshadows the real reasons even a nominally Paragon Shepherd should take issue with others, or vice versa. Companions are cast in the most sympathetic light possible, often to absurd lengths.

 

Mordin is a genocidal warcriminal. No, really- he's the only member of the cast who really warrants the title, because he's directly involved in the ongoing and slow-motion extinction of the Krogan by mass sterilization (or, if you prefer, involuntary apbortions). Not only was he involved in supporting this policy- he helped re-inforce it when it could have ended naturally. No one in the crew, not even Paragon Shepherd who's killed for less, takes issue with him. Mordin one of the most popular characters in the show.

 

Garrus is the epitome of a buddy- even though he walks-back on Shepherd's ME1 mentorship and quits his job in order to kill people on Omega to feel good about himself. That's... really what he did, considering he had no game-plan. He wasn't making things better- he wasn't bringing any sense of law and order- he wasn't even producing results. He was just killing people in a never ending gang war. This is never treated as a Bad Thing.

 

Jack is the ultimate woobie. Every single criminal act we hear associated with her has a heavy-handed and extremely sympathetic backstory to justify her, to the point that it's impossible to actually say she ever hurt an innocent person, or anyone who didn't have it coming. There's not one act in her past in which she is presented as utterly in the wrong.

 

Samara is willing and intending to blow up a police station in the very mission we recruit her in, and this is never treated as a reason we should NOT want to recruit her. In fact, the entire teleological nature of the Justicar Code- a code that is terrifying in its absolutism, and which the brief lore that there is would indicate would condemn even a Paragon Shepherd, is never condemned or treated as a cause for concern to any Paragon Shepherd. ME3 goes even further in having the Justicars take back the entire 'no tolerance for evil' policy that was their defining part in ME2. (We also never dabble into the issue that Samara effectively sells herself into slavery for the first person to come her way so that she can try and get out of conspiring to blow up a police station.)

 

Thane is a professional murderer and child-soldier raised to advance a xeno-nationalist cause. Not only is this not much equated to Cerberus, but it's never treated as much of a bad thing.

 

Tali has a very sympathetic and frequent emotional appeal of... consistently failing to be a strong leader who depends on someone else to save her and protect her interests every time we see her. This might not have been a Paragon-specific thing, but Renegades should definitely have been able to advocate tough love here.

 

 

And so on. I think I've made my point.

 

While some of your points are reasonable, most are not - for example the genophage: It on itself would not (I repeat: NOT!) destroy the Krogan race (it just reduced their fertility level to that of other people (if you take into consideration their long lives...a Krogan can have tons of children in his/her long life - even if more than half are stillborn that is still more than what most human parents have today as humans after all don't life for a thousand years!!!), it's that and their chosen lifestyle (almost all of them are mercenaries and while they can take quite a beating, the mortality rate at that occupation is still quite high and it leaves you little time to raise kids!) and the fact that they only have their home world (which is a destroyed hellhole no sane person would really want to stay at for a long time IMHO) as a planet (if they had an undamaged world and didn't all strive to be the best fighters in the galaxy, they'd survive without problems...sure, the genophage is morally wrong, but it was better than most alternatives (wiping them out is direct genocide which is worse and letting them continue like before would have assured that someday people couldn't contain them anymore (after all the Krogan where uplifted especially because of the traits I have mentioned: The ability to replace their numbers quickly, their prowess at fighting and the drive to wipe out their enemies at all costs (hell, they even developed a procedure that MADE (as in artificially created!) biotics (the only other race who can claim they did something like that is the Protheans when they made the Asari!) - yes, it had a high mortality rate, but that didn't matter while they were reproducing like rabbits and the added biotics made a Krogan battlemaster even more deadly in combat than a regular Krogan already is, so in their eyes it was worth it (hell, they probably had a lot of volunteers for the procedure!) because natural biotics are rare (with the exception of the Asari who were created to be natural biotics!)) which would mean everybody else would either be wiped out - or become slaves of Krogan overlords!

 

That's only one example where your arguments are pretty superficial and only show one side while there's several others you aren't mentioning!

 

The ME3 is better with pretty much everyone in that can be dead in ME2 dead. The cases where it's outright worse are... vanishingly rare.

 

Wrex dead gives Wreave, who isn't so much 'better' but makes a great foil and alternative consideration for the Genophage plot without abandoning Wrex's entire ME2 rational of needing cultural reformation based on something other than 'hope.'

Mordin gets an exceptional, and distinct, replacement, worth seeing for a different and novel view on the Krogan.

Jack makes Grissom Academy go from a rather trite 'let's humiliate Cerberus' vengeance-fest to glorify Jack to using her students as actual characters in one of the best short-story arcs of the entire game, a story of standing up to overwhelming odds and the tragedies of the Reaper War.

