Mass Effect: How do you feel about where it started vs where it went?
Let me start by saying I really enjoyed playing the Mass Effect games. They are awesome.
I found the plot, though, incoherent. Especially in ME3. I don't mind small conveniences like "good thing this random teleporter beam designed to suck up corpses has easy entrée to the reaper's command center," because it's a game.
But how on earth did Cerberus amass seemingly billions of elite special operations forces with nobody noticing? What do you mean the secret weapon against the reapers has been improved each cycle by people who didn't know what it was supposed to do? How could that possibly result in a functional device?
It's clear, I think, that this wasn't necessarily the direction the first game was going. Cerberus was the subject of a side quest, but nothing more. The authors of the lore seemed to be taking great pains to ensure everything was logical, based on the in-universe rules they had established.
...and then ME2 kicks off and the series is almost as much about Cerberus, from this point on, as it is about the reapers.
What did you think about how the plot unrolled?
(You may also wish to read this series of essays. It's about 18 billion words long, though - fair warning. https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=27792)
Oh man, that series was something. My college friends and I got way into it, in the way folks get into Star Wars or something. I loved how it started - the first game felt pretty properly alien, with weird beings and suspicious music. The story it set up was interesting - we all thought it was rad as hell when you first spoke to the reapers. Even my girlfriend at the time, who mostly only played the Sims, got into it. We'd trade theories about how the next game would be, and do different choices from each other so we could talk about what happened. We all saw it like a decent sci-fi novel - we wanted to know what was gonna happen to folks.
The second game came out when I was still in college, my senior year. We all blasted through it and did the same exact things - trading theories, laughing at the terminator, mordin rocks. The move to a more shooter experience was one we all welcomed - we liked the more old school rpg mechanics too, but in keeping with our Star Wars sort of mindset, it felt like it being more of a straightforward shooter made sense. We all thought what they did with Shepard was creatively pretty cool, and enjoyed how events played into the ending. We all thought the ending was a bit weird though - a humanoid reaper? So like a gigantic Terminator just vibin in space? What? After fighting these bug people for so long, we all wanted more of the reapers. I really like the concept of them. But ME2 very much felt like it was riding a line of sorts - if it doubled down on the current approach there was no telling what 3 would really be. It felt like it lost some direction. The final boss being what it was definitely validated that sentiment - it was lame and goofy, and very "video game" in a way that made me question who wrote it. It came off like something someone who didn't know what to do, would do - fill the game with character stories and barely move the grand scheme, because you don't really know what the grand scheme is supposed to end up being.
But, we were excited anyway because 2 also has the reapers all coming back at the end. We wanted to see how that would resolve. The third game came out after we all graduated. We kept up online, so as we each got it and played we talked about it.
For like 95% of the experience, it was as enjoyable and interesting as anything prior. The new characters felt kinda flat but given it's a game, no problem. What was weird about it was that we felt we weren't really getting much from the overall plot. We all enjoyed the reapers as a concept and looked forward to getting more about them, but that wasn't really the focus. The individual stories were great (o7 mordin) but we wanted to learn a bit more along with it, deal more directly with what all they were and the how/why of them. It did do though, what 2 did - lots of character stories because the big plot moment kinda already happened. Reapers are here so we gotta fight, the fight is a story on its own. I had hoped we'd do things a bit differently, or at least have a siege of earth be something that comes much later. But, what was there was measuring up - the action looked cool, characters communicated ok, it felt good to play. I was on board till the end and never once doubted it, because it was finally building on the stuff I was more interested in as the end drew closer.
The ending though, at release, was like the crack of thunder. It was then shorter and there was less context to it. It felt like the entirety of the experience had been trivialized, because it ultimately led to a moment where your choice was detached from everything - you just got to pick how it ended, with no followup, and no build up to what it is directing this choice. And, it turns out, no epilogue regardless of what you do. It was like the end of Star Trek: Voyager. Fwoop "oh shit it's earth" roll credits
It was so lame. Like of all the things to do, after getting it more or less right 99% of the way, it just sorta craps out. As my friends each got to it we all came to similar conclusions - our interest had been pretty thoroughly killed. Not really because of the specifics of the ending, but because it convinced us the people producing it no longer had a proper idea of what they were doing. Didn't care what happened to it from then on, more or less. Some of us replayed 2, most of us replayed 1.
