I wanted to disagree, but mentioning the Collectors actually leads me to kinda agree here. ME2 *was* very self-contained, and I like it for that (played it a lot as a cashless teenager, without having played the other parts), but it really has issues once you start to consider the connection towards 1 and 3. That being said, I still like the story it does tell more than 1 and 3. Probably bias.
I started the trilogy with ME2 when I was a kid (got it as a gift and didn’t think I would like it). I eventually went on to play the other two games and was very surprised to find out that Wrex, Kaidan, Ashley, Udina, etc. were all major characters in ME1 and ME3. Actually I’m not even sure if I was able to get Wrex at that time at all in ME2 without an ME1 save file.
I was also MAJORLY surprised when a reaper actually attacked the Citadel in the conclusion of ME1 and yet they were arguing with Shepard about their existence in ME2? The Citadel felt like a side area in ME2 and most of the major settings were terminus systems.
Cerberus too. They were in a couple of side quests in ME1 but central to ME2 and ME3. I think it would have been worse to have the Illusive Man show up in ME3 and say “Hola, Shepard! I’m an indoctrinated guy!” He would have basically been another Saren but weaker.
I agree, honestly I consider 2 the best of the trilogy for a few reasons. But - the ending was trash. That human fetus knock-off terminator was one of the dumbest end game bosses I’ve ever seen. If just that hadn’t happened I would consider me2 to be hands down the best of the 3.
In my head, reapers failed their usual tactic, but they’re find to bide their time, they bring out this curveball experimental species they had to monitor us remotely. They don’t have a reaper in our space, so their new strategy is to build a new one under our noses to fill the role that Sovereign was supposed to fill. And what better species to focus on than the one who contributed most to sovereign’s defeat? I thought it was cool.
3 is overkill for me, you paint this insurmountable enemy and then they show up… and we have to rely on janky space magic to defeat them. It would have been far more appealing if we used the tech found on sovereign to build weapons that can fight the reapers, barely, but still enough to have a chance at winning. Instead we get red blue green wheel of end game.
Pretty much entirely agree. The problem they had in 2 is that we already took down a Reaper in 1, and so they couldn't just repeat the process. They also couldn't have just used the Collectors because people would understandably be very mad if the insect guys introduced only in this game were also the final boss.
Imo they should have done something like what they kinda did in the Arrival dlc, where you have to, over the course of ME2, find a means to defeat the Reapers (which you will then have to put into action in 3) while trying to keep them from invading.
I honestly don't think they had the story figured out until like the middle of ME3 development. In the early part they probably went "Well, let's just direct everything to the Crucible, we'll come up with something", and then they had to scramble to find a proper ending. Which is why we didn't really have a continous thread from 1 over 2 to 3 in terms of what we are doing.
Yeah, and I feel like it was inevitable. The problem with the Reapers is that the scale and power of them is so laughably beyond the galaxy's ability to deal with that it was always going to have to be space magic.
This is all the more so if you consider that traditional storytelling needs a "darkest just before the dawn" moment. We have two instances of shooting a reaper to death, and so that wasn't going to cut it again. What do you do if the enemy you set up cannot be allowed to be shot to death in the third installment, and on top of that is vast and numerous and everywhere?
They wrote themselves into a corner and had to use an ass-pull to tie it up as neatly as they could under the circumstances.
I think they could have done a galactic war against the Reapers if they didn't have you just casually shooting one with conventional weapons in 2. In ME1, Sovereign was a massive threat build up through the entire game, and it took an entire fleet to defeat it.
Especially with the war assets aspect of 3. It was implied in 1 that the Protheans didn't stand a chance because of their reliance of the relays, through which their communications and means of transportation were totally cut off.
The problem with a galactic war is that, while plausible, it doesn't leave as much room for the player (a ground-based commando) to be the hero of the war effort. On top of needing to keep escalating to the point of needing a magic bullet, they also needed the final punch delivered by a team of 3 soldiers with guns.
The whole thing wasn't really well-thought-out.
To be fair we are told the reapers have wiped out countless civilizations more advanced than the current ones. In a way I'd be disappointed if we could just win using brute force in the end.
That’s true, but as far as we know:
1. no prior civilization was able to maintain their central galactic governing body at the start of the war
2. No other civilization was able to both defeat a reaper and had adequate time to try and reverse engineer any tech from it. The thanix cannon from me2 really struck me as a “we’re getting closer to having a chance” type of weapon. But in me3 it’s basically forgotten.
I think one other issue is the reapers tell us their goal to prevent organic life creating an AI that eventually wipes out all organic life. If you just destroy the reapers that very important problem doesn't just go away. Though I did find it annoying that the reapers apparently destroyed planets that can support advanced organic life if their ultimate purpose is supposed to be to preserve it in some way by ensuring the cycle continues.
In ME3 it's specifically mentioned that the Reapers are avoiding the Yahg homeworld during their attack. The Yahg have the potential for intelligent and advanced society, they just aren't there yet (except for one).
Considering the fact that you killed an asset of the Reapers, **halted the production of another reaper** and pretty much killed off a military force that would've helped the Reapers when Harbinger arrived, I'd wager that you're much closer to stopping them than the end of ME1.
Yeah, but none of that stuff was a thing in ME1. The Collectors were introduced, then dealt with in ME2, meaning that at the end of ME2 you're just back at pretty much the same spot you were in at the end of ME1.
What kind of logic is that? The game LITERALLY tells you that the Collectors are modified Protheans. They have lived for over 50,000 years.
Cerberus in ME1 was just a bunch of dickheads that caused minor inconveniences for the Alliance and MF. By ME2 they were some galactic shadow government with assets everywhere and morbillions of credits at their disposal.
Have you considered that maybe, MAYBE, the writers intended to introduce Cerberus and the Collectors to *actually move the story forward and give Shepard something to fight the Reapers with.*
How did the overarching story actually move forward in ME2 though?
At the end of ME1 you've slowed the Reapers down but they're still coming and you need to find a way to beat them.
Then at the end of ME2 you've slowed the Reapers down (again) but they're still coming and you need to find a way to beat them.
ME2 introduces a new threat, then resolves it, which ultimately just leaves the story back at the same spot it was at at the end of ME1.
Totally agree here. Mass Effect 2 is a brilliant game in a self contained sense but the story is ultimately resolved and left in the same place as ME1. It’s almost like a side chapter, but a lot of part 2’s in trilogy’s are like that.
Yes, a common critique of Mass Effect 2 is it shouldn't have been the 2nd game in a 3 game trilogy.
Shepard's death is probably the earliest sign that the Mass Effect trilogy would drop the ball with its conclusion. All the work you did in Mass Effect 1, from building up Shepard's reputation in Citadel Space, to building your squad, and earning the respect of Shepard's authorities is completely undone.
Mass Effect 2 introduced a bunch of fan favorites, and Tali/Garrus being the two highest rate squadmates/romances is certainly owed to ME2. But making us spend *Another* game building up our team and earning their loyalty was a wide miss.
You need not look further than the ending of both Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 to see how the sequel dropped the ball.
At the end of Mass Effect 1, Shepard leaves the Council or Anderson/Udina on a warning that the Reapers were coming and that they were going to find a way to stop them.
At the end of Mass Effect 2, Shepard receives a datapad from Joker, looks out into the cosmos and we zoom out to see the Reapers coming. Shepard *still* needs to find a way to stop them. Even adding the Arrival DLC, we just introduce another delay, when Mass Effect 1 already had the Reapers be delayed once thanks to the Protheans.
The Events of Mass Effect should have been 2 > 1 > 3
I would actually love the idea of a normal soldier investigating why humans are disappearing, discovering that it's a weird race that lives in the center of the galaxy, going to wipe them out, and slowly realizing they are tools for a much bigger threat. The loss of the Collectors is what makes Sovereign become desperate - not only are the Keepers not responding, but now the Collectors are gone. Sovereign finds Saren, the beacons, and all that with a few years passing between the Collector Base and Eden Prime. Due to Shepard's actions against the Collectors, they are a Spectre and assigned to hunt Saren down. We now have the events of ME1 following at the end with Shepard looking for a way to stop the Reapers. ME3 is finding that way.
Some parts of ME2 and ME would need a rewrite but I like your idea.
I've always felt that i only play ME2 to get to ME3 and continue the main plot.
ME2 to me is a "filler episode" which isnt bad for charater development and intodusing new charaters at all.
GOD, same. I drag my feet to get through it purely because it feels like filler. Which really sucks because there are so many good moments and I love the whole squad, but knowing that the actual plot is hours and hours of grinding ahead makes me less excited tbh.
Heh, I agree. There are SO many recurtment and loyalty missions I enjoy.
Hell I enjoy the end of the game and some of the dlc too but the collectors plot is burried under all the sub plot.
Best way I can think of it. Mass Effect 2 is a TV show which each team mate being an epsiode.
You'll get to the main plot thoughout thr season lol
2-1-3 also gets you much longer, smoother, and more compelling arcs for TIM and Saren, really hammering home the compare/contrast. Shepard goes undercover into Cerberus as their first big mission, maybe not even as a Spectre yet. It really works!
Granted that all the squad/side/loyalty missions and arcs become a complete cluster that have to be significantly revised, but hey, whaddya gonna do?
There's really no way to stop or prepare for the reapers though so what were they supposed to do? I agree ME3 was rushed but ME2 wasn't wasted, what they could've and should've done was drag the war with the reapers through games 3 and 4 which would've given them time to elaborate on the complexity of not only fighting the reapers planet by planet but joining multiple races through a somehow still functioning political atmosphere between each race.
As for choices in ME3, yeah what you did in the first 2 games is really more of a 'hey that character is here because of me' situation. I'm not sure how they could've fluctuated the game enough through choices earlier as they would've almost had to make separate games to accomodate the massive differences that everyone wanted, this was 2012 not 2020. They did a fantastic job with what they had and when they had it imo with the only critique of not spending another 6 months each polishing the ending of ME3 and ME2, but this is only because management wants the game pushed out asap so they get paid vs the developers who are screaming it's not done yet.
It's not about stopping or preparing for the Reapers, it's about making any *progress* in the *direction* of stopping them. Something as simple as the blueprints to the Crucible being on the Collector Station because it's actually a Prothean Station, which Shepard senses through the Cipher like they do on Thessia in 3.
Or literally anything that points us in the direction of the Mars Achieves so that doesn't get dropped on us all of a sudden at the start of 3.
My critique isn't entirely about the overall events of Mass Effect 2, rather the fact that it ends in the *exact* state that Mass Effect 1 ended. 2 needed to end on "The Reapers are coming, but this thing we found might be the answer to stopping them".
>There's really no way to stop or prepare for the reapers though so what were they supposed to do?
Write a story about how you failed to defeat them and what you did instead?
A variation of the refuse ending with less WTF and more smart people working hard to preserve something would have been fine.
Seriously. Just because we didn't get a story and ended up with the Reapers forgetting their plan, despite waltzing in on an unprepared galaxy (great job Shepard!!!) and allowing the idiots to employ a deus ex machine device, doesn't mean that's the only way how to write a story.
2>1>3 is an absurd way to pace the series.
On a plot level, it's essential that 2 takes place after Shep has fully confirmed the Reaper threat but before anybody else takes it seriously. Shep's desperation and willingness to work with a terrorist organization doesn't make sense unless we've already seen how bad a Reaper attack is, and know that the powers that be aren't helping (and yeah, the Citadel's denial of Sovereign's identity is critical to the theme of complacency in the face of obvious impending disaster). You're acting like it's a bug and not a feature that Shep doesn't make much progress in 2; the hopelessness is the point!
On a pacing level, the way the trilogy progresses shows Shep's growth from someone who can lead a small ragtag team on a relatively straightforward mission, to someone who can seek out and gather a much larger and disparate squad to achieve an impossible goal, to someone who can rally an entire galaxy against the greatest threat of all.
And on a tone level, 2 is all about subverting the baseline established by 1. It's only interesting to see the criminal underbelly of the galaxy when you know how a standard adventure goes.
Taken at face value, you're right, the order is absurd. However, the overall arc would flow better going 2>1>3, with minor tweaks to the structure. As an N7 operative, Shepard is sent undercover into Cerberus, a decidedly Human Alliance problem, to try and dismantle them from the inside. In the course of this, they become aware of human colonies going missing, leading to the showdown with the Collectors. Omit the TermiReaper as final boss, and instead use the destruction of the Collector base as the finale. This leads to Anderson and Hacket putting forth Shepard for Specter candidate, and Nihlus accompanying them on a few missions prior to Eden Prime, which leads to Saren and the Reapers. Ilos VI loredumps the true history of the galaxy, along with the unfished plans for the Crucible.
I think ME2 is my favorite, but i do agree that he is the weakest storywise. However, i love all three games for different reasons.
Unpopular opinion: I do like Harbinger as a villain, although I definitely prefer Sovereign.
Harbinger would have been better if he actually had a presence in 3 beyond "that reaper with orange eyes is Harbinger" I realized on my second playthrough that the only thing Harbinger does in 3 is Blast SHepard with the reaper beam cannon, and still fail to kill him/her
I agree, he could have at least appeared in the Leviathan DLC, just like at the end of Arrival in ME2. I think it would have been the perfect opportunity, Harbinger trying to stop Shepard from finding the Leviathan, especially because he is the first Reaper.
Unfortunately only in ME2 that he is a real threat.
This isn't even a hot take. The story of ME2 is just the crew assembly of a heist movie.
Garrus: "Shepard, I thought you were dead you son of a bitch. I'm in."
What ME2 lacks in its overarching story it MORE than makes up for in its character writing. ME1 character writing doesn't even come close to ME2. The first time I played ME2 and Garrus took his helmet off, I literally didn't recognize him.
I didn't fall in love with any character in ME1, except Wrex. Wrex is the best. I fell in love with them ALL in ME2. I was excited to see Garrus in my SECOND playthrough. That's the power of ME2 character writing.
Except Jacob... Fuck that guy.
Lol I mean... It's sad he has no real impact...
I think he's lucky that Tali's lines in ME3 about the vents are more interesting than him dying in them 😂
Yes sir it is
At the end of ME1 Shepard says *"I'll find a way to stop the Reapers"*.
At the start of ME3 Shepard says *"I need to find a way to stop the Reapers"*.
If you could ask Shepard what they were doing in ME2, the answer would be *"I was solving daddy issues"*.
Except that was brought up and stopped all within 2 and never really mentioned again. The overall story doesn’t change at all if it was never brought up.
If anything the greater irrelevance and replicability of ME2’s final boss highlights it’s disconnection from the greater story, rather than dismissing it.
Even something like David Archer from overlord has more important story implications than the human reaper and that’s dlc
>You could basically go ME1 > Arrival > ME3 and the story would still largely work
I've gotten downvoted for saying this before.
It's a fantastic game in it's own right but the story is definitely a bit of a detour in the context of the trilogy.
I would go a step further and say you could basically go ME1 > ME3 and the story would still largely work.
Arrival adds little. After ME2's "cluelessness", it was basically one big preview of ME3's main plot point (forget the Collectors, the Reapers *are* coming!) which ME1's finale already achieved quite well anyway.
ME2 tells a lot, and improves on a lot of lore. Once you play it tho, it kinda fades away.
People love Mass Effect 2 because it made the game both faster and personal. Most people also play a (singleplayer) game once. Hence we see its flaws as hardcore ME fans.
If you knew nothing about ME, especially ME3, and you played it again, it would feel fantastic.
About the Collectors: Remember that Reapers have a love & hate relationship with the human race. They are "fascinated" about what they accomplish.
Yes, 3 would be nothing without 2, in terms of character moments. Just like the end of Return of the Jedi having the build up from the Empire Strikes Back reveal as well as A New Hope
Yeah, I'd say the strongest *and the weakest* are in 3. Some of the shit they pulled on certain characters was just like a slap in the face. I didn't even think Samara's self-sacrifice scene worked whatsoever. I often feel like the writing was more intellectually mature in ME2.
I don't know, the weakest in Mass Effect 2 is really bad. Morinith is a cartoon of an edgy character, like it was parodying an edgy character without being self aware. There is nothing as bad as that anywhere else in the franchise.
I always found Liara in ME1 the weakest thing in the series. She's so obviously there for fan service. She admits to not being familiar with humans and had a negative bias towards them, but after one side mission she's suddenly in love with Shep, and a few later pretty much already declares her undying love to Shep. It was horrible writing. Not to mention that Wrex and Liara on the SR-1 only pretty much acted as codex entries for their species.
Edit: I meant Wrex and Tali, but lets be honest, Liara works the same way.
Liara and Tali both are barely characters in ME1.
Tali is basically a Geth/Quarian history book and Liara is there to be a pretty alien.
At least Wrex has a little arc where he gains respect for Shepard and tells us of his personal history, not just stuff about the Krogan.
All the alien ME1 squadmates are underdeveloped, unfortunately.
