Hedrigall posted:

ME3 really got the ending it needed for its characters with the Citadel DLC, and the Extended Cut fixes most of the plot ending, so really the only sour note I have left about the end of the game is no awesome final boss fight, but that's not a huge deal.

Kaboom Dragoon posted:

How's Zaeed's DLC in ME3? I only played From Ashes (and the MP DLC) and I never see anyone talk about it.

BioMe posted:

I have to say I'm really surprised people like the Citadel. Especially the purely character-building segments. That was really loving awkward to play and I had to stop. I mean I like the characters and all, but I don't want a make-believe social life with them.

And the comedy bits were obnoxious too.

Iamblikhos posted:

Anyone who defends Kai Leng in any capacity is either a troll or has something seriously wrong with them. Period.

StrifeHira posted:

Basically yes. It's more like Mass Effect 3's multiplayer with different locations and you playing as Shepard. You also get to choose from any surviving squadmates during the matches.

Mrit posted:

Did you read the last 3 pages? The wailing and gnashing of teeth by some posters about criticism of a video game/those who obsess over it.

A fun, but dumb video game. Its just a game.

ungulateman posted:

So, uh, this LP sold me on buying the ME series again (properly this time). Just completed ME1 again.

After playing through its ending again, I find it hard to believe anyone can defend the Green ending of ME3. Who looks at End-Boss Robo-Saren and thinks "Well, clearly if this was Shepard instead all the problems would be solved and this would be a satisfying ending to the series!"?

When the series' first and most obvious reference to it is so easy to revile, who can blame people for assuming Synthesis was 'wrong' or 'bad'? Even speaking from a thematic, subtextual standpoint, Saren encapsulates everything wrong with the Reapers - how does a critic reconcile this ugly, horrendously flawed view of synthesis with what Mass Effect 3 promises us under the same name?

Not to get ahead of myself here, though. This LP's barely begun, and my re-journeying through the Mass Effect series has hardly started too. There's plenty more to enjoy.

(Keep up the good work!)

Arglebargle III posted:

How could anyone have a problem with it when it's so vague and meaningless? You all have circuit board tattoos, war is over!

Flytrap posted:

Look, it's simple.

Synthesis leads to the Megaman Legends future.

TheCosmicMuffet posted:

Javik needs a romance option.

TheCosmicMuffet posted:

In general I'd say crew. But I don't remember what plot point you're talking about. So whichever results in an aftermath anecdote that seems interesting.

TheCosmicMuffet posted:

(One of) The problems with Asari, narratively, is that they're all bisexual supermodel wizards who live forever. But they act like what teenagers think that means. It's just like all the vampire/immortal/angel/whatever YA literature characters.

TheCosmicMuffet posted:

Interesting. To be honest, I often forget or incorrectly reconstruct what my choices were in a Bioware game. So it's possible I told Tali she was dumb because that is my firm belief.

fake edit: Actually let me go look that up, because I could swear...

more faked edit: Hummm. Yep. I must have unloyaltied Tali by taking Legion's side.

Welp. Still. The whole concoction that they're trying to implement character deaths in response to perceiving that the player doesn't like a character point stands. After all, I don't choose to kill her. She dies because Shepherd took someone else's side in an argument, and that made a reactor overload.

Either way, the idea that Bioware was desperately trying to find ways of killing characters that wouldn't make someone reload and try again is fascinating to me. Even as someone who's part of the problem.

Xander77 posted:

I'm like 60% sure you have to talk / gun down the Vermire survivor regardless of what your playthrough was like. Taking certain actions beforehand might make it easier to talk them down, but I wouldn't even count on that.

I let Ashley live if only because I was so tired of having to use the same few squadmates over and over. And then I never actually used her on a mission.