I played 3 again after all the dlc had come out. It was improved, but I honestly can't tell you much more than that. The disappointment was so strong my mind just sort of completely ditched all investment, so I don't really remember the details beyond A. There were more of them, and B. I did not dislike the experience. On the whole, the series did what I felt it was aiming to do, but just lacked direction with respect to its broadest parts. Individual characters and moments could be really well done, but the plot itself lost its point a bit and then just sorta sputtered out, was my experience when it was current. I can't name another series that has had such a massive effect (I'm not sorry).
Edit: I read the link a bit. I definitely agree with their basic points - that cracks started showing in ME2, which culminated in 3 being the way it is. At the time there was power in novelty and spectacle, but I couldn't ignore just how silly and meandering 2 felt sometimes. And by 3, it really settled into place - the characters are where the good shit is, the bigger things aren't gonna come together. When I say though that it was getting things right 99% of the way, I mean that a killer ending would have made those concerns more or less irrelevant, the topic of critique later in time but not stuff that defined the experience if that makes sense.
I think you summed up the experience perfectly, although I played 1 after 2. I was a teenager when the series came out, and was so disappointed by the ending that I thought about it for weeks.
As with your Voyager example though, and it's a bit cliche to write this, the series was about the journey more than the destination. The ending didn't really matter at all, the series' strong point was always the universe that it built and the characters within it. I've replayed all games several times since and for me the series always wraps up at the Citadel when you hang out with the crew. After that comes some fluff and then the credits.
I think for me, the reason my interest was just totally killed was because I watched that world fail to tell a bigger story about itself, and that meant I lost interest in whatever new ideas came from that world. I don't really enjoy world-building independent of a larger plot, and the unfortunate outcome with ME was that that's what the ending left me with. A bunch of world building until, suddenly, nope.
I remember reading a long time ago, something about an older idea for the Reapers involving the heat death of the universe. The specifics of that aren't important, rather I bring it up to say I think there were clearer plans laid that didn't get followed. I wanted those plans to be followed, because I wanted to see what a three-game science fiction epic could be, you know? Oh well.
Yep, I feel similarly and it's part of the reason I never played Andromeda beyond an hour or two. I would probably play a prequel of ME with a well-written story, but the fact that they left so little time between First Contact and the main trilogy kind of limits the possibilities to really make something new.
Also I think they didn't really have any clear ideas for the story after ME1, which is why ME2 feels like filler that doesn't really progress anything on a grand scheme. The dark matter thing that you're referring to is something they foreshadowed in a side mission in 2 to keep their options open, but the lead writer who came up with that left afterwards. He said it would have disappointed just as much, but if you had Harbinger telling Shepard this instead of space boy in the end that would have already been an improvement.
Alternatively, you could just not explain anything and let the reapers do their thing no matter what you do, considering the "we are beyond your comprehension" speech in 1. Although that might have pissed off fans even more lol.
I think I'd have actually preferred that last alternative, personally. Way back when my friends and I talked about a few different ideas for how it could have gone differently. For example, in an alternate universe: 1 proceeds more or less like it did originally. 2, instead of the suicide mission/terminator, has us explore out to the edge of the galaxy in pursuit of a method of preventing the Reapers' return permanently (iirc, they're all waiting outside the galaxy). Its ending sees that effort fail, and the final mission is an escape back home before it all starts to unfold (perhaps we even accelerate the process). 3 has us back at Earth in a situation where we do what we can but inevitably run out of time, and must defend against the initial siege. If we did accelerate things maybe that's its own conflict while you're there. The siege goes so poorly that the suicide mission is devised as a last ditch effort, working alongside forces once antagonistic to you (since literally everyone is threatened). The Reapers are never fully explained; they are too wildly horrific to stop and try to learn, in the end. It's either stop them here or lose everything, you don't have the time to learn more than what's absolutely necessary to get it done. Then have a followup game maybe provide the more minute details folks like to find, I dunno.
All that is really just driving at the idea that anything a little more structured would have been nicer than what was delivered. Staff changes hurt projects like this, but too, you can accomplish staff changes and not lose your continuity. Felt a lot with ME like whatever threads got laid down were just left on the floor and folks were just sorta winging it from there.