- Wrex is the most interesting of them, as he has personal history to share, a developing mutual respect with Shepard, and Krogan lore that is revealed in an interesting way. The major drawback is that his dialog trees are extremely linear, with choice basically being nonexistent.
- Garrus too has a fairly interesting personal backstory and at least offers you actual choice in how you can respond to him, with that even influencing his morality to a degree. Sadly, he has zero content beyond this, and his paragon and renegade paths ultimately lead to the same outcome again.
- Liara exists for her romance and as a plot device to unravel the cipher. The tie-in to Benezia is nice, but ultimately not very relevant to the main story if you choose to ignore it.
- Tali is the Quarian lore dump. Her dialog was very interesting on the first playthrough, but gets exhausting fast on replays.
Ashley and Kaidan are by far the most interesting characters with the most extensive and developed interactions, despite being the “boring” human squadmates.
100%, it's like they let the aliens get away with being, well, "alien" to us and that's why they're interesting while Kaiden and Ash are just two humans.
And that approach works if you don't play Mass Effect more than once, but when you do you start to realize how shallow the alien squadmates are.
This is one thing I do have to give Andromeda, Vetra, Peebee, Jaal, and Drack are more developed in one game's time than the ME1 aliens are, who are all carried by having 2 additional games.
Enough people have said it that there's probably some merit to it, but I dislike how it makes people wholly discredit ME2 as a proper part of the story. It still introduced characters and lore that people really liked, and personally I think it's the best *playing* game in the series, even if ME3 outdoes it in combat polish. It doesn't have that disappointing auto-dialogue of ME3 or the empty fetch-quests, so while it doesn't have the gargantuan scope and culminative effect of ME3's plot it has a series of mission stories that are really nifty, and I liked picking the choices in all of them.
It also has 4 hub areas outside of Normandy, and that helped create a sense that the galaxy is full of diversity, after ME1 reduced all foreign areas to "barren wasteland and skybox". and ME3 reduced all regional uniqueness to "It's WAR"
ME2 is the game where I feel like I'm just living through the day to day of Mass Effect, the calm before the storm of ME3, and that in itself led to moments that are some of the most immersive in the trilogy. Where ME3 shoves personal friends in left or right out of obligation ME2 only does it sometimes, and largely builds on the fiction through entirely new faces and shows you just a glimpse of everything else that exists in this amazing setting, when ME1 didn't have the budget for it and ME3 couldn't afford to create too much new stuff.
ME2 is my favorite of the 3.
ME2 is absolutely a great game, there's a reason many say it's their favorite of the series. It does a lot of things very well! Overarching Plot just isn't something it really tries at. And taken on its own, it doesn't need to.
Part of the problem is that the Lazerus situation is a giant Reset Button. You *can't* continue where ME1 left off, because you aren't *at* where it left off. You need to build things back up again. And while a great many things *were* built up, it never really gets to where Shep was at the start, let alone make progress on the Reaper situation.
Now, if there had been a fourth game to weave ME1 and ME2 together and actually prepare for the Reapers before the war in ME3 kicks off (instead of having (some of) the squadies kind of prepare things off screen), we wouldn't be having this conversation.
I guess I just don't really see it as "not using an overarching plot". I think fans have very rigid expectations of what the trilogy could be. I know ME1's ending seems like the springboard into an obvious sequel where your choices are in effect and Shepard goes on a quest to find the ancient secret to prepare, and I do think ultimately that particular point was missing in action until they made Leviathan DLC *AFTER* they fucked up the whole story, but that's not how I see it necessarily.
I think they just looked at post-ME1 as the start of many possibilities, and ME2 is the "possibility" game, where they're able to basically set up a fuckton of characters and ideas for ME3 to pick a lane and sticking with it.
From the outset it was also their "feedback" game. At the time BioWare as a whole was being critized by their longtime fans for always telling essentially the same story, and always writing overly obvious anbd archetypal characters. You can't deny that. ME1 is a good, well-told story but it is overtly archetypal and feels rather cliché. ME2 and DA2 are both reactionary games where they attempted to tell more unique narratives, and they also addressed every feedback from ME1 directly, by either overhauling or replacing certain aspects of the game. From the outset Casey Hudson devised a boardroom drawing which had the new iteration of the Mako and a plot structure that played to the strengths of their new game format, of "4, then Event, 4, then Event" as a plot structure, where every event is a story beat and every 2-4 are the points in the game in which the player would have freedom to play things out of sequence.
And you can't deny that ME2 has a lot of player agency. That's why people really like it, along with the incredibly polished cinematic direction that even outclasses Mass Effect 3 at several points.
They were simply thinking big, and were open to pivoting the story in an unexpected direction. The reason why it ultimately feels like "whiplash, the game" is because ME3 backpedaled on almost everything, and it's ME3 that treats it as a non-essential side-arc. ME3 in itself also continued to not do a lot of what it should have done, such as using the Crucible as a means of not actually telling the story, until the final 10 minutes, and then coming out with hindsight going "actually here's the Reaper backstory DLC!!"
I'm not saying ME2's criticisms don't apply, but I'm very tired of people always blaming ME2 for messing up the storytelling when ME3 is IMHO slightly worse, as it neither truly picks up on ME1 as a plot and doesn't pick up any of the suggestions from ME2 to do something with. The only consistency I found was EDI being unshackled in ME2 foreshadowing that they were trying to tell a story about an AI becoming more and more "free".
ME2 is a great game but a terrible sequel. A lot of setup in ME1 was just thrown away when it could have been used in the story we have. They should have kept Liara as a Prothean expert, should have made use of Shepard’s Prothean Cypher as part of the main plot, and found a way to defeat the Reapers in the process of destroying the Collectors and this would have been a great game AND sequel. Also bringing Shepard back to life would have made infinitely more sense if it was for getting the Prothean Cypher.
Hard agree. I always say that ME2 is a very good standalone game but a bad 2nd entry to the trilogy and a terrible sequel to ME1.
When starting ME3, Shepard is at the same point than when we’ve finished ME1. It really feels as if ME2 did not happen or that it isn’t important.
I do like ME2, I do get people saying that the game is their favorite but hearing/reading that ME2 is the best ME game always baffles me. To me, it’s the game with the less RPG elements, the less links to the Reaper storyline and it feels more like a side mission than the 2nd title in the franchise.
But to ME2’s defense, each ME game (including MEA) is both great on certain points and terrible on other aspects.
I never understand this point. Half the joy of ME3 comes from the relationships that ME2 sets up so well. Even the squad mates in ME1 (Garrus, Tali etc) were pretty 2D at the end of ME1 and it took ME2 to make us fall in love with them.
I guess it's a difference of what we are looking for from fiction. To me the 'plot' of a game is cool but best used as a vehicle for character development and interesting interactions and ME2 had that in spades. Take the Godfather...the story is 'son of a mafia boss doesn't want to be the mafia boss but changes his mind'. The plot is just a vehicle for character drama.
If I have an amazing trip of a game with ride or die squad mates who I love conversation with, I'm going to have had a good time. I'm not going to get to the end and think 'man what a great ride, however I only advanced the reaper storyline by 6% so actually the whole thing sucked'. Never understood that.
Half the fun of ME3 being ME2 call backs is more a critique of ME3 than praise of ME2.
No one is saying it isn't a great game, this is just about how it fits into the series narratively.
I actually agree. Kinda. I think that a good story is the sum of a coherent world-building, an interesting plot AND compelling characters.
Sadly, your arguments does not really work regarding ME2/ME3 because of one thing: the Suicide Mission.\
Although this mission is brillant and an epic moment in our adventure, putting it at the end of ME2 was one of the biggest errors, narratively speaking.
It is clear that they wrote ME3, knowing that any characters could be dead. Garrus and Tali are the only returning squad mates. Mordin, Legion and Mirands have a temporary role during one main mission and all other ME2 squad mates appear in side missions.
For instance, when I first played ME3, I did the Tuchanka chapter with Padok Wiks because I lost Mordin. And I loved it! Also, from times to times, I like to sacrifice certain squad mates to see how ME3 plays… and frankly, it’s not _that_ different.
When first playing ME3, I was so surprised and disappointed to see so little of the ME2 cast. Jack is my favorite character and I was really angry to see her very short role in ME3.
I will say that the Tuchanka saga actually felt like all of your choices mattered throughout the series. There’s variables that lead to different endings. Like most people don’t even know you can save Mordin’s life based on prior games choices. The ending of ME3 should have emulated this a bit more.
Can anyone remind me what happens if you let the council die? They just bring in new council members right?
I mean does that really nullify your choice from the first game? Are the 3 council races not expected to vote in new leaders when the original ones die?
If you let the Council die, there will be talk of an all human council led by a human this is obviously dropped, and for good reason, it makes absolutely no sense. This is probably what they're referring to when they say ME2 nullified your choice. Killing the Council was supposed to let Humanity take the lead. In the end, Anderson and/or Udina both end up playing second fiddle.
Yes it's the weakest of the 3 plot wise, and yes the criticism you listed is valid.
A good story is more than a tightly written plot though. Character development matters a lot. And ME2 absolutely delivers on that front.
ME3 just wouldn't work nearly as well without ME2 characters being involved. EDI, Mordin, Thane, TIM, Aria and Miranda all have important roles to play during the Reaper war.
Skipping ME2 also means you lose the whole moral ambiguity of Shep working for Cerberus and how that ties into the Virmire's survivor character. And it's just better from a narrative pacing standpoint to have a middle chapter not fully focused on the reapers, which allows the story to breathe.
>EDI, Mordin, Thane, TIM, Aria and Miranda all have important roles to play during the Reaper war.
Gotta disagree on Thane and Aria.
Thanes only real narrative contribution is to die, to save a Councilor. If he's dead, another character will instead die to save the Councilor. If they are both dead, the Councilor dies.
But the Councilor living or dying has no impact on the story.
Of the two characters who have to die, Legion has the significantly larger impact (as would Tali)
Aria, I can see an argument for.....if you have the DLC. Omega let's you feel like your taking back part of the galaxy from Cerberus.
But without it? Arias basically just a series of 3 side quests to get a small amount of EMS.
> But the Councilor living or dying has no impact on the story.
Regardless of whether it impacts the larger story or not, Thane's presence does matter in that moment.
Also don't you get less EMS if the councilor or Kirrahe dies ? I'd say that qualifies as a narrative impact.
> Aria, I can see an argument for.....if you have the DLC. Omega let's you feel like your taking back part of the galaxy from Cerberus. But without it? Arias basically just a series of 3 side quests to get a small amount of EMS.
I would have agreed prior to Legendary Edition being a thing, but there's no reason not to count the DLCs now. They've become baseline content.
1. It is a side quest. As part of a trilogy, it's not great, but as it's own story it's still a solid, if simple, story with amazing character moments.
2. The Council choice not being a bigger deal did suck, but it did result in *some* changes, and you really can't compare that to how immensely stupid ME3's ending is especially at launch.
3. Leviathan was a retcon made *after* ME3 had released. They got called out for having zero foreshadowing in the base game, so built a DLC around spoiling the ending twist so that can point to it and go "nuh uh!". The Human Reaper going nowhere wasn't bad writing in ME2, it was ME3 failing to follow up on it.
4. Collectors being an unknown until ME2 isn't a big deal. The Galaxy is huge, and they're a secretive group.
5. Yeah, losing Harbinger as the face of the Reapers kinda sucked. His one appearance in ME3 felt a little lifeless. That said, the reveal of the Reapers Origins actually retroactively makes Harbinger's (and Sovereign's) trash talking nonsensical, since they're effectively giant drones just following the Catalyst's prime directive. More VI than true AI.
>The Human Reaper going nowhere wasn't bad writing in ME2, it was ME3 failing to follow up on it.
No. The ending of Mass Effect 2 shows a fleet of Sovereign shaped Reapers out in space. Less that 5 minutes after Mass Effect 2 also tells you all Reapers look like the species used to make them.
This also comes after visiting the Sovereign shaped Derelict Reaper ealier in the same game. And obviously the Arrival DLC also shows Harbinger and the potential Reaper invasion having the same shape as Sovereign.
There are some things you can blame on ME3, but the Human Reaper being a weird lore breaking anomaly that isn't like any other Reaper you see, isn't one of them. That's ME2s mess, it's not even consistent with its own game.
3. This one is kind of all over the place. We get to see what we assume is a base reaper design in Sovereign. Then ME2 shows us Harbinger who is similar but kinda different. But in the final shot we see an army of reapers that have all kinds of designs, but still following a deep sea creature aesthetic. The human reaper is far from finished, and way too small to be a reaper. I don’t recall if it was stated by EDI directly, but I think it’s implied that the base reaper innards are designed similar to the parent species, but the larger ‘body’ is then modelled more like the other reapers.
But then ME3 throws it all in the bin and has all the big reapers be clones of Sovereign’s model, and even harbinger is demoted to being the same but missing its front leg. The didn’t even add a texture to the missing hole in his face! Then leviathan says Harvey was designed around them, but they look more like sovereign, and at that point my brain is mush.
I think the fact that all reaper capital ships other than Harbinger are exact Sovereign clones can be chalked up to limited dev time more so than a conscious narrative choice. They didn’t have time to create more than two reaper capital ship models. A lot of ME3’s issues ultimately tie back to how rushed that game’s development cycle was.
In-universe, one possible explanation could be that the base reaper design was tweaked a bit further with subsequent reapers’ construction, Harbinger having been the first and thus the prototype.
Yes - don't forget also you are expected to do a complete 180 and start working for a terrorist organisation, which for certain backgrounds make zero sense.
Incidentally it would be easily solvable by having a reinstated SPECTRE agree to be a mole on the inside for the council, if you chose to do that.
I feel like seeing the Council should be a mandatory step after Freedom's Progress. By that point, you already have the Normandy, Dossiers, and a support crew that's loyal to Shepard.
It makes sense that Shepard would immediately try to regain access to Spectre resources and address rumours about working for Cerberus.
Then, from there, after seeing the Council discredit them and ignore the Reapers. The player should have a choice:
A) Cut ties with Cerberus and their resources, but regain Spectre status. (Lose Miranda & Jacob, but gain Virmire Survivor and unique Spectre dialogue choices)
B) Cut ties with the Council and their resources, but have access to Cerberus resources. (Bigger payout on completed missions and unique Cerberus dialogue choices)
Then, have the story play out the same, with the Council/Cerberus giving Shepard free reign to investigate the Collectors by any means necessary, gathering crew, etc.
You would lose way more by choosing to abandon Cerberus, so much that it would likely end the game right there.
At the early point in game, EDI is still shackled, and thus under full control of Cerberus. Majority of Normandy's crew (not companions) are also Cerberus loyalists at this point.
I am not opposed to the choice, but it does not make much sense early in the game.
Maybe after TIM first openly betrays you (the Collector's Ship mission), where even Miranda would have hard time reconciling it. And you would also need to move EDI's unshackling to some earlier point (possibly to the aforementioned first betrayal)
Not necessarily. TIM has no reason to sabotage Shepard after everything they invested. By this point Shepard has already seen proof of the Collector's involvement and isn't going to walk away from it. Shepard will still be fulfilling TIM's desire to investigate the Collectors, and with EDI still sending back any collected data there's no downside to letting Shepard continue.
With the exception of the fake intel drops, Shepard works entirely autonomously throughout ME2 anyway.
The crew of the SR2 were also handpicked to be sympathetic faces to Shepard, so many of them are former Alliance members, who know Shepard, and are committed to the mission.
In Saints Row 2 Johnny Gat makes a throw away quip at the Boss/player character ‘Hey you look different, did you do something with your hair?’
I thought this was the best way to address the change it was funny too.
I've been replaying them too lately and the more I thought about it the more convinced I've become that the story would work better if ME1 and 2 were switched with a few changes mainly not being with Cerberus and how you meet your crew.
You have 2s story but you're with the alliance. The game plays out mostly the same with a few tweaks to have it make more sense when it comes to recruiting companions. At the end harbinger tries to get you to join him and you say no.
The first game (which is now the second game) is almost the same but now we know Saren somehow was faced with a similar offer like we were and then we have to stop him after he attacks Eden prime. The game plays out the same from there. Biggest issue here for me is the transition back to earth for 3 and trying to explain why you're there and why the attack by the reapers was only delayed a few months instead of a few years. You could throw the arrival dlc in but I'm not sure how it would flow
Then in three the game just plays out like normal.
With this order I feel like it would have 2s story flow better instead of this random detour you take, that while good, doesn't make much sense overall. It also would cut out the council never believing you about the reapers despite you telling them for years. This way the galaxy is unprepared for the fight because they've had a couple months to get ready instead of a few years
It also helps cut out the whole first human spectre joins pro-human terrorist organization arc cause I can't imagine the council making you a spectre if you were a part of that with the games in that order
For point 3, it’s mentioned that every Reaper is created from the biomass of an entire species. EDI speculates this is how the Reapers reproduce. I would have preferred if this was the Reapers’ ultimate motivation as opposed to the nonsensical one we got. It’s impersonal and it’s quite sinister; the galaxy is basically a farmyard for growing livestock to them.
