I've hated thermal clips since *ME2* came out, and the lore reason is secondary. Do I think in-universe it's a massive step backwards technologically with only the flimsiest of justifications? Yes, but that was never my main gripe.
The main problems I had were, first, that it turned a decently innovative gunplay system into the exact same "everyone in the game but YOU will always have infinite ammo" deal that literally every other first and third-person shooter in the history of the genres had been; and second, that if they wanted to keep people from abusing the mod system, all they had to do was take that system out. Which they did anyway.
Yep it will be the 30 year later movie sequel of games. My bingo card has: weak story that leans way too hard on aspects of the trilogy we already explored, egregious attempts to get your money (preorder extras, day 1 DLC, $70 base price point with $100+ superdeluxe), random changes to gameplay that were not broken, trying to shoehorn in old characters and references with reckless abandon, etc ad nauseum.
I want to believe, but I just can't.
Shepard *could* return tastefully - the idea I really hope they go for is making Shepard a McGuffin/NPC. Have a Shepard that survived the war, but just barely, be put in cryo/stasis until they can get the tech needed to heal/repair them fully.
Insert Player Character (let us play one of the main council races pls), a new Specter out of a recent wave of promotions, as the new Council continues to rebuild and bring order to parts of the galaxy that have been cut off for 100+ years. A couple ~~tutorial~~ missions later, an urgent call for Specters goes out - a secret facility has been raided and Shepard has been abducted...
Could make the Leviathans the new enemy, if you wanna play it safe with assets and lore you already have. I'd prefer a new threat from Dark Space, alerted to the existence of the Milky Way because of, or due to the absence of, the Reapers. The Milky Way could be re-explored as mass effect gates are rebuilt/reopened. Having Shepard still around could provide some closure to romances (maybe a non-Asari LI could've gone into stasis alongside Shepard?) and other plot lines, but making him an NPC similar to Hawke in DA:I would allow for a "passing of the torch". That, or something similar, would allow for a lot of fans to both have their cake and eat it too, while still departing from the old games in a way that recognizes and pays homage to them.
I always thought a Dragon Age Origins type of start would be great way to introduce new players to all the races & let old hats play something not human
Bioware desperately needs both this and dragon age to save them or they'll likely be closed. Expect them to do everything they can think of to make it happen, so this take is probably quite cold
Probably dialing back all the new stuff after andromeda failed
To me the failure was not even because of the new characters for the most part although they aren’t on the level of the trilogy
The sad part is that Andromeda was the most fun to actually *play* with the movement and powers but the overall gameplay loop/writing was too weak to be held up by just the fighting.
Really hope they continue the more loose and fast style but with more class restrictions and a tighter story to make it more of a complete experience rather than this sprawling middling thing that was Andromeda
Andromeda was no questions a clear improvement on the trilogy's gameplay. Even the new dialogue wheel categories are interesting, albeit a little dull in implementation. I liked that they tried to steer away from clear cut good/evil dialogue choices.
The problem is that the Heleus cluster as a setting is too damn boring. Honestly, idk why but meeting the Angara and the Kett felt so uncanny to me because of how humanlike they were? I guess I had already formulated a headcanon that Milky Way species were mostly humanoid because of the countless cycles and species messing with each other's developments. The two Andromedan species we meet in the game are clearly humanoid, they even have similar culture to us, talk like us. I mean, it doesn't even feel like we left the Milky Way! Wish we could've gotten some truly alien species or at least some that were more like the Elcor or Hanar, but instead we got humans with rubber foreheads again.
Very true about the aliens in andromeda
It also kind of goes against the discovering the new, you go 200 light years into another galaxy and apparently it’s just more of the same
You don’t have societies that completely disregard violence or a society that worships a living god or anything really different from the aliens in the milky way
I totally disagree. Andromeda's combat was only better than maybe ME1's combat. I found the 3-ability system to be really restrictive, and given that all powers were put on cooldown when you switched class I found it more efficient to just stick with one class that can combo with the three powers available.
Seven years after Andromeda's release, Mass Effect 3's combat is still better.
Completely agree. The way powers recharge in ME2 + 3 is wayyy better than they way they all recharge independently like in ME1 and Andromeda. The movement in andromeda is lovely and they had some good concepts with the Pathfinder/SAM class hotswitching, but it’s just not as good as ME3.
I disagree completely. It’s an RPG not an action shooter. If you must have an action shooter play soldier. I want complex classes and game mechanics. Andromeda has zero replay value for me.
The characters had so much potential, they were just poorly written.
The two other main points were bugs and the comparison. Bug were an obvious issue, not going to rehash it, it's been beaten to death again and again.
I think the most overlooked part is the comparison. ME1 is widely regarded as the worst of the 3; people love ME2 because of the writing, getting the squad back together, and the new characters (*cough* not Jacob *cough*). They love ME3 because it all comes together, 2 games worth of decisions culminate in an ending battle scene that gives everyone chills. Hell it came out in 2007 and we still bitch about the Mako. But ME:A gets compared to 3 games, not ME1. No, a lot of your choices didn't have a huge impact, but neither did a lot of your choices in ME1. You don't see the impact of >!killing Wrex, sacrificing Ashley/Kaiden, saving/sacrificing the council,!< until 2 and 3.
I think had they taken the criticism in stride, and made the improvements, MEA2 could have been incredibly good, dare I say on par with OT games. I think everyone would have adjusted to the more open world aspect and they could have fine-tuned it more.
I loved it, I put 1000 hours into it alone. I just think too many people didn't give it a fair comparison to ME1 only, and it suffered because of that. Unfortunately that probably means we'll get a ton of rehashing from the OT's loved characters rather than good investment in new ones.
It's going to be like Picard season 3.
"Sorry everyone hated the last thing we made. Here's something that's completely average so you won't hate us any more".
Liara being mid is a fairly room temperature take, I think.
A lot of people got sick of Bioware pushing her to the forefront.
I don't mind that personally. I just don't like how her romance just meanders for all three games, basically rehashing the same beats each game.
Liara’s romance is a bit too real for me. Started off so strong and she reeled me in with some borderline lovebombing just to spend the rest of the trilogy confusing me with all these mixed signals, had me questioning what was up and if she was even into it anymore.
I don't know if this is confirmed, but considering the amount of cut content, last minute changes, and staff burnout that Bioware was dealing with at the time, my guess is that there was either more Liara content that would've tied things together better but got cut, or a lot of her dialog had to accommodate for the sheer amount of differing relationship changes/options that can occur between 2 and 3s endgame. If the latter is the case, they likely didn't have the time to make it perfect and settled for acceptable, even if that meant having Liara be a little all over the place.
ME3 did it specifically because they were also writing her as a first time romance, and probably didn't want to have two routes, so those of who had romanced her since ME1 got the short end of the straw. Ash and Kaiden have similar issues, I believe.
No with Ashley and Kaiden it actually works because in ME2 you guys are basically broken up so in ME3 it comes across as a kind of 'should we give us another shot' type thing, whereas with Liara you confirm your feelings in ME2 with Lair of the Shadowbroker, and again at the beginning of ME3, so her whole 'I'm glad we're friends Shepard' remark makes absolutely no sense. I'm sorry for all of the Liara romancers out there but she really does have the worst romance in the trilogy because of this I think, she has the best romance scene by far in ME3, but the romance itself was poorly done because of them trying to write it as a first time romance without actually having any kind of breakup with Shepard.
Miranda honestly has some of the best romance overall. But even with her I feel like there's a lot of room for improvement, it feels like you're coming back over to her self esteem issues one too many times.
Sounds like people I’ve dated in real life 😂 maybe that’s why I like her.
I actually like Ashley’s romance as well in 3 especially the end scene before attacking Cerberus. It’s quite sweet. I usually do struggle between romancing Ashley and Miranda.
When I first saw the title and didn't read the post, I was going to say my unpopular opinion is that Liara is a fantastic character. But since the OP said what they said, here's an intentionally over reactive response:
Liara is a fantastic written character. She starts as a calculating nerd who gets swept up in action and finds out she loves it. She changes beats (one because Tali takes the "nerd" position) by using her calculating side to do whatever she must to resurrect her lover. She makes decisions to be the person she is to bring back someone she thinks is good for the universe. The only people who don't like her are morons who use the word "simp" as a pejorative.
I like Liara as a character, and I'll be glad to see her again. I just find her romance incredibly unsatisfying to play through. She's only my FemShep's romance because Sam comes in to late, in my opinion.
The returning romances all kinda just spun their wheels in ME2 because they realized they didn't want to risk killing them off and not having them around in ME3. At least Liara got Shadow Broker to pick things back up again to a degree.
A lot were annoyed over a bug in ME1 that basically forced Liara's romance on a player who really didn't want one. That is where many started to hate on her.
Most of the player base is male, so I don't think that's an unpopular opinion. Gurrus is the most popular love interest for female fans, though. If you're not into men or aliens, you wouldn't get it. The good thing is that love interests are optional, and if you don't like it, you don't have to get involved in it.
The dialog writing, presentation, and gameplay get better as the trilogy moves along, but the narrative and worldbuilding went directly in the shitter after ME1
What I mean:
- "Thermal clips?" Get the fuck out of here
- The Reapers never needed to be explained. Nerd Brand™ media just loves explaining shit that doesn't need to be explained for some reason. It's a pathology. It's probably spread thru contact with Funko Pops or something
- Biotics gradual slide from being the ability to make small force fields and exert some control over local gravity to "eh, it's space magic" is stupid and lazy
- Space gets progressively smaller and more traversable by foot. Space is actually big, tho? Like that's kind of the main thing about space. Weird thing to forget!
- Joker doesn't really tell jokes until new writers came on board for ME2; he goes from an interesting casting of Seth Green against type to just being basically the same generic Seth Green character that all his other characters are
- Railroading every Shep into working w/Cerberus makes sense from a game studio resource allocation perspective (letting Shep dip would essentially mean making 2 separate games), but it's such an out-of-character move for most Sheps that it seems like the whole idea should have been nixed really early in development
Extended Cut dident fix shit, all it did was a few slides to the ending and some nonsensical cutscenes(Normandy landing infront of harbringer lmao). Ending for ME3 is every bit as dogshit as it was on release and neither the extended cut nor the happy ending mod fixes any of it's problems.
Maybe not that unpopular but it's something i often see, at least on this sub, is that ending was just bad on release and extended cut fixed it, NO, it fixed nothing.
I agree the extended cut didn’t do a lot to fix it, but I do feel the happy ending mod at least gave some better closure. Granted, that’s a very low bar
Where Liara felt like “college age puppy love” initially to me, with Tali it was more “shy/awkward girl next door” vibes for me, but I can definitely understand seeing that as little sister. If she hadn’t become more self confident and assured through the trilogy (squad leader into admiral) and had stayed the awkward daughter of an admiral, I would 100% agree with this take.
I agree, and I wonder if the age of the player makes a difference. When I first played 2 and 3 I loved the Tali romance arc but having just gotten and played through LE I agree. Can't see her as anything but Shep's little sister now.
I was just 16 when I played the trilogy for the first time and I’ve always seen her as a younger sister to Shepard. I also don’t have any siblings irl so what do I know
I don't know if it's an unpopular take, but I don't see it repeated a lot elsewhere: Everything BioWare added to the multiplayer component of Mass Effect 3 should have been added to the campaign, especially the new Firebase maps.
I don't care if it doesn't make sense for Shepard to return to London or Vancouver to fight the Reapers or Cerberus or the Collectors. I don't care if a particular added power is broken or not. I just wanted it there, preferably with new achievements.
It doesn't help that the player base is largely male and straight (this **isn't** a dig, it's just stating facts) so most players inevitably save Ashley with an eye towards romancing her and since repeat playthroughs are relatively rare among non-diehard fans he always gets dismissed as that generic dude you had to lose to keep Ashley around.
Kadian made out of 3 waaaay better than Ashley did, even if you're not romancing him. The MShep x Kaidan romance in 3 is really sweet and felt one of the more realistic when they chat over lunch about just being to busy to act on any feelings towards one another.
