Mass Effect

[BlueMarsalis79]

I am playing ME3 now and loving it but Mac Walters' no Drew Karpyshyn, it's nowhere near as tightly written as ME2 and ME1 and clearly quite rushed, but features the best crafted gameplay and major events of the series- but that ending's the real honest kicker because no matter how much you change anything with modifications of any kind it will always feel unfulfilling because of the logical fallacy inherent in the premise of the choices presented to you.

But unlike a recently butchered ongoing fantasy phenomenon, Mass Effect still can continue on, and right the wrongs of the way things concluded previously, and in so many various ways.

Particularly a return to the more fleshed out roleplaying of the original Mass Effect I like the idea of immensely, with an older and wiser Shepard, that you can use the last Trilogy's events as the new background and physiological profile for.

And you can finish off the Reaper threat for real through the Leviathan narrative, or take a simpler premise onboard, or make it a space western in the vein of The Mandalorian- so many possibilities and opportunities frankly.

It's make or break for Bioware and must be as good as the originals if not surpass them. That's in the Singleplayer narrative chiefly. Oh and add the Multiplayer to the Legendary Edition for God's sake!

[Local Trouble]

Playing ME3 multiplayer enhanced the single-player experience for me.  It felt like I was seeing glimpses of the larger war as I fought in different theaters as a nobody.

[Kimarhi]

I think it is obvious that they are going to bring back shepard.


I also think it is obvious that they will include Andromeda in some form or fashion.  The glowing centers of each universe are like the system select on the galaxy world map.  You might not be able to travel to each of them, but I find it likely they will progress both storylines. 

I actually think that works the best.  You don't actually ignore Andromeda, and have it advance the plot of Shepard. 

[BlueMarsalis79]

How do you think they'll work around the ending then?

[Kimarhi]

Did they ever decide witch ME3 ending was canon?



Conveniently having the planet healing tech in Andromeda could play an easy out for Milky Way.

[Local Trouble]

As I was unable to endure even a single playthrough of Andromeda, I have no idea to what you're referring.

[Xeno Killer 2179]

As I was unable to endure even a single playthrough of Andromeda, I have no idea to what you're referring.

I think I'm going to be in the same boat. haha

[BlueMarsalis79]

Anyway it's got to be retconned for them to even begin making a story that people will find compelling no matter what ending you ultimately chose, each's a divergence so far from the other that it is impossible to account for each, I'm interested to see what will be done.

[Local Trouble]

Did they ever find the body of Shepard's clone?

If it's relatively intact, maybe Liara (and Miranda, if she survived) could revive Project Lazarus.  Then it may only be a matter of transferring the real Shepard's consciousness from either his/her original body in the red ending or from wherever it was uploaded to when his/her body disintegrated in the blue ending.

The green ending can go to hell.

[Kailem]

I am playing ME3 now and loving it but Mac Walters' no Drew Karpyshyn, it's nowhere near as tightly written as ME2 and ME1 and clearly quite rushed, but features the best crafted gameplay and major events of the series- but that ending's the real honest kicker because no matter how much you change anything with modifications of any kind it will always feel unfulfilling because of the logical fallacy inherent in the premise of the choices presented to you.

^^ All of this.

And yeah the teaser for the next game implied the "destroy" ending is going to be used as canon (it's the only one that leaves Reaper corpses laying around that we see Liara climbing on), which is about the best thing they can do aside from giving us a better one. It's the closest thing to a choice that some Shepards might actually pick, it destroys the Reapers which has always been the main goal from the get-go, and it's the only ending where Shepard actually survives.

It's also generally considered the fan favourite ending (despite "synthesis" being positioned as the "best") for all those reasons, so if they're going to pick one to make canon that's the one it should be (yeah it sucks it probably means the Geth are wiped out, but they could easily retcon that anyway).

[Local Trouble]

Wasn't Synthesis actually the outcome that the Reapers desired?

[Kailem]

Essentially. And Saren. Yet another reason why it's bad.

[BlueMarsalis79]

I also fundamentally say "f**k you" to the idea that life's fundamentally broken and a change must be forced upon it without anyone's consent, from the mind of the Reapers, who we have already proven to that organics and synthetics can co-exist.

But it ignores that completely because if it acknowledged that fact it must acknowledge that their own solution must have always made no sense.

Because it is egotistical.

And ignores the fact that organic life's just as capable of destroying itself irrevocably as anything.

It cites that synthetics will always turn against organics and uses their own enforced existence as proof of this eventuality, but in prior cycles it destroyed the already beneficially symbiotic Zha and Zha'til that most resembles Synthesis but a consentual one between organic and synthetic beings, that the Reapers then exploited to turn them into the most horrifying of servants so much so that the Protheans intentionally had to make their star go supernova to wipe them out.

In fact as we also know, the Quarians turn on the Geth, not the other way around so, the only recorded instance of synthetics turning on their organics actually ends up being the Catalyst turning on the Leviathans.

If you go by the history, either due to the Reapers themselves or the Leviathans' presence, Synthesis' got the potential to doom the milky way with no chance of recourse.

Control can lead to the whole thing repeating itself over.

Only Destroy and even Refusal will guarantee a future without the Catalyst's broken logic ruling over life in this galaxy.

[Kailem]

Yup. And the fact that you can't even mention that you've (or at least can, depending on your playthrough) brought peace to the Geth and Quarians, thus proving the argument that "synthetics and organics cannot live in peace" is fundamentally untrue, is yet another example of why the ending of ME3 is just bad on multiple fronts.

There are literally fleets of synthetics who have joined forces with organics to fight against the Reapers as you're talking to the star child right there and then, and you can't even bring it up.

And yeah, just the whole idea of "synthesis" fundamentally flies in the face of one of the biggest themes of the series to me. You have three games where you see that despite all the differences between the various races of the galaxy, you're all stronger together, united. That diversity is a good thing. Your differences make you unique. Even Cerberus, the pro-human supremacists, have to admit that in ME2 with half the members of the team they tell you to assemble.

In every game it's a multi-species team that ends up saving the day, and in the end, the galaxy. And then synthesis comes along and makes everyone the same. It'd be like having a movie about people of different racial backgrounds struggling to get along, and then the "happy ending" is that everyone gets turned into a white guy.

The whole thing is just so busted on so many levels that one of the reasons I'm both hopeful and surprised they're actually making some sort of follow-up is that it can't help but retcon some of this mess away (I mean there's no way in hell synthesis is going to be made canon; talking to people with green Matrix code running down their bodies for an entire game would get real old real fast).

[BlueMarsalis79]

Agreed must be a straight up Mass Effect 4 or it is done for.