I'm a bit disappointed you didn't mention meeting Vigil. For me, that's the greatest moment in this series. Vigil's music, Vigil's story, and Vigil's plot twist....He tells you the citadel is a trap. This 15 minutes is bioware at their absolute best. It's beautiful.
Even with it's problems I love this series for the things you called out, Worldbuilding, and Characters. Those two things make these games feel so ALIVE. I loved spending time just hanging out on the Normandy to talk with all my companions and crewmates. I loved feeling like this was a world that existed. Those two things really elevated this series from "a pretty fun if flawed action rpg" to being something special.
I'm more of a story/lore guy first before gameplay that's why Mass Effect and Elder Scrolls are my favorite video game series. Both worlds feel alive and rich in lore.
8:40 I recall an image from an artbook, this human-shaped Reaper was intended to be covered in the squid-looking body. Basically the squid-shape is a carapace, the real Reaper inside, theoretically, resembles its originator species.
That's kinda dumb though? I think they just changed their minds between 2 and 3, where originally all the Reapers were going to resemble the race that they're made from, mostly cuttlefish since they were first, and then they just went with all cuttlefish. ME3 did that kind of a lot actually. Dark Energy plotline, abandoned. Reapers resembling their races, abandoned. Councilor Anderson, abandoned. ME1 trapping the Reapers in dark space, nvm that only bought you like 2 years, basically nothing next to the 50000 year cycle. They decided it's a trilogy so it needs the big Reaper invasion to happen right away, and just kind of dropped a bunch of stuff. Could've been an ongoing series where each game's main enemy is an individual Reaper (Sovereign, then Harbinger, then whoever).
Yeah, it was supposed to be in an "infant" stage or something of the like. Always thought that the finished product would be like a central AI brain for the whole ship/vessel. The central "command hub" controlling the rest of the Reaper ship and any warped inhabitants.
@@ladnil Dark Energy plotline was way dumber than that tricolor traffic light. "Dark Energy kills universe, so, in order to find a solution, we will make sure you use Mass Effect technology so we destroy you so you wouldn't use Mass Effect technology to destroy the universe."
they explained the human shape of the reaper in a dlc. when they make a new reaper they make it in the image of the most capable species wich is usualy squid like, but because shepard defeated soverein in ME1 the reapers assumed humans were most capable this time.
One year late, but whatever: The shape of the core has nothing to do with being the most capable species. Didn't EDI during the suicide mission speculate the core of the reaper resembles human, because it was built by using human bodies? Wasn't it in Palaven mission, when someone points out, that the reapers attacking Palaven look helluva like Turians? The outside squid-like shape covers the core, and the core is in the image of the species the reaper is supposed to harvest or was harvested already. I'm pretty sure the core / vanilla games explain this quite well.
@@Wysch The "Reapers attacking Palaven look like Turians" is referring to Marauders, which are Turian husks, not the full-sized Reapers. Constructing a full-sized one is not so fast that it can be done in the span of the third game, all the full Reapers we see were constructed in earlier cycles. However, it was still stated that the cores of the reapers are made in the image of the harvested species even though the outside is the same between them.
Mass Effect 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. You get the feeling of impossibilty and the fate of the planet lies on your hands. My first playthrough, I didn't do all of the loyalty missions and one by one my crew were dying right before my eyes. When the ending came I felt the sense of relief and how badass Shepard was. I didn't like 3 as much but Mordin's sacrifice made me tear up a little bit. Also I love the art direction of the game. It looks so cool.
Yah I love that this is one of the only games that punishes players for rushing through the main story and skipping character development side missions.
I've been working through ME2 recently and one thing I found amusing was the way there are always a load of crates strewn about wherever there will be combat. You can be walking through a totally barren planet and suddenly come across a random collection of shipping containers so you know it's guns out time. It's a minor point but completely destroys any possibility of suspense.
@@kiptheott Maybe it was just me but I felt that cover was more natural in the first game than in 2 or 3. It was just clunky. ME2 and ME3 are basically shooters with rpg mechanics used to upgrade the effectiveness of your weapons, powers and much less so the armor. The levels are designed to highlight that.
@@heathbaker1138 ME1 had terrible combat in my opinion but it is still my favorite of the trilogy for the simple reason that everything was designed to feel as 'real' and 'organic' as possible. Sometimes you never knew when a gunfight would start because they didn't build pre-determined arenas to fight in, they just built a world and then wrote a story in it. I loved the trilogy as a whole and I wasn't even as sour about the ending of 3 as a lot of people were, but ME1 is and always will be the best for what I seek in an RPG.
The fact that these games were developed in like 18 months (even with all their flaws )and today we have to wait 6 years for something like anthem or fallout 76 is beyond reason
@@justindemont6062 I think part of that is the second game merely established plot points for three instead of establishing the narrative for three. Two was a side quest to the reaper invasion instead of a main quest.
It hits me hard we probably won't have anything this gen close to what Mass Effect brought in the 7th gen. Even 8th gen had no epic series like that and we are now our 3rd year of the ninth one and 0 sign of an epic RPG trilogy or series coming out. The hype was real for Mass Effect, I was there since the first and omg each release was equivalent to what Breaking Bad brought to TV. Just epic and that alone brings great memories this series even though I have good love/hate relationship with the games.
Well, it’s mostly because the games have to be bigger (more content, “open world”) and - even more importantly - the graphics are extremely detailed. It’s still mostly hand made, takes time and money. Writing and design didn’t get more complex, but every change got even more costly. So refining things is harder - or impossible. That’s why The Veilguard took so long to make, although it is a pretty simple BioWare formula.
Here's my theory for the plot hole in ME3: Someone really wanted the final fight to be on Earth, no matter what, and that warped the entire plot of ME3 and it was worse for it. It would have made more sense if the Reapers assaulted the Citadel right off the bat and we were trying to retake it in order for the ending(s) to happen. This has its own problems of course, maybe the Protheans also made a way for the citadel not to control the mass relays, maybe there could be a way for us to go around the galaxy by using a maguffin that supersedes the citadel's control over the relays, and the intro on Earth would have to be changed, probably anyway. There were a lot of challenges writing wise for this last game in the trilogy, but not insurmountable ones, and they definitely tied their hands behind their back in some ways.
" Someone really wanted the final fight to be on Earth, no matter what, and that warped the entire plot of ME3 and it was worse for it" I agree. "someone" meaning an EA exec most likely.
I always was disappointed the focus of ME3 was earth. I understand the reason, it's just we're in space, it's bigger than Earth. I live there, I want to see new planets and shits :(
Here's what Mass Effect 3 should've been: It should've had 2 campaigns. A Cerberus Campaign and an Aliance Campaign. The Cerberus Campaign would be trying to build the Crucible to take control of the Reapers doing shady things and betraying old allies in the process. The Alliance campaign would be fighting a conventional war of attrition with staggering losses and just barely pulling out a victory.
Mass effect effectively changed my genre lol. Back in the day I play only fantasy rpgs, you know the sword and shield, elf with bows stuff...Then finally years after its release I played the trilogy, blew my mind and changed my gaming world!
As I understood from the explanations and data found in ME3, the Reapers, after harvesting an intelligent race, place its essence in a Reaper, anatomically similar to this race. Those two-kilometer space cuttlefish that we see are something like a battle mech-suit with the function of space travel, inside which they sit. That is, if the human Reaper were finished, it would be a 400m T-800 terminator sitting inside a 2km cuttlefish battle mech-suit.
@@ТарасМакаренко-ф3ш that's one of the things that they changed for ME3, which didn't need changing. Since most of them used to be Leviathans, most of them look the way they are. They are ships.
@@MarkusJackDijkgraaf 1. Оnly they have been assimilating beings for many cycles, in everything different from leviathans. In ME3, before and after the release of the LE, it is said that each Reaper is unique, made in the similar of the destroyed species, and enclosed within the "ideal shape" of cuttlefish. Yes, reapers are ships, but not only. Partially. 2. 400m tall human Reaper (not 2 km) in the form of a T-800 in ME2 is also a change to please ME3?
@@ТарасМакаренко-ф3ш the writer switch happened between 1 and 2. That's why the writing took a nosedive too. It was only the human reaper that was that way. The reaper you entered and all research on it made it again pretty clear - the reapers are the ships. I don't recall secondary reaper bodies inside the reaper ships being dropped in ME2. I could remember wrongly, but I'm pretty sure it's only mentioned in ME3
I’ve been replaying the series for about the 6th time on console this go around, so it’s been fun seeing you release these Mass Effect videos around the same time. Love these games so much and your reviews have been great. Really looking forward to your companion ranking.
It's explained in the game that the reaper is human because that is the base race used to construct the reaper, it's an infant, as an adult it would have taken the form of other reapers. Don't remember when it's explained. The story is very dynamic, such that party members and order of progression can greatly affect the story presented
Mass effect has been an addiction for me, easily my favorite series of all time. This recent release, I finally played through insanity on a class that I'd never tried (adept) and was blown away by how different the game felt (only played easy and normal) I usually do full paragon and tried full renegade, and the experience is so unpleasant that I had to stop. I've got about 10hrs left of andromeda on insanity but had a bit of a burn-out, and d2r has consumed me as of late
In ME2 the human reaper is just a core for a reaper ship that we normally see. The rest of the ship was going to be built around it once it was done, it's more or less just the "pilot" of a reaper made from a species. I forget what part in ME2 that clarifies this but its only like a little notepad, and it might even be in ME3 rather.
I'm holding out hope that Bioware will eventually make an isometric CRPG spinoff game set in the Mass Effect universe. Getting to RP the different species would be awesome.