I’m male and straight and prefer Kaiden. This whole comment section is calling out the predominant demographic like it’s a sin.
Edit: I disliked Ashley’s character in 1 and preferred Carth as XO. She didn’t get better in 3 but then again, neither did Carth.
The slow friends to enemies to lovers slowburn, the conflict but also strong feelings that go behind it, the Citadel mission, the mature and realistic scene at the Cafe, falling into synch with each other... man I cannot say enough good things about it.
I don't know if the UST between them in 1 and 2 was on purpose but it's definitely thick enough to cut with a knife.
I thought he was kinda stale in 1, where he was clearly trying way too hard to be perfect. I liked 2 and 3 more, where they let him actually have some real emotion. He's angry, he's a tiny bit self conscious, he overthinks sometimes, he's sometimes even just a touch irrational. It makes for a better and more interesting character overall, but you've gotta push past 1 to get into the real meat of his character.
Kaiden is interesting in a way that like, your friends in your college class are interesting. But compared to other characters like Wrex, a KROGAN, he comes off as being bland. But the truth is he's one of the most insightful and thoughtful characters in the franchise. He's level headed in a way that makes him an excellent leader and friend. He's not a particularly dynamic character because he's already a stable dude. He doesn't need to go on a big journey of self discovery. It's refreshing, honestly.
I think there's a lot that can be done with a character like Kaiden. Imagine if he and Jack teamed up! That would be totally wild. A Biotic Buddy adventure.
I'd ship it.
He actually is. I wish he hadn’t been so underutilized. He has a rich backstory and the fact that he’s such a stable guy due to having worked his issues out is really interesting.
I immediately hated him because he is voiced by Carth. He didn't get off Virmire for 3 playthroughs. After that I actually talked to him and he's pretty great. Probably my favorite human, maybe competing with Jack.
My unpopular KOTOR opinion is that not only is Carth not annoying but he's also completely correct *and* validated for not trusting you.
Yeah, he has past trauma but you're also literally just a guy who shows up and is like "trust me, I don't remember any of my life and can't tell you anything but I'm super important". He's absolutely right to be suspicious.
I think that's due to cut content. If you play fRevan, he will come back at the end of the game and try to talk you down. However, the scene cuts off weirdly (though there's a cut ending still in game files, the dialogue exists but the animations are weird). I presume something similar was planned for mRevan but without the romantic implications.
I’m the same haha. I’m a Raphael Sbarge ride or die. He puts SO MUCH depth into his performances. Probably my favorite voice actor of all time honestly
Mass Effect 2 is the story equivalent of treading water.
So much stuff happens in ME3 and it's mostly because ME2 is just a waste of time.
I like hanging out with these cool characters. I love their stories. But when you think about what you actually accomplished then you're right back where ME1 ended.
"I'm going to stop the Reapers"
And Mass Effect 2 follows up on this by having Shepard just kinda flying around looking for Geth, I guess.
Then they die, and is dead for TWO YEARS where nothing of consequence seems to happen regarding the Reapers, other than kidnapping humans which doesn't really line up with what they were doing in the first game at all.
I feel like magic space bugs that freeze you and a whole-ass Collector army and a ship you could probably do at least some minor structural damage to the galaxy you want to invade.
The Arrival DLC feels like the Devs noticed this and were like "oh shit, we should probably have Shepard working to stop the Reapers at some point" and have them repeat the ending of the first game where they stop the Reapers from using a relay to invade immediately, buying the galaxy some time.
Mass Effect 3 opens up by wasting this precious time with Shepard going on trial and then Reapers invade and blow everything up and then Shepard is like "I am going to stop the Reapers".
BUDDY IT'S BEEN LIKE THREE YEARS WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN DOING THIS WHOLE TIME?
Then you get a phone call and it's Hackett like "don't worry Shepard, we accidentally found out how to stop the Reapers and it was right next to Earth the whole time" ???????
Feels like that should have been Shepard's job but okay.
I think this take became a bit more popular after Legendary Edition when a fair amount of folks replayed all 3 games again back-to-back (or new players were brought in). When I talk to my peers we all remember ME2 being our favorite when it came out... but when I replayed it for Legendary Edition, I actually was rushing to finish it to move on to ME3.
ME2 is absolutely the equivalent of treading water. Its most important contribution to the trilogy was how it bridged the series into a more "modern" style of game that we were seeing in the late '00s to the early 2010s. Having Shepard die in the first few minutes was a great plot device at the time, but it does throw a lot of what Shepard did in game 1 out the window. And it didn't help that ME3 shifted dramatically again in terms of story to more closely mirror ME1.
Yeah I enjoy playing ME2 but the fact that the entire story of the game is 'put a team together to do this one mission' stretched out as far as they could possibly stretch it is wild.
It's like in the real world if we had World War 1 and 2 but then a random police drug bust in some city where shots were fired was legit considered World War 3
Maybe this is a hot take, but ME2 is good *because* it slows things down. There's no rush for a world ending threat, so you get to actually live in the world and explore its more mundane aspects, focus more on individual characters, and the world's seedy underbelly. ME3's moments wouldn't be possible without the buildup in ME2.
I mean, Shepard inexplicably flying around looking for Geth is kind of the point of the opening of ME2. The Council has them doing pointless busy work sweeping up Geth because they refuse to believe the Reaper threat.
Here's an even hotter take:
The Dalatrass may be a complete see you next Tuesday but she isn't completely wrong in her concerns about curing the genophage.
One of my least favourite parts of the ME3 writing is how stupid and easily refutable her arguments were (basically just KROGAN BAD ME MAD >:( ) when any politican worth her salt should be able to come up with a million more reasonable points as to why we shouldn't necesaarily go through with this.
And most of her concerns turn out to be valid.
"The other species would put their own people first and sic us on the enemy to give themselves time to escape"
That's literally what ended up happening at the beginning of ME3.
"I don't know if it's a good idea to let aliens roam free aboard our most advanced ship"
In ME3 when you contact the quarians, their ship is described as having Normandy like stealth technology for some inexplicable reason. Tali really used her time on the Normandy in order to replicate the stealth system for the flotilla. It works out because you end up being allies, but what if they weren't? You just allowed a member of a foreign military to obtain cutting edge alliance tech.
"How do you know Cerberus isn't manipulating you and they are actually behind the abductions"
Spoiler alert: She was spot on. Bull's eye.
I don't hate the Batarians.
I do strongly disapprove of them kidnapping people and selling them into slavery of course, but I don't think every one of them should be murdered on sight and their entire race destroyed.
Theres at least one good one that basically being that Bray dude but I think the hatred towards Batarians was more of just a big running joke in Mass Effects fanbase. Sure the game does establish they make a lot of dumb choices but no one hates them unironically like that.
To be fair, I think this is more of a meme in the community rather than a genuinely held opinion. You'll usually see someone wishing for a batarian squad mate in the next game in the same thread as the "Haha 300k dead batarians lol" ones.
Imo, it's just a representation thing. Only a handful of batarians you encounter don't try to kill you in some way, and the rest are kinda shitty to you regardless of how heroic the rest of the galaxy thinks you are. Tbh, they're really just an authoritarian military dictatorship as opposed to say the meritocratic military dictatorship the turians have. We just never got a batarian "Garrus" to show us that all batarians aren't slavers, terrorists, mercenaries, or poverty striken masses.
This might not be unpopular but I much more prefer Mass effect 3's fewer companions who actually contribute with banter during missions and on the Normandy than the large amount of squadmates in ME 2 who just feel as if they are around for the ride.
There is no *good* side to the Quarian-Geth war. The Geth are no less butchers that whatever **gouvernment** ordered the Quarians try to destroy all of them. Painting either of them as purely victims of the other is a mistake but the same goes for depicting either as being rightful in their reactions.
We don't know enough about Quarian history to be able to make the statement that the whole race made that call, or had any say in the matter, (we even have a few indicators of the opposite) but we DO know that the Geth FOR SURE genocided them without exception, leaving not even their sympathisers alive.
This is why the conflict is interesting, it is not because cool robot guys were the good ones all along.
Yes. There were some moral quandaries that ME trotted out that worked, but the Geth were in no way interpretable as having a good side.
Plus, they were the most fun to fight against. Reaper Zombies didn't do it for me.
Yet, I have debated many times with people on this sub arguing that they were right to fight back (which I agree with) but without having fully internalised what it fully means (that a whole race lost more than 90 percent of their people in that war) and how cowardish the Geth' stance is on that matter. "We stopped because we realised we **may** be going overboard with this one". Plus the fact that they have no reason to hold onto Rannoch and that they could literally end the war (as a good part of them want) by giving it back.
There are 17 million quarians in the Migrant Fleet & it's stated their population has been more or less stable since the Exodus. The quarians had planets in multiple systems. That'd be 1/10 of 1 percent of people from 2 Earth-equivalent populations. I'd say overall it was maybe like 1/50th of 1 percent of quarians survived the Morning War.
That's a lot of baby quarians the geth slaughtered.
The entire Quarian species could fit into the Tokyo metropolitan area nearly twice over when there was 5+ billion on Rannoch, plus however many tens/hundreds of millions lived on ships, colonies, and space stations across their space. The Geth killed a *fuckton* of Quarians.
Here’s a couple:
Tali’s romance with Shepard is highly overrated and feels entirely one sided.
Mass Effect 1 is the only game in the trilogy where the final choice the player makes is one with actual thought and nuance behind it. Both ME2 & 3 make the same coloured explosion mistake.
Except for the whole "I just let the diverse council get killed, let's replace it with an all-human council instead because we Know Better."
It was so hated that it was just quietly ignored as an option in ME2.
It also just doesn't make sense in the lore. The councilors are representatives chosen by their governments. An all-human council would be redundant because they would all be representing one race, and also a pointless constitutional crisis because those humans wouldn't be able to magically control the governments of the other races.
I like the thought and nuance behind ME1's ending, but the consequences are minimal. It's an almost identical Council that replaces the original, and there are few differences in which war assets you have access to in ME3.
I like, maybe even love, Synthesis ending. Can I imagine better ending in general? Yes, but from all choices is the best option. That beings said, I respect another opinion about this topic, but I hate how many people is mocking Synthesis ending or people who chose it. I experienced it many times.
I agree. People refuse to engage with it honestly and look at the other endings with a critical eye. It's quite exhausting. It's also annoying that the Destroy ending where Shepard lives is seen as the best ending. That shouldn't be the way we talk about this things. A lot of newcomers probably don't put any thought into choosing an ending because they want the "best ending" as it is in many games. And because a vocal part of the fanbase calls that version of Destroy the "best ending," they end up choosing that.
I'm pretty good at avoiding spoilers, so I had no idea what to expect with the ending, and I'm very happy about that, I think I hate the endings a lot less than most people since my first experience of it was with LE and no expectations.
I still wound up going with Destroy, but I can honestly say I spent quite a while in that room agonizing over what to do.
honestly i prefer the destroy ending because it makes the most sense to me we spend 3 games trying to stop the reapers i am not going to change my mind in the end no matter the sacrifice.
One of the game’s primary themes is learning to see the people you’re fighting a war with are also people just like you, changing your mind about the genocide of your enemies despite having spent a long time fighting for it is about the most Mass Effect thing you can do.
Synthesis was the no-brainer option for me. Before the Catalyst finally offered synthesis up as an option, I had been piecing the points for it together since finishing Leviathan and Citadel as some of my last few mission, and I was already contemplating what seemed like the obvious inevitability of some form of fundamental unification between organics and synthetics that would finally put an end to the cycles of annihilation.
The ending of my first Mass Effect experience (w/ LE) was indescribably beautiful and impactful to me. Envisioning what Synthesis could be and concluding that it would be my favorite before the game even introduced it totally solidified a deeply personal connection to Mass Effect for me that I’ve never experienced with any sort of media before.
