Thread 713464291

I used to fucking love this trilogy, have replayed it endless times.
Anymore I try to replay it and love 1 but can't stand 2 or 3. Starts to feel like I just liked 2 & 3 because I was lonely and it was a pseudo dating sim. But my tism keeps telling me to replay the whole trilogy and I end up installing, playing, getting to 2 and uninstalling.
Do you have any games your autism does this with? I think I like it, but then I play it and hate it.

>>713464291 (OP)
1 is the only good one. 2 chased trends to the detriment of the setting and 3 was complete garbage.

>>713464291 (OP)
1 is the only good one. 2 chased trends to the detriment of the game and 3 was complete garbage.

>>713464291 (OP)
why the fuck is michael jackson there?

>>713464291 (OP)
Impressive that this managed to make Ashley look worse than what Bioware did to her in ME3.

>>713464291 (OP)
I love Mass Effect and think its place as an overarching RPG with branching choices across three separate games makes its a unique experience and more than the sum of its parts.

But it's rare that I go back and play super long story-driven games in their entirety if I'm already satisfied with what I've found/chosen on my playthrough.

>>713464291 (OP)
Pretty understandable OP. The first Mass Effect is a complete game and very solid experience, the story is also completely wrapped up by the end, except for the final sequel bait line from Shepard. The second game is honestly torture to replay because the gameplay was casualized and the whole loyalty thing is extremely overrated and shallow, it just doesn’t hold up. The third was rushed with really bad missions, barely any dialogue options, and has that terrible ending so there’s no point in playing it either.

>>713464291 (OP)
I played this trilogy way late. Like 10 years after they came out. Loved the first game as much as KOTOR. So I was hyped to play the second one. And the game just went out of its way to scream "we're going in the opposite direction" with everything. I kept playing it expecting it would eventually return to the characters, tone and story of the first game. But it never did. ME2 was also basically just melodrama for the sake of melodrama.

The third game finally did get back to the things I liked in ME1. Sure, not everything was perfect. Knock off Raiden was stupid and Shepard chasing the boy around was dumb. But 90% of the game was what I wanted. And a lot of it is what ME2 should have been.

tl;dr I know how you feel OP. I recently tried to replay the ME games and also just quit halfway through 2.

>>713465474
>>713464291 (OP)
the only part of 3 you have to play is Citadel DLC.

>>713465584
I disagree. The tone and writing is way too cringe. It’s just cheap fanservice slop.

>>713465665
its expensive fanservice slop and thats the point.

>>713464291 (OP)
My latest trilogy replay I quit early in ME3. As soon as a giant fucking reaper stepped on me during the Tuchanka mission and I didn't even die, my immersion was immediately broken and I quit the game. Also I enjoyed ME2 a lot less than I used to. ME2 is a pretty sloppy game being masked by good presentation and music.

>>713464291 (OP)
I am going through this right now and I am restarting at 1

>>713465474
>The second game is honestly torture to replay because the gameplay was casualized
It's kino on insanity difficulty
https://youtu.be/JR7F_yPsMuw
https://youtu.be/0nPJ-SJ-ULY
https://youtu.be/d2LJn_nG_wY

>>713464291 (OP)
Andromeda is better that the trilogy anyway

>>713466101
Do you usually quit after finishing 1?

I just want to enjoy playing 1 and forget the rest of the trilogy exists, but its hard not to.
Then I want to play it, and then it sucks

Bro, that's not 'tism. That's basically just correct. Drew Karpyshyn's writing carries 1 super hard and 2 and 3 just don't hold up as well because Mac Walters starts to take over. You just started to notice it more as time went on.

>>713466108
>have to hug cover even more
>every enemy has shields making biotics even more nerfed
Nah.

>>713466419
By tism I meant my constant urge to replay it endlessly & thinking I like the whole series until I actually play 2/3 and hate them

>>713464291 (OP)
>>713464737
To be honest I only liked ME2 back in the day because I was still under the false hope that ME3 would end the trilogy in an amazing way. When that didn't happen, ME2 was instantly retroactively sullied and now I can't play either without bad feelings and memories surfacing.
I didn't play any ME for years after ME3 dropped. Eventually I got back into ME1 and that's the only one I can replay now and still have fun. I tried going back to 2 and 3 and just can't. Tali romance is not enough to salvage them either.

>>713466429
pissed me off doing insanity and finding out biotics are almost useless, but i guess they had to make up for the fact that in me1 they were broken

>>713466204
I start two, Play it a bit, think about 3, get discourage, about 18 months pass by and i think about how much I love mass effect 1/2. just installed 1 days ago, made a fem shemp (usually play as a self insert shepard i make (pic related) I think it looks great and it translates to the next game perfectly. I use the HD texture mod for both games. 1 I love, and have complete 100% multiple times. 2, I love the party members dialouge options, loyalty missions as a mechanic, deepened the party element. but it ends there Mass Effect 1 has better combat. a global cooldown sucks ass, no armor or weapon options sucks ass. Theres nothing appealing about 3.