Garrus is one of the few cases where it's better when he's alive- simply because there's nothing when he's not. Garrus is utterly plot irrelevant, and it shows, especially when no Turian complains or raises a concern about their Reaper-expert quitting yet another job and leaving in the middle of a Reaper invasion.

Kasumi's death makes way for one of the more interesting Moral Decisions in Mass Effect: a real-time moral choice between saving the person infront of you or saving a greater number of people elsewhere.

No Tali frees up the members of the Admiralty board to be further fleshed and developed as characters, and used as something else than stupid-stick targets for the sake of making Tali look better.

No Legion greatly reduces the heavy-handed white-wash of the Geth, which allows at least a partial vindication of the Quarian fears and reasonings.

No Thane radically increases the appearance of competence, and thus credibility, of Kai Leng.

No Samara gives an actual moral choice in the Ardat Yakshi mission of fulfilling your mission or not.

No Miranda gives an actual moral choice in dealing with Miranda's father, and gives the rest of the Alliance something to take credit for in tracking him down.

No Jacob... makes a FemShep who romanced him a lot better.

 

The only characters who I would always spare in ME2, all the time, are Grunt and Garrus. Secondaries are Zaeed and Jacob (if not romanced). Otherwise, pretty much all other killable characters make the story better with their absence, not worse.

 

What have you been smoking? (Pardon my french, but I think it's exactly the other way round - the world of Mass Effect loses a lot of flavor if all your ME2 companions are dead, if you killed Wrex etc. - sure it shows another side to all the raised issues (which is great) but how can you even want to play a game where a lot of the most interesting characters are dead, more so as you are the one who has the power to keep them alive in the first place?)

 

ps: I would like some of whatever you ingested/smoked (just to see the world like you do - must be an interesting experience (and I really mean that, fresh perspectives are always pretty nifty to explore!))

 

 

Here are a few more:

 

• Mako was awesome
• The side missions in ME3 were the best, due to tying into the actual plot. ME1 followed, ME2 side missions were weak
• I liked exploring the uncharted planets in ME1
• Tali is a mediocre and overrated character
• Garrus wasn't a great character till ME3
• The multiplayer is actually bloody awesome

 

 

I agree on the Mako (don't know why people hate it so much - sure you had to be a little careful with it, but in RL you are not driving like a damned nutcase either (and not only because you'd have to constantly get new vehicles if you did!), so why is that so hard in a game?) etc.

 

I don't agree on Tali though (she's one of my faves after all...Garrus though? - I don't much care for him at all (after ME1, where it was cool that he followed your lead etc. - what he did with that in ME2 though...come on, Omega and fighting gangs (without having any plan what so ever...I mean Aria probably only didn't wipe him out as he kept the mercenaries weak so they couldn't try to push her out of power and because he amused her (for any sort of plan for Omega he would have had to work with her IMHO!)) -.- he should have tried for SPECTRE and not gone there IMHO, even against his father's objections!)

 

MP? - Might be fun, I wouldn't know (I prefer MP to be against other players, so I don't play ME-MP...I prefer Battlefield 4 (love driving tanks - or blowing them to bits!))

 

1. I think that Arrival is a great DLC.

 

2. I deeply care for all of the ME2 squad, and unfortunately can't say the same for most of the ME1 and 3 squads.

 

3. I really, really wanted a happy ending in ME3, where Shepard and (surviving) crew go off into a glorious sunset, leaving behind only Reaper corpses and warm fuzzy feelings.

 

I fully agree on numbers 1 and 3 - though I care for my ME1 and 2 squad (ok, I don't like Jacob (he's just so damned boring!) and Ashley - but she's my Virmire sacrifice anyway, I have more use for a biotic (Kaidan) than for a  - pure - soldier (after all it's only for gameplay reasons that biotics can't do everything that soldiers and tech-characters can do, as they are normal beings (who can after all learn all the things other people can) who by chance have been given biotics in addition to whatever natural abilities etc. they have (a biotic can still be a brilliant scientist for example or a crack shot with any type of gun etc. etc.)...sorry Ash (oh and I don't like xenophobes all that much either!)) equally (still love them in ME3, even if the game is lackluster IMHO - though I didn't care for James (he wasn't as bland as Jacob - but he wasn't really interesting either...could have been if they gave us some more background on him etc. etc.) much though and disliked that we couldn't pick up more of the people from ME2...I'd have loved to have Miranda back for example and Samara etc.)

 

So, I am finished (damned that took forever ^^)

 

greetings LAX

[Kamilozo3]

From the top of my head:

- Concentrating on Sovereign;

- Kaidan > Ashley;

- Not hugging Tali (though I save before the conversation, not take the interrupt, end conversation, save and reload the pre-conversation save, take the interrupt and then reload the after-conversation save);

- Understanding Mordin's opinion on Genophage;

- Mako in ME1 was okay;

- Liking the Hanoi Tower puzzle on Noveria.

