So I just finished the Mass Effect trilogy for the first time since the ME3 debacle, I can conclusively say that, now the dust has settled, I am still mad. According to steam I spent 103.8 hours getting to this point. Time I will never EVER get back. I actually feel guilty, like I have fucked something up by wasting so much of my free time on this shit.Mass Effect thread, I guess.
>>4126677... but why?
>>4126677Only 100hrs? Across 3 RPGs? Yeah, that's a rip off. I don't believe you. What did you do? Speedrun the main storyline only?
>>4126677Despite the botched ending Mass Effect is one of the greatest RPG series ever made. Did you really waste your time? Just admit you had fun faggot, you played it over 100 hours. If it wasn't fun you would have dropped it a long time ago.
>>4126677>addressing the genophage>ending the quarian diaspora crisis (which ends up being a microcosm of the plot because the devs ran out of ideas)>defeating the illusive manThe correct ending is that you realize the final illusion is bullshit. They are trying to indoctrinate Shepard.The only correct ending is picking red and destroying the reapers forever, let the galaxy find a new way to FTL.The worst ending is the green synthesis one, which means the supreme ascension of the enemy.It is counterintuitive, but although the devs refused to address if the indoctrination theory is correct, they do add a little cutscene that Shepard survives at the end if you pick the red TOTAL REAPER DEATH ending.The game is a litmus test, and the final sequence with the starchild is meant to test if you can be indoctrinated.tl;dr: villain realizes they can't beat you with force alone and try to indoctrinate you with words and flashy colors, you win by doing what Anderson begs you to do, which is shooting the damn thing until it diesI replayed the series too, recently. And the signs were all over the place that the only good ending is the red kill them all.
>>4126799The first game isn't that long, I imported my save across all three games so I was over levelled and the Legendary Edition adds overpowered weapons that I used to smash through combat in 2 and 3.>>4126844I was enjoying it until I got to the end of 3, the ending made me regret playing the first two games. Even at the end of the fan service DLC the characters took a tone of "well, funs over, time for the ending." which was new to me because I never played the ME3 dlc the first time around.
>>4126844>Mass Effect is one of the greatest RPG series ever made
>>4126885One of our famous 4chan contrarians enters the thread. Okay smart guy, what do you consider a great RPG series?
>>4126844Mass Effect is amazing, you just need to either exclude the last 10 minutes of the series, or realize it is all a final ruse and just destroy the reapers.
Aside from how 3 went the closer to the end you got, the entire tone between the end of 2 and the start of 3 was unreconcilable. Throughout 2 shepard was a 90's action hero. The game even ends with a staredown between him and Harbinger. Then 3 starts, he's getting trashed and immediately goes on a PTSD arc. The whole quarian/geth war was also a main story point for the synthetic/organic dichotomy within the main story. As soon as legion got in everything pointed towards the idea that if you can fix one you can fix the other. And then all of that got thrown away. It's apparent the writing teams never talked to each other and part of that is on EA for rushing it as hard as they did.
>>4126891nta but basically the universal answer is all the best classic isometric games with a handful of first-person titles like Deus Ex and New Vegas thrown inmy personal addition would be jagged alliance 2, but I know some people like to get autistic about Deus Ex and Jagged Alliance 2 included in rpgs, which when judged for their good parts they actually completely should be included in formass effect does not fit into that club, they aimed for the shark at ME2 and just jumped it in 3. I loved ME1, felt ME2 was a retarded console downgrade in all aspects and refused to even touch ME3 after seeing how shit it really was since I was rightfully wary after how ME2 turned out.When you look it in retrospect ME2 marks time time the "good bioware" died. It was already headed in a weird direction and everything they produced after it was shit, without a single shred of hyberbole. Literally unplayable garbage made for the masses to just consume without thought or feeling.
>>4126891>One of our famous 4chanWhy don't you return to whichever gay faggot website your newfag ass came from instead of perpetuating this bizarre megapopular AAA corporation video game worship?
