No there were massive issues with 2 that shat over things established by 1
People just forget that because of how fucking atrocious 3 was

>>742275024
it literally double downed on ME2's mistakes

Mass Effect has always been shit
best part was ME3 multiplayer

>>742275481
>The gameplay was great mindless fun
The entire ambition of the idea, boiling down to normieslop with friends >_>

>>742275024
2 is worse

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>>742275024
The single worst decision in the series was to have the reapers actually show up and they established that part in Arrival.

The reapers should have remained trapped in dark space and trying to find a way into the relay network, with them showing up meaning instant game over for the galaxy.

>>742276967
I agree. I think the climax of ME3 should've been the "The Reapers have broken through the border!" moment, not the premise of the entire game, to have a "War" story.
If anything, ME2 set up their targeting of humanity and Earth. They could've genuinely made ME3 a more believable experience if a frontal force with Harbinger came and occupied Earth, but the surrounding Citadel allies refuse to help due to protectionism (same situation we've kinda seen with Ukraine and the EU) and it would be a lot more sympathetic to humans in the game, and make us feel disappointed in the Councilors when they say "sorry, but we can't sacrifice our own for you" and then the win-condition would be within reach once a totally allied galaxy finally take the fight to Earth, while the "full invasion" is teetering on the brink in the background, with Shepard activating his super-secret device thingy, that averts this cycle's invasion, and somehow makes sure all future cycles are over.

I really liked the idea within the ending about the Reapers operating on a "logic" that to them necessitates the Cycle, which if you null that condition, they lose the reason to keep doing it. I hated Synthesis as a concept, but I like the idea that there could've been a smaller and genuinely managable war that you can win with a galactic army, and then a "condition" you overturn that protects the galaxy from the other Reapers forever going forward.

I had a rough time with 3 because the entire way through it, I found almost nothing about the main story authentic or believable, but even 2 with its weird changes and Cerberus, I was totally into that, and I thought it made sense within the "scope" of the setting, and it was arguably even more believable than 1 because its scale was smaller, so you spent more "real time" just managing nitty gritty decisions with a few aliens and their issues unique to the ME setting. 3 on the other hand felt overwrought and hard to swallow.

>>742276102
Wrong.

>>742275024
They flopped on writing the ending.

2 was dudebro filler shit

>>742275024
I don't think that 2's main story being completely meaningless is 3's fault.

>>742275024
1: Sidequests are pretty barebones, ship crew has fuckall to talk about, party members get a couple new lines at best.
2: Main narrative is just one giant side plot that doesn't affect the trilogy's story at all, making you have to work with Cerberus who have a logo plastered everywhere and the money to have all of these well funded cells when in 1 they were scraping by and doing shady things in uninhabited areas because shit's expensive
3: Main narrative writing is pretty bad for most of the game, people focus a lot on the ending because of how unsatisfying it was but problems are evident from the beginning. A plot device introduced in the very beginning of the last part of a trilogy that might totally defeat them is the very start of the awful writing. Also why is Shepard on Earth when it's been previously established that Alliance HQ is a space station? Just bad, bad writing decisions the whole way through.

This thread is just an excuse for ME2schizo to start posting his pasta, isn't it?

At least its… Le Fun!

>>742278958
2 was still fun.

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>>742275024
A great many, but not all

>playing 2
liking it
aand gona play 3 when over

>>742275218
>No there were massive issues with 2
Or maybe people liked the changes 2 did, and they were for the good of the franchise, and you're just some contrarian little bitch.
Have a (you), you pitiful creature.

Nothing changes the fact that the moment the franchise collapsed was ME3, it will always be remembered as such, and because of ME3, not just Mass Effect, but Bioware as a whole, shat the bed forever and they have never recovered.

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>>742275024
Nt's this game.
>main mission plot
>"It's a RACE AGAINST TIME. Get to the Conduit before Saren or the GALAXY is FUCKING DOOMED! Everything you know and love will die if you're too slow, this is time critical!"
>the rest of the game
>Fight pirates, mercs and terrorists. Investigate an admirals murder. Collect mummified Salarian tokens.Find out what it was like for a Neanderthal to get probed by aliens. Get the high score on this military training sim. Help this journalist run a story on overworked air traffic controllers. Deal with an obsessed fanboy. Help Garrus track down a serial killer.
These are basically two divorced narratives that don't make any fucking sense when you try to push them together. All of the series writing issues stems from this core flaw.

One is about fighting the Reapers, a fleet of skyscraper sized spaceships with exposure mind control, and one is about a team of operatives dealing with problems that can be solved by 3 people on the ground. The 1st is more dramatic, the 2nd is what actually fits the gameplay.

Nah, they all had their own problems. 1 was easily the most cohesive game in the series, but it also had a lot of pointless inventory faffing with incremental upgrades and omni-gelling stuff and garbage Mako sequences.

2 could have fixed the things from 1, but instead they just axed most of the RPG-like elements and made the game feel like a cover shooter most of the time. Also, it did the mortal sin of being the middle part of trilogy yet did very little to advance the overarcing plot, leaving 3 in a near-impossible position.