[Dean_the_Young]

While some of your points are reasonable, most are not - for example the genophage: It on itself would not (I repeat: NOT!) destroy the Krogan race (it just reduced their fertility level to that of other people (if you take into consideration their long lives...a Krogan can have tons of children in his/her long life - even if more than half are stillborn that is still more than what most human parents have today as humans after all don't life for a thousand years!!!), it's that and their chosen lifestyle (almost all of them are mercenaries and while they can take quite a beating, the mortality rate at that occupation is still quite high and it leaves you little time to raise kids!) and the fact that they only have their home world (which is a destroyed hellhole no sane person would really want to stay at for a long time IMHO) as a planet (if they had an undamaged world and didn't all strive to be the best fighters in the galaxy, they'd survive without problems...sure, the genophage is morally wrong, but it was better than most alternatives (wiping them out is direct genocide which is worse and letting them continue like before would have assured that someday people couldn't contain them anymore (after all the Krogan where uplifted especially because of the traits I have mentioned: The ability to replace their numbers quickly, their prowess at fighting and the drive to wipe out their enemies at all costs (hell, they even developed a procedure that MADE (as in artificially created!) biotics (the only other race who can claim they did something like that is the Protheans when they made the Asari!) - yes, it had a high mortality rate, but that didn't matter while they were reproducing like rabbits and the added biotics made a Krogan battlemaster even more deadly in combat than a regular Krogan already is, so in their eyes it was worth it (hell, they probably had a lot of volunteers for the procedure!) because natural biotics are rare (with the exception of the Asari who were created to be natural biotics!)) which would mean everybody else would either be wiped out - or become slaves of Krogan overlords!

 

That's only one example where your arguments are pretty superficial and only show one side while there's several others you aren't mentioning!

 

 

Cool beans, bro. Kind of missing the forest for the trees- by running straight into them- but cool beans.

 

Mass Effect waffled constantly on whether the Krogan were on the way to their end or not. It gave us no numbered statistics- but a number of competing claims, and Wrex's character arc in all three games is heavily tied to the need to save and ensure the survival of the Krogan: first the crisis point with Saren, then by focusing on breeding, and then the Cure. If you want to take the Mordin position, feel free- but he's hardly the only authority figure, hardly unbiased, and hardly in unison with the rest of the authorities.

 

And it really, really doesn't change that what he's doing is a genocidal warcrime. You may feel it's a morally justified genocide... but that's just pragmitism, not principles, unless your principles include genocide. Which, and this is important here, Paragon Shepherd never espouses. And can, only lightly, berate Mordin for.

 

 

 

 

What have you been smoking? (Pardon my french, but I think it's exactly the other way round - the world of Mass Effect loses a lot of flavor if all your ME2 companions are dead, if you killed Wrex etc. - sure it shows another side to all the raised issues (which is great) but how can you even want to play a game where a lot of the most interesting characters are dead, more so as you are the one who has the power to keep them alive in the first place?)

 

 

Most of the killable characters aren't particularly interesting in ME3- in large part because most of them are reduced to mere charicatures of their already shallow depth from ME2. A number either have no character arc progression for self-development and improvement (Kasumi, Grunt, Zaeed, Tali, Garrus, who all serve as foils or exposition agents for other groups), repeat prior character progression (Miranda, Thane), or simply skip character development altogether to be what the writers wanted them to be even at the cost of defying previous characterization (Legion, Jack, Jacob, Wrex, Samara: all of whom go back on previously stated positions or, in Jack's case, goes to an entirely random direction).

 

About the only two killable characters in ME3 who have an actually dynamic character arc with properly developed progression and change between ME2 and ME3, rather than just skipping around, are Mordin (whose genophage position is in line with his arc as a doubter in ME2) and the Virmire Survivor (whose Shepherd friction started in ME2).

 

One of the large drawbacks of ME2's structure was that characterization was spread wide but relatively shallow. Character arcs, and characterization, in ME2 are among the most limited and shortest in any Bioware game- and stunted by the skimpiest inter-companion interactions in modern Bioware history. While the breadth means you'll find some archetype you'll like, most of their very word budgets were dominated in introductory conversations and character missions that only sometimes supported their character arcs. It's telling that a single DLC in ME3 had more ME2 companion interaction than all of ME2.

 

 

 

ps: I would like some of whatever you ingested/smoked (just to see the world like you do - must be an interesting experience (and I really mean that, fresh perspectives are always pretty nifty to explore!))

 

 

I recommend a heavy dose of reading good fiction, particularly those with more than superficial character development.