>>4126854>The worst ending is the green synthesis one, which means the supreme ascension of the enemy.Nah, control is by far the worst. Literally every single time in the trilogy someone tries to control the Reapers or anything related to them, they end up getting fucked the worst. Especially if you believe that Shepard is already (partially) indoctrinated, control literally just means giving humanity over to the Reapers.At least in Synthesis you get to share the victory despite losing your humanity. Control just means postponing the genocide.I agree that the destroy ending is the only good one though.
>>4126844The only "good" Mass Effect one is the first, and even that's only considered good because it came out in a time when mainstream RPGs were basically dead.The second focuses more on character building (as much as people love the ME1 companions, they barely get any room to develop in ME1), but at the same time it shits all over the lore and the game's story is some weirdly cobbled together nonsense that can be almost entirely ignored without missing a thing in regards to the trilogy's overall story arc.The third doesn't just shit on the setting's lore, it outright kills it and then makes an unfunny quip about it. It also ruins the arc of multiple characters. ME3 feels like it was made by failed writers who wanted to turn the setting into a vehicle for their "deep" themes by ignoring or subverting everything the original set out to do.ME3's ending is bad, but it's just the shit cherry on top of the entire shit sundae. A better ending couldn't have saved ME3, because it's rotten at the core.
>>4127098>New VegasStopped reading here
>>4127577you can seethe about it all you like but it's obivous why NV gets on basically any list of the best rpgs ever made if you've ever actually played the genre. It does so many things exceptionally well.The only thing I've seen people even have against NV is that weird inorganic "tranny" meme that smells like astroturfing toddies and curry.
>>4127537I don’t get picking anything other than destroyIt is the only way to break the cycleAnd you just can’t beat the reapers unless you wipe the relays as the whole relay system is a trapping mechanism. If the goal is to enable the galaxy to grow past the stagnation of civilization imposed by reaper harvests, the relays must be destroyed.
I seriously don't care about Mass Effect as a "trilogy". ME1 isn't a very good game and I've never played 3.Mass Effect 2 is a great standalone game.
>>4127655I thought 3 was the best one
>>41276873 has the smoothest gunplay of the trilogy so I understand why people prefer it, though it's still very mid compared to actual shooters. In terms of story and characters, ME3 is incredibly bad.
>>4127860Nah, 3 had the best moments in the series. Grunt sending everyone away to charge into the reaper hordes. Legion sacrificing himself to end the Geth x Quarian conflict "Does this unit have a soul?" Mordin's sacrifice to end the genophage "Had to be me. Someone else might've gotten it wrong." Your love interest tearfully struggling to reach Shepard at the end as they're pulled to the evac. Sharing Anderson's last moments half-dead together before finally ending the Reapers permanently. And so on. They might've biffed the ending, but the game was great.
>>4127645>it's obivous why NV gets on basically any list of the best rpgs ever made if you've ever actually played the genre.It is likely that I have played RPGs longer than you have been alive.>It does so many things exceptionally well.It’s a Fallout 3 partial conversion mod made by Californian leftoids that is slightly less stupid than Fallout 3. That’s all. Secondaries latched onto it. Whether many of those secondaries trooned out or not (they did) is tangential.The only ground I am willing to cede is that Big Iron is a sweet song
>>4126677At some point I binged the entire series (having previously cleared ME2 and played some of 1) and never got too invested, so I didn't really care much about the ending. I mean, the series is over, who cares.Complaints about the writing being shit overall are more valid.
>>4127881>akshualy I'm oldthe way you talk about a single player game's "secondaries" or community makes it easy to see you're either a hiveminded zoomoid or some flavour of hiveminded asian, which in turn makes any takes you have on these topics worthless since the opinions aren't your ownsecondaries fukken lmaoThe way you talk betrays the fact you have never formed your own opinions. I bet you don't even realize what I mean.
>>4127878The best moment was grunt falling out of the hospital window.
>>4127878That's exactly the problem. The game is so obsessed with one-liners and thematic flourishes that it forgets to actually tell a decent story. Very little in the game makes sense or connects to the whole in a satisfying way, and it completely disregards or rewrites anything that's established in the previous games if it gets in the way of a "badass" moment.If you care more about a cool one-liner than an overaching story, you shouldn't be making (or playing) RPGs. Bioware desperately wants to make dumb action games with "badass" setpieces that look good in highlight reels, but you can't judge their games on that merit because the gameplay is too shit to pass for an actual action game.
