@Tjuz I equally cannot believe you never check on your fish!
Only kidding; I think I forgot once, as Kathryn Shepard, although it suited her renegade playthrough to let them die anyway. Otherwise I obsessively fed them regularly.
Speaking of obsessive interactions, yeah, you sound like how I started out. When I realised the "game" side of things and how BioWare built a lot of the story, I could be more selective but I would routinely report back to the Citadel and "do a lap" to make sure nobody was calling out my name or asking for help. I think, because I came late to the party and knew I had an entire trilogy + DLC to get through, I also decided to check in less regularly with some folks because I simply wanted to keep moving forward, and there were those I just decided that I didn't like and / or wasn't that interested in talking to (sounds awful, I know, but I think that speaks to the personal connection an RPG allows players to have with their character more than anything).
I'll keep The Expanse in mind and when next on Netflix, add it to my list, thank you! I've got quite a backlog of shows to watch, but when I get there I'll be sure to tag you in some thoughts. I know I'll love it for having Shohreh Aghdashloo as a member of the cast regardless, so that's a good start!
No worries about having to reply regularly (or at all). I don't think Push Square is going anywhere anytime soon (at least, I sure hope it isn't).
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger@Thrillho The truth is that I simply never remembered I even had fish in the first place. That said, fish are monsters and deserve my starvation! Years ago when me and my siblings got one goldfish each, my siblings' goldfish teamed up to literally eat my goldfish to death. Since then, I have no more empathy for fish.
Fair enough on not wanting to spend too much time on each game, since you already had enough to get through! I pretty much figured out how they structured it as well, but I just couldn't stop that feeling of what if I do miss something. No chance I'm gonna let that happen! I think Mass Effect 1 took me 31 hours the first playthrough, which only got longer with each following playthrough. The second playthrough for ME1 I also installed Bring Down the Sky, which boosted it up to around 34 hours if I remember correctly. Then, with my third playthrough, I also added Pinnacle Station and decided to do the collec-a-thon quests, which boosted it up to about 38 hours or so. Kind of crazy when you do the math and realise I've spent 100 hours on ME1 alone!
ME2 took me about 34 hours my first playthrough I think, and 42 on my second (which is when I found out N7 side missions were a thing, and also added the Zaeed, Shadow Broker, Firewalker, Arrival and Normandy Crash Site DLC). ME3 I'm not quite sure. I think about 38 hours for my first playthrough and then 45-50 ish for my second? My second playthrough added From Ashes, Leviathan, Omega and Citadel, so them being quite the lengthy DLCs did a lot to boost that number. I like that the games ended up being pretty consistent in their playtimes though. Speaks volumes about how well they actually planned out the stories and balanced out the content!
Just out of curiosity, what other TV shows do you have your eye on currently? I am quite the TV nerd, so I couldn't help but ask. Glad you understand regarding my replies! Always hate to make someone feel like I backed out on a discussion, but don't worry, I'll keep bothering you for as long as you keep replying! Well, unless we truly run out of things to talk about... which somehow I doubt.
@Tjuz Something tells me that a nefarious pet store owner off-loaded some gold-painted Japanese Fighting Fish on you and your siblings.
When you add in all the DLC, the games do become somewhat overwhelming. In a way, I kinda lucked out by playing on PS3 because then I only had Bring Down the Sky added to ME1, since Pinnacle Station is an Xbox360 and PC exclusive. When I looked up some of the missions on YouTube, I didn't think they added much to how I wanted to progress the story, which was good because when I got to the end of ME1 all told, I felt like it was juuust starting to outstay its welcome (I wasn't used to long games back then; almost everything I'd played up until that point was either a relatively-linear action / adventure game or a licenced game, most of which clock in at 12 hours maximum).
