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Mass Effect 1 to Mass Effect 2 is the Biggest Leap in Quality for a Sequel Ever
- Thread starter Zachary_Games
- Start date
- LTTP
The issue with Charge is really only a vanguard issue and even then it only applies to lower difficulties. Reckless uses of charge in ME2 would be a death sentence on Hardcore or Insanity since you could easily find yourself in a situation where you're stunned or surrounded by enemies. In ME3, charging in every encounter is a good way to get killed by a banshee's sync kill.
The bolded applies only to biotics and even then only for higher difficulties in ME2. On lower difficulties biotics will still always be relevant since you will always fight a fair amount of red health enemies. On higher difficulties CC abilities like singularity are weaker since enemies gain armor, but even then they still have uses due to their slow/stun and DoT effects. Tech powers on the other hand are very good at dealing with defenses like armor and shields, In ME3 though, this is basically a non issue since power combos gives every class a way to deal with every type of defense.
I played thru the LE on the hardest difficulty for reference, and yea I had no issue with ME3. As someone else posted it feels like how they wanted ME2 to play like.
The jump from ME2 to ME3 is bigger than any perceived jump from ME1 to ME2. ME2 Shepard is the clunkiest TPS character ever and the combat loop is snore inducing. ME3 at least had the multiplayer with the cool characters and you'd be schmooving around wrecking fools.
Is that a sequel though? I thought they were talking about Red Dead Redemption 1 -> Red Dead Redemption 2
I liked ME2 a lot!
HoweverI still think it's one of the most overrated games ever. It has way to many flaws for the ultra high metacritic score it got.
Gameplay is better than ME1, was still not that great.
And the story is basically:
Go recruit some people. The rest of the stroy will be developped in episode 3.
HoweverI still think it's one of the most overrated games ever. It has way to many flaws for the ultra high metacritic score it got.
Gameplay is better than ME1, was still not that great.
And the story is basically:
Go recruit some people. The rest of the stroy will be developped in episode 3.
I don't think so... Revolver -> Redemption in an unequivocally massive jump that I think everyone on Planet Earth could agree on.
Witcher 1 to 2 was also a huge leap. Debatable which was greater.
I don't know. Assassin's Creed 1 to Assassin's Creed 2 is probably my biggest. Or Sonic the Hedgehog to Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
Mass Effect 1 has a rad overall vibe and super-strong third act. Mass Effect 2 is the better game by far overall, but yeah.
Mass Effect 1 has a rad overall vibe and super-strong third act. Mass Effect 2 is the better game by far overall, but yeah.
I can only speak for myself, but while I don't think anyone would argue that ME1's exploratory elements are fully baked, they succeed at delivering a hard sci-fi mood that I really missed in ME2 and 3. You really feel, a little bit, like an explorer in space - there is a sense of scale that is almost totally absent from the sequels, Shepard's armor looks a lot like a space suit, and the whole enterprise feels stripped-down and comparatively low tech. The emptiness of the uncharted worlds actually works to make you feel like you're at the fringes of civilization. The worlds are beautiful and alien, even with ME1's technical limitations, and combined with the excellent planet summaries and codex entries give the player (or me, at least) a sense of mood that, again, is present almost nowhere in the sequels. And some of the skyboxes are gorgeous even in 2021.
There are obvious issues with asset reuse, low-fi sidequests, and drab gameplay loops that to a certain extent dog all of ME1, but the series in my opinion never really recovered the sense of scale and mood that ME1's "exploratory" elements helped generate. In ME2 and ME3, you just load directly into small hubs or combat arenas when you can actually visit a planet, and all you get from the equivalent of the uncharted worlds is the probe interface, which feels very "gamey."
Edit - Andromeda, for its part, made an attempt to recover the sense of scale, and in some ways succeeded (I quite like the way your ship travels in first-person view, for instance), but its planets are way too dense with stuff to recover the sense of scale and mood that I enjoyed in ME1 - and then on top of that the stuff is very rote and MMOish.
I never played the series before, and picked up the Trilogy in a Black Friday deal, looking forward to trying it. I have a friend that has talked about it for years.