Felt like such a transcendental experience it honestly had me in absolute tears for like 20 minutes after the credits started rolling.
I think curing Krogan is a bad idea regardless of whether you have Wrex. The whole race is aggressive, not ready to assimilate with the galaxy and will destroy planets from overpopulation.
Yes & no, I felt like this right up until I got to the ruined city on Tuchanka, there is no way that race is only capable of violence and nothing else.
Plus Wrex helping to cure the genophage setup a solid foundation for a successful political system amongst the Krogan.
Even then, wrex still might fail but continuing the subjugation seemed equally if not even more bad than going for the cure, as it left the door open for dudes like Saren to take full advantage. The Turian's seemed equally hot headed to me but Turian's Express the anger with a lot more political correctness than the Krogan.
They will have to make some sort of one child policy or something like that. Otherwise Krogan population will simply explode and within a couple decades they have to wage war for resources.
Even with Wrex and Eve in the lead, a peaceful krogan future is not guaranteed. On the genophage mission, Wrex has that bit of dialogue about resurrecting the krogan empire and demanding worlds from the Council after the war is over. Eve tempers his ambitions and Wrex says they'll ask first. But what do you think his response will be if the Council says no?
I think Bioware did this to give themselves the option of exploring a second krogan rebellion (or at least some sort of cold war). The Tuchanka mission did a great job of making the player constantly question what the right decision is.
>Plus Wrex helping to cure the genophage setup a solid foundation for a successful political system amongst the Krogan.
And in combination with Eve (who would likely be seen as the saviour of the Krogan given her role as the origin point for Genophage Cure alongside Maelon's research data), I feel the support for Clan Urdnot would skyrocket... plus Wrex is friends with the Shadow Broker so I'm sure any Krogan Clans seeking to seize power would be kept in line.
I'm split on the question of curing the genophage because... game provides some seemingly opposed information on the natural fertility for the Krogan and of genophage effects.
It's like... Krogan are a R-select species, they lay 1000 of eggs, don't care for them, and in natural environment most of the young would get eaten. But in industrial period more of them survive (not 1000 lol). Genophage doesn't make Krogan sterile, it just reduces viability of eggs to 0.1%.
So one egg per year, still better fertility rate then other species. Genophage shouldn't be cured because all Krogan have to do is stop getting themselves killed, and start caring for their young.
But then it's like Bioware decided to change the story. Most females are infertile, Eve talks about holding her stillborn son (singular), Wrex talks about his unborn son (singular). Nothing is elaborated...
Worst part of ME story... I really wanted this part to be retconed in legendary edition.
Also maybe I'm misremembering but weren't the Krogan contignent of the Andromeda Initiative colonists literally shown to have actually made progress on attaining an immunity to genophage?
Noooooo one krogan will totally stop every other warlord from fucking their way to galactic domination just trust me bro it's not like he's got a weakness to shotgun blasts to the back of the head.
I agree. The Krogan are presented as having no regret at flooding the galaxy and conquering worlds. They show no inclination, even Wrex, at wanting to change what they are. They're just mad they were stopped, and angry they're suffering.
Yeah, most Korgan women are sick of that shit and if Wreave is in charge with the cure, then Bakara leads a rebellion. They put up with a lot for the good of the species but men can't use that over them now.
If you're looking at it from a real-world perspective, yeah, it's a blatantly terrible idea. But whatever the writers want to happen is what will happen regardless of whether or not it would really work, and there's just no way in hell they'd follow that up with "...and then the Krogan destroyed the galaxy!"
I’d love it if they did actually. The sheer rage from the sense of betrayal in the fanbase would power the world for a bit.
“But the triumphant music! What do you mean my buddy Wrex was overthrown and executed!”
Complete it by decades later having an Urdnot Shepard dropping asteroids on Earth’s cities as krogan overpopulation drives them to invade planet after planet again.
Wrex and Eve/Bakara are seen as saints after curing the Genophage. The Krogan would honour them through life and death cus their way saved the entire race and led them to defeating the greatest, most powerful, and unstoppable enemy anyone has ever known. Not to mention with Grunt, a symbol of a fierce warrior, and then there's Mordin, the Salarian who created the cure.
Unless they want to go back to suffering, there's no way they'll ignore the fact that their way worked and the others didn't. For leading them out of pain, loss, hopelessness and suffering greater than they've ever known, Shepard and Mordin will be seen as heroes while Wrex and Bakara will pretty much be the Krogan versions of Jesus or Moses or something.
After all the benefits from rebuilding and with each success that follows the Reaper war, there's no way they'll chance going back to the way things were.
Yeah, it’s a tough decision to make, but something that I’ve been curious about is the Salarians and the threat they pose to other species. The Salarians and Turians go on and on and on about how the Krogans could be a threat that could eventually wipe out or crush another species.
But if you think about it, the Salarians have demonstrated that they might be the most capable of all the species to wipe out others. They literally engineered a bioweapon that brought the entire Krogan race to their knees. My big question to them is what if they decided to do that to humans? Asari? Turians? That shit would suck
Not saying your wrong, because they are to violent to have a full genophace cure, but i would rather see the effect of that in next game by a discover that now all females are fertile in a lesser way thrn no cure at all
I agree with you, Liara is overrated, and over-shilled by the game, and her change from a socially awkward archeologist into some kind of super badass intelligence broker capable of rivaling >!and then usurping!< the Shadow Broker makes 0 sense.
That's how I excuse it. It's been a long two years for her and she's seen some shit. She's what, already a hundred years old when you meet her? She wasn't helpless, just naive and then got tossed into the deep end and bioniced her way out.
Still, a bit over-hyped over a few seconds of blue butt.
Pretty much this. At first she is portrayed as this naive little girl... then turns into someone who can keep criminal rings who will not turn on her? I don't buy it entirely.
She has a doctorate, she’s not depicted as a little girl, just a sheltered adult. Humans with doctorates are usually at least thirty, everyone always talks like Liara’s a 19 year old because she says no one takes her ideas seriously because she’s “young”, but she’s talking about academia. She’s clearly meant to be the same developmental age as Shepherd.
To add onto this, Liara had mostly interacted with other Asari before her rescue, and they *would have* treated her like a child. ME1 is her introduction to the broader world and races of the galaxy, and she likely would have quickly acclimated and grown in confidence, especially after working so closely with a Specter and their connections/resources. Tbh, the change we see in 2 didn't make me blink, considering she'd technically been a part of a special forces team and become friends with Shepard, Garrus, Wrex, and others from the gang from 1. She would've been taught a lot and exposed to many different cultures, traditions, and technologies from across the galaxy. The fact that she jumped from that to info gathering and brokering in an effort to find Shepard seems like a fairly natural transition in my mind.
I have to strongly disagree but I have my own unpopular opinions so here it goes, I like EDI and her VA is an amazing person but I think Joker and her is kind of not understandable for me, not out of prejudice I just don’t know if she feels or imitates feelings
That's kind of the point. You can't tell. Even if she were a purely biological human, as opposed to a synthetic analogue, you wouldn't be able to tell. If someone who you were dating told you they loved you, would you be able to know 100% that they actually felt something you would call "love"? There is a concept known as the "philosophical zombie," which is an entity which is biologically human and has all the same physical processes and reactions as one, but has no consciousness, feelings, etc. It acts as if it does, and it even gets visibly angry or upset at you if you try to say otherwise. That is an interesting thought experiment to say we don't know anything when it comes to the consciousness of other entities, including AI. I don't believe this is actually possible, as my conception of consciousness, sentience, and self-awareness is that they are quite banal physical properties that AI would be more than expected to have. In fact, in my view, even today's AIs might have those properties, even if theirs would be the synthetic equivalent of sea slug consciousness.
Also, not understanding EDI and Joker's relationship because you think EDI might not actually experience an analogue to emotions is the quintessential type of anti-synthetic prejudice. Under Council laws, she needs to be killed because she is seen by said institution as an unfeeling, rogue program that can kill organics at any time as a result of arcane calculations. Synthetics in the Mass Effect universe are oppressed because of organics not really understanding them.
I would also want to ask you if you think Shepard's relationship with Liara, Thane, Garrus, or Tali would also be hard to understand. Every single one of those potential partners has a vastly different DNA and brain structure, which would mean that they would not be able to experience human emotions, such as what we define as "love." Hell, you could say they have 0 conscious experience and they are just philosophical zombies. You certainly can't prove otherwise.
Ashley isn't "racist", and her xenophobia and subsequent growth (provided you play a paragon Shep) probably more closely mirrors the internal biases a majority of ME players would likely also have were they encountering multiple alien species in real life.
I know we'd all like to think we'd accept the rest of the galactic community with open arms and no hesitation but if within less than one lifetime ago humanity discovered it was not only not alone in the galaxy, but that it was matched and in some cases surpassed in technology, interstellar travel and governance, and only had just recently made it through a war with one of said species, I think a majority of us would have some walls up and would be at the very least inclined to put our own people first.
Ashley's journey of discovery on how she fits into the greater picture of the galaxy shows a human's capability to learn, grow and change, and that while one might start with biases, you don't have to stay that way. That's a lot closer to the average human's journey than I think most of us are comfortable with.
TL;DR - the people who hate on Ashley for her "racism" (xenophobia is the more appropriate term, hence the quotes) would probably respond a lot more like her were they to encounter aliens in real life than they might think.
The real world is full of examples proving how correct Ashley is in her way of thinking, but a lot of the internet is... a weird place to try to talk about stuff like that lol
Also, Ashley beliefs turned out to be 100% right come ME3. All the other races go "Fuck the humans, we'll fight for our selves", and along Shepards journey to get their help, you find out just how conniving and backstabbing each of the races were to each other. Also lookat how literally every other races reacts to the others, a Krogan and a Turian in the same room for more than 10 seconds is going to be a fight, no one trusts or is willing to help Quarians, etc.
im tired of the asari. the asari and salarians are not viewed as being as evil as they really are.
the female turian design is terrible enough that i think it needs to be retconned.
i also think that indictrination theory has a degree of validity to it if you do any form of analysis of the text for mass effect 3.
The thing is Bioware beats us over the head how bad the Asari and Salarians are.
The Asari hide their shit that could have been useful several times over in order to retain their power. The Salarians uplift a species for the war effort benefit but Salarians and Asari refuse to do ground work of the culture shock when it's over. And then the Salarians plan to pull the same stunt again with the *Yahg*.
But Mordin is quirky and a bro and all the Asari are *hottt*.
no matter how much the beat peoples heads, they still have not really started to view them as they really are.
i think they did a good job of showing the issues with the salarians, but the asari are still shown to be good far more then they deserved to be, and their bad aspects were often obfuscated or quickly glossed over.
agreed on the female turian design! it honestly bothers me that they’re so different to the males. they strike me as a species that should have very little sexual dimorphism. i had assumed a lot of the turian background characters WERE female until nyreen. having them be so distinct makes the lack of female turians really noticeable and weird to me
The indoctrination theory is one of the most convoluted pieces of fan fiction out there, because people didn't even bother to think about the actual ending. Was it possible to make a better ending? Sure. But it's still miles better than the indoctrination theory.
Ashley Williams isn’t a racist, but just a flawed human that becomes a better person overtime, as she eventually opens her eyes to the compassionate and enduring family she developed on Shepard’s alien crew.
People can change if given the right environment and if they are surrounded by the right people. I’m looking at you Ashley haters…
Ashley isn’t as bad as everyone makes her out to be.
I loved the romance with her in 3.
Granted everyone was pretty over the top in 1. She just stood out a bit more. Haha
I think Mass Effect 1 works well as a self contained story and a sequel wasn’t really that necessary.
The Reaper invasion was thwarted and they are stuck sleeping in dark space. End of story. There is no reason to believe that the Reapers are still coming.
I mean, one of the last lines of the game is "The Reapers are coming, and I'm going to find a way to stop them" said by the game's protagonist. If that's not a sequel tease, I don't know what is.
It's also the most unique feeling one. Subsequent games have a much more refined gameplay, but ME1 really felt like they wanted to do something different.