ME2 was even worse, because I didn't connect with that game in the same way, so a lot of it felt like it dragged or was just busywork, although I did adore the Shadow Broker, Kasumi and Normandy Crash Site DLC content, moreso than most of the core game. The only bit of ME3 I didn't really like was the Omega DLC, simply because it went on far, far too long without offering any kind of gameplay variety or story intrigue; it was just rusty corridor after rusty corridor, and as much as I love Carrie Anne Moss, I never got along with Aria T'Loak (awful woman) and that random Russian villain they shoved in was incredibly weak. I rushed through it as quickly as possible in my second playthrough with Jason Shepard, but I have a feeling Kathryn will skip it entirely.
I can totally understand how you'd reach 100 hours on just ME1, especially when you're checking in with everybody and doing laps of the Citadel between each mission. BioWare did execute a very decent plan overall for the trilogy, despite the fashionable criticisms of the internet because of the slightly-fumbled ending to ME3. I'm not an apologist but I do get quite frustrated when I see people dismiss one of my all-time favourite games because of a vague ending that's subsequently been patched and vastly improved, for free.
I tend not to have plans surrounding TV shows, sorry! I just watch whatever catches my eye, between things I enjoy re-watching, or things that my partner suggests, which can be hit or miss. He's knocked it out the park twice, with The Newsroom and now with The Good Wife, but otherwise I'm just often reminded how different our tastes really are!
Knowing what you now know about me, any other TV recommendations? Probably best to answer in the appropriate topic, though, in which I've already replied and tagged you. See you over there!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger The other two fish are still living together in harmony! That said, ever since we got cats they've been somewhat ignored to the point of coming close to starvation.. albeit not intentionally. I sure as hell won't be doing anything about it, though! They can eat each other like they ate my fish for all I care.
The games definitely can become overwhelming in it's length, yes. It's kind of strange because nowadays I'm all about finding 10 hour games, and I'd frown at a game longer than 20 hours. Back then I paid no attention to game lengths, and the games really didn't feel that long to me. Only now, in retrospect, when I talk about the lengths of the games I realise how ridiculously long they can be. Just another testament to how well they crafted these games for me to even barely notice how much time I've spent playing them! 200+ hours!
You didn't miss anything with Pinnacle Station. I can see why they didn't end up porting that over. I really only finished it out of completionism. It really doesn't add anything to the story, and I don't believe there's any callbacks to it in ME2 or ME3 either. I'd call it a waste of time if I didn't just love Mass Effect this much!
Could you elaborate on how you didn't connect with ME2? I felt the same while playing honestly. First off, I was incredibly disappointed that they didn't have a fully fleshed out Citadel this time around. I was so excited about checking it out in new & improved graphics, but instead we got three floors of nothing. More importantly however, the focus on the character-driven story was definitely hard to get used to at first. I ended up loving most of those characters, but I definitely prefer the more story driven narrative of the first and third games, which is probably why I would also rate ME2 the lowest. Unfortunately, it also had the most boring main storyline of them all to add to that. The Collectors? Really? Sure, it had some epic moments (Normandy, Collector invasion, Legion, Suicide Mission), but the overall storyline was as boring as it could get. The new characters saved that game from being a complete disappointment, so I'm surprised people always rate it so highly over the others. The optimistic person in me justifies it by saying that most of them might not have played ME1 and jumped on the unjustified ME3 hate bandwagon, making it the default best for a lot of them. That might be too wishful thinking, however!
The recruitment/loyalty missions it gets praised for also aren't the best, really. It has some standout ones of course, like Tali's loyalty mission, Jacob's loyalty mission Garrus' recruitment mission, but the vast majority of them are somewhat forgettable and not very exciting. I think Garrus' loyalty mission is a prime example of that. I honestly can't even remember what Thane's loyalty mission was, or how I even recruited Tali. They're somewhat overrated as far as I'm concerned, especially when comparing to the rest of the trilogy which gave us such great missions as Rannoch, Tuchanka, Virmire and Noveria. I will never quite get the praise for it. The Suicide Mission was exceptional of course, and so would Lair of the Shadow Broker be as far as DLC goes.