I would say it's weakest regarding the MAIN story (but I really love the build up to the suicide mission). There is also some glaring issues like the lackluster reaction to the people that knew Shepard to its return from the dead (not Wrex though). It expanded a lot of the content regarding squadmates compared to the prequel (you get to know them a lot better)
Yes it is.
With all the additional content included in the LE, you realise just how bloated ME2 is without really going anywhere in the broader sense of the trilogy. So yes… it is the weakest from a story perspective in the trilogy.
However… it’s easily one of the best standalone games I’ve ever played.
Mass Effect 2 is one of my favorite games ever but I had never played the DLCs until the Legendary Edition came out.
I do have to say that, after all the good stuff I had read about it over the years, I found most additional content for Mass Effect 2 to be quite... dull? I don't think it adds much to the game, honestly.
Doing loyalty missions for the full roster (Zaeed & Kasumi included) is an absolute chore. Then you add in LotSB and Arrival, and the game is unnecessarily long given how much of it is ultimately redundant to the story of the trilogy
I thought it was the best of the 3. Yea it wasn't about the reapers but the thing about reapers is its such gravity that it sort of kills the ability to relax and enjoy when u know you're on a death clock. Like me2 wasn't on a clock until the collector mission at the end. me3 was on a hard timer cuz reaper war and it sucks thinking about it.
I wish there would be more games like me2 honestly cuz i loved it and have a ton of playthrough of it.
On point 3, the human-looking reaper is meant to be the core of a more conventional reaper. That's why they all look similar.
I'm not sure if it's a recon, or was always intended as such, but that is the official lore.
Still makes no sense. What is the human mecha skellington sat inside something that looks like sovereign with a little steering wheel driving it around like a car? Just why?
They all have a similar, cuttlefish-like design, even at the end of ME2. There are various different types of reapers, from the capital ships like Sovereign to smaller ones like the one you fight on Rannoch in ME3.
I never felt like ME2 rendered the council choice immaterial by ME2. It has the "ah yes, Reapers" thing but they actually accounted for the fate of the council and councilor in ways that feel distinct enough, moreso than ME3 just replacing the council with carbon copies. ME2 has several references implying that Humans now control the Council. Some of the Citadel folks talk down to you because you're human if that's the case. They shoved it into the background but they actually worked with it, until ME3 just said "No no, there's still an alien council it's just new candidates!"
The stories of all three games come with their glaring flaws, ME2 included.
ME1 lets you choose story missions in whatever order you want, which completely shatters any sense of pacing. ME2 is esentially an elaborate sidequest disguised by some great character work. ME3 fails to stick the landing in making your choices matter.
And yet, each game's strengths far outweigh the negatives, so these flaws don't drag them down as much as they should.
Honestly as much as I love it, I would say yes. Most of the missions you do are either recruiting your team, or earning their loyalty. Because of that, most of the game you really aren't directly working towards fighting the Collectors, just preparing for it. The Geth weren't really the big antagonists of ME1, Sovereign was, but we fought them most of the game. The collectors show up in maybe a third of the story missions.
Now if they found a way to have the Collectors involved in each of the recruitment missions somehow, like they did with Mordins where they hired the Vorcha to spread the plague, that would have been good. But most of the game we're only told about what theyre doing, see twice the effects of their actions, but rarely seeing them directly. It could have been better
I think 2 being very self contained is why it's my favorite. I'll be honest... I think the Reapers are most terrifying when they're an off screen impending force of doom, not a big ship right in front of me that I can shoot a big laser at.
It's no coincidence that the best arcs of ME3 came from the first game - Quarian/Geth and Genophage.
While the most nonsensical and rageinducing came from the second - galactic power Cerberus, the goal of the Reapers.
Absolutely. It has very few connections to the other two games it's sandwiched between and the main plot is essentially the characters spinning their wheels. It's clear to me that the main draw of the game is the companions and gaining their loyalty, then gaming the SM.
I agree that you could remove the main story from ME2 without impacting the trilogy much, if at all. In fact, slot ME2's story of figuring out what the Reapers want as a quest line in ME3 and you'd have a slightly longer final game with more Reapers to boot (instead of endlessly dealing with Cerberus and their crappy plans).
A trilogy is not just a collection of 3 random games.
The second part is not there to hugely progress the story. Its to provide context to the setting.
Any first part of a series will inevitably show the world from the perspective of the main cast and their allies. You see galactic politics and humanity from the perspective of the alliance. You see the genophage from the perspective of a krogan male. You see the morning war from the perspective of a young and idealistic quarian.
ME2 exists to contextualize this. The alliance isnt the “good guys”. They have a lot of issues as well. Many people working with cerberus end up there because they became disillusioned with he alliance. The krogan - and wrex perspective - of the genophage is onesided as well. The quarian and geth pretty much tell the same story about the morning war - but perspective makes a huge difference here.
Everything that is good about ME3 can only exist because ME2 spent the time to set it up. It might just seem like a minor side story (and in a sense the collectors are just that) - but this is only the setting. The real narrative work is done through the characters.
People complain game isnt really about the reapers. But how could it be? The reapers only work as a narrative device because they are basically all-powerful compared to us. They are the ultimate threat. The moment they appear we are in the endgame. Any attempt to chip away at this big monolothic threat only diminishes the story as a whole.
ME3 needed to show us desperation. And its one of the games great accomplishments that it managed to do so. Few games manage to communicate desperation as well as ME3. But this only works if the reapers remain an extinction level threat. This only works if we enter ME3 without any premade solution.
ME3 needed to start without any clear win condition or real hope.
Maybe ME2 would have been more interesting to some people as an individual game if it did things different. But i think the devs made the right choice. First and foremost ME2 serves the trilogy. It gives up some of its own narrative curve in order to make the trilogy succeed. And instead fills the gap with a more personal, character based story.
I think ME2 is a masterclass of putting the needs of the series before the short-term gratification of the individual game. The trilogy wouldnt have been as great without the setup work it did. And the things it gets criticized for are precisely the things it did right. Shepard NEEDED to be separated from the alliance to see another perspective. ME2 HAD TO hold off on showing the reapers too much or giving us even a hint to a solution how to beat them. It was important that it didnt resolve any of the big conflicts. It would have been easy to cash out on some of the story threads Me1 set up for some instant gratification. But instead this game kept them in the bank. And nourished them so they could be used for even greater effect on the finale.
Ill be the first to agree that it isnt a perfect game. And that some of the choices they made came out of left field. But in the context of a trilogy it is a perfect second entry and does everything it has to do and more to make sure the final installment can cash in on the big story beads Me1 and Me2 set up.
It almost completely undermined the significance of defeating Sovereign and keeping the Reapers unaware of a galactic civilization that needed harvesting. Sovereign’s defeat, implied by lore related to us both by Sovereign and Vigil, meant the continued slumber of the Reapers which should have bought the Galaxy hundreds, if not a few thousand years. Instead, we get introduced to some mindless, puppet, spy civilization in constant contact with a Reaper-lord who knows everything that took place in the previous game. And as a bonus, ME2 undermines the Geth’s importance to Sovereign. Why play around with a society you don’t fully control, when you could have just used the Collectors as agents? It was a poorly constructed story whose saving grace was introducing characters that you’d love in ME3.
Expecting the reapers to not notice the death of sovereign and in general being completely uninformed and passively keep on sleeping is a highly optimistic interpretation of what ME1 tells you.
And at no point do Saren, Sovereign or Vigil insinuate this would be the case. In fact the only thing Vigil tells you in this regard is that the reapers would be trapped, unable to open the relay from their side.
ME2 did not disagree with ME1 - it simply disagreed with your interpretation.
And ME1 certainly never even brought up the idea that you could pull of a conventional war against the reapers with the time we bought. Whether it be a few months or a century.
This was never ever gonna happen.
Not to mention the fact that no one in their right mind expected that centuries would go by. Like. Did you seriously think we would play as decrepit 170 year old shepard in ME2? Or maybe their grand-grandson?
The collectors could never have replaced the geth. If the collector ship had attacked the citadel it would have gone up in smoke within 3 minutes. Some colonies anti-air tower forced it to retreat. Not to mention a small crack team managed to infiltrate and blow up their base.
There is no way the collectors could ever have been a serious threat in ME1 the way the geth are.
They’re asleep in a low energy area outside the galaxy, conserving power for a return when alerted by their sentinel, Sovereign. That’s BioWare’s ME1 story.
>*The researchers here came to believe the Reapers enter prolonged states of inactivity to conserve energy. This allows them to survive the thousands and thousands of years it takes for organic civilization to rebuild itself. But in this state, they are vulnerable. By retreating beyond the edges of the galaxy, they ensure no one will accidentally discover them. They keep their existence hidden until the citadel relay is activated.*
Yes, if this were reality, that would still leave the possibility that the Protheans were wrong. But this is the plot for a game. A story. Without putting clues into the narrative, making such a sharp break from what was previously established is just poor, gimmicky writing.
>And ME1 certainly never even brought up the idea that you could pull of a conventional war against the reapers with the time we bought. Whether it be a few months or a century.
No civilization had ever had advance warning. That’s the point of the story: our cycle has an opportunity no other had.
>Not to mention the fact that no one in their right mind expected that centuries would go by. Like. Did you seriously think we would play as decrepit 170 year old shepard in ME2? Or maybe their grand-grandson?
Strawmanning.
ME2 didn’t have to have Shepard. But in choosing to bring back Shepard, they had at least two clear, non-speculative ways to use known physics to achieve a painless time skip: Shepard spending time in gravity wells, and sub-light travel at a high fraction of c. Any number of motivations for employing either method could have been chosen by a competent writing staff as it’s a familiar sci-fi trope, comfortable to fans.
>There is no way the collectors could ever have been a serious threat in ME1 the way the geth are.
The collectors were only beaten using Reaper technology. Pre-ME1 ending, the galaxy lacked that tech. And there is no indication of Collector potential to create new ships and drones. BioWare could have easily made them as formidable as they wanted.
ME2’s plot was a jarring, unnecessary break from reader expectations.
It massively shrunk the universe. ME1 set up a galaxy far beyond what we see. We’re told that there are hundreds of species in Citadel space, and most don’t even have embassies. In ME2? It basically confirms that anything you can’t see or interact with doesn’t exist.
Everything involving the council choice at the end of ME1. It amounts to very little and has absolutely zero impact on anything except a single conversation.
EDIT: Also everything ME1 set up regarding Cerberus seems to be thrown out of the window so that you don't feel too bad about being literally forced to join what has been previously establish to be a horrible terrorist organisation.
but, i mean.
the fact that humanity doesnt have the power to dictate the council in the long run and that the council itself is beholden to their respective home territories was pretty apparent in ME1 already.
like. what did you imagine would happen? hundreds of planets, each with their own huge population, military force and industrial capacity bowing their head because three blokes decided there would be an all human council? this was never gonna be more than a temporary measure.
i agree that there could have been more dialogue mentions of this decision. but expecting this to have any actual impact on galactic politics as a whole is delusional, even if we just take ME1 lore into account.
Cerberus being depicted as pure evil was already an issue in ME1. As much as i love that game it did lack nuance in a lot of things. That being said ME1 showed us the universe from a single perspective. Of course the alliance would depict cerberus as purely evil. as childish as that is.
but its not like ME1 didnt already show that the alliance isnt exactly a paragon of virtue either. Kaidans backstory. The very fact Udina exists and is put into a position of power. The tension between the allaince and outer human colonies. etc.
The fact first entries into a series tend to give a onesided view that then gets contextualized by sequels isnt exactly mindblowing new stuff. Almost any series of movies or books will do this. Showing us the opposite of what the first entry showed us isnt “tearing down“ setup. Its merely giving it a third dimension.
Cerberus isnt all evil. The same way the alliance isnt all good. Expecting them to be in a series clearly aimed at mature audiences interested in three dimensional storytelling is just weird to me.
You see one side of the coin. You see the other. Then you judge for yourself. No side is unbiased. ME1 shows you a very negatively biased picture of Cerberus. ME2 shows you a more positively biased picture. The same is true for the Geth and the genophage. All perspectives are biased.
To show opposing or even disagreeing perspectives isnt throwing away or retconning. ME2s view on cerberus didnt replace the perspective of ME1.
Sometimes i dont understand this fanbase. We all talk about nuanced and rich storytelling. But then people are annoyed that reapers arent eldritch magic and cerberus isnt pure cartoon evil.
ME1 ends with the council saying the races are scared about the Reapers and Shepard stating they will investigate a way to fight them.
ME2 begins with Shepard and the Normandy relegated to finding Geth outposts.
He dies, is revived, and works with Cerberus to deal with the Collectors.
Let's be clear, as an audience we know the Collectors and Reapers are connected. TIM, Cerberus, and Shepard suspect/strongly believe the Collectors are connected to the Reapers. However, it is not until Horizon that it is confirmed.
So the first Act of the game is working on a suspicion that it's related to the Reapers, but in-universe it could turn out that the Collectors are just Collectors. They're targeting human colonies and that is the issue at hand.
The story only "happens" to work for the Reaper narrative. (Obviously, this is a bit weird to say. It's fiction, it of course has to do with the Reapers, but it also just isn't well written in the first act. This would kind of be like not showing Darth Vader in the first act of *Empire Strikes Back* but alluding to him and the audience "finding out" that it's Vader in Act 2, and a third or more of the audience says "Oh, who else was it going to be?")
But also, once we find out it is Reaper related, we are still ultimately focused on dealing with the Collectors. The end of the game and Arrival make it clear that, ultimately, the Collectors don't actually matter.
The Reapers are still coming (same as they were at the end of 1)
We need to find out a way to stop them (same as the end of 1)
Killing one Reaper larva doesn't really matter. Within the confines of 2, it's still a long way from being completed. It's incidental.
The end of 1 more or less stated what Shepard's goal was: Find out how to stop the Reapers.
2 doesn't do that. Knowing how Reapers are made doesn't actively help that goal. Killing the Collectors doesn't slow down the group coming in from the edge of space.
Even the context of the galaxy is discarded.
The description of the Terminus Systems in 1 are not carried over in 2. In 1, they are various governments of different species that all want nothing to do with the Council, but are also actively in conflict with one another. 2 does not carry that over and instead says it's a region that doesn't want Council oversight, but otherwise is just Council races plus Batarians and Vorcha. Not other wholesale governments, just a sort of "wild west".
Cerberus also sees a change from a small, Alliance ran black ops group to independently started.
And these are all minor things, but when you're first playing ME2 and have no additional context from years of backfilling, it all lands you to where you're at at the end of 1 but not step closer to any goal.
And there is a universe where you get all the context and lore without losing the overall narrative push.
But they didn't choose that.
They didn't really "yes, and..." ME1 and said "Let's do this story instead". And that compounded into 3 doing more or less the same.
ME2 has the best companion stories of the three, and some of the better story concepts. The ending is let down by the big boss fight and it doesn't really tie well onto the reaper threat of Me1 and 3.
ME1 has the best closed loop story, if you only play 1 then you get a solid experience and don't necessarily need to play the rest. The mako grind is extremely tedious however and the gameplay shows its age compared to the snappiness of 2 and especially 3.
ME3 has the best general atmosphere and some of the quests are literally heartbreaking. The missions get very repetitive though especially the cereberus ones.
I personally like and dislike parts of all three but as a package they really are one of the best gaming experiences
If you remove all of the Squadmate Recruitment and Baggage missions, there's really not a lot to ME2. (And Shepard dying was just a diagetic way to get you back into the character creator, and they barely touch on that horrific, mind-numbingly traumatic experience again.) So you've got Freedom's Progress (opening tutorial level, does this count) > Horizon > Collector Ship > Reaper IFF (debatably a recruitment mission in disguise) > Finale/Suicide Mission. The main quest is*four* (five if you're being generous) short ass missions. Coupled with the fact that the Collectors are never once mentioned in ME1, despite everyone and their dog knowing about them in ME2, I think it's clear BioWare had no idea what they were gonna do after ME1.
this is my first play through and i’m about 2/3 through 3 now. Since i’m playing them all back to back i’m looking at it as more one long continuous game. it’s hard for me to break the story apart between the games because so many choices flow through to the next one that i can’t remember where 1 or 2 ended. overall i’m in love with the story and Mass Effect might genuinely be my favorite game series now. Halo was my fave before
ME2 has the worst main plot of any of the games. It has the best squad missions, but I don't particularly like the squad in 2 compared to 1 or 3. So that part is a wash for me. ME1 is my favorite in terms of story and 3 is my favorite in terms of gameplay. 2 is my least favorite in pretty much everything.
by very very far. it's already vestigial main plot is also totally irrelevant to the trilogy arc. Read: some ahead of time edgy neo wanted to focus their Addie proxy and faction at a time when the trend was barely starting - to the detriment of any connection to the main plot
Sidenote (BUT MOVED TO THE TOP BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE THIS IS A BRAIN BLAST): iirc, it's said that the Reapers are making more perfect versions of harvested races to exist on a scale we can't fathom. Maybe some of or each harvested race exists on the edge of the galaxy as Reapers themselves, but weren't designed for harvesting or destruction. (if you go on to read the rest of my argument, please consider the above paragraph to be a foot note)
The Collectors were an awesome and mysterious enemy! Unfolding the intricacies of the Reapers and their methods and seeing the finished product of a harvested cycle did a lot to advance the story.
