General Gaming So I Replayed and Beat Mass Effect. It is flawed but still really great. TRILOGY COMPLETE! (and MEA too)

[stepee]

I just think they shouldn’t have had any options that affected the overall state of the world and picked something canon. And then your actions up to that point only affect certain side stories and characters. I don’t think there is a way to make it as good with multiple choices as it could be with just one more well thought out ending. Besides that just make the reapers a bit scarier, end with some kind of big fight against a reaper queen or whatever that is won through some whatever and then tease some “there may be more out there” and end it. Idk, something simple I think would have been fine. 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

On 12/22/2022 at 10:10 PM, Bacon said:

lol

 

videos are time stamped. You only need to listen for like 15-20 seconds 

something mentioned in the first video, the idea that movies do the “building the ensemble cast” does happen, but not for 80-90% of the story. Which is part of why to me ME2 doesn’t have a good three act structure. It didn’t feel like it had an act 2, and act 3 felt very short. And so it didn’t feel like a full game with a full story. 

[Bacon]

I've done two of the three DLC packs and they aren't that good.

 

Omega fits really well after the attack on the Citadel but the content is otherwise bland. The outcomes are irrelevant, but I am sad I didn't go full paragon or full renegade. If you go full good guy you can the pull a great bad guy action by killing the boss yourself. If you go full bad guy you get a nice scene with Aria. I mean, the dialogue you get if you don't go full paragon or renegade is also really great and is probably one of the best things someone has said to Shepard, but it doesn't feel as rewarding. It makes the DLC feel rewardless somewhat. Like, if you were playing an Engineer I think the DLC would be worth it, but I just feel left out that I didn't get any class specific actions.

 

Leviathan just has no place in the story. The missions aren't that good to take as much time as they do and there is no good spot to do this DLC in the story. Do it early and the characters have to act dumb cuz they didn't know this info when the game first launched. Do it late and you end up putting the end of the galaxy on the back burner. The organic reaper's existence gives lame answers and also confuses me as to why the human reaper was a thing when this DLC says that all reapers take the form of the first reaper, Harbinger. Maybe it is because humans, Shepard, are powerful and the reapers need that but the game doesn't really say. At least not yet. And man, the Leviathan's are totally magic. They offer no reasonable explanations for their telepathic powers that literally let them take down a reaper in flight from the ocean. Sure, they give some bullshit answer of Quantum Entanglement Communication, but it feels like a fake answer BioWare put in the game so people wouldn't ask. Now I assume the intelligence it the star child thing and I do wonder what it has to say and if this DLC will be relevant, but the DLC wasn't worth the ending. 

 

Game needs one last DLC where I kill the last of the Batarians. 

[PaladinSolo]

On 12/27/2022 at 7:40 PM, Bacon said:

Andromeda was only 5 bucks... Might as well play them all.  

 

Its a pretty good game, it just has some really rough voice acting and janky animations during conversations, but the exploration and combat is good stuff, main plot is forgettable too, like i really don't remember it other than thinking it was kind of a rip off of Halo.

[Bacon]

Man, I did the mirror match on insanity and fuck I had to play like a giga-bitch to beat it on insanity. I actually forgot to change my armor but it didn't matter. I had to fully give up my charge+nova+shotgun playstyle, but honestly my squad members carried me. They did so much damn damage compared to the team I was running before. I probably could have let them do it all while I hid. And I paused combat very often while I thought what would be my best move. This was a very fun challenge. I might learn to do it solo. 

 

And also, the citadel dlc was amazing. 10/10 content. Such a great send-off. I have a feeling this will sway my overall opinion on the game's ending.  

[Bacon]

DO NOT SHOOT THE AI CHILD 

[johnny]

On 12/29/2022 at 6:18 PM, Bacon said:

I've done two of the three DLC packs and they aren't that good.

 

Omega fits really well after the attack on the Citadel but the content is otherwise bland. The outcomes are irrelevant, but I am sad I didn't go full paragon or full renegade. If you go full good guy you can the pull a great bad guy action by killing the boss yourself. If you go full bad guy you get a nice scene with Aria. I mean, the dialogue you get if you don't go full paragon or renegade is also really great and is probably one of the best things someone has said to Shepard, but it doesn't feel as rewarding. It makes the DLC feel rewardless somewhat. Like, if you were playing an Engineer I think the DLC would be worth it, but I just feel left out that I didn't get any class specific actions.