Then 3 had the best gameplay in the series, but like other anons already noted, it was a fucking bad idea to have Reapers invading the galaxy right at the start, and then you had retarded stuff like Kai Leng, multiplayer affecting the singleplayer and initially being almost-required for the max war preparedness score (thankfully, this was patched) and the ending fell completely flat.

and starfield fixed everything

>>742275024
Yeah, no they didn't. ME2 butchered everything.

>>742275340
It tried to fix them, you mean. That's why it brought Shepard back to the Alliance, made the plot be about the Reapers again, returned Cerberus to its villainous role, actually tried to keep previous games' choices in mind, etc.

>>742276967
I still can't comprehend how nobody ever raised the question
>if they could do this all along, why the fuck did Sovereign waste his time trying to work out what went wrong and finding a back door, rather than just sending a message out?
It completely destroys the entire premise of the series.
What's worse is that they almost had an out with the ending of 2. They never specified how long it would take to travel by FTL, so they could easily have span that into as long as they wanted.
Then arrival happened and went beyond full retard.

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>>742275024
If I'm an Akuze Shepard, why am I forced to work for the terrorist group that killed my friends and scarred me for life? Why does no ME1 choice matter at all? Where's my human Council? Why does the rescued Council forget their speech at the end of ME1? Why is Cerberus now a 20yo company founded by a glownigger instead of pic related? Why does the decision regarding Garrus' future with C-Sec/Spectres not matter because he's turned into discount Batman? Why is Horizon forced into making Shepard out to be a drooling moron just so the Virmire Survivor can leave the game after 30 seconds of screentime when they were meant to be a squadmate across the trilogy?
You know what game actually tried to confront choices from the past instead of running away from them and hoping players would eat it up like straight up not bothering to create a new Council if you killed the old one or replacing Garrus' two choices with a new third one that utterly ignores the player's involvement in the last game? Because it sure wasn't 2. Reminder 3 has a sidequest that checks for:
>UNC: Asari Writings
>Feros: Data Recovery
>Citadel: Rita's Sister
>purchasing the Elkoss Combine armory license
>keeping Conrad Verner alive through the past 2 games
Where was that shit in the second game? Why is ME3 the only one that distinguishes between Wreav and Wrex mechanically? Between having or not recruited/kept alive past squadmates? So much so small dialogue choices 99% of players don't even realize exist had care put into them (pic related, right text box)?

Mass Effect 2 is a fucking embarrassment. It discarded what came before, and didn't built anything for what came after. What a dogshit game.

>>742285673
You better don't wonder either why Saren needed to breed a krogan army when the Collectors were chilling all along in the center of the galaxy with a base and ship full of technology

I don't understand the point of this thread, being made by someone that clearly doesn't like the franchise.

>>742285972
Actually, Sovereign didn't need anything. He could make a bee line for the Citadel and nobody would be able to stop him. How the fuck he even found out about a "Conduit" is beyond anyone.

>>742280790
3 has better gunplay and companion interactions.

>>742286424
>>3 has better gunplay and companion interactions.
Absolutely not. 3 abandons tactical gameplay for arcadey run and gun mechanics, it was fewer and worse companions that ME2, and half the time, you don't even select what you are saying, or are sitting in the cuck chair while someone else diddles your waifu.

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>>742286575
Absolutely yes. 3's squadmates are mechanically better than 2's and actually fucking interact with each other without the overlapping of abilities that turns some of them into glorified action figures with little depth once you get past their character design. Glad we agree. ME2 has way too many squadmates, it's telling that they didn't call any of them back to record lines for DLCs. Imagine having to pay 12 voice actors for any piece of content you want to create. Look at pic related, the only ones that have unique abilites (white highlighter) are Jack and Mordin, with Kasumi and Zaeed being DLC (and Zaeed's being Disruptor Ammo, which Soldiers and Infiltrators already have).

You could basically cut half the characters and have a better developed, six people squad like ME1 or ME3 which would make them feel like an actual crew and not a bunch of OC toys a kid threw together. The squad doesn't interact with each other in 2, they all live in their own bubbles in the Normandy they never leave outside of the Jack/Miranda-Tali-Legion conflict cutscene. 3 adds scenes where characters actually move around the ship, you have Garrus calling Liara or Kaidan moving up to Joker, Tali using the bar or James using the poker table. Nobody moves in 2, everything is static, and once you see it you cannot unsee it. That's not mentioning how the combat mechanics make some characters, like Jack, completely useless.

>>742286981
>Absolutely yes. 3's squadmates are mechanically better than 2's
That's a fucking lie. Nobody believes this and you are intentionally lying.

>>742287121
>no actual argument beyond 'no u'
Concession accepted.

>>742287283
But what you said is just not true. What part of untrue do you not understand?

>>742275218
fpbp
/thread

>>742276967
>they established that part in Arrival
It showed them coming at the end of ME2 though, which was a stupid sequelbait that they should've ignored.