OP
OP
Like you, I also play RPGs and open world games without using fast travel, exploring every nook and cranny, talking to every NPC, seeking stopping to enjoy glorious vistas and generally play at a methodical yet exploratory pace.
That is a big reason why I was so surprised at ME1. Everything that makes a great RPG is simply not present in ME1. Outside of a few moments, the premise, ME universe, Citadel, planetary exploration, majority of characters and dialogue is C-tier at best. There are some A-tier moments, and ME1 is a sum greater than its parts I believe. My conclusion after replaying it fourteen years later is its ambition ultimately led to a shallow experience overall.
I do see where you are coming from though. While yes, perhaps the game is shallow for me, the sheer potential of exploring a galaxy and its nebulas and systems was prematurely abandoned and never fully realized perhaps for you? You would have preferred BioWare leaning into that aspect even further into that aspect of Mass Effect?
Hm, I'd definitely disagree. ME1 to 2 is a big leap overall, but far from the biggest I've experienced in a sequel, and honestly, I think there are a number of things I preferred about the original game too, so I wouldn't even consider it a wholesale improvement in every respect. For me, it's RE0 (worst classic RE game) to RE4 (best game ever made).
There are very few games that made me feel the way I did when I first played ME1. The universe that Bioware built was and is still amazing. The combat was wonky and the characters weren't nearly as well written as I remembered. But The Codex, lordy that Codex. Going through every new entry is one of my favorite gaming memories
We probably have to attach the caveat that the proceeding game has to actually be good or else we can probably dig up some weird examples, like Sonic Unleashed isn't very good, but 06 is basically unplayable, so the jump is huge.
It's really Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battles Cars to Rocket League. Going from a game that had the kernal of a great idea, but fell short with a focus on solo play and barely any MP audience to an all-time great multiplayer game that is still fresh and great fun five years later is a huge leap as they completely nailed it the second time around.
What's crazy about Street Fighter II is that it felt like everyone I knew shared this collective confusion over whether a Street Fighter I even existed. Nobody I knew had ever played the game, there was no internet access to be able to look it up, there would be unverified reports from the sketchy kid in school saying he saw a cabinet in a Pizza Hut in another state, etc.
It also doesn't help that one contemporary home port of the original Street Fighter is called Fighting Street.
First off, ME1 is a better game so I 100% disagree with your premise.
Second:
Second:
And there are countless other examples of much larger leaps even if you think ME2 is better. Street Fighter 1 to Street Fighter 2. Witcher 1 to Witcher 2 or even more-so Witcher 2 to Witcher 3. SMB2 (the real one) to SMB3. TES: Arena to TES: Daggerfall or more-so (IMO) Daggerfall to Morrowind. Gothic 1 to Gothic 2. I could go on and on.
street fighter 1 is pretty much the most irrelevant game to ever launch an iconic, genre-defining franchise
Oh yeah I completely agree with you that if Mass Effect HAD realized that potential it would be my favorite. But there's a difference between promising something and delivering it, and it just didn't really deliver it. It works okay for a first game to promise things and make you feel a sense of potential and experience this mood of expanse and openness. Mass Effect definitely has that. But it does feel a bit like looking at cardboard cutouts at the end of the day, and I really can't understand calling the worlds beautiful. Like, I've used a map editor before. All they've done is click randomize once. They don't feel like real spaces even remotely, and I don't feel that's just a limitation of the era, but more a limitation of time. If they had been able to flesh out these worlds a bit, that might have delivered on that feeling more.
Completely agree that it's greater than the sum of its parts. There's this vibe it has (that the music really helps deliver), that is just wonderful. But while it promises things, ME2 actually delivers on its promises, and so calling ME2 a much worse game than ME1 seems to not make sense to me. I understand it doesn't do what ME1 promised to do, but like, ME1 not really doing it doesn't make it better. I think the fact is we aren't getting the game ME1 promised, partially because that's an immense task and partially because one's imagination is much more powerful than a game could make good on. So it seems unfair to ME2 because it sounds like the expectation was that it would try to do what ME1 promised, and like, actually do it this time, and that clearly wasn't feasible both for time, budget, technology, etc.