 

I can recommend some children's stories if that's more on your level. My Little Ponies: Friendship is Magic has more nuanced and better structured character arcs and gradual development than most of ME2.

[Dean_the_Young]

You don't need to be physically near reaper tech for the entire duration to become indoctrinated. You just need to be near it enough so the process of indoctrination can be started. Once the process is happening, it will continue to happen even when you're not near the reaper tech. We saw this happening with Paul Grayson in the Mass Effect books.
 

 

Paul grayson had Reaper tech implanted within him. He was basically a Saren bot.

[von uber]

Liara is actually a good character in ME2/3 (ME1 she is pretty terrible, to be honest) and by the end of 3 is a much more believable person. She is also probably the best romance option for FemShep (which says more about the romances available I think).

[themikefest]

What have you been smoking? (Pardon my french, but I think it's exactly the other way round - the world of Mass Effect loses a lot of flavor if all your ME2 companions are dead, if you killed Wrex etc. - sure it shows another side to all the raised issues (which is great) but how can you even want to play a game where a lot of the most interesting characters are dead, more so as you are the one who has the power to keep them alive in the first place?)

It adds replay value for me anyways. I've done a few playthroughs having all ME2 and ME1 characters killed. I have done a couple of playthroughs with everyone alive. So I don't see a problem having a playthrough with all characters dead. Here's a playthrough having everyone that can be dead.
 

[Dean_the_Young]

Liara is actually a good character in ME2/3 (ME1 she is pretty terrible, to be honest) and by the end of 3 is a much more believable person. She is also probably the best romance option for FemShep (which says more about the romances available I think).

 

Blegh!!!!

 

Well, not that much. My issue with Liara is less about her character at any one time, and more about how Bioware did less character development and more constant re-invention of her personality and skill sets. Liara goes from the archetypical innocent naive archeologist to bloody-minded revenge-obsessed small-time intelligence broker to superb galactic crime lord in... what, three years?

 

Plus, that creepy stalker crush. Cute if you were into her. Very, very creepy if you most emphatically not in ME1.

 

(Yes, I know in ME1 it was a bug- but heebeejeebies ME2 didn't make it any better.)

[TehMonkeyMan]

I never liked Tali, Liara or EDI(In ME3)
I actually really liked James Vega
Mass Effect 2 had the best setting
Id rather have another game set in the Terminus Systems as a mercenary instead of being a Pathfinder in Andromeda
ME3 combat was the best in the series, but still needs work
I prefer the sleek, slightly sexual armors ofer the big, bulky over designed armors of ME3
The most interesting characters in the series were the Non-military ones like Grunt, Wrex, Jack, Zaeed and Thane
Jack was the best LI

[The Elder King]

Blegh!!!!
 
Well, not that much. My issue with Liara is less about her character at any one time, and more about how Bioware did less character development and more constant re-invention of her personality and skill sets. Liara goes from the archetypical innocent naive archeologist to bloody-minded revenge-obsessed small-time intelligence broker to superb galactic crime lord in... what, three years?
 
Plus, that creepy stalker crush. Cute if you were into her. Very, very creepy if you most emphatically not in ME1.
 
(Yes, I know in ME1 it was a bug- but heebeejeebies ME2 didn't make it any better.)

ME2-ME3 forced Garrus, Liara and Tali's friendship on Shep.
Though I mantain My opinion that Liara's final dialogue with Shep, when Not romanced, is very ambiguos.

[von uber]

As i said, it's her me1 personality that is the issue, not me2/3.

[(Disgusted noise.)]

So did asari, and turians, and salarians, even vorcha, even former Shepard's soldier, who was quite human. Strange argument, really.

 

Yeah, well, my Shepard shot all of them too, with the exception of Kaidan.

[Decepticon Leader Sully]

Meh i liked Liara more as a side character. she was dull honestly i have romanced anyone else but that hint about something special in 3 turned out to be a lie. Ooooh dialogue.

Garrus got to be more fun Tali. well i always liked her.. just wish she got a beter look in the end 3 fukin games and oh look a stock photo. im just glad she didnt turn out to be Dogs playing poker.

Wrex well he was cool. and well i chose Ash because i had Liara as my Biotic.. nuff said. 

[The Elder King]

As i said, it's her me1 personality that is the issue, not me2/3.

My point has nothing to with her personality. I like Liara, Tali and Garrus as My Canon Shep's friends. I still don't like being forced in it.

[von uber]

My point has nothing to with her personality. I like Liara, Tali and Garrus as My Canon Shep's friends. I still don't like being forced in it.

Well you are forced to do a lot of things in mass effect. It's all one big illusion of choice.

