ME is dead for the foreseeable future, perhaps permanently, with DA4 being faaaar out on the horizon, so they want to get rid of all their non-Anthem stuff.
My hope is that they return to Mass Effect after Anthem (probably) bombs. Andromeda was poorly received, but I don't think it's turned people off to the franchise. Get it back in the hands of the varsity squad, and make a new game that's a continuation of the original trilogy. I dunno, set it a couple decades after the end of ME3 and just bite the bullet and pick an ending as canon. Preferably synthesis, but control would be neat too for the chance to run into space-god Shep.
I feel that the biggest problem with the continuation of the Mass Effect universe is the utter unwillingness of the people who played the Shepard trilogy to let go of the Shepard trilogy.
Andromeda is brought down only in needs need to be more like the original trilogy and have a big villain as well as technical considerations fostered on them by EA.
There is a reason that ME2 dropped all the open world stuff from ME1. And it wasn’t because it was engaging gameplay. Combined with the utter failure of the engine to do procedural large stuff and well. “Make me an open world game with this engine” is bound to fail
Guyder was solid, solid enough that I chose him again when I replayed. My only complaint is the default face has that really awful beard that just looks like he forgot to shave for like a week, but it's easy enough to make a decent looking non-default face.
Guyder was solid, solid enough that I chose him again when I replayed. My only complaint is the default face has that really awful beard that just looks like he forgot to shave for like a week, but it's easy enough to make a decent looking non-default face.
God yes. I don't do custom faces, they never look right to me in cutscenes, but here we have a man with pube face. I don't understand why the default isn't customizable. I just wanted to give him a shave and maybe change some colors.
ME is dead for the foreseeable future, perhaps permanently, with DA4 being faaaar out on the horizon, so they want to get rid of all their non-Anthem stuff.
My hope is that they return to Mass Effect after Anthem (probably) bombs. Andromeda was poorly received, but I don't think it's turned people off to the franchise. Get it back in the hands of the varsity squad, and make a new game that's a continuation of the original trilogy. I dunno, set it a couple decades after the end of ME3 and just bite the bullet and pick an ending as canon. Preferably synthesis, but control would be neat too for the chance to run into space-god Shep.
I feel that the biggest problem with the continuation of the Mass Effect universe is the utter unwillingness of the people who played the Shepard trilogy to let go of the Shepard trilogy.
The story is done. It has ended.
And?
I'm confused as to your point. Yes, it ended. But it had a whole universe built with stuff they could still use. Andromeda had a ton of direct story tie ins to characters and plot points from the OT. Players didn't put those in the game.
It isn't players fault that ME3 ended in a way that the universe was completely halted (from a development perspective) post ME3 timeline. That's a corner Bioware backed themselves into. The story ended, but it ended in a way that required something like Andromeda, in order to have it not be a prequel, and Bioware wasn't bold enough to not tie it directly to the OT.
Don't blame players for a problem the developers created.
Would you argue that the Hobbit movies were weak because people were "unwilling" to "let go" of the LOTR movies? How absurd.
People who liked a thing may not like something related to that thing done differently. That isn't a problem, it is just how things work. Some people hated TNG because it wasn't the original Star Trek. Ditto with DS9, Voyager, and so on. It doesn't make them wrong, it just means they have their preference. People hated New Coke because it wasn't Coke. The people who liked New Coke weren't wronged by the people who didn't like it.
It sounds like what you really are saying is that you don't want to hear about players opinions who differ from yours. Or maybe more accurately, that you don't think the developers should listen to them, because it isn't what you agree with.
Which is the same thought process that gave us a new ME3 thread every few days after it came out. Which I participated in (and made a good amount of the threads) btw, so I'm not trying to absolve myself here.
I just think it is kind of silly to accuse players who wanted more of a series they liked, for the hurdles of continuing that series outside of those originals. It is just the nature of making more of something people liked, that you can simply never recreate no matter how much you, or the players, want.
I enjoyed Andromeda a lot. In fact, based on reactions here, when it was released, I think I enjoyed it more than most people. There was a lot of speculation from myself and others about how it tied to the OT and what things would be brought over and so on, and there were a lot of people who wanted to shit on that and said that whole swaths of story stuff from the OT could just be dropped and never brought up again. And had Bioware not actively tied in the origin and story of Andromeda to the OT, maybe that would have been more reasonable. But when the game is saying "yes, they are directly tied. Look! Here's plot points from the OT! Look! Here's characters from the OT!" then it isn't the players fault for wanting to know more.
ME is dead for the foreseeable future, perhaps permanently, with DA4 being faaaar out on the horizon, so they want to get rid of all their non-Anthem stuff.
My hope is that they return to Mass Effect after Anthem (probably) bombs. Andromeda was poorly received, but I don't think it's turned people off to the franchise. Get it back in the hands of the varsity squad, and make a new game that's a continuation of the original trilogy. I dunno, set it a couple decades after the end of ME3 and just bite the bullet and pick an ending as canon. Preferably synthesis, but control would be neat too for the chance to run into space-god Shep.
I feel that the biggest problem with the continuation of the Mass Effect universe is the utter unwillingness of the people who played the Shepard trilogy to let go of the Shepard trilogy.
The story is done. It has ended.
And?
I'm confused as to your point. Yes, it ended. But it had a whole universe built with stuff they could still use. Andromeda had a ton of direct story tie ins to characters and plot points from the OT. Players didn't put those in the game.
It isn't players fault that ME3 ended in a way that the universe was completely halted (from a development perspective) post ME3 timeline. That's a corner Bioware backed themselves into. The story ended, but it ended in a way that required something like Andromeda, in order to have it not be a prequel, and Bioware wasn't bold enough to not tie it directly to the OT.
Don't blame players for a problem the developers created.
Would you argue that the Hobbit movies were weak because people were "unwilling" to "let go" of the LOTR movies? How absurd.
People who liked a thing may not like something related to that thing done differently. That isn't a problem, it is just how things work. Some people hated TNG because it wasn't the original Star Trek. Ditto with DS9, Voyager, and so on. It doesn't make them wrong, it just means they have their preference. People hated New Coke because it wasn't Coke. The people who liked New Coke weren't wronged by the people who didn't like it.
It sounds like what you really are saying is that you don't want to hear about players opinions who differ from yours. Or maybe more accurately, that you don't think the developers should listen to them, because it isn't what you agree with.
Which is the same thought process that gave us a new ME3 thread every few days after it came out. Which I participated in (and made a good amount of the threads) btw, so I'm not trying to absolve myself here.
I just think it is kind of silly to accuse players who wanted more of a series they liked, for the hurdles of continuing that series outside of those originals. It is just the nature of making more of something people liked, that you can simply never recreate no matter how much you, or the players, want.
I enjoyed Andromeda a lot. In fact, based on reactions here, when it was released, I think I enjoyed it more than most people. There was a lot of speculation from myself and others about how it tied to the OT and what things would be brought over and so on, and there were a lot of people who wanted to shit on that and said that whole swaths of story stuff from the OT could just be dropped and never brought up again. And had Bioware not actively tied in the origin and story of Andromeda to the OT, maybe that would have been more reasonable. But when the game is saying "yes, they are directly tied. Look! Here's plot points from the OT! Look! Here's characters from the OT!" then it isn't the players fault for wanting to know more.