>>713464291 (OP)
For me 2 is ok

i very nearly love ME2. Zaeed is the true bro that shitter garrus never could be. If you could delete Jacob it would be a very very solid game all around. I'd even tolerate Miranda.

>>713466981
Zaeed is a fucking retarded character
>founder of a mercenary group in an area of space that humans aren't even supposed to be in, the other co-founder is also a human lol lmao
ME2 makes no fucking sense.

>>713467098
anon they're pirates for hire

>>713466718
ME2 is the major reason ME3 is a mess. And 90% of what happens in ME2 is just forgotten, because it's pointless. ME2 should have been the first half of ME3. Preparing for the reapers, convincing everyone they're coming, then the Reapers appear. Then ME3 is fighting the Reapers and cleaning up the loose plot threads.

ME2 really set up the problems ME3 had. Both in plot and tone.

>>713464291 (OP)
I like playing 3 because it's fun to play. I wish trilogy bundled the multiplayer with it. 1 is the most fun in terms of RPG, 3 is the most fun to play.
2 is the genuinely annoying to play over time.

>>713467626
It's a shame because i really love the atmosphere and over all societal stuff 2 sets up. Illium, Omega, etc.
I will to this day continue to hope that there would be a cool spinoff game of a different genre set in the ME world. It's too good to ignore, but it's got the Halo problem.

>>713466429
>have to hug cover even more
Sentinel and Vanguard don't need cover even on Insanity. Infiltrator and Soldier also need very little cover once you get good with them.
>every enemy has shields making biotics even more nerfed
Admittedly true. Biotics got fucked hard in 2. Only Charge and Reave are any good imo

>>713464291 (OP)
Megan...

2 was the only good one

>>713468442
>2 was the only good one
1 had a good story, good music, and mediocre gameplay (unless you were playing a biotic)
2 had good combat, good music, good companions, and a shit story
3 had an awful story, good music, and fun multiplayer

>>713468730
I genuinely way preferred 1's combat to the rest of the trilogy. Especially 2. 2 is just sluggish and unfun

IS this the right thread to ask about mod recommendations?

I also used to love this trilogy. Looking back it's nowhere as good as I thought, but I still get a lot of enjoyment playing all 3.
Don't play it like an RPG, it's an action game. So turn the difficulty all the way up and give yourself challenges like going for the achievements or restricting to certain party members, or not doing any ungrades etc.
That being said, as ive evolved as a gamer I've become the type of person who skips all cuscenes and dialog, and honestly it's made me like games more.

>>713469257
>IS this the right thread to ask about mod recommendations?
Mass Effect really doesn't need any mods imo

>>713469574
ME trilogy is carried by the characters, music and overall presentation. Plus the illusion of choice I guess. The gameplay was always serviceable at best and the story was nothing special, but Bioware was good at creating enough likable characters and pretending their games were bigger than they actually were. Andromeda failed because the characters were mostly atrocious, story got even worse and the presentation was lackluster (not to mention the game was insanely buggy and felt unfinished even more than ME3). What was left was a mediocre shooter, which was quickly forgotten.

>>713470385
I would say that the gameplay in 1 is probably the worst, but 2 and 3 I wouldn't say are bad. 3 is actually pretty good with chaining combos together.
I never touched Andromeda because it was so ugly visually.
I haven't played much third person shooters, but I would say it's on par with like Uncharted.
It's definitely not trivial, when you play on the hardest difficulty you have to take in account where to put squad members, how to compensate for your own gaps on skills, and when to take a shot or who to target first.
When you add the characters and the setting, it's enough for sure to get through the whole game.
I guess all in all the sum of averages make it a good game in my book.

I think especially on v, there's been a sort of gamer cred to hating on this game because bioware has aged so poorly

>>713471451
ME3 definitely has the best gameplay for sure. ME2 had this retarded decision to implement global cooldown for all powers really fucking things up for Adepts and Engineers.

Reminder ME went to shit cause it was too ambitious for Bioware to make a trilogy on the idea that you choices matter. And also they planned it as a trilogy but had no idea how to properly end the story exactly like what happened with the Star Wars sequel trilogy.