[Dean_the_Young]

How does having relatable motivations and more complexity make those characters "overly sympathetic"? Their replacements are universally almost completely one dimensional, which isn't better at all. Xen's the only good one and it's because she's a recurring character who is shoehorned in rather than one created solely to fill a void in the narrative left by killing another. Possibly geth VI as well, but only because it arguably acts more like ME2 Legion and the geth than the awful, inexplicably derailed Pinocchio stand in, not because it's actually a good character in its own right.

Wreav is a krogan caricature who makes the genophage arc stupidly one sided. Wiks is solely there for the sake of having a salarian dissenter. Raan is okay, but is virtually interchangable with Tali on Rannoch apart from slightly different cutscenes (and her presence locking content). Dagg is interchangable with dozens of krogan NPCs. The rest are just lost content, some of which also get you inexplicably worse outcomes in some missions.

 

'Relatable motivations' isn't what makes most of the ME2 returning cast 'overly sympathetic'- hitting everyone around with the stupid/incompetent stick, flandardizing their opposition into even greater charicatures, and reserving the attribute of 'competence' for 'Shepard's gang' is what makes much of the returning ME2 cast 'overly sympathetic.' Especially with the characters involved in the Genophage and Rannoch arcs.

 

 

In the genophage Arc, Wrex discards his entire political rational of ME2, the reason and reasoning for why Krogan would listen and follow him, to embrace a policy that his entire ME1 character arc was built around contesting: that it wasn't the genophage that was killing the Krogan but their own short-sightedness, and that it wasn't a cure that would save them, but reform. His entire political basis for relevance in ME2, as the reformer, is based around breeding control: that his people don't like him, but will do what he says, because he controls the baby-makers. Wrex throws that all away, and nearly the galaxy, to focus on something that prior characterization had already decided wasn't needed, but would destroy his ability to bring about reforms.

 

To make this make sense, no one ever brings up either of these points ofthe first two games. Instead the game gives him Eve, biblical allusion and highly sympathetic person we're supposed to sympathize as a scarred mother because the writers can't decide if Krogans just want nuclear families (like the one kid and not the other 999 in the epilogue slide) or have more kids than can be counted. Eve, whose positions correspond with Wrex, is never challenged or contested or disproven in any way, and instead she plays the role of the enlightened mystic and reformer who everyone listens to because... she's enlightened and mystic and ****. There's also Mordin, who is likewise treated (and demonstrated) as a person of both ethicsand intelligence a caretaker and showed as a moral person and moral authority. Very good people agree with Wrex.

 

For Wrex's antagonist they give clearly unreasonable Salarian Dalatrass, who's antagonistic to a fan-favorite who all the other companions really, really like and approve of. The Dalatrass's position is consequently undermined at every time by because every foil or antagonistic Krogan is consequently browbeaten by Wrex or gets conveniently killed by a threshermaw, demonstrating Wrex's effective control and downplaying any divergent political opinions... even though Wrex and his reformers are the minority of the Krogan. Wreave, while a charicature, is actually the achetype for almost every other kind of politically active Krogan we've seen in the series not named 'Wrex,' who even Eve regards as a mutant and abnormality of Krogan-kind. The kind that exists in opposition to Wrex and Eve on what should be done, and the kind that if Wrex and Eve are successful will never have to listen to anything they say.

 

But, again, this is never brought up. Or happens, because the first time the Mass Effect series really gives consequences for a (Paragon) choice is arguably the very ending.. So the Dalatrass is unsubstantiated and unreasonable in hindsight as well as on first impression, which makes Wrex even more sympathetic by comparison. And Wrex's political control is never questioned, because apparently unlike in what Wrex snarked in ME1 all Krogan really ARE of a single mind and politics so long as it's a nice successful guy leading them.

 

 

 

Moving onto Rannoch...

 

Tali's entire narrative role in ME3 is to be the Only Sane Competent Woman on the Quarian side, despite the fact that her entire character arc in all three games involves Shepherd rescuing her from problems she can't solve herself, even as the Quarian faction as a whole is repeatedly pounded as the antagonistic faction responsible for the Rannoch crisis. Despite previous lore establishing Rannoch as the only planet that the Quarians could quickly settle and take refuge on for the purpose of emptying out their ships to use in the Reaper War.

 

The Quarian Admiralty Board, already a token position bunch in ME2, is beaten with the stupid stick to the point of being incompetent so that Tali can be on the right side of every action. Tali opposed the war, which is treated as the wrong thing in the narrative tone because the war made the Geth join the Reapers (even though the non-narrative timeline indicates the Geth were considering it and broke off negotiations first). The Migrant Fleet gets trapped in a single system because... no clear reason, so Tali heroically goes to disable the Dreadnaught... only to be rewarded by being nearly murdered by war-monger Admiral who's called in advance a trouble-maker by Reasonable Authority Figure Hacket. Who (the warmonger, not hackett) the player is encouraged to punch without consequence. Aunty whoever she was is basically a spineless sap, Xen is repeatedly cast in terms of being insane, and the only sympathetic Admiral in the game is Qwib-qwib, who what do you know agrees with Tali that the Quarians are at fault. And, of course, Tali wants peace.