>>742284941
You clearly haven't played ME1 in years and your memory is completely faulty. The game deliberately slows down the urgency once you get Spectre status and Anderson tells you to not even try going after Saren because you won't find him and to instead investigate the leads. The "race against time" only begins once you actually have to get your ass to Ilos.

>>742287784
>The game deliberately slows down the urgency once you get Spectre status
No? In every one of these leads that you track, you are literally getting fucked over by Saren, and each time it is made increasingly obvious that you just missed him, until you catch up to him on Virmire, making it increasingly obvious that no matter what, you are always one step behind, which attempts to reinforce that race against time. Maybe you haven't played the game recently?

>>742285379
Underrated post, got a decent chuckle out of me.

>>742275218
2 shitting on 1 is a legitimate problem, as in things like not actually allowing the human council ending to exist

2 not doing enough so 3 had to do too much is fake shit. Nobody put a gun to the head of Bioware and said they had to do a "trilogy" and the series would be in much better health if it was Mass Effect 6 and the Reapers still hadn't shown up.

Everything bad in 3 has origins in 2. 3 was rushed and had the shortest dec time of the 3. 3 feels like a fleshed out me2 dlc

>>742276967
I always thought the idea in ME1 was that they were out in DEEP deep space undectable by anyone and that destroying the Citadel relay would set them back thousands of years but apparently it only delayed them by like 3 years?

>>742288108
I'm sorry but you're just completely wrong, and I've played the game way more than you.

>>742275024
Game one did, by insisting on Reaper plotline going beyond game 1.
Without Reapers these games could have been about Specter business, new threats from beyond the dormant relays, new species in Terminus that Anderson mentions but we barely get to see.
Not "yo dawg I heard you hate synthetics killing organics..." shit and muh Reapers.

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>>742275024
I've replayed the trilogy about 7 or 8 times over the last decade, all games back to back, all DLCs, save transfer. The more I've replayed the games, the more I've grown to dislike 2 and like 3. Don't know if it's Stockholm syndrome or an actual sign of quality once you look past the 2012 debacle but there's my experience.

>ea never buys bioware and mass effect stays a xbox 360 franchise
Where does the franchise go after 1?

>>742288683
They knew they were doing a trilogy since 2005. 2 decided to fail at being the middle bridge of a connected trilogy.

>>742289262
I only played through the games once but played through the remaster collection back to back and was pretty underwhelmed by 3 and actively was wanting it to end. 3 doubles down on the more linear nature of 2 but has none of the strengths. Me3 is essentially gears of war with side quests and some minor dialogue choices

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>>742275024
Ashley's hot, EDI's hot. Tuchanka arc is great, Normandy interactions are the best in the trilogy, combat's the best in the trilogy.
ME2 is the game that ruined everything. Mid soundtrack, terrible writing, mid gameplay.
The only redeeming thing about 2 is the adolescent T&A but like I said ME3 outdoes that in every way.

ME1 has very desolate and lame planets after the citadel.
noveria, evil plant colony, volcano planet. all of those are worse than the most boring planet in either kotor game, which I kept comparing ME to during my first playthru.
ilos is the only planet that actually makes good use of the desolate theme, because of its alien mystique, and important revelatory dialogue with the AI/VI.
the majority, or maybe half to be generous, of ME is bland and I do not want to replay those segments ever again just for the pretty cool parts of the game.
I don't remember much about ME2, but I think Omega by itself is already a better experience than all those sections I mentioned in ME1 combined.

>>742289695
You take that back, Noveria is EASILY the peak of the franchise. Unironically.

>>742289531
I still remember Yahtzee's biggest gripe with Ashley Williams is that she shares the same name with the protagonist of the Evil Dead. Redditor take.

>>742289768
no, it's like the beginning of kotor 2. the tiny settlement doesn't make up for the meat of the planet.

>>742289695
>ilos is the only planet that actually makes good use of the desolate theme, because of its alien mystique, and important revelatory dialogue with the AI/VI.
which was quickly forgotten in the sequels
>I don't remember much about ME2,
because it's bland

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>>742289695
the 2 zoomer fights a losing battle by attacking both 1 and 3 at the same time, solidifying both fanbases
you're seriously going to call this "desolate"?

>>742290031
virmire? just some action segment, only saved by the sovereign meeting.

>>742290130
>the suicide mission?
>just some action segment
see how stupid you sound?

>>742290016
>which was quickly forgotten in the sequels
well the series is not very good.
>>I don't remember much about ME2,
>because it's bland
yeah, it had a gloss over it with the updated graphics and interesting large cast, but it is generally uninspired in gameplay and story telling.

>>742290031
godda miss that UE3, so greasy and sexy in all kinds of ways

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>>742275024
Reaper Plot was a mistake from the start
they wrote them to be incomprehensibly powerful like needing fleets to take ONE down when it was most vulnerable
and then relying on some tampon applicator mcguffin to destroy hundreds of these fuckers

>>742275024
Mass Effect 1 is the only good game in the trilogy.

>>742290363
>suicide mission
whoa... but ME2 has an even BIGGER and higher stakes suicide mission, and I wasn't impressed by that junk either.