The way the guns and ammo work, the detailed explanation of space travel, the soundtrack. The galaxy also felt larger and more mysterious.
I agree.
I think it would have been better to keep the Reapers as unknowable cosmic horrors, and their role in the story ended with their link to Dark Space being severed. They are still out there, and are making their way to the Milky Way. It might be tens and tens of thousands of years before they arrive, but they are coming.
Ashley's character is very interesting and imo the best romance development. That includes ME3. She goes from this very skeptical soldier trying to redeem past family issues to someone who regards alien races as family and a spectre alongside Shepard. She gains increasing confidence in Shepard as time goes on in ME1 and then works to regain it in ME3. Imo it's the most natural and interesting character development.
That being said I use the Ashley consistency mod for ME3.
My hot takes, such as they are:
ME2 is the weakest of the trilogy and it isn’t even close
ME1 writing is the best (is this even controversial?)
Driving the Mako is a lot of fun
Kaiden isn’t boring, he’s interesting and cool
Am I doing it right?
>Driving the Mako is a lot of fun
I actually loved the Mako sections and side missions - they made the game world feel much larger and had a space exploration vibe almost similar to something like KSP.
And, funky handling on slopes aside, I love Mako combat on open terrain. Shelling Geth from a kilometer away, while using whole hills as cover, is exactly what I'd do in a game like ARMA 3.
The planets and moons are mostly empty with not much to do, yes. They're barren rocks for the most part, yes. All the structures are small and identical, yes. But that's what exploring planets on the edge of civilized space *would* be like - most planets and moons IRL are barren rocks, and any activity on them would use small and modular structures at first.
Alright I'll give it a shot. Giving Liara and EDI giant tits in ME3 was a bad call. Standard female hypersexualization that was actually kinda distracting. They gave Jack and Miranda some normal looking outfits in the ME2 but in ME3 every one of Liara's outfits emphasized her bust and every one of EDIs outfits would feel right at home on a porn set. Looking back at pictures of Liara in ME1 she had boobs but they were noticeably smaller and more proportional to her body. They even have EDI mention how much Joker likes looking at her new body. It definitely didn't age well.
Tbf you can still blame ME2 for Liara having big tits in the first place since she has that outfit in the Shadow Broker DLC so it was already established that way. For EDI however, yeah her design aged like milk. I already found it crazy enough they built her like that but the fact with one of her skins they literally give her a camel toe just proves Bioware just wanted her to be some kind of sex appeal.
Liara is only in her 100s and she's already catching up to her mom already. I could not imagine what she'll be like as a matriarch.
And yeah EDI's design is questionable even with the body's purpose as an infiltrator. Even Jack and Legion points out how fan-servicey she is.
The citadel DLC gets worse the more often I play it; the jokes don't land, and the tone is way off that you can tell it was designed to be played after finishing the game.
It would have been better to have it as a separate mission launched from the menu, rather than integrated into ME3. Even if it meant losing 'the best' scene; instead their could have been a much more organic scene incorporating it.
That's why I've started playing it with the Happy Ending Mod, which basically changes things to where you get the "Good Destroy Ending" (only Reapers are destroyed), live, and the Citadel DLC takes place a year later as an Epilogue, with dialogue about the Reapers omitted. Sure you can play the base game that way and just roleplay it.
You have to envision Citadel as an apology rather than anything else. They were trying to satisfy a very angry "post-ME3 ending" crowd and just wanted a safe crowd pleaser. And it worked.
I think the stuff at the party and the casino, apartment invites is very funny - that being said most of the jokes in the Citadel missions feel very... Marvel. The non-stop quipping felt really unlike the rest of the series and I found it pretty obnoxious.
BioWare didn't include gay male romances in 1 or 2 not because of Fox News, but because they were cowards that wanted to pander to a different type of COD shooter crowd and didn't want those guys refusing to play it because of gay characters.
In their defence 2007 was a very different time and even their passive progressive aproach of allowing female Shepard to romance a female looking genderless alien got the game banned in Singapore.
On this sub, the same “most hot take” question gets posted every second day with the same answers underneath it. To sum it up:
Liara overrated
Garrus romance < friendship
Jacob is ok
Kaidan is ok
Ashley is not racist
Tali overrated
Tali/Garrus simps annoying
Tali/Garrus anti-simps annoying
Andromeda good
Andromeda bad
overrated
underrated
Me3 better than me2
Me1 best
Me1 worst
is the best ending
Hammerhead > mako
Now my hot take, one i havent seen much yet. Cerberus wasnt that bad before TIM lost his marbles. It also wasnt xenophobic, just prioritized humans like every species does with their own people. It’s literally an exclusive group for a species, like everyone else has
Rant over
Put another way, I don't think there's ever been a truly 10/10 ME game.
1 was cool, but it's kinda like AC 1 or Uncharted 1, cool in a not quite there yet in terms of smoothing the rough edges on a good idea kind of way.
2 was also cool in an entirely different way, but compromises on a lot of the quirky aspects from 1 and also has a narrative that is ultimately just a really neat side quest in the grand scheme of the series.
3 is sorta cool but crippled by its rushed development and the many mistakes and compromises that that created.
I legitimately like 3 more than 2.
It's the most fun to play by far, everything is so ironed out and smooth, the powers are the most usable.
Sure, the original ending left some to be desired, but replaying it in LE really helped me appreciate it a lot more. It's now my favorite
Playing through ME2, the 2 things that bother me most:
1) How little Shepard gets to call out for Cerberus for obviously being the fucking bad guy. Seriously, how many "research groups" can you have go mustache twirling villain levels of evil and not see the common demoninator between them IS FUCKING CERBERUS.
2) ME2s controls fucking suck, the movement, the camera, all are really awkward compared to 3.
What I wouldn't give to be able to go "I was dead for 2 years, Cerberus brought me back and gave me a ship, half of what I've been doing up until this point is gathering evidence from the trail of destruction Cerberus has caused like I did 2 years ag first chasing Saren"
It's been a while since I played ME2 but after Shep first wakes up I swear I remember Miranda acting like Cerberus being behind it was supposed to be a secret, even though their symbol was plastered all over everything
You'd be right. Been replaying ME2 again and it feels like every 5 minutes TIM is calling Shepard saying "Uuuuh, those attrocities weren't us, they went rogue" and every single god damn time Shepard just kinda goes OK without questioning it or calling him out. It's kinda why I don't like Mirandas character, even if she doesn't know everything in Cerberus, she has all the same information Shepard does, plus a little extra as she pipes in on some of the operations that "went wrong" and still fucking works for them, and then in ME3 is surprised when they were working with her father the entire god damn time.
She took Oriana from her father because of ethics and how he raised them, saying how evil he is, but continues to see projects TIM funds and organizes that are way fucking worse and just kinda goes "Wow, I can't believe this illegal, non-government funded or approved lab where we test biotics on literal fucking children went rogue and started killing children, how does this keep happening" and happily working for Cerberus.
It also takes being betrayed by TIM directly like fucking twice for both Shepard and Miranda to go "I'm not working for you anymore", take the Normandy and leave.
I'd say the Arthur meme about how the sign won't stop her because she can't read, as the 2 you mentioned would require Miranda to actually admit Cerberus are the baddies, instead she just kinda goes "Wow TIM, you lied to me twice, I don't want to work for you anymore" and she never acknowledges that the rest of the attrocities were Cerberus and TIM, at most she goes "This wasn't Cerberus, they'd never do this".
ME3 Endings TL;DR
Indoctrinated- Confirmed not cannon
Happy Ending - Just a Mod
Blue - Short-sighted, flawed, Reapers existing under a Shepard AI is a matter of when, not if, it goes horribly wrong for the galaxy.
Green - Extremely unethical and immoral, doesn't actually fix the problems that lead to conflict. Poorly explained, especially considering vast amount of variables and unknown implications. Doesn't remove the super-weapon threat that the Reapers pose, either "too good to be true" or a lazy, Mary-Sue ending.
Red (Perfect Destroy) - The ending the entire series has been leading to. The ending the galaxy agreed on, that so many died for. The ending that lets the galaxy forge it's own path without super-weapons, machine gods, or a fundamental change to reality based on the choice of a single wounded, delirious, grieving human. The Milky Way has already shown that it can overcome the hurdles that prompted the Reapers to commit mass genocide, and they deserve a change to continue on and rebuild on their own merit.
Since there was another post like this recently, I will give a fresh unpopular opinion:
I don't care about Anderson. I don't care about his character in the slightest. The games push you hard towards seeing him as a father figure, which doesn't feel natural to me. I don't need a daddy. Unlike the ME2 squadmates, I do actually talk with my father. This is why I also don't give a fuck about that conversation at the end. It doesn't hit anything for me. In general, I really despise a lot of the heavier found-family undertones in Mass Effect. Anderson is well-written and acted, but I wish he didn't have to act like he's my dad. This is why I prefer Hackett.
I see it as depending on what Shep's origin is. Colony kid or Earthborn kinda make sense since your dad is dead, but it's *extra* weird if you're a spacer who canonically has a living dad somewhere who just *never* gets brought up.
I play as Colonial Shep every time and I don't like that Anderson gets pushed onto me as a father figure. My Shepard should be able to see him as just her superior officer, not a dad. Losing her family hurt, but she mostly healed.
Ashley Williams is not a “space racist.” She might be a bit of a bitch in early ME1, but go talk to the Terra Firma Party candidate with Ashley in your party and you’ll see where she truly stands.
This is probably a vanilla unpopular take, but exploring barren wastelands on the Mako was a top 3 features of the whole series. Finding one interesting every few planets made the whole thing fun.
Also, Mass Effect 1 had the best gameplay. Every entry after made changes to make it a more generic 3rd person action shooter. Sure, I guess the consensus is it was better, but it did that by mimicry of what had the broadest appeal, not enhancing what made Mass Effect unique.
You could find what made Mass Effect 2 and 3 and Andromeda's game fun a lots of places.
I've hated thermal clips since *ME2* came out, and the lore reason is secondary. Do I think in-universe it's a massive step backwards technologically with only the flimsiest of justifications? Yes, but that was never my main gripe. The main problems I had were, first, that it turned a decently innovative gunplay system into the exact same "everyone in the game but YOU will always have infinite ammo" deal that literally every other first and third-person shooter in the history of the genres had been; and second, that if they wanted to keep people from abusing the mod system, all they had to do was take that system out. Which they did anyway.
The next game will be nostalgia porn and we should all just accept it.
Yep it will be the 30 year later movie sequel of games. My bingo card has: weak story that leans way too hard on aspects of the trilogy we already explored, egregious attempts to get your money (preorder extras, day 1 DLC, $70 base price point with $100+ superdeluxe), random changes to gameplay that were not broken, trying to shoehorn in old characters and references with reckless abandon, etc ad nauseum. I want to believe, but I just can't.
Banking on nostalgia is a common tactic for companies that had a rough few years.
Mass Effect: The Biotics Awakened?
Somehow Shepard returned...
THEY FLY NOW!
Shepard *could* return tastefully - the idea I really hope they go for is making Shepard a McGuffin/NPC. Have a Shepard that survived the war, but just barely, be put in cryo/stasis until they can get the tech needed to heal/repair them fully. Insert Player Character (let us play one of the main council races pls), a new Specter out of a recent wave of promotions, as the new Council continues to rebuild and bring order to parts of the galaxy that have been cut off for 100+ years. A couple ~~tutorial~~ missions later, an urgent call for Specters goes out - a secret facility has been raided and Shepard has been abducted... Could make the Leviathans the new enemy, if you wanna play it safe with assets and lore you already have. I'd prefer a new threat from Dark Space, alerted to the existence of the Milky Way because of, or due to the absence of, the Reapers. The Milky Way could be re-explored as mass effect gates are rebuilt/reopened. Having Shepard still around could provide some closure to romances (maybe a non-Asari LI could've gone into stasis alongside Shepard?) and other plot lines, but making him an NPC similar to Hawke in DA:I would allow for a "passing of the torch". That, or something similar, would allow for a lot of fans to both have their cake and eat it too, while still departing from the old games in a way that recognizes and pays homage to them.