 

Meanwhile, on the Geth side the Geth under Legion get such a sympathy stick that we have a literal mission of watching pro-Geth propoganda that casts the entire Geth-Quarian conflict in the most pro-Geth way possible... and utterly ignoring inconvenient things such as the 99% Quarian genocide, the centuries of xenophobic isolationism that murdered any and all efforts by organics to contact the Geth, the fact that the Geth stood by and gave no warning or assistance as their own kind went off to launch an unprovoked genocide campaign and attempt galactic extinction against everyone in the galaxy, and the fact that the Geth broke off negotiations with the desperate Quarians right as the Reapers were invading and the Quarians were at their most vulnerable to the Reaper armada. Please note, by the way, that these canonical facts are NOT points of narrative focus. Instead, we find Legion in a Reaper crucifix device, before he saves us from the Quarians trying to kill us, before he tells us how the Geth were 'scared' and that they couldn't be smart enough to not join the Reapers because of what the Quarians did, and how they've only wanted peace this whole time. And, to top off the fairy tale a bit more wiith a sudden onset of Pinnochio Syndrome, Legion reverses the entire premise of his ME2 character development mission, that the Geth want unity, not individuality, in order to take a Reaper-tech solution, rather than develop their own solution (which is why the majority of Geth refused to join the Reapers in the first place).

 

So that, and I kid you not, the Geth can be 'truly alive.' After most of the story so far has already adopted that position, with the primary dissenter on the Geth being alive being called insane.

 

 

 

So yeah. It's not just 'relatable motivations' or 'complexity.' The game tries, really, really hard to make you sympathize with certain characters over others.

[The Elder King]

Well you are forced to do a lot of things in mass effect. It's all one big illusion of choice.

Fair enough. My post was related to Dean Not finding the situation better in ME2, Which I can understand.

[PhroXenGold]

Thanks Dean. Those were basically the points I wanted to make, but you put them much better than I could've done

[Seboist]

Well you are forced to do a lot of things in mass effect. It's all one big illusion of choice.

 

Mass Effect is about the illusion of illusion of choice. Other than some instances of being able to avoid fights in ME1 or whether you get a soldier or sentinel squadmate in 3 from the VS choice, it's obvious as daylight that the faux-choices amount to jack beyond flavoring fluff. Which it made the ME3 ending reactions of "our choices didn't matter in the end!!" all the more lulzy.

 

Even early 90s action games like Contra: Hard Corps wipe the floor with the entire ME trilogy when it comes to divergent story branching and gameplay content.

[Celtic Latino]

01. I think ME1 is the best out of the trilogy. Best armor, character progression, missions...

02. I think ME2 is the worst of the series. Worst combat, RPG lite, way too many squadmates, sidequests outside the squaddie loyalty missions are meh

03. I think Garrus and Tali are overrated. Don't hate them, just don't think they're all that either.

04. I think Sheploo is ugly and overrated. I'd take an ugly custom character over him any day.

05. I prefer ME1's class and armor system and the fact you had to take a tech with appropriate levels to hack and unlock things

06. I hate Joker. Yes I said it. I think he's one of the most annoying characters in the series and wanted to throw him out the airlock at the start of ME2.

07. I find Ashley's 'religious' views refreshing (all she really does is believe in an afterlife and higher power but the things people assume...)

08. I liked the Mako in the first game

[MisterJB]

 Miranda 'my those camera shots aren't sexual harassment' Lawson is explicitly 'only really smiling' if she gets to bang the Shep. Clearly the secret to fulfillment and happiness is correcting a lack of Vitamin D.

I must disagree with you Dean, there is no indication, beyond Kasumi's line, that Miranda can only be happy if she is with Shepard.

 

Rather, romance (and even friendship) with Shepard broadens Miranda's horizons which is perfectly consistent with her backstory, how we see people interact with and react to her and content post ME2.

 

When Miranda was young, NIket was the only friend she was allowed when not fulfilling her father's demands (that sounded dirty). This, of course, influenced the rest of her life with Miranda being extremely focused on her work for Cerberus with anyone who meets her either being hostile (Wilson, aliens in the SR2's crew) or cordial but kept at a distance (Jacob, the SR2 crew) and even her lovers being only one night stands found through dating websites and her sister not knowing who she was.

And that is what is changed. In Lair, Liara claims that when she first met Miranda, she was entirely focused on her duty but that has changed and then comes Citadel where she is trying to be normal for a couple of days. (which occurs even if Shepard is just a friend). And, personally, I don't believe that, logically, this should only happen if Shepard is her lover. Just having her sister and a friend should change that but that would require the game being more intuitive than it is. I have never tried it but I doubt a Miranda who didn't meet Oriana in ME2 and wasn't Loyal acts any differently in ME3.