Yes. Let's see the ME universe, let's see strange places, new galaxies, characters and aliens and planets and spaceships we've never seen! Andromeda did that! It had a few references to tie it into the universe and setting, but that was it. It was GREAT.
Let's leave those particular three games, their characters, their events, their time, their story, closed, finished, ended, on the shelf where they belong. Let's have more "Rogue One" and less "Oh look another bloody Skywalker". In a universe of galaxies and planets and stars and aliens and space magic technology, let's go do something new and see what's over that hill, and not try to drag everything along with us.
We keep the memories. We should not keep retreading the events that gave us the memories.
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Would you argue that the Hobbit movies were weak because people were "unwilling" to "let go" of the LOTR movies? How absurd.
If by people you mean New Line Cinema and MGM I would argue exactly this.
Yeah. Trying to make The Hobbit in to a LOTR rehash was precisely how they failed.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
+10
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited April 2018
Maybe long time ME fans didn't like Andromeda...because it's not a great game, not because we can't let go of the Shepard trilogy like some love sick junior high kid. It'a a middling sci fi open world shooter RPG that may not be a bad game, but it absolutely is a bad Mass Effect game with a flimsy story, a terrible cliff hanger for a sequel we'll likely never get and entire plot points it basically just casts aside. It was clearly written by a team that had to focus so much energy on the shit engine EA forced them to use (and still released a buggy product) they never got the most important part of a Mass Effect game worked out. On it's merits and it's merits alone is Andromeda a complete let down as a Mass Effect game and it's gotten rightly lambasted for it.
That doesn't mean you can't like it. It's not some personal battle. I just think it's goosey to suggest the reason hardcore ME fans roundly hated it was some puppy love over the Shepard trilogy. We wanted the start of a new epic trilogy and Andromeda is not that.
Would you argue that the Hobbit movies were weak because people were "unwilling" to "let go" of the LOTR movies? How absurd.
If by people you mean New Line Cinema and MGM I would argue exactly this.
Yeah. Trying to make The Hobbit in to a LOTR rehash was precisely how they failed.
Sort of - in the eyes of us neeeeeeeerds sure, but they made a bajillion million zillion dollars apiece in worldwide sales and that's generally all Hollywood cares about when gauging success. (okay maybe not quite that much, but it did make its budget back several times over every time)
ME is dead for the foreseeable future, perhaps permanently, with DA4 being faaaar out on the horizon, so they want to get rid of all their non-Anthem stuff.
My hope is that they return to Mass Effect after Anthem (probably) bombs. Andromeda was poorly received, but I don't think it's turned people off to the franchise. Get it back in the hands of the varsity squad, and make a new game that's a continuation of the original trilogy. I dunno, set it a couple decades after the end of ME3 and just bite the bullet and pick an ending as canon. Preferably synthesis, but control would be neat too for the chance to run into space-god Shep.
I feel that the biggest problem with the continuation of the Mass Effect universe is the utter unwillingness of the people who played the Shepard trilogy to let go of the Shepard trilogy.
The story is done. It has ended.
And?
I'm confused as to your point. Yes, it ended. But it had a whole universe built with stuff they could still use. Andromeda had a ton of direct story tie ins to characters and plot points from the OT. Players didn't put those in the game.
It isn't players fault that ME3 ended in a way that the universe was completely halted (from a development perspective) post ME3 timeline. That's a corner Bioware backed themselves into. The story ended, but it ended in a way that required something like Andromeda, in order to have it not be a prequel, and Bioware wasn't bold enough to not tie it directly to the OT.
Don't blame players for a problem the developers created.
Would you argue that the Hobbit movies were weak because people were "unwilling" to "let go" of the LOTR movies? How absurd.
People who liked a thing may not like something related to that thing done differently. That isn't a problem, it is just how things work. Some people hated TNG because it wasn't the original Star Trek. Ditto with DS9, Voyager, and so on. It doesn't make them wrong, it just means they have their preference. People hated New Coke because it wasn't Coke. The people who liked New Coke weren't wronged by the people who didn't like it.
It sounds like what you really are saying is that you don't want to hear about players opinions who differ from yours. Or maybe more accurately, that you don't think the developers should listen to them, because it isn't what you agree with.
Which is the same thought process that gave us a new ME3 thread every few days after it came out. Which I participated in (and made a good amount of the threads) btw, so I'm not trying to absolve myself here.
I just think it is kind of silly to accuse players who wanted more of a series they liked, for the hurdles of continuing that series outside of those originals. It is just the nature of making more of something people liked, that you can simply never recreate no matter how much you, or the players, want.
I enjoyed Andromeda a lot. In fact, based on reactions here, when it was released, I think I enjoyed it more than most people. There was a lot of speculation from myself and others about how it tied to the OT and what things would be brought over and so on, and there were a lot of people who wanted to shit on that and said that whole swaths of story stuff from the OT could just be dropped and never brought up again. And had Bioware not actively tied in the origin and story of Andromeda to the OT, maybe that would have been more reasonable. But when the game is saying "yes, they are directly tied. Look! Here's plot points from the OT! Look! Here's characters from the OT!" then it isn't the players fault for wanting to know more.
Yes. Let's see the ME universe, let's see strange places, new galaxies, characters and aliens and planets and spaceships we've never seen! Andromeda did that! It had a few references to tie it into the universe and setting, but that was it. It was GREAT.
Let's leave those particular three games, their characters, their events, their time, their story, closed, finished, ended, on the shelf where they belong. Let's have more "Rogue One" and less "Oh look another bloody Skywalker". In a universe of galaxies and planets and stars and aliens and space magic technology, let's go do something new and see what's over that hill, and not try to drag everything along with us.
We keep the memories. We should not keep retreading the events that gave us the memories.
I mean, all but two of the alien races in Andromeda were from the previous games. Not to mention they skipped over most of the exploring of unknown and plopped all of the familiar faces on planets fully established. It's nobody's fault but their own that they squandered their chance to start fresh.
ME is dead for the foreseeable future, perhaps permanently, with DA4 being faaaar out on the horizon, so they want to get rid of all their non-Anthem stuff.
My hope is that they return to Mass Effect after Anthem (probably) bombs. Andromeda was poorly received, but I don't think it's turned people off to the franchise. Get it back in the hands of the varsity squad, and make a new game that's a continuation of the original trilogy. I dunno, set it a couple decades after the end of ME3 and just bite the bullet and pick an ending as canon. Preferably synthesis, but control would be neat too for the chance to run into space-god Shep.
I feel that the biggest problem with the continuation of the Mass Effect universe is the utter unwillingness of the people who played the Shepard trilogy to let go of the Shepard trilogy.
The story is done. It has ended.
And?
I'm confused as to your point. Yes, it ended. But it had a whole universe built with stuff they could still use. Andromeda had a ton of direct story tie ins to characters and plot points from the OT. Players didn't put those in the game.