>>742287784
>>742288969
Retard all 3 leads are about tracking down Saren so you can stop him/reach the Conduit first. There is no urgency slowdown each mission makes it clearer he is closer to his goal.

You haven't played Mass Effect at all I assume.

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>>742289980
Sorry anon, Noveria's great. It's a port 'city' of business where the cold exterior seen through the windows is reflected in the cutthroat businessman working inside it, with every conversation leading to fine print contracts and corporations working outside Council restritctions. You've got a hub area with side quests, plenty of world building with cloning, genetic experiments and how corporations manage to cheat the system to pursue whatever end goals they want without moral implications, then you've got the travel distance to Peak 15 which showcases via gameplay how the top secret experiments go on in a building isolated from the rest of the facilities on the planet, which is something ME1 does wonders with (create a sense of scale and story with the Mako instead of loading screens hiding implied traversal). You've then got the build-up that continues from Benezia having smuggled in geth units into Peak 15's guards being all massacred, culminating in The Thin- I mean, the rachni which have been built up slowly throughout the game with Wrex and the krogan statue in the Presidium. Again, easily the best planet of ME1 and the trilogy as a while. You could and should use Noveria as a vertical slice for what Mass Effect should be about, from the cutscene with Joker being denied entry to the confrontation between Liara/Benezia and Wrex/rachni queen. It's amazing.

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>>742289082
>yo dawg I heard you hate synthetics killing organics...
so i made a never ending cycle of synthetics killing organics

>>742291063
that's good that you like it, but all that stuff is actually fucking boring. and whatever sidequests are there are probably already done better in the citadel.
I also don't think any vehicle section in this series should be praised. the sense of scale you say it provided just showcased how dead the worlds are.

>>742288969
>>I'm sorry but you're just completely wrong, and I've played the game way more than you.
You sure fooled me, retard.

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>>742291208
>anons keep trying to use the Xzibit meme as if Leviathan doesn't address this line of thinking directly
The Reapers don't harvest all lifeforms, only those advanced enough to reach regular spacefaring. Remember last cycle humans, asari, turians and the like were all left alone while the protheans were wiped out. Never would all organics be genocided, and the Leviathans fell due to hubris.
>Big boy squids create the Catalyst unimaginable millenniums ago and impart their belief into it that all the organic races they made their slaves were too retarded to be left alone or create AI after observing failure after failure after failure after failure in dealing with synthetics. They create The Intelligence and give it orders to preserve life at all costs while failing to implement guidance or morals on what constitutes "life". It comes to its own conclusions and solution throughout the ages which results in its belief that the only way to prevent conflict between organics and synthetics is for Synthesis to happen. War never changes and all that. But it can't achieve it on its own so it does the next best thing and starts preserving advanced organic lifes before they implode themselves creating Terminator toasters
There. The Catalyst is flawed *on purpose* because it's working off of erroneous data and egocentric creators.

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>>742291636
>all that stuff is actually fucking boring

>>742291773
>the entire premise of the biggest hook of the entire series is stupid on purpose
that's some argument you got there

>>742284941
Yep. I always think of the scene in 3
>shep and garrus shooting shit and drinking beer
>what a comfy scene
>meanwhile millions are being killed by reapers every minute

>>742292042
More like a fantasy/scifi trope as old as time.

>>742291862
yes.
if you really see noveria as the peak of the series then that is bizarre and so bad for ME, and I want to hear games comparable to ME that'd you'd recommend because I'm sure every single one of those is better.

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>>742290939
>>742291721
You are both such complete and utter retards it's actually insane. Actually play the game before you post. Not replying anymore btw.

>>742289262
Well, people will never understand what you like. ME2 was the pinnacle of ME. ME1 suffers from being early X360 era jank, ME3 is rushed and nuked the setting, made maleshep a faggot, killed him, sidelined the most iconic video game cast of the generation, killed the franchise, auto-dialogued the fuck out of your player choice, put you in a cuck chair to watch other people chat with zero input from you, and no ability to jump in, ruined characterization for multiple characters by going full on marvel quipfest, killed half the cast, and betrayed player trust. If you still like ME3 after all that, you are the exact audience Bioware is looking for. Congratulations, you're about to shut them down. You are clearly the wrong person to listen to.

>>742292737
>original over remaster
______________________________________I kneel______________________________________

>>742289768
>>You take that back, Noveria is EASILY the peak of the franchise. Unironically.
Mogged by Illium and it's not even funny.

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>>742292289
More like they dropped the ball hard. A lot of the hype surrounding the series was the call of cthulu unimaginable old ones lurking just beyond the outskirts, which are only as terrifying as they are mysterious. It's the cliffhanger. The fan theory that it was originally going to be a dark matter explanation, where the reapers must kill organics to save the galaxy from collapsing is much better, the mass relays that galactic civilization is dependent on are also it's undoing (which the finalized story still has elements of), but it's not what we got. Saying "well actually starchild was retarded on purpose" is not any sci-fi trope, it's poor storytelling.

>>742291063
>>Sorry anon, Noveria's great
Overrated shit.

>>742292786
It's not 2011 anymore. NTA and Mass Effect 2 has been heavily criticized in threads like these for years. For good reason too.