>>4127881you've actually never played NV have you
>>4128481>you've actually never played NV have youPlayed it when it came out, I still remember rope kid shilling it.After the twin disappointments of FO3 and NV I dropped the series and moved on.
>>4128398I disagree. Mordin's sacrifice was preceded by a very fun run through Tuchanka. The gameplay was there, arguably ME3 had the strongest in the series. And the tension was high too. Plus, that was the scene where the Thresher Maw took down a Reaper, which again, another highwater mark for the series. But as far as the story goes, even that is heavily affected. ME3 had the difficulty of telling a dozen substories on a million contingencies. Was it Wrex or Wreav there? Was the genophage successfully cured or not? Is Mordin even alive? There has to be scenes for choices two games old all reflected here. And then the choices in the game too, like siding with the Salarians or the Krogan and how that gets affected by all those preceding stories.
>>4127878>3 had the best moments in the seriesProbably the best in the rpg genre. And you may not even get all the kino on a single playthrough.
I wish we could get some games in the Mass Effect world that weren't shackled to the gameplay and stupid ending of the original trilogy.
I like all three games, writing, endings and all, but I am not as good at kvetching like the rest of you, so that's probably the reason. I am partial towards the fourth ending, where you lose and Liara places the box deep underground. But out of the three "win" endings, that are all sort of similar, I usually pick control. It's the only option that solves anything.
>>4128398Mass Effect 2 basically is an action game, just with a skill tree and an interactive story. It also has better gameplay than most Gears clones. And, if my memory is correct, Gears of War 1.
>>4128869That's what they're going to try to do with ME5.They canonize destroy ending with a time jump a hundred+ years long and then only a few large choices remain when you import a game. What is the outcome of the ME1 citadel battle with the virmire survivor, Suicide mission and crew status from ME2 with arrival DLC, Genophage status, Quarian/Geth state, Rachni, and that's about it. Smaller stories can be wiped out with the excuse of time jump and convergence, or if we're generous we get 2-3 different lines in a dialogue that do a homage to your original choice.
waste of dubs desu
>>4126677maximum erect
>>4128537Mordin followed immediately by Kai Lame on the citadel was the most violent writing and direction quality whiplash I've ever experienced. That moment left a very bad taste in my mouth and was my first inkling that something was really up with the development beyond the superficial issues.
I've never played ME3 because /v/ told me in was beyond awful
>>4129286>I've never played ME3 because /v/ told me in was beyond awfulI’ve never played ME3 because I played ME1
Regarding Mass Effect 3. I never played it because of Dragon Age 2. That was the game that convinced me to stop buying EA games.Maybe some day I'll try 3, it costs nothing on xbox 360.
>>4129293>the game that convinced me to stop buying EA gamesFor me, it was Battlefield 5
>>4129296I was little early to the party, but I think the shift to live services in the 2010s got a lot of people who weren't interested in slop to stop buying games from EA and the like.
>>4129293It's a lot better than DA2. You get some cameltoe candy at least. Ending is rushed trash, and story does hoops even before that, but gameplay is solid.
>>4130364Weapons reworks was done really well and the overall combat. But one thing in gameplay i don't really like is how you can see presentation and effects becoming flashy.
>>4129293Combat is fun enough in it, and there are some good moments, even if story itself goes off the rails.
>>4127539Liberals tend to ruin everything over time with campy gay shit because their idea of hardship are warped quasi religious ideas about original and inherited sin, slavery feminism blah blah. As if one form of barbarism in history is unique to some inherited genetic racial difference in their view.Doesn't matter that white men actually ended slavery and emancipated women at great cost and lives, the liberal, who is deeply soaked in nihilism to the core of their pathetic being just wants to no longer exist, the actual facts of history are immaterial to them, success and nobility are things they cannot accept.And so it's always at the forefront of their mind because it excuses their own failings somehow if they climb up into the gallery in their minds, pick up a rock and throw it at some white guilt persona extension of themselves: aka ego death.Therefore any setting with laudable exploration, romance, sex, expressions of the male drive as it were is destroyed over time via a million uwus, pride parade, girlbossing and marvel quips but the first stages of that expression are their limp wristed bad writing because they lack all of the drive and self respect that makes life worth living.>Batman>Mass Effect>Dragon Age>Wow>Fable>StarfieldI could list media and titles all day, but we all know what the score is here.