I'd love for Bioware to lean into that more one day, but the thing is I don't think they ever will. It's a different bioware nowadays, and the bioware of then I don't think would have been able to make that game. So idk, I guess I like Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3 for what they were actually able to do.
Arc the Lad 2 is my candidate for the biggest jump to a sequel. The fundamental artistry is just so vastly far beyond the original.
This is usually the first impressions with when going from ME to ME2.
After multiple playthroughs, you'd realize that the jank of ME1 was actually charming and its a bit lost in the sequels. The sequels just felt like a different game. Not really better, good in its own right but just different.
After multiple playthroughs, you'd realize that the jank of ME1 was actually charming and its a bit lost in the sequels. The sequels just felt like a different game. Not really better, good in its own right but just different.
ME2 promises on being a mundane corridor shooter with big production values and some nice dialog, congrats for achieving that but i still think that's terrible game design.
It also promises on letting you roleplay, where you actually inhabit a role and make choices that affect thing a fair bit. There is way more room to actually roleplay than in ME1. Having more stats to deal with and an awful item system does not suddenly make ME1 a better RPG because having anemic stats that are annoying to comb through does not make me roleplay any more. I do not care about and will never be convinced to care about "it's not an RPG unless you have stats." In ways that are actually meaningful to the experience, ME2 has just as much of that anyway. But back to actually roleplaying in terms of story, you do make some choices in ME1 that affect things, but much of the content is very inconsequential. Not only does ME2 have a lot of things that can go differently, but they effect the critical path a lot, and how things go in ME3 a good deal too. Your ability to be successful with the geth and quarian conflict in 3 is directly tied to what you decided to do in ME2. So not only are the decisions meaningful in that game, but they matter going forward. This is true of some major things from 1 to 2, like with what you do with the counsel, but as far as I'm aware, there's not that much. Within Mass Effect 1 as well, since most of the side quests are very much the same basic plot over and over, the result is either, people die, or they don't die, and that doesn't affect literally anything else. The main story stuff can vary a bit more interestingly and relevantly, and those are the better parts of that game, but there isn't anything more meaningfully better about them than in 2.
Mass Effect 1 is just as much of a mundane but even worse controlling corridor shooter, except even worse, you fight in the exact same corridors over and over again. I do not understand how that is a negative for ME2 when it's worse in ME1. Then the other half is driving around on a featureless map. Not sure how that's better game design.
ME1 is literally the Bioware RPG experience of the time. Jade Empire, Kotor, Dragon Age Origins, etc.
For me personally it would have to be assassin's creed 2. The second game made the first feel like a damn tech demo. The real answer though is street fighter 2.
I actually enjoyed the layout of the first game better. Sure the worlds were a bit barren but I loved being able to explore. I need to get this remaster soon as it has been years since I've played these games. My opinion may have changed.
I actually enjoyed the layout of the first game better. Sure the worlds were a bit barren but I loved being able to explore. I need to get this remaster soon as it has been years since I've played these games. My opinion may have changed.
OP
OP
Mass Effect 1 is a corridor shooter, what are you talking about? And if you mention the planets, all they are is a wide empty place that leads you to a bunker with you guessed it, more corridors!
This whole post actually very succinctly describes the one thing that I feel No Man's Sky is lacking.
I know that for gameplay purposes it's basically needed, but you have these three alien races that are literally EVERYWHERE in the Universe.
I would love to see more emptiness in it.
It is amazing how much better and cleaner the second game looks and there are many quality of life improvements. However, the first game is still a really good game, and you can argue some things are preferable in the first. On the other hand, I don't like Uncharted 1, yet 2 is a stunning achievement that does everything better IMO.
Street Fighter was good in 1987. There was nothing like it. It was a technical marvel at the time and generational leap over the few 1v1 fighting games that preceded it.
SFII just blew it the fuck out the water and instantly made it something nobody would ever want to play again. It was like the effect the NES had on Atari. Atari consoles were fine in the early 80s, but 85 came around and nobody wanted to play that shit no more.
ME2 shits all over ME1 but get real, SF2 was such a big deal, and very few had any idea that an SF1 even existed.
Enjoy, OP.
Enjoy, OP.