>>742291208
>>742292850
>dude sitting at home making Mass Effect AI sloppa

>>742293034
>>It's not 2011 anymore. NTA and Mass Effect 2 has been heavily criticized in threads like these for years. For good reason too.
So has ME1 and ME3, far more so than anything ME2 did. You just want to be a lying contrarian retard. Nobody is buying Mass Effect for the things you liked, and actively have shrunk the fanbase. If you really believe the things you say, maybe accept that you are just plain wrong.

>>742288683
nigga Mass Effect 2 literally ends with DUN DUN THE REAPERS ARE ABOUT TO SHOW UP

>>742275024
naw 2 kind of fumbled it too by being mostly about companions and not the overarching plot of the collectors. the actual tie in to ME3 was fucking DLC

>>742293132
Damn anon you sound mad

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>>742292846
>illium
its a fuckin chink hotel with no vibes
Noveria meanwhile is like a designer getaway to the swiss alps with a bar and offices that sell the idea of shade with a smile

>>742275024
1 > 3 > 2

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>>742292850
>A lot of the hype surrounding the series was the call of cthulu unimaginable old ones lurking just beyond the outskirts
That was dropped five minutes into 2, unfortunately. Hard to keep it going when after Sovereign, Harbinger spends an entire game talking to you like he's a kid in a CoD lobby meanwhile you BTFO his bodies every 0.3 seconds he enters a gunfight.

>>742293183
The overarching plot was patently shit. ME3 proved it. There was nothing to gain by actually having the Reaper war, other than killing the IP. Now all you're gonna get is generic sci-fi with a ME skinsuit thrown over it like some dysgenic cryptid.

>>742293302
Oh wait, you're the ME2 schizo. I recognize you.

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>>742293273
KOTOR II > ME1 > KOTOR > ME3 > ME2

>>742293192
Actually, I am correct

>>742293271
>its a fuckin chink hotel with no vibes
Noveria is the Barbican with no vibes.
I will take the chink hotel. Have you been to the ones in Beijing, anon? Holy fucking shit, they are out of this fucking world.
I would go to the ones in NYC, but they only have niggers and sandniggers there now.

>>742293302
>The overarching plot was patently shit
yeah I can kind of agree on that. ME would've been better if each game had it's own threat, ME1 could've been stopping the reapers, make it so instead of deep space they are trapped in a pocket dimension or something and stopping the relay trapped them in forever. ME2 and 3 could've had different baddies, with the main choice and reactivity being tied to your ship and crew. maybe make renegade shep and paragon shep two different origins, with some working for Cerberus to stop the threat, and one working the council. make it feel more like star trek in that regard

>>742293452
>I will take the chink hotel. Have you been to the ones in Beijing, anon
0.13 Chinese Yuan have been deposited to your account.

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>>742293183
Also made it so sovereign's master plan in me1 was only done to save the reapers a 6 month trip.
Dude could have just flown over to wake up his mate instead of going trough all that conduit nonsense.

>>742293302
But ME1 has the best plot?

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>>742293116
It's fun :)
>>742293276
well yeah in hindsight ME2 is where the retardation began, but I was still hopeful they'd wrap it all up with a neat little bow with ME3 at the time.
i'm a sucker for almost naked girls with shaved heads and tattoos
i can fix her bro

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>>742293452
>throwing my words back in my face
>using some britbong epstein fuck palace instead of something everyone would know
Also I have no interest in tiny maggot infested chink pussy or people
I live in Vegas, so pussy is pretty much like water
>niggers and sandniggers
I can tell your virginity would still be here in the room with us if you hadn't got that passport

>>742292737
I've played through the trilogy lie 20+ times across console and pc, retail and pirated.

At no point does the urgency of stopping Saren slow down you dense faggot. The leads are about leading you to Saren, not a reason for Shep to waste time doing irrelevant shit like fighting drug lords or dealing with biotic cultists.

>>742275024
Biggest mistake was the reapers
Game 1 should have just been a turian war vet who refused to let go the first contact war and wanted to knock the humans down to their rightful place
Game 2 should have been about humans enforcing their position on the council and dealing with the geth/quarian war
Game 3 should have been dealing with Krogan/Salarian war because they were going to fix the genophage

Literally reapers make the narrative worse with pointless apocalypse drama just humans involving in weird alien crap is interesting enough

Also each game should have you kill thousands of batarians

>>742294361
Salarians can't wage direct wars, they are (specialists).

The series irreparably went to shit in ME2 when Shepard falls out of orbit and begins burning up and somehow Cerberus rebuilds him. Not only for the fact that there would be nothing left of him or his spacesuit but also for killing and cloning him for no reason.

>>742275024
>All of the trilogy's problems came from this game alone.
The trilogy didn't even have any fucking problems. All three games were great, fuck off, you whiny cunt.

Looking back on it I think I hate the dream sequences and the little boy more than I do the ending itself.