It isn't players fault that ME3 ended in a way that the universe was completely halted (from a development perspective) post ME3 timeline. That's a corner Bioware backed themselves into. The story ended, but it ended in a way that required something like Andromeda, in order to have it not be a prequel, and Bioware wasn't bold enough to not tie it directly to the OT.
Don't blame players for a problem the developers created.
Would you argue that the Hobbit movies were weak because people were "unwilling" to "let go" of the LOTR movies? How absurd.
People who liked a thing may not like something related to that thing done differently. That isn't a problem, it is just how things work. Some people hated TNG because it wasn't the original Star Trek. Ditto with DS9, Voyager, and so on. It doesn't make them wrong, it just means they have their preference. People hated New Coke because it wasn't Coke. The people who liked New Coke weren't wronged by the people who didn't like it.
It sounds like what you really are saying is that you don't want to hear about players opinions who differ from yours. Or maybe more accurately, that you don't think the developers should listen to them, because it isn't what you agree with.
Which is the same thought process that gave us a new ME3 thread every few days after it came out. Which I participated in (and made a good amount of the threads) btw, so I'm not trying to absolve myself here.
I just think it is kind of silly to accuse players who wanted more of a series they liked, for the hurdles of continuing that series outside of those originals. It is just the nature of making more of something people liked, that you can simply never recreate no matter how much you, or the players, want.
I enjoyed Andromeda a lot. In fact, based on reactions here, when it was released, I think I enjoyed it more than most people. There was a lot of speculation from myself and others about how it tied to the OT and what things would be brought over and so on, and there were a lot of people who wanted to shit on that and said that whole swaths of story stuff from the OT could just be dropped and never brought up again. And had Bioware not actively tied in the origin and story of Andromeda to the OT, maybe that would have been more reasonable. But when the game is saying "yes, they are directly tied. Look! Here's plot points from the OT! Look! Here's characters from the OT!" then it isn't the players fault for wanting to know more.
Yes. Let's see the ME universe, let's see strange places, new galaxies, characters and aliens and planets and spaceships we've never seen! Andromeda did that! It had a few references to tie it into the universe and setting, but that was it. It was GREAT.
Let's leave those particular three games, their characters, their events, their time, their story, closed, finished, ended, on the shelf where they belong. Let's have more "Rogue One" and less "Oh look another bloody Skywalker". In a universe of galaxies and planets and stars and aliens and space magic technology, let's go do something new and see what's over that hill, and not try to drag everything along with us.
We keep the memories. We should not keep retreading the events that gave us the memories.
I mean, all but two of the alien races in Andromeda were from the previous games. Not to mention they skipped over most of the exploring of unknown and plopped all of the familiar faces on planets fully established. It's nobody's fault but their own that they squandered their chance to start fresh.
I might be running right into the schism between "hard sci-fi" ME1 fans and "space soap opera" ME3 fans, but the ME Milky Way, as established in ME1, was so much more interesting than the ME Andromeda galaxy, as established in MEA. There was real thought put into determining the rules of the galaxy, establishing the science behind what we saw, real care taken in crafting these interesting races with both interesting histories and interesting presentations, and setting up a galaxy-wide political order into which these races were slotted.
MEA? Two alien races, and one of them pretty much just yelled mysterious gibberish at you the whole time. Plus everything else was just sorta space magic, creating this awkward friction between having a setting in which none of the details were explained and a plot which desperately tried to explain everything before the finale. As a facile demonstration of the relative depths of the two universes: the Mass Effect Wiki page on the Kett is 1695 words total - including all the random Wiki text, Trivia stuff, unrelated links, etc.. The page on the Hanar is 1740 words. Admittedly, there were three mainline Mass Effect games, but we literally know more about the Hanar, an unplayable minor race in Mass Effect that is never represented as a crew member, an enemy, or even in a cut-scene, than we know about the Kett, one of the two alien races in Andromeda and the main antagonists that show up throughout the entire game.
That's not going to fly with any science fiction fan, never mind a Mass Effect fan.
Vivienne is my favourite Bioware character so I don't have any strong attachment to Mass Effect particularly, I just want them to deliver something great. I admire the ambition of trying to get me to invest in a new conflict or setting as much as I bought into the Genophage and grew to love ME despite being lukewarm on science fiction generally. I love experiencing new things, so I'm happy to leave Mass Effect behind entirely.
If we do get more ME in the future I'd want it to focus on some completely different races, because the council races, quarians and krogan are utterly played out. E: Actually no, that's not fair. It's just the human perspective that's played out, a turian soldier chafing at their societal structure or a Salarian STG member or flotilla scavenger could be really interesting. A non-human perspective is even riskier than a new IP though.
I feel that the biggest problem with the continuation of the Mass Effect universe is the utter unwillingness of the people who played the Shepard trilogy to let go of the Shepard trilogy.
The biggest problem with the continuation of the Mass Effect universe is obviously the constraining ending they wrote and the mismanaged mess of a follow-up they made.
Also, given the few decades later thing, I'm reading his quote as "set in the Milky Way" not "see all of Shep's buddies again," and given the Milky Way had a hundred times more minor details that could be explored more (and was previously the entire setting of the franchise), that seems pretty reasonable. If they do stick with Andromeda, though, I hope they fast forward a few centuries so there are actually some established civilizations instead of just the Angara, some outposts, and a million cryo-crazy Mad Maxers. They never committed on the frontier thing, and we lost all the other species' roots.
SoundsPlush on
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
I think that there's a fundamental problem with trying to make a Mass Effect in another galaxy. The Mass Effect setting is made up of basically two things: the eezo based tech, and the alien civilizations of the Milky Way. The technology became less important starting with ME2 as the games moved away from ME1's massive codex entries explaining all the nifty nuts and bolts and basically said 'look, eezo gives you space ships, space guns, and space wizards, now hang out with all these cool characters we created'.
With ME:A you have a game set in another galaxy, but nearly all of the ME flavor is coming from bringing in the ME1-3 races, because by the time ME3 happened, those aliens were what made the setting Mass Effect as opposed to Space Opera Setting X. Which created tension between making a Mass Effect game, which meant bringing in Asari and whatnot, and building out the Andromeda setting, which needed new and never before seen alien types.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
It would be difficult to overstate how excited I was for Andromeda based solely on its premise alone. That I ended up liking it despite its flaws and that I think it's a good game doesn't change that it was the biggest gaming disappointment that year.
There was another tension between old and new races, and that was development resources. It’s not a coincidence that all the minor races were on the Quarian ark. It seems extremely probable that we would have gotten more than two new races if the whole thing hadn’t been slapped together in the last 18 months.
I kind of wish they'd taken that big planet / galaxy generation system they'd had (a la No Man's Sky), plopped some kind of simulation game on top of it (building the initial set of outposts), and released that as a spin-off title to fund an additional year or two of development for the "real" game (that would take place in the timeline after those outposts are constructed and functional, though with minimal importing since it'd still need to be a game based on specific sites hand-crafted in certain locations; maybe all the other outposts you built can contribute occasional bonuses or something as you go through the game).