I think I enjoyed the ME3 Omega DLC a lot more than most people. I see a lot of people mentioning it as a very weak DLC, but that wasn't my experience at all. To be fair, I obviously came in with incredibly low expectations so that might've helped my case. I also couldn't wait to get to the DLC considering I missed out on retaking Omega my first playthrough. Another aspect that helped my liking of it is that, unlike you, I did really enjoy Aria T'Loak. Yes, she was probably one of the most unlikable people in the trilogy, but I felt that gave her a kind of unique charm and I quite enjoyed my time with her. Getting to kick ass with a female Turian was also a lot of fun. I definitely can see the point of the uninspired level design and the lame Russian villain though, but to me all the other stuff made up for it. Helps too that even though it's a very combat-heavy DLC as well, the combat in ME3 was just so damn fun.
I can never quite understand the hate for the ME3 ending, but I recognise that it's also because I initially did play with the Extended Cut. Maybe I would've had the same kneejerk reaction to it had I not. I definitely think it wasn't special in any way, and I sure wasn't excited by it like I was the endings to the first two games, which might've added to some of the disappointment. I didn't think it was offensively bad, however, like some people seem to do. Another point I can raise from which I can understand the pushback is the fact that a lot of these people might've been waiting from 2007 to finish out the trilogy, and that the ending most definitely wouldn't live up to the hype I'm sure they'd have gathered by the time ME3 came out. In that way I'm actually very happy that I didn't discover Mass Effect until long after the trilogy had completely come out.
Fair enough on the TV shows! I'll see you in the other thread regarding those.
@Tjuz It's more likely that your cats will eat the surviving fish.
The whole debate about game length is one that I'm seeing talked about more and more, particularly in the past couple months where a ridiculous release schedule of 80+ hour open-world sandbox games has made a lot of people frustrated or simply abandon games halfway through. I'd certainly never abandon a game, let alone a Mass Effect game, but I can appreciate the difficulty in keeping pace with modern releases. It'll be interesting to see where EA position a potential Mass Effect trilogy remaster, given how long it'd take to play through all three games again!
Thanks for the Pinnacle Station reassurance. Phew!
I think I'm in agreement with you about ME2, really, and I'm not just saying that to skip over elaborating on my thoughts (because boy, do I love to elaborate). ME1 was a story with excellent characters, but it was a story first, with lore to set out and events to establish. You frequently clash with the villain and things move along at a pace; similarly, ME3 was a cataclysm of events racing towards a vast conclusion. ME2... well, ME2 was a thing which happened in between. Shepard building his crew felt dragged out. The actual plot of ME2 is simply "There are these bad guys who did you in, and now you're back; get strong and defeat them, please. Cheers!" and yet somehow that can take 60 hours? Why? I do love a good character-driven narrative, and never minded the character moments or loyalty missions in the other games, but ME2 just feels like it doesn't have enough plot to justify its existence, so it pads it with busywork on behalf of lazy NPC crewmembers. It's some of the most gorgeous, in-depth and well-written busywork in all of gaming, but it's still busywork. I also didn't like the whole mercenary angle; Shepard is an officer and (in my case) a gentleman, not a gun-for-hire.
Your picks for standout moments are good; in my opinion, Kasumi's DLC blows them out of the water, but that's just me (and says something about my opinion of the core game, really). It's what I remember most about ME2 and is why I'll always replay it when revisiting the trilogy, rather than skipping over it... well, that and fighting a skyscraper-sized cyborg. Because that's just cool.
Each to their own; I'm actually glad you liked the Omega DLC, because I can imagine for folks who love combat and love Aria it was a dream come true! The female Turian (can't recall her name, alas, at least not without stopping and wracking my brain for ten minutes) was also pretty neat, and if it weren't for Vetra in ME:A then I might've highlighted that as a positive because at the time, it was a unique addition. Perhaps some of my negativity is because I saved Omega for towards the end of my first ME3 playthrough, and then immediately moved on to Citadel (which is head and shoulders above any other component of the game... heck, of the entire trilogy, really). That's always gonna drag things down a little.