 

Leviathan just has no place in the story. The missions aren't that good to take as much time as they do and there is no good spot to do this DLC in the story. Do it early and the characters have to act dumb cuz they didn't know this info when the game first launched. Do it late and you end up putting the end of the galaxy on the back burner. The organic reaper's existence gives lame answers and also confuses me as to why the human reaper was a thing when this DLC says that all reapers take the form of the first reaper, Harbinger. Maybe it is because humans, Shepard, are powerful and the reapers need that but the game doesn't really say. At least not yet. And man, the Leviathan's are totally magic. They offer no reasonable explanations for their telepathic powers that literally let them take down a reaper in flight from the ocean. Sure, they give some bullshit answer of Quantum Entanglement Communication, but it feels like a fake answer BioWare put in the game so people wouldn't ask. Now I assume the intelligence it the star child thing and I do wonder what it has to say and if this DLC will be relevant, but the DLC wasn't worth the ending. 

 

Game needs one last DLC where I kill the last of the Batarians. 

there’s 4 DLCs. did you pick up javik? he’s the best squad mate in 3 and makes priority thessia even better 

[Bacon]

19 minutes ago, johnny said:

did you pick up javik?

Of course. I just don't really count that because it was clearly content they cut to sell new copies. 

[Bacon]

The One True Play-Through

Reapers Die And Shepard Lives

The Perfect Ending

 

Man. What a fucking trilogy. 10 years have passed since the launch of Mass Effect 3. When it finally came out I wasn't ready to play it. I no longer wanted use the character I had started with. I just didn't feel the connection anymore and I made more than one bad choice that I wanted to change. For a long time I had wanted to get my character in order for Mass Effect 3, but it just never happened. Too lazy or something, I don't know. Still, I preordered the Collector's Edition for it and had begun to play it on launch day. I had gotten a third, or maybe even halfway through Mass Effect 3 when the news of the endings came out. It was on this very site where I saw the thread which reveled the three endings. Red, Green, or Blue. Your choices didn't matter. No matter what you did it all came down to that, three different colors. I had lost my desire to continue, to beat the game. 

 

But your choices DO matter! Sure the ending was a disaster, but for this one time it really is about the journey rather than the destination. That doesn't excuse what was done, but never have I cared more about my choices in a video game than I have during this current play-through of the Mass Effect Trilogy. This is even with knowing what was at the end of all of this. And that is why I don't hate the ending. Going into this I had a plan. The prefect run. Everyone lives and the reapers die. And I am not just going to be a Soldier. No. I'll be the crazy guy charging the battlefield with biotics and my trusty shotgun. 

 

And I did that. All of my plans worked out. There was never three endings in my mind this time. There was no red, green, or blue ending. There was just the ending. All I could do was destroy the reapers. That goal was set all the way back in Mass Effect 1. It didn't matter that BioWare tried to meddle with my plans. It didn't matter that they included some incredibly stupid cycle of violence between synthetics and organics that could only be ended through totally-not-magic mutilation of all organics. That just simply wasn't true. That was some nonsensical excuse that goes against the very thing Shepard has achieved. Geth and Quarians we reunited and set out to rebuild their world together. Joker and EDI loved each other, but it was Shepard who showed her what it meant to be alive. Peace wouldn't last? Says who? A senile AI who decided a long time ago this was the only way? Why would the cycle always happen? It gave no reason. It's ideals were flawed. It never even tried to let cooperation happen. It never even looked outside its own galaxy for a solution! All it did was create a cycle of suffering in its own little spot in the endless universe. I don't care what you say. EDI and the Geth are gone? Nonsense. We don't see them die. You say Shepard would destroy himself in the process? Well, look who was fucking wrong.  

 

Fuck you, BioWare. Shepard lives. He saved the galaxy and now he is going to fuck his blue alien wife for the next 100 years.

[johnny]

you should have romanced tali! best romance option for 3. 

[Bacon]

1 minute ago, johnny said:

you should have romanced tali! best romance option for 3. 

I wanted to keep a romance going through all 3 games and I kill Ashley. Tali is cute, but Liara is canon. 

 

[Bacon]

I don't think I'm am going to be giving a big review but will say a bit more here now.