 

At any rate, none of that necessarely means she was unhappy before, only that she has more now. Unlike many others in the squad, Miranda explicitly states that she joined Cerberus because she wanted to work in challeging projects that accomplish something, with people who are as great as her and with inexhaustible resources at her disposal. All of the epilogues unique to her have her working either on Earth or with Oriana.

She even has hobbies like listening to classical music.

 

There is a degree of "fixing her" in that Paragon Shepard can reaffirm her identity as a person independent from her father's work but that is an entirely different issue from the one mentioned above and, sadly, never has an actual conclusion since her last romance dialogue in ME2 is about fear of dying in the mission and the issue was entirely dropped in ME3 in favor of more rehashed "we must save Oriana".

 

Sure, Kasumi has that line but she is not an expert on Miranda. She actually smiles on multiple occasions outside of the romance

She has an amused smile when she jokes about killing Wilson or when she admonishes Jacob. She smiles when she tells Shepard that the mission is going very well. She has a nervous smile when Shepard convinces her to meet her sister. She smiles in genuine respect before the Omega 4 Relay if Shepard has no romance.

She smiles when she realizes Henry is finally dead. And there a few more in Citadel. For instance, when she tells FemShep they're troubleshooting space divas but I don't have ME3 installed right now.

You could make the argument that she is only "really smiling" when Shepard is her romance but personally, I don't really buy that,

Spoiler

 

 

 

[Quarian Master Race]

'Relatable motivations' isn't what makes most of the ME2 returning cast 'overly sympathetic'- hitting everyone around with the stupid/incompetent stick, flandardizing their opposition into even greater charicatures, and reserving the attribute of 'competence' for 'Shepard's gang' is what makes much of the returning ME2 cast 'overly sympathetic.' Especially with the characters involved in the Genophage and Rannoch arcs.

 

snip- common knowledge of writing failures and conjecture relating to them excluded for brevity- snip

 

So yeah. It's not just 'relatable motivations' or 'complexity.' The game tries, really, really hard to make you sympathize with certain characters over others.

 

I don't follow your reasoning. So recurring ME1 and ME2 squadmate characters are "overly sympathetic" because......all their replacements are presented as one dimensional madmen or less complex literal not-*insert character name* like Wiks or Dagg? Seems more like a problem with the lazy, throwaway writing of the latter than the former, not that some of the former were even that well written anyway (Legion and Wrex's sudden and inexplicable development of DID being prime examples), but at least they were written at all rather than seemingly pulled out of a random stock character generator.

 

Moreover, asking the other poster to define "overly sympathetic" was not the primary objective of the post (as ultimately that is highly subjective). It was to ask for clairity as to why removing the supposed overly sympathetic characters makes the conflicts in which they are involved more interesting. In the Genophage arc, all Wreav does is remove any generation of pathos for the krogan while simultaneously modifying the ethical argument to heavily favour the Council's position (if Wreav's plans of conquest are to be believed). It potentially makes the conflict even more simple than it already is, because there is no real logical reason either way not to sabotage the genophage, especially with the knowledge in hindsight that Wreav (and seemingly Eve as well) is an idiot and just goes along with it as nothing changes. Wiks doesn't change the narrative in any meaningful way from Mordin apart from again removing a potential source of pathos, so no reason to mention him. Again, this is not to say good things about Wrex's (and to a lesser extent Mordin's) schizophrenic writing, just that removing them doesn't make the conflict any better unless you just prefer simplistic stories with two different groups of unsympathetic douchebags, one of them with an unquestionably superior position that makes deciding whom to support very easy.

 

Still, at least Wreav has a different position than Wrex and modifies the arc he is a part of in a tangible (if simplifying) manner. Removing Tali/ Legion changes almost nothing about the Rannoch arc except that it is now impossible to broker a ceasefire because reasons. As much as I love Xen, we don't gain any insights into her character or position by including her on the Dreadnought. In fact, her presence is merely used by the writers to yet again bash her positions on artificial Intelligence via banter rather than to flesh out her motivations and ideological reasoning a bit more (yes writers, we get it, you're Kurzweilian transhumanists and think that forcing your toaster to make a bagel without asking it's opinion is "slavery"). Gerrel still goes General Ripper on the Dreadnought to the same sort of chagrin by Xen as by Tali. Raan does literally nothing that Tali doesn't already do on Rannoch, except she kills the geth or herself with a gun instead of a knife and a cliff respectively. Her appeal on behalf of the quarians at the conclusion of the arc is exactly the same pathos as Tali's, it is just less personal and not as well built up or elucidated previously. Koris is still presented as the hero of a lost cause, arguably moreso than otherwise because he is alone in being the foil to the majority opinion, which makes his character derailment from ruthless politicking douchebag in ME2 to selfless hero in ME3 all the more glaringly apparent. In other words, nothing changes yet again except for potentially losing "the feels" for Tali's predicament, and thus a source of humanization of the quarian position and a foil to their intended one dimensional antagonistic role. The other quarians are already presented as incompetents or villians, and removing Tali just reinforces and reiterates that presentation by giving their biased portrayals more screentime. Hardly very interesting unless you simply want more dialouge from Xen.

