I suddenly find out that there is a "secret" mission at the Arena in ME3? I thought I had played so many times in my previous campaign, but apparently not enough to get Unusual Scores. Died a couple times already on the last wave (I love being an Adept, but I'll be damned if shields aren't my greatest weakness), but the first time around was scary as hell. Even recorded my first attempt.
Just wanted to share, because for all it's flaws, ME3 alone never fails to impress me.
I pulled a TL:DR especially because some of those signal a lack of attention on your part or simply lack of curiosity by not reading the codex, so to correct some that I did read:
- Saren is a Spectre, the right hand of the council. In my country we have an expression that translates best to "drying ice", which in this case means the Council/C-Sec only sent Garrus to investigate as a mean of placating the public.
- Technology advances, evolves. So Thermal Clips are not the wildest invention. ME2 (and 3) also saw the invention of countermeasures to omni-gel as means to break into doors and locked containers.
- Joker is not and never was a cripple.
(Perhaps the most blatant ones in the "lack of attention" department)
- Of course the Reaper ship (Derelict Reaper) has Cerberus insignias and a decontamination chamber. There was ACTIVE INVESTIGATION going on by Cerberus before Shepard arrived to find the entire survey team dead/turned into husks and abominations. Why would Cerberus not create it's own improvised instalations?
- Kasumi was not let in because HOCK KNEW WHO SHE WAS, and he says so at the vault later.
- Sovereign was defeated by a "bunch of ships" (it was an entire Alliance fleet, but I suppose you do not pay attention to details either) because it essentially shifted it's attention from it's own body to Saren. So when Ultron Saren is killed by Shepard, Sovereign has it's own barriers and countermeasures destabilized and shut down, and EVEN THEN it took the full power of Hackett's entire fleet to bring it down.
I usually do not judge people for their attention span, but yours is concerning.
Little bit late...
But, the neutral choice in ME1 about what order to give the fleet regarding Sovereign and the Destiny Ascension. If you tell the fleet to focus on Sovereign (the neutral option), you'll be constantly accused of sacrificing the Council for your and/or humanity's own gain. What annoys me further is that Shepard him/herself says something like "I've sacrificed something-thousand of lives aboard the Destiny Ascension" when intimidating the Spectre that tried to kill Liara during Lair of the Shadow Broker", as if the player chose to sacrifice the Council.
^Your take is very similar to mine, which makes the same missions feel handfisted into ME:A even more.
Literally all they did was bloat the already bloated game.
Great, they'll make an "original" story. Because that worked out great for every other show based on a game franchise, which for some reason are almost always made by people that have never played the game(s), hate video games and the people that play them. Often times all of the above.
I'll likely never see a reason to celebrate N7 day until gaming itself heals from it's problems, not just Mass Effect.
...to try my hand at Insanity (for the first time) with a completely new Shep? That means no game cleared bonuses across all games, no bonus powers across all games and, above all, no kept gear across all games. After finding out that power combos do work in ME3 against protected enemies (shields and/or armor), which was my biggest concern since combat in ME3 feels way more polished and intense than in ME1 and 2 combined, so I think it may be feasible...?
To increase the challenge further, I'm thinking about playing with a class I've never played. Literally every single one of my Sheps so far were Adepts, with only one Vanguard that I played during ME1 and 2, ended up not liking the class and switched to Adept in ME3 again. And yes, I know Vanguard (like every other class) becomes nutty and unique in ME3, but it simply does not match my tastes in an RPG like Mass Effect overall. All in all, I'm asking because ME is the only game I feel in love with enough to try it's hardest challenge in current day, above all the other dogshit in the gaming industry.
It says "Warp on the unstable biotic field caused by the Singularity" so what I understand is that the students' Singularity can somehow cause the effects of the Warp we (the player) and squadmates (Miranda, Liara, etc.) use at the same time, because Warp followed by another power like Throw does detonate on enemies in ME3, even with armor or shields.
^Yeah, I usually call him Solus instead of Mordin. Dunno why.
Also tbh he had a point, ME3 literally said that my femShep stayed maidenless in BOTH ME1 and 2. She's my purest Shep so far, like she took a vow of celibacy XD
I mean, if anything, it all helped Shep butter them up into joining the war effort. Think of it like this: Shep comes in, starts slaughtering every merc in sight everytime the crew runs into them (regardless of the outfit, mercs in general), and it leads them to not fuck with Shep regardless of Aria.
Screw him for stylishly calling my first femShep bitchless because she's going for Chambers XD
It can't get any worse, dunno what people are on about. Real gamers win no matter how this goes down
I'm on PS5, latest version of everything if ME: Legendary Edition even had updates to begin with. Like I said it wasn't a big loss, only thing I needed to spend credits on was fuel (because it was also reduced to 0, a massive heist on my resources all around). 1k for a full tank, no big deal.
I don't know what exactly caused this bug during the mission, other than dying right before Cortez gets airborne again and gives covering fire to the crew using the Kodiak. Perhaps a cautionary tale to be added to the wiki? I'll leave it up to those more curious than me, I've had a much crazier bug before.
