Worse than ME1, that's a given. But it was also worse than ME2 by a mile.It was fucking atrocious. It's not bait. It's not a joke. It's not jadedness. It was just shockingly poor after the first two games, even if there's undeniably kino-factor in bits and pieces throughout.The primary misstep they make in ME3 isn't because ME2 fucked the Trilogy Plot or because the choices didn't matter, but the tone of the game, and the feeling that BioWare were viewing themselves as "artists" after the 96 metacritic success of ME2. They started viewing themselves as gods and with the shift away from some of the old writers, the only people left to make ME3 were all the pretentious snob-people, so they went on to make the most "Movie-like" Mass Effect where everything had to be so biiig and grandiose, and where "everything is coming togetheeer~" but almost none of it is earned.Even the "incredible" parts like Curing the Genophage has the feeling of BioWare wanting their cake and eating it too. "We're gonna pull at all the stops", but if your entire game is climaxing from beginning to end, then all you have made is self-congratulatory schlock.ME3 is grounded in the characters, but it felt the most out of all of the games as a game where the characters existed on the exterior of the context of the story, where they solely carry the narrative not by its plot but by just being there and having endearing dialogue. But they were thrown into a storyline that wanted them to be actors with makeup on, on a stage, and nothing had that same feeling of authentic immersion that the previous two games commanded so well, even ME2. This is cemented by the final Citadel DLC where the context of what ME3 was is completely voided, and all you're left with is "cute characters" in an empty hollowed out setting with no plot. (Okay, the Clone plot is at least fun but you know what I mean)So no, it actually sucked.
>>680719865Yeah but I spent hundreds of hours in the multiplayer. So that was nice.
>>680720150This is why ME3 sucked.They spent the budget for the back end of the game on multiplayer. Multiplayer isn't cheap.It was a monkey paw decision because ME3 multiplayer made a fuckton of money, but the shitty ending killed the brand.
>>680720150Exactly. All you were left with was "Hey at least I can now play as a Krogan/Turian/Quarian/Asari!"And I digress. I have replayed the trilogy 12 times and I don't think ME3 is a bad VIDEO GAME. I think maybe it's a bit worse than the other two in terms of interactivity (less dialogue options, less anything that isn't shooting a pistol, even side-quests) but that's ultimately not a "bad game".But as a piece of "text", (or just story, lol) it completely betrays what the series was portrayed as, previously, as far as I'm concerned. There's a handful of moments where there's a glimpse of the game that could've been, but mostly it fell flat for me exactly because it just tries too damn hard to be "THE FINAL GAME~" in the story.As a trilogy, I view Mass Effect more as equivalent to the OT Star Wars at best, or The Matrix at its worst. But gaming actually has better trilogies than Mass Effect, and it did not turn out to be this "Lord of the Rings but Sci-Fi, and for gaming" as BioWare want to label it as.
ME1 was loved by rpg fansME2 found main stream success by going in a more action oriented directionME3 showed everyone what disappointment feels like and to never ever get excited for a bioware product again.
>>680720461A lot of devs have mentioned since ME3 that the multiplayer B-studio (same people that later made MEA) "owned" a lot of ME3. It's not just the multiplayer, but cinematics, concept art, storyboards, character models, and 3 writers.There was a culture-shift between the first two games and then ME3. It happened gradually, but it happens most starkly between ME2 and 3 as far as STORY goes. Aesthetics were already changing in 2, and the shift to gameplay -- obviously, but the "spirit" of the franchise still felt similar enough in 2 that you were open to the aggressive changes under a feeling that "Oh it's still got that introspective style of dialogue and wikipedia style exposition, but it's a bit cooler now."In ME3, those qualities were absent, traded off for generic dialogue with empty platitudes (like "We fight or we die") and an obvious attempt to harp on the PATHOS of dialogue, rather than the ethical/logical dimension.
>>680720461I dunno if the Multiplayer being axed would have fixed the game. But hey weirder things have happened.
>>680719865>Movie-likeME1 was a shitty Star Wars/2001 sloppa ripoff and 2 was a shitty Firefly attempt.Good gameplay in all of them though. But I'll never understand the retards who cared about ME's 90IQ plot. Not even the writers did lol
>>680720461Making a wave mode grinding game is cheap. They reused all the maps and weapons for side content in the campaign anyways.