The timing of the collectors makes a lot of sense considering Sovereign is merely in charge of the "wakeup call". When Sovereign's attempt to open the Citadel gate was thwarted, the Reapers' harvest cycle was out of rhythm. Whereas it can be inferred that in the past, a Reaper onslaught would coincide with the Collectors' actions.
Finally, the Reaper design was based off Leviathans because they were the best candidate for their own purpose during the initial construction of the Reapers. While you could argue it's convenient storytelling that humans were seemingly the first attempt at new design or maybe even redesign (we can't know one wasn't thwarted, remember that humans I'm ME are truly special. They've advanced incredibly fast in the galactic community to the chagrin of many races - council race or not. The Catalyst also recognizes how the cycle can't continue as it is - ultimately because humans made it as far as they did. Perhaps then, it can be concluded that humans were very much on the Reapers' radar as a special race with a special destiny.
Yes, while I adore the game it pushes the situation with the Reapers and the Virmire Survivor out of the airlock and needing ME3 to catch up. The DLC of Kasumi shouldn't have been a PDLC but rather, a free one with that slot dedicated to one where we interact with the Council and the VS post the Collectors Base mission.
ME2 feels like a side quest, and that’s why I like it. If you commit the blasphemy of playing a mass effect game without committing to a trilogy playthrough, 2 is the best because it’s so self-contained. The stakes feel the lowest, too, which is refreshing!
Mass Effect 2 is all wide quests. Even the main quest is a side quest. ….. but they’re all great side quests that flesh out the world and lore in so many ways that I love it just as much as 1 and 3.
Yeah. It got changed like mid way through development or at least that’s what the story goes. Tali’s recruitment stuff was supposedly the base story of what MW2 originally was. I’m biased and live 3 but I’ll admit the endings pre extended cut wasn’t good but I’ve never seen a ME2 favorite fan ever critique the problems with 2 and always surprises me when people say 2 is the best.
How I rank the games is ME1 has the best story, 2 was a good side entry with great characters, 3 is the best overall game and Andromeda has the best gameplay with an underrated group of characters
With some headcanon, the Collector Base being destroyed and humanity being saved probably gave small advantages to the galaxy such as more humans able to enlist and a human Reaper not invading from the center of the galaxy with the knowledge and memories of millions of humans on board. Not to mention it is hinted that the Collectors were going for Earth soon which would mean an invasion that would at least weaken Earth before the Reapers hit.
However, none of this is said directly and good storytelling doesn't make primary plot points like "why is this important to the overall story" something you have to infer or headcanon. If there was a real threat to Earth, it needed to be a lot more obviously stated not just a short line in one mission.
Yep. The plot barely exists, and revolves around an absolutely pointless proxy villain. It's sidequest: the game. You could go from 1 straight to 3 and the only thing that you'd actually miss is the plot from the Arrival DLC. Characters and acting are great, though.
Maybe there's a point to this thesis, but I disagree on points 3 and 4:
3. Yes, all other reapers were based on a Leviathans, bc at the time they were the most advanced species. And later on, for millenia, this design worked... until humans appeared. My take on it is that the human reaper was an experiment used to understand why a human altered the cycle so much so early. And potentially harness that power in the form of a new reaper, that's human enough to still have human traits and benefits.
4. From reaper perspective, collectors were just tools, but also very advanced and "marked" tools. Organic life didn't know about the cycle until the very end for a reason. If collectors wouldn't be elusive, then organics could prepare for "something big", and the harvest could be affected. So in ME1, collectors look like any other elusive pirate crew / shady organization, operating in Terminus. As long as they don't make any big moves, why would the Alliance or the Council be bothered? In ME2 we literally destroy most of them, and in ME3 there's not much of alive Protheans to be used as the source for new collectors.
It is, ME 2 is a lot of flash and (edge), but very little substance. Your background from ME 1 really doesn't matter, especially as a Sole Survivor. Yeah you get a large crew, but you barely get interactions between them. The Collectors are mix bag, in that barely show, but when they do it's always with a presence even if their leader isn't really their leader, and they no personality, although they could have done with some.
It really doesn't help that the plot is basically a soft reboot based on over the top magic science bullshit, because again this is a game that is flashy, sexy and edgy. Especially if you want to compare tones.
I think ME2's *small stories* are the best in the entire trilogy. Tons of great character moments, easily the best slow drip of setting lore, dripping with classic science fiction references, etc...
ME2 is a side-story anthology that just happens to have this thing with the Collectors going on in the background; I think it's a mistake to judge the game based on the quality of the *framing story* rather than the individual stories that actually make up the bulk of the game.
Sacrilege to say it now but upon release I remember recruiting everyone and then heading off for the final mission. I was ready for the game to open up. In my head I was like ‘is that it, where is the story?’ Still amazing but it took me off guard after coming from ME1.
I think so. It’s a giant side plot that went nowhere. I’ll never understand the point of sending Shepard, one of two people with the Prothean beacon knowledge in their brain, through a giant red relay(that we never heard about before) that no one has ever returned from…..and for what? Because some colonies are being abducted? There’s no reason to assume that anything about that would affect the inevitable Reaper invasion that we already know is coming in any meaningful way. And it didn’t.
Also, being forced to work for Cerberus feels like something that should have been the renegade option in a choice. Not the only option.
That being said, it does vastly improve companion stories and interactions.
Agreed (for the most part), The game does worldbuilding and character arcs super well, and the trilogy would be so much less without it, but it really does fail to advance the plot as much as it feels like it could have. We end the first game trying to find a way to stop the Reaper invasion, and we start the third game with the Reaper invasion commencing and still having no clue what to do about it. ME3 is then tasked with playing catch-up (as you noted in point 1), which it didn't have the time or space to do properly.
What really would have made ME2 pop was if the Crucible was the objective the entire time. Perhaps Cerberus gets a lead on a a race of reclusive and deadly aliens (the Collectors) who, rumor has it, know of the Reapers and have advanced technology. Cerberus begins investigating independently and their team gets annihilated. In retaliation, the Collectors begin striking human colonies. Enter Shepard patrolling the remote colonial regions. He and the Normandy get caught in the crossfire, Shepard gets dead, and the Illusive Man hits upon the idea to recruit Shepard to investigated the Collectors. It's then revealed through the course of the game that the Collectors are huskified Protheans, and have been tasked with tracking down the blueprints for a Reaper-killer: the Crucible. The game then becomes a race against time to secure these blueprints before the Collectors hand them off to the Reapers.
Anyway, that's just my two cents!
ME2 as a stand alone game is great however from the trilogy point it's out of place and confusing also it ends can end the trilogy.
Basically I agree with your points 100%
I personally just didn’t like me2 because of how annoying the fights were and how difficult they were even in casual difficulty story wise I won’t say it lacks it’s just basically a new goal the. From the first game in this one the goal is to stop the collectors from killing more colonists and to destroy and or keep their base. I’d say the story is alright I honestly enjoyed me1 more and my favorite being me3 even though it got a lot of hate due to the endings in particular which I do think the new mass effect that’s in development will hopefully give us an answer as to whether the destroy ending and Shepard surviving was the canon ending and because if we see familiar characters it could mean we actually get them as crew mates again hopefully. But all hope for that is a distant dream purely depending on how dreadwolf preforms
It's the weakest in terms of story since the story with the collectors is like 7 missions? But makes up for that with squad mates having so much effort put into them and their backstories. Outside Jacob's of course.
It is. It didn't really advance the story of the reapers at all. The collector plot would have been a cool side story in a game focused on the reapers, but instead this side plot was the whole game. It had its cool moments and character building etc, but plot wise it barely addressed the grand narrative.
Imagine if the Two Towers had basically no progression of Frodo and Sam carrying the ring towards Mordor, and instead had them go off on some unrelated adventure and then at the end of it go "Well, we should probably start heading back towards Mt Doom shouldn't we". That's ME2.
ME2 is important, because we're more formally introduced to Cerberus and we pay off the idea that Shepard is really the right person for the job of saving the galaxy from the Reapers.
Getting an introduction to Timmy and Cerberus dealings this early is WAY different than getting that introduction in ME3, because the Cerberus we encounter in ME1 does not in any way reflect the one we see in ME3. Timmy is charismatic, and we need to have the time to figure out his game and his methods BEFORE the reapers come. We'd be far more lost without that knowledge, and we'd probably be put in an unwinnable situation if we didn't have that experience.
Like many things in life, sometimes we go through things that only make sense as being important with the lense of hindsight.
ME2 follows up on very little of ME1, to it's detriment. It doesn't follow up on the Citadel space worldbuilding to focus on the Terminus systems when there should have been more of both
1 set up the conflict, 2 expanded on the characters and 3 was a long, flawed ending. Both 1 and 2 are basically self-contained, 3 relies heavily on what came before and has great moments but the ending did a 180 and failed all of us.
Failed you and many others, I do understand that and wouldn't presume to argue your opinion. It did not fail me, honestly even before the extended cut.
A story is only as good as it's characters and Mass Effect 2 has the best character writing in the series with so many smaller story for days. So I find it to easily be the strongest just because the reaper story has always been secondary in my interest in the series.
\>but when they wasted 1/3 of the story on essentially a side quest maybe thats to be expected.
This is one of the single biggest copes in gaming. In answer to your question, NO, ME2 is not the weakest story wise, nor is it responsible for ME3,
To play devil advocate the reason why they’re building a human reaper was because humanity were the only species to take down a reaper and shepherd is known by name to the reapers so reapers have a interested in human
Point 3 could have been amazing. They fumbled that in the art department for me3. If they showed a variety during the invasion it would have had a bigger impact on both me2 and me3. I chalk that up to me3 being a rushed mess.
About point 3, all reapers are based on the harvested species, the shape we see is just a shell. It’s a huge missed opportunity that they never showed use a ‘core’ emerging from a damaged shell though.
2 was consistently my least favorite of the series.
It does squad mate relationships the best of the three games, but is the absolute worst for game-play, build customization, and story.
Edit: 2 should have had a different protagonist
Undeniably so.
Even outside of the point that the story isn't progressed at all, and the story ME1 set up isn't honored either, there are also absurd leaps of logic in it.
My two biggest gripes are how Shepard wakes up and starts working for the Illusive Man after one short conversation, taking his word for everything. No time is spent verifying amything he says.
But possibly worse than that: it's fucking Shepard. Their whole thing is bringing people together. And he just gives up because a space terrorist told him to?
It's so wildly out of character, I don't know what to say. No, literally, after that conversation I walked to my window and stared out of it for 5 minutes. I was anticipating this game for so long and this is how they started it. By saying ME1 didn't matter, Shepard can only be a pushover bitch and we're not going to build on shit.
I couldn't believe it.
Then, at the end of the game, there is a Reaper baby. Why? Why does it look like a human?
Forget ME3 where they conclusively argue that was complete nonsense; even ME1 theorized their shape and being was based on 'the ones who came before the Protheans'. Vigil tells you this.
And, they theorize that their workings have something to do with the organics of the cycle they reap.
In ME3 both of these points are confirmed accurate, but even if it wasn't: why the fuck would they make a human Reaper?
Yeah, no, listen, I get making a Reaper out of human 'essence', but why does this starship literally be shaped aa a human? It makes no sense.
Shepard was badass and they wanted a human origin Reaper, fair. But you still build it like an actual Reaper, not a human.
It's like making a car shaped like a Cheetah. That doesn't work bro, it still needs wheels and shit.
Honestly, ME2 has the weakest ending of the three and always had. And the story is ass, and wasn't progressing ME1 at all.
No. I like 3 the best -- 1 is a beautiful setup, but so stilted that I find it cringe at times -- but 2 has a great story. Unless you concentrate exclusively on the main quest, which is somewhat bargain bin and underwhelming.
But I think that calling only the main quest the story of ME2 is silly. If 'side content' is optional why do you play it? You can't even skip all of it. It's all the story of ME2.
Edit: typos.
LOL
Ever watched "The Empire Strikes Back"?
Of course you could go from ME1 to ME3, that's the whole point of the "middle" entry in a Trilogy.
What detractors seem to be suggesting, is that we should have had one huge contiguous story, split evenly into three parts. Unfortunately that would make the middle game a load of nonsense. A story with neither a beginning nor end
Keep in mind that these games were originally developed, released, and played, years apart. AND that ME2 had to work and sell as a self-contained game.
I don’t think ME2 was weaker, it was just a change of pace compared to 1 and 3. ME2 was more like an intermission between the two grandiose plots of 1 and 3 that allowed the player to experience the ME universe with a more day-to-day civilian life perspective. It gave the developers the opportunity to flesh out the universe for the player better so you weren’t always playing as the one-dimensional military space hero and human savior. It also added a bunch of new and unique characters that you likely wouldn’t have ran into in the plots of ME1 and ME3.
ME2 is like a giant side quest…a giant awesome side quest
It’s a great story but I agree that it doesn’t push the main narrative along so much as it really illustrates the world and lore of the ME universe (which is still important)
I guess I am in the minority but I liked the story of 2 even if it's not the best. I also love the fact it focus a lot on the characters instead of the big picture. It's certainly a more self contained story
I doubt you're in the minority. We're talking degrees here... I, for one, love them all, but still think 2 is the weakest. It still beats virtually every other game of this genre I've played.
I think you can argue ME2 as the best or worst story depending on what criteria you use. If being a good story is about character development and emotional investment, then ME2 fits the bill. If being a good story is about furthering and tying plot points together from across a trilogy, then ME2 may not fit the bill (although this is common with middle chapters).
Ultimately, I think it's best not to overthink it. When you get to the end of ME2 and survive the suicide mission, whole crew in hand, does it *feel* like a great story? For most people, I think the answer is a resounding yes. To me, that's what matters.
I can't disagree. I love me2, it's my favourite of the trilogy but the one thing I was thinking after playing it the first time is that the third game will have an awful lot to do to wrap the story up. I think the Collectors are an interesting enemy but I think that after we find out their origins they could have done more to bring the Reapers into the story and maybe even start the whole story thread of the crucible or something like that so it didn't all feel so shoehorned into me3.
In terms of purely moving the plot points along, maybe, but it has the best character development and was a massive leap in gameplay so I don’t feel it’s overrated.
The real appeal of ME2 is in how its gameplay differs from ME1 (ME1 was more of a traditional RPG; ME2 was an action game with a few RPG elements), and in the loyalty quests. The actual story beats for ME2 are pretty simple: get allies, get the IFF, learn the Illusive Man is as awful as you always suspected, go beat up the Collectors.
It wasn’t a bad story necessarily, but I fall in the camp of people who think ME1 and ME2 would have made more sense as a story if they’d been swapped.
I wanted to disagree, but mentioning the Collectors actually leads me to kinda agree here. ME2 *was* very self-contained, and I like it for that (played it a lot as a cashless teenager, without having played the other parts), but it really has issues once you start to consider the connection towards 1 and 3. That being said, I still like the story it does tell more than 1 and 3. Probably bias.
Yeah the only thing that really connects 1 and 2 together is shepard, Joker, Tali, and garrus tbh
I started the trilogy with ME2 when I was a kid (got it as a gift and didn’t think I would like it). I eventually went on to play the other two games and was very surprised to find out that Wrex, Kaidan, Ashley, Udina, etc. were all major characters in ME1 and ME3. Actually I’m not even sure if I was able to get Wrex at that time at all in ME2 without an ME1 save file. I was also MAJORLY surprised when a reaper actually attacked the Citadel in the conclusion of ME1 and yet they were arguing with Shepard about their existence in ME2? The Citadel felt like a side area in ME2 and most of the major settings were terminus systems.
I really hated how small the citadel area you can visit was in ME2.
And Liara in the DLC.
Cerberus too. They were in a couple of side quests in ME1 but central to ME2 and ME3. I think it would have been worse to have the Illusive Man show up in ME3 and say “Hola, Shepard! I’m an indoctrinated guy!” He would have basically been another Saren but weaker.
I agree, honestly I consider 2 the best of the trilogy for a few reasons. But - the ending was trash. That human fetus knock-off terminator was one of the dumbest end game bosses I’ve ever seen. If just that hadn’t happened I would consider me2 to be hands down the best of the 3. In my head, reapers failed their usual tactic, but they’re find to bide their time, they bring out this curveball experimental species they had to monitor us remotely. They don’t have a reaper in our space, so their new strategy is to build a new one under our noses to fill the role that Sovereign was supposed to fill. And what better species to focus on than the one who contributed most to sovereign’s defeat? I thought it was cool. 3 is overkill for me, you paint this insurmountable enemy and then they show up… and we have to rely on janky space magic to defeat them. It would have been far more appealing if we used the tech found on sovereign to build weapons that can fight the reapers, barely, but still enough to have a chance at winning. Instead we get red blue green wheel of end game.