When I finished ME3 the first time (in floods of tears, I don't mind admitting) I really couldn't understand why the ending was so controversial, because I was playing the Extended Cut. When I spoke to my friend and looked up the original ending on YouTube, I got it. I'd have been furious. Not furious enough to send death threats to EA and BioWare, mind (because I'm not mad) but pretty angry. The Extended Cut works, though. As it stands now, it's a great ending, and I'm glad I was late to the party as a result, too. That moment, standing in front of the final choice, with those drums... amazing. Just amazing.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@Thrillho I'd call it a "very, very good game" so please don't think I hate it.
I'm being incredibly specific and analytical, but despite not connecting with ME2 as much as I connected with the other games in the franchise (including Andromeda) I still had a blast.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger Game length is definitely becoming a problem. Mass Effect: Andromeda also suffered from an unfocused, drawn out campaign to serve the open world setting. According to my PS4 Life video, I put 38 hours into that game and according to you I was only about a third of the way through! Granted, I did explore Eos and tried to do all of the side activities, which is my curse. The original trilogy was a lot more manageable with that. In general I just prefer more linear games since they're usually on the shorter side. I'm currently making my way through Red Dead Redemption II still (I put God of War on hold). That game, I think, manages to do make an engaging story even if it's incredibly long. Their secret ingredient are two things in my opinion.
1) They have the whole camp life element, with interesting and well realised characters serving as your gang members. Even when the story is perhaps paced a bit too slowly for my tastes, the missions (and side activities) still feel like they're worth doing because you get a chance to socialise and hang out with your fellow gang members more, thus deepening their characters and getting you more invested. I think that's a really smart way to structure a long story, as opposed to a lot of video game stories which just focus on getting from A to B.
2) It also divides the story into multiple chapters, each having their signature "thing". I'm currently on Chapter IV, so in case anyone's reading and wants to jump in — no spoilers! It's very much like how Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. smartly structured it's fourth season, where there's multiple arcs, and to some degree multiple stories as opposed to one drawn out, repetitive one.
The point I'm trying to make with this that if they ever do decide to continue with the Mass Effect franchise on the open world path, I think they need to take a page out of Red Dead Redemption II's book. I know you haven't played it and don't plan to do so, but I hope I at least got the feel of it across. I think the way they've done it would fit the Mass Effect franchise perfectly, but I would still prefer them to return to the linear game structure of the first three games. Good on you for never abandoning a game, though! I have a feeling that probably also has a lot to do with your OCD, but as long as it's not getting in the way of your enjoyment of gaming it sounds like a good thing to me.
I also agree with your thoughts on Mass Effect 2. I'm glad we're like-minded individuals in that sense, because anywhere else I might've been laughed off the board for saying ME2 is the worst game out of the three! Personally, I was fine with the whole mercenary angle, but it annoyed me that you never really got a chance to sabotage or work against Cerberus until the very end of the game. I understand that would've been hard to pull off without it being a compulsory main story element, but it did feel a bit off to not be able to do that at all. Especially after you're confronted by Ashley/Kaidan and are pretty much forced to side with Cerberus in that conversation. I'll definitely have to play the Kasumi DLC at some point. Hopefully I get myself to continue my third playthrough, but there's so much else I could be playing!
I don't really love the combat in Mass Effect honestly. It's always felt more as an inbetween than core gameplay I really enjoyed. That said, I don't despise it either, and messing around with powers is still a lot of fun (when the game lets you have fun and doesn't continuously keep throwing shielded enemies at you). Aria was definitely the highlight of Omega for me. It might've also helped that I only did it in my second playthrough, and in my first I was itching to go back to Omega in ME3, not realising it was part of a DLC and it therefore never happened. That initial disappointment may have helped in my excitement when I did get around to it in my second playthrough. The female turian was called Nyreen, by the way! Hopefully that should save you some minor annoyance next time you're made to think of her, as is often the case when I forget names.