>>4126911everything but the endingers need to be genocided
>>4131295>he says this as ME2 had copious shots of Miranda's ass and gave birth to the meme of shepard being a sex fiend.ME2 was the only good mass effect because they understood what gamers want. 90's action, sex, and bros being bros all wrapped up in an Expendables adjacent storyline. They eschewed the more esoteric scifi beats of the first and kept the core themes that mattered.
>>4131374There's also the fact that the ME3 people cheaped out and dropped the culminating plot points of ME2 that the reapers were all supposed to be effigies of reaped species and not just the one generic sovereign cuttlefish, and the keep/don't keep the collector base choice needed to be important. The people that say ME2 didn't do enough don't consider how it was betrayed.(the ending movie with the cuttlefish armada was slapped on just before the game went gold, with ME3 in mind)
>>4131374ME2 was so obviously True Biowares last good game as they were turning into Nu Bioware. I don't know why it's presented like it contradicts what I said when it is one of the examples that supports it. Next do ME3 and Andromeda but no one even talks about Andromeda here because they have liberal dev PSTD from it. Similar to Cisquisition.
>>4131381>the reapers were all supposed to be effigies of reaped speciesMY god that is so much better than where it actually went. That's on par with the OG Matrix movie for compelling sci fi theme.
>>4131381They were not supposed to be effigies of anything. The human embryo thing was a sideshow, not a modus operandi. It's just a fan theory of EDI's that that is how the Reapers reproduce. At the end of ME2 you see specifically fleets of Leviathan style reapers chilling out in dark space.
>>4132016Also something something eezo causing stars to die.They teased so many interesting directions in 2 just to go with the goddamn crucible and the star child. >>4132014Well that post was in response to a post saying ME1 was the only good one implying 2 was victim to all the things listed when 2 was the pinnacle of the series and stood in contrast to all of that.Andromeda was shit because it was shit, but also after what they pulled with 3, nothing presented in andromeda mattered so it may as well just not exist.I actually liked inquisition no matter how flawed it was, it was better than 2.
>>4132036it was just them cheaping out when they realized how many unique models they'd need for their ME3 idea. Read the parenthetical on the post you replied to before replying plz
>>4132448Eh they could honestly have gotten away with like 3 unique models for glory shots to communicate these were individual species. The rest they could fake with distant shots and kitbashing just to make it seem like the squids aren't the only ones.But yeah with EA pushing the timetable as they were there probably was no time even for just a couple unique models.
>>4126677Well, St. Peter will just give you his fixed version of Ass Effect 3 anyways
>>4126854Indoctrination Theory is a litmus test if of how retarded a fanbase can be to write a story on behalf of the writers to cope with shitty writing and general laziness. This is Conformity Gate before Stranger Things, ot those dumbfucks who defended the Last Jedi. You are writing a story for the writers. No, Shepard isn't indoctrinated. You can tell because the script leaks say otherwise. It's just shit. That's it. This is Bioware Defense Force cope for one of the earlier examples of Jerusalemslop writing.>"oHoHo I can't shoot the keepers. That means it's a dream!"I can't shoot anyone on the Citadel in ME1. Is everything after Eden Prime a hallucination? Actually, I can buy that. The beacon made Shepard retarded. The Turian Councilor os your su conscious telling you the Reapers don't exist because they don't and the entire trilogy after the first mission is in your head. Prove me wrong nigga. My theory has less holes in it than yours.
>>4132971Ass is great. Not sure why people insult it.
>>4126677>Entropy as well as Gates of HeavenDoes not compute.
>>4132448It really wasn't. You see the fleets of Leviathan style reapers in the same fucking game, long before there was even plans on doing a third game. You are allowed to pretend reddit fan speculations is reality, but that doesn't make it so.