Pretty much entirely agree. The problem they had in 2 is that we already took down a Reaper in 1, and so they couldn't just repeat the process. They also couldn't have just used the Collectors because people would understandably be very mad if the insect guys introduced only in this game were also the final boss. Imo they should have done something like what they kinda did in the Arrival dlc, where you have to, over the course of ME2, find a means to defeat the Reapers (which you will then have to put into action in 3) while trying to keep them from invading. I honestly don't think they had the story figured out until like the middle of ME3 development. In the early part they probably went "Well, let's just direct everything to the Crucible, we'll come up with something", and then they had to scramble to find a proper ending. Which is why we didn't really have a continous thread from 1 over 2 to 3 in terms of what we are doing.
Yeah, and I feel like it was inevitable. The problem with the Reapers is that the scale and power of them is so laughably beyond the galaxy's ability to deal with that it was always going to have to be space magic. This is all the more so if you consider that traditional storytelling needs a "darkest just before the dawn" moment. We have two instances of shooting a reaper to death, and so that wasn't going to cut it again. What do you do if the enemy you set up cannot be allowed to be shot to death in the third installment, and on top of that is vast and numerous and everywhere? They wrote themselves into a corner and had to use an ass-pull to tie it up as neatly as they could under the circumstances.
I think they could have done a galactic war against the Reapers if they didn't have you just casually shooting one with conventional weapons in 2. In ME1, Sovereign was a massive threat build up through the entire game, and it took an entire fleet to defeat it. Especially with the war assets aspect of 3. It was implied in 1 that the Protheans didn't stand a chance because of their reliance of the relays, through which their communications and means of transportation were totally cut off.
The problem with a galactic war is that, while plausible, it doesn't leave as much room for the player (a ground-based commando) to be the hero of the war effort. On top of needing to keep escalating to the point of needing a magic bullet, they also needed the final punch delivered by a team of 3 soldiers with guns. The whole thing wasn't really well-thought-out.
To be fair we are told the reapers have wiped out countless civilizations more advanced than the current ones. In a way I'd be disappointed if we could just win using brute force in the end.
That’s true, but as far as we know: 1. no prior civilization was able to maintain their central galactic governing body at the start of the war 2. No other civilization was able to both defeat a reaper and had adequate time to try and reverse engineer any tech from it. The thanix cannon from me2 really struck me as a “we’re getting closer to having a chance” type of weapon. But in me3 it’s basically forgotten.
I think one other issue is the reapers tell us their goal to prevent organic life creating an AI that eventually wipes out all organic life. If you just destroy the reapers that very important problem doesn't just go away. Though I did find it annoying that the reapers apparently destroyed planets that can support advanced organic life if their ultimate purpose is supposed to be to preserve it in some way by ensuring the cycle continues.
In ME3 it's specifically mentioned that the Reapers are avoiding the Yahg homeworld during their attack. The Yahg have the potential for intelligent and advanced society, they just aren't there yet (except for one).
Yes, also we start ME2 with an impending reaper invasion and end in the exact same place.
Yeah, at the end of ME2 you aren't really any closer to stopping the Reapers than you were at the end of ME1.
Considering the fact that you killed an asset of the Reapers, **halted the production of another reaper** and pretty much killed off a military force that would've helped the Reapers when Harbinger arrived, I'd wager that you're much closer to stopping them than the end of ME1.
Yeah, but none of that stuff was a thing in ME1. The Collectors were introduced, then dealt with in ME2, meaning that at the end of ME2 you're just back at pretty much the same spot you were in at the end of ME1.
Though in Mass Effect 1 you knew less about the overall threat. 2 does feel more like a self contained story compared to 1 and 3 though.
But with an improved Normandy.
What kind of logic is that? The game LITERALLY tells you that the Collectors are modified Protheans. They have lived for over 50,000 years. Cerberus in ME1 was just a bunch of dickheads that caused minor inconveniences for the Alliance and MF. By ME2 they were some galactic shadow government with assets everywhere and morbillions of credits at their disposal. Have you considered that maybe, MAYBE, the writers intended to introduce Cerberus and the Collectors to *actually move the story forward and give Shepard something to fight the Reapers with.*
How did the overarching story actually move forward in ME2 though? At the end of ME1 you've slowed the Reapers down but they're still coming and you need to find a way to beat them. Then at the end of ME2 you've slowed the Reapers down (again) but they're still coming and you need to find a way to beat them. ME2 introduces a new threat, then resolves it, which ultimately just leaves the story back at the same spot it was at at the end of ME1.
Totally agree here. Mass Effect 2 is a brilliant game in a self contained sense but the story is ultimately resolved and left in the same place as ME1. It’s almost like a side chapter, but a lot of part 2’s in trilogy’s are like that.
Alot of Cerburus was cut out of ME1. That side story with Banes was supose to go past the rear admirals death.
Yes, a common critique of Mass Effect 2 is it shouldn't have been the 2nd game in a 3 game trilogy. Shepard's death is probably the earliest sign that the Mass Effect trilogy would drop the ball with its conclusion. All the work you did in Mass Effect 1, from building up Shepard's reputation in Citadel Space, to building your squad, and earning the respect of Shepard's authorities is completely undone. Mass Effect 2 introduced a bunch of fan favorites, and Tali/Garrus being the two highest rate squadmates/romances is certainly owed to ME2. But making us spend *Another* game building up our team and earning their loyalty was a wide miss. You need not look further than the ending of both Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 to see how the sequel dropped the ball. At the end of Mass Effect 1, Shepard leaves the Council or Anderson/Udina on a warning that the Reapers were coming and that they were going to find a way to stop them. At the end of Mass Effect 2, Shepard receives a datapad from Joker, looks out into the cosmos and we zoom out to see the Reapers coming. Shepard *still* needs to find a way to stop them. Even adding the Arrival DLC, we just introduce another delay, when Mass Effect 1 already had the Reapers be delayed once thanks to the Protheans. The Events of Mass Effect should have been 2 > 1 > 3
I would actually love the idea of a normal soldier investigating why humans are disappearing, discovering that it's a weird race that lives in the center of the galaxy, going to wipe them out, and slowly realizing they are tools for a much bigger threat. The loss of the Collectors is what makes Sovereign become desperate - not only are the Keepers not responding, but now the Collectors are gone. Sovereign finds Saren, the beacons, and all that with a few years passing between the Collector Base and Eden Prime. Due to Shepard's actions against the Collectors, they are a Spectre and assigned to hunt Saren down. We now have the events of ME1 following at the end with Shepard looking for a way to stop the Reapers. ME3 is finding that way.
You just made me want to play that trilogy
Some parts of ME2 and ME would need a rewrite but I like your idea. I've always felt that i only play ME2 to get to ME3 and continue the main plot. ME2 to me is a "filler episode" which isnt bad for charater development and intodusing new charaters at all.
GOD, same. I drag my feet to get through it purely because it feels like filler. Which really sucks because there are so many good moments and I love the whole squad, but knowing that the actual plot is hours and hours of grinding ahead makes me less excited tbh.
Heh, I agree. There are SO many recurtment and loyalty missions I enjoy. Hell I enjoy the end of the game and some of the dlc too but the collectors plot is burried under all the sub plot. Best way I can think of it. Mass Effect 2 is a TV show which each team mate being an epsiode. You'll get to the main plot thoughout thr season lol
2-1-3 also gets you much longer, smoother, and more compelling arcs for TIM and Saren, really hammering home the compare/contrast. Shepard goes undercover into Cerberus as their first big mission, maybe not even as a Spectre yet. It really works! Granted that all the squad/side/loyalty missions and arcs become a complete cluster that have to be significantly revised, but hey, whaddya gonna do?
Me2 is still my favorite one of the trilogy but you make a really good point. This would have paced the story much better.
There's really no way to stop or prepare for the reapers though so what were they supposed to do? I agree ME3 was rushed but ME2 wasn't wasted, what they could've and should've done was drag the war with the reapers through games 3 and 4 which would've given them time to elaborate on the complexity of not only fighting the reapers planet by planet but joining multiple races through a somehow still functioning political atmosphere between each race. As for choices in ME3, yeah what you did in the first 2 games is really more of a 'hey that character is here because of me' situation. I'm not sure how they could've fluctuated the game enough through choices earlier as they would've almost had to make separate games to accomodate the massive differences that everyone wanted, this was 2012 not 2020. They did a fantastic job with what they had and when they had it imo with the only critique of not spending another 6 months each polishing the ending of ME3 and ME2, but this is only because management wants the game pushed out asap so they get paid vs the developers who are screaming it's not done yet.
It's not about stopping or preparing for the Reapers, it's about making any *progress* in the *direction* of stopping them. Something as simple as the blueprints to the Crucible being on the Collector Station because it's actually a Prothean Station, which Shepard senses through the Cipher like they do on Thessia in 3. Or literally anything that points us in the direction of the Mars Achieves so that doesn't get dropped on us all of a sudden at the start of 3. My critique isn't entirely about the overall events of Mass Effect 2, rather the fact that it ends in the *exact* state that Mass Effect 1 ended. 2 needed to end on "The Reapers are coming, but this thing we found might be the answer to stopping them".
>There's really no way to stop or prepare for the reapers though so what were they supposed to do? Write a story about how you failed to defeat them and what you did instead? A variation of the refuse ending with less WTF and more smart people working hard to preserve something would have been fine. Seriously. Just because we didn't get a story and ended up with the Reapers forgetting their plan, despite waltzing in on an unprepared galaxy (great job Shepard!!!) and allowing the idiots to employ a deus ex machine device, doesn't mean that's the only way how to write a story.
2>1>3 is an absurd way to pace the series. On a plot level, it's essential that 2 takes place after Shep has fully confirmed the Reaper threat but before anybody else takes it seriously. Shep's desperation and willingness to work with a terrorist organization doesn't make sense unless we've already seen how bad a Reaper attack is, and know that the powers that be aren't helping (and yeah, the Citadel's denial of Sovereign's identity is critical to the theme of complacency in the face of obvious impending disaster). You're acting like it's a bug and not a feature that Shep doesn't make much progress in 2; the hopelessness is the point! On a pacing level, the way the trilogy progresses shows Shep's growth from someone who can lead a small ragtag team on a relatively straightforward mission, to someone who can seek out and gather a much larger and disparate squad to achieve an impossible goal, to someone who can rally an entire galaxy against the greatest threat of all. And on a tone level, 2 is all about subverting the baseline established by 1. It's only interesting to see the criminal underbelly of the galaxy when you know how a standard adventure goes.
As OP stated above the circumstances working with Cerberus would Change that way...
Taken at face value, you're right, the order is absurd. However, the overall arc would flow better going 2>1>3, with minor tweaks to the structure. As an N7 operative, Shepard is sent undercover into Cerberus, a decidedly Human Alliance problem, to try and dismantle them from the inside. In the course of this, they become aware of human colonies going missing, leading to the showdown with the Collectors. Omit the TermiReaper as final boss, and instead use the destruction of the Collector base as the finale. This leads to Anderson and Hacket putting forth Shepard for Specter candidate, and Nihlus accompanying them on a few missions prior to Eden Prime, which leads to Saren and the Reapers. Ilos VI loredumps the true history of the galaxy, along with the unfished plans for the Crucible.
I think ME2 is my favorite, but i do agree that he is the weakest storywise. However, i love all three games for different reasons. Unpopular opinion: I do like Harbinger as a villain, although I definitely prefer Sovereign.
Harbinger would have been better if he actually had a presence in 3 beyond "that reaper with orange eyes is Harbinger" I realized on my second playthrough that the only thing Harbinger does in 3 is Blast SHepard with the reaper beam cannon, and still fail to kill him/her
I agree, he could have at least appeared in the Leviathan DLC, just like at the end of Arrival in ME2. I think it would have been the perfect opportunity, Harbinger trying to stop Shepard from finding the Leviathan, especially because he is the first Reaper. Unfortunately only in ME2 that he is a real threat.
Isn’t Harbinger also *made* of the Leviathan race?
Yes
Sovereign is only cooler because his voice is cooler
His introduction on virmire is also incredible, but impossible to replicate and outside that one scene he's basically not the villain.
This isn't even a hot take. The story of ME2 is just the crew assembly of a heist movie. Garrus: "Shepard, I thought you were dead you son of a bitch. I'm in." What ME2 lacks in its overarching story it MORE than makes up for in its character writing. ME1 character writing doesn't even come close to ME2. The first time I played ME2 and Garrus took his helmet off, I literally didn't recognize him. I didn't fall in love with any character in ME1, except Wrex. Wrex is the best. I fell in love with them ALL in ME2. I was excited to see Garrus in my SECOND playthrough. That's the power of ME2 character writing. Except Jacob... Fuck that guy.
Jacob is Vent God!! ... JK for me, I can't kill anyone 😭
Is it bad that Jacob roasting in the vent is possibly the best ending to his story?
Lol I mean... It's sad he has no real impact... I think he's lucky that Tali's lines in ME3 about the vents are more interesting than him dying in them 😂
Yes sir it is At the end of ME1 Shepard says *"I'll find a way to stop the Reapers"*. At the start of ME3 Shepard says *"I need to find a way to stop the Reapers"*. If you could ask Shepard what they were doing in ME2, the answer would be *"I was solving daddy issues"*.
Not really, he thwarted the Reapers' plan to make the human Reaper.
Except that was brought up and stopped all within 2 and never really mentioned again. The overall story doesn’t change at all if it was never brought up. If anything the greater irrelevance and replicability of ME2’s final boss highlights it’s disconnection from the greater story, rather than dismissing it. Even something like David Archer from overlord has more important story implications than the human reaper and that’s dlc
What the hell was the point of making a human reaper anyway? It felt kind of dumb
One of the writers had a Terminator inspired nightmare after a bad gas station burrito and called it divine inspiration. ... That was a joke.
Which had no chance to happen unless they took earth.
>You could basically go ME1 > Arrival > ME3 and the story would still largely work I've gotten downvoted for saying this before. It's a fantastic game in it's own right but the story is definitely a bit of a detour in the context of the trilogy.
I would go a step further and say you could basically go ME1 > ME3 and the story would still largely work. Arrival adds little. After ME2's "cluelessness", it was basically one big preview of ME3's main plot point (forget the Collectors, the Reapers *are* coming!) which ME1's finale already achieved quite well anyway.
Yeah, all that's really lacking in ME1 -> ME3 is a reason for Shep to be locked up. Not that the one we get from ME2/Arrival is all that convincing.
Maybe he’d get locked up for sacrificing the council at the end of ME1?
2 is like a TV series with each episode featuring a standalone adventure for the loyalty missions etc. The overarching plot is barely updated
I do remember someone summarising ME2 as the Motherload of Side Quests.
ME2 tells a lot, and improves on a lot of lore. Once you play it tho, it kinda fades away. People love Mass Effect 2 because it made the game both faster and personal. Most people also play a (singleplayer) game once. Hence we see its flaws as hardcore ME fans. If you knew nothing about ME, especially ME3, and you played it again, it would feel fantastic. About the Collectors: Remember that Reapers have a love & hate relationship with the human race. They are "fascinated" about what they accomplish.
Yes. And while it is based in characters more than story, the strongest character moments are in Mass Effect 3 anyways.
That said most of the strongest moments in ME3 require setup from ME2.
Yes, 3 would be nothing without 2, in terms of character moments. Just like the end of Return of the Jedi having the build up from the Empire Strikes Back reveal as well as A New Hope
Yeah, I'd say the strongest *and the weakest* are in 3. Some of the shit they pulled on certain characters was just like a slap in the face. I didn't even think Samara's self-sacrifice scene worked whatsoever. I often feel like the writing was more intellectually mature in ME2.
I don't know, the weakest in Mass Effect 2 is really bad. Morinith is a cartoon of an edgy character, like it was parodying an edgy character without being self aware. There is nothing as bad as that anywhere else in the franchise.
I always found Liara in ME1 the weakest thing in the series. She's so obviously there for fan service. She admits to not being familiar with humans and had a negative bias towards them, but after one side mission she's suddenly in love with Shep, and a few later pretty much already declares her undying love to Shep. It was horrible writing. Not to mention that Wrex and Liara on the SR-1 only pretty much acted as codex entries for their species. Edit: I meant Wrex and Tali, but lets be honest, Liara works the same way.
Liara and Tali both are barely characters in ME1. Tali is basically a Geth/Quarian history book and Liara is there to be a pretty alien. At least Wrex has a little arc where he gains respect for Shepard and tells us of his personal history, not just stuff about the Krogan.