I haven't actually seen the original ending. One thing I don't think I have admitted yet is that I actually reloaded the game on my first playthrough to get a different ending as my canon, but I had good reason! I'm sure this happened to many people, but I wasn't taking it. You know about how the entire game you can shoot friendly characters (or at least attempt to) without any consequence? I did that with Starchild. I was moving towards the pods and just looked back at Starchild and just shot him, with no real malicious attempt. It was just a thing I did, because gaming logic tells me I can. Then it took me to the ending where the Reapers won because I angered Starchild and now everyone is dead. Absolutely not. I had no choice but to replay the ending and actually do the ending I wanted and was planning to take either way, Destroy. I think that's the only time I've ever done that in a game, but I had never felt so cheated!
@Tjuz Sorry, you've caught me whilst I'm on, so I'm gonna reply right away.
You've explained that issue about game length really well, despite referencing two things I have never experienced and will never experience (Red Dead 2 and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) because my brain found a similar example. The third seasons of Star Trek Enterprise is one long arc which, in places, they struggled to make last all 24 episodes and had to inject filler storylines and / or undo previous plot twists, but the fourth season comprises of two-part and three-part mini-arcs and, as a result, manages to tell in-depth storylines whilst maintaining good pacing and variety. That make sense? So you're keeping the core cast of characters, but regularly moving them on to new places and / or adventures, so you can track their character arcs and interactions whilst mixing things up pretty frequently.
That'd work perfectly for a Mass Effect game. I think that's what they were trying to do with ME2's loyalty missions, but the overbearing "yet another galactic apocalypse" plot kept dragging things back to the Normandy and stopping short of delivering real depth. I think it's why I had the idea (which I described in another topic) about a space game where you're on a journey, and there's a dozen or so alien systems between you and your destination, and it's up to you what course to set. Help this alien race and their neighbours might not like you, but ignore them and you'll have a clean slate when you move on. I think that needs to be the core of the next Mass Effect because, you're right, otherwise it outstays its welcome. I think that's also why I liked ME3 the most, because it felt like you were moving from battlefront to battlefront and completing little individual stories moreso than the previous games.
Well, I sometimes delay completing a game, but it's incredibly rare. I'm supposed to be playing Spyro 2 at the moment but it isn't holding my attention, so I'll likely give Hitman 2 and some old seasonal favourites some time for the next couple days and come back to Spyro later in the week. Won't be any longer than that, though, otherwise I will feel like I've abandoned it and, you're right, my OCD won't allow that.
Always nice to find somebody who shares a minority opinion, because otherwise I end up convinced that I'm weird and wrong. I certainly agree that the plot forced itself into a particular box and you therefore couldn't do obvious choices because it'd break the game. When I met up with Kaiden again I was just screaming "AGREE WITH HIM!!" at the screen and when I couldn't, I felt almost betrayed by the game's structure and story. That comes full circle to something we discussed earlier, I believe, about choice-based games offering the illusion of choice, and often finding a third way that's the most obvious to the player, but that isn't available... or worse, when the on-screen dialogue choice suggests one thing, you select it and Shepard says the complete opposite! D'oh!
I'm afraid my combat is always the most boring, as I never have biotic powers. I'm always a "pistol and infiltrator" kinda guy (thanks to my love of spy stories) and like to keep things simple. Often I'll see other people's combat clips or my best friend, who always goes biotic and mucks about, will tell me of what's possible and I'll feel like I'm missing out a little, but I can't bring myself to pick anything different. Even in my deliberately-different Kathryn Shepard playthrough, I made her an engineer because it was the closest option to "scientist" I could find, and gave her no biotics. Maybe it's just too close to "magic powers" for me and I hate fantasy nonsense like that.
Nyreen, that was it! Thank you!
Oh, you didn't shoot Starchild, did you? Poor you! I don't blame you for reloading, then! Yep, that's totally a thing. I actually love the game for that being an option. You can also just walk away and refuse to make a choice, and after five minutes you'll get a similar ending because Shepard didn't fulfil his destiny and the cycle collapses. Mind if I asked why you were so determined to pick Destroy? I did the same on my second playthrough because it was the only way to make "my" Shepard, Jason, survive and I'd grown too attached to him but with my rational, logical head on the first time, I picked Synthesis because it was the most "Starfleet" choice of the three.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger Your Star Trek example indeed sounds pretty much exactly like what I was attempting to explain! I definitely see the argument that that's what they were trying to do with ME2's loyalty missions, but like you said, they didn't really manage to pull it off. ME3 definitely did better in that aspect, mainly with Tuchanka and Rannoch. Also, I would love to play the game you described! Make it a reality somehow!