 

Then we have the VI, who is just not-Legion. It's actions are literally ****** for tat the same as the character it is a stand-in for, with its lack of history with Shepard making its incorporation into the quarian war plans all the more absurd and ridiculous. Further, in this case the misplaced pathos appeals don't even disappear, because you still have to watch the awful propaganda video that attempts to gloss over or retcon the geth in to rainbow farting robo-hippies, and the geth still tries to absolve itself and blame the quarians entirely for their decision to ally with the Reapers. It simply doesn't ask the idiotic and irrelevant "soul" question and is honest in its motivations to genocide its creators. I actually do prefer the VI personally, mostly because I can't stand the pandering from Legion and the inability to really criticize it, but I'm not going to pretend it makes anything more interesting. Indeed, its presence hardly changes anything apart from (again) making the writing of the arc even worse and seemingly more forced via what the crap inclusion of an unquestioned enemy combatant into the quarian war plans on a moments notice with only a slight sideways look from Raan and yet more Xen bashing. Moreover, Legions attempts at making itself and it's "people" into woobies at the last minute by trying to ignore their responsibility for their position actually just makes me want to shoot it in the face even more, so if they were going for sympathetic, ironically I actually sympathize with the VI more due to it at least being honest.

 

There isn't a single replacement that actually makes anything more multifaceted or complex, and if anything most actually reduce the complexity of their arcs (and thus how subjectively interesting they've the potential to be). Most of the time, it merely results in lost content or gratuitious "sacrifice" (as if you actually are supposed to care about Prangley or Dagg). I can only see it being better if you prefer zero pathos appeals at all to sometimes poor execution of them (I think this is where you are), are some armchair moral relativist edgemaster who lashes out at all such appeals in fiction as a way to stoke their own ego, or alternatively don't like having to own the personal consequences of your actions in a video game and thus prefer a detached experience (in which case the feels did their job a little too well). 

[Tyrannosaurus Rex]

How is Jack making Grissom academy a more deep or interesting mission? With her around the teenagers are nothing more than cheerleaders to help show how awesome she is, while they actually have some depth to them when Jack is absent.

 

Without Jack, we see Prangley struggle to rise to the occasion and become the leader he needs to be in the face of the Cerberus attack. And his death symbolizes the tragedy that is war and how it can rob a society of people that would have become its best and brightest. And we see the girl (Rodríguez?) trying to cope with the fact that she has been forced to kill. For such minor characters there sure was a lot to them.

 

What do does these two character do with Jack alive? Stand on the sidelines showering mindless praise.

[Quarian Master Race]

How is Jack making Grissom academy a more deep or interesting mission? With her around the teenagers are nothing more than cheerleaders to help show how awesome she is, while they actually have some depth to them when Jack is absent.

 

Without Jack, we see Prangley struggle to rise to the occasion and become the leader he needs to be in the face of the Cerberus attack. And his death symbolizes the tragedy that is war and how it can rob a society of people that would have become its best and brightest. And we see the girl (Rodríguez?) trying to cope with the fact that she has been forced to kill. For such minor characters there sure was a lot to them.

 

What do does these two character do with Jack alive? Stand on the sidelines showering mindless praise.

I wouldn't make that argument from a narrative standpoint (because the mission is pretty much irrelevant), but Jack at least has some personal character development going for her and certainly doesn't make the mission less interesting, especially considering it was essentially designed around her.

That's a nice interpretation. I saw some random dude get killed and some girl who wouldn't stop whining about having to defend herself from space nazis. They're better off in the background showering "mindless praise" on an actual character, especially considering that they actually are more useful in doing so. Pointless and avoidable "sacrifice" brought on solely by incompetence doesn't make the mission better.

[Seboist]

Jack in the Grissom mission is dumb as hell. A major criminal and former Cerberus associate becoming an Alliance instructor in such a short time? Out of here with that.

[(Disgusted noise.)]

Jack in the Grissom mission is dumb as hell. A major criminal and former Cerberus associate becoming an Alliance instructor in such a short time? Out of here with that.

They really wanted to redeem such an unlikable character. And it worked, I didn't fantasize about throwing her out an airlock once in ME3.