I think this is very unlikely, since they've been pushing towards doing more action-oriented games. DA4 and ME5 will likely be very similar to Inquisition and Andromeda in terms of gameplay.
@@Arcling I'm 100% sure there won't be a mainline ME title that's an isometric CRPG. What I'm talking about is a spinoff game set in the ME universe, not a true ME game. Kind of like how Obsidian is making Avowed, a 1st person open world RPG, that is set in the Pillars of Eternity universe. Or how Bungie made a couple Halo Wars RTS games as companions to the main titles.
@@jessemccord1878 Well, in Obsidian's case it's more like they are abandoning their existing formula (because PoE2 didn't sell good enough), rather than making a spin-off. Avowed might be a replacement for PoE series, so this is a bit different situation. As for ME, I doubt they would do any CRPG, even as a spin-off. Doubt EA would allow it, and even less likely that Bioware would make it. Most of those people who made these games are gone anyway, and current Bioware is certainly pushing more towards action genre.
With regards to Kaidan, the thing that I realised in ME3 was that Shepard and Kaidan were friends before we "met" Shepard. Indeed, Kaidan is the one companion that Shepard already knew before the series began. And through ME2&3, you notice the consequence of that in the difference in how Kaidan and Ashley behave towards you with regards to your joining Cerberus. If you don't romance him in 3, you get some brotherly vibes from him, which I thought was pretty cool. Like Garrus is Shepard's bro, but Kaidan is their brother.
Good vid, but I'm disappointed that you haven't mentioned arguably the best instances of real choices & consequences: the Krogan plotline (which ties well with individiaul character dramas too, especially that of Mordin), as well as those regarding Wrex and the Rachni queen. There are other choices in ME1, too, but these are the ones that are truly impactful throughout ALL THREE GAMES and have great emotional underpinnings.
Nah man, the rachni queen is sadly the perfect example of your choices not mattering, in that there are enemy rachni in ME3 no matter what you did with the queen in 1. If the rachni enemies were replaced with something totally different if there were no rachni to corrupt because you killed the queen, THAT would be respecting choice - but of course that would add so much to the development time they cut the choice and forced there to be rachni.
The Mass Effect trilogy is my favorite game ever and it's all because of the lore and the companions. I was in my 30's when the first game was released. The wait for part 2 and 3 was maddening. All the doubts and speculations about what choice would have been most beneficial and what would happen to the beloved crew; the community was buzzing with anticipation. You should've been there to exprience it all. It was awesome. This game has made me feel so much. I have laughed, I have cried (so much), I have made online friends that I am still in contact with to this day. But in the end, when the original ending came up, it left a hole in my soul that couldn't be filled with the pity-DLC they quickly released. I didn't touch the game for years, knowing that nothing mattered anyway; none of the choices gave me any satifcation. Then the mods came out and I tried the Happy Ending Mod, which made things better and I have been playing it again regularly ever since. That said, I am still, to this day, angry about the 3 stupid choices they presented back then. How dare they do that to us.
I'm not sure if you're aware but this series was based on a book series by the same name. Just to address some of your plot issues. World Building: It was already written, again with books and also a ton of comics.
Being mainly a single player type of gamer, I tend to treat my games like my movies. Plot is almost as important as gameplay... almost (Xcom is the exception). Anyway its also the reason why I find ME1 being a more compelling experience than the latter sequels, even though they are technically much better games. Fun fact: ME1 was closely adapted from a series of books much like Dragon Age Orgins was to the series of the same name. Its one of the reasons why the lore was so cohesive and well done. The sequels veer off into their own directions with the writing being done inhouse by the devs and the shift in focus (quality) can be noticed. I remember ME2 originally being quite underwhelming on its own untill the DLCs were released. With the geth mostly being a backdrop and the focus was mostly on the companion "shipping", no one really talks about the final battle itself... this eventually became a trend in their future games. Have you noticed how most EA owned single player titles tend to end up being an action shooter of some category? I remember deadspace suffering a similar fate... Personally I prefer a definitive end to a series then to keep dredging its corpse up over and over like Ubisoft.
Hell yeah, can't wait for your companion video! Really glad you enjoyed the trilogy - I think it has been one of the best franchises out there. Excellent world with huge potential for more games. Let's hope Mass Effect 4 will be better than Andromeda in terms of story, as imo combat was actually really good.
As a FemShep, I love Kaidan. He opens up to FemShep WAY more and has stories and I really enjoyed his backstory. It also felt cohesive, in a world where other alien races exist, that a FemShep would feel comfortable getting close to a Kaidan. His romance is also actually very sweet, despite knowing everyone LOVES Garrus for FemShep. I just REALLY ship Garrus/Tali so I couldn't let anything get in the way of that.
The thing is that in the trilogy you don't play as a silent protagonist, you play Shepard, a established person within the universe with their own identity and motivations. The ownership of the protagonist is shared between the player and the character itself. You never get to pick exactly what Shepard say, just the general gist and tone of the respond. There are a lot of things you can't do because Shepard can't or don't want to do. This is a design decision to enhance the player's immersion in the universe especially considering that the game prioritize interpersonal conflicts and relationships.
8mins: The Collectors were working for the Reapers by analyzing Genetic Anomalies and trends of mutation in the current cycle. Thus sending data back to the Reapers on where in the Cycle the races actually were, and what, if any irregularities the Reapers could expect in their next harvest. (Also one would presume, they were monitoring Dark Energy progression, since that was the original trigger for Reaper Invasions. But that plotline was scrapped when Drew Karpayshan left.) Why did the Reapers need this? Because it was another way to "preserve" Organic life in lines with their programming. Now, why the human baby Reaper? Supposedly, as others have noted, the DNA of the actual Reaper would be encased inside the standard carapace. Flimsy, but plausible. And I agree about Cerberus. Not to mention the "explanation" for how they managed this is threadbare at best. 6 months before, EDI specifically tells you the Lazarus Project to rebuild you and the Normandy took "most" of Cerberus' resources. Somehow, that most becomes "not that much," in that short a time. And EDI, who doesn't make mistakes and had perfect knowledge of Cerberus data, was wrong. OK....
About the significance of choices: I never understood why people expect every choice they made as Commander Shepard to "stick". That's not how life works. Yes, Shepard chose, for example, Anderson to be councillor. There is no guarantee in life - real or video game - that this will be the case in the future. In fact, I personally think a game which will occasionally show you that other factors can change the outcome NO MATTER YOUR CHOICES is a far more realistic RPG. Just my personal opinion
Mass Effect has the best story and world building Mass Effect 2 has the best characters and final mission Mass Effect 3 has the best gameplay and character interactions And after all these years I can say that my favorite is the 1st one As for the shape of the Reapers, my theory is that each Reaper has an inner and outer shape. The outer shape is one of the squid-Leviathan and the inner shape is that of the harvested species. The smaller - crab shaped - Reapers could be less important species made into them, but also still having their unique inner shape
0ne interesting thing playing ME 1 - 3 and Desd Space 1-3 is you can see by game design how the gaming industry changed from the the 00s to early teens. Playing that way is like a time capsule of gaming society and company focus
Great vid! Here's the thing. The Reapers can't leave a tracer signal on the station. It's just too revealing. Everyone would figure that out. It's a space opera. We're talking a phone signal. They get bolder,but only because actual gunships are coming.
So glad you played through this series and didn't totally hate it. So many good story's in here even if the story telling kind of dropped off and it stopped being an RPG I still love this series.
My theory about the purpose of the Collectors is to create a human reaper that could complete the task sovereign failed - taking the citadel and jump starting the invasion. Ofc they were already very close by this time, but we know that taking the citadel first and crippling the galactic government has always been key to their success. That might even be why they failed this time.
Some consider Dragon Age the Bioware spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, but to me, it's Mass Effect. They are the only two trilogies (I consider Throne of Bhaal basically BG3) I can think of, where through three entire titles your companions stay by your side, develop, grow, have romances, etc. Dragon Age tried it with a few familiar faces, but ultimately your always a new protagonist so it's just different each time. As you said, it's the companions that really make this game the amazing title it is. That's why for those who bought original ME 3, without Citadel it was just such a different game. The ending was it's own thing, but it's the fact Citadel does so much with those relationships, that makes it an amazing DLC.
I had never played mass effect before LE. But man. What an amazing series. And not because its great individually. It's because it ALL comes together in the end. And that story is YOURS.
I thought Mass Effect 2 was a misfire. By bringing the Reaper threat back as early as ME2, the universe was given a ticking clock, which inevitably exploded with ME3's evolution endings. The looming Reaper threat established by the ending to the first game would have provided a great sense of dread for the universe. In the meantime, we could have experienced a diverse array of games and stories taking place across the galaxy as it existed between ME1 and 2.
Considering the huge stepforward of the second game after the first one I would except third one to be so much better instead of being just slightly improved of the second game. And the story wise Illusive Man and his organization should not have been wasted like that. Illusive man had brought such a different vibe the second game. Third game should have benefited the Illusive man character and the Cerberus way better. And finally I am surprised you didn't mention but sounds of the game, the voices of the characters are too good for a game that old. Especially soundtrack. To this day I still listen to Mass Effect 2 soundtrack. It's simply epic. Overall Mass Effect games are like a space opera movies than a game. Third one should have been in fact could have been so so much better but it still one of the best series in the gaming history.
So, I remember that the Citadel was moved to Earth, but don't recall any reference to it being teleported? When I played, I always assumed it was moved through the Mass Relay, just as we move throughout the series. I didn't play these games on the release of each title. I was bored, looking for something new, and every positive review of ME 3 I found on Amazon was marked as spam. I got curious, and bought ME 1, then 2, and then 3. Ultimately, I came to the same conclusion, the ending wasn't as bad as I was led to believe, but, and there's always a but, I didn't get to 3 until after all of the DLC and the Extended Cut were released. They may have been released before I ever played the first one, in fact. My overall impression of the series can be summed up in one sentence though: For someone that doesn't review games for a living, I have an impressive amount of hours spent in the games.