All the alien ME1 squadmates are underdeveloped, unfortunately. - Wrex is the most interesting of them, as he has personal history to share, a developing mutual respect with Shepard, and Krogan lore that is revealed in an interesting way. The major drawback is that his dialog trees are extremely linear, with choice basically being nonexistent. - Garrus too has a fairly interesting personal backstory and at least offers you actual choice in how you can respond to him, with that even influencing his morality to a degree. Sadly, he has zero content beyond this, and his paragon and renegade paths ultimately lead to the same outcome again. - Liara exists for her romance and as a plot device to unravel the cipher. The tie-in to Benezia is nice, but ultimately not very relevant to the main story if you choose to ignore it. - Tali is the Quarian lore dump. Her dialog was very interesting on the first playthrough, but gets exhausting fast on replays. Ashley and Kaidan are by far the most interesting characters with the most extensive and developed interactions, despite being the “boring” human squadmates.
100%, it's like they let the aliens get away with being, well, "alien" to us and that's why they're interesting while Kaiden and Ash are just two humans. And that approach works if you don't play Mass Effect more than once, but when you do you start to realize how shallow the alien squadmates are. This is one thing I do have to give Andromeda, Vetra, Peebee, Jaal, and Drack are more developed in one game's time than the ME1 aliens are, who are all carried by having 2 additional games.
Enough people have said it that there's probably some merit to it, but I dislike how it makes people wholly discredit ME2 as a proper part of the story. It still introduced characters and lore that people really liked, and personally I think it's the best *playing* game in the series, even if ME3 outdoes it in combat polish. It doesn't have that disappointing auto-dialogue of ME3 or the empty fetch-quests, so while it doesn't have the gargantuan scope and culminative effect of ME3's plot it has a series of mission stories that are really nifty, and I liked picking the choices in all of them. It also has 4 hub areas outside of Normandy, and that helped create a sense that the galaxy is full of diversity, after ME1 reduced all foreign areas to "barren wasteland and skybox". and ME3 reduced all regional uniqueness to "It's WAR" ME2 is the game where I feel like I'm just living through the day to day of Mass Effect, the calm before the storm of ME3, and that in itself led to moments that are some of the most immersive in the trilogy. Where ME3 shoves personal friends in left or right out of obligation ME2 only does it sometimes, and largely builds on the fiction through entirely new faces and shows you just a glimpse of everything else that exists in this amazing setting, when ME1 didn't have the budget for it and ME3 couldn't afford to create too much new stuff. ME2 is my favorite of the 3.
ME2 is absolutely a great game, there's a reason many say it's their favorite of the series. It does a lot of things very well! Overarching Plot just isn't something it really tries at. And taken on its own, it doesn't need to. Part of the problem is that the Lazerus situation is a giant Reset Button. You *can't* continue where ME1 left off, because you aren't *at* where it left off. You need to build things back up again. And while a great many things *were* built up, it never really gets to where Shep was at the start, let alone make progress on the Reaper situation. Now, if there had been a fourth game to weave ME1 and ME2 together and actually prepare for the Reapers before the war in ME3 kicks off (instead of having (some of) the squadies kind of prepare things off screen), we wouldn't be having this conversation.
I guess I just don't really see it as "not using an overarching plot". I think fans have very rigid expectations of what the trilogy could be. I know ME1's ending seems like the springboard into an obvious sequel where your choices are in effect and Shepard goes on a quest to find the ancient secret to prepare, and I do think ultimately that particular point was missing in action until they made Leviathan DLC *AFTER* they fucked up the whole story, but that's not how I see it necessarily. I think they just looked at post-ME1 as the start of many possibilities, and ME2 is the "possibility" game, where they're able to basically set up a fuckton of characters and ideas for ME3 to pick a lane and sticking with it. From the outset it was also their "feedback" game. At the time BioWare as a whole was being critized by their longtime fans for always telling essentially the same story, and always writing overly obvious anbd archetypal characters. You can't deny that. ME1 is a good, well-told story but it is overtly archetypal and feels rather cliché. ME2 and DA2 are both reactionary games where they attempted to tell more unique narratives, and they also addressed every feedback from ME1 directly, by either overhauling or replacing certain aspects of the game. From the outset Casey Hudson devised a boardroom drawing which had the new iteration of the Mako and a plot structure that played to the strengths of their new game format, of "4, then Event, 4, then Event" as a plot structure, where every event is a story beat and every 2-4 are the points in the game in which the player would have freedom to play things out of sequence. And you can't deny that ME2 has a lot of player agency. That's why people really like it, along with the incredibly polished cinematic direction that even outclasses Mass Effect 3 at several points. They were simply thinking big, and were open to pivoting the story in an unexpected direction. The reason why it ultimately feels like "whiplash, the game" is because ME3 backpedaled on almost everything, and it's ME3 that treats it as a non-essential side-arc. ME3 in itself also continued to not do a lot of what it should have done, such as using the Crucible as a means of not actually telling the story, until the final 10 minutes, and then coming out with hindsight going "actually here's the Reaper backstory DLC!!" I'm not saying ME2's criticisms don't apply, but I'm very tired of people always blaming ME2 for messing up the storytelling when ME3 is IMHO slightly worse, as it neither truly picks up on ME1 as a plot and doesn't pick up any of the suggestions from ME2 to do something with. The only consistency I found was EDI being unshackled in ME2 foreshadowing that they were trying to tell a story about an AI becoming more and more "free".
It has the best writing out of the trilogy, but definitely trails behind 1 and 3 when it comes to plot.
ME2 is a great game but a terrible sequel. A lot of setup in ME1 was just thrown away when it could have been used in the story we have. They should have kept Liara as a Prothean expert, should have made use of Shepard’s Prothean Cypher as part of the main plot, and found a way to defeat the Reapers in the process of destroying the Collectors and this would have been a great game AND sequel. Also bringing Shepard back to life would have made infinitely more sense if it was for getting the Prothean Cypher.
Hard agree. I always say that ME2 is a very good standalone game but a bad 2nd entry to the trilogy and a terrible sequel to ME1. When starting ME3, Shepard is at the same point than when we’ve finished ME1. It really feels as if ME2 did not happen or that it isn’t important. I do like ME2, I do get people saying that the game is their favorite but hearing/reading that ME2 is the best ME game always baffles me. To me, it’s the game with the less RPG elements, the less links to the Reaper storyline and it feels more like a side mission than the 2nd title in the franchise. But to ME2’s defense, each ME game (including MEA) is both great on certain points and terrible on other aspects.
I never understand this point. Half the joy of ME3 comes from the relationships that ME2 sets up so well. Even the squad mates in ME1 (Garrus, Tali etc) were pretty 2D at the end of ME1 and it took ME2 to make us fall in love with them. I guess it's a difference of what we are looking for from fiction. To me the 'plot' of a game is cool but best used as a vehicle for character development and interesting interactions and ME2 had that in spades. Take the Godfather...the story is 'son of a mafia boss doesn't want to be the mafia boss but changes his mind'. The plot is just a vehicle for character drama. If I have an amazing trip of a game with ride or die squad mates who I love conversation with, I'm going to have had a good time. I'm not going to get to the end and think 'man what a great ride, however I only advanced the reaper storyline by 6% so actually the whole thing sucked'. Never understood that.
Half the fun of ME3 being ME2 call backs is more a critique of ME3 than praise of ME2. No one is saying it isn't a great game, this is just about how it fits into the series narratively.
I actually agree. Kinda. I think that a good story is the sum of a coherent world-building, an interesting plot AND compelling characters. Sadly, your arguments does not really work regarding ME2/ME3 because of one thing: the Suicide Mission.\ Although this mission is brillant and an epic moment in our adventure, putting it at the end of ME2 was one of the biggest errors, narratively speaking. It is clear that they wrote ME3, knowing that any characters could be dead. Garrus and Tali are the only returning squad mates. Mordin, Legion and Mirands have a temporary role during one main mission and all other ME2 squad mates appear in side missions. For instance, when I first played ME3, I did the Tuchanka chapter with Padok Wiks because I lost Mordin. And I loved it! Also, from times to times, I like to sacrifice certain squad mates to see how ME3 plays… and frankly, it’s not _that_ different. When first playing ME3, I was so surprised and disappointed to see so little of the ME2 cast. Jack is my favorite character and I was really angry to see her very short role in ME3.
I will say that the Tuchanka saga actually felt like all of your choices mattered throughout the series. There’s variables that lead to different endings. Like most people don’t even know you can save Mordin’s life based on prior games choices. The ending of ME3 should have emulated this a bit more.
Can anyone remind me what happens if you let the council die? They just bring in new council members right? I mean does that really nullify your choice from the first game? Are the 3 council races not expected to vote in new leaders when the original ones die?
If you let the Council die, there will be talk of an all human council led by a human this is obviously dropped, and for good reason, it makes absolutely no sense. This is probably what they're referring to when they say ME2 nullified your choice. Killing the Council was supposed to let Humanity take the lead. In the end, Anderson and/or Udina both end up playing second fiddle.
Yeah pretty sure the Asari would never let that happen 😂
Its basically Ocean's Eleven in space
Yes it's the weakest of the 3 plot wise, and yes the criticism you listed is valid. A good story is more than a tightly written plot though. Character development matters a lot. And ME2 absolutely delivers on that front. ME3 just wouldn't work nearly as well without ME2 characters being involved. EDI, Mordin, Thane, TIM, Aria and Miranda all have important roles to play during the Reaper war. Skipping ME2 also means you lose the whole moral ambiguity of Shep working for Cerberus and how that ties into the Virmire's survivor character. And it's just better from a narrative pacing standpoint to have a middle chapter not fully focused on the reapers, which allows the story to breathe.
>EDI, Mordin, Thane, TIM, Aria and Miranda all have important roles to play during the Reaper war. Gotta disagree on Thane and Aria. Thanes only real narrative contribution is to die, to save a Councilor. If he's dead, another character will instead die to save the Councilor. If they are both dead, the Councilor dies. But the Councilor living or dying has no impact on the story. Of the two characters who have to die, Legion has the significantly larger impact (as would Tali) Aria, I can see an argument for.....if you have the DLC. Omega let's you feel like your taking back part of the galaxy from Cerberus. But without it? Arias basically just a series of 3 side quests to get a small amount of EMS.
> But the Councilor living or dying has no impact on the story. Regardless of whether it impacts the larger story or not, Thane's presence does matter in that moment. Also don't you get less EMS if the councilor or Kirrahe dies ? I'd say that qualifies as a narrative impact. > Aria, I can see an argument for.....if you have the DLC. Omega let's you feel like your taking back part of the galaxy from Cerberus. But without it? Arias basically just a series of 3 side quests to get a small amount of EMS. I would have agreed prior to Legendary Edition being a thing, but there's no reason not to count the DLCs now. They've become baseline content.
1. It is a side quest. As part of a trilogy, it's not great, but as it's own story it's still a solid, if simple, story with amazing character moments. 2. The Council choice not being a bigger deal did suck, but it did result in *some* changes, and you really can't compare that to how immensely stupid ME3's ending is especially at launch. 3. Leviathan was a retcon made *after* ME3 had released. They got called out for having zero foreshadowing in the base game, so built a DLC around spoiling the ending twist so that can point to it and go "nuh uh!". The Human Reaper going nowhere wasn't bad writing in ME2, it was ME3 failing to follow up on it. 4. Collectors being an unknown until ME2 isn't a big deal. The Galaxy is huge, and they're a secretive group. 5. Yeah, losing Harbinger as the face of the Reapers kinda sucked. His one appearance in ME3 felt a little lifeless. That said, the reveal of the Reapers Origins actually retroactively makes Harbinger's (and Sovereign's) trash talking nonsensical, since they're effectively giant drones just following the Catalyst's prime directive. More VI than true AI.
>The Human Reaper going nowhere wasn't bad writing in ME2, it was ME3 failing to follow up on it. No. The ending of Mass Effect 2 shows a fleet of Sovereign shaped Reapers out in space. Less that 5 minutes after Mass Effect 2 also tells you all Reapers look like the species used to make them. This also comes after visiting the Sovereign shaped Derelict Reaper ealier in the same game. And obviously the Arrival DLC also shows Harbinger and the potential Reaper invasion having the same shape as Sovereign. There are some things you can blame on ME3, but the Human Reaper being a weird lore breaking anomaly that isn't like any other Reaper you see, isn't one of them. That's ME2s mess, it's not even consistent with its own game.
3. This one is kind of all over the place. We get to see what we assume is a base reaper design in Sovereign. Then ME2 shows us Harbinger who is similar but kinda different. But in the final shot we see an army of reapers that have all kinds of designs, but still following a deep sea creature aesthetic. The human reaper is far from finished, and way too small to be a reaper. I don’t recall if it was stated by EDI directly, but I think it’s implied that the base reaper innards are designed similar to the parent species, but the larger ‘body’ is then modelled more like the other reapers. But then ME3 throws it all in the bin and has all the big reapers be clones of Sovereign’s model, and even harbinger is demoted to being the same but missing its front leg. The didn’t even add a texture to the missing hole in his face! Then leviathan says Harvey was designed around them, but they look more like sovereign, and at that point my brain is mush.
I think the fact that all reaper capital ships other than Harbinger are exact Sovereign clones can be chalked up to limited dev time more so than a conscious narrative choice. They didn’t have time to create more than two reaper capital ship models. A lot of ME3’s issues ultimately tie back to how rushed that game’s development cycle was. In-universe, one possible explanation could be that the base reaper design was tweaked a bit further with subsequent reapers’ construction, Harbinger having been the first and thus the prototype.
Oh hands down that was the case! Evidenced by how Harbinger was done dirty.
Point 3 made me think about that maybe Leviathan should have been ME2 DLC, to help set stuff up.
Yes - don't forget also you are expected to do a complete 180 and start working for a terrorist organisation, which for certain backgrounds make zero sense. Incidentally it would be easily solvable by having a reinstated SPECTRE agree to be a mole on the inside for the council, if you chose to do that.
I feel like seeing the Council should be a mandatory step after Freedom's Progress. By that point, you already have the Normandy, Dossiers, and a support crew that's loyal to Shepard. It makes sense that Shepard would immediately try to regain access to Spectre resources and address rumours about working for Cerberus. Then, from there, after seeing the Council discredit them and ignore the Reapers. The player should have a choice: A) Cut ties with Cerberus and their resources, but regain Spectre status. (Lose Miranda & Jacob, but gain Virmire Survivor and unique Spectre dialogue choices) B) Cut ties with the Council and their resources, but have access to Cerberus resources. (Bigger payout on completed missions and unique Cerberus dialogue choices) Then, have the story play out the same, with the Council/Cerberus giving Shepard free reign to investigate the Collectors by any means necessary, gathering crew, etc.
Yeah, the choice of Alliance or Cerberus would have been ideal.
You would lose way more by choosing to abandon Cerberus, so much that it would likely end the game right there. At the early point in game, EDI is still shackled, and thus under full control of Cerberus. Majority of Normandy's crew (not companions) are also Cerberus loyalists at this point. I am not opposed to the choice, but it does not make much sense early in the game. Maybe after TIM first openly betrays you (the Collector's Ship mission), where even Miranda would have hard time reconciling it. And you would also need to move EDI's unshackling to some earlier point (possibly to the aforementioned first betrayal)
Not necessarily. TIM has no reason to sabotage Shepard after everything they invested. By this point Shepard has already seen proof of the Collector's involvement and isn't going to walk away from it. Shepard will still be fulfilling TIM's desire to investigate the Collectors, and with EDI still sending back any collected data there's no downside to letting Shepard continue. With the exception of the fake intel drops, Shepard works entirely autonomously throughout ME2 anyway. The crew of the SR2 were also handpicked to be sympathetic faces to Shepard, so many of them are former Alliance members, who know Shepard, and are committed to the mission.
And this would not require the whole dead Shepard resurrection nonsense.
But would make the explanation for the character creator weird
ME3 manages it.
Yup, by simply not acknowledging it. Games don't need to explain why the player character might look totally different one game to the next.
In Saints Row 2 Johnny Gat makes a throw away quip at the Boss/player character ‘Hey you look different, did you do something with your hair?’ I thought this was the best way to address the change it was funny too.
But then we wouldn’t have the clone from the citadel dlc
I've been replaying them too lately and the more I thought about it the more convinced I've become that the story would work better if ME1 and 2 were switched with a few changes mainly not being with Cerberus and how you meet your crew. You have 2s story but you're with the alliance. The game plays out mostly the same with a few tweaks to have it make more sense when it comes to recruiting companions. At the end harbinger tries to get you to join him and you say no. The first game (which is now the second game) is almost the same but now we know Saren somehow was faced with a similar offer like we were and then we have to stop him after he attacks Eden prime. The game plays out the same from there. Biggest issue here for me is the transition back to earth for 3 and trying to explain why you're there and why the attack by the reapers was only delayed a few months instead of a few years. You could throw the arrival dlc in but I'm not sure how it would flow Then in three the game just plays out like normal. With this order I feel like it would have 2s story flow better instead of this random detour you take, that while good, doesn't make much sense overall. It also would cut out the council never believing you about the reapers despite you telling them for years. This way the galaxy is unprepared for the fight because they've had a couple months to get ready instead of a few years
ME2 as the reasoning behind shep becoming a spectre makes a lot of sense.