 

For all the flaws the story has, it has just as many amazing moments. I find it far too easy to now forgive their mistakes and I mostly enjoyed all of my time spent on ME3. And the final act is pretty good imo. The space battle was probably my favorite space battle in of all media. It was epic, along with the final ground battle with the rockets. I didn't mind the final mission, I don't have much hate for it. It wasn't perfect, but some people are pretty harsh on it, and maybe it is objectively bad, but seeing earth like that had me rushing and using my Vanguard's powers to their fullest to reach their objectives to save it, like it mattered. It doesn't matter, but I don't mind being easily fooled here. 

 

There are the issues with the game. That earth still hadn't be fully lost is nonsense. Reapers are also too weak now. They are an ancient evil who gets bested by an alaskan bullworm and a mini-nuke. There are pacing issues through out the whole game and anything that isn't the MSQ just get's in the way, but you need to do them to get that high war score so Shepard can live. What in the world were they thinking with Kai Lang and the Dead Kid?

 

The combat is great in ME3. Took a bit to get used to with the greater movement and faster combat, but once I felt it I really liked it. 

 

I went a lot more renegade in this series, but I just picked what I wanted. With ME1 and ME2 and cheated and maxed out my reputation so I could make Shepard into his own character. I didn't want to be some beacon of justice, but I didn't want to just be a dick. I cheated to make the games better than what it allows naturally. I didn't want Shepard to just be my avatar. I wanted him to be the character I view him as. And I think I succeeded for the most part. Some decisions I made weren't decisions I think were exactly right for the character. I never wanted to release the bug queen. But I did. I don't think Shepard would have though. I don't think Shepard would have saved the council either, but I saved them. Seeing my final war score I realized I could have mostly stuck to what I really felt was right. 

 

The one thing I could never do is betray Wrex though. I believe the genophage would have been better off not cured in an unknown future. It is hard to not see a galaxy on the verge of destruction with the major power being giant lizards with the tenacity of cockroaches. But Wrex is pretty cool. And Shepard would have cured it though so that's ok. 

 

Now, all these years later, it is hard to think of any of these games as bad or disappointing. When you go into it with a plan like mine you are getting the ultimate experience. What Mass Effect is all about. If While I said your choices matter, I didn't have any choices to make this time. While Mass Effect didn't properly plan out it's own trilogy, I did. I had to do it within the games limitations, but I planned it out better than marvel even could. I feel like I succeeded where BioWare failed by using their own game. 

 

After all these years, I have finally gotten what I wanted from Mass Effect. It is a flawed trilogy, but still a really great one. 

[Bacon]

Now I wanted to end it there for tonight but one last thing.

 

Shepard and Mass Effect 4. 

 

I don't trust BioWare to pull off another series like ME. DA:I and ME:A (not yet played) both took the same kind of direction which I greatly disagree with. So part of me really never wants to see Shepard in Mass Effect again. I worry they will just ruin what I have achieved with my play-thru of this trilogy. 

 

However, I already want to play as Shepard again. I want him to continue. I want to see the game that proves I am right. But that's all I want to see. I don't want a new galactic threat to appear. I want the Citadel DLC but a whole game with Shepard kicking back, relaxing, and having a good time. 

 

I don't want a Mass Effect where you play as Liara or Garrus or whatever. I really, really don't. Mass Effect: Andromeda was a good direction to take, but "Pathfinder" and "Ryder" sounds like some kinds of porn fan-fiction. Picking "commander" and a "Shepard" was the right choice. It was choice that created a Leader. You need a character with titles like that. Witcher, Warden, Commander, God, Master, Chief, Spartan. These are titles with power. Pathfinder isn't. Pathfinder sounds like it could be the name of a shitty game. Ryder is just a mistake. It doesn't need to have meaning Shepard, but Ryder ain't it chief. Ryder is a gamertag from a kid who thinks it sounds cool. 

 

Whatever happens with Mass Effect 4, I just hope it is exactly what I want if it is going to happen. 

[best3444]

5 hours ago, Bacon said:

Now I wanted to end it there for tonight but one last thing.

 

Shepard and Mass Effect 4. 

 

I don't trust BioWare to pull off another series like ME. DA:I and ME:A (not yet played) both took the same kind of direction which I greatly disagree with. So part of me really never wants to see Shepard in Mass Effect again. I worry they will just ruin what I have achieved with my play-thru of this trilogy. 