As happy as I am with the final product of Andromeda, I'm decidedly not happy with its broader reception and the consequences of that for the series and the studio. I'd rather have gotten a different game, even one maybe I wouldn't personally have enjoyed quite as much, if other people liked it more and we'd still be getting more Mass Effect titles.
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
ME is dead for the foreseeable future, perhaps permanently, with DA4 being faaaar out on the horizon, so they want to get rid of all their non-Anthem stuff.
My hope is that they return to Mass Effect after Anthem (probably) bombs. Andromeda was poorly received, but I don't think it's turned people off to the franchise. Get it back in the hands of the varsity squad, and make a new game that's a continuation of the original trilogy. I dunno, set it a couple decades after the end of ME3 and just bite the bullet and pick an ending as canon. Preferably synthesis, but control would be neat too for the chance to run into space-god Shep.
I feel that the biggest problem with the continuation of the Mass Effect universe is the utter unwillingness of the people who played the Shepard trilogy to let go of the Shepard trilogy.
The story is done. It has ended.
I was very willing to "let go" of the original trilogy. From its announcement until its release, ME:A was basically all I thought of. I was so excited for more Mass Effect, and was beyond hyped when launch day arrived. Then I found out that the game just isn't that good. The only enjoyable part of Andromeda to me, is the combat. Everything else is just bland, uninteresting, and a buggy mess. I've given the game plenty of tries, and even ignoring the open world glut to focus on the story, I just can't find the interest to finish it.
Apparently I am not alone in thinking that, either. If they do revisit the series, their best bet is to return to the established ME universe everyone knows and has confidence in. Plus, it would just be really cool to see how the Milky Way is doing a few decades after the reaper war.
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
ME is dead for the foreseeable future, perhaps permanently, with DA4 being faaaar out on the horizon, so they want to get rid of all their non-Anthem stuff.
My hope is that they return to Mass Effect after Anthem (probably) bombs. Andromeda was poorly received, but I don't think it's turned people off to the franchise. Get it back in the hands of the varsity squad, and make a new game that's a continuation of the original trilogy. I dunno, set it a couple decades after the end of ME3 and just bite the bullet and pick an ending as canon. Preferably synthesis, but control would be neat too for the chance to run into space-god Shep.
I feel that the biggest problem with the continuation of the Mass Effect universe is the utter unwillingness of the people who played the Shepard trilogy to let go of the Shepard trilogy.
The story is done. It has ended.
I was very willing to "let go" of the original trilogy. From its announcement until its release, ME:A was basically all I thought of. I was so excited for more Mass Effect, and was beyond hyped when launch day arrived. Then I found out that the game just isn't that good. The only enjoyable part of Andromeda to me, is the combat. Everything else is just bland, uninteresting, and a buggy mess. I've given the game plenty of tries, and even ignoring the open world glut to focus on the story, I just can't find the interest to finish it.
Apparently I am not alone in thinking that, either. If they do revisit the series, their best bet is to return to the established ME universe everyone knows and has confidence in. Plus, it would just be really cool to see how the Milky Way is doing a few decades after the reaper war.
I too want a Space Cow survival type game.
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
edited April 2018
Yeah they can totally continue using the Milky Way setting. I mean it wouldn’t be the first time a sequel came out to a game with multiple endings. Hell, I don’t think it’d even be the first Bioware game to do so.
Assuming they’d go with the “kill all Reapers” ending (IMHO the only real choice to continue the setting) then you having a very interesting world (you know what I mean :razz: ) to explore.
Almost all of the races have been thoroughly trounced. Space exploration? Reestablish the Council? Nobody has time for that in the aftermath as it’s gonna take everything each race has just to feed, shelter survivors and rebuild their broken worlds.
I mean you’re looking at a potential Dark Age for Citadel space.
There is a lot of cool ideas you could run with in a setting like that.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
I think the only ending that would make for a good sequel is the deny ending.
Isn't Deny just
"everyone dies and the Reapers win"? The game makes it pretty clear that your conventional forces have no chance.
Sort of.
Devs say that we can't win conventionally. Characters in-game say we probably can't win conventionally. Then the War Assets Gauge, if it's at 100% Usage says that the Reapers are losing conflicts and are being pushed back.
But as far as the actual Reject Choice ending, everyone dies and the next cycle kills the Reapers.
Finished ME:A earlier this week. Spoiled my mini review below for size. I have this in the end but it mostly comes down to the fact I had to force myself to keep loading ME:A to finish it; and I have 0 desire to replay it. Something that I've never really had with a Bioware game before (I almost always move to something else, then come back for a 2nd play through (or with ME1, ME2, and ME3 a 3rd, 4th, or 5th play through).
Graphics/Audio – 4/5
Before starting the game, I went to look at some benchmarks. One of the sites I went to, in their “review” mentioned that the game looked terrible and not much better than ME3. I’m not sure what game they were playing but this game looks amazing. Maybe it’s because I have everything on ultra and I’m using a OLED TV to play on but man, plenty of jaw dropping moments. I remember going to meet Slone and watching the fan behind her slowly move with the light streaming through the openings. Very impressive. The textures are out of this world, rubber streaks on the clean hyperion floor, scratches and dents on metal, the ‘fuzzy’ look of leather on outfits, worn look on remnant pillars, all of it was great. I spent way too much time rotating planets just to watch the sun light hit them. Likewise he music was very good, not as memorable as the original series
The main issue I had in this area is with character models. Krogan, Salarian, and Turian look fine, but Human and Asari are really weird looking. As folks has mentioned, it doesn’t help that all Asari use the same model but even the humans all have the same basic look, terrible hair, and weird eye’s. If the benchmarking site was right about one thing, it’s that the character models looked better in ME3.
Story – 2/5
There are some decent bones here but mostly I just wasn’t that interested. I’ve found that it’s really hard to keep a player engaged in the main story if you build your game open world. There are some that make it work (Witcher 3) but there are more failures than successes with this game type in my experience. One of the things I didn’t get was why set this pre-mass effect 3? If they had set this 50 years after ME3 or something, it would have helped with a lot of the story issues I had. For example, how do they have the technology to be flying around a huge star cluster on regular FTL drives? Or why are there Krogan females everywhere? Before ME3 the genophage hadn’t been cured and in the codex it mentions most females are just trying to keep the Krogan species alive. If this had been set post ME3, these things and a bunch of others would make more sense.
I didn’t have a problem with the Kett and actually liked the high end goals for them. The infighting could have been interesting in future games. Gave me a homeworld vibe. I wasn’t as much of a fan of the Angara. Not sure what it was, but I just couldn’t get into them. Maybe it’s because they were the only species and in ME it was always great to have dozens of species around. Maybe it’s because there were so many side missions that the reused voices and faces.
The main story wasn’t bad, but it felt like it was missing some pieces. I had to get some of the ending material from the wiki as the codex wasn’t super clear some things. For example, when Ryder uses the Remnant to draw the scourge, I had no clue what was going on. Later I found a line in the codex explaining it. The story should be written so you don’t need to dive into the codex to understand what is going on in a main cutscene. The ending felt rushed, like how in the world did the Archon steal the Hyperion? Also wasn’t the space station Meridian’s command core? How did they control anything on Meridian without it? Lots of silly things that I just wasn’t a fan of.