Haha, people could never convince me that my minority opinions are weird or wrong. I'm far too opinionated to let that happen! I equally share the frustration you expressed at the Ashley/Kaidan meeting. That's probably one of the few times in the Mass Effect trilogy where I got really annoyed at the game. They really should've handled that better and let us have an actual proper conversation, like you eventually get to on Mars in ME3. It's super annoying when dialogue options don't end up sounding like how you expected them to sound. My biggest example with that is probably The Witcher 3. I had a talk with one of the characters and thought I was about to say something reasonable, and then Geralt just made something entirely different of it resulting in the character trying to kill me. When that kind of stuff happens, I think a reload is more than fair!
I didn't play Mass Effect with a biotic class either until my third playthrough. I think I started with Engineer, and then went Sentinel on my second playthrough. My third for ME1 was Adept, I believe, so still a bit of a mix between biotics and tech. I'd never choose something like Soldier, since that just seems incredibly boring to me. I could definitely see the case for Infiltrator though, and I'd be open to try that out for a possible fourth playthrough if I ever get that far! Too bad you hate magic, though! It's usually my go to class whenever it's available, haha. That said, I haven't been able to get into Dragon Age at all, even though I've tried multiple times.
Didn't shooting Starchild only become an option after the Extended Cut? I can imagine why people who wanted to take that route were outraged at the original ending if so. That said, I don't see why you would want to! Okay, confession time. Once I got to the final choice with Starchild and saw I had 3 choices to take, I googled to see which one would keep me alive. I'm generally quite good at avoiding that kind of behaviour in these games, but at that point I had gotten way too far to let my Shepard get killed because of some vague final choice! That's really the only reason I was dead set on going Destroy before I accidentally got the angry Starchild ending. Is Synthesis the ending that results in the death of EDI and Legion? I don't know if I could ever get myself to do that!
@Tjuz Yeah; the whole "separate, but connected" balancing act is tricky to master, so I'm not surprised (nor do I think it's really a criticism you can hold against them too much) that it took BioWare some practice in ME2 before perfecting the approach in ME3. It is what it is, but everything's a step on a journey and when you play all three games together, end to end, it holds together a little better than if you just drop in and out of them individually, I think.
Absolutely, I can think of a dozen ways to end the Kaiden / Ashley meeting on a positive note and not have it break the game. "Well, look, I agree with you in principle but I'm kinda stuck here and..." (leaning in quietly to whisper) "...Cerberus are the only ones with the resources to stop the immediate threat, so I'm totally just using them for that and to learn everything they know, don't worry." "Oh, really? That's pretty tactical and very cunning, which is just what I'd expect of you, Shepard. Sure, okay. Want me to play-act disgusted to help you sell it?" Perhaps that's just how I was approaching the game and my own Shepard, but I couldn't believe that wasn't an option.
And yeah, I reloaded more than once when a line of dialogue didn't quite pan out the way I'd expected. Sometimes they were even unclear about what constituted flirting and I ended up getting romance options for folks like Jack and Miranda when I really, REALLY shouldn't have. Nope! Nope nope nope, reload, start again. Can't just be nice and friendly, apparently. Nope!
I've promised a friend to try getting into Dragon Age soon, based on my love of Mass Effect (it was her recommendation, after all) and in an effort to get over my loathing of fantasy, so we'll see how I get along with Origins and I'll obviously post some thoughts elsewhere in the forums as and when I do, but I'm not encouraged by your admission to trying and failing, multiple times, to get into the series! We'll see how it goes. There are quite a few voice actors in Dragon Age which I know I'll love, and that might be enough to see me through the first game at least.