>>4133774>you're writing a story for the writers>but you aren't because the script leaks say otherwiseIndoctrination theory is just a fanbase coming up with a better story than they were given.
virgin bioware haters:>NOOO DON'T YOU GET IT IT'S NOT REAL IT'S BAD STOP ENJOYING THINGSfan theory chads:>haha wow that's a great story
>>4135046The indoctrination theory is obviously correct because it’s way cooler and makes more sense.>t. played half of 1 and never played 2 or 3
>>4126677Looks like you finally got your revenge :)
>>4135138Hindsight being 20/20 and all you can really come up with a more compelling story than what we got.>sovreign fails, Harbinger activates the collectors contingency plan>collectors are thwarted, Reapers seemingly trapped in deep space, 3 never happens, skip to andromeda>During Andromeda the team uncovers even more ancient reaper bullshit and it only just turned on>figure out the reapers originated from Andromeda but were driven out eons ago>ME4 features the two galaxies teaming up to destroy the reapers once and for all.>the defining mechanic is being able to swap between protags.>Shepard bangs everyone.
Well the good news is we should receive some leaks of what they wanted to do with next game.It is likely that they were trying to push through bunch of woke shit like with other games, but this time EA doesn’t have money to lose and rewriting and restarting would cost even more so they pulled the plug.
It was a dead skinwalker company for a while now. Many of them are, really, because devs leave companies behind, and even if some devs make a another studio, it doesn't mean that they will make a game you will like again, pointless to get attached to them.
>>4126799Each ME can be 100% finished in around 40 hours.>t. finished whole trilogy 7 times
>>4126799>>4136524This. There's very few RPGs that can't be finished in less then 40 hours if you don't suck at games. Persona 5, Metaphor and Witcher 3 are the only ones that come to mind that take a long time to beat.
I started replaying ME3, and this game has a strong start. I also noted the way you're fighting waves of enemies on earth, until you run out of ammo, and only then is the rescue out of earth triggered. It's the "player gets to feel the narrative through gameplay" thing, what's the term for that? Neat stuff that's unique to video games.
Give it to me straight ladsIs it worth playing me1/2/3?>t. only played half of me1 then dropped itI’ll also want to be a human-supremacist space marine and kill all the aliens
>>4127645I will never understand the love NV gets. A painfully average and forgetable game that contrarians just love to prop up so they feel special. Its a fucking reddit game.
>>4139296Yes, dont listen to the people on here who are never satisfied with anything.
>>4139296>Is it worth playing me1/2/3?Finest writing and gameplay in the genre. Entertaining space opera with shooting and jedi powers, with best bros and hoes.
>>4139300Look at the intellectual acumen on display in that reply chain.
Does ME3 have time limits on quests? Are there quests I should prioritize?
>>4139331>Entertaining space opera with shooting and jedi powersI just fired up 1Why the FUCK is Carth on my ship?
I just did full betrayal on the Tuchanka mission. Masterfully written sequence of events, just perfect. No other game has had me this conflicted.I think this story works better with these imperfect choices. I'm glad I didn't have the paragon points for the option, in case that would have solved the issue less harshly.
>>4139395Yes. Finish every quest you can before missions labeled "Priority". The name is counter-intuitive, but Priority Missions are the main quests and they irrevocably change the state of the galaxy, so save them for last.
>>4139296>I’ll also want to be a human-supremacist space marine and kill all the aliensWill I be able to juggle this with paragon points as long as I am always polite, honest, and kind? Think a lawful good paladin who’s also like “terribly sorry sir but I’m afraid all fucking orcs must fucking hang” and so on
>>4139777A big part of being a "lawful good paladin" in these games is respecting the aliens and allying with them. Keep in mind the aliens in Mass Effect are far ahead of humanity in terms of economy, military and social organisation. You're a newcomer to an already well-established galactic society, not a bug exterminator. To them, you're the "orc", and they're not embarrassed to remind you of it.That said, there are some exceptional species that are shunned (with good reason) by the rest of the galaxy, and you're provided with plenty of chances to give them their just deserts when they chimp out. Balancing these moments with mostly paragon choices is completely fine.
>>4139604Thanks. I did the first batch of side missions first. Now though I feel like I have the minimum skill points I need to have fun, so I could just beeline for the ending.I also feel like trying out the adept class. Too bad there's no respec.