The companion quests were pretty good. I can’t think of one I didn’t enjoy and were some of the few moments outside of some of the nexus quests that reminded me of the original series.
The writing overall though was pretty bad. I laughed out load quite a few times at how bad it was. Reminded me a B-movie that you go see because it’s bad. When Ryder walks up to his Krogan contact who is right next to Morda and starts off with “HEY you’re my secret contact to stop Morda, right?!” A lot of the side quests likewise were ok, but had weird endings, some very abrupt. The ‘Knight’ quest was like that, pretty good quest, but the ending was really abrupt.
Also, everyone knows everything! The Asari on the Ark knows they are called Kett before I can say anything. 0 explanation or lead up for the Architects. Just ran into one randomly, all my teammates know what it’s called. A lot of the side quests were like this as well.
Gameplay – 2/5
The main positive with gameplay was the jump pack and dodge which allowed for more freedom in combat. I liked most of the weapons I tried and the profile system was a neat perk. As others have mentioned, I didn’t like losing a skill slot, it would have been nice as an infiltrator to have cloak, a combat skill and 2 tech skills.
The open world was the weakest part. I got tired of fetch quests after the first planet. Most of them were not interesting nor did they have much payoff. The sad part is that some of the better quests (companion ones mostly) did have you bouncing around places to start many of them. But by the time I was done collecting drones, scanning junkers, rescuing medical supplies, and many other boring fetch quests; I just didn’t have the capacity to enjoy more fetch quests even if they ended up being better. I can see why people recommend just skipping all the side quests and sticking to the main story and companions.
The open world freedom is just not conducive to keeping tension on. There were quests I was getting into, but they involved jumping from planet to planet or nexus. Jumping to the next planet I was right next to 2 more quests, which I felt I should pick up while I was here, which seemed to break the tension of the quest I was on. This could just be a personality thing, but I had a hard time jumping down to a planet and not doing the closest quest vs focusing on the quest I was on.
This is probably why my favorite moments were on the planet hubs, the bar fight with Drack for example was great. While some of the Nexus quests weren’t great, most were fine and had some of the original series feeling to them. Another example is the angry colonists, I didn’t have to run back to a planet or anything to finish. It was just a decent self-contained quest.
I could have done without all the prompts though. Something like uncharted where if I’m stuck for a bit, press something for a hint. Instead we get incredibly precise directions for everything. If SAM tells me I’m not safe in the cold, then safe, then not safe, then safe, on and on, one more time I’m going to lose it.
Likewise, the puzzles can die in the fire. Especially Eladeen’s vault ones where there was no reset.
Lastly, I could have used a bit more clarification with the menu wheel. There were plenty of times I had 4 or more choices and what I picked didn’t come out like I thought it would. Say what you will of the paragon/renegade system, it was pretty clear what tone Shepard was going to use.
Companions – 3/5
This is hard, because most of the companions were fine. It’s just they were not as good as the companions in the original series (or dragon age). I romanced Cora but it was weird, early game flirting, then nothing for a long time, then a little more after the ark, then nothing for long time again, till the end when everything comes crashing in. As others have mentioned, too bad Lexi isn’t romanceable, she had some of the more interesting dialogue.
Most of them grew on me over time, even Jaal who I hated at the start, with the exceptions being Gil and Liam. I didn’t really find either that interesting to talk with and besides that Liam couldn’t seem to keep his shirt on for whatever reason, and Gil looked like he needed an hour every morning just to do his hair. I never missed talking with Gabby and Ken more than when I had to have a conversation with Gil.
The overall banter was good; along with the emails and message board, there were plenty of good moments. I just wish it was smarter about when to start banter. There were some good ones that I missed half of since I’d get near some random marker on the map and it would kick off some other dialog. The remnant/outlaw ‘bases’ seemed to do this a lot. I learned halfway through to stop driving if banter started.
Overall 3/5 - There was some promise here but given all the trouble we’ve heard about it’s development, it’s easy to see those troubles come through in the main game. The crashed remnant ship on Eladeen was a perfect summation of the issues in the game: gorgeous visuals, bugs (cora talking about dead salvagers when none were around), and what could have been a great mission with some twists, spooky set pieces, and fun dialog, but ended up just being a boring straightforward path of moving forward, fight, move, fight, move, etc. Probably because they had to spend more time coding a quest for me to pick up water from 5 different locations or something. I really wanted to like the game, but more often than not I had to force myself to keep playing, something I never ever had to do with any of the games in the original series.
I think the only ending that would make for a good sequel is the deny ending.
Isn't Deny just
"everyone dies and the Reapers win"? The game makes it pretty clear that your conventional forces have no chance.
Sort of.
Devs say that we can't win conventionally. Characters in-game say we probably can't win conventionally. Then the War Assets Gauge, if it's at 100% Usage says that the Reapers are losing conflicts and are being pushed back.
But as far as the actual Reject Choice ending, everyone dies and the next cycle kills the Reapers.
Yeah, and I think it's the only format where a story could be told that isn't touched by too much of the ending bullshit. It also leads to a compelling resistance type setting.
I think the only ending that would make for a good sequel is the deny ending.
Isn't Deny just
"everyone dies and the Reapers win"? The game makes it pretty clear that your conventional forces have no chance.
Sort of.
Devs say that we can't win conventionally. Characters in-game say we probably can't win conventionally. Then the War Assets Gauge, if it's at 100% Usage says that the Reapers are losing conflicts and are being pushed back.
But as far as the actual Reject Choice ending, everyone dies and the next cycle kills the Reapers.
Yeah, and I think it's the only format where a story could be told that isn't touched by too much of the ending bullshit. It also leads to a compelling resistance type setting.
Mass Effect with none of the races is not Mass Effect. The premise of Deny is that the Reapers wipe out humans, Turians, Asari, Salarians, Krogans, etc. Then in the next cycle, a new race discovers detailed information about the Reapers and isn't destroyed by them. It's not even clear if they use the Crucible to avoid destruction, which would make the previous cycle's refusal to use it farcical if they do. Deny is a ridiculous choice of ending to try to go off of.
I mean, having the sequel set immediately after the end of ME3. It's not like the whole galaxy instantly vaporizes. While the premise of deny is that the reapers win, nothing in the game actually reflects that other than some low effort voiceover added in after the fact, and as others have pointed out, goes against other in-game indicators of the success of the reapers.
A premise I've always thought could work is just a complete reboot, disregard cannon.
Humanity discovers the Mars Relay, and all of a sudden they're face to face with new races (that we may or may not know). After the first outbreaks of violence between Humanity and the Turians (or whoever), our character has to help navigate those first connections between races. It would allow for challenges, special missions, personal bonds, and multiple sequels (culminating in a galaxy wide threat that only we can repulse, obvi). Just take the premise and completely rewrite the story in a new direction. Maybe Reapers, maybe not. Maybe the Krogan can be negotiated with, maybe not. Maybe there's a Council, maybe not. Etc. But the basic idea of:
1) Humanity realizing there's a wider Galaxy and that they are strong enough to be a part of it.