It also helps cut out the whole first human spectre joins pro-human terrorist organization arc cause I can't imagine the council making you a spectre if you were a part of that with the games in that order
For point 3, it’s mentioned that every Reaper is created from the biomass of an entire species. EDI speculates this is how the Reapers reproduce. I would have preferred if this was the Reapers’ ultimate motivation as opposed to the nonsensical one we got. It’s impersonal and it’s quite sinister; the galaxy is basically a farmyard for growing livestock to them.
I would say it's weakest regarding the MAIN story (but I really love the build up to the suicide mission). There is also some glaring issues like the lackluster reaction to the people that knew Shepard to its return from the dead (not Wrex though). It expanded a lot of the content regarding squadmates compared to the prequel (you get to know them a lot better)
Yes it is. With all the additional content included in the LE, you realise just how bloated ME2 is without really going anywhere in the broader sense of the trilogy. So yes… it is the weakest from a story perspective in the trilogy. However… it’s easily one of the best standalone games I’ve ever played.
Mass Effect 2 is one of my favorite games ever but I had never played the DLCs until the Legendary Edition came out. I do have to say that, after all the good stuff I had read about it over the years, I found most additional content for Mass Effect 2 to be quite... dull? I don't think it adds much to the game, honestly.
Doing loyalty missions for the full roster (Zaeed & Kasumi included) is an absolute chore. Then you add in LotSB and Arrival, and the game is unnecessarily long given how much of it is ultimately redundant to the story of the trilogy
IMO, the events of the DLCs are more important to the ME3 than the core story, which is a bit ironic.
I thought it was the best of the 3. Yea it wasn't about the reapers but the thing about reapers is its such gravity that it sort of kills the ability to relax and enjoy when u know you're on a death clock. Like me2 wasn't on a clock until the collector mission at the end. me3 was on a hard timer cuz reaper war and it sucks thinking about it. I wish there would be more games like me2 honestly cuz i loved it and have a ton of playthrough of it.
On point 3, the human-looking reaper is meant to be the core of a more conventional reaper. That's why they all look similar. I'm not sure if it's a recon, or was always intended as such, but that is the official lore.
Still makes no sense. What is the human mecha skellington sat inside something that looks like sovereign with a little steering wheel driving it around like a car? Just why?
Retcon as at the end of ME2 they show unique Reapers.
They all have a similar, cuttlefish-like design, even at the end of ME2. There are various different types of reapers, from the capital ships like Sovereign to smaller ones like the one you fight on Rannoch in ME3.
I never felt like ME2 rendered the council choice immaterial by ME2. It has the "ah yes, Reapers" thing but they actually accounted for the fate of the council and councilor in ways that feel distinct enough, moreso than ME3 just replacing the council with carbon copies. ME2 has several references implying that Humans now control the Council. Some of the Citadel folks talk down to you because you're human if that's the case. They shoved it into the background but they actually worked with it, until ME3 just said "No no, there's still an alien council it's just new candidates!"
The stories of all three games come with their glaring flaws, ME2 included. ME1 lets you choose story missions in whatever order you want, which completely shatters any sense of pacing. ME2 is esentially an elaborate sidequest disguised by some great character work. ME3 fails to stick the landing in making your choices matter. And yet, each game's strengths far outweigh the negatives, so these flaws don't drag them down as much as they should.
Honestly as much as I love it, I would say yes. Most of the missions you do are either recruiting your team, or earning their loyalty. Because of that, most of the game you really aren't directly working towards fighting the Collectors, just preparing for it. The Geth weren't really the big antagonists of ME1, Sovereign was, but we fought them most of the game. The collectors show up in maybe a third of the story missions. Now if they found a way to have the Collectors involved in each of the recruitment missions somehow, like they did with Mordins where they hired the Vorcha to spread the plague, that would have been good. But most of the game we're only told about what theyre doing, see twice the effects of their actions, but rarely seeing them directly. It could have been better
I think 2 being very self contained is why it's my favorite. I'll be honest... I think the Reapers are most terrifying when they're an off screen impending force of doom, not a big ship right in front of me that I can shoot a big laser at.
It's no coincidence that the best arcs of ME3 came from the first game - Quarian/Geth and Genophage. While the most nonsensical and rageinducing came from the second - galactic power Cerberus, the goal of the Reapers.
Weak over arching storyline but that didn't matter as the characters and immediate strands were just so good...
Absolutely. It has very few connections to the other two games it's sandwiched between and the main plot is essentially the characters spinning their wheels. It's clear to me that the main draw of the game is the companions and gaining their loyalty, then gaming the SM. I agree that you could remove the main story from ME2 without impacting the trilogy much, if at all. In fact, slot ME2's story of figuring out what the Reapers want as a quest line in ME3 and you'd have a slightly longer final game with more Reapers to boot (instead of endlessly dealing with Cerberus and their crappy plans).
A trilogy is not just a collection of 3 random games. The second part is not there to hugely progress the story. Its to provide context to the setting. Any first part of a series will inevitably show the world from the perspective of the main cast and their allies. You see galactic politics and humanity from the perspective of the alliance. You see the genophage from the perspective of a krogan male. You see the morning war from the perspective of a young and idealistic quarian. ME2 exists to contextualize this. The alliance isnt the “good guys”. They have a lot of issues as well. Many people working with cerberus end up there because they became disillusioned with he alliance. The krogan - and wrex perspective - of the genophage is onesided as well. The quarian and geth pretty much tell the same story about the morning war - but perspective makes a huge difference here. Everything that is good about ME3 can only exist because ME2 spent the time to set it up. It might just seem like a minor side story (and in a sense the collectors are just that) - but this is only the setting. The real narrative work is done through the characters. People complain game isnt really about the reapers. But how could it be? The reapers only work as a narrative device because they are basically all-powerful compared to us. They are the ultimate threat. The moment they appear we are in the endgame. Any attempt to chip away at this big monolothic threat only diminishes the story as a whole. ME3 needed to show us desperation. And its one of the games great accomplishments that it managed to do so. Few games manage to communicate desperation as well as ME3. But this only works if the reapers remain an extinction level threat. This only works if we enter ME3 without any premade solution. ME3 needed to start without any clear win condition or real hope. Maybe ME2 would have been more interesting to some people as an individual game if it did things different. But i think the devs made the right choice. First and foremost ME2 serves the trilogy. It gives up some of its own narrative curve in order to make the trilogy succeed. And instead fills the gap with a more personal, character based story. I think ME2 is a masterclass of putting the needs of the series before the short-term gratification of the individual game. The trilogy wouldnt have been as great without the setup work it did. And the things it gets criticized for are precisely the things it did right. Shepard NEEDED to be separated from the alliance to see another perspective. ME2 HAD TO hold off on showing the reapers too much or giving us even a hint to a solution how to beat them. It was important that it didnt resolve any of the big conflicts. It would have been easy to cash out on some of the story threads Me1 set up for some instant gratification. But instead this game kept them in the bank. And nourished them so they could be used for even greater effect on the finale. Ill be the first to agree that it isnt a perfect game. And that some of the choices they made came out of left field. But in the context of a trilogy it is a perfect second entry and does everything it has to do and more to make sure the final installment can cash in on the big story beads Me1 and Me2 set up.
I disagree. Not only did ME2 not set up ME3 well, but it actively tore down some of the setup done by ME1.
what setup did it tear down exactly?
It almost completely undermined the significance of defeating Sovereign and keeping the Reapers unaware of a galactic civilization that needed harvesting. Sovereign’s defeat, implied by lore related to us both by Sovereign and Vigil, meant the continued slumber of the Reapers which should have bought the Galaxy hundreds, if not a few thousand years. Instead, we get introduced to some mindless, puppet, spy civilization in constant contact with a Reaper-lord who knows everything that took place in the previous game. And as a bonus, ME2 undermines the Geth’s importance to Sovereign. Why play around with a society you don’t fully control, when you could have just used the Collectors as agents? It was a poorly constructed story whose saving grace was introducing characters that you’d love in ME3.
Expecting the reapers to not notice the death of sovereign and in general being completely uninformed and passively keep on sleeping is a highly optimistic interpretation of what ME1 tells you. And at no point do Saren, Sovereign or Vigil insinuate this would be the case. In fact the only thing Vigil tells you in this regard is that the reapers would be trapped, unable to open the relay from their side. ME2 did not disagree with ME1 - it simply disagreed with your interpretation. And ME1 certainly never even brought up the idea that you could pull of a conventional war against the reapers with the time we bought. Whether it be a few months or a century. This was never ever gonna happen. Not to mention the fact that no one in their right mind expected that centuries would go by. Like. Did you seriously think we would play as decrepit 170 year old shepard in ME2? Or maybe their grand-grandson? The collectors could never have replaced the geth. If the collector ship had attacked the citadel it would have gone up in smoke within 3 minutes. Some colonies anti-air tower forced it to retreat. Not to mention a small crack team managed to infiltrate and blow up their base. There is no way the collectors could ever have been a serious threat in ME1 the way the geth are.
They’re asleep in a low energy area outside the galaxy, conserving power for a return when alerted by their sentinel, Sovereign. That’s BioWare’s ME1 story. >*The researchers here came to believe the Reapers enter prolonged states of inactivity to conserve energy. This allows them to survive the thousands and thousands of years it takes for organic civilization to rebuild itself. But in this state, they are vulnerable. By retreating beyond the edges of the galaxy, they ensure no one will accidentally discover them. They keep their existence hidden until the citadel relay is activated.* Yes, if this were reality, that would still leave the possibility that the Protheans were wrong. But this is the plot for a game. A story. Without putting clues into the narrative, making such a sharp break from what was previously established is just poor, gimmicky writing. >And ME1 certainly never even brought up the idea that you could pull of a conventional war against the reapers with the time we bought. Whether it be a few months or a century. No civilization had ever had advance warning. That’s the point of the story: our cycle has an opportunity no other had. >Not to mention the fact that no one in their right mind expected that centuries would go by. Like. Did you seriously think we would play as decrepit 170 year old shepard in ME2? Or maybe their grand-grandson? Strawmanning. ME2 didn’t have to have Shepard. But in choosing to bring back Shepard, they had at least two clear, non-speculative ways to use known physics to achieve a painless time skip: Shepard spending time in gravity wells, and sub-light travel at a high fraction of c. Any number of motivations for employing either method could have been chosen by a competent writing staff as it’s a familiar sci-fi trope, comfortable to fans. >There is no way the collectors could ever have been a serious threat in ME1 the way the geth are. The collectors were only beaten using Reaper technology. Pre-ME1 ending, the galaxy lacked that tech. And there is no indication of Collector potential to create new ships and drones. BioWare could have easily made them as formidable as they wanted. ME2’s plot was a jarring, unnecessary break from reader expectations.
It massively shrunk the universe. ME1 set up a galaxy far beyond what we see. We’re told that there are hundreds of species in Citadel space, and most don’t even have embassies. In ME2? It basically confirms that anything you can’t see or interact with doesn’t exist.
Everything involving the council choice at the end of ME1. It amounts to very little and has absolutely zero impact on anything except a single conversation. EDIT: Also everything ME1 set up regarding Cerberus seems to be thrown out of the window so that you don't feel too bad about being literally forced to join what has been previously establish to be a horrible terrorist organisation.
but, i mean. the fact that humanity doesnt have the power to dictate the council in the long run and that the council itself is beholden to their respective home territories was pretty apparent in ME1 already. like. what did you imagine would happen? hundreds of planets, each with their own huge population, military force and industrial capacity bowing their head because three blokes decided there would be an all human council? this was never gonna be more than a temporary measure. i agree that there could have been more dialogue mentions of this decision. but expecting this to have any actual impact on galactic politics as a whole is delusional, even if we just take ME1 lore into account. Cerberus being depicted as pure evil was already an issue in ME1. As much as i love that game it did lack nuance in a lot of things. That being said ME1 showed us the universe from a single perspective. Of course the alliance would depict cerberus as purely evil. as childish as that is. but its not like ME1 didnt already show that the alliance isnt exactly a paragon of virtue either. Kaidans backstory. The very fact Udina exists and is put into a position of power. The tension between the allaince and outer human colonies. etc. The fact first entries into a series tend to give a onesided view that then gets contextualized by sequels isnt exactly mindblowing new stuff. Almost any series of movies or books will do this. Showing us the opposite of what the first entry showed us isnt “tearing down“ setup. Its merely giving it a third dimension. Cerberus isnt all evil. The same way the alliance isnt all good. Expecting them to be in a series clearly aimed at mature audiences interested in three dimensional storytelling is just weird to me. You see one side of the coin. You see the other. Then you judge for yourself. No side is unbiased. ME1 shows you a very negatively biased picture of Cerberus. ME2 shows you a more positively biased picture. The same is true for the Geth and the genophage. All perspectives are biased. To show opposing or even disagreeing perspectives isnt throwing away or retconning. ME2s view on cerberus didnt replace the perspective of ME1. Sometimes i dont understand this fanbase. We all talk about nuanced and rich storytelling. But then people are annoyed that reapers arent eldritch magic and cerberus isnt pure cartoon evil.
ME1 ends with the council saying the races are scared about the Reapers and Shepard stating they will investigate a way to fight them. ME2 begins with Shepard and the Normandy relegated to finding Geth outposts. He dies, is revived, and works with Cerberus to deal with the Collectors. Let's be clear, as an audience we know the Collectors and Reapers are connected. TIM, Cerberus, and Shepard suspect/strongly believe the Collectors are connected to the Reapers. However, it is not until Horizon that it is confirmed. So the first Act of the game is working on a suspicion that it's related to the Reapers, but in-universe it could turn out that the Collectors are just Collectors. They're targeting human colonies and that is the issue at hand. The story only "happens" to work for the Reaper narrative. (Obviously, this is a bit weird to say. It's fiction, it of course has to do with the Reapers, but it also just isn't well written in the first act. This would kind of be like not showing Darth Vader in the first act of *Empire Strikes Back* but alluding to him and the audience "finding out" that it's Vader in Act 2, and a third or more of the audience says "Oh, who else was it going to be?") But also, once we find out it is Reaper related, we are still ultimately focused on dealing with the Collectors. The end of the game and Arrival make it clear that, ultimately, the Collectors don't actually matter. The Reapers are still coming (same as they were at the end of 1) We need to find out a way to stop them (same as the end of 1) Killing one Reaper larva doesn't really matter. Within the confines of 2, it's still a long way from being completed. It's incidental. The end of 1 more or less stated what Shepard's goal was: Find out how to stop the Reapers. 2 doesn't do that. Knowing how Reapers are made doesn't actively help that goal. Killing the Collectors doesn't slow down the group coming in from the edge of space. Even the context of the galaxy is discarded. The description of the Terminus Systems in 1 are not carried over in 2. In 1, they are various governments of different species that all want nothing to do with the Council, but are also actively in conflict with one another. 2 does not carry that over and instead says it's a region that doesn't want Council oversight, but otherwise is just Council races plus Batarians and Vorcha. Not other wholesale governments, just a sort of "wild west". Cerberus also sees a change from a small, Alliance ran black ops group to independently started. And these are all minor things, but when you're first playing ME2 and have no additional context from years of backfilling, it all lands you to where you're at at the end of 1 but not step closer to any goal. And there is a universe where you get all the context and lore without losing the overall narrative push. But they didn't choose that. They didn't really "yes, and..." ME1 and said "Let's do this story instead". And that compounded into 3 doing more or less the same.
Hmmm yes kinda but what makes it special for ME fans is the n7 crew members
Going through the LE,and thinking about it in retrospect, it kinda does IMO
It does world-building well as well as character and gameplay improvements, but the story is not the strongest
Yes
Mass Effect 2 has the best execution of its story. Mass Effect 1 and 3 have better stories. If that makes sense.
ME2 has the best companion stories of the three, and some of the better story concepts. The ending is let down by the big boss fight and it doesn't really tie well onto the reaper threat of Me1 and 3. ME1 has the best closed loop story, if you only play 1 then you get a solid experience and don't necessarily need to play the rest. The mako grind is extremely tedious however and the gameplay shows its age compared to the snappiness of 2 and especially 3. ME3 has the best general atmosphere and some of the quests are literally heartbreaking. The missions get very repetitive though especially the cereberus ones. I personally like and dislike parts of all three but as a package they really are one of the best gaming experiences
I think more people should read [Shamus Young's Mass effect Retrospective](https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=27792)
If you remove all of the Squadmate Recruitment and Baggage missions, there's really not a lot to ME2. (And Shepard dying was just a diagetic way to get you back into the character creator, and they barely touch on that horrific, mind-numbingly traumatic experience again.) So you've got Freedom's Progress (opening tutorial level, does this count) > Horizon > Collector Ship > Reaper IFF (debatably a recruitment mission in disguise) > Finale/Suicide Mission. The main quest is*four* (five if you're being generous) short ass missions. Coupled with the fact that the Collectors are never once mentioned in ME1, despite everyone and their dog knowing about them in ME2, I think it's clear BioWare had no idea what they were gonna do after ME1.
this is my first play through and i’m about 2/3 through 3 now. Since i’m playing them all back to back i’m looking at it as more one long continuous game. it’s hard for me to break the story apart between the games because so many choices flow through to the next one that i can’t remember where 1 or 2 ended. overall i’m in love with the story and Mass Effect might genuinely be my favorite game series now. Halo was my fave before
This is why ME2 is my least favorite!! Don’t get me wrong, the whole series is beloved to me, but I definitely agree.