>>742294361
Game 4 would have been shepard retiring on omega with his harem of alien poontang
>reapers make the narrative worse with pointless apocalypse drama
They're the narrative hook. That's arguably what set the series apart and one of the biggest reasons it became popular. The tweest of finding out that it wasn't just some guy on a revenge rampage, that it was actually a far greater existential threat, then having part of that be that Shepard is the underdog who is the only one taking the threat seriously.

>>742275024
1 is the worst in the trilogy. the gameplay was so ass

>>742294614
your studio is getting closed sooner or later it's ok to be angry bioware employee

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>>742294610
SR1 forever

>>742294978
schadenfreude is why europeans will be vassals of the Russkis/Chinks/Burgers for the rest of history

>>742289262
You're deluding yourself by some sort of mentally ill stockholm syndrome phenomenon. 2 is better.

>>742285845
bioware could've saved themselves a lot of trouble by just putting the old fashioned dialogue wheel up for all those choices.
Instead retards think Shepard just had "auto dialogue" for the whole game

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>>742295248
No he's right

>>742293540
it was a few years, Shep was on ice for awhile after ME1 but yeah even "just a few years" is basically nothing to a timeless race of robot cuttlefish. the citadel relay makes sense as an ambush tool of course, but the reapers really should've been much further away to justify the importance of the relay.

>>742295971
it would be forgivable as a detour if it had memorable storytelling or characters
Empire Strikes Back is a detour
ME2 is no Empire Strikes Back is the problem
it's more like Phantom Menace

>>742295971
eh I dunno about that, 2 has main plot issues for sure but character writing wise it's pretty solid. Though I do think it plays the worst out of the 3 main games. 3's writing in general is just straight up bad, the singular redeeming quality it has is some aspects of combat, like comboing biotics or just the new moves in general like Vanguard's Nova.

The part of this franchise that I never see anyone address, the elephant in the room if you'll excuse my french, is that from it's inception the series was always teenage boy power fantasy slop. You get to be Captain Picard, you're in charge, you're smarter than everyone else around you and you're always right about everything and you btfo everyone with your flawless logic and diplomacy. However, unlike Captain Picard who is a stuffy old bald manlet bureaucrat that spergs out around women, Shepard is a suave stylish supermodel superspy with superpowers and every woman wants him. Also, you have insider information that sets you apart from everyone and makes you unfairly persecuted but morally justified. The term Gary Stu doesn't get thrown around enough. This doesn't excuse the enshitification of the series, because it also had some very well though out lore and it's a shame the series got nuked, but it's not like it wasn't a little stupid to begin with.

>>742296352
>captain picard
wrong era, it's more like you're Kirk, getting into fights and fucking hot alien bitches.

>>742296352
You earn everything that's handed to you in 1. The game starts with Shepard as an N7 commander as the stated fact, what you need to accept as an introduction to the setting. N7s are stated to be the best of the best, the pinnacle of human soldiers. The beacon is the inciting incident, and from there you need to earn everything you get. A Gary Stu would be trusted by the Council and handed the Spectre rank immediately instead of needing to work your way through the Citadel underground and save Tali so she can prove Saren's a rat. A Gary Stu would be able to save both Kaidan and Ashley on Virmire, or the Destiny Ascension and the Alliance ships during the Battle of the Citadel. Hell, two out of three psych profiles for Shepard have him either losing his entire squad during a mission gone wrong or slaughtering an entire camp criminals and innocents alike. People like to meme Shepard as "Space Jesus" but that's something that started with 2, where Miranda declares him "a bloody human icon", he comes back from *death* >>742294610 and ends up with 12 apostles accompanying him to the center of the galaxy.

>>742296787
I liken it to Picard because it's more next gen vibes, it's more talky.
>>742296804
>The game starts with Shepard as an N7 commander as the stated fact
You're the chosen one and a confirmed badass before the story ever begins.
>The Beacon
That's what gives you the insider information and makes u even more of a very special boy, as if being the first human spectre and a confirmed badass wasn't already enough. miranda was not wrong saying shepard was a hero, a bloody icon, he was set up to be such before the first gameplay segment of the first game

>>742297269
>You're the chosen one
Not really, there's shitloads of other N7 across the Alliance. Hell you're not even the captain of the ship, Anderson is.
>and a confirmed badass
Why yes I like playing as proficient people in my games, anon.

>>742297454
I'm just saying, it's always been a bit of a silly shonen power fantasy

>>742297269
>That's what gives you the insider information and makes u even more of a very special boy
to be fair you only become a very special boy because the Asari are too stupid to extract the visions from Shepard to log for study. The first thing that should've happened was an Asari brainscan and archival of whatever data was left from the beacon. instead the visions are scoffed at.

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>>742297520
nope.
30s-50s sci-fi pulp Flash Gordon type shit, which Kirk and TOS is descended from

>>742297587
>every other character around shep is unreasonably incompetent
more gary stu evedince
>>742297664
I've watched Flash Gordon, TOS and TNG, and I'm telling ya it's more TNG especially with the first game, where characters are more likely to talk ethics out than shout professional jargon back and forth
it definitely leans more TOS as the series progresses, mordin and miranda both being examples of experts who exist to bark their trades perspective rather than have a meaningful discussion, but you can still have in depth discussions and philosophical quandaries with them it's just not there on the surface.
But in no way is it Flash Gordon other than superficial similarities.