2) The basic Bioware idea of characters that you like that you can interact with, who also factor into the story.
3) Reapers might not be a thing at all, there are plenty of other Galaxy ending threats that could resonate in modern times (tribalism, environmentalism, a better writing of the human/AI relationship, whatever). Hell, the major accomplishment (and this is probably too nerdy of me) for the hero could be the working of a free trade agreement among the different races, something that brings untold profit to all civs that are invested in it. By all means, keep the worlds as we know it, with Turians, Quarians, Space Magic, and such. The point is that since a reboot is going to happen, why not do a FULL reboot, and give both the storytellers and the audience a sense of familiarity and also uncertainty?
The original premise held so much potential. And I loved the MA2 cinematic shift, it just failed SO hard at the end (in 3). Since it seems like the next Mass Effect we'll see is a reboot of some kind, why not just reboot the whole thing? Let Shepard be Shepard, and reboot the basic premise so people can write new stories from there?
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
A premise I've always thought could work is just a complete reboot, disregard cannon.
Humanity discovers the Mars Relay, and all of a sudden they're face to face with new races (that we may or may not know). After the first outbreaks of violence between Humanity and the Turians (or whoever), our character has to help navigate those first connections between races. It would allow for challenges, special missions, personal bonds, and multiple sequels (culminating in a galaxy wide threat that only we can repulse, obvi). Just take the premise and completely rewrite the story in a new direction. Maybe Reapers, maybe not. Maybe the Krogan can be negotiated with, maybe not. Maybe there's a Council, maybe not. Etc. But the basic idea of:
1) Humanity realizing there's a wider Galaxy and that they are strong enough to be a part of it.
2) The basic Bioware idea of characters that you like that you can interact with, who also factor into the story.
3) Reapers might not be a thing at all, there are plenty of other Galaxy ending threats that could resonate in modern times (tribalism, environmentalism, a better writing of the human/AI relationship, whatever). Hell, the major accomplishment (and this is probably too nerdy of me) for the hero could be the working of a free trade agreement among the different races, something that brings untold profit to all civs that are invested in it. By all means, keep the worlds as we know it, with Turians, Quarians, Space Magic, and such. The point is that since a reboot is going to happen, why not do a FULL reboot, and give both the storytellers and the audience a sense of familiarity and also uncertainty?
The original premise held so much potential. And I loved the MA2 cinematic shift, it just failed SO hard at the end (in 3). Since it seems like the next Mass Effect we'll see is a reboot of some kind, why not just reboot the whole thing? Let Shepard be Shepard, and reboot the basic premise so people can write new stories from there?
That's an interesting idea. Sidestepping the Reaper war would be a great thing, since while it was interesting, it doesn't leave the galaxy in a state where it's easy to tell whatever stories you like. On the other hand, the universe as of Mass Effect 1 is an interesting place with plenty of room for stories in all kinds of genres.
Not sure I'm ready to part with the old universe like that, but it's an interesting idea.
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I feel that the biggest problem with the continuation of the Mass Effect universe is the utter unwillingness of the people who played the Shepard trilogy to let go of the Shepard trilogy.
The story is done. It has ended.
There is a reason that ME2 dropped all the open world stuff from ME1. And it wasn’t because it was engaging gameplay. Combined with the utter failure of the engine to do procedural large stuff and well. “Make me an open world game with this engine” is bound to fail
I feel like both Ryders were absolutely great, honestly. Jackass Ryder was just a pleasure, and as I understand it, Dork Ryder is just as good.
It's like Star Wars. HUGE UNIVERSE. Please stop telling me a story about the same 4 people.
pleasepaypreacher.net
God yes. I don't do custom faces, they never look right to me in cutscenes, but here we have a man with pube face. I don't understand why the default isn't customizable. I just wanted to give him a shave and maybe change some colors.
And?
I'm confused as to your point. Yes, it ended. But it had a whole universe built with stuff they could still use. Andromeda had a ton of direct story tie ins to characters and plot points from the OT. Players didn't put those in the game.
It isn't players fault that ME3 ended in a way that the universe was completely halted (from a development perspective) post ME3 timeline. That's a corner Bioware backed themselves into. The story ended, but it ended in a way that required something like Andromeda, in order to have it not be a prequel, and Bioware wasn't bold enough to not tie it directly to the OT.
Don't blame players for a problem the developers created.
Would you argue that the Hobbit movies were weak because people were "unwilling" to "let go" of the LOTR movies? How absurd.
People who liked a thing may not like something related to that thing done differently. That isn't a problem, it is just how things work. Some people hated TNG because it wasn't the original Star Trek. Ditto with DS9, Voyager, and so on. It doesn't make them wrong, it just means they have their preference. People hated New Coke because it wasn't Coke. The people who liked New Coke weren't wronged by the people who didn't like it.
It sounds like what you really are saying is that you don't want to hear about players opinions who differ from yours. Or maybe more accurately, that you don't think the developers should listen to them, because it isn't what you agree with.
Which is the same thought process that gave us a new ME3 thread every few days after it came out. Which I participated in (and made a good amount of the threads) btw, so I'm not trying to absolve myself here.
I just think it is kind of silly to accuse players who wanted more of a series they liked, for the hurdles of continuing that series outside of those originals. It is just the nature of making more of something people liked, that you can simply never recreate no matter how much you, or the players, want.
I enjoyed Andromeda a lot. In fact, based on reactions here, when it was released, I think I enjoyed it more than most people. There was a lot of speculation from myself and others about how it tied to the OT and what things would be brought over and so on, and there were a lot of people who wanted to shit on that and said that whole swaths of story stuff from the OT could just be dropped and never brought up again. And had Bioware not actively tied in the origin and story of Andromeda to the OT, maybe that would have been more reasonable. But when the game is saying "yes, they are directly tied. Look! Here's plot points from the OT! Look! Here's characters from the OT!" then it isn't the players fault for wanting to know more.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Actually...
:bzz:
If by people you mean New Line Cinema and MGM I would argue exactly this.
Yes. Let's see the ME universe, let's see strange places, new galaxies, characters and aliens and planets and spaceships we've never seen! Andromeda did that! It had a few references to tie it into the universe and setting, but that was it. It was GREAT.
Let's leave those particular three games, their characters, their events, their time, their story, closed, finished, ended, on the shelf where they belong. Let's have more "Rogue One" and less "Oh look another bloody Skywalker". In a universe of galaxies and planets and stars and aliens and space magic technology, let's go do something new and see what's over that hill, and not try to drag everything along with us.
We keep the memories. We should not keep retreading the events that gave us the memories.
Yeah. Trying to make The Hobbit in to a LOTR rehash was precisely how they failed.
That doesn't mean you can't like it. It's not some personal battle. I just think it's goosey to suggest the reason hardcore ME fans roundly hated it was some puppy love over the Shepard trilogy. We wanted the start of a new epic trilogy and Andromeda is not that.