You'll be surprised how much variety there is regarding some choices. You can either experience it for yourself or check out videos on yt. One such channel is Big Dan Gaming. He has a ton of ME videos showcasing rare choices and outcomes among other interesting stuff.
6:15 Funny you made this observation, The Late, Great, Shamus Young made a video on ME2's problems, how it undermined many setups ME1 painstaking installed in the setting and plot. ME2 was a good game in isolation, but as the second part of a trilogy it did worse than nothing.
Except Shamus' presumption is that ME3 was the original plot line, instead of a fixer-upper that resulted from Drew K leaving at the end of ME2. The problems with ME3 and why it happened are well-documented now. And pushing them back to ME2 is simply wrong.
@@willferrous8677 It absolutely has to do with plot continuity if the reasons for "plot inconsistency" are related to the story changing direction *after* ME2.
Excellent review. Mostly agree with a couple addenum's. 1) most of the real choices in this game affect gameplay rather then conclusion. Still there but a bit different approach. It's in line with Biowares style of writing overall I think, kind of like what they did in Dragon Age. And 2) While I agree about most human characters I still find Jack to be one of favorites in the game. Good vid
I do think Bioware's drive toward action predates Mass Effect- Neverwinter Nights stripped away companion tactics and went in an MMO-lite direction, while KotOR and Jade Empire were both pretty fast-paced and simplified. An interesting thing with the EA merger and dev acquisitions in general is the delayed effect. Really great games journo named George Weidman (Super Bunnyhop on TH-cam) pointed out that it's usually a span of a couple years before you see the deleterious effects of a studio acquisition. Senior staff stays on to finish the projects they have in the hopper, then leave, after which you get the changes in workplace culture and output. Bioware had DA Origins and ME2, arguably two of its biggest triumphs, already in progress when the merger went through. After that, we got DA2 and ME3, two flawed games I personally really love, then a steady stream of high level departures and three games really marred by truncated, poorly managed dev cycles (Inquisition, Andromeda, Anthem.) I'm always hoping they'll make a comeback, Bioware made the first RPGs I really loved, but I'm always wondering how much damage has been done, and I'm also curious how much "blame" one should assign to EA ownership vs. studio management. I'm always down to blame EA, sports game publisher that accidentally bought one of my favorite RPG devs, but this stuff has to be pretty complex.
For the Mass Effect trylogy, I think one of the lead writers left the game during the making of the second game. This could explain why the writing went down over the course of the trylogy. On that note, said writer had another plot in mind for the trylogy ending. Originally, Reapers existed to save the galaxy from the "Dark Matter" phenomenon. This "dark matter" was something that grew over the time, and far, far quicker when there were species capable of galactic exploration and colonisation... and could, in the end, destroy the galaxy. An ancient race realised that of the reapers sacrificed themeslves to create the first Reaper : the sum of their knowledges and skills, to deal with the problem of the Dark Matter. The Reaper could not handle the problem and devised a plan : each 50k years, they would reap the galaxy, achieving two purposes. First, the destruction of the advanced species would slow down the growth of Dark Matter and then the creation of another Reaper would add knowledge and skill necessary to deal with the Dark Matter. This plot is hinted at by Tali's mission during the second game. However, the ending was basically an A , B or C choice, since in the end Shepard would learn the purpose of the Reapers and have to choose between A : letting the Reaper win, B : letting the Reapers consume only Humanity and C : destroy the Reapers. The thing here is, the sacrifice of at least humanity would allow the Reaper to effectly end the dark matter problem, thus, saving the galaxy, while destroying the Reapers pose the risk of never be able to deal with the Dark Matter. The leak of this ending was what initially spawned the famous lie "Your ending will be meaningful, it will not be a A, B, C choice" from Hudson AND the change to the ending we have now.
Gonna leave a recommendation for you! I don't know if you are into jrpgs as a whole (I sure am not), but the Trails series is really good! I've played the Trails in the Sky trilogy recently, and am progressing into beating the whole series, as it captivaded me so much, even though I didn't give it much credit when I started. The story, characters and world building is so nice in general, that I can't stop praising it. On the plus side (for me, at least), it's not grindy at all, so you can enjoy its narrative on a steady pace while completing most, if not all, side content available!
Thank you for bringing up how ME3 treats cerberus, it bothered me too. You can still have them as a enemy faction by framing them as a black Ops sabotage faction rather than a massive army.
Honestly, the best way to do it would've been to have renegade factions of multiple races. Why not Krogan chafing under Wrex as the enemy on Tuchanka? Or Salarians secretly working for the Dalotrass attacking the STG base to try to kill Eve? Why are those Cerberus? Cerberus causing problems in Alliance space? Sure. But it would help the believability, and enemy diversity, if enemies were drawn from actual divisions in the local population. Divisions caused by your choices from the prior games.
There are several plot points that have been clearly changed over the course of trilogy. Even the lead writer was changed from Drew Karpyshyn to Mac Walters, which resulted in some of these plot changes. Regarding Udina, it was both streamlining and also influence of external material, there was short comic where Udina was already a councilor, so game reflected that. Having to included external medial was one of the main problems imo, it rarely ends up well when games are trying to integrate other written or animated sources into their story, because it often can feel forced or disjointed. Similar with Kai Leng, who was first introduced in a book and then they decided to bring him into last game. He really felt out of place there. I think one of biggest disappointments was how insignificant destroying or sparing Collector Base in ME2 turned out to be. Before ME3, many people have speculated how it's going to severely affect Cerberus and who you will be fighting in next game, but this supposedly big choice was just a couple lines of dialogue and different war asset (also it defaulted to either destroy or control ending in case of low galactic readiness). Main strengths of Mass Effect story have always been its companions and world building, certainly better than Reaper plot.
Regarding the development time - I have seen over a decade many games, that REALLY needed like a year or two or more of development time and they wound just freaking level up. Like, if ME trilogy was made not in 5 years time, but, like, 8 or even 10 years (which is a kind a lot, but still), the trilogy would be fantastic. Fallout New Vegas should've got not 18 months but 2 years at least (imagine what we would get), Dying light 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Anthem and some others. But we all know how management always fucks developers' plans and ambitions.
they did say somewhere maybe in the lore that every reaper is made i nthe image of the species that it was made from and put at hte heart of the shell of it made to look like harbinger the first reaper (looks like the reaper cuttlefish). the 2 things i never could understand though are 1 why the reapers didnt just go for the citadel first in ME3 but also they imply that one reaper( dreadnaughty soverin class) is made every cycle(the lesser races are made into destroyers) but we know that mupltiple have been destroyed in this cycle and the last so thats unsustainable if you only make 1 capitale ship class every 50K years but alot get destroyed every cycle how would that work?
I think the human reaper was essentially a fetus, the traditional reapers form would go around it. That's was they mean when the star child told shep that they preserve the races in reaper form. I guess he's being a little more literal than it appears
Definitely late to the party on your Mass Effect reviews, but I agree that ME2 is the most enjoyable narrative. As you and many others have noted, however, its actual plot is largely inconsequential to the overall narrative. But, that was very much intentional by the developers. As even prior to release they kept comparing the title to Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back. A sequel film that famously has a largely inconsequential main plot, but is instead more focused on exploring its central characters than advancing any plot with regards to the Galactic War and the Empire. ME2 similarly eschews any focus on advancing the Reaper plot to further flesh out the world of Mass Effect and the characters before going into the actual war that is ME3. I think ME2 was essential to getting players to explore and get invested in all the issues and characters involved in this world before everything goes to crap when the Reapers arrive. And you can't have the main plot be the most time pressing thing ever and still allow players the freedom to just explore the galaxy and get into trouble. So, the Collectors offer a way to allow the player to face a threat that isn't absolutely immediate in terms of danger, provide little tidbits concerning the overall series plot, but really allow the player to go off and explore the galaxy prior to the Reaper invasion. And this allows them to get further entangled in the Genophage issue, the Quarian-Geth conflict, and just generally see how the Terminus Systems operates.
I tried 100%-ing a few games. A lot of these achievements hinge on playing it with a specific build or a player-choice made at the beginning. It's annoying playing something like WoTR or Stygian and seeing the same gameplay for the 10th time.. Is it good to: - gate some content behind a specific build - or allow on person to savour a 'long-play' and explore the whole world without min-max a build and speed-running it to a point where you can enjoy it?
Nooooo don’t skip 1 🤣. Yes gameplay isn’t as good, but it really isn’t all that bad. But as someone who replayed the trilogy in the LE, I really appreciated 1 my second time through
Ok speak8ng of plot holes, I have one that's bugging me. In the first game (I think) there's a conversation you can overhear where a group of different species are discussing the Asari and saying how they look similar to the species viewing them. So to Humans they look similar to humans and to Krogan they look like Krogan. How does that work through video feeds? Holograms and cameras, really any remote viewing, they still look the same. So if they were playing some trick with pheromones or using their natural ability with psionics(? It's been a whilen details are a little fuzzy) that should only work in person. Yet the trick seems to work no matter what.
You are right that the world-building is the real star of the series. Which is why it was a huge mistake to burn it all down at the end. And that decision led directly to MEA having to go to another Galaxy (OK they didn't _have_ to, but they felt it was that way). I hope the new ME keeps to the outstanding world-building.