 

However, I already want to play as Shepard again. I want him to continue. I want to see the game that proves I am right. But that's all I want to see. I don't want a new galactic threat to appear. I want the Citadel DLC but a whole game with Shepard kicking back, relaxing, and having a good time. 

 

I don't want a Mass Effect where you play as Liara or Garrus or whatever. I really, really don't. Mass Effect: Andromeda was a good direction to take, but "Pathfinder" and "Ryder" sounds like some kinds of porn fan-fiction. Picking "commander" and a "Shepard" was the right choice. It was choice that created a Leader. You need a character with titles like that. Witcher, Warden, Commander, God, Master, Chief, Spartan. These are titles with power. Pathfinder isn't. Pathfinder sounds like it could be the name of a shitty game. Ryder is just a mistake. It doesn't need to have meaning Shepard, but Ryder ain't it chief. Ryder is a gamertag from a kid who thinks it sounds cool. 

 

Whatever happens with Mass Effect 4, I just hope it is exactly what I want if it is going to happen. 

 

Jesus you made me laugh when talking about the names!

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

6 hours ago, Bacon said:

Now I wanted to end it there for tonight but one last thing.

 

Shepard and Mass Effect 4. 

 

I don't trust BioWare to pull off another series like ME. DA:I and ME:A (not yet played) both took the same kind of direction which I greatly disagree with. So part of me really never wants to see Shepard in Mass Effect again. I worry they will just ruin what I have achieved with my play-thru of this trilogy. 

 

However, I already want to play as Shepard again. I want him to continue. I want to see the game that proves I am right. But that's all I want to see. I don't want a new galactic threat to appear. I want the Citadel DLC but a whole game with Shepard kicking back, relaxing, and having a good time. 

 

I don't want a Mass Effect where you play as Liara or Garrus or whatever. I really, really don't. Mass Effect: Andromeda was a good direction to take, but "Pathfinder" and "Ryder" sounds like some kinds of porn fan-fiction. Picking "commander" and a "Shepard" was the right choice. It was choice that created a Leader. You need a character with titles like that. Witcher, Warden, Commander, God, Master, Chief, Spartan. These are titles with power. Pathfinder isn't. Pathfinder sounds like it could be the name of a shitty game. Ryder is just a mistake. It doesn't need to have meaning Shepard, but Ryder ain't it chief. Ryder is a gamertag from a kid who thinks it sounds cool. 

 

Whatever happens with Mass Effect 4, I just hope it is exactly what I want if it is going to happen. 

I have always hated the dialog where Ryder runs around telling aliens from the Andromeda galaxy that he’s “the pathfinder” like it’s supposed to translate and mean anything to them. It doesn’t mean anything to me and I’m fucking from Earth. To them it must sound like a meaningless title.
 

Bioware wanted a job title that sounded as cool as “Council Spectre”. But that title had meaning and weight to anyone that heard it. Even in non-council space, the title carried no authority, but there was respect and fear because of what it meant to be given that title. Nobody got it because they had been gifted a special Omni tool from a dying family member. Pathfinder is a specialized job duty, not a replacement for rank. Ryder had no reason to believe these aliens had a similar role in their military, and treated it like it put them on the same level as a Commander or Captain ranked individual when dealing with aliens. 
 

A satisfying bit of writing in the game though was in the beginning during team meetings and the team clearly doesn’t respect Ryder as a leader. And why should they? Definitely got a laugh out of me. 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

On ME3; With ME1&2 I always made my renegade play through to be my second play through, but after my initial play through of ME3, I just couldn’t bring myself to play renegade. It’s one thing to be a bit of a dick to them, but I couldn’t bring myself to betray my squad. Not after Wrex. I watched the Mordin finale on YouTube and I nearly cried. It speaks to my attachment of the characters, which is something Bioware used to do well. Even though it’s pure fiction, I didn’t want to hurt “my friends”.  

[Bacon]

Well, fuck

 

I had no fucking idea I owned all the games on origin. I'll keep the MELE on steam though just because I know it has all the DLC and shit. I don't think I own any of the DLC outside of ME1. But still. Crazy. And Origin still sucks all these years later. 

