Originally posted by Zack Fair
Mass Effect 3 was an epic ride. Only complaint was the stupid kid in dreams plot and the horrible, horrible ending.
It would've been more deep if Shepard's dream sequences had him go through a river styx like in MGS3 and meet everyone he/she killed throughout the games. The kid is lame.
It tries to play out as some great tragedy even though we've never been there before and don't really care THAT much. It tries to make you feel as though you failed even though the boss cheats with invincibility and makes you lose in a cutscene. It hammers in over and over "we win here and we win the war!" to make you feel bad when you're forced to lose. And other stuff.
Originally posted by NephthysI kind of agree, but IMHO it is not that bad.
It tries to play out as some great tragedy even though we've never been there before and don't really care THAT much. It tries to make you feel as though you failed even though the boss cheats with invincibility and makes you lose in a cutscene. It hammers in over and over "we win here and we win the war!" to make you feel bad when you're forced to lose. And other stuff.
Originally posted by Nephthys
It tries to play out as some great tragedy even though we've never been there before and don't really care THAT much. It tries to make you feel as though you failed even though the boss cheats with invincibility and makes you lose in a cutscene. It hammers in over and over "we win here and we win the war!" to make you feel bad when you're forced to lose. And other stuff.
Speak for yourself. I cared very much because of how important Thessia was to the Galaxy as a whole - as a symbol. It spoke to how dire the situation was for the Galaxy's crown jewel to fall and created a very hopeless tone.
Originally posted by BackFireYep. I loved the 'against the odds' feel ME3 had. Then again, I've always been a sucker for tragedies. Its why I've always loved Silent Hill so much, and why I've fallen in love with Game of Thrones more recently.
Speak for yourself. I cared very much because of how important Thessia was to the Galaxy as a whole - as a symbol. It spoke to how dire the situation was for the Galaxy's crown jewel to fall and created a very hopeless tone.
I just wish they'd gone with the Indoctrination Theory instead of all the...well crap we got. Like you pick your flavor of kool-aid, and then you get the ending sequence, etc, etc,...and then when you think it's all over. Shepard wakes up, and the game continues. And then you get a real ending, not some lazy bullsh*t.
I think it might have been interesting if we got back to Earth and Anderson was indoctrinated and had been feeding the Reapers the info you've been giving him since a certain point in the game. That would have been neat to go up against him as a boss and it would have allowed for some great foreshadowing throughout the game.
Actually...that would have worked great. He could have been exposed as far back as Soveriegn or anywhere in between and because of the distance from the Reapers, or as a contingency, it just took a while for him to 'activate', or they just waited till later. And Anderson would be the last person you expect.
Yeah, it would be a total shock. And don't forget that he's been on Earth, neck deep in Reapers the whole game. You'd expect him to be indoctrinated at that point. You keep hearing from him about how he's fighting the good fight and how they're struggling, but dammit they're struggling hard. So how effective would it be to get there and learn that they were overrun months ago, Anderson was captured and indoctrinated and you just walked right into the trap the Reapers set because you trusted him completely and told him everything about the plan.
That would have been a total WTF just happened moment and such a good twist that early career Shaymalan would have been proud. And also you became emotionally invested in Anderson as he was something of a father figure to Shepard, even if you were a Space and talked to his mom like those...2-3 times they allowed over the course of all 3 games.
The thought of potentially having to kill him to take a step forward in saving the galaxy would have made me put my controller down.
Originally posted by BackFire
Speak for yourself. I cared very much because of how important Thessia was to the Galaxy as a whole - as a symbol. It spoke to how dire the situation was for the Galaxy's crown jewel to fall and created a very hopeless tone.
That's why I loved ME3. The game needed to be epic and Bioware didn't disappoint. You can argue the ending wasn't as good as it could be but for 35 hours of that game, it was ****ing awesome.
Originally posted by Smasandian
I still enjoyed it. A lot actually. I don't get caught up by what designers say. Development isn't set in stone. Sometimes something doesn't work out and needs to be removed.As long as the game is good, that's all I really care about.
When I was a chef and was planning menus, there is a fair bit of times where I tell somebody I'm doing something. I test it out and it's shit so I do different things. Same thing can happen with games.
I guess the problem is that people say way too many things before the game gets released.
I honestly don't think that's a fair excuse. ME3's faults can't be put down to "we ran out of time", when it's obvious they made conscious decisions to change certain things.
Hudson flat out lied to us. I enjoyed the shit out of several levels in ME3. Some of them were, to use your own words, epic. The game just has failings too, and I think in the end they make the game suffer to an extent.
What could have been a masterpiece became instead just a very good game.
Originally posted by Based
But this has always been a BioWare complaint. Dialogue, okay first time they dropped the ball there but it's somewhat redeemable in the very end when you talk to your squad before the final battle. That gives me chills EVERY time.This wasn't an issue of appealing to "casuals." They were probably rushed because it's EA but BioWare truly doesn't believe in aspects of other RPGs.
They don't believe in exploration or big worlds. They don't believe in side quests because that will distract you from the one thing BioWare believes they invented: story. To them exploring, or doing other quests is no big deal compared to their "epic narratives!" Which were at times epic but they are definitely losing steam.
As technology progresses and they look to improve their games there should be a correlation with more open, unique and fresh worlds. We've had an inverse effect. ME1 at least attempted exploration then it got scrapped in ME2 and ME3 was an even bigger joke. You can't even go back to some planets...
DAO had a decent world but DA2...****ing horrendous. I'm so glad Skyrim kicked BioWare's ass and humbled them on their "winning" formula. Now they're forced to look at what they're doing and implement some of what made Skyrim good.
I ranted more than I intended but BioWare didn't suddenly just suck at making RPGs with ME3, they've gradually been doing it for awhile.
they did dumb the game down quite a bit, though. They did improve the gun customisation and selection from 2, which is great, but Mass Effect is first and foremost about the story and the characters.
ME2 was perfectly fine as regards side missions, and honestly, I consider ME2 to be a much better game than Skyrim.
That's just me though.