The idea, as far as i remember is that each cycal Reapers evaluate all of the developed races if they should be immortalized or just wiped out, if the race is seen worthy by the reapers then they build a new reaper which captures the essence of that race, if they believe that no races in the cycle are worthy, then they just kill everybody. For example the protheans were not seen as worthy by the reapers so no new reapers were build during that cycle. So bacially every single reaper is the "worthy" races of previous cycles.
I would really love an x-com like game in the Mass effect world if Gears of war did it I hope Mass effect can do it to. There is no need for byoware to do it, they can outsource it. But man i would love it. And bring back the ME1 wrighting team. Those there the true heros of the franchise
the issue with Kaiden is that he's completely inconsistent. In Me1 if you talk to him as femshep you learn that he he had a very traumatic childhood, sent to a camp for biotic kids when humanity still didn't know anything about it, raised by a turian who hated humans and was very harsh on them, he ended up kiling the guy by accident as a teenager when the turian harshly punished the girl Kaiden was in love with. Not only did he have to deal with the emotional scars of being a murderer even if it was an accident and the turian he killed was threatening him with a knife but also the girl he was in love with and killed for couldn't cope with it and rejected him. But despite this he managed to deal with the trauma and conclude that aliens are in fact just like humans, some are good others not so he doesn't hate all turians for what the one made him suffer. Very mature guy who has lived through shit, an equal to Shepard in that respect unlike Ashley who is still trying to atone for what her grandfather did and also is very resentful/fearful of aliens as a whole. Or even Garrus who has a lot of potential but is still very young emotionally and hasn't had as much hardship/life experience. But then comes ME2 and suddenly all of Kaiden's maturity is gone, Cerberus bad so now Shepard bad and he doesn't even want to listen or try to investigate the situation. He doesn't even try to understand how hard this has to be on Shepard, the trauma of having died, having been rebuilt like a rat lab by an enemy (specially if they are the sole survivor as it's Cerberus who wiped out their entire platoon in an experiment on thresher maws) and having to work with them despite everything because they have no other choice to stop the collectors and through them the reapers. I get that he is loyal to the alliance first and couldn't just go awol to follow Shepard, but he could have supported them like Wrex or Liara did, they didn't join but they were allies. Tali is another example, she couldn't join at first because she had responsibilities and was with good reasons an enemy of Cerberus but even in the first interaction she still gave Shepard the benefit of the doubt and some trust, then when they proved themselves to her she gave them her full trust and help even before she could join the team. Then in Me3 it gets even worse IMO, By this point Shepard has proven they were not a puppet of Cerberus, that there was a real threat and they only did what they had to to stop it. They surrendered to the alliance and accepted being punished even though they saved the galaxy but even after all this Kaiden still doubts through half the game. Where is the emotionally mature guy from Me1 I don't know. That's my big issue with Kaiden, he was never going to be a very intense character but he could have been the one we can always count on as long as we follow the paragon path. I think what destroyed this was trying to have an interchangeable path for Kaiden/Ashley who stopped being independent characters to become "the virmire survivor" and after that ti's not Kaiden or Ashley reacting to events but "the virmire survivor" who is both and none at the same time.
To me biggest plot hole was that if Reapers essentially won always, so why the would they even disappear somewhere nowhere. It just doesn’t make any sense to me.
My question about the Human Reaper is this.... why humans? It's stated in the games that the Reapers come and convert the apex species into a reaper. So why humans? We were the last ones to reach citidel space. All the other council species are way more advanced. Why aren't the reapers also making an asari reaper , or a turian , or ..... And why bring the Citidel to earth to begin with?
Leviathans didn't create the Reapers. They created the AI or Catalyst. The Catalyst then turned on The Leviathans and harvested them first making the first Reaper, Harbinger, in their image. While they are modeled after Leviathans, they were not their creators.
I do honestly consider the first to be an RPG, but 2 and 3 are more narrative based shooters. There are still some light RPG elements in there (if the combat was melee only I would say they were action RPGs) so its more than your usual shooter gives you but still not an RPG, especially not in comparison to the sorts of games you usually do on here, which are what most people in the CRPG fanbase think of when they think CRPG.
Yeah, ME2 was probably the best game, but it felt very disconnected. The Collectors were also very shoehorned in to have an enemy to fight where there really wasn't one. I also feel the things you do in ME2 didn't really affect ME3 nearly enough.
For me ME2 is the best game in the serieries but not my favourite one. I like ME1 the most despite its problems. In ME I didn't like that the invenotry was cluttered and was a bit hard to manage. I was keeping all types of ammo and wapons cause I didn't know what I will need. In ME2 they fixed the issue by removing the inventory as a whole which streamlined things a lot but it was a very drastic solution and dumbed down the RPG system. Also I was very fond of the companions in ME so I was hoping in ME2 I would continue adventuring with them but instead they removed them all except for Garus and introduced new ones. I liked the new ones as well but I really wish I had my ME fellowship.
The whole series went off the rails in ME2 and I am a bit surprised why no one brings this up. Where were the Collectors in ME1? You mean to tell me that they were already there and Sovereign never employed them? The whole of the ME2 retcons, just led me to believe that BioWare was "building this airplane while flying it". At some point, my brain shut off in regard to the main story and even the ending in ME3 was just the "last nail in the coffin" because the main story was pretty much dead by that point anyway.
When it comes to the human companions, I always found Kaidan Alenko very dull. As you stated in the video, the only thing I can remember is his complaining about his implants. And this gets more obvious if you compare him with Ashley Williams. She really changes in her perspective on alien species when comparing her attitude in the first and in the third game.
I think in terms of Cerberus, they are never really morally grey imo, but through the plot they make it seem that way for some stretches during ME2, to keep you distrustful rather than antagonistic, with loyalty a bonus. I would not have minded a more grey Cerberus, but I actually don't mind how it turned out either, minus a cyborg ninja of course. But if you look to ME1, almost every project you encounter is inhumane to some degree and it's clear they have their own interests first. I think rather what happened with them is that they started idealistic and then lost sight of that, particularly in individual cells, but it's already tipping by the events in the games.
ME3 doesn't hold up to scrutiny whatsoever. The Reapers could have easily seized the Citadel and relays from the started and trapped everyone in isolated systems. Nobody is getting past two or three Reapers guarding each relay, which they definitely had the numbers for.
People forget about the incredibly tedious aspects of ME1 like the buggy/mining sections which were just pure filler. Overall it's an incredible series and personally I enjoyed each game right up to and including the ME3 finale.
Lack of advance story planning really hurt this from being the greatest gaming trilogy of all time. On top of the stuff you mention, killing Shepard ultimately didn't go anywhere in the story, apart from being played for laughs a few times, and getting seriously asked about it near the very end of ME3 when you see TIM's tapes on it, could have accomplished the same thing by being in a coma for 2 years. On Cerberus itself, you're told in ME2 there's only a dozen cells with a couple of hundred agents in total, so TIM can himself personally manage them all. They went in 6 months from a small Black Ops organisation to something akin to the Empire from Star Wars. No plot magic is ever going to square that for me, and indeed one of the devs said in an interview they did a number of things simply because "it was cool" rather than worry about story.
You keep saying "rpg mechanics" are light in ME. I would argue that the role playing is all in the dialogue system. Your choices are what matters, not your class, ability points, etc. Shrug
God I love this series, what an amazing Space Opera. Thank you my man for this video
My favorite space opera 🙌
I'm a bit disappointed you didn't mention meeting Vigil. For me, that's the greatest moment in this series. Vigil's music, Vigil's story, and Vigil's plot twist....He tells you the citadel is a trap. This 15 minutes is bioware at their absolute best. It's beautiful.
100% on that one.
Vigil and Sovereign hologram in Virmire.
Talking to Sovereign on Virmire was the best moment for me
"Oh shit theyre right under our noses"
*queue blind panic rushing to the portal*
THIS! 💯
Even with it's problems I love this series for the things you called out, Worldbuilding, and Characters. Those two things make these games feel so ALIVE. I loved spending time just hanging out on the Normandy to talk with all my companions and crewmates. I loved feeling like this was a world that existed. Those two things really elevated this series from "a pretty fun if flawed action rpg" to being something special.
I'm more of a story/lore guy first before gameplay that's why Mass Effect and Elder Scrolls are my favorite video game series. Both worlds feel alive and rich in lore.
8:40 I recall an image from an artbook, this human-shaped Reaper was intended to be covered in the squid-looking body. Basically the squid-shape is a carapace, the real Reaper inside, theoretically, resembles its originator species.
That's kinda dumb though? I think they just changed their minds between 2 and 3, where originally all the Reapers were going to resemble the race that they're made from, mostly cuttlefish since they were first, and then they just went with all cuttlefish. ME3 did that kind of a lot actually. Dark Energy plotline, abandoned. Reapers resembling their races, abandoned. Councilor Anderson, abandoned. ME1 trapping the Reapers in dark space, nvm that only bought you like 2 years, basically nothing next to the 50000 year cycle.
They decided it's a trilogy so it needs the big Reaper invasion to happen right away, and just kind of dropped a bunch of stuff. Could've been an ongoing series where each game's main enemy is an individual Reaper (Sovereign, then Harbinger, then whoever).
Yeah, it was supposed to be in an "infant" stage or something of the like. Always thought that the finished product would be like a central AI brain for the whole ship/vessel. The central "command hub" controlling the rest of the Reaper ship and any warped inhabitants.
@@ladnil Dark Energy plotline was way dumber than that tricolor traffic light. "Dark Energy kills universe, so, in order to find a solution, we will make sure you use Mass Effect technology so we destroy you so you wouldn't use Mass Effect technology to destroy the universe."
@@mgeldarion58 We don't know how they would've fleshed it out.
IIRC the early versions of it looked more like some kind of monstrous, biomechanical fetus monster rather than a giant robo-skeleton.
they explained the human shape of the reaper in a dlc. when they make a new reaper they make it in the image of the most capable species wich is usualy squid like, but because shepard defeated soverein in ME1 the reapers assumed humans were most capable this time.
In what universe did Shepard defeat Sovereign? Obviously the battle against Sovereign is remembered very differently among the fans.
One year late, but whatever:
The shape of the core has nothing to do with being the most capable species. Didn't EDI during the suicide mission speculate the core of the reaper resembles human, because it was built by using human bodies? Wasn't it in Palaven mission, when someone points out, that the reapers attacking Palaven look helluva like Turians? The outside squid-like shape covers the core, and the core is in the image of the species the reaper is supposed to harvest or was harvested already. I'm pretty sure the core / vanilla games explain this quite well.
@@Wysch The "Reapers attacking Palaven look like Turians" is referring to Marauders, which are Turian husks, not the full-sized Reapers. Constructing a full-sized one is not so fast that it can be done in the span of the third game, all the full Reapers we see were constructed in earlier cycles.
However, it was still stated that the cores of the reapers are made in the image of the harvested species even though the outside is the same between them.
Mass Effect 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. You get the feeling of impossibilty and the fate of the planet lies on your hands. My first playthrough, I didn't do all of the loyalty missions and one by one my crew were dying right before my eyes. When the ending came I felt the sense of relief and how badass Shepard was. I didn't like 3 as much but Mordin's sacrifice made me tear up a little bit. Also I love the art direction of the game. It looks so cool.
Yah I love that this is one of the only games that punishes players for rushing through the main story and skipping character development side missions.
I've been working through ME2 recently and one thing I found amusing was the way there are always a load of crates strewn about wherever there will be combat. You can be walking through a totally barren planet and suddenly come across a random collection of shipping containers so you know it's guns out time. It's a minor point but completely destroys any possibility of suspense.
It's the problem a lot of cover-based shooters have, you always know a fight is coming because of all the conspicuous chest-high walls strewn about.
Lol, not to mention the auto save!
@@kiptheott Maybe it was just me but I felt that cover was more natural in the first game than in 2 or 3. It was just clunky. ME2 and ME3 are basically shooters with rpg mechanics used to upgrade the effectiveness of your weapons, powers and much less so the armor. The levels are designed to highlight that.
That was EA screwing it up. The heat balance in ME1 was much cooled, thenmA2 they were like "But how do we make them need clips?"
@@heathbaker1138 ME1 had terrible combat in my opinion but it is still my favorite of the trilogy for the simple reason that everything was designed to feel as 'real' and 'organic' as possible. Sometimes you never knew when a gunfight would start because they didn't build pre-determined arenas to fight in, they just built a world and then wrote a story in it. I loved the trilogy as a whole and I wasn't even as sour about the ending of 3 as a lot of people were, but ME1 is and always will be the best for what I seek in an RPG.
Been enjoying your vids lately, thanks for the good content!
Thank you!
The fact that these games were developed in like 18 months (even with all their flaws )and today we have to wait 6 years for something like anthem or fallout 76 is beyond reason
Kind of the issue with some of the writing in the series but really the worst of it being the final parts of me3 both plot and gameplay
@@justindemont6062 I think part of that is the second game merely established plot points for three instead of establishing the narrative for three. Two was a side quest to the reaper invasion instead of a main quest.
It hits me hard we probably won't have anything this gen close to what Mass Effect brought in the 7th gen. Even 8th gen had no epic series like that and we are now our 3rd year of the ninth one and 0 sign of an epic RPG trilogy or series coming out. The hype was real for Mass Effect, I was there since the first and omg each release was equivalent to what Breaking Bad brought to TV. Just epic and that alone brings great memories this series even though I have good love/hate relationship with the games.
@heathbaker1138 then why is 2 always seen as the best? I'm doing my first playthru of the series and I'm still on 1
Well, it’s mostly because the games have to be bigger (more content, “open world”) and - even more importantly - the graphics are extremely detailed. It’s still mostly hand made, takes time and money.
Writing and design didn’t get more complex, but every change got even more costly. So refining things is harder - or impossible.
That’s why The Veilguard took so long to make, although it is a pretty simple BioWare formula.
Here's my theory for the plot hole in ME3: Someone really wanted the final fight to be on Earth, no matter what, and that warped the entire plot of ME3 and it was worse for it. It would have made more sense if the Reapers assaulted the Citadel right off the bat and we were trying to retake it in order for the ending(s) to happen. This has its own problems of course, maybe the Protheans also made a way for the citadel not to control the mass relays, maybe there could be a way for us to go around the galaxy by using a maguffin that supersedes the citadel's control over the relays, and the intro on Earth would have to be changed, probably anyway. There were a lot of challenges writing wise for this last game in the trilogy, but not insurmountable ones, and they definitely tied their hands behind their back in some ways.
" Someone really wanted the final fight to be on Earth, no matter what, and that warped the entire plot of ME3 and it was worse for it"
I agree. "someone" meaning an EA exec most likely.
I always was disappointed the focus of ME3 was earth. I understand the reason, it's just we're in space, it's bigger than Earth. I live there, I want to see new planets and shits :(
I heard they run out of time on Mass Effect 3 maybe that's why
Here's what Mass Effect 3 should've been: It should've had 2 campaigns. A Cerberus Campaign and an Aliance Campaign. The Cerberus Campaign would be trying to build the Crucible to take control of the Reapers doing shady things and betraying old allies in the process. The Alliance campaign would be fighting a conventional war of attrition with staggering losses and just barely pulling out a victory.
It might not be a strict RPG series… But it’s still one of my favourite RPG series’s in Gaming and is in “My Favourite Games of all Time” list.
Mass effect effectively changed my genre lol. Back in the day I play only fantasy rpgs, you know the sword and shield, elf with bows stuff...Then finally years after its release I played the trilogy, blew my mind and changed my gaming world!
As I understood from the explanations and data found in ME3, the Reapers, after harvesting an intelligent race, place its essence in a Reaper, anatomically similar to this race. Those two-kilometer space cuttlefish that we see are something like a battle mech-suit with the function of space travel, inside which they sit.
That is, if the human Reaper were finished, it would be a 400m T-800 terminator sitting inside a 2km cuttlefish battle mech-suit.
The reapers are the ships. That is made pretty clear.
@@MarkusJackDijkgraafin some sense. they are partially ships . re-read Codex ME3.
@@ТарасМакаренко-ф3ш that's one of the things that they changed for ME3, which didn't need changing.
Since most of them used to be Leviathans, most of them look the way they are. They are ships.
@@MarkusJackDijkgraaf 1. Оnly they have been assimilating beings for many cycles, in everything different from leviathans. In ME3, before and after the release of the LE, it is said that each Reaper is unique, made in the similar of the destroyed species, and enclosed within the "ideal shape" of cuttlefish. Yes, reapers are ships, but not only. Partially.
2. 400m tall human Reaper (not 2 km) in the form of a T-800 in ME2 is also a change to please ME3?
@@ТарасМакаренко-ф3ш the writer switch happened between 1 and 2.
That's why the writing took a nosedive too.
It was only the human reaper that was that way. The reaper you entered and all research on it made it again pretty clear - the reapers are the ships.
I don't recall secondary reaper bodies inside the reaper ships being dropped in ME2.
I could remember wrongly, but I'm pretty sure it's only mentioned in ME3
I’ve been replaying the series for about the 6th time on console this go around, so it’s been fun seeing you release these Mass Effect videos around the same time. Love these games so much and your reviews have been great. Really looking forward to your companion ranking.
I love that your Shepard is wearing the Dragon Age armor.
How do you get it?
It's explained in the game that the reaper is human because that is the base race used to construct the reaper, it's an infant, as an adult it would have taken the form of other reapers. Don't remember when it's explained. The story is very dynamic, such that party members and order of progression can greatly affect the story presented
Mass effect has been an addiction for me, easily my favorite series of all time. This recent release, I finally played through insanity on a class that I'd never tried (adept) and was blown away by how different the game felt (only played easy and normal) I usually do full paragon and tried full renegade, and the experience is so unpleasant that I had to stop. I've got about 10hrs left of andromeda on insanity but had a bit of a burn-out, and d2r has consumed me as of late
Really love your reviews ❤️
In ME2 the human reaper is just a core for a reaper ship that we normally see. The rest of the ship was going to be built around it once it was done, it's more or less just the "pilot" of a reaper made from a species. I forget what part in ME2 that clarifies this but its only like a little notepad, and it might even be in ME3 rather.
I'm holding out hope that Bioware will eventually make an isometric CRPG spinoff game set in the Mass Effect universe. Getting to RP the different species would be awesome.
That would be incredible. And for dragon age too.
I think this is very unlikely, since they've been pushing towards doing more action-oriented games. DA4 and ME5 will likely be very similar to Inquisition and Andromeda in terms of gameplay.
@@Arcling I'm 100% sure there won't be a mainline ME title that's an isometric CRPG. What I'm talking about is a spinoff game set in the ME universe, not a true ME game. Kind of like how Obsidian is making Avowed, a 1st person open world RPG, that is set in the Pillars of Eternity universe. Or how Bungie made a couple Halo Wars RTS games as companions to the main titles.
@@jessemccord1878 Well, in Obsidian's case it's more like they are abandoning their existing formula (because PoE2 didn't sell good enough), rather than making a spin-off. Avowed might be a replacement for PoE series, so this is a bit different situation. As for ME, I doubt they would do any CRPG, even as a spin-off. Doubt EA would allow it, and even less likely that Bioware would make it. Most of those people who made these games are gone anyway, and current Bioware is certainly pushing more towards action genre.
With regards to Kaidan, the thing that I realised in ME3 was that Shepard and Kaidan were friends before we "met" Shepard. Indeed, Kaidan is the one companion that Shepard already knew before the series began. And through ME2&3, you notice the consequence of that in the difference in how Kaidan and Ashley behave towards you with regards to your joining Cerberus. If you don't romance him in 3, you get some brotherly vibes from him, which I thought was pretty cool. Like Garrus is Shepard's bro, but Kaidan is their brother.
Shepard and Kaidan didn't meet until they were both stationed on the Normandy in Mass Effect 1. How were they friends before that?
Good vid, but I'm disappointed that you haven't mentioned arguably the best instances of real choices & consequences: the Krogan plotline (which ties well with individiaul character dramas too, especially that of Mordin), as well as those regarding Wrex and the Rachni queen. There are other choices in ME1, too, but these are the ones that are truly impactful throughout ALL THREE GAMES and have great emotional underpinnings.
Could also mention the line of choices that lead to geth extinction, quarian extinction or (best of all) peace between geth and quarian.
Nah man, the rachni queen is sadly the perfect example of your choices not mattering, in that there are enemy rachni in ME3 no matter what you did with the queen in 1. If the rachni enemies were replaced with something totally different if there were no rachni to corrupt because you killed the queen, THAT would be respecting choice - but of course that would add so much to the development time they cut the choice and forced there to be rachni.
Mordin is a LEGEND if you play him correctly. What an awesome character. Him , Wrex , Garrus are all legends..
He mentioned it in ME3 video and companion rankings
The Mass Effect trilogy is my favorite game ever and it's all because of the lore and the companions. I was in my 30's when the first game was released. The wait for part 2 and 3 was maddening. All the doubts and speculations about what choice would have been most beneficial and what would happen to the beloved crew; the community was buzzing with anticipation. You should've been there to exprience it all. It was awesome. This game has made me feel so much. I have laughed, I have cried (so much), I have made online friends that I am still in contact with to this day. But in the end, when the original ending came up, it left a hole in my soul that couldn't be filled with the pity-DLC they quickly released. I didn't touch the game for years, knowing that nothing mattered anyway; none of the choices gave me any satifcation. Then the mods came out and I tried the Happy Ending Mod, which made things better and I have been playing it again regularly ever since. That said, I am still, to this day, angry about the 3 stupid choices they presented back then. How dare they do that to us.
I'm not sure if you're aware but this series was based on a book series by the same name. Just to address some of your plot issues.
World Building: It was already written, again with books and also a ton of comics.
Stoked to see the companion video! If - insert character - isn't number one, we're bringing the comment HEAT lmao
Being mainly a single player type of gamer, I tend to treat my games like my movies. Plot is almost as important as gameplay... almost (Xcom is the exception). Anyway its also the reason why I find ME1 being a more compelling experience than the latter sequels, even though they are technically much better games. Fun fact: ME1 was closely adapted from a series of books much like Dragon Age Orgins was to the series of the same name. Its one of the reasons why the lore was so cohesive and well done. The sequels veer off into their own directions with the writing being done inhouse by the devs and the shift in focus (quality) can be noticed. I remember ME2 originally being quite underwhelming on its own untill the DLCs were released. With the geth mostly being a backdrop and the focus was mostly on the companion "shipping", no one really talks about the final battle itself... this eventually became a trend in their future games.
Have you noticed how most EA owned single player titles tend to end up being an action shooter of some category? I remember deadspace suffering a similar fate... Personally I prefer a definitive end to a series then to keep dredging its corpse up over and over like Ubisoft.
Tali'Zorah best girl
Garrus best boy
EDI and Legion tied for best bot
will be fine with the character ranking cause of course obviously definitely Garrus will be S tier and all will be right in the world
Each decision and outcome passing onto the next game makes this trilogy timeless and a very unique experience.
Hell yeah, can't wait for your companion video! Really glad you enjoyed the trilogy - I think it has been one of the best franchises out there. Excellent world with huge potential for more games. Let's hope Mass Effect 4 will be better than Andromeda in terms of story, as imo combat was actually really good.
Yeah, I agree with@@faillord7020; we'll see what happens after Dragon Age 4. I'm not holding my breath given what news we *have* heard about DA4.
As a FemShep, I love Kaidan. He opens up to FemShep WAY more and has stories and I really enjoyed his backstory. It also felt cohesive, in a world where other alien races exist, that a FemShep would feel comfortable getting close to a Kaidan. His romance is also actually very sweet, despite knowing everyone LOVES Garrus for FemShep. I just REALLY ship Garrus/Tali so I couldn't let anything get in the way of that.
The thing is that in the trilogy you don't play as a silent protagonist, you play Shepard, a established person within the universe with their own identity and motivations. The ownership of the protagonist is shared between the player and the character itself. You never get to pick exactly what Shepard say, just the general gist and tone of the respond. There are a lot of things you can't do because Shepard can't or don't want to do. This is a design decision to enhance the player's immersion in the universe especially considering that the game prioritize interpersonal conflicts and relationships.
8mins: The Collectors were working for the Reapers by analyzing Genetic Anomalies and trends of mutation in the current cycle. Thus sending data back to the Reapers on where in the Cycle the races actually were, and what, if any irregularities the Reapers could expect in their next harvest. (Also one would presume, they were monitoring Dark Energy progression, since that was the original trigger for Reaper Invasions. But that plotline was scrapped when Drew Karpayshan left.) Why did the Reapers need this? Because it was another way to "preserve" Organic life in lines with their programming.
Now, why the human baby Reaper? Supposedly, as others have noted, the DNA of the actual Reaper would be encased inside the standard carapace. Flimsy, but plausible.
And I agree about Cerberus. Not to mention the "explanation" for how they managed this is threadbare at best. 6 months before, EDI specifically tells you the Lazarus Project to rebuild you and the Normandy took "most" of Cerberus' resources. Somehow, that most becomes "not that much," in that short a time. And EDI, who doesn't make mistakes and had perfect knowledge of Cerberus data, was wrong. OK....
Where does the teleporting the Citadel come from? I was under the impression the reapers entered the Widow system and just moved it manually
You finished ME just as I was starting. I finished the trilogy last night and now I don't know what to do with myself. Good video. Subbed.
Very interesting series! I really enjoyed it.
About the significance of choices:
I never understood why people expect every choice they made as Commander Shepard to "stick". That's not how life works.
Yes, Shepard chose, for example, Anderson to be councillor. There is no guarantee in life - real or video game - that this will be the case in the future. In fact, I personally think a game which will occasionally show you that other factors can change the outcome NO MATTER YOUR CHOICES is a far more realistic RPG.
Just my personal opinion
Mass Effect has the best story and world building
Mass Effect 2 has the best characters and final mission
Mass Effect 3 has the best gameplay and character interactions
And after all these years I can say that my favorite is the 1st one
As for the shape of the Reapers, my theory is that each Reaper has an inner and outer shape. The outer shape is one of the squid-Leviathan and the inner shape is that of the harvested species. The smaller - crab shaped - Reapers could be less important species made into them, but also still having their unique inner shape
ME1 is definitely my favourite one as well... but with legendary edition I tend to think of it as one cohesive game now.
It's one of the rare series in which the developers and distributors were mostly on the same page and everyone stayed on task
0ne interesting thing playing ME 1 - 3 and Desd Space 1-3 is you can see by game design how the gaming industry changed from the the 00s to early teens. Playing that way is like a time capsule of gaming society and company focus
12:20 on TVTropes this is known as "Cutting Off the Branches"
Great vid! Here's the thing. The Reapers can't leave a tracer signal on the station. It's just too revealing. Everyone would figure that out. It's a space opera. We're talking a phone signal. They get bolder,but only because actual gunships are coming.
So glad you played through this series and didn't totally hate it. So many good story's in here even if the story telling kind of dropped off and it stopped being an RPG I still love this series.
My theory about the purpose of the Collectors is to create a human reaper that could complete the task sovereign failed - taking the citadel and jump starting the invasion. Ofc they were already very close by this time, but we know that taking the citadel first and crippling the galactic government has always been key to their success. That might even be why they failed this time.
Some consider Dragon Age the Bioware spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, but to me, it's Mass Effect. They are the only two trilogies (I consider Throne of Bhaal basically BG3) I can think of, where through three entire titles your companions stay by your side, develop, grow, have romances, etc. Dragon Age tried it with a few familiar faces, but ultimately your always a new protagonist so it's just different each time. As you said, it's the companions that really make this game the amazing title it is. That's why for those who bought original ME 3, without Citadel it was just such a different game. The ending was it's own thing, but it's the fact Citadel does so much with those relationships, that makes it an amazing DLC.
With the reapers looking the way they are was it’s explained in the leviathan dlc for me3. Might just be making things up it’s been a while.
Good show sir
Did you read any the books? I think they wanted to explain some things that way.
This was my favorite series of all time. I cannot wait until the sequel to this series comes about.
I played all 3 at release and replayed them once. I agree the alien companions are amazing. It is the reason to play the game
I had never played mass effect before LE. But man. What an amazing series. And not because its great individually. It's because it ALL comes together in the end. And that story is YOURS.
In Mass Effect 2, I did all the loyalty quests and yet Garrus and Tali and Jack and one other died! I was not expecting that ending.
I thought Mass Effect 2 was a misfire. By bringing the Reaper threat back as early as ME2, the universe was given a ticking clock, which inevitably exploded with ME3's evolution endings.
The looming Reaper threat established by the ending to the first game would have provided a great sense of dread for the universe. In the meantime, we could have experienced a diverse array of games and stories taking place across the galaxy as it existed between ME1 and 2.