Either shooting Starchild or walking away from him was added, but one of them was available at launch, I think (and would've been hidden for quite a while if people weren't so enraged by the original ending and therefore prone to opening fire / running back the way they came). And that's fair enough with your approach to the ending! No need to confess to that, I can understand that. I figured I'd be replaying the game "properly" with a custom Shepard and so didn't mind making a choice and watching the other endings later on YouTube, which I did (and then chose Destroy, in which he survived but also in which EDI and Legion die, because it's destroying all A.I. in the galaxy; Synthesis is the only one where everybody lives because organic and artificial life merge, which I thought was the most upstanding, heroic thing to do... whilst Shepard's body dissolves into the green Synthesis energy stream, his consciousness is dispersed throughout the galaxy and so lives on in everybody, which I also kinda liked because it wasn't definitely death like I thought the others would be).
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
I thought about making a thread to discuss the upcoming Mass Effect trilogy Remaster and more importantly the the new teaser and what it could mean but found this one and thought why not just revive it and keep it an all encompassing thread for ME.
I'm a huge fan of the series and they are some of my favourite games, I'm even one of the few who actually enjoyed Andromeda despite it's flaws. So while I'm eager to see what they have done with the Remaster, the new teaser (for something a long time away) has certainly got me excited.
To touch on the Anthem aspect and the studios tarnished reputation I remain cautiously optimistic that those events may help galvanise the studio to realise where their strengths lied and help them refocus on what they used to do best. While it's true many people who made the originals what they were have gone it's been very interesting to see Michael Gamble's Twitter feed since the teaser hit. It seems quite a few prominent figures of the past have returned to work on this game, here some examples.
But back to the teaser itself and what it means for the future (years away) game. Well Liara is 100% confirmed and that is a massive deal for me already as herself and Garrus were my go to team for as often as it was possible in the trilogy. As for being a continuation of ME3 and ignoring Andromeda that doesn't seem to be the whole case. The Andromeda galaxy is pictured in the teaser and their are other hints referring to it. When I looked up whether it was Andromeda that was pictured I found this article which nicely covers a lot of what is in the teaser. It also includes some more tweets from Michael, who it seems has been quite forthcoming about what was shown and what it might imply going forward. I'd recommend any interested parties giving it a quick read.
If it's hinting at game where you play as Liara bridging the galaxies, I know I'd be up for that.
Basically we know very little but enough to give me a glimmer hope for a return to form. Maybe Dragon Age in (2-3 years?) will give us a better picture of if they can still make great games.
@BearsEatBeets Yeah, as a fellow fan of Andromeda (we do exist!) part of me is hopeful that they won't just jettison its existence, and that there's a way to keep it canon. I'm not expecting any major connections or returning characters, given the assumed premise of this new game, but Liara did feature in an Andromeda voice cameo, so there's precedence at least.
My concern is that, in a rush to make a sequel to the original trilogy, BioWare will canonise one of the three major endings to Mass Effect 3. I'd be fine with that, so long as they canonised the ending I picked, annoying the heck out of 66.6% of other players who picked something different.
Dragon Age will be quite revealing, yes. I'm on board with that franchise as well, so I'm excited to be getting new games regardless, just... yeah, ANTHEM did a lot of damage, didn't it?
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger If they are going to go with a canonised ending, which seems highly likely, I think with some clever writing they could maybe explain away the other 2 choices as indoctrination 'halucinations' so as not to completely ignore peoples choices. Or maybe they will just pick the one they feel allows them to carry the story forward best. I'm sure the fanbase will be totally chill about it. Which ending did you pick by the way? I originally went with the destroy the reapers option even though I replayed the last bit again to see the other endings too. I think I still prefer this outcome although the cost of losing the geth just after resolving their conflict is pretty brutal. Not a fan of forcing every living thing to become a cyborg ending but the one where Shepard controls the Reapers is okay.
After writing I went back and hid that bit as even though it's old now some might go into the Remaster not having played before.
@BearsEatBeets Well, then they'd better be the BioWare of old, because you just said "clever writing" would be necessary. From what I gather, the whole Indoctrination Theory has been gaining ground in recent years, so it'll be interesting to see whether they lean that way.