>>742298124
ME has more in common with Star Trek the Motion Picture than it does TNG
Mass Effect has more in common with shows running alongside or coming after TNG like Babylon 5, Farscape or even Enterprise

The average gamer is subhuman goycattle; more retarded than even the average retard, so I will always appreciate having so many anons having the rare forethought to see how Mass Effect 2 ignored the plot and was a giant filler episode. It's so beloved for its gameplay and characters that it would be easy to pretend it doesn't waste the entire plot. I am impressed people call this out and they should.

Sovereign TURNED OFF THE MASS RELAYS IN MASS EFFECT 1's CLIMAX. The Council literally didn't know that was possible until Sovereign did it. Mass Effect 2 ends with the Council promising its aid in stopping the Reapers. They believed Shepard. This entire fucking thing got retconned in ME2.

>>742298124
>I've watched Flash Gordon,
but did you reaaaaaaaaaaad Flash Gordon? Are you aware of the yellow panic that informs a lot of the comic's stellar politics? THe movie is a joke
>TNG,
>where characters are more likely to talk ethics out than shout professional jargon back and forth
TOS is entirely about ethics in just about every episode. City on the Edge of Forever is straight up the trolley problem
TNG is mid iq tankie political massturbation for the most part. There's very little ethics or philosophy in TNG, just "Stalin would've been based if he had a replicator"

>>742296352
Except none of the shit you said happens.
All Shep is right about is the Reapers coming. He's dumber than Liara, Tali, Legion, Mordin, etc.
Rather than win with flawless logic he has to use violence and do favors.

Also has to get duped by Cerberus for the plot.

>>742299171
I'd liken ME:1 to TNG with guns, because there's far more of a focus on talky bits and ethical dilemmas, even in the choices the player is presented, with grey areas.
ME2 is more like TOS with dialogue, where the focus is more on bam pow action with quips but there's still an element of ethical dilemmas. It's optional but you can still go talk to the crew and each one is experiencing a moral quandary.
>>742299624
Nah I didn't read that shit.
TOS there are ethical dilemmas but they are always solved by kirk going fuck u im right and overpowering everyone. It's very on the nose
TNG is more open, there's more of an ensemble cast where everyone contributes. It leaves you wondering sometimes.

>>742293137
That was the last DLC which came out over a year later. The core game barely moves the plot a week past the original. They literally took a solid 9 months to think about it and went "yeah we're gonna hit the self-destruct on this franchise"

>>742299874
Sorry but it's a little stupid is all. Space Jesus is an accurate analogy, especially with how the original ending has shepard sacrifice himself and the resurrection. He's a gary stu. Fans were so pissed he died in the ending they had to resurrect him a second time with a DLC.

>>742299874
the guy seems to be implying that marine and naval officer corps haven't been producing scientists, diplomats, historians for decades.
Is it so insane to think that Commander Shepard is intelligent?

>>742299962
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REWeBzGuzCc

>>742300367
>american politcs
i aint clickin that shit nilla

>>742300273
Look if you don't see the parallels with shonen slop, IDK what to tell you. Enjoy your power fantasy.

>>742288683
>Nobody put a gun to the head of Bioware and said they had to do a "trilogy" and the series would be in much better health if it was Mass Effect 6 and the Reapers still hadn't shown up.
They could have milked it and made it a forever series with a bunch of spinoffs and prequels and shit that take place in universe. Only do a mainline game once per generation

Mass Effect 2 is the only good Mass Effect.
1 and 3 suck ass.

>>742300419
>>742300504
yea I expected a samefag from you

>>742300578
>fuck you, dad

>>742296352
Is it stupid? Yes. So what? It's fun. The conduit chooses you or whatever. It's a little corny but it's not immersion breaking. You can buy into it, especially as a teen, and it's fun af. Don't be that guy who niggles over every minor detail. It's a roleplaying game. Roleplay.

>>742300704
>It's fun.
Yeah I still enjoy the game, I am a heterosexual male with an ego and a penis, it's just now that I'm older I see why this game specifically stroked me off when so many other games didn't.

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>>742300784
>I am a heterosexual male with an ego and a penis

>>742296196
The subtly evil part of 2 is that it’s rather fine on itself, but it sets up an situation where the 3rd part of the trilogy has way too much fucking lifting to do alone. To be clear, 3 *still* could have had better writing and story than it did, but 2 being a huge plot detour sure didn’t help it.

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>>742300863
Now neir:automata, that's a game for intellectuals.

>>742300784
>I am a heterosexual male with an ego and a penis
woman detected

>>742275024
There was internal fighting over the games ending. Original ending/writer gets screwed over. Now a huge part and aspect of 2 that was going to be in 3 gets gutted and the plot makes no sense.