Arglebargle III posted:

Honestly in ME3 the Council finally comes into focus; these guys are basically ambassadors and have limited authority to make decisions regarding their home governments. Shepard's decision to go talk to the Salarian and Turian governments directly makes so much sense that it seems like humanity has become much more politically savvy after 3 years with a Council seat. It's like, insignificant nations go to the UN, real players go talk to the US directly. In 2183 the Systems Alliance is a scrub state stuck dealing with the Council, in 2186 the Alliance is big and respected enough to talk directly to the Heirarchy.

I always liked how ME and ME2 handled humans' place in the galaxy. From the Council perspective, Humanity is a new and troubling presence on the scene. They're a relative backwater for now but their homeworld is overpopulated and the Alliance has been deeply militarized by war with the Turians, so they're expanding their territory and military at an alarming pace. They show a disturbing lack of respect for the status quo and are not-so-secretly circumventing arms control treaties. But fortunately, they live between Council space and the Batarians, so let's sit back and watch them duke it out over the Attican Traverse. Maybe they'll mellow out in the long run.

Shepard gets to decide whether this strategy pays off or blows up spectacularly.

not posted:

Kai Leng should turn up only if you're nasty to Conrad Verner. And he is actually Conrad Verner with a grudge, who made up the name 'Kai Leng'.

MidnightVulpine posted:

I can't say I hate her though. I was actually hoping Aria would get more use than as just a quest giver with a punctuation mark over her head. But you never see her in action. You barely see much real personality from her when it comes to her being a leader. It's a big waste of a potentially interesting character that leaves her falling flat.

MidnightVulpine posted:

Sadly, I've been less inclined to buy up Mass Effect 3's DLC. I only have Leviathan. I might have to reconsider, eventually.

TheCosmicMuffet posted:

Xander77 posted:

Ditto.

...

Also, note how her appearance coincides with the fatal confrontation between Liara and her mother. Kinda a shame that the Rachni queen speaks through a random Asari, rather than Benesia's corpse.

GO gently caress YOURSELF posted:

In ME3, you can find out that the Geth let the Quarian leave the Rannoch area and then stopped pursuing them. They viewed the attack as an existential threat, not the fact that the Quarians live.

Aces High posted:

You know, if I didn't find Tali so amusing I wouldn't have been as inclined to let the Quarians live either considering what you learn about the build up to the conflict, and everything you learn in ME 1 and 2. Although I am kind of curious, in ME 1 Tali tells us that the Geth don't take kindly to visitors and are very territorial, yet in ME3 if you get everyone to play together immediately a bunch of Primes show up and are like "how may we assist you, Creators?". Does that mean Tali was just being incredulous or that our good friend Legion is THAT good at changing his family's mind on organics?

Head Hit Keyboard posted:

What? No. What the hell is Liara then? The way I remember it is that once galactic communities established and Asari found out they could procreate with other species, then it became a social stigma to be "pureblooded". Liara says this much in ME1. I think a random conversation in ME2 on Illium brings this up as well.

Neruz posted:

And none of that actually solves the problem of 'whenever people make AI's the AI's inevitably end up in conflict with their creators and one side ends up extinct' which is endemic to the Mass Effect universe.

Neruz posted:

Was I the only one who saw ME3's story basically trying to explain to Shepard that he has been fighting the wrong enemy the whole time; the Reapers are just a symptom of the actual problem which is that organic and synthetic life are incapable of coexisting?

Neruz posted:

Exactly, Shepard is the solution to the cycle. That's why Shepard is the final piece needed for the Catalyst to work.

Hitlers Gay Secret posted:

Like someone else pointed out, they didn't even bother to add character flags.

FullLeatherJacket posted:

I don't think it's in any way implicit that Joker flies the Normandy into a live-fire zone, parks it in front of Harbinger for several minutes while everyone bellyaches, and then all the NPCs up and fly away from the one and only battle to save the galaxy for no real reason. On the basis that this entire sequence of events makes no pissing sense whatsoever. It's the retconniest of retcons but is added purely so you have a narrative basis for things that happen in the original ending and appear to have just been pulled from a hat. Really, for a AAA-title, this is shockingly bad. Not "could have been improved" bad, but "should never have been released in this state" bad.