>>4139987>I also feel like trying out the adept classNevermind. I started a new game, but going from chad fighter shepard to girl mage shepard felt wrong. ME3 is one of the few RPGs where warriors feel good to play, so I'll celebrate that and go back to playing the soldier playthrough.
>>4139987>so I could just beeline for the endingThere are always more side missions after priority missions, and you should play them all. Otherwise, expect character deaths and suboptimal narrative results.
>>4126854>destroy reapers>need new way to FTLFreespace 1&2 did a much better job with this plot
>>4140368how? they closed off a couple of jump nodes to cut themselves off from the shivans but ftl was never affected on a global level.
Is the DLC for 3 necessary for the full experience? I was thinking of picking it up on 360 for a future play.Mass Effect 1's is whatever, but 2 has a few DLCs that really add to the experience and would be missed. I assume 3 is the same?
>>4140403Grab Citadel and From Ashes at least. Omega and Leviathan you can skip if you feel like it.
>>4140403You might be able to buy the DLC from the xbox store and then download them on your xbox 360. I might actually do that myself for some games and DLC I'm missing. Some aren't available anymore.
>>4140423You can, at least you could earlier this year. I replayed Mass Effect 1 and 2, noticed I was missing one DLC for 2, bought it and downloaded it. Not sure what people were talking about the 360 store being offline meant. Maybe 360 exclusive store content is gone.
>>4140425You can't buy directly on your xbox 360 anymore, only download items you have purchased previously. The "loophole" to access the store elsewhere and buy backwards compatible titles is something I just realized myself.
>>4140403Yes, they're all necessary. Don't listen to the guy who told you to skip Leviathan. Even if it's in a strange place narrative-wise, it's the best "detective story" produced for the entire trilogy. If you're fond of the strange and mysterious side-stories in ME 1 and 2, you'll love it. Especially as it sets a much different tone to most of ME 3.Omega, skippable, maybe... but it's still a nice piece of content. Plus, it feels weird letting Aria sit with her thumb up her ass in that nightclub for the entire game.
I have these games on Steam, original versions not legendary. How the hell do I get the DLC?
>>4136524>>4136604with a guide or previous playthrough knowledge maybeor you're both shitters playing on easier difficulties
>>4126677Sounds like a (You) issue if you liked 2 over 3.
>>41404033 has the best DLCs in the franchise, so yeah. Leviathan and Citadel specifically are certified kino.
>>4143302>webmGot a laugh out of me lol
>>4127878But anon, I was told my choices in 3 didn't matter even though several things you mentioned are a direct result of choices from the past culminating in drastically different conclusion to several narrative arcs. Did you know that Grunt's fakeout isn't even one? If you get him through ME2 alive, but not Loyal, he appears in 3 as Aralakh's commander but legit dies to the rachni?>>4128398>The game is so obsessed with one-liners and thematic flourishes that it forgets to actually tell a decent storyReplace "thematic flourishes" with "action spectacle" and you have Mass Effect 2. What decent story was told by Shepard dying and the Normandy blowing up only for neither of them to matter and be undone five minutes later? What decent story was done with the forcing of Cerberus as the writer's new donutsteel faction, or the giant human baby Reaper existing?>it completely disregards or rewrites anything that's established in the previous gameAlso apt for a certain sequel that came out in 2010...>If you care more about a cool one-liner than an overaching story, you shouldn't be making (or playing) RPGs1 and 3 remembered to have the Reapers be the immediate threat you're worried about1 and 3 remembered to have Shepard working for the Alliance and Council1 and 3 remembered to make being a Spectre actually relevant1 and 3 remembered to touch on the actual Protheans, and that the cipher was a thing1 and 3 remembered that squadmates should have a quality > approachYou cannot throw stones if your glass house is the textbook example of not giving a single fuck about the overaching story.
>go to r/masseffect>lgbt trans blm whatever flag in the board logo (femshep too)>type "woke" and hit search>0 results except criticizing chuds who say thisbioware was killed by their last game having top scars and trans pronoun storylines and no one will admit itcollective psychosis