The only game in the series that I replay is the first one. As far as I’m concerned it all went downhill after that.
The ending of 3 didn't actually immediately lose me because I thought the whole indoctrination theory was actually really interesting.
I remember how upset I was that they straight up came out and said "no the indoctrination theory is not true". Still baffling to me now how at least didn't leave their shitty open to interpretation...
I feel similarly. I played every combination of ME 1 and 2 and had all the saves ready to go for 3. I can't think of another game I was this amped up for.
I was going along with 3s story up until the end. It wasn't quite what I expected but I was still immersed. Then that ending just deflated everything. I had all those alternate saves ready but I never touched the game again. I watched the other "endings" on YouTube and just couldn't believe they did us that dirty on a game all about choices.
In my opinion the only thing that redeemed 3 a bit to me was the absolutely stellar Citadel-DLC that in its goofy design and interactions was a far far better send-off to the franchise than the actual story or ending of 3 was.
It's such a weird gaming serious. Extremely strong worldbuilding found a quite strong mechanical gameplay decision in ultimately still making it about the stats, but also marrying it with an FPS (to a degree, as stats mattered!) which fit a SciFi game more than the top-down menu based combat of Dragon Age Origins.
And then, noticing that the shooter action was such a focal point of reviews, the devs went hard on that, and in turn de-emphasized the world. Which made game 2 this near-meaningless filler, and game 3 this weird FFWD-wrap-up of all the grandness the first game promised would come in the future.
It's not bad. But it's also not *good. (the franchise as a whole, I mean)
I loved ME1, hated ME2, and never played ME3. (I also didn't play Andromeda, but apparently neither did anyone else.)
The Mass Effect Trilogy was an ambitious project. To my knowledge, it was the first game planned as a trilogy, where actions you did in the first two games would have consequences in the latter two. Or at least the first such with fully animated and voice acted characters, and cinematic cutscenes.
So how do you actually pull something like that off?
Spoilers Mass Effect 2
At the end of ME1, Shepard was a very powerful character. How do we build on top of that to make an interesting gaming experience? Solution: Kill them, clone them, start them off at level 1 again.Near the end of ME1, the player has to choose one of two characters to survive; the other dies! These two characters are also potential love interests, but the choice made decides who of them can be in ME2. Solution: Neither of them is in ME2! They're both written out of the story, and the love interest appears only in a photograph.
The final decisions of ME1 is whether to save the council or let them die, and if they die, whether to support a human supremacist coup of the Citadel. Obviously, these decisions will make a huge influence on the Citadel! Solution: Write around it, so almost no time is spent in this hugely important location in ME2.
It all felt cheap. The decisions that felt huge in ME1 turned out to barely matter at all in ME2.
There were more reasons for me to dislike ME2. I preferred the RPG style over shooter style combat. It was hard to believe that every gun in the galaxy had been phased out for a newer model in just a few months. It was also hard to believe that Shepard was suddenly a master hacker (even though I actually enjoyed that mini-game). Shepard had no real reason to trust in or work for the Illusive Man. ME2-Shepard came across as schizophrenic when I didn't play 100% paragon or renegade. I absolutely loathed the new resource mining minigame. I missed the procedurally generated planets and the Mako (though I realise I'm the 10th dentist on this one). Probably other reasons that I've long since forgotten.
But you mostly ask about the story. Like others have said, it seems it wasn't as well planned from the start as it should have been. But I never played ME3, so I can't really say much about the story as a whole.
Andromeda was not good. It was a very pretty game and you can tell that people worked hard on it, but it felt very empty and the antagonists were comically terrible.
In fairness to the games, some of what you mentioned (e.g. the love interest) does turn out to matter in ME3. But I agree with your broad point - it seems like they might've bitten off more than they could chew. The way the Rachni decision plays out in ME3 (basically: it doesn't.) is a great example of your point.
For me, this is some of the stuff I was totally willing to hand-wave, but...
Concur wholeheartedly. This is exactly what I was getting at. ME1 seemed like it was trying so hard to have everything make sense, and then ME2 just tosses it out the window.
Maybe I'm misremembering, but didn't Cerberus potentially indoctrinate Shepard?
