User blog comment:Diyartifact/Shepard's adversaries/@comment-4986377-20120404052031

Nice write up. One point to note between ME & ME2 is that the villian in ME (Saren) is defeated one way or another, while Harbinger is not defeated in ME2 (he is inconvienienced perhaps).

I felt that the story of ME3 was similar to ME2 in the sense of: Prepare for the final showdown by rallying help along the way. There's perhaps less need for a defined single antagonist in this sort of story. Another example to think about is the archdemon in Dragon Age: Origins, which has a similar story again. As a character the archdemon is barely notable, despite it being the one in charge of the enemy as well as the big final boss we defeat.

"Is there anyone who functions as an antagonist for the game? Kai Leng is seemingly cast in this role, but other than a brief cameo with the Illusive Man near the end of the Mars mission, he does not appear until fairly late in the game -- later than Harbinger, if the player has been doing all the side missions available before the Cerberus attack on the Citadel."

What appearence by Harbinger do you mean? I only recall the one at the end.