Died once during that mission, 100% my fault because I got too cocky, overestimated my biotic combos and forgot that the Tempest doesn't have the biggest damage which lead to an absolute killbox involving a Brute head on. When I come back I notice that my grenades and medi-gel were reduced to 0 for some reason.
Brushed it off as a minor bug, finished the mission, and when I come back to the Normandy ALL MY MONEY IS GONE. I literally only have 6k which I THINK it is the sum of what I collected in-mission. It is my goddamn luck that I don't actually need to buy anything because the only thing I have left is Citadel DLC before ending the game, which means getting the Arena and all the money I could possibly want.
Still, "funny" bug...
Given how Veilguard panned out, why are people assuming that Mass Effect 4/5/Whatever The Fuck will regard ANYTHING from it's past entries? It doesn't matter what ME's canon timeline even for each individual player, Bioware didn't give a fuck about it in DA:V and they/them sure as fuck will do the same in ME.
How is a game from 2017 doing worse in the facial animations department (one of the biggest priorities in an RPG, dialogue-heavy game) than a game MORE THAN 10 YEARS OLDER?
I'm currently slaving away at Mass Effect: Andromeda and just a few days ago I realized that I started a new playthrough of the triology then forgot about it for almost 2 months, right before I started at my new job with 12 hour shifts on a 3x3 work schedule. Literally my last save was inside Udina's office right after the first meeting before heading to Citadel Tower. Got back to playing ME1 proper and realized that a game from 2007 has better facial animations than Andromeda. How? Just... FUCKING HOW?
I remember when I first started playing Mass Effect in general, I was put off by the facial animations and had to constantly remind myself of it's release date. It's simple beautiful irony that in ME1 I was constantly second guessing my romance with Liara due to her almost robotic expressions, and now in ME:A I'm constantly second guessing my romance with ANYONE. So far I narrowed it down to Vetra and Cora for different reasons, and none too deep because my opinions on ME:A's characters aren't the highest (literally most of then are like a low budget version of a character from the triology), and I've been flirting with both often enough to 'cause dialogue between the two refering to it (something I have NEVER done in any RPG game, let alone Mass Effect) but I still feel like... holy shit those faces... Cora herself oftentimes looks like an actual psychopath.
In a normal situation I'd say this is the least of concerns in the game, given MANY others which I'll save for after the game ends and I finish any DLC there may or may not be (I heard tales of some Citadel-focused DLC in ME:A that is filled to the brim with fanservice for triology fans, but no mention of it in-game). However, again, this is an RPG dialogue-heavy game which means constant focus on those Patrick Bateman-looking mfs while they try to look remotely alive and feeling.
Is it normal to feel absolutely frustrated after beating ME3? For context, I just finished my second playthrough of the triology as a full paragon Shep and got the "perfect" Destroy ending, after screwing up a lot in my first playthrough (playing a "mixed" Shep). Lost Tali and Solus in ME2, only got up to 7150 in War Assets due to losing the Quarians in ME3 and ended up dying at the end so my second playthrough was arguably much better (got over 8000 in War Assets, 8197 if I'm not mistaken. Also had everyone alive and kicking, even minor side characters like Balak).
So about the ending... it's just... ugh. I don't even have a way to describe it, but I guess my biggest frustration with ME3 is the fact that Shepard dies (or almost dies, regarding "perfect" Destroy) without interference of the player. There's is not a cheaper way of ending a story, let alone solving the ultimate challenge of that story. I'm very familiar with what went down back when ME3 released and all the backlash, and knowing all of this just makes me feel like BW came up with everything on the fly. Suddenly the Reapers are commanded by an AI instead of Harbinger (or governed by a wicked consensus, as in not as "harmonious" as the Geth consensus), suddenly we get to meet the creator(s) of the Reapers (seriously, why isn't Leviathan an end-of-game major lore mission?) and SUDDENLY the Reapers start their invasion which is my biggest problem. Sure, they made the long journey out of Dark Space and into the Milky Way, okay... BUT HOW? At least explain THAT to me.
*Sigh* and the fact that we'll never get an actual, proper ending to Shepard's story makes everything that much worse, especially with that short scene which supposed proves his/her survival after destroying the Reapers. No, I don't count on the so-called Mass Effect 5 actually releasing and with the state Bioware is in... yeah, I don't want THEM releasing it anyway.
I have been building an idea that kind of puts Javik at the center of Shepard's "second revival" of sorts. Essentially involving whatever beacons are still intact (and other knowledge-transmiting artifacts we may not know about), what knowledge they hold and if it helps them replicate Project Lazarus but with Prothean implants (if they had any) replacing Shepard's fried Reaper ones (in the "perfect" Destroy ending, that is). So yeah, he has many ways of kind of becoming a noble scientist.
With Bioware having chosen to walk a path of ruin, and the majority of players praying that the studio pounds sand before it can ruin Mass Effect as it did Dragon Age, my idea may end up in a fanfiction and nothing more.
I like Traynor's quirky personality but I'm divided between her and Gabby.
Kelly is ok, I think. Never romanced her (I might, soon) or developed too much of a relationship at all.
Lol dude just cried sexism for no reason
^^I thought of him as more of a Judas? If you treat the Council as either the highest power (God) or a different form of trinity, that is. Yeah, Cyborg Judas is a very metal idea.