Sort of - in the eyes of us neeeeeeeerds sure, but they made a bajillion million zillion dollars apiece in worldwide sales and that's generally all Hollywood cares about when gauging success. (okay maybe not quite that much, but it did make its budget back several times over every time)
I mean, all but two of the alien races in Andromeda were from the previous games. Not to mention they skipped over most of the exploring of unknown and plopped all of the familiar faces on planets fully established. It's nobody's fault but their own that they squandered their chance to start fresh.
I might be running right into the schism between "hard sci-fi" ME1 fans and "space soap opera" ME3 fans, but the ME Milky Way, as established in ME1, was so much more interesting than the ME Andromeda galaxy, as established in MEA. There was real thought put into determining the rules of the galaxy, establishing the science behind what we saw, real care taken in crafting these interesting races with both interesting histories and interesting presentations, and setting up a galaxy-wide political order into which these races were slotted.
MEA? Two alien races, and one of them pretty much just yelled mysterious gibberish at you the whole time. Plus everything else was just sorta space magic, creating this awkward friction between having a setting in which none of the details were explained and a plot which desperately tried to explain everything before the finale. As a facile demonstration of the relative depths of the two universes: the Mass Effect Wiki page on the Kett is 1695 words total - including all the random Wiki text, Trivia stuff, unrelated links, etc.. The page on the Hanar is 1740 words. Admittedly, there were three mainline Mass Effect games, but we literally know more about the Hanar, an unplayable minor race in Mass Effect that is never represented as a crew member, an enemy, or even in a cut-scene, than we know about the Kett, one of the two alien races in Andromeda and the main antagonists that show up throughout the entire game.
That's not going to fly with any science fiction fan, never mind a Mass Effect fan.
If we do get more ME in the future I'd want it to focus on some completely different races, because the council races, quarians and krogan are utterly played out. E: Actually no, that's not fair. It's just the human perspective that's played out, a turian soldier chafing at their societal structure or a Salarian STG member or flotilla scavenger could be really interesting. A non-human perspective is even riskier than a new IP though.
The biggest problem with the continuation of the Mass Effect universe is obviously the constraining ending they wrote and the mismanaged mess of a follow-up they made.
Also, given the few decades later thing, I'm reading his quote as "set in the Milky Way" not "see all of Shep's buddies again," and given the Milky Way had a hundred times more minor details that could be explored more (and was previously the entire setting of the franchise), that seems pretty reasonable. If they do stick with Andromeda, though, I hope they fast forward a few centuries so there are actually some established civilizations instead of just the Angara, some outposts, and a million cryo-crazy Mad Maxers. They never committed on the frontier thing, and we lost all the other species' roots.
With ME:A you have a game set in another galaxy, but nearly all of the ME flavor is coming from bringing in the ME1-3 races, because by the time ME3 happened, those aliens were what made the setting Mass Effect as opposed to Space Opera Setting X. Which created tension between making a Mass Effect game, which meant bringing in Asari and whatnot, and building out the Andromeda setting, which needed new and never before seen alien types.
As happy as I am with the final product of Andromeda, I'm decidedly not happy with its broader reception and the consequences of that for the series and the studio. I'd rather have gotten a different game, even one maybe I wouldn't personally have enjoyed quite as much, if other people liked it more and we'd still be getting more Mass Effect titles.
I was very willing to "let go" of the original trilogy. From its announcement until its release, ME:A was basically all I thought of. I was so excited for more Mass Effect, and was beyond hyped when launch day arrived. Then I found out that the game just isn't that good. The only enjoyable part of Andromeda to me, is the combat. Everything else is just bland, uninteresting, and a buggy mess. I've given the game plenty of tries, and even ignoring the open world glut to focus on the story, I just can't find the interest to finish it.
Apparently I am not alone in thinking that, either. If they do revisit the series, their best bet is to return to the established ME universe everyone knows and has confidence in. Plus, it would just be really cool to see how the Milky Way is doing a few decades after the reaper war.
I too want a Space Cow survival type game.
Assuming they’d go with the “kill all Reapers” ending (IMHO the only real choice to continue the setting) then you having a very interesting world (you know what I mean :razz: ) to explore.
Almost all of the races have been thoroughly trounced. Space exploration? Reestablish the Council? Nobody has time for that in the aftermath as it’s gonna take everything each race has just to feed, shelter survivors and rebuild their broken worlds.
I mean you’re looking at a potential Dark Age for Citadel space.
There is a lot of cool ideas you could run with in a setting like that.
Isn't Deny just
But as far as the actual Reject Choice ending, everyone dies and the next cycle kills the Reapers.
Before starting the game, I went to look at some benchmarks. One of the sites I went to, in their “review” mentioned that the game looked terrible and not much better than ME3. I’m not sure what game they were playing but this game looks amazing. Maybe it’s because I have everything on ultra and I’m using a OLED TV to play on but man, plenty of jaw dropping moments. I remember going to meet Slone and watching the fan behind her slowly move with the light streaming through the openings. Very impressive. The textures are out of this world, rubber streaks on the clean hyperion floor, scratches and dents on metal, the ‘fuzzy’ look of leather on outfits, worn look on remnant pillars, all of it was great. I spent way too much time rotating planets just to watch the sun light hit them. Likewise he music was very good, not as memorable as the original series
The main issue I had in this area is with character models. Krogan, Salarian, and Turian look fine, but Human and Asari are really weird looking. As folks has mentioned, it doesn’t help that all Asari use the same model but even the humans all have the same basic look, terrible hair, and weird eye’s. If the benchmarking site was right about one thing, it’s that the character models looked better in ME3.
Story – 2/5
There are some decent bones here but mostly I just wasn’t that interested. I’ve found that it’s really hard to keep a player engaged in the main story if you build your game open world. There are some that make it work (Witcher 3) but there are more failures than successes with this game type in my experience. One of the things I didn’t get was why set this pre-mass effect 3? If they had set this 50 years after ME3 or something, it would have helped with a lot of the story issues I had. For example, how do they have the technology to be flying around a huge star cluster on regular FTL drives? Or why are there Krogan females everywhere? Before ME3 the genophage hadn’t been cured and in the codex it mentions most females are just trying to keep the Krogan species alive. If this had been set post ME3, these things and a bunch of others would make more sense.
I didn’t have a problem with the Kett and actually liked the high end goals for them. The infighting could have been interesting in future games. Gave me a homeworld vibe. I wasn’t as much of a fan of the Angara. Not sure what it was, but I just couldn’t get into them. Maybe it’s because they were the only species and in ME it was always great to have dozens of species around. Maybe it’s because there were so many side missions that the reused voices and faces.
The main story wasn’t bad, but it felt like it was missing some pieces. I had to get some of the ending material from the wiki as the codex wasn’t super clear some things. For example, when Ryder uses the Remnant to draw the scourge, I had no clue what was going on. Later I found a line in the codex explaining it. The story should be written so you don’t need to dive into the codex to understand what is going on in a main cutscene. The ending felt rushed, like how in the world did the Archon steal the Hyperion? Also wasn’t the space station Meridian’s command core? How did they control anything on Meridian without it? Lots of silly things that I just wasn’t a fan of.