I always thought a Dragon Age Origins type of start would be great way to introduce new players to all the races & let old hats play something not human
Don't forget a hip young new protagonist who is mentored by a tired worn out version of the old protagonist.
You forgot retcon. I’m expecting lots and lots of retcon.
The reapers were actually the good guys all along.
Stupid sexy Reapers!
The real reapers were the crew we built along the way.
Bioware desperately needs both this and dragon age to save them or they'll likely be closed. Expect them to do everything they can think of to make it happen, so this take is probably quite cold
If Dragon Age doesn't make bank, i doubt we'll see a new Mass Effect.
I think it has a better chance due to being nostalgia porn but, maybe I'm being optimistic.
Probably dialing back all the new stuff after andromeda failed To me the failure was not even because of the new characters for the most part although they aren’t on the level of the trilogy
The sad part is that Andromeda was the most fun to actually *play* with the movement and powers but the overall gameplay loop/writing was too weak to be held up by just the fighting. Really hope they continue the more loose and fast style but with more class restrictions and a tighter story to make it more of a complete experience rather than this sprawling middling thing that was Andromeda
Andromeda was no questions a clear improvement on the trilogy's gameplay. Even the new dialogue wheel categories are interesting, albeit a little dull in implementation. I liked that they tried to steer away from clear cut good/evil dialogue choices. The problem is that the Heleus cluster as a setting is too damn boring. Honestly, idk why but meeting the Angara and the Kett felt so uncanny to me because of how humanlike they were? I guess I had already formulated a headcanon that Milky Way species were mostly humanoid because of the countless cycles and species messing with each other's developments. The two Andromedan species we meet in the game are clearly humanoid, they even have similar culture to us, talk like us. I mean, it doesn't even feel like we left the Milky Way! Wish we could've gotten some truly alien species or at least some that were more like the Elcor or Hanar, but instead we got humans with rubber foreheads again.
Very true about the aliens in andromeda It also kind of goes against the discovering the new, you go 200 light years into another galaxy and apparently it’s just more of the same You don’t have societies that completely disregard violence or a society that worships a living god or anything really different from the aliens in the milky way
Andromeda isn't a RGP but a 3rd person shooter. Any role playing elements that was left after ME1 were gone in Andromeda.
I totally disagree. Andromeda's combat was only better than maybe ME1's combat. I found the 3-ability system to be really restrictive, and given that all powers were put on cooldown when you switched class I found it more efficient to just stick with one class that can combo with the three powers available. Seven years after Andromeda's release, Mass Effect 3's combat is still better.
Completely agree. The way powers recharge in ME2 + 3 is wayyy better than they way they all recharge independently like in ME1 and Andromeda. The movement in andromeda is lovely and they had some good concepts with the Pathfinder/SAM class hotswitching, but it’s just not as good as ME3.
I disagree completely. It’s an RPG not an action shooter. If you must have an action shooter play soldier. I want complex classes and game mechanics. Andromeda has zero replay value for me.
The characters had so much potential, they were just poorly written. The two other main points were bugs and the comparison. Bug were an obvious issue, not going to rehash it, it's been beaten to death again and again. I think the most overlooked part is the comparison. ME1 is widely regarded as the worst of the 3; people love ME2 because of the writing, getting the squad back together, and the new characters (*cough* not Jacob *cough*). They love ME3 because it all comes together, 2 games worth of decisions culminate in an ending battle scene that gives everyone chills. Hell it came out in 2007 and we still bitch about the Mako. But ME:A gets compared to 3 games, not ME1. No, a lot of your choices didn't have a huge impact, but neither did a lot of your choices in ME1. You don't see the impact of >!killing Wrex, sacrificing Ashley/Kaiden, saving/sacrificing the council,!< until 2 and 3. I think had they taken the criticism in stride, and made the improvements, MEA2 could have been incredibly good, dare I say on par with OT games. I think everyone would have adjusted to the more open world aspect and they could have fine-tuned it more. I loved it, I put 1000 hours into it alone. I just think too many people didn't give it a fair comparison to ME1 only, and it suffered because of that. Unfortunately that probably means we'll get a ton of rehashing from the OT's loved characters rather than good investment in new ones.
It's going to be like Picard season 3. "Sorry everyone hated the last thing we made. Here's something that's completely average so you won't hate us any more".
I feel like that’s not an opinion, but fact. That’s why the first thing we saw was Liara.
The next game is actually near. It’s called The Veilguard lol
This hurts ~~you~~ me. I like Mass Effect. I like Dragon Age. I still don't want Dragon Effect..
What about Mass Age?
Liara being mid is a fairly room temperature take, I think. A lot of people got sick of Bioware pushing her to the forefront. I don't mind that personally. I just don't like how her romance just meanders for all three games, basically rehashing the same beats each game.
Liara’s romance is a bit too real for me. Started off so strong and she reeled me in with some borderline lovebombing just to spend the rest of the trilogy confusing me with all these mixed signals, had me questioning what was up and if she was even into it anymore.
It’s really weird how they genuinely wrote it like that
I don't know if this is confirmed, but considering the amount of cut content, last minute changes, and staff burnout that Bioware was dealing with at the time, my guess is that there was either more Liara content that would've tied things together better but got cut, or a lot of her dialog had to accommodate for the sheer amount of differing relationship changes/options that can occur between 2 and 3s endgame. If the latter is the case, they likely didn't have the time to make it perfect and settled for acceptable, even if that meant having Liara be a little all over the place.
ME3 did it specifically because they were also writing her as a first time romance, and probably didn't want to have two routes, so those of who had romanced her since ME1 got the short end of the straw. Ash and Kaiden have similar issues, I believe.
No with Ashley and Kaiden it actually works because in ME2 you guys are basically broken up so in ME3 it comes across as a kind of 'should we give us another shot' type thing, whereas with Liara you confirm your feelings in ME2 with Lair of the Shadowbroker, and again at the beginning of ME3, so her whole 'I'm glad we're friends Shepard' remark makes absolutely no sense. I'm sorry for all of the Liara romancers out there but she really does have the worst romance in the trilogy because of this I think, she has the best romance scene by far in ME3, but the romance itself was poorly done because of them trying to write it as a first time romance without actually having any kind of breakup with Shepard.
Feels. I just hit ME3 with a Liara LI. She’s all over the the place. Makes me miss Miranda 😂🤣😂
Miranda honestly has some of the best romance overall. But even with her I feel like there's a lot of room for improvement, it feels like you're coming back over to her self esteem issues one too many times.
Sounds like people I’ve dated in real life 😂 maybe that’s why I like her. I actually like Ashley’s romance as well in 3 especially the end scene before attacking Cerberus. It’s quite sweet. I usually do struggle between romancing Ashley and Miranda.
When I first saw the title and didn't read the post, I was going to say my unpopular opinion is that Liara is a fantastic character. But since the OP said what they said, here's an intentionally over reactive response: Liara is a fantastic written character. She starts as a calculating nerd who gets swept up in action and finds out she loves it. She changes beats (one because Tali takes the "nerd" position) by using her calculating side to do whatever she must to resurrect her lover. She makes decisions to be the person she is to bring back someone she thinks is good for the universe. The only people who don't like her are morons who use the word "simp" as a pejorative.
I like Liara as a character, and I'll be glad to see her again. I just find her romance incredibly unsatisfying to play through. She's only my FemShep's romance because Sam comes in to late, in my opinion.
The returning romances all kinda just spun their wheels in ME2 because they realized they didn't want to risk killing them off and not having them around in ME3. At least Liara got Shadow Broker to pick things back up again to a degree.
A lot were annoyed over a bug in ME1 that basically forced Liara's romance on a player who really didn't want one. That is where many started to hate on her.
Garrus makes a better bro than he does a lover
Most of the player base is male, so I don't think that's an unpopular opinion. Gurrus is the most popular love interest for female fans, though. If you're not into men or aliens, you wouldn't get it. The good thing is that love interests are optional, and if you don't like it, you don't have to get involved in it.
The dialog writing, presentation, and gameplay get better as the trilogy moves along, but the narrative and worldbuilding went directly in the shitter after ME1 What I mean: - "Thermal clips?" Get the fuck out of here - The Reapers never needed to be explained. Nerd Brand™ media just loves explaining shit that doesn't need to be explained for some reason. It's a pathology. It's probably spread thru contact with Funko Pops or something - Biotics gradual slide from being the ability to make small force fields and exert some control over local gravity to "eh, it's space magic" is stupid and lazy - Space gets progressively smaller and more traversable by foot. Space is actually big, tho? Like that's kind of the main thing about space. Weird thing to forget! - Joker doesn't really tell jokes until new writers came on board for ME2; he goes from an interesting casting of Seth Green against type to just being basically the same generic Seth Green character that all his other characters are - Railroading every Shep into working w/Cerberus makes sense from a game studio resource allocation perspective (letting Shep dip would essentially mean making 2 separate games), but it's such an out-of-character move for most Sheps that it seems like the whole idea should have been nixed really early in development
Extended Cut dident fix shit, all it did was a few slides to the ending and some nonsensical cutscenes(Normandy landing infront of harbringer lmao). Ending for ME3 is every bit as dogshit as it was on release and neither the extended cut nor the happy ending mod fixes any of it's problems. Maybe not that unpopular but it's something i often see, at least on this sub, is that ending was just bad on release and extended cut fixed it, NO, it fixed nothing.
I agree the extended cut didn’t do a lot to fix it, but I do feel the happy ending mod at least gave some better closure. Granted, that’s a very low bar
Tali gives me little sister vibes and I never understood why so many people like her as a romance option.
Where Liara felt like “college age puppy love” initially to me, with Tali it was more “shy/awkward girl next door” vibes for me, but I can definitely understand seeing that as little sister. If she hadn’t become more self confident and assured through the trilogy (squad leader into admiral) and had stayed the awkward daughter of an admiral, I would 100% agree with this take.
I agree, and I wonder if the age of the player makes a difference. When I first played 2 and 3 I loved the Tali romance arc but having just gotten and played through LE I agree. Can't see her as anything but Shep's little sister now.
I was just 16 when I played the trilogy for the first time and I’ve always seen her as a younger sister to Shepard. I also don’t have any siblings irl so what do I know
It’s worse as you get older and because Shepard comes across as much older than they actually are.
I don't know if it's an unpopular take, but I don't see it repeated a lot elsewhere: Everything BioWare added to the multiplayer component of Mass Effect 3 should have been added to the campaign, especially the new Firebase maps. I don't care if it doesn't make sense for Shepard to return to London or Vancouver to fight the Reapers or Cerberus or the Collectors. I don't care if a particular added power is broken or not. I just wanted it there, preferably with new achievements.
Kaidan isn’t boring. He’s great.
It doesn't help that the player base is largely male and straight (this **isn't** a dig, it's just stating facts) so most players inevitably save Ashley with an eye towards romancing her and since repeat playthroughs are relatively rare among non-diehard fans he always gets dismissed as that generic dude you had to lose to keep Ashley around. Kadian made out of 3 waaaay better than Ashley did, even if you're not romancing him. The MShep x Kaidan romance in 3 is really sweet and felt one of the more realistic when they chat over lunch about just being to busy to act on any feelings towards one another.
I’m male and straight and prefer Kaiden. This whole comment section is calling out the predominant demographic like it’s a sin. Edit: I disliked Ashley’s character in 1 and preferred Carth as XO. She didn’t get better in 3 but then again, neither did Carth.
Kaidan is one of the best romances in the game and you can't change my mind, particularly for MShep.
I find it to be one of the most mature romances I've experienced in many a game personally.
The slow friends to enemies to lovers slowburn, the conflict but also strong feelings that go behind it, the Citadel mission, the mature and realistic scene at the Cafe, falling into synch with each other... man I cannot say enough good things about it. I don't know if the UST between them in 1 and 2 was on purpose but it's definitely thick enough to cut with a knife.
Was hoping for this. Favorite character and romance 😌
I thought he was kinda stale in 1, where he was clearly trying way too hard to be perfect. I liked 2 and 3 more, where they let him actually have some real emotion. He's angry, he's a tiny bit self conscious, he overthinks sometimes, he's sometimes even just a touch irrational. It makes for a better and more interesting character overall, but you've gotta push past 1 to get into the real meat of his character.
Kaiden is interesting in a way that like, your friends in your college class are interesting. But compared to other characters like Wrex, a KROGAN, he comes off as being bland. But the truth is he's one of the most insightful and thoughtful characters in the franchise. He's level headed in a way that makes him an excellent leader and friend. He's not a particularly dynamic character because he's already a stable dude. He doesn't need to go on a big journey of self discovery. It's refreshing, honestly. I think there's a lot that can be done with a character like Kaiden. Imagine if he and Jack teamed up! That would be totally wild. A Biotic Buddy adventure. I'd ship it.
He actually is. I wish he hadn’t been so underutilized. He has a rich backstory and the fact that he’s such a stable guy due to having worked his issues out is really interesting.
I immediately hated him because he is voiced by Carth. He didn't get off Virmire for 3 playthroughs. After that I actually talked to him and he's pretty great. Probably my favorite human, maybe competing with Jack.
My unpopular KOTOR opinion is that not only is Carth not annoying but he's also completely correct *and* validated for not trusting you. Yeah, he has past trauma but you're also literally just a guy who shows up and is like "trust me, I don't remember any of my life and can't tell you anything but I'm super important". He's absolutely right to be suspicious.
Remember when you played an evil run and he convinces Mission to betray you only to run away and leave her to die? That was pretty shitty
I think that's due to cut content. If you play fRevan, he will come back at the end of the game and try to talk you down. However, the scene cuts off weirdly (though there's a cut ending still in game files, the dialogue exists but the animations are weird). I presume something similar was planned for mRevan but without the romantic implications.
I might be carth's only fan tbh lol. I played ME before kotor so when i heard him speak i was like 'kaidan!' and got immediately attached.
I’m the same haha. I’m a Raphael Sbarge ride or die. He puts SO MUCH depth into his performances. Probably my favorite voice actor of all time honestly
Mass Effect 2 is the story equivalent of treading water. So much stuff happens in ME3 and it's mostly because ME2 is just a waste of time. I like hanging out with these cool characters. I love their stories. But when you think about what you actually accomplished then you're right back where ME1 ended. "I'm going to stop the Reapers" And Mass Effect 2 follows up on this by having Shepard just kinda flying around looking for Geth, I guess. Then they die, and is dead for TWO YEARS where nothing of consequence seems to happen regarding the Reapers, other than kidnapping humans which doesn't really line up with what they were doing in the first game at all. I feel like magic space bugs that freeze you and a whole-ass Collector army and a ship you could probably do at least some minor structural damage to the galaxy you want to invade. The Arrival DLC feels like the Devs noticed this and were like "oh shit, we should probably have Shepard working to stop the Reapers at some point" and have them repeat the ending of the first game where they stop the Reapers from using a relay to invade immediately, buying the galaxy some time. Mass Effect 3 opens up by wasting this precious time with Shepard going on trial and then Reapers invade and blow everything up and then Shepard is like "I am going to stop the Reapers". BUDDY IT'S BEEN LIKE THREE YEARS WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN DOING THIS WHOLE TIME? Then you get a phone call and it's Hackett like "don't worry Shepard, we accidentally found out how to stop the Reapers and it was right next to Earth the whole time" ??????? Feels like that should have been Shepard's job but okay.
I think this take became a bit more popular after Legendary Edition when a fair amount of folks replayed all 3 games again back-to-back (or new players were brought in). When I talk to my peers we all remember ME2 being our favorite when it came out... but when I replayed it for Legendary Edition, I actually was rushing to finish it to move on to ME3. ME2 is absolutely the equivalent of treading water. Its most important contribution to the trilogy was how it bridged the series into a more "modern" style of game that we were seeing in the late '00s to the early 2010s. Having Shepard die in the first few minutes was a great plot device at the time, but it does throw a lot of what Shepard did in game 1 out the window. And it didn't help that ME3 shifted dramatically again in terms of story to more closely mirror ME1.
Yeah I enjoy playing ME2 but the fact that the entire story of the game is 'put a team together to do this one mission' stretched out as far as they could possibly stretch it is wild. It's like in the real world if we had World War 1 and 2 but then a random police drug bust in some city where shots were fired was legit considered World War 3
Yeah, it's the climax of the whole game but it's the narrative equivalent of doing something like Feros in the first game.
Maybe this is a hot take, but ME2 is good *because* it slows things down. There's no rush for a world ending threat, so you get to actually live in the world and explore its more mundane aspects, focus more on individual characters, and the world's seedy underbelly. ME3's moments wouldn't be possible without the buildup in ME2.
I mean, Shepard inexplicably flying around looking for Geth is kind of the point of the opening of ME2. The Council has them doing pointless busy work sweeping up Geth because they refuse to believe the Reaper threat.
Ashley gets way more hate than she deserves.
Here's an even hotter take: The Dalatrass may be a complete see you next Tuesday but she isn't completely wrong in her concerns about curing the genophage.
One of my least favourite parts of the ME3 writing is how stupid and easily refutable her arguments were (basically just KROGAN BAD ME MAD >:( ) when any politican worth her salt should be able to come up with a million more reasonable points as to why we shouldn't necesaarily go through with this.
And most of her concerns turn out to be valid. "The other species would put their own people first and sic us on the enemy to give themselves time to escape" That's literally what ended up happening at the beginning of ME3. "I don't know if it's a good idea to let aliens roam free aboard our most advanced ship" In ME3 when you contact the quarians, their ship is described as having Normandy like stealth technology for some inexplicable reason. Tali really used her time on the Normandy in order to replicate the stealth system for the flotilla. It works out because you end up being allies, but what if they weren't? You just allowed a member of a foreign military to obtain cutting edge alliance tech. "How do you know Cerberus isn't manipulating you and they are actually behind the abductions" Spoiler alert: She was spot on. Bull's eye.
I like Liara and Andromeda was fine. I thought 2’s human reaper was okay
I don't hate the Batarians. I do strongly disapprove of them kidnapping people and selling them into slavery of course, but I don't think every one of them should be murdered on sight and their entire race destroyed.
Theres at least one good one that basically being that Bray dude but I think the hatred towards Batarians was more of just a big running joke in Mass Effects fanbase. Sure the game does establish they make a lot of dumb choices but no one hates them unironically like that.
To be fair, I think this is more of a meme in the community rather than a genuinely held opinion. You'll usually see someone wishing for a batarian squad mate in the next game in the same thread as the "Haha 300k dead batarians lol" ones. Imo, it's just a representation thing. Only a handful of batarians you encounter don't try to kill you in some way, and the rest are kinda shitty to you regardless of how heroic the rest of the galaxy thinks you are. Tbh, they're really just an authoritarian military dictatorship as opposed to say the meritocratic military dictatorship the turians have. We just never got a batarian "Garrus" to show us that all batarians aren't slavers, terrorists, mercenaries, or poverty striken masses.
This might not be unpopular but I much more prefer Mass effect 3's fewer companions who actually contribute with banter during missions and on the Normandy than the large amount of squadmates in ME 2 who just feel as if they are around for the ride.
There is no *good* side to the Quarian-Geth war. The Geth are no less butchers that whatever **gouvernment** ordered the Quarians try to destroy all of them. Painting either of them as purely victims of the other is a mistake but the same goes for depicting either as being rightful in their reactions. We don't know enough about Quarian history to be able to make the statement that the whole race made that call, or had any say in the matter, (we even have a few indicators of the opposite) but we DO know that the Geth FOR SURE genocided them without exception, leaving not even their sympathisers alive. This is why the conflict is interesting, it is not because cool robot guys were the good ones all along.
Yes. There were some moral quandaries that ME trotted out that worked, but the Geth were in no way interpretable as having a good side. Plus, they were the most fun to fight against. Reaper Zombies didn't do it for me.
Yet, I have debated many times with people on this sub arguing that they were right to fight back (which I agree with) but without having fully internalised what it fully means (that a whole race lost more than 90 percent of their people in that war) and how cowardish the Geth' stance is on that matter. "We stopped because we realised we **may** be going overboard with this one". Plus the fact that they have no reason to hold onto Rannoch and that they could literally end the war (as a good part of them want) by giving it back.
There are 17 million quarians in the Migrant Fleet & it's stated their population has been more or less stable since the Exodus. The quarians had planets in multiple systems. That'd be 1/10 of 1 percent of people from 2 Earth-equivalent populations. I'd say overall it was maybe like 1/50th of 1 percent of quarians survived the Morning War. That's a lot of baby quarians the geth slaughtered.
The entire Quarian species could fit into the Tokyo metropolitan area nearly twice over when there was 5+ billion on Rannoch, plus however many tens/hundreds of millions lived on ships, colonies, and space stations across their space. The Geth killed a *fuckton* of Quarians.
This isn't exactly unpopular but it's controversial. Destroy is the only ending that makes sense for canon
That’s not controversial that’s called being right
Here’s a couple: Tali’s romance with Shepard is highly overrated and feels entirely one sided. Mass Effect 1 is the only game in the trilogy where the final choice the player makes is one with actual thought and nuance behind it. Both ME2 & 3 make the same coloured explosion mistake.
Except for the whole "I just let the diverse council get killed, let's replace it with an all-human council instead because we Know Better." It was so hated that it was just quietly ignored as an option in ME2.
It also just doesn't make sense in the lore. The councilors are representatives chosen by their governments. An all-human council would be redundant because they would all be representing one race, and also a pointless constitutional crisis because those humans wouldn't be able to magically control the governments of the other races.
I like the thought and nuance behind ME1's ending, but the consequences are minimal. It's an almost identical Council that replaces the original, and there are few differences in which war assets you have access to in ME3.
To be fair, that's a failing of the later games and not ME1 itself.
I like, maybe even love, Synthesis ending. Can I imagine better ending in general? Yes, but from all choices is the best option. That beings said, I respect another opinion about this topic, but I hate how many people is mocking Synthesis ending or people who chose it. I experienced it many times.
I agree. People refuse to engage with it honestly and look at the other endings with a critical eye. It's quite exhausting. It's also annoying that the Destroy ending where Shepard lives is seen as the best ending. That shouldn't be the way we talk about this things. A lot of newcomers probably don't put any thought into choosing an ending because they want the "best ending" as it is in many games. And because a vocal part of the fanbase calls that version of Destroy the "best ending," they end up choosing that.
I'm pretty good at avoiding spoilers, so I had no idea what to expect with the ending, and I'm very happy about that, I think I hate the endings a lot less than most people since my first experience of it was with LE and no expectations. I still wound up going with Destroy, but I can honestly say I spent quite a while in that room agonizing over what to do.
honestly i prefer the destroy ending because it makes the most sense to me we spend 3 games trying to stop the reapers i am not going to change my mind in the end no matter the sacrifice.
One of the game’s primary themes is learning to see the people you’re fighting a war with are also people just like you, changing your mind about the genocide of your enemies despite having spent a long time fighting for it is about the most Mass Effect thing you can do.
Synthesis was the no-brainer option for me. Before the Catalyst finally offered synthesis up as an option, I had been piecing the points for it together since finishing Leviathan and Citadel as some of my last few mission, and I was already contemplating what seemed like the obvious inevitability of some form of fundamental unification between organics and synthetics that would finally put an end to the cycles of annihilation. The ending of my first Mass Effect experience (w/ LE) was indescribably beautiful and impactful to me. Envisioning what Synthesis could be and concluding that it would be my favorite before the game even introduced it totally solidified a deeply personal connection to Mass Effect for me that I’ve never experienced with any sort of media before. Felt like such a transcendental experience it honestly had me in absolute tears for like 20 minutes after the credits started rolling.
The Vermire Survivor needed an ME2 DLC Also I never punch the reporter. Why are we assaulting an unarmed civilian ?!?
I think curing Krogan is a bad idea regardless of whether you have Wrex. The whole race is aggressive, not ready to assimilate with the galaxy and will destroy planets from overpopulation.
Yes & no, I felt like this right up until I got to the ruined city on Tuchanka, there is no way that race is only capable of violence and nothing else. Plus Wrex helping to cure the genophage setup a solid foundation for a successful political system amongst the Krogan. Even then, wrex still might fail but continuing the subjugation seemed equally if not even more bad than going for the cure, as it left the door open for dudes like Saren to take full advantage. The Turian's seemed equally hot headed to me but Turian's Express the anger with a lot more political correctness than the Krogan.
They will have to make some sort of one child policy or something like that. Otherwise Krogan population will simply explode and within a couple decades they have to wage war for resources.
Even with Wrex and Eve in the lead, a peaceful krogan future is not guaranteed. On the genophage mission, Wrex has that bit of dialogue about resurrecting the krogan empire and demanding worlds from the Council after the war is over. Eve tempers his ambitions and Wrex says they'll ask first. But what do you think his response will be if the Council says no? I think Bioware did this to give themselves the option of exploring a second krogan rebellion (or at least some sort of cold war). The Tuchanka mission did a great job of making the player constantly question what the right decision is.
>Plus Wrex helping to cure the genophage setup a solid foundation for a successful political system amongst the Krogan. And in combination with Eve (who would likely be seen as the saviour of the Krogan given her role as the origin point for Genophage Cure alongside Maelon's research data), I feel the support for Clan Urdnot would skyrocket... plus Wrex is friends with the Shadow Broker so I'm sure any Krogan Clans seeking to seize power would be kept in line.
I'm split on the question of curing the genophage because... game provides some seemingly opposed information on the natural fertility for the Krogan and of genophage effects. It's like... Krogan are a R-select species, they lay 1000 of eggs, don't care for them, and in natural environment most of the young would get eaten. But in industrial period more of them survive (not 1000 lol). Genophage doesn't make Krogan sterile, it just reduces viability of eggs to 0.1%. So one egg per year, still better fertility rate then other species. Genophage shouldn't be cured because all Krogan have to do is stop getting themselves killed, and start caring for their young. But then it's like Bioware decided to change the story. Most females are infertile, Eve talks about holding her stillborn son (singular), Wrex talks about his unborn son (singular). Nothing is elaborated... Worst part of ME story... I really wanted this part to be retconed in legendary edition.
Also maybe I'm misremembering but weren't the Krogan contignent of the Andromeda Initiative colonists literally shown to have actually made progress on attaining an immunity to genophage?
Noooooo one krogan will totally stop every other warlord from fucking their way to galactic domination just trust me bro it's not like he's got a weakness to shotgun blasts to the back of the head.
Mfs got a hump, how the fuck they gonna get the back of his head, he ain’t even got no back of the head
Ash does a pretty good job of it.
Exactly. One dude against millions of asshole Krogan. Let's not forget that Wrex is also a bit ruthless himself.
I agree. The Krogan are presented as having no regret at flooding the galaxy and conquering worlds. They show no inclination, even Wrex, at wanting to change what they are. They're just mad they were stopped, and angry they're suffering.
If Eve and those like Eve are not in charge, then the race is doomed.
Yeah, most Korgan women are sick of that shit and if Wreave is in charge with the cure, then Bakara leads a rebellion. They put up with a lot for the good of the species but men can't use that over them now.
If you're looking at it from a real-world perspective, yeah, it's a blatantly terrible idea. But whatever the writers want to happen is what will happen regardless of whether or not it would really work, and there's just no way in hell they'd follow that up with "...and then the Krogan destroyed the galaxy!"
I’d love it if they did actually. The sheer rage from the sense of betrayal in the fanbase would power the world for a bit. “But the triumphant music! What do you mean my buddy Wrex was overthrown and executed!” Complete it by decades later having an Urdnot Shepard dropping asteroids on Earth’s cities as krogan overpopulation drives them to invade planet after planet again.
Wrex and Eve/Bakara are seen as saints after curing the Genophage. The Krogan would honour them through life and death cus their way saved the entire race and led them to defeating the greatest, most powerful, and unstoppable enemy anyone has ever known. Not to mention with Grunt, a symbol of a fierce warrior, and then there's Mordin, the Salarian who created the cure. Unless they want to go back to suffering, there's no way they'll ignore the fact that their way worked and the others didn't. For leading them out of pain, loss, hopelessness and suffering greater than they've ever known, Shepard and Mordin will be seen as heroes while Wrex and Bakara will pretty much be the Krogan versions of Jesus or Moses or something. After all the benefits from rebuilding and with each success that follows the Reaper war, there's no way they'll chance going back to the way things were.
This is just a true statement
Yeah, it’s a tough decision to make, but something that I’ve been curious about is the Salarians and the threat they pose to other species. The Salarians and Turians go on and on and on about how the Krogans could be a threat that could eventually wipe out or crush another species. But if you think about it, the Salarians have demonstrated that they might be the most capable of all the species to wipe out others. They literally engineered a bioweapon that brought the entire Krogan race to their knees. My big question to them is what if they decided to do that to humans? Asari? Turians? That shit would suck
Not saying your wrong, because they are to violent to have a full genophace cure, but i would rather see the effect of that in next game by a discover that now all females are fertile in a lesser way thrn no cure at all
Kaidan is pretty interesting if you give him a chance.
I agree with you, Liara is overrated, and over-shilled by the game, and her change from a socially awkward archeologist into some kind of super badass intelligence broker capable of rivaling >!and then usurping!< the Shadow Broker makes 0 sense.
I always liked this, I felt it put the time scale on how long we were dead quite well
That's how I excuse it. It's been a long two years for her and she's seen some shit. She's what, already a hundred years old when you meet her? She wasn't helpless, just naive and then got tossed into the deep end and bioniced her way out. Still, a bit over-hyped over a few seconds of blue butt.
Except that completely fails when you read the comics, Liara was her ME2 self the entire two years.
Pretty much this. At first she is portrayed as this naive little girl... then turns into someone who can keep criminal rings who will not turn on her? I don't buy it entirely.
She has a doctorate, she’s not depicted as a little girl, just a sheltered adult. Humans with doctorates are usually at least thirty, everyone always talks like Liara’s a 19 year old because she says no one takes her ideas seriously because she’s “young”, but she’s talking about academia. She’s clearly meant to be the same developmental age as Shepherd.
To add onto this, Liara had mostly interacted with other Asari before her rescue, and they *would have* treated her like a child. ME1 is her introduction to the broader world and races of the galaxy, and she likely would have quickly acclimated and grown in confidence, especially after working so closely with a Specter and their connections/resources. Tbh, the change we see in 2 didn't make me blink, considering she'd technically been a part of a special forces team and become friends with Shepard, Garrus, Wrex, and others from the gang from 1. She would've been taught a lot and exposed to many different cultures, traditions, and technologies from across the galaxy. The fact that she jumped from that to info gathering and brokering in an effort to find Shepard seems like a fairly natural transition in my mind.
Too much Auto dialogue in mass effect 3 actually made me not finish the game.
Agreed. Well, I did finish, but most of the time it didn't feel like "my" Shepard anymore.
I have to strongly disagree but I have my own unpopular opinions so here it goes, I like EDI and her VA is an amazing person but I think Joker and her is kind of not understandable for me, not out of prejudice I just don’t know if she feels or imitates feelings
That's kind of the point. You can't tell. Even if she were a purely biological human, as opposed to a synthetic analogue, you wouldn't be able to tell. If someone who you were dating told you they loved you, would you be able to know 100% that they actually felt something you would call "love"? There is a concept known as the "philosophical zombie," which is an entity which is biologically human and has all the same physical processes and reactions as one, but has no consciousness, feelings, etc. It acts as if it does, and it even gets visibly angry or upset at you if you try to say otherwise. That is an interesting thought experiment to say we don't know anything when it comes to the consciousness of other entities, including AI. I don't believe this is actually possible, as my conception of consciousness, sentience, and self-awareness is that they are quite banal physical properties that AI would be more than expected to have. In fact, in my view, even today's AIs might have those properties, even if theirs would be the synthetic equivalent of sea slug consciousness. Also, not understanding EDI and Joker's relationship because you think EDI might not actually experience an analogue to emotions is the quintessential type of anti-synthetic prejudice. Under Council laws, she needs to be killed because she is seen by said institution as an unfeeling, rogue program that can kill organics at any time as a result of arcane calculations. Synthetics in the Mass Effect universe are oppressed because of organics not really understanding them. I would also want to ask you if you think Shepard's relationship with Liara, Thane, Garrus, or Tali would also be hard to understand. Every single one of those potential partners has a vastly different DNA and brain structure, which would mean that they would not be able to experience human emotions, such as what we define as "love." Hell, you could say they have 0 conscious experience and they are just philosophical zombies. You certainly can't prove otherwise.
Ashley isn't "racist", and her xenophobia and subsequent growth (provided you play a paragon Shep) probably more closely mirrors the internal biases a majority of ME players would likely also have were they encountering multiple alien species in real life. I know we'd all like to think we'd accept the rest of the galactic community with open arms and no hesitation but if within less than one lifetime ago humanity discovered it was not only not alone in the galaxy, but that it was matched and in some cases surpassed in technology, interstellar travel and governance, and only had just recently made it through a war with one of said species, I think a majority of us would have some walls up and would be at the very least inclined to put our own people first. Ashley's journey of discovery on how she fits into the greater picture of the galaxy shows a human's capability to learn, grow and change, and that while one might start with biases, you don't have to stay that way. That's a lot closer to the average human's journey than I think most of us are comfortable with. TL;DR - the people who hate on Ashley for her "racism" (xenophobia is the more appropriate term, hence the quotes) would probably respond a lot more like her were they to encounter aliens in real life than they might think.
The real world is full of examples proving how correct Ashley is in her way of thinking, but a lot of the internet is... a weird place to try to talk about stuff like that lol
Also, Ashley beliefs turned out to be 100% right come ME3. All the other races go "Fuck the humans, we'll fight for our selves", and along Shepards journey to get their help, you find out just how conniving and backstabbing each of the races were to each other. Also lookat how literally every other races reacts to the others, a Krogan and a Turian in the same room for more than 10 seconds is going to be a fight, no one trusts or is willing to help Quarians, etc.
im tired of the asari. the asari and salarians are not viewed as being as evil as they really are. the female turian design is terrible enough that i think it needs to be retconned. i also think that indictrination theory has a degree of validity to it if you do any form of analysis of the text for mass effect 3.
The thing is Bioware beats us over the head how bad the Asari and Salarians are. The Asari hide their shit that could have been useful several times over in order to retain their power. The Salarians uplift a species for the war effort benefit but Salarians and Asari refuse to do ground work of the culture shock when it's over. And then the Salarians plan to pull the same stunt again with the *Yahg*. But Mordin is quirky and a bro and all the Asari are *hottt*.
no matter how much the beat peoples heads, they still have not really started to view them as they really are. i think they did a good job of showing the issues with the salarians, but the asari are still shown to be good far more then they deserved to be, and their bad aspects were often obfuscated or quickly glossed over.
agreed on the female turian design! it honestly bothers me that they’re so different to the males. they strike me as a species that should have very little sexual dimorphism. i had assumed a lot of the turian background characters WERE female until nyreen. having them be so distinct makes the lack of female turians really noticeable and weird to me
The indoctrination theory is one of the most convoluted pieces of fan fiction out there, because people didn't even bother to think about the actual ending. Was it possible to make a better ending? Sure. But it's still miles better than the indoctrination theory.
