What's your opinion on this game /v/? It's better than ME3 sure, but how does it compare to ME1?
>>333907435
It's worse than ME3 and it's the entire downfall of the series thematically and mechanically.
>>333907435
It's better than ME2, also >>333907631 is a faggot.
>>333907917
*better than ME1
>>333907917
why senpai
On its own, it was pretty good. The ending was good. Gameplay was shallow as all fuck but at least not total ass to play, which is a step up from most bioware games.
In relation to the series, it failed to build on ME1's potential, was a massive disappointment and almost all the narrative failures of the series as a whole stem from ME2.
>>333907917
That denial is too good
>>333907435
imo really good
couldnt have hoped for a better sequel after falling in love with me1
sadly 3 was so bad I didnt bother finishing it...
>>333908145
This
A lot of people get pissed that stop the reapers/save the galaxy isn't the main point, but there wasn't much of a galaxy built without all the sidequests and locations 2 had added in. I didn't care about the galaxy in the first game, so there was a lot of value added from fleshing it out beyond the citadel.
They also executed the ending very well because the game built to it from the start, which makes the end of 3 even more painful in comparison. Andromeda has negative hype from that.
What's the opinions on the companions?
ME3 is better than 2 for sure in the gameplay department. ME3 ruined the series storywise so it solidifed it's ranking as the worst in the series.
Objectively ME3 improved on every aspect of ME2. The only issue was the drastic deviation from ME1 to ME2 which divided the fanbase. ME3 plays as a better ME2 but can't make up for that ending.
>>333908818
Overall okay, but a lot were poorly handled. Thane's mission was great up until the actual action, Miranda is such a fucking bore, Jacob too, Tali's side mission was brilliant, Jack is edge for the sake of it, Kasumi is horribly underdeveloped, Zaeed is horribly limited to fucking Press X to Hear Story, Garrus and his mission were pretty cool in terms of gameplay and interaction, Samara was cool but her code was dumb, Grunt felt mediocre but his mission was excellent, Mordin was all around excellent, and I'm pretty sure I'm missing someone but they were probably boring anyways so who cares.
Only plebs think ME3 has better gameplay than ME2. It's smoother, that's it. ME2 is better balanced and has much more nuance to it than 3, tiny things I could write pages about. If ME3 were balanced as well as ME2 was I would immediately change my opinion and say ME3 has better gameplay.
Not afraid to say it's up there as one of the best games of all time, belongs in the top 100 for sure.
>>333909171
To elaborate,
ME3 made all the cover shooter aspects of ME2 more fluid and fun. ME2 becoming more of a GOW clone in the combat department and how that contrasted the entire feel of ME1. From a gameplay standpoint, ME1 is an entirely different game. People wanted more of that, but got ME2. Instead of giving the fans more ME1 in ME3 they shit the bed and just made ME2.0
sorry im high cant tell if that ll makes sense
>>333907631
I agree. ME3's gameplay was actually really fun and the main plot was better than ME2's. Also the endings of both games were absolutely terrible.
ME > ME3 > ME2
>>333908237
My little edgelord can't be this cute
>>333907631
im ripped and you so said eloquently what i wanted to convey
>>333909912
>spend entire time whining about horrible childhood
>finally get to her mission
>she was treated like a princess compared to other kids
>entire mission is her in denial continuing to whine about muh shit childhood
>supposed to feel any sort of sympathy towards her
Then the Illusive Man conveniently shifted the blame on his agents and everything was ok
>>333907435
The plot is ridiculous and makes no sense, either on its own or in the context of the trilogy, but the individual stories and loyalty missions are fun and a good way of exploring the ME universe. The shooting is better.
The RPG elements are "dumbed down" and whether this is a good or bad thing comes down to preference. Personally, I thought that the equipment/inventory system in ME1 was handled very poorly, and didn't really do anything to enhance the game. It was better in ME2 where it was more streamlined and got out of the way of what the games are really about.
The change to the way the paragon/renegade system affects dialogue was absolutely horrible though and my least favorite thing about 2 (and 3). In ME1 you chose to boost persuasion and intimidation if you wanted to, at the expense of combat skills, and then you got the extra dialogue options. In ME2 those skills are tied directly to your paragon or renegade points, which means you are only able to take one approach based on how you've already role played in the past. It's impossible to create a character who's capable of being intimidating OR charming, and if you want to play a character who alternates between paragon and renegade, the game punishes you for doing that because neither meter gets high enough for late game skill checks in dialogue. It's like they deliberately wanted you to take only one approach for the entire game, in which case they might as well have had you just pick one at the start and then done everything for you automatically.
Overall an inferior game to 1, but has its good points and I replayed it a couple of times.
>>333908818
>Daddy Issues: the game
Mordin and Grunt are decent but that's pretty much it. Unless you like phat Quarian ass.
Easily the best Mass Effect game
>>333910543
This, it's pretty much the only worthwhile one.
>>333910350
Plus the QTEs attached to paragon/renegade scores. The QTE system was just stupid.
>>333908145
>all the narrative failures of the series as a whole stem from me2
They set up what could have been an interesting ending for the series in me2 but they decided not to go with it. Dark energy was involved.
>>333910859
They were toying with the Crucible and Starchild from 3 in ME1, they couldn't decide what they wanted to do until they were forced to commit in ME3. In the beginning after Eden Prime Anderson speculates with you in the Med Bay about the Becaon and he explicitly states "It could contain plans for a weapon of mass destruction" and then there was a codex entry that made an offhand mention of a "rumor of 'an artificial intelligence deep in the Citadel"
They couldn't decide which path they ultimately wanted to take and it was pretty clear in both ME1 and 2. They teased what we actually got with ME3 during ME1, and then during ME2 they teased the Dark Energy idea in several places, mainly with Tali's mission and with Veetor in the beginning.
>>333910859
>dark energy
>interesting ending
Did you actually read any of the interviews about that ending? It was utter shit, underdeveloped nonsensical shit. People keep saying it would have been better than what we got, but that's absolute garbage.
>>333911187
Yeah, this is the biggest problem with the narrative overall, and why ME1's is the best, because they didn't figure things out from the beginning. If you are going to write a trilogy you really ought to at least know generally what happens in each part, and how it ends, before you start.
Despite that I really think a better team of writers could have come up with all kinds of ideas much better than what they eventually went with. What I really wanted to see was a direction that pushes the mystery and majesty of the reapers.
I know it gets posted all the time but you really can't overstate how cool of an introduction to the reapers the conversation with sovereign was, and how disappointing the follow through on it was.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_NAoNd4YyY
I think it would have been amazing if the reapers had remained mysterious to the end, despite constant attempts by Shepard to understand them, and in doing so they could have explored the theme of divinity itself - if the gods are inexplicable, should you accept their will because they are gods or fight against it even though your mortality potentially means you are in the wrong but can't understand it? Are the reapers really gods or pretenders, where's the line between godhood and mortality? Do you have to understand their motivation for something to be evil or are their actions enough to tell you?
This is the kind of thing good sci fi can explore, rather than just being about a bunch of space shooting. Lots of wasted potential.
>>333911930
There was a lot of touching on consciousness and being human in ME3, especially with EDI, and the meaning to be
>>333912113
Not really. EDI just puts herself in a body and then you can talk to her about romancing Joker. There's no real question posed about whether she should be regarded as a person, and only a very rudimentary and brief one about whether she could love a human, where you pretty much just pick an answer and then it's forgotten.
>>333912113
ME2 and 3 did that with Legion, not EDI.
>>333912432
You missed some, quite a bit.
ME3 had a bit of mono no aware to it, and exploration of self naturally follows. Not to defend it if you hate it or anything.
>>333913056
EDI was just one example, the Geth being spiritual and religious is really neat
>>333907435
It's story is worse than Mass Effect 1, and it's gameplay is worse than Mass Effect 3. However, Mass Effect 2 has the best set of squadmates, and handles the characters the best. Hell, the Mass Effect squadmates were all pretty bland and boring until 2 gave them actual personality. It's weird going back to play 1, because the characters are all so shit. Kaidan and Ashley are always boring throughout the series, but Liara is basically a personality-less cocksleeve instead of the competent, fierce but caring person she is later, Wrex is just a jaded stuffy merc and le token evil teammate instead of the boisterous warrior he suddenly is in 2, and Garrus and Tali just barely exist for the whole game. ME2 expended on the characters and made them the characters we actually grew to love, instead of just props to fill out the story a little.
>>333907435
>It's better than ME3 sure
Nah it's worse
A big reason is I had no expectations for ME3 after the shitshow that was ME2 and it made some minor improvements. Sure the ending was shit but so was ME2's
>>333913218
It's not much of an example if it doesn't happen. EDI's humanity (Nitpicking here also, buthumans aren't the only race in the galaxy so check your privilege shitlord, EDI could be exploring what it means to be Asari or Turiannever comes into question and it's never really explored in ME3 as this guy said >>333912432
Her interactions with Joker on the other hand are constantly observed and occasionally you could support the relationship or oppose it. If anything ME3 explored the possibility of love between man and machine which was honestly done more tastefully in other works.
Legion on the other hand isn't straight up artificial intelligence and if I remember correctly is more like a collection of intelligence so Legion itself being alive is more questionable than EDI and it's also explored more.
>>333909171
>ME3 ruined the series storywise
That was ME2. How did ME3 ruin the story?
>>333911930
>reapers are essentially the borg, but without even the individuality a drone maintains
I dunno, I thought they turned out alright.
>>333907435
The only thing I really miss about ME1 is the vehicle. I love roving around planets and being able just to cruise around. So comfy.
But my favorite thing is Shepard's face when he reacts to things.
>>333907631
Thank you. ME2 shat all over everything great about ME1.
>>333915368
And came out on top even better.
>>333907435
> Go assemble this team of like a dozen people you'll need.
> Only half of them are actually competent enough not to get anyone else killed at the end.
Way to waste our time, Bioware. Mass Effect 1 was so much better it's not even close.
How the fuck does Shepard survive in the Destroy ending if you have enough War Assets?
>>333916294
The Crucible remains in tact enough so as not to completely destroy that part of the Citadel, or to kill him.
>>333916294
It's headcanon
>>333916294
How the fuck does Shepard survive the Normandy exploding, orbital reentry, decomposition, brain damage, and limb loss in the intro of Mass Effect 2?
Bioware stopped giving a shit about things making sense after ME1, that's how.
The combat was better than me1 but thats about it
>>333916294
You can always choose to adopt the indoctrination theory to explain that if you want to.
>>333907435
Probably one of my top 5 games of all time. Best in the series by far.
>>333916912
Well of course they died in ME2's intro, that's why you then have Cerberus do their Lazurus Project thing to resurrect Shepard.
>>333909867
Are you even real?
>>333917063
Space magic as an explanation for resurrection is ok. There's nothing to explain why Shepard's entire body didn't burn to a tiny spec during atmospheric reentry or how his brain didn't turn to this https://youtu.be/xpsVcdcmtWI
>>333915957
It's way less than half.
People usually post this image to try to make it seem like ME2 has this big ending based on your choices, when really it's just a death list that shows how little so many of those characters matter.
>>333919037
What that ending does do though is give you the feeling that a lot was dependent on your choices, which is really all the series was ever about. ME1 didn't have a complicated list of different outcomes either, just a handful of mostly binary choices, but it gives you the sensation that you are constantly choosing outcomes.
The real shitty thing about ME3's outcome is that it didn't even *feel* like your choices made any difference.
>>333907435
Apart from the artistic direction in a few locations, I thought it was terrible.
I actually enjoyed some elements of the ME1 combat: playing the infiltrator, its active skills were strong, whereas in ME2 he just shot different color fireballs that had more impact on different types of armor, but had no other effect (in retrospect, maybe playing on the highest difficulty ruined the game because it was not significantly more difficult, but every mob having more armor & more armor types means spells did nothing but damage)
In ME1, you could also kill the enemies by pushing them out of the combat arena with grenades or spells (lifting a those huge aliens twice essentially instakilled them)
Overall, ME1's combat was more fun, or at least more interesting. So were the quests, and in my opinion the atmosphere as well. ME2 did have some good ideas (like the suicide mission, which I would like to see again in a better game by a better company)
>>333919282
>What that ending does do though is give you the feeling that a lot was dependent on your choices
Until you played it a second time and realized how useless most of it is. Most of your squad crew can die and it won't even affect what outcomes you can get.
The issue I think people have with ME3 is that they want that last hour to be a culmination of all their choices in 1 and 2. But that's fucking near impossible. The entire game of ME3 is where your choices come back up, at least the character story stuff and your side quests. EMS wasn't the ideal and it was even disappointing, but I don't have a better suggestion that's realistic or feasible.
EMS was only worthless if you went into ME3 with a 'perfect' file, with as much completed as you could. Otherwise, at least in Extended Cut, EMS and the final ME2 choice have a chance influence which of the three ending options you'd pick. ME2 was just get there or not, then A or B. ME3 had three choices, locked out one or some based on EMS and even gave some slight story changes based on how high EMS was.
The only good things about 2 were the opening scene, Grunt, Thane, and Zaeed's stories.
>>333907435
It's much better than ME1 for sure.
People criticize ME2 for not being a good continuation of ME1, but in reality they should be criticizing ME1 for setting up a story that the writers didn't have a good idea how to finish. What made ME1 exciting at the time was that it seemed like just the prologue to a massive epic story, but looking back at it now, it's a short and incomplete game that feels like it ends at the halfway point of the story it should have been telling. They just cut it off after a battle with a minor villain and said "OMG THE NEXT GAME IS GONNA BE AN AMAZING CONTINUATION GUYS WE PROMISE", despite not having a solid plan for the series.
>>333920481
So your argument is that ME1 was good but because its sequel failed to live up to its potential, it retroactively made ME1 bad and the sequel good? You must have really gone through some mental gymnastics for that one.
>>333920481
>Minor villain
What the fuck are you talking about? Saren wasn't minor. Sovereign sure as fuck wasn't minor.
>>333920481
So what you're saying is that both ME1 and ME2 are shit due to bad writing. I agree.
>>333920603
No, my point is that ME1 was a short and incomplete game that tried to cover itself by building up massive expectations for the sequel that the devs had no intention of meeting. My 100% completist playthrough of ME1 was 18 hours long. In comparison, KOTOR took me at least 40 hours and I have 31 hours in ME2 without even doing everything.
>>333920854
>short games are bad
contra confirmed shit
>>333911473
I did. I thought it was more interesting than what we got. Gave the reapers a grander purpose.
>>333920930
If you're only pretending to be retarded then congratulations, you tricked me. I guess that means you win, or something?
Is any of the DLC for the Mass Effect series besides Lair Of The Shadow Broker and Citadel worth playing?
>>333921392
Leviathan it okay
>>333907435
>It's better than ME3 sure
It has the weakest main story and worse combat than 3. It's only real saving grace were the DLC and that's a damn shame.
>>333907435
ME2 > ME > ME3
>>333921392
Citadel is garbage. Project Overlord and Stolen Memories are pretty good.
>>333907435
It's better in some ways, a bit worse in most
2 does character interaction and has better hub areas. I particularly really liked Omega and Illium for all the seedy crap that went on there, I really wish there was more stuff in the series like Omega and Illium particularly reminds me of the shady shit on Noveria cranked up a bit. It really shines as a gritty contrast to the wonder and marvel of ME1.
The weapons were also overall more unique and varied. Thermal clips were shit though
Some nice new powers were added in, Vanguard is still probably the most fun class
But then we have the negatives
The story felt like it was filler almost but not really
The exploration was pretty gutted from ME1, no more landing on planets with the Mako, only onto some platforms and otherwise mining forever.
A lot of really strange design choices, like Cerberus putting their logo on fucking everything despite being a super secret
organization.
Paragon/Renegade being less Idealist, Niceguy and Pragmatic, dickish to white knight good guy and self centered prick evil shit.
Universal cooldowns really limited the amount of sheer fun you could have. This combined with biotics not piercing shields effectively just made playing Adept a chore almost.
You had to have a certain amount of Paragon/Renegade or else you would lose party members in the suicide mission.
Oh, and the overall armor and other designs weren't as good as ME1's.
>>333914152
It failed to tie it up. See, ME2's main story isn't very good, but it was buffered because we had a third game on the horizon to learn from their mistakes and tie everything together. Except they didn't, and it retroactively ruined ME2 for a lot of people.
>>333909569
ME2 gameplay was cat-and-mouse, trying to get the edge on your opponents hiding in cover. ME3 is just loud and chaotic, running everywhere to avoid instakills and melee dudes. I miss ME2's approach as well.
>>333912432
>>333912113
Fuck you, my friend. ME2 did that way better. All ME3 taught me was that for an AI to be relatable it had to be in a sexy robot body (which is such a slap in the Blue Ball to the arc ME2 EDI went through, culminating in the moment she "became" the ship. But according to ME3 that didn't changer her as much as her AI sexbot body did.)
>>333925217
You're trying so hard to blame 3 for 2's stupid main story. Even if 3 was great it'd only highlight 2's weaknesses more, not make it suddenly okay.
I liked it at first but I realize now that it shifted the series down the wrong way. There could have been so many ways Bioware could have improved the combat of Mass Effect but instead they went with the generic 3rd person shooter gameplay. I blame the fans though, these were the same people who gave shit about the Mako despite it being essential to exploring, one of the most interesting parts.
>>333907435
2 completely different games.
If you want an RPG play ME1
If you want a decent TPS play ME2
ME1 was the better game imo.