The companion quests were pretty good. I can’t think of one I didn’t enjoy and were some of the few moments outside of some of the nexus quests that reminded me of the original series.
The writing overall though was pretty bad. I laughed out load quite a few times at how bad it was. Reminded me a B-movie that you go see because it’s bad. When Ryder walks up to his Krogan contact who is right next to Morda and starts off with “HEY you’re my secret contact to stop Morda, right?!” A lot of the side quests likewise were ok, but had weird endings, some very abrupt. The ‘Knight’ quest was like that, pretty good quest, but the ending was really abrupt.
Also, everyone knows everything! The Asari on the Ark knows they are called Kett before I can say anything. 0 explanation or lead up for the Architects. Just ran into one randomly, all my teammates know what it’s called. A lot of the side quests were like this as well.
Gameplay – 2/5
The main positive with gameplay was the jump pack and dodge which allowed for more freedom in combat. I liked most of the weapons I tried and the profile system was a neat perk. As others have mentioned, I didn’t like losing a skill slot, it would have been nice as an infiltrator to have cloak, a combat skill and 2 tech skills.
The open world was the weakest part. I got tired of fetch quests after the first planet. Most of them were not interesting nor did they have much payoff. The sad part is that some of the better quests (companion ones mostly) did have you bouncing around places to start many of them. But by the time I was done collecting drones, scanning junkers, rescuing medical supplies, and many other boring fetch quests; I just didn’t have the capacity to enjoy more fetch quests even if they ended up being better. I can see why people recommend just skipping all the side quests and sticking to the main story and companions.
The open world freedom is just not conducive to keeping tension on. There were quests I was getting into, but they involved jumping from planet to planet or nexus. Jumping to the next planet I was right next to 2 more quests, which I felt I should pick up while I was here, which seemed to break the tension of the quest I was on. This could just be a personality thing, but I had a hard time jumping down to a planet and not doing the closest quest vs focusing on the quest I was on.
This is probably why my favorite moments were on the planet hubs, the bar fight with Drack for example was great. While some of the Nexus quests weren’t great, most were fine and had some of the original series feeling to them. Another example is the angry colonists, I didn’t have to run back to a planet or anything to finish. It was just a decent self-contained quest.
I could have done without all the prompts though. Something like uncharted where if I’m stuck for a bit, press something for a hint. Instead we get incredibly precise directions for everything. If SAM tells me I’m not safe in the cold, then safe, then not safe, then safe, on and on, one more time I’m going to lose it.
Likewise, the puzzles can die in the fire. Especially Eladeen’s vault ones where there was no reset.
Lastly, I could have used a bit more clarification with the menu wheel. There were plenty of times I had 4 or more choices and what I picked didn’t come out like I thought it would. Say what you will of the paragon/renegade system, it was pretty clear what tone Shepard was going to use.
Companions – 3/5
This is hard, because most of the companions were fine. It’s just they were not as good as the companions in the original series (or dragon age). I romanced Cora but it was weird, early game flirting, then nothing for a long time, then a little more after the ark, then nothing for long time again, till the end when everything comes crashing in. As others have mentioned, too bad Lexi isn’t romanceable, she had some of the more interesting dialogue.
Most of them grew on me over time, even Jaal who I hated at the start, with the exceptions being Gil and Liam. I didn’t really find either that interesting to talk with and besides that Liam couldn’t seem to keep his shirt on for whatever reason, and Gil looked like he needed an hour every morning just to do his hair. I never missed talking with Gabby and Ken more than when I had to have a conversation with Gil.
The overall banter was good; along with the emails and message board, there were plenty of good moments. I just wish it was smarter about when to start banter. There were some good ones that I missed half of since I’d get near some random marker on the map and it would kick off some other dialog. The remnant/outlaw ‘bases’ seemed to do this a lot. I learned halfway through to stop driving if banter started.
Overall 3/5 - There was some promise here but given all the trouble we’ve heard about it’s development, it’s easy to see those troubles come through in the main game. The crashed remnant ship on Eladeen was a perfect summation of the issues in the game: gorgeous visuals, bugs (cora talking about dead salvagers when none were around), and what could have been a great mission with some twists, spooky set pieces, and fun dialog, but ended up just being a boring straightforward path of moving forward, fight, move, fight, move, etc. Probably because they had to spend more time coding a quest for me to pick up water from 5 different locations or something. I really wanted to like the game, but more often than not I had to force myself to keep playing, something I never ever had to do with any of the games in the original series.
Yeah, and I think it's the only format where a story could be told that isn't touched by too much of the ending bullshit. It also leads to a compelling resistance type setting.
Mass Effect with none of the races is not Mass Effect. The premise of Deny is that the Reapers wipe out humans, Turians, Asari, Salarians, Krogans, etc. Then in the next cycle, a new race discovers detailed information about the Reapers and isn't destroyed by them. It's not even clear if they use the Crucible to avoid destruction, which would make the previous cycle's refusal to use it farcical if they do. Deny is a ridiculous choice of ending to try to go off of.
Humanity discovers the Mars Relay, and all of a sudden they're face to face with new races (that we may or may not know). After the first outbreaks of violence between Humanity and the Turians (or whoever), our character has to help navigate those first connections between races. It would allow for challenges, special missions, personal bonds, and multiple sequels (culminating in a galaxy wide threat that only we can repulse, obvi). Just take the premise and completely rewrite the story in a new direction. Maybe Reapers, maybe not. Maybe the Krogan can be negotiated with, maybe not. Maybe there's a Council, maybe not. Etc. But the basic idea of:
1) Humanity realizing there's a wider Galaxy and that they are strong enough to be a part of it.
2) The basic Bioware idea of characters that you like that you can interact with, who also factor into the story.
3) Reapers might not be a thing at all, there are plenty of other Galaxy ending threats that could resonate in modern times (tribalism, environmentalism, a better writing of the human/AI relationship, whatever). Hell, the major accomplishment (and this is probably too nerdy of me) for the hero could be the working of a free trade agreement among the different races, something that brings untold profit to all civs that are invested in it. By all means, keep the worlds as we know it, with Turians, Quarians, Space Magic, and such. The point is that since a reboot is going to happen, why not do a FULL reboot, and give both the storytellers and the audience a sense of familiarity and also uncertainty?
The original premise held so much potential. And I loved the MA2 cinematic shift, it just failed SO hard at the end (in 3). Since it seems like the next Mass Effect we'll see is a reboot of some kind, why not just reboot the whole thing? Let Shepard be Shepard, and reboot the basic premise so people can write new stories from there?
That's an interesting idea. Sidestepping the Reaper war would be a great thing, since while it was interesting, it doesn't leave the galaxy in a state where it's easy to tell whatever stories you like. On the other hand, the universe as of Mass Effect 1 is an interesting place with plenty of room for stories in all kinds of genres.
Not sure I'm ready to part with the old universe like that, but it's an interesting idea.
But Bioware doesn't do smaller-scale stories.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar