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Mass Effect General Thread: This is My Favorite Thread on Talking Time

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
If you don't do Kasumi's Hanar Diplomat mission before Citadel II (really, Priority: Tuchanka), it's unavailable. I think that's all VV is saying.
Yeah, exactly, I'm bummed I missed out on that mission as I didn't realize moving the plot forward would lock me out of it. I think the most infuriating part is that Bau still shows up on my map but I can't actually get to him.

Also from a quick bit of research since I didn't finish the mission she won't show up at the house party, bah!

Oh well. I'm starting Aria's Omega mission since I never had that DLC. Excited for a female turian. That was a part of Omega I thought was very cool, so glad to see at least one female turian in the original series.
 

Bongo

excused from moderation duty
(he/him)
Staff member
Ah, yeah, I see what you mean now. With the sole exception of "Tuchanka: Bomb" (which has a time limit), always save "Priority" missions for last, because they might make some sidequests and missions unavailable when cleared.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
so glad to see at least one female turian in the original series.

Correction: I forgot that a female turian hits on Garrus. Get out of here lady!

Anyway, got to the Citadel DLC, which continues to be my favorite DLC in any game of all time. There are nothing but amazing moments, but since this is my first time with Zaeed I got to see him cursing out a claw game.

Which is just as wonderful as you think.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Apparently Miracle of Sound rerecorded and cut a new video for ME3 in honor of the re-release


I deem it "An excellent jam"
 

Bongo

excused from moderation duty
(he/him)
Staff member
Well, the entire final mission of Mass Effect is non-stop stupid in almost every detail (some of which I had forgotten), but it's still a hell of a game.

I'm going to have to do the whole trilogy again for next time, though, which is a shame because 3 with NG+ works pretty well. This is because I entered ME3 with some unusual plot conditions out of curiosity to see what the deal was, and now my curiosity is satisfied. Legendary Edition improved ME1 enough that I don't consider this a hardship in the least.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Yeah, I can 100% recommend this remaster over all other versions, which is not something I can say about a number of remaster/re-releases.
 

Bongo

excused from moderation duty
(he/him)
Staff member
I wasn't expecting to start another new game of Mass Effect 1 again so soon, but here we are.

ME1 doesn't let you do NG+ with a different face, but if you've got at least one clear save file you start the game with the Assault Rifle skill tree unlocked. Assault rifles kind of seem crazy powerful in ME1, and in Legendary Edition they feel great to shoot. I turned up the difficulty, and it's such a novel sensation to actually like the gunplay in this game. 2 is a competent cover shooter and 3 is a really well-done one, but 1 always had the reputation where the combat is what you just put up with on the way to the fun stuff. But in this version, even though it lacks the depth of its sequels, it's got really nice thumbfeel.

I made a list of what all sidequests do or don't have any callbacks (however minor) in later games, but I might end up doing them all again anyway.
 
I've been playing through Legendary Edition with two concurrent characters so it's taken me some time to really dig back into ME3, but I'm finally there now and I forgot how much I just really enjoy how it feels to play. The fetch questing for citadel people isn't awesome but I always appreciated that they got rid of the resources and probe expenses. Given the bafflingly short dev cycle for the game which I wasn't aware of till more recently I also appreciate all the fuel laying around the galaxy a lot more, just to prevent having to go and buy fuel after every trip through a system.

But the gameplay though. I was never as keen on ME2 as most people always sounded and ME3 really improved a lot of things about the combat that kind of grated with me compared to ME1 like the almost absolute necessity of using cover. Even on the highest difficulty cover in ME3 is a lot closer to a strong suggestion than needing it for literally every firefight. Though to be fair there, I thought about my ME2 build a lot more than I did a decade ago and was just about able to walk through the second half of the Arrival mission which fully succeeded in making me feel like my Shepard was a huge badass this time around. You're able to make abilities recharge a hell of a lot faster in general, there are way more ability combos and they're a lot more fun to pull off, many existing abilities from prior to ME3 are tweaked to be a lot more interesting while the new ones are just way more fun compared to the introduction of Pull (opinion colored by playing Adept more than any other class). And while I don't necessarily like the Weight system limitations, just being able to wear the equipment I want when I want to again is a massive improvement to my enjoyment.

I really wish they brought the multiplayer mode forward too, I'd love to just make that my go-to game once I'm done with the story, and I don't really want to dust off my 360 and replace the copy I lost for it.

I'm glad that the official dev stance on the endings was "just headcanon what you want out of it" because there's a lot less imminent dread than I expected to feel as I get closer and closer to them. The more I think about it though, I might skip ME4 for purely narrative reasons if they don't bring the Geth back and allow the state of the universe to acknowledge if the bafflingly shitty/stupid Quarian admiralty was finally convinced to allow peace to happen. I'll probably always resent that each and every ending is at face value completely antithetical to all the narrative and character development around the Geth and EDI, and AI in general because two jackasses cut all the other writers out. Based on the teaser images from last year I'd need a pretty significant time lapse to compensate otherwise.
 

Mightyblue

aggro table, shmaggro table
(He/Him/His)
I mean, nothing's stopping them from setting it immediately after 3 and retconning as much as they want. They're going to have to at least a little regardless I think, because none of the endings really leave much space for an easy sequel in roughly the same time frame. It's why they shifted to Andromeda, whose death I suspect had a lot more to do with general dysfunction at Bioware at the time and EA wanting live service games to compete with Destiny and the like.
 
I mean, nothing's stopping them from setting it immediately after 3 and retconning as much as they want. They're going to have to at least a little regardless I think, because none of the endings really leave much space for an easy sequel in roughly the same time frame. It's why they shifted to Andromeda, whose death I suspect had a lot more to do with general dysfunction at Bioware at the time and EA wanting live service games to compete with Destiny and the like.
True. My hopes just aren't super high for that specific narrative thing. They're much higher that after Anthem's colossal failure EA might finally, FINALLY step the hell back and let the studio make a game the way they actually want to without forcing an absolutely inhumane deadline on it once development actually starts.
 

Bongo

excused from moderation duty
(he/him)
Staff member
I'm nearly finished with my second Legendary Edition playthrough. I've played more Mass Effect in 2021 than I ever did when these games were new. I even made sure going into this most recent one to come into the final game with a definitive world state that I could do repeated NG+ runs with to try out different classes, expensive weapons, or uncomfortable plot permutations like betraying Wrex. I feel like I could just keep going.

These games... are fun! I like the gun's, and the joke's.

These games have a very strong structure. Shepard is an extremely versatile character with a strong core, and their galaxy is a flexible pastiche with lots of little nooks, so not even the post-9/11 idolization of the military or the foreknowledge of an utter howler of a conclusion is enough to keep it from supporting episodes of all kinds. High-concept sci-fi riffs, Star Trek planets of the week, heists, crime dramas, war zones, tearful family reunions, sneaking missions - the only thing that feels out of place is that they closed themselves off, instead of implying that the adventures would continue.
 

Bongo

excused from moderation duty
(he/him)
Staff member
That being said, every time I notice some new way that the final mission is dumb and bad.
 

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
I've been playing through Andromeda recently, for the first time, and I'm enjoying it. I miss Shepard and some of the old crew, and I kept hoping I might see one or two of the old crew as an Easter Egg but nothing so far, but that doesn't mean the game is bad. It really is just more ME and that is what I've always wanted. Some of the new crewmates are duds (Liam) but Dreck, Cora, and Pebble are all great. As is the new alien race.

Has anyone else played this? What did you think? I'm glad I waited until all the kinks were ironed out though.
 

Patrick

Magic-User
(He/Him)
I loved Andromeda. The combat is great, the main quests are very well done, and I like most of the overarching story and characters. It does start to get tiresome if you try to finish too many of the radiant open world quests, and in some other parts the troubled development really shows. They did fix a lot after release though. If you approach it as its own thing instead of comparing it to your rose colored memories of ME2, it's a real fun time.

Old crew: there is at least one easter egg.
 
I think it's incredibly underrated. The story isn't as high drama, and the choices aren't as juicy. And since there will be no more in this plot line, they all dead in the water anyway...

But moment to moment game play is fabulous.
 

Sarge

hardcore retro gamin'
I bought a digital copy (basically just an empty case with a code) for like a dollar or two, and I plan on eventually playing through it. Might do it on the Steam Deck if I can get it to install right.
 
My PC copy of Andromeda around launch was... a bad experience. Half of that was because my PC is old and terrible so I gave it another shot recently after it finally, FINALLY went on sale for PS4 digital. I had a MUCH better time with it. It's still got some obvious issues but as a package it's certainly better on the whole than ME1. The sheer amount of chatter between any two characters while you're driving around in the not-Mako is ridiculous and does a lot of interesting character building if you listen to it. The squad members are mostly interesting and fun to be around and their only real weakness relative to the trilogy is that the writers tried to achieve the same character development highs in one game that the trilogy achieved over the course of three. It doesn't always work, but you can see the writers knew they were able to do a lot more in a single game than the trilogy writers were ever really allowed to do with EA's terrible deadlines. It's just a shame Bioware as a company was so abusive and segmented out at this point that the rest of the game wasn't up to that standard between the project communication problems and mental torture. That said exploring on foot feels a lot more fun with the ability to JUMP and was definitely better for it than Inquisition was, even if it's not utilized as well as Elden Ring which similarly comes from a series of games that previously didn't have it. Combat mobility itself definitely feels improved though a lot of the areas combat happens in feel under-designed.

I don't particularly think they made good changes WRT the power/crafting/combat systems. It's still perfectly fine but it's far more limiting than I think they realized. In particular guns and armor having definitive quality tiers is just terrible and is also part of the reason I don't like ME2's weapon system (it existed in ME1 also to a degree but it was less obvious with quite a few "lower" quality weapons still having something noteworthy that they did better than some "high" quality weapons). It even lies sometimes with some weapons being worse than the tier would indicate for no particular reason, and gets worse if you look at Multiplayer where many of those disappointing weapons got buffs that for some reason just don't apply to single-player, which sucks. On top of that is the crafting system where you're expected to get most of these guns, and unless you dedicate a LOT of time to exploring you're not gonna be able to play with many that are any better than default enemy drops. Only being able to use three of your powers at any given time without even an option to open the old power wheel to use others iiiiiis annoying at best. The only thing that sort of compensates for it is that Combo explosions are on paper easier enough to pull off and can scale up pretty ridiculously, only hindered by the other big combat problem. Squad AI is gonna spam their powers however they feel like. And you have to work around that, so if you played through the trilogy controlling that to some degree yourself it doesn't feel great. My only complaint about the writing is that I think Cora's backstory about her biotics is even dumber than the disparity between Jack's plot power and gameplay power in ME2. It feels like a bad retcon. Also the game engine Bioware switched to for this and DA Inquisition did neither of them any favors, especially with the menu tedium it created. I hope they've abandoned it.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
I had a bad time with it. I played at launch so the characters looked awful, some dialogue was weird and everything was buggy. I don't even remember how the upgrade system worked but remember being frustrated. I think at least one patch came out while I was still playing and helped but I dunno if even starting from that place would have worked out for me.

The glowy subterranean dungeons were just no fun, especially the dark platforming sequences and overall found the plot to be weird and I remember being frustrated with the decision points, maybe the options were never quite what I wanted them to be? I forget now.

Finally after being many hours in my save file glitched and wouldn't load anymore. I realized the only emotion I was feeling when I discovered my file was lost was relief that I wouldn't have to play anymore so that was that.
 

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
I do think the ancient all powerful alien trope is overused. It was overused in the original ME with the Prothean, I really do wish they had found some other hook to rehabilitating the golden worlds (which I just realized are probably a riff on Star Control II's Rainbow worlds) was something other than alien magic powers. One of Sci-fi's big things is Humanity solving problems through cooperation and ingenuity and I wish the creators would have tapped more into that (think KSR's Mars series) and less into von Daniken.
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
If there's two things I know about the universe, they're A) every galaxy has its own ancient all-powerful alien race that died, and B) it's not you. Yet.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
I do think the ancient all powerful alien trope is overused. It was overused in the original ME with the Prothean
I really, really liked how it evolved though. Turns out they didn't invent anything that was credited to them in ME1, and by ME3 you kind of realize they're just warlike assholes who might have made a good weapon. Also Javik is the best.

But agreed overall, and even if they did plan on doing a similar with Andromeda it's just like... why?
 

Patrick

Magic-User
(He/Him)
I don't think you can miss it entirely. I'll spoiler this just in case: there are a series of messages from a member of the old crew, sent before and during the trilogy.
 
Main antagonist of Andromeda is soooooo cute. Mixed on the cast, unfortunately, and I think the change from corridor shooter to open world or whatever makes the game less fun for me. Favorite character is the hostile AI…
 
I've started up the first game in Legendary Edition and I forgot how fun it is. Like yeah, I get that 2 is where it's at but 1 has a fuckton of incredible moments and the experience of just going to some planet and fucking around till you run across a Thresher Maw and find out is something 2 didn't have.

I think I'm going to have Femshep bone Liara instead of Kaidan this time. Kaidan is so goddamn boring.
 
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