[stepee]

Bacon just started Andromeda

[Bacon]

8 minutes ago, stepee said:

Bacon just started Andromeda

Oh I've been trying but I can't 

 

by some fluke I was able to get online for that image but I cannot go online because of this and thus can't activate my game

 

or maybe I can do it offline but I don't know if I should take that risk 

[stepee]

13 minutes ago, Bacon said:

Oh I've been trying but I can't 

 

by some fluke I was able to get online for that image but I cannot go online because of this and thus can't activate my game

 

or maybe I can do it offline but I don't know if I should take that risk 

 

look it’s time to give up for the night 

[Bacon]

I did end up getting it to work. I'm having a hard time getting into it. It does not feel like mass effect, at all. What it feels like the most is Destiny but third person. 

[Bacon]

I'm not even kidding. I may not continue ME:A due to the inability to save whenever I want. I am playing on insanity and I have already had multiple deaths that put me back minutes and having to hear the same dialogue every time. This is completely outrageous and I can't believe I had never even heard people complain about this auto-save only bullshit. You can't even quit the game when you want to stop because of this. 

[Bacon]

Reminds me of the time my dog rolled in shit and her face was this color of green 

[Bacon]

Also, holy fuck asari are so fuckin' ugly in this game. 

 

Ain't no way they would have been a galactic sex symbol with them stuffed squirrel cheeks. No fuckin' idea how you have Liara and Samara but then makes those. I mean, tbf, like 90% of the people in this game a butt ugly but it is fucked when bird women have better faces than the blue sex aliens. 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

13 hours ago, Bacon said:

Also, holy fuck asari are so fuckin' ugly in this game. 

 

Ain't no way they would have been a galactic sex symbol with them stuffed squirrel cheeks. No fuckin' idea how you have Liara and Samara but then makes those. I mean, tbf, like 90% of the people in this game a butt ugly but it is fucked when bird women have better faces than the blue sex aliens. 

there’s a fan theory that Asari appear in whatever appearance somebody finds attractive. So maybe that’s what Ryder likes. lol 

[Bacon]

1 hour ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

there’s a fan theory that Asari appear in whatever appearance somebody finds attractive. So maybe that’s what Ryder likes. lol 

guess Scott really wants to fuck his sister then

[Bacon]

Un-fucking-real

I hope the group or whoever decided this loses a pinky toe and gets a cavity in their most used tooth. 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

Man, we’ve really come a long way with modern auto saves and checkpoints. Ooof

 

I think in ME games I was still so used to manually saving all the time that I never had to rely on auto saves. Just that old RPG mentality. Especially when playing on a harder difficulty setting. I’m sure it stems of trauma and trust issues. 

[Bacon]

So, while people seem generally approving of the build-a-class style of Andromeda I really don't like it and I think the game suffers from all the options you have now. I say suffer because I feel like there are now actual wrong choices to make and your companions suffer because it is up to your Ryder to have all the skills necessary to take down enemies. This is ever made worse by the inability to control ability usage on companions. In Mass Effect 1-3 I never suffered from my Shepard's inability to take down shields. I had many companions with Overload or Energy Drain and then I could also take Energy Drain myself as a bonus ability. In ME:A, only Ryder can have shield-harming abilities early on. That means you are heavily incentivized to spec into tech especially as shields are by far the most common barrier to encounter. Of course, if I wasn't playing on Insanity it wouldn't matter, but I am. That means many builds are just very bad on early levels. You cannot just straight-up recreate ME2/3's Vanguard. You are severely limited in what you can do. What is even further proof of this is when looking up build guides for insanity all of them are in NG+ which I have never had an interest in. If you need NG+ for the combat to start finally feeling good then the combat isn't good.
 
I actually wanted to say a lot more about that but I really don't care enough to. I have disagreed with every change ME:A has brought to the table. The open world shit sucks including the nomad. The added scrounging included to facilitate crafting sucks. That nearly every squad member basically starts out being your friend even if you just met them sucks. The included advanced movement system made to enable easier traversal in an open world sucks. The "realistic" movement and animations which give you less control over your character, similar to RDR2, sucks. The increased weight of weapons and cooldowns and the inability to achieve a 200% cooldown reduction sucks. The inability to use companion abilities as if they were your own sucks. The unrealistic spongy enemies that feel right out of Destiny or The Division or any other MMO hybrid game like them sucks.
 
I hate the zoomercore themes that run through every part of the game so far and the lack of severity found in the trilogy. I hate the cult aesthetic of the initiative. I hate how this feels like a fan game by people who thought they knew better than the original devs. I hate the modern aesthetic of the ui and the lack of sci-fi nostalgia that mass effect has had baked in since Mass Effect 1. I hate how they want everything to be cooler than ME1 but failed very fuckin' hard. Like how it is the Tempest instead of the Normandy, Ryder instead of Shepard, Drack instead of Wrex, PeeBee instead of Liara, and Liam in general. I get what they are trying to do. A lot of these things were made to purposefully create contrast with the original trilogy and I fucking hate it. That is what I mean by devs who think they know better. They fucking don't and they were wrong.
 
And there is a reason why Military Space Man works so well in Sci-Fi and Ryder is just so lacking when compared to Shepard, or Master Chief, or Marcus Fenix, or fuck I don't know. Ryder lacks the feeling of a hero. I don't care if the game is building up to that, what matters is that shitty pathfinder title is placed upon Ryder and it means nothing. There is a reason why Shepard was chosen to be the first human specter. Shepard was an excellent human being fit for the task. Ryder doesn't seem fit for anything. I get that is the point. That is part of the story of Ryder, but they aren't doing it right. The game demands Ryder be both as competent as Shepard yet put into a role he was never meant for and then does nothing to really show the struggles such a thing would create. Ryder is always good enough for the task when he shouldn't be. There is no reason Ryder should be able to complete this task he was given. He does not have a background of excellence that should make what he does possible. Ryder feels like he should end up like Garrus in ME2. Garrus was a great guy, and he can Lead, but he wasn't Shepard. Garrus could never pull off what Shepard did. Garrus gets his squad killed whereas Shepard suffers little to no losses. Ryder is a soft baby soy boy and doesn't deserve a Main Character spot.
 
Main Characters that have a background need to have something that makes the special that makes them fit to be the main character. In Dragon Age: Origins you have the origin and becoming a grey warden. In Mass Effect you have Shepard's history. In DA:I you have the green magic or whatever. Cloud is an Ex-SOLDIER. Chief is a Spartan. Link a born hero. And I guess you don't have to start out a hero to become one, but this game does a poor job of forcing Ryder into action. Here is what I mean by that. In Fallout 3 you are forced to leave the vault and survive. In fallout new vegas you want to track down Benny. In Fallout 4 you have to find your son. In Fable your family is killed. Now you might say that Ryder was forced into being a Pathfinder, but it really is just different. For starters, it feels like Ryder failed his way up the ladder. He wasn't put into his role by chance. His father decided it at the last minute for reasons that are currently a mystery. It was not forced on him the same way. It lacks that, I don't even know what to call it. I lack to ability to exactly describe what makes it different, but it is and I know it. I can feel it. It would be no different if Shepard died and suddenly Joker became the Main Character. You can even kinda get that feeling in ME2 if Shepard does die and Joker is talking to TIM in the ending. It just doesn't feel right and that is how it is with Ryder. Ryder just doesn't feel right.
 
It also doesn't help that I picked all the options that put Ryder on good terms with his dad. I now feel like the game wanted Ryder to be at odds with him but I was told that it was up to the player to decide Ryder's relationship with Alec. I thought that parent drama would be stupid and I am tired of the parent vs child shit. What is so bad about kids being on good terms with their parents? Maybe I am wrong, but I feel like there is a bunch of drama there that I should have played into because now I feel like Ryder has no history at all. I just thought being on good terms with your dad would be a nice thing to see. Like there was a prompt when talking about the now dead Alec where Ryder can say "I didn't know my Dad," or "He died a hero" but I wanted Ryder to have a nice loving relationship with his parents so I never picked options like the "I didn't know my dad" shit. And I can't be blamed for that. The game gave me the options to put them on good terms, but I feel like the devs really didn't want you picking those options. I just really hate the "fuck you dad" characters because they are almost always wrong to be so rebellious. 
 
Anyway, installed a bunch of mods that hopefully can make this game close to me3 for me. I really don't like doing this shit as it feels like cheating and I want to beat the game on its terms but I am pretty sure this game's terms are dogshit. Also, can't see Mass Effect ever going back to its old ways so ME4 will 100% be just as dogshit as well. 100% it carries over the garbage open world and crafting shit, the changes to character movement, the build-a-class system that removes the unique playstyles of actual classes, and the casual laid back we are all friends attitude. 
 
Fuck BioWare Montreal. 

[Bacon]

Also, jesus all this fucking bing bong speak. Holy shit. This isn't a fucking fantasy game. Speak American! They also fuck up the entire Salarian race with their new shitty voices like what the fuck were they thinking. Again, they thought they fucking knew better and they sure as fuck didn't. 

 

And Kumail Nanjiani? There is not a single more repulsive voice they could have picked. Fucking hate his voice and I don't think I would have gotten the game if I had known he was in it. 

[Bacon]

Another thing. 

 

Why the fuck can't I be mean? Listen, I dislike the paragon and renegade meters, but me3 fixed it completely. The only issue with what me3 did is that there is no middle option so you are always one way or the other to a degree - kinda not really - but there were plenty of times it felt advantageous or even the correction to be mean or a dick. There is a lot of reason to not take anyone's shit in ME, and this is included in ME:A but ME:A only lets you take shit. So many times are the "logical" and "emotional" simply different flavors of paragon. I was at least 40% renegade in all of my ME play-throughs. I never had to take anyone's shit in ME3, even if it meant killing was the only outcome of not taking their shit. 

[Bacon]

Thought a mod messed up a cutscene cuz Ryder said he and this other character talked about shit and I never saw that, but turns out it was just the game saying that happened instead if showing it. Anyway, so I looked up the "movie" of ME:A on YouTube and discovered that I am halfway over with the cutscenes. That is crazy to me. I didn't realize the game was that front heavy with CS. 

 

And speaking of telling instead of showing. It is infuriating how missions instantly trigger a changing in the world state. I don't mean when finishing up a planet and then returning to the nexus nor the footholds/vaults changing the world either. As an example, on Aya, once Jaal joins the party, the game acts like Ryder had been there long enough for all of these Angara to form opinions and know exactly what it going on. That never happened. I was on Aya for like 5 minutes and I did not sense a significant about of time passing. 

 

Also, the game again instantly had Jaal acting friendly with Ryder but then was a weird boy on the ship during the meeting. And these meeting are really weird in tone. Cuz pretty much everyone acts like "RYDER YOU CAN DO IIIIT!!!" until these post mission meetings where no one is taking Ryder seriously and is doubting him and it took Liam slamming the table to get people back in line. Like, what? That is totally at odds with everyone acting super friendly with Ryder when I have been talking to them post missions like Mass Effect has conditioned me to do. Like, you know, if the devs actually had the squad members act reluctant or distant towards this unworthy Pathfinder for a bit, until a few conversations and missions have passed, the tone wouldn't feel off. But no, the games insists on everyone being friends until suddenly it need the characters to doubt Ryder. Maybe put a hold on all this friendliness until at least the loyalty missions are done. 

[skillzdadirecta]

Just started ME3 again for the first time in years... the ME trilogy is arguably the best trilogy in gaming. Flaws and all.

[Bacon]

Wow I did all of Voeld in MEA because I thought I hadn't done that planet's main quest yet and it was only upon accidently doing every quest that I realized that I had done it a while ago but the quest was so bland and MMO-ish I hadn't even realized I did it. 

 

And like, this game as worse side quest than actual MMOs. And my actual MMOs I mean FFXIV, but still. This is also the first mass effect where I don't select the more "investigate" type options because they are totally useless, often make little sense, and it is just plain annoying to listen to anyone speak in this game. 

 

Edit: Turns out I didn't do the main story mission. After Jaal joined I was given the options of going to two different places but while Voeld was an option it didn't have a main mission there until I returned and talked to the Angara Resistance leader. 

[Bacon]

Beat ME:A. 

 

It is pretty shit. Ain't got much to say because I dislike pretty much all of it. Biggest flaw I say is dialogue. Hard for me to describe the issue but I say that is lacks consistency and cohesion. It feels very choppy in a totally different way than the trilogy. For all of its faults, ME 1-3 had very consistent conversations and Andromeda lacks that. Tone feels all over the place all the time. It often felt like I was picking wrong dialogue options. Like I didn't pick the options the Devs expected me to pick. 

 

But if I had to sum up exactly why MEA fails and why the Mass Effect trilogy didn't, well these videos should point out exactly why I don't like MEA and I never will.

 

I'm not even kidding when I encountered that bit in MEA I just didn't care anymore. Game was made wrong. 

 

The Mass Effect Trilogy asks what are you going to do about it, and then you show it. Mass Effect Andromeda tells you that you will do nothing about it and tells you to fuck off.