First playthrough, during which I used a generic Shepard, I picked Synthesis (your least-favourite) because of the Geth and EDI. My reasoning was basically "this way, at least everybody lives" and I found it a very Starfleet solution. It took me forever to decide, though. When I was finally given back control and those drums were just beating, I froze for a good ten minutes.
Then, having become a fan, I spent a couple weeks reading around the games and all of their various options, before starting a "true" playthrough some months later. When I got to the end of that run, I picked Destroy for purely selfish reasons; it's the only way my Shepard could survive. I'd become way too attached to him to sacrifice him for the greater good. Funnily enough, both times, I never gave Control any serious thought. I felt like that was the "bad" ending, no matter what.
And thanks for spoiler tagging that, by the way. As somebody who frequently finds older games to play for the first time, I appreciate the thought, even though it wasn't necessarily for me!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger Oh man! I forgot about Edi (which seems sacrilegious). I remember being annoyed with the options as none seemed ideal or offered me with a outcome that could feel triumphant or victorious after such an epic journey. I suppose that's a more realistic take, rarely in life do things have perfect solutions, but it contributed to the widely felt flat ending. I was never one of the people outraged at the ending or demanding a change (Is this when true gamer entitlement began?) but will admit the original finish after my choice did surprise me and make think 'is that it?'. The 'extended cut' definitely improved things but it still wasn't the finale I had hoped for.
I think one way it could have been better was, if a bit like the suicide mission in ME2, you had to assign fleets/races to certain tasks in the final battle. So if you put in all the work resolving the Geth-Quarian war, curing genophage (hope I'm remembering that right) etc you have all the specific forces for specific events of the final battle. Instead of just adding all these up to a big number which gets you a slightly better cutscene outcome, it felt like you earned all these allies able to do certain things only they can do. Then the game could have kept the one and only true victory if you achieved all these things through the whole trilogy. Hope this makes sense (I've been up a long time now).
I don't want to give the impression it spoilt the game for me. I think it's just that the journey getting there was so impressive for me it just didn't quite 'nail the landing'. It was such a narrative feat to carry choices across 3 games and still have a coherent story. Still one of my favourite game series to this day. I'm eager to see what they have done with the Remaster and will no doubt relive the saga once again.
@BearsEatBeets I can fully understand the disappointment and frustrations with the original ending, even though I think you're right, people took it way too far (and sure, I think it's one of the first major examples of the gamer entitlement trend). I was a latecomer, so I played the Extended Cut and thought it was good enough, even if it wasn't great. Then I watched the original endings on YouTube and was genuinely shocked. I think I'd have been pretty annoyed as well, had I been tracking the trilogy at launch.
Your approach would've worked really well, I reckon (so don't worry, it makes sense!). Whenever they've done these big finales, I've appreciated the nods to your in-game progress, like when all the Pathfinders turn up to fight the Archon in Andromeda only if you bothered finding them and completing their side missions. It'd be nice if that had an actual impact, rather than just activating or deactivating certain shots in a cutscene. A proper reward for putting time and effort into the game.
Oh, it's all about the journey, absolutely. And no amount of endings would've been able to satisfy the insane amount of diversity available across an entire trilogy. Could it have been better? Sure, but then so could many individual moments throughout, as well.
My fingers are tightly crossed for the remaster. If it looks solid, I'll be there at launch this time.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@Arugula It depends how long after the end of 3 they are going. I remember Asari living very long lives and from the brief glimpse Liara looked older. I can't recall the lifespans of Turians and Quarians but don't think it was much more than humans. From Michael gamble's comments I think it's also going to tie into Andromeda too so it might be set around the time of that. But I suppose it's sci-fi and cryo-sleep is a thing so who knows. I'd be happy to see my favourite calibrator back.
@Thrillho It's such a rich universe there's plenty of potential for spin-offs. I certainly think the First Contact War would make for a great setting. I think it's okay to tell a smaller scale story too, the whole galaxy doesn't need to be in peril every time.
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