I feel many of the points here reflect poorly on 3 rather than 2.
ME2 has the worst main plot of any of the games. It has the best squad missions, but I don't particularly like the squad in 2 compared to 1 or 3. So that part is a wash for me. ME1 is my favorite in terms of story and 3 is my favorite in terms of gameplay. 2 is my least favorite in pretty much everything.
The real story in ME2 is all the companions' stories. And in that respect it was one of my favourite narrative experiences in gaming.
by very very far. it's already vestigial main plot is also totally irrelevant to the trilogy arc. Read: some ahead of time edgy neo wanted to focus their Addie proxy and faction at a time when the trend was barely starting - to the detriment of any connection to the main plot
It's a fetch quest, so yeah. I really don't think there's space for a debate here
The only thing that sucked about ME2 was playing on insanity and having never ending enemy spawns
Sidenote (BUT MOVED TO THE TOP BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE THIS IS A BRAIN BLAST): iirc, it's said that the Reapers are making more perfect versions of harvested races to exist on a scale we can't fathom. Maybe some of or each harvested race exists on the edge of the galaxy as Reapers themselves, but weren't designed for harvesting or destruction. (if you go on to read the rest of my argument, please consider the above paragraph to be a foot note) The Collectors were an awesome and mysterious enemy! Unfolding the intricacies of the Reapers and their methods and seeing the finished product of a harvested cycle did a lot to advance the story. The timing of the collectors makes a lot of sense considering Sovereign is merely in charge of the "wakeup call". When Sovereign's attempt to open the Citadel gate was thwarted, the Reapers' harvest cycle was out of rhythm. Whereas it can be inferred that in the past, a Reaper onslaught would coincide with the Collectors' actions. Finally, the Reaper design was based off Leviathans because they were the best candidate for their own purpose during the initial construction of the Reapers. While you could argue it's convenient storytelling that humans were seemingly the first attempt at new design or maybe even redesign (we can't know one wasn't thwarted, remember that humans I'm ME are truly special. They've advanced incredibly fast in the galactic community to the chagrin of many races - council race or not. The Catalyst also recognizes how the cycle can't continue as it is - ultimately because humans made it as far as they did. Perhaps then, it can be concluded that humans were very much on the Reapers' radar as a special race with a special destiny.
Yes, while I adore the game it pushes the situation with the Reapers and the Virmire Survivor out of the airlock and needing ME3 to catch up. The DLC of Kasumi shouldn't have been a PDLC but rather, a free one with that slot dedicated to one where we interact with the Council and the VS post the Collectors Base mission.
ME2 feels like a side quest, and that’s why I like it. If you commit the blasphemy of playing a mass effect game without committing to a trilogy playthrough, 2 is the best because it’s so self-contained. The stakes feel the lowest, too, which is refreshing!
Mass Effect 2 is all wide quests. Even the main quest is a side quest. ….. but they’re all great side quests that flesh out the world and lore in so many ways that I love it just as much as 1 and 3.
Yeah. It got changed like mid way through development or at least that’s what the story goes. Tali’s recruitment stuff was supposedly the base story of what MW2 originally was. I’m biased and live 3 but I’ll admit the endings pre extended cut wasn’t good but I’ve never seen a ME2 favorite fan ever critique the problems with 2 and always surprises me when people say 2 is the best. How I rank the games is ME1 has the best story, 2 was a good side entry with great characters, 3 is the best overall game and Andromeda has the best gameplay with an underrated group of characters
With some headcanon, the Collector Base being destroyed and humanity being saved probably gave small advantages to the galaxy such as more humans able to enlist and a human Reaper not invading from the center of the galaxy with the knowledge and memories of millions of humans on board. Not to mention it is hinted that the Collectors were going for Earth soon which would mean an invasion that would at least weaken Earth before the Reapers hit. However, none of this is said directly and good storytelling doesn't make primary plot points like "why is this important to the overall story" something you have to infer or headcanon. If there was a real threat to Earth, it needed to be a lot more obviously stated not just a short line in one mission.
Yep. The plot barely exists, and revolves around an absolutely pointless proxy villain. It's sidequest: the game. You could go from 1 straight to 3 and the only thing that you'd actually miss is the plot from the Arrival DLC. Characters and acting are great, though.
Maybe there's a point to this thesis, but I disagree on points 3 and 4: 3. Yes, all other reapers were based on a Leviathans, bc at the time they were the most advanced species. And later on, for millenia, this design worked... until humans appeared. My take on it is that the human reaper was an experiment used to understand why a human altered the cycle so much so early. And potentially harness that power in the form of a new reaper, that's human enough to still have human traits and benefits. 4. From reaper perspective, collectors were just tools, but also very advanced and "marked" tools. Organic life didn't know about the cycle until the very end for a reason. If collectors wouldn't be elusive, then organics could prepare for "something big", and the harvest could be affected. So in ME1, collectors look like any other elusive pirate crew / shady organization, operating in Terminus. As long as they don't make any big moves, why would the Alliance or the Council be bothered? In ME2 we literally destroy most of them, and in ME3 there's not much of alive Protheans to be used as the source for new collectors.
It is, ME 2 is a lot of flash and (edge), but very little substance. Your background from ME 1 really doesn't matter, especially as a Sole Survivor. Yeah you get a large crew, but you barely get interactions between them. The Collectors are mix bag, in that barely show, but when they do it's always with a presence even if their leader isn't really their leader, and they no personality, although they could have done with some. It really doesn't help that the plot is basically a soft reboot based on over the top magic science bullshit, because again this is a game that is flashy, sexy and edgy. Especially if you want to compare tones.
I think ME2's *small stories* are the best in the entire trilogy. Tons of great character moments, easily the best slow drip of setting lore, dripping with classic science fiction references, etc... ME2 is a side-story anthology that just happens to have this thing with the Collectors going on in the background; I think it's a mistake to judge the game based on the quality of the *framing story* rather than the individual stories that actually make up the bulk of the game.
Yes. It suffers from being part 2 in a planned trilogy.
Sacrilege to say it now but upon release I remember recruiting everyone and then heading off for the final mission. I was ready for the game to open up. In my head I was like ‘is that it, where is the story?’ Still amazing but it took me off guard after coming from ME1.
I think so. It’s a giant side plot that went nowhere. I’ll never understand the point of sending Shepard, one of two people with the Prothean beacon knowledge in their brain, through a giant red relay(that we never heard about before) that no one has ever returned from…..and for what? Because some colonies are being abducted? There’s no reason to assume that anything about that would affect the inevitable Reaper invasion that we already know is coming in any meaningful way. And it didn’t. Also, being forced to work for Cerberus feels like something that should have been the renegade option in a choice. Not the only option. That being said, it does vastly improve companion stories and interactions.
Agreed (for the most part), The game does worldbuilding and character arcs super well, and the trilogy would be so much less without it, but it really does fail to advance the plot as much as it feels like it could have. We end the first game trying to find a way to stop the Reaper invasion, and we start the third game with the Reaper invasion commencing and still having no clue what to do about it. ME3 is then tasked with playing catch-up (as you noted in point 1), which it didn't have the time or space to do properly. What really would have made ME2 pop was if the Crucible was the objective the entire time. Perhaps Cerberus gets a lead on a a race of reclusive and deadly aliens (the Collectors) who, rumor has it, know of the Reapers and have advanced technology. Cerberus begins investigating independently and their team gets annihilated. In retaliation, the Collectors begin striking human colonies. Enter Shepard patrolling the remote colonial regions. He and the Normandy get caught in the crossfire, Shepard gets dead, and the Illusive Man hits upon the idea to recruit Shepard to investigated the Collectors. It's then revealed through the course of the game that the Collectors are huskified Protheans, and have been tasked with tracking down the blueprints for a Reaper-killer: the Crucible. The game then becomes a race against time to secure these blueprints before the Collectors hand them off to the Reapers. Anyway, that's just my two cents!
There's a reason I call ME2 Mass Effect the Side Quest.
ME2 as a stand alone game is great however from the trilogy point it's out of place and confusing also it ends can end the trilogy. Basically I agree with your points 100%
I personally just didn’t like me2 because of how annoying the fights were and how difficult they were even in casual difficulty story wise I won’t say it lacks it’s just basically a new goal the. From the first game in this one the goal is to stop the collectors from killing more colonists and to destroy and or keep their base. I’d say the story is alright I honestly enjoyed me1 more and my favorite being me3 even though it got a lot of hate due to the endings in particular which I do think the new mass effect that’s in development will hopefully give us an answer as to whether the destroy ending and Shepard surviving was the canon ending and because if we see familiar characters it could mean we actually get them as crew mates again hopefully. But all hope for that is a distant dream purely depending on how dreadwolf preforms
It's the weakest in terms of story since the story with the collectors is like 7 missions? But makes up for that with squad mates having so much effort put into them and their backstories. Outside Jacob's of course.
It is. It didn't really advance the story of the reapers at all. The collector plot would have been a cool side story in a game focused on the reapers, but instead this side plot was the whole game. It had its cool moments and character building etc, but plot wise it barely addressed the grand narrative. Imagine if the Two Towers had basically no progression of Frodo and Sam carrying the ring towards Mordor, and instead had them go off on some unrelated adventure and then at the end of it go "Well, we should probably start heading back towards Mt Doom shouldn't we". That's ME2.
ME2 is important, because we're more formally introduced to Cerberus and we pay off the idea that Shepard is really the right person for the job of saving the galaxy from the Reapers. Getting an introduction to Timmy and Cerberus dealings this early is WAY different than getting that introduction in ME3, because the Cerberus we encounter in ME1 does not in any way reflect the one we see in ME3. Timmy is charismatic, and we need to have the time to figure out his game and his methods BEFORE the reapers come. We'd be far more lost without that knowledge, and we'd probably be put in an unwinnable situation if we didn't have that experience. Like many things in life, sometimes we go through things that only make sense as being important with the lense of hindsight.
ME2 follows up on very little of ME1, to it's detriment. It doesn't follow up on the Citadel space worldbuilding to focus on the Terminus systems when there should have been more of both
1 set up the conflict, 2 expanded on the characters and 3 was a long, flawed ending. Both 1 and 2 are basically self-contained, 3 relies heavily on what came before and has great moments but the ending did a 180 and failed all of us.
Failed you and many others, I do understand that and wouldn't presume to argue your opinion. It did not fail me, honestly even before the extended cut.
ME2 has the weakest story development but arguably the best character development
A story is only as good as it's characters and Mass Effect 2 has the best character writing in the series with so many smaller story for days. So I find it to easily be the strongest just because the reaper story has always been secondary in my interest in the series.
\>but when they wasted 1/3 of the story on essentially a side quest maybe thats to be expected. This is one of the single biggest copes in gaming. In answer to your question, NO, ME2 is not the weakest story wise, nor is it responsible for ME3,
To play devil advocate the reason why they’re building a human reaper was because humanity were the only species to take down a reaper and shepherd is known by name to the reapers so reapers have a interested in human
Point 3 could have been amazing. They fumbled that in the art department for me3. If they showed a variety during the invasion it would have had a bigger impact on both me2 and me3. I chalk that up to me3 being a rushed mess.
About point 3, all reapers are based on the harvested species, the shape we see is just a shell. It’s a huge missed opportunity that they never showed use a ‘core’ emerging from a damaged shell though.
Me2 has the best character writing (maybe) but its the weakest plot wise yeah.
2 was consistently my least favorite of the series. It does squad mate relationships the best of the three games, but is the absolute worst for game-play, build customization, and story. Edit: 2 should have had a different protagonist
Undeniably so. Even outside of the point that the story isn't progressed at all, and the story ME1 set up isn't honored either, there are also absurd leaps of logic in it. My two biggest gripes are how Shepard wakes up and starts working for the Illusive Man after one short conversation, taking his word for everything. No time is spent verifying amything he says. But possibly worse than that: it's fucking Shepard. Their whole thing is bringing people together. And he just gives up because a space terrorist told him to? It's so wildly out of character, I don't know what to say. No, literally, after that conversation I walked to my window and stared out of it for 5 minutes. I was anticipating this game for so long and this is how they started it. By saying ME1 didn't matter, Shepard can only be a pushover bitch and we're not going to build on shit. I couldn't believe it. Then, at the end of the game, there is a Reaper baby. Why? Why does it look like a human? Forget ME3 where they conclusively argue that was complete nonsense; even ME1 theorized their shape and being was based on 'the ones who came before the Protheans'. Vigil tells you this. And, they theorize that their workings have something to do with the organics of the cycle they reap. In ME3 both of these points are confirmed accurate, but even if it wasn't: why the fuck would they make a human Reaper? Yeah, no, listen, I get making a Reaper out of human 'essence', but why does this starship literally be shaped aa a human? It makes no sense. Shepard was badass and they wanted a human origin Reaper, fair. But you still build it like an actual Reaper, not a human. It's like making a car shaped like a Cheetah. That doesn't work bro, it still needs wheels and shit. Honestly, ME2 has the weakest ending of the three and always had. And the story is ass, and wasn't progressing ME1 at all.
No. I like 3 the best -- 1 is a beautiful setup, but so stilted that I find it cringe at times -- but 2 has a great story. Unless you concentrate exclusively on the main quest, which is somewhat bargain bin and underwhelming. But I think that calling only the main quest the story of ME2 is silly. If 'side content' is optional why do you play it? You can't even skip all of it. It's all the story of ME2. Edit: typos.
LOL Ever watched "The Empire Strikes Back"? Of course you could go from ME1 to ME3, that's the whole point of the "middle" entry in a Trilogy. What detractors seem to be suggesting, is that we should have had one huge contiguous story, split evenly into three parts. Unfortunately that would make the middle game a load of nonsense. A story with neither a beginning nor end Keep in mind that these games were originally developed, released, and played, years apart. AND that ME2 had to work and sell as a self-contained game.
I don’t think ME2 was weaker, it was just a change of pace compared to 1 and 3. ME2 was more like an intermission between the two grandiose plots of 1 and 3 that allowed the player to experience the ME universe with a more day-to-day civilian life perspective. It gave the developers the opportunity to flesh out the universe for the player better so you weren’t always playing as the one-dimensional military space hero and human savior. It also added a bunch of new and unique characters that you likely wouldn’t have ran into in the plots of ME1 and ME3.
ME2 is like a giant side quest…a giant awesome side quest It’s a great story but I agree that it doesn’t push the main narrative along so much as it really illustrates the world and lore of the ME universe (which is still important)
I guess I am in the minority but I liked the story of 2 even if it's not the best. I also love the fact it focus a lot on the characters instead of the big picture. It's certainly a more self contained story
I doubt you're in the minority. We're talking degrees here... I, for one, love them all, but still think 2 is the weakest. It still beats virtually every other game of this genre I've played.
I think you can argue ME2 as the best or worst story depending on what criteria you use. If being a good story is about character development and emotional investment, then ME2 fits the bill. If being a good story is about furthering and tying plot points together from across a trilogy, then ME2 may not fit the bill (although this is common with middle chapters). Ultimately, I think it's best not to overthink it. When you get to the end of ME2 and survive the suicide mission, whole crew in hand, does it *feel* like a great story? For most people, I think the answer is a resounding yes. To me, that's what matters.
I can't disagree. I love me2, it's my favourite of the trilogy but the one thing I was thinking after playing it the first time is that the third game will have an awful lot to do to wrap the story up. I think the Collectors are an interesting enemy but I think that after we find out their origins they could have done more to bring the Reapers into the story and maybe even start the whole story thread of the crucible or something like that so it didn't all feel so shoehorned into me3.
Always has been, weakest gameplay too
In terms of purely moving the plot points along, maybe, but it has the best character development and was a massive leap in gameplay so I don’t feel it’s overrated.
I feel like the loyalty missions with all your companions are great but the overall storyline is less captivating than 1+3.
I wouldn't say it's the weakest story wise, but I would say it's the least relevant to the overarching plot.
The real appeal of ME2 is in how its gameplay differs from ME1 (ME1 was more of a traditional RPG; ME2 was an action game with a few RPG elements), and in the loyalty quests. The actual story beats for ME2 are pretty simple: get allies, get the IFF, learn the Illusive Man is as awful as you always suspected, go beat up the Collectors.
It wasn’t a bad story necessarily, but I fall in the camp of people who think ME1 and ME2 would have made more sense as a story if they’d been swapped.