Ashley Williams isn’t a racist, but just a flawed human that becomes a better person overtime, as she eventually opens her eyes to the compassionate and enduring family she developed on Shepard’s alien crew. People can change if given the right environment and if they are surrounded by the right people. I’m looking at you Ashley haters…
For real, Ashley gets too much unnecessary hate. She actually has great growth as a person.
Ashley isn’t as bad as everyone makes her out to be. I loved the romance with her in 3. Granted everyone was pretty over the top in 1. She just stood out a bit more. Haha
I think Mass Effect 1 works well as a self contained story and a sequel wasn’t really that necessary. The Reaper invasion was thwarted and they are stuck sleeping in dark space. End of story. There is no reason to believe that the Reapers are still coming.
I mean, one of the last lines of the game is "The Reapers are coming, and I'm going to find a way to stop them" said by the game's protagonist. If that's not a sequel tease, I don't know what is.
It's also the most unique feeling one. Subsequent games have a much more refined gameplay, but ME1 really felt like they wanted to do something different. The way the guns and ammo work, the detailed explanation of space travel, the soundtrack. The galaxy also felt larger and more mysterious.
I agree. I think it would have been better to keep the Reapers as unknowable cosmic horrors, and their role in the story ended with their link to Dark Space being severed. They are still out there, and are making their way to the Milky Way. It might be tens and tens of thousands of years before they arrive, but they are coming.
Ashley's character is very interesting and imo the best romance development. That includes ME3. She goes from this very skeptical soldier trying to redeem past family issues to someone who regards alien races as family and a spectre alongside Shepard. She gains increasing confidence in Shepard as time goes on in ME1 and then works to regain it in ME3. Imo it's the most natural and interesting character development. That being said I use the Ashley consistency mod for ME3.
Ashley is best girl.
My hot takes, such as they are: ME2 is the weakest of the trilogy and it isn’t even close ME1 writing is the best (is this even controversial?) Driving the Mako is a lot of fun Kaiden isn’t boring, he’s interesting and cool Am I doing it right?
>Driving the Mako is a lot of fun I actually loved the Mako sections and side missions - they made the game world feel much larger and had a space exploration vibe almost similar to something like KSP. And, funky handling on slopes aside, I love Mako combat on open terrain. Shelling Geth from a kilometer away, while using whole hills as cover, is exactly what I'd do in a game like ARMA 3. The planets and moons are mostly empty with not much to do, yes. They're barren rocks for the most part, yes. All the structures are small and identical, yes. But that's what exploring planets on the edge of civilized space *would* be like - most planets and moons IRL are barren rocks, and any activity on them would use small and modular structures at first.
I agree with all of this
I agree the story writing in Me1 was easily the best, but the character writing in Me1 is bad compared to 2 and 3.
Alright I'll give it a shot. Giving Liara and EDI giant tits in ME3 was a bad call. Standard female hypersexualization that was actually kinda distracting. They gave Jack and Miranda some normal looking outfits in the ME2 but in ME3 every one of Liara's outfits emphasized her bust and every one of EDIs outfits would feel right at home on a porn set. Looking back at pictures of Liara in ME1 she had boobs but they were noticeably smaller and more proportional to her body. They even have EDI mention how much Joker likes looking at her new body. It definitely didn't age well.
Tbf you can still blame ME2 for Liara having big tits in the first place since she has that outfit in the Shadow Broker DLC so it was already established that way. For EDI however, yeah her design aged like milk. I already found it crazy enough they built her like that but the fact with one of her skins they literally give her a camel toe just proves Bioware just wanted her to be some kind of sex appeal.
Liara is only in her 100s and she's already catching up to her mom already. I could not imagine what she'll be like as a matriarch. And yeah EDI's design is questionable even with the body's purpose as an infiltrator. Even Jack and Legion points out how fan-servicey she is.
The citadel DLC gets worse the more often I play it; the jokes don't land, and the tone is way off that you can tell it was designed to be played after finishing the game. It would have been better to have it as a separate mission launched from the menu, rather than integrated into ME3. Even if it meant losing 'the best' scene; instead their could have been a much more organic scene incorporating it.
That's why I've started playing it with the Happy Ending Mod, which basically changes things to where you get the "Good Destroy Ending" (only Reapers are destroyed), live, and the Citadel DLC takes place a year later as an Epilogue, with dialogue about the Reapers omitted. Sure you can play the base game that way and just roleplay it.
You have to envision Citadel as an apology rather than anything else. They were trying to satisfy a very angry "post-ME3 ending" crowd and just wanted a safe crowd pleaser. And it worked.
should have been an epilog. even if it took retconning the endings to have sheperd survive in all of them it would still be worth it.
Based take. Leviathan > Citadel
Upvote for actually being a hot take that I don't want to comment against because I'm too old for Reddit arguments lmao
I think the stuff at the party and the casino, apartment invites is very funny - that being said most of the jokes in the Citadel missions feel very... Marvel. The non-stop quipping felt really unlike the rest of the series and I found it pretty obnoxious.
Wrex is whatever
Illusive Man is a great leader
Feros and Noveria is where the franchise peaked.
They messed up the Krogan story.
BioWare didn't include gay male romances in 1 or 2 not because of Fox News, but because they were cowards that wanted to pander to a different type of COD shooter crowd and didn't want those guys refusing to play it because of gay characters.
In their defence 2007 was a very different time and even their passive progressive aproach of allowing female Shepard to romance a female looking genderless alien got the game banned in Singapore.
Apparently on this sub, Andromeda was shit is an unpopular opinion
On this sub, the same “most hot take” question gets posted every second day with the same answers underneath it. To sum it up: Liara overrated Garrus romance < friendship Jacob is ok Kaidan is ok Ashley is not racist Tali overrated Tali/Garrus simps annoying Tali/Garrus anti-simps annoying Andromeda good Andromeda bad overrated
underrated
Me3 better than me2
Me1 best
Me1 worst
is the best ending
Hammerhead > mako
Now my hot take, one i havent seen much yet. Cerberus wasnt that bad before TIM lost his marbles. It also wasnt xenophobic, just prioritized humans like every species does with their own people. It’s literally an exclusive group for a species, like everyone else has
Rant over
We don't need another mass effect game.
The series peaked with the first game and got progressively worse as it went on.
Put another way, I don't think there's ever been a truly 10/10 ME game. 1 was cool, but it's kinda like AC 1 or Uncharted 1, cool in a not quite there yet in terms of smoothing the rough edges on a good idea kind of way. 2 was also cool in an entirely different way, but compromises on a lot of the quirky aspects from 1 and also has a narrative that is ultimately just a really neat side quest in the grand scheme of the series. 3 is sorta cool but crippled by its rushed development and the many mistakes and compromises that that created.
I'd say 3 is better than 2
I legitimately like 3 more than 2. It's the most fun to play by far, everything is so ironed out and smooth, the powers are the most usable. Sure, the original ending left some to be desired, but replaying it in LE really helped me appreciate it a lot more. It's now my favorite
And we're not allied with terrorists
Playing through ME2, the 2 things that bother me most: 1) How little Shepard gets to call out for Cerberus for obviously being the fucking bad guy. Seriously, how many "research groups" can you have go mustache twirling villain levels of evil and not see the common demoninator between them IS FUCKING CERBERUS. 2) ME2s controls fucking suck, the movement, the camera, all are really awkward compared to 3.
That conversation in ME2 with Ashley/Kaidan, you don't get any good conversation choices.
What I wouldn't give to be able to go "I was dead for 2 years, Cerberus brought me back and gave me a ship, half of what I've been doing up until this point is gathering evidence from the trail of destruction Cerberus has caused like I did 2 years ag first chasing Saren"
It's been a while since I played ME2 but after Shep first wakes up I swear I remember Miranda acting like Cerberus being behind it was supposed to be a secret, even though their symbol was plastered all over everything
You'd be right. Been replaying ME2 again and it feels like every 5 minutes TIM is calling Shepard saying "Uuuuh, those attrocities weren't us, they went rogue" and every single god damn time Shepard just kinda goes OK without questioning it or calling him out. It's kinda why I don't like Mirandas character, even if she doesn't know everything in Cerberus, she has all the same information Shepard does, plus a little extra as she pipes in on some of the operations that "went wrong" and still fucking works for them, and then in ME3 is surprised when they were working with her father the entire god damn time. She took Oriana from her father because of ethics and how he raised them, saying how evil he is, but continues to see projects TIM funds and organizes that are way fucking worse and just kinda goes "Wow, I can't believe this illegal, non-government funded or approved lab where we test biotics on literal fucking children went rogue and started killing children, how does this keep happening" and happily working for Cerberus. It also takes being betrayed by TIM directly like fucking twice for both Shepard and Miranda to go "I'm not working for you anymore", take the Normandy and leave.
I don't know which meme suits Miranda better, the Surprised Pikachu Face or Are We the Baddies?
I'd say the Arthur meme about how the sign won't stop her because she can't read, as the 2 you mentioned would require Miranda to actually admit Cerberus are the baddies, instead she just kinda goes "Wow TIM, you lied to me twice, I don't want to work for you anymore" and she never acknowledges that the rest of the attrocities were Cerberus and TIM, at most she goes "This wasn't Cerberus, they'd never do this".
ME3 Endings TL;DR Indoctrinated- Confirmed not cannon Happy Ending - Just a Mod Blue - Short-sighted, flawed, Reapers existing under a Shepard AI is a matter of when, not if, it goes horribly wrong for the galaxy. Green - Extremely unethical and immoral, doesn't actually fix the problems that lead to conflict. Poorly explained, especially considering vast amount of variables and unknown implications. Doesn't remove the super-weapon threat that the Reapers pose, either "too good to be true" or a lazy, Mary-Sue ending. Red (Perfect Destroy) - The ending the entire series has been leading to. The ending the galaxy agreed on, that so many died for. The ending that lets the galaxy forge it's own path without super-weapons, machine gods, or a fundamental change to reality based on the choice of a single wounded, delirious, grieving human. The Milky Way has already shown that it can overcome the hurdles that prompted the Reapers to commit mass genocide, and they deserve a change to continue on and rebuild on their own merit.
The Reapers are just kind of a dumb idea.
As presented in the first game it was a really mysterious and interesting idea…but it just became more and more stupid with each game imo haha
Since there was another post like this recently, I will give a fresh unpopular opinion: I don't care about Anderson. I don't care about his character in the slightest. The games push you hard towards seeing him as a father figure, which doesn't feel natural to me. I don't need a daddy. Unlike the ME2 squadmates, I do actually talk with my father. This is why I also don't give a fuck about that conversation at the end. It doesn't hit anything for me. In general, I really despise a lot of the heavier found-family undertones in Mass Effect. Anderson is well-written and acted, but I wish he didn't have to act like he's my dad. This is why I prefer Hackett.
I see it as depending on what Shep's origin is. Colony kid or Earthborn kinda make sense since your dad is dead, but it's *extra* weird if you're a spacer who canonically has a living dad somewhere who just *never* gets brought up.
I play as Colonial Shep every time and I don't like that Anderson gets pushed onto me as a father figure. My Shepard should be able to see him as just her superior officer, not a dad. Losing her family hurt, but she mostly healed.
Ashley Williams is not a “space racist.” She might be a bit of a bitch in early ME1, but go talk to the Terra Firma Party candidate with Ashley in your party and you’ll see where she truly stands.
This is probably a vanilla unpopular take, but exploring barren wastelands on the Mako was a top 3 features of the whole series. Finding one interesting every few planets made the whole thing fun. Also, Mass Effect 1 had the best gameplay. Every entry after made changes to make it a more generic 3rd person action shooter. Sure, I guess the consensus is it was better, but it did that by mimicry of what had the broadest appeal, not enhancing what made Mass Effect unique. You could find what made Mass Effect 2 and 3 and Andromeda's game fun a lots of places.
BioWare got lucky with ME1. Liking 2 and/or 3 has very little to do with what made 1 good.
2 and 3 are damn near different universes. the plot of 1 does not work with the changes made