If I remember correctly, that was mostly a fan theory. They made a big deal about the Illusive Man not altering Shepard in any way to make sure they were ‘still Shepard’. It really didn’t make any sense if Shepard was indoctrinated by Cereberus given the events of ME3 anyway.
Just a fan theory. And that speaks, I think, to just how weird the plot gets, starting in ME2. When the main character is doing something so out of character that the players assume he must be mind-controlled... Not good!
I think you nailed my main issue. Decisions in earlier games never pay off in later games. I enjoyed each game on their own, but ME1 remains my favourite and if you thought big decisions failed to land in ME2 it's even worse in ME3.
I loved ME1, hated ME2, and then for some reason also played (and hated) ME3.
Part of my dislike for 2 and 3 is definitely the genre shift; 1 is a space opera RPG while 2 and 3 are third-person cover shooters (Gears of War IN SPAAACE, except, y'know, Gears of War is already set in space), and there are very few competent space opera games and an absolute shitton of third-person cover shooters (most of which are a lot better than Mass Effect). It's always disappointing to see something you like taken in a direction you don't like. But the real issue isn't that; the real issue is that, plot-wise, the writing in 2 and 3 veers back and forth between wildly incoherent and downright insulting to the player.
So, ME2 opens with your character dying. Okay, that's bold, but bold isn't necessarily bad. Then, you're promptly resurrected. We're well into "off the rails" territory here, and this is like ten minutes into the game. Then, they pull an obnoxious and unquestionably evil minor side faction out of ME1, give them infinite resources for no reason, and force your character to join them without even a strongly-worded disagreement.
With the benefit of hindsight, that was the point at which I should have turned off the game and never thought about the series again.
The overarching plot of 2 and 3 feels like it was written by someone who either never played ME1, or played it and hated it. The (frankly obvious) hooks that ME1 sets up are uniformly unceremoniously dropped, and the hasty replacements are mostly nonsensical. The plot justifications for making the gameplay indistinguishable from Gears are more insultingly stupid than a blank retcon would have been. ME2 is a complete no-op plot-wise. The ending of ME3 is of course idiotic tripe, but it's just the culmination of two games worth of idiotic tripe, and it's no longer backstopped by excellent character writing (one of the few things 2 and 3 unquestionably do well) to distract players.
Anyway, Shamus Young wrote 50,000 words on this topic which I nearly uniformly agree with, so I'm not going to rehash all of it. Go read that series if you want more ranting about Mass Effect.
edit: That's what I get for skimming OP, lol. Yes, that's the same series they posted.
Screw Kai Leng.
Iirc Mass Effect 3 had some horrible development conditions for the workers at Bioware, and that stymied it quite a lot. That much does offer some explanation as to why the quality dropped off.
One of my big gripes with ME3 is the Reapers' motivation. The earlier games, the first especially, do a great job of building them up as some unstoppable alien force. The chat with Sovereign? Great stuff. I love it.
But they're hardly beyond our comprehension by the end of the series. In fact, their motivation turns out to be very simple, which was really disappointing to me.
I have heard that an earlier draft for the game had the plot following up on the dark energy plotline from Haestrom in ME2. This wouldn't have been a perfect fix (Why did the reapers ever build mass relays, for one. Or ever let organic life evolve to begin with?), but I think it would have at least had the sort of depth that the final version lacked.
Definitely. None of these ideas are mine, but the reapers are very Lovecraftian in ME1. By the time we get to ME3 it's just beating the horse - ME2 was what killed that vibe.
More than anything, this is my biggest disappointment with the series. You just don't explain Lovecraftian beings, because then they're not Lovecraftian anymore. By the end of 3, we know who made them, why they were made, how they got out of control, who controls them now, and what they want.
We understand the Reapers more than we understand the Geth! Reaper motivations should either be completely unknown, or not understandable by organics. I liked the ME2 theory that the cycle was their weird method of reproduction, no more notable to them an an amoeba undergoing mitosis.
BONUS DISCUSSION: Is Kai Leng the most annoyingly implemented villain of all time, or just of the Mass Effect series?
Wait, you mean you didn't love that (one of) the villains with which Shepard and Anderson have apparently a long history with was introduced in a supplemental comic book? Isn't that how all great video games introduce big characters?