Considering the huge stepforward of the second game after the first one I would except third one to be so much better instead of being just slightly improved of the second game. And the story wise Illusive Man and his organization should not have been wasted like that. Illusive man had brought such a different vibe the second game. Third game should have benefited the Illusive man character and the Cerberus way better. And finally I am surprised you didn't mention but sounds of the game, the voices of the characters are too good for a game that old. Especially soundtrack. To this day I still listen to Mass Effect 2 soundtrack. It's simply epic. Overall Mass Effect games are like a space opera movies than a game. Third one should have been in fact could have been so so much better but it still one of the best series in the gaming history.
So, I remember that the Citadel was moved to Earth, but don't recall any reference to it being teleported? When I played, I always assumed it was moved through the Mass Relay, just as we move throughout the series.
I didn't play these games on the release of each title. I was bored, looking for something new, and every positive review of ME 3 I found on Amazon was marked as spam. I got curious, and bought ME 1, then 2, and then 3. Ultimately, I came to the same conclusion, the ending wasn't as bad as I was led to believe, but, and there's always a but, I didn't get to 3 until after all of the DLC and the Extended Cut were released. They may have been released before I ever played the first one, in fact. My overall impression of the series can be summed up in one sentence though: For someone that doesn't review games for a living, I have an impressive amount of hours spent in the games.
You'll be surprised how much variety there is regarding some choices. You can either experience it for yourself or check out videos on yt. One such channel is Big Dan Gaming. He has a ton of ME videos showcasing rare choices and outcomes among other interesting stuff.
6:15 Funny you made this observation, The Late, Great, Shamus Young made a video on ME2's problems, how it undermined many setups ME1 painstaking installed in the setting and plot. ME2 was a good game in isolation, but as the second part of a trilogy it did worse than nothing.
Except Shamus' presumption is that ME3 was the original plot line, instead of a fixer-upper that resulted from Drew K leaving at the end of ME2. The problems with ME3 and why it happened are well-documented now. And pushing them back to ME2 is simply wrong.
@@shawngillogly6873 that has nothing to do with what i'm saying. literally didn't care about ME3.
@@willferrous8677 It absolutely has to do with plot continuity if the reasons for "plot inconsistency" are related to the story changing direction *after* ME2.
@@shawngillogly6873 No, none of that matters when the point is ME2 fumbled what ME1 set up.
Excellent review. Mostly agree with a couple addenum's. 1) most of the real choices in this game affect gameplay rather then conclusion. Still there but a bit different approach. It's in line with Biowares style of writing overall I think, kind of like what they did in Dragon Age. And 2) While I agree about most human characters I still find Jack to be one of favorites in the game. Good vid
free comment, after watching previous three 100% reviews.
I do think Bioware's drive toward action predates Mass Effect- Neverwinter Nights stripped away companion tactics and went in an MMO-lite direction, while KotOR and Jade Empire were both pretty fast-paced and simplified.
An interesting thing with the EA merger and dev acquisitions in general is the delayed effect. Really great games journo named George Weidman (Super Bunnyhop on TH-cam) pointed out that it's usually a span of a couple years before you see the deleterious effects of a studio acquisition. Senior staff stays on to finish the projects they have in the hopper, then leave, after which you get the changes in workplace culture and output. Bioware had DA Origins and ME2, arguably two of its biggest triumphs, already in progress when the merger went through. After that, we got DA2 and ME3, two flawed games I personally really love, then a steady stream of high level departures and three games really marred by truncated, poorly managed dev cycles (Inquisition, Andromeda, Anthem.)
I'm always hoping they'll make a comeback, Bioware made the first RPGs I really loved, but I'm always wondering how much damage has been done, and I'm also curious how much "blame" one should assign to EA ownership vs. studio management. I'm always down to blame EA, sports game publisher that accidentally bought one of my favorite RPG devs, but this stuff has to be pretty complex.
For the Mass Effect trylogy, I think one of the lead writers left the game during the making of the second game.
This could explain why the writing went down over the course of the trylogy. On that note, said writer had another plot in mind for the trylogy ending. Originally, Reapers existed to save the galaxy from the "Dark Matter" phenomenon. This "dark matter" was something that grew over the time, and far, far quicker when there were species capable of galactic exploration and colonisation... and could, in the end, destroy the galaxy. An ancient race realised that of the reapers sacrificed themeslves to create the first Reaper : the sum of their knowledges and skills, to deal with the problem of the Dark Matter. The Reaper could not handle the problem and devised a plan : each 50k years, they would reap the galaxy, achieving two purposes. First, the destruction of the advanced species would slow down the growth of Dark Matter and then the creation of another Reaper would add knowledge and skill necessary to deal with the Dark Matter.
This plot is hinted at by Tali's mission during the second game.
However, the ending was basically an A , B or C choice, since in the end Shepard would learn the purpose of the Reapers and have to choose between A : letting the Reaper win, B : letting the Reapers consume only Humanity and C : destroy the Reapers. The thing here is, the sacrifice of at least humanity would allow the Reaper to effectly end the dark matter problem, thus, saving the galaxy, while destroying the Reapers pose the risk of never be able to deal with the Dark Matter.
The leak of this ending was what initially spawned the famous lie "Your ending will be meaningful, it will not be a A, B, C choice" from Hudson AND the change to the ending we have now.
oh dang, I forgot about that dragon age armor!
Gonna leave a recommendation for you! I don't know if you are into jrpgs as a whole (I sure am not), but the Trails series is really good! I've played the Trails in the Sky trilogy recently, and am progressing into beating the whole series, as it captivaded me so much, even though I didn't give it much credit when I started. The story, characters and world building is so nice in general, that I can't stop praising it. On the plus side (for me, at least), it's not grindy at all, so you can enjoy its narrative on a steady pace while completing most, if not all, side content available!
Judging from your party in ME2 montage I reckon you were going for "No one left behind" achievement.
Btw who is your top 3 companion?
Just found your channel dude and the content is fucking superb 🔥.
Thank you for bringing up how ME3 treats cerberus, it bothered me too. You can still have them as a enemy faction by framing them as a black Ops sabotage faction rather than a massive army.
Honestly, the best way to do it would've been to have renegade factions of multiple races. Why not Krogan chafing under Wrex as the enemy on Tuchanka? Or Salarians secretly working for the Dalotrass attacking the STG base to try to kill Eve? Why are those Cerberus? Cerberus causing problems in Alliance space? Sure. But it would help the believability, and enemy diversity, if enemies were drawn from actual divisions in the local population. Divisions caused by your choices from the prior games.
I agree on Cerberus. It was kinda jarring between 2-3 bc I played the Legendary edition
Cool vidéo, love your séries,
And i must Say Mass effect trilogy has one of the best score of video games
There are several plot points that have been clearly changed over the course of trilogy. Even the lead writer was changed from Drew Karpyshyn to Mac Walters, which resulted in some of these plot changes. Regarding Udina, it was both streamlining and also influence of external material, there was short comic where Udina was already a councilor, so game reflected that. Having to included external medial was one of the main problems imo, it rarely ends up well when games are trying to integrate other written or animated sources into their story, because it often can feel forced or disjointed. Similar with Kai Leng, who was first introduced in a book and then they decided to bring him into last game. He really felt out of place there. I think one of biggest disappointments was how insignificant destroying or sparing Collector Base in ME2 turned out to be. Before ME3, many people have speculated how it's going to severely affect Cerberus and who you will be fighting in next game, but this supposedly big choice was just a couple lines of dialogue and different war asset (also it defaulted to either destroy or control ending in case of low galactic readiness). Main strengths of Mass Effect story have always been its companions and world building, certainly better than Reaper plot.
Regarding the development time - I have seen over a decade many games, that REALLY needed like a year or two or more of development time and they wound just freaking level up. Like, if ME trilogy was made not in 5 years time, but, like, 8 or even 10 years (which is a kind a lot, but still), the trilogy would be fantastic. Fallout New Vegas should've got not 18 months but 2 years at least (imagine what we would get), Dying light 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Anthem and some others. But we all know how management always fucks developers' plans and ambitions.
they did say somewhere maybe in the lore that every reaper is made i nthe image of the species that it was made from and put at hte heart of the shell of it made to look like harbinger the first reaper (looks like the reaper cuttlefish). the 2 things i never could understand though are 1 why the reapers didnt just go for the citadel first in ME3 but also they imply that one reaper( dreadnaughty soverin class) is made every cycle(the lesser races are made into destroyers) but we know that mupltiple have been destroyed in this cycle and the last so thats unsustainable if you only make 1 capitale ship class every 50K years but alot get destroyed every cycle how would that work?
Best and I mean best trilogy pack of any games that you could buy.
I think the human reaper was essentially a fetus, the traditional reapers form would go around it. That's was they mean when the star child told shep that they preserve the races in reaper form. I guess he's being a little more literal than it appears
Definitely late to the party on your Mass Effect reviews, but I agree that ME2 is the most enjoyable narrative. As you and many others have noted, however, its actual plot is largely inconsequential to the overall narrative. But, that was very much intentional by the developers. As even prior to release they kept comparing the title to Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back. A sequel film that famously has a largely inconsequential main plot, but is instead more focused on exploring its central characters than advancing any plot with regards to the Galactic War and the Empire. ME2 similarly eschews any focus on advancing the Reaper plot to further flesh out the world of Mass Effect and the characters before going into the actual war that is ME3.
I think ME2 was essential to getting players to explore and get invested in all the issues and characters involved in this world before everything goes to crap when the Reapers arrive. And you can't have the main plot be the most time pressing thing ever and still allow players the freedom to just explore the galaxy and get into trouble. So, the Collectors offer a way to allow the player to face a threat that isn't absolutely immediate in terms of danger, provide little tidbits concerning the overall series plot, but really allow the player to go off and explore the galaxy prior to the Reaper invasion. And this allows them to get further entangled in the Genophage issue, the Quarian-Geth conflict, and just generally see how the Terminus Systems operates.