>>742301045
We're all women in utero

>>742301093
well according to donny anyway

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>>742301156

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>>742301391

>>742299479
2 on release was fine by itself. It's a fun setting and filler episodes can be allowed. The Arrival DLC was the exact point they trashed the series.
>Mass Effect 2 ends with the Council promising its aid in stopping the Reapers. They believed Shepard. This entire fucking thing got retconned in ME2.
Politicians do shit like that all the time. They figured they had a naval solution to the Sovereign problem and if 2 or 3 of those show up in a few years they can handle it. People wouldn't want to believe it was actually disabled by its own hubris and marine support. That doesn't make any sense in naval terms.

Like the first time they demonstrated A-bombs, high rank officers were talking about using them as theater level flashbangs. They could literally see one of the thing in person and still have no concept what it really does when used with intent at scale.

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>>742288683
3 should have been about fighting Cerberus. The Reapers should have showed up later.

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>>742301721
we're just having fun, that's how it's sposed to beeeeeeeeeeeee

>>742301008
yep very much a proto star wars sequel trilogy in that it was very much NOT planned out very well, and the 2nd entry kind of goes off in a weird direction which forces the third to course correct clumsily.

>>742275024
Remember the absolute stupidity that was ME3 not having a real final boss fight because the devs thought it was "too video gamey" to be IN A FUCKING. VIDEO. GAME.

>>742275024
>Braindead take
ME3 is solely responsible for ruining the franchise.
>Midwit take
ME2 is where all of the problems started.
>Smart take
ME1 laid the groundwork for the trainwreck and would've been far better off as a complete story instead of setting up sequel bait.

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>>742275024
No, a ton of 3's problems, especially when it came to the plot and your squadmates, came from 2. But you niggers refuse to accept that.

>>742292850
The problem is niggas cannot distinguish "good quality" from "factually correct"

The Starchild was programmed to assume synthetics must kill all organics eventually as its core assumption then programmed to stop it. It's logical that it would look for a way to do both. Pointing out this makes some level of internal sense doesn't mean it should have been the direction the plot went and it isn't saying the same thing.

It's like saying Humans are the Forerunners. Everyone that says that makes great arguments that humans SHOULD HAVE BEEN Forerunners but never actually argues that they were. They make excellent arguments for why Frank O'Connor should never have been hired, not any for humans actually being Forerunner. Canonically, Halo 3 is inconsistent and argues both. That the most detailed explanation of the human-Forerunner connection was written behind the backs of most Bungie staff by a potato nigger wannabee IRA member doesn't change the fact it's there in the game.

>>742302581
I think the ending makes more sense when you view it as a VI essentially directing a horde of sentient AI
an interesting take is what happens to the Reapers in a Catalystless world? Do they keep Reaping? Do these collective embodiments of entire civilizations have a panic attack and fuck off somewhere?

>>742302581
While it might be factually correct that starchild was purposely idiotic, it's still garbage.
What really irks me about the starchild ending is (not having played the DLC's at the time), walking into that was like a setup for a good TNG moment. Instead of punching, shooting and explosions we're going to talk it out. The series is concluding in a dialogue rather than a mechanical gameplay challenge. It's evocative of ME1's vibes. The actual sci-fi trope would have been being able to talk down the rogue AI using logic, sort of like what Fallout:3 attempted and failed to do properly with John Henry Eden. Instead he just argues in circles and you aren't presented any dialogue options to say "wait a minute this shit is retarded", then he gives you three options that while "solving" the dilemma that overshadows the entire trilogy, still manages to destroy the setting by making intergalactic travel irrevocably impossible. It's like the writers were going for this big smart gotcha moment but nobody on the team was like hold the phone this doesn't make any sense. Starchild deserves all the hate he gets.

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>>742289262
It's because 2's combat sandbox sucks. Half the classes get stuck with the smg weapon type which is just ass outside of the kasumi dlc one. Global cooldown fucks powers classes like biotic. You can't heal yourself outside of using cover. On higher difficulties most companions are just flat out trash compared to Garrus and Miranda.
3 fixes most of these issues, biotic still gets cucked compared to 1 though.
So 3 is better on replay because the actual meat of gameplay is better.

>>742275481
TPBP

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why did they fuck up sheploo's head sculpt so terribly?

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>2026
>still no tabletop rpg or ME equivalent special system

>>742302581
>It's like saying Humans are the Forerunners. Everyone that says that makes great arguments that humans SHOULD HAVE BEEN
I'm not a proponent of the dark matter theory, I can't really say how that would have played out, but it's internal logic is more consistent than starchild. Supposedly it was hinted at in ME1 so the setup is there.
>Halo 3 is inconsistent and argues both.
You could argue the same thing with ME. It's still leaning into the theme that the mass relay's are a double edged sword with ME2 and the omega 4 relay but with ME3 it seems to have forgotten that and as far as I remember it's not explained how the reapers got to earth so quickly, I just assumed they ditched the mass relay plan and came to earth the old fashioned way. If that's the case it's inconsistent with the way FTL has been depicted. By all means the reapers should still be trapped in dark space by the time ME3 takes place, which proves indoctrination theory correct and Shepard is sitting in a prison cell on earth the entire game hallucinating the entire experience because it's logically impossible for the reapers to be there.