Definitely just of the series. But he does suck.
https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=31743
I think ME3 nailed gameplay and character stories. I think it shot the dog on the ending and climax to the story that at the time overshadowed everything else the game had going.
I think it helps to remember the context of when this game came out. There were gaps between each installment, so the games felt more paced out. Achievements were still kind of exciting, so I think replay-ability was high.
Gears of War was also serious potatoes, and I think every game followed Cliffy B’s mantra for Gears 2 of “bigger, better and more badass.” Everyone was trying to make epic stakes games with bombastic stories and intense shooters. But I think this lead to overly ambitious stories that resolved themselves with space lasers and Deus Ex Machinas.
Cerberus lore wise was conducting mass abductions of humans leading into ME3 and brainwashing them into mindless soldiers. I don’t remember lore wise where they got their funding, I suspect they built it up massively between each game, but also started massively overfunded as well.
Sovereign and Saren were pretty well executed villains. But their deaths left the series trying to recreate Saren over and over. Harbinger ultimately went out like a bitch despite being such a menace in ME2 with his constant badgering of Shepherd—ASSUMING CONTROL—and all that. Sort of reminds me of how RAAM was killed in Gears 1 and replaced with Skorge in Gears 2, except Skorge punked out pretty anti-climatically.
There seemed to be a real tonal shift from squad level relationships in a war that was bigger than them to save the world space marines. I feel like both ME and Gears shifted further from “show, don’t tell” the longer the series ran.
By the way, Mass Effect: Andromeda exists. It’s kind of weak sauce but gameplay is really good—at least until it sets in that there is no enemy variety.
I'm going to buck the consensus and say that I think ME3 dropped the ball well before the ending. From the beginning, it tried to write ME2 off. No ME2 exclusive characters ever join your party. They absolutely ruin Jacob's character if you dated him. They make the conflict into a fight between organics and synthetics which was never a major theme in the series. Cerberus has infinite resources, even worse than ME2. They turn the Geth from am interesting gestalt intelligence into just normal people made of metal.
Of course, the ending was godawful, but I think the whole game was peppered with bad lore decisions.
I feel like this was a huge theme throughout the series, especially if you do Tali's missions.
I'd disagree. In ME1, Tali's story is mostly about quarian culture. In ME2, we visited the flotilla for her loyalty mission and cleared her name. Aside from the general background of the quarian-geth conflict, I don't remember Tali's story ever having this as a theme.
It was a theme with Legion, for sure. But both him and EDI were resolved easily; they are good people that prove that organics and synthetics can cooperage, and quite easily too. There was zero conflict there.
Aside from two optional ME1 side quests, I honestly don't remember this being a theme at all until ME3.
Dang, I really, really like Mass Effect. A tight game with an extremely surreal dreamlike experience due to the filters and lens effects of the first game got me hooked. It was really insane how well the first game held it. It was so otherworldly playing it. Like, no other game could compare at the time holy heck.
Second game vastly expanded the universe and did "pockets of story" (which is when the player can just immerse in the particular side story or side quest for companions or whatnot) really well. So much love in this game as well.
Third game, I get what they were going for even if many players didn't like it. It was still amazing because of the increasing stakes and epic soundtrack like "Leaving Earth".
Andromeda... haven't played it. Not because I don't like it, but because I've just grown up and have way more responsibilities now. But I would love to get back into it.
I've had some mixed feelings about where it started for many years.
I initially got into the series with ME2 & 3 back in 2013 or so. And they were great. I loved the gameplay and the story enthralled me (I didn't even hate the ending for ME3). I never got into ME1 as I just could not get on with the gameplay.
Come the Legendary Edition remasters, and I play through ME1 for the first time and it was incredible. It became the best of the trilogy for me. And ME2 got way worse. The story set up by ME1 was more or less discarded by the second game for almost an entirely new plot, and then 3 was supposed to tie them all up together neatly? It would have been a mess regardless of how long the dev time was for 3, or even if Karpyshin stayed on for it.
I feel like they started going awry in story at 2. Cerberus, who previously were a small group of enemies that occasionally popped up in the side missions suddenly were this incredibly resourceful weathly shadow organisation?
I also played Andromeda for the first time then too and found it enjoyable enough if not exactly groundbreaking or even as good as the original trilogy.