>>713471907
That's true, I actually played as Adept the first time and it was tough. There are two pistols which you can get to compensate one is the machine gun in kasumi's mission which is available almost immediately and the other I can't remember maybe it's the one from the Mordin mission

>>713472134
I cannot believe that the trilogy was planned out from the beginning. 2 is so disjointed and 3 then rushes in to BS its way to an ending

It's pretty crazy that since mass effect and Witcher, no other game series has tried to do the whole, choices carrying into the next game, gimmick

>>713472270
it was never a good option for a studio since it means duplicating a ton of work for routes that few people will probably ever pick.

>>713472248
That's because it wasn't.

>>713472134
I think continuing the Reapers story line was a mistake because the conclusion turned out to be retarded in the end. Let them get stranded in the deep space and have ME2 be a brand new adventure instead. Maybe expand the squad a bit, but keep the old crew mates and focus on some new threat. Maybe even the Collectors and the Terminus System, but instead of delaying the Reapers start doing some Spectre glow nigger shit.

>>713472354
Yeah but isn't there value to the player? Or what about for the sake of art and storytelling?
There could also be value for the studio if they sold the different routes as their own games. I mean Pokémon games are duplicated without any difference and people buy that shit

>>713472967
>value to the player
>art and shit
thats how humans think not corporate studios, studios have to pay workers and stuff.
>DLC/expansions for different routes
would be a great idea and cheaper to scale up for sure. doubtful any of these games are well architected to handle that level of modularity.

>>713472270
Hardly any choices mattered in the end, in both series. It mostly boiled down to having an illusion of choice, but I think even that was enough to keep people engaged.

>>713472678
They could have salvaged it, I mean if they would have just retconned and did the whole indoctrinated theory people would have forgave them and they could have just made a mass effect 4.
They should have sat down after it was clear they would be making at least one sequel and wrote out a satisfying conclusion first and the worked backwards from that.
Honestly mass effect 3 could have been the same right until the end, and then just make it so the reapers are converting life into dark matter or something like that and it would have been OK. The real problem is the team in charge of making the last mission and the ending had their own ideas about the whole game and didn't consult with anyone else and it shows

>>713473182
I think theres definitely money in it now since it hasn't been done for a long time.
But even in mass effect it wasn't always the huge game altering choices that were fun to follow, it was fun seeing that green asari in mass effect 2 again, or Conrad Verner, or Kirahee. Those kinds of things don't require a lot of development time, they are just a cameo reward

>>713473516
I think this is the way to go, keep major story elements the same across the games, but focus on small choices.

>>713473275
Some of the choices did matter, like if you saved Kaiden or Ashley it directly affected your party in mass effect 3. Or like Tali you had to complete her mission in mass effect 2.a specific way in order to get both the geth and the Quarians in 3.
Plus the other changes help define your experience through various events and context which changes a lot depending on if you saved Morninth or killed the rachni the first time etc. I think most people who played it still took the time to see the differences and were engaged on a second playthrough even if you didn't get massive differences

>>713473925
most of that is a +/- bullshit number thing by ME3, that's not a consequence.

>>713474016
Yeah I didn't say that's what mattered, my point was that the choices weren't a wash because
1. There are real gameplay consequences like who is in your party in 3, and
2. It enhances the experience even when the scenes are roughly the same because you the player have different context. For example, if you saved Morninth you might feel different during the scene with Samara's other daughters, and you might feel like there's value in replaying it in a playthrough where you killed Morninth.

I guess it depends on how you define "choices mattering" some people struggle with intrinsic value.

>>713472379
https://www.xboxgazette.com/interview_mass_effect_en.php
>Xbox Gazette : Why did you choose to make a trilogy with Mass Effect? Will the same team at Bioware be in charge of all three episodes?
>Casey Hudson : So much of what we wanted to achieve with MASS EFFECT was about creating something truly definitive. We wanted to create a story that was as big as we could possibly make it, putting the player in the center of an adventure where their decisions shaped the entire galaxy. By thinking about what we would want to do with a trilogy, we're able to not only create an amazing first title, but we know where we want to take it in the future, so that you can take your character through three huge titles in the biggest science-fiction story we can tell.

>>713464291 (OP)
Ash looks better than Shep. Nice trailer, but this is so weird, must be due to squint.
Is there a similar high quality pic but with FemShep?

>>713464291 (OP)
2 was the best imo. I prefer a more "closed" and personal story than an epic one.

>>713476869
Pretty sure there's other interviews where he admits they didn't know if they'd ever get a second game. And once it was greenlit, they didn't know where to go with it, flying by the seat of their pants. Much like Star Wars.

Note, I'm not judging it. There have been many good things that came about under these circumstances. But it does kind of track with how ME2 and 3 turned out.

>>713476869
They were bullshitting dude. They had no fucking clue where to go after 1. And even if they did, EA stepped in and derailed everything anyway.