I tried 100%-ing a few games. A lot of these achievements hinge on playing it with a specific build or a player-choice made at the beginning.
It's annoying playing something like WoTR or Stygian and seeing the same gameplay for the 10th time..
Is it good to:
- gate some content behind a specific build
- or allow on person to savour a 'long-play' and explore the whole world without min-max a build and speed-running it to a point where you can enjoy it?
I'm happy you enjoyed them. You've made me want to go through the legendary edition but will likely skip 1
Nooooo don’t skip 1 🤣.
Yes gameplay isn’t as good, but it really isn’t all that bad. But as someone who replayed the trilogy in the LE, I really appreciated 1 my second time through
I like to see your opinion on Fall Seal, a tactical RPG styled similar to Final Fantasy Tactics.
Ok speak8ng of plot holes, I have one that's bugging me. In the first game (I think) there's a conversation you can overhear where a group of different species are discussing the Asari and saying how they look similar to the species viewing them. So to Humans they look similar to humans and to Krogan they look like Krogan. How does that work through video feeds? Holograms and cameras, really any remote viewing, they still look the same. So if they were playing some trick with pheromones or using their natural ability with psionics(? It's been a whilen details are a little fuzzy) that should only work in person. Yet the trick seems to work no matter what.
You are right that the world-building is the real star of the series. Which is why it was a huge mistake to burn it all down at the end. And that decision led directly to MEA having to go to another Galaxy (OK they didn't _have_ to, but they felt it was that way). I hope the new ME keeps to the outstanding world-building.
One thing I don't understand about Mass Effect 2 is why were they building a Reaper that looks Human
The idea, as far as i remember is that each cycal Reapers evaluate all of the developed races if they should be immortalized or just wiped out, if the race is seen worthy by the reapers then they build a new reaper which captures the essence of that race, if they believe that no races in the cycle are worthy, then they just kill everybody. For example the protheans were not seen as worthy by the reapers so no new reapers were build during that cycle. So bacially every single reaper is the "worthy" races of previous cycles.
Great review! I believe you'll like Andromeda while hating to 100% it.
I would really love an x-com like game in the Mass effect world if Gears of war did it I hope Mass effect can do it to.
There is no need for byoware to do it, they can outsource it. But man i would love it.
And bring back the ME1 wrighting team. Those there the true heros of the franchise
the issue with Kaiden is that he's completely inconsistent.
In Me1 if you talk to him as femshep you learn that he he had a very traumatic childhood, sent to a camp for biotic kids when humanity still didn't know anything about it, raised by a turian who hated humans and was very harsh on them, he ended up kiling the guy by accident as a teenager when the turian harshly punished the girl Kaiden was in love with. Not only did he have to deal with the emotional scars of being a murderer even if it was an accident and the turian he killed was threatening him with a knife but also the girl he was in love with and killed for couldn't cope with it and rejected him.
But despite this he managed to deal with the trauma and conclude that aliens are in fact just like humans, some are good others not so he doesn't hate all turians for what the one made him suffer.
Very mature guy who has lived through shit, an equal to Shepard in that respect unlike Ashley who is still trying to atone for what her grandfather did and also is very resentful/fearful of aliens as a whole. Or even Garrus who has a lot of potential but is still very young emotionally and hasn't had as much hardship/life experience.
But then comes ME2 and suddenly all of Kaiden's maturity is gone, Cerberus bad so now Shepard bad and he doesn't even want to listen or try to investigate the situation. He doesn't even try to understand how hard this has to be on Shepard, the trauma of having died, having been rebuilt like a rat lab by an enemy (specially if they are the sole survivor as it's Cerberus who wiped out their entire platoon in an experiment on thresher maws) and having to work with them despite everything because they have no other choice to stop the collectors and through them the reapers.
I get that he is loyal to the alliance first and couldn't just go awol to follow Shepard, but he could have supported them like Wrex or Liara did, they didn't join but they were allies. Tali is another example, she couldn't join at first because she had responsibilities and was with good reasons an enemy of Cerberus but even in the first interaction she still gave Shepard the benefit of the doubt and some trust, then when they proved themselves to her she gave them her full trust and help even before she could join the team.
Then in Me3 it gets even worse IMO, By this point Shepard has proven they were not a puppet of Cerberus, that there was a real threat and they only did what they had to to stop it. They surrendered to the alliance and accepted being punished even though they saved the galaxy but even after all this Kaiden still doubts through half the game. Where is the emotionally mature guy from Me1 I don't know.
That's my big issue with Kaiden, he was never going to be a very intense character but he could have been the one we can always count on as long as we follow the paragon path. I think what destroyed this was trying to have an interchangeable path for Kaiden/Ashley who stopped being independent characters to become "the virmire survivor" and after that ti's not Kaiden or Ashley reacting to events but "the virmire survivor" who is both and none at the same time.
To me biggest plot hole was that if Reapers essentially won always, so why the would they even disappear somewhere nowhere. It just doesn’t make any sense to me.
My question about the Human Reaper is this.... why humans? It's stated in the games that the Reapers come and convert the apex species into a reaper. So why humans? We were the last ones to reach citidel space. All the other council species are way more advanced. Why aren't the reapers also making an asari reaper , or a turian , or ..... And why bring the Citidel to earth to begin with?
Most of the reapers we see are physically modeled after the leviathans, their original creators
Leviathans didn't create the Reapers. They created the AI or Catalyst. The Catalyst then turned on The Leviathans and harvested them first making the first Reaper, Harbinger, in their image. While they are modeled after Leviathans, they were not their creators.
I do honestly consider the first to be an RPG, but 2 and 3 are more narrative based shooters. There are still some light RPG elements in there (if the combat was melee only I would say they were action RPGs) so its more than your usual shooter gives you but still not an RPG, especially not in comparison to the sorts of games you usually do on here, which are what most people in the CRPG fanbase think of when they think CRPG.
Yeah, ME2 was probably the best game, but it felt very disconnected. The Collectors were also very shoehorned in to have an enemy to fight where there really wasn't one. I also feel the things you do in ME2 didn't really affect ME3 nearly enough.
For me ME2 is the best game in the serieries but not my favourite one. I like ME1 the most despite its problems. In ME I didn't like that the invenotry was cluttered and was a bit hard to manage. I was keeping all types of ammo and wapons cause I didn't know what I will need. In ME2 they fixed the issue by removing the inventory as a whole which streamlined things a lot but it was a very drastic solution and dumbed down the RPG system. Also I was very fond of the companions in ME so I was hoping in ME2 I would continue adventuring with them but instead they removed them all except for Garus and introduced new ones. I liked the new ones as well but I really wish I had my ME fellowship.
The whole series went off the rails in ME2 and I am a bit surprised why no one brings this up. Where were the Collectors in ME1? You mean to tell me that they were already there and Sovereign never employed them? The whole of the ME2 retcons, just led me to believe that BioWare was "building this airplane while flying it". At some point, my brain shut off in regard to the main story and even the ending in ME3 was just the "last nail in the coffin" because the main story was pretty much dead by that point anyway.
Exactly, this game left such a bad taste ive never touched it since the 3rd one came out. Screw bioware.
They couldnt mess with the relay in ME2 cause Sauron woulda have seen them flying on the eagles lmao.
When it comes to the human companions, I always found Kaidan Alenko very dull. As you stated in the video, the only thing I can remember is his complaining about his implants. And this gets more obvious if you compare him with Ashley Williams. She really changes in her perspective on alien species when comparing her attitude in the first and in the third game.
I think in terms of Cerberus, they are never really morally grey imo, but through the plot they make it seem that way for some stretches during ME2, to keep you distrustful rather than antagonistic, with loyalty a bonus. I would not have minded a more grey Cerberus, but I actually don't mind how it turned out either, minus a cyborg ninja of course. But if you look to ME1, almost every project you encounter is inhumane to some degree and it's clear they have their own interests first. I think rather what happened with them is that they started idealistic and then lost sight of that, particularly in individual cells, but it's already tipping by the events in the games.
If you take these as one game, it’s probably the best game ever.
Time to try and play throu me2 and 3 again
ME3 doesn't hold up to scrutiny whatsoever. The Reapers could have easily seized the Citadel and relays from the started and trapped everyone in isolated systems. Nobody is getting past two or three Reapers guarding each relay, which they definitely had the numbers for.
That's because their goal is not actually Extinction
People forget about the incredibly tedious aspects of ME1 like the buggy/mining sections which were just pure filler.
Overall it's an incredible series and personally I enjoyed each game right up to and including the ME3 finale.
Lack of advance story planning really hurt this from being the greatest gaming trilogy of all time. On top of the stuff you mention, killing Shepard ultimately didn't go anywhere in the story, apart from being played for laughs a few times, and getting seriously asked about it near the very end of ME3 when you see TIM's tapes on it, could have accomplished the same thing by being in a coma for 2 years. On Cerberus itself, you're told in ME2 there's only a dozen cells with a couple of hundred agents in total, so TIM can himself personally manage them all. They went in 6 months from a small Black Ops organisation to something akin to the Empire from Star Wars. No plot magic is ever going to square that for me, and indeed one of the devs said in an interview they did a number of things simply because "it was cool" rather than worry about story.
You should 100% any of the arcane studios games they arent rpgs but are really great games with different endings
I've done a couple of them already
You keep saying "rpg mechanics" are light in ME. I would argue that the role playing is all in the dialogue system.
Your choices are what matters, not your class, ability points, etc.
Shrug