>>680720878>ME3 showed everyone what disappointment feels like and to never ever get excited for a bioware product again.It goes so much further than just BioWare for me. It killed a level of trust and optimisim I had never questioned in vidyas prior. Because up to around 2012 we didn't really have much in the way of actually screwing over the invested players, and games generally followed a trajectory of growth and evolution of ideas, where it seemed like each subsequent year someone made something more kino than previously. That's obviously never sustainable, but it sucks ME3 had to take the fall.Previously I had thought that Jak 3 was a mediocre finish to Jak & Daxter and I thought Twilight Princess wasn't the OoT killer I thought I was getting. But the feeling was muted because they were still so good, and ultimately self contained enough that it didn't matter.ME3 was like you finally got to what should've been the most epic game (and it superficially is) but so many things just feel completely out of touch. The only similar disappointment I've witnessed was the RE community's reaction to RE6.
>>680721004It wouldn't have mattered. The thing that matters is that 4 out of 5 of the writers that wrote ME1 and ME2 were gone.
>>680721019They actually did believe in their own bullshit back during ME1/2. The posts by Chris L'Etoile on various websites was proof, and Patrick Weekes also became very invested. Drew was also egotistical. He was generic but solid, being an outline driven writer where he plots rather than iterates his way to a storyline.The stuff L'Etoile wrote about the considerations that went into the lore, and backstory of quarians, earth and the military, and stuff, you joke it's 90 IQ or whatever, but what other games have ever been made that had this level of accessibility while having that much thought and care put into something.The writers weren't on the same page ultimately, but the early games had enough championing by people that did give a shit, that it became believable over it. It's because Mac Walters being in charge and his ADHD brain not being able to comprehend their own plot that the franchise bit the dust.
>>680721117Taking a single-player game and retrofitting it for multiplayer is a huge undertaking.
Did anyone ever tell Mac and Casey that their ending was dubious during development, you think? Like the story is that they locked themselves in a room without contact until they were done, but after they came out was anyone like "uhhhh are you sure you want to have the player get talked down to by a mystical space child that forces them to either kill millions or force invasive surgery on millions or do the retarded thing that the illusive man just demonstrated was retarded"
>>680721592The journal entries were short, the backstory spanned only ~100 years and the important ones were literally read out to you. The character repeated important points 3 times at least to make sure you got it. A good deal of the technobabble was inconsistent, and a lot of things were introduced for cool factor then never touched again. That's how much care they put into the plot, and there are some great lore inconsistencies and insults to science fiction in there.But that's okay. The games were always about the journey and the character writing was at least kind of on point. Even with ME3 that's the only salvageable part.
I don't think ME was ever actually good. I loved ME1 on release but in hindsight it was just because of the novelty, there was nothing else really like it at the time and I was a dumb teenager. Replaying it recently made me realize the music was the only thing holding it up. The gameplay is an absolute joke, so all you have really is the story, plot, characters, atmosphere, etc. and all that shit is pretty generic and uninteresting. Basic bitch military scifi trappings around a nebulous plot that goes nowhere, accompanied by characters that are either annoying or bland (except for Wrex). I can just listen to the galaxy map song and get all the enjoyment I ever will out of this series
>>680722619The music balancing in ME1 is fucked up too. It's way too low even on max.But I actually think the gameplay in all three games is the second real saving grace. They're all pretty fun. Shame the Legendary Edition fucked up 1's balancing.
>>680719865correct, it's a fundamentally flawed game that killed any chance of mass effect becoming one of the great sci-fi settings.
>>680721735First and foremost I debate the need for a final "choice" to begin with. You've had one goal from the start - stop the reapers - that I think 99% of players would have been fine with that as the singular climax and leaving everything else to epilogue sides depending on your choices. Cheap, simple, satisfying. Where they really fucked up was thinking that the series was "about choices" and that meant that they needed some exclusive choice at the tail end of the game. This is retarded for a few reasons, chief amongst them obviously is that this is obviously going to invalidate huge swaths of decisions you've made until that point. Secondly, it was clear they wanted to do this without having the writing chops to come up with three compelling, positive choices, and you can't have a positive choice and a shit choice next to each other, because then it's not much of a choice, is it? So their solution was to come up with three absolute shit sandwiches of choices and force you to pick one. It's really the worst of all worlds.
>>680728240please ignore where i used "obviously" twice on accident
