Shamus Young: Mass Effect 2 Broke the Franchise

[HBK]

I feel I've said this a hundred times already, but the main issue about ME3 is how they wrote the reaper invasion as this galactic coordinated assault on all capitals, putting the whole galaxy at war all at once. Either this should have happened later in the game, or they should have written the reaper invasion as some unstoppable force of nature slowly devouring the galaxy from its borders, with the different races trying to organize knowing even with a full coordinated force they would have almost no chance of defeating them, even with reverse-engineered tech, upgraded weaponry, etc.

That would have left all the time needed to fuck around the galaxy trying to solve the problem and eventually finding a deus ex that wouldn't involve instant defeat of the reapers (something the three basic endings actually involve) but more like putting a stop to their invasion, maybe even delaying it for centuries, which would have been a cool nod to these stories where you need to definitely eliminate a big bad which was only sealed millennia ago.

Plus sequel bait with potentially some returning characters. I mean they could even cryo Shep if people still wanted to play with them.

But no, they wanted those big stakes with big fights and solving all at once (up to Shep solving two century-old conflicts with their little arms). Long story short, they bit more than they could chew.

 

[Jarmel]

It did not, actually, not in the sense that I'm talking about. Nerds huddling over narrative plotholes didn't stop ME1 or ME2 from becoming beloved, and it wouldn't have stopped ME3. Reading the reaction of the fanbase at large on its release was an exercise in seeing how many people could come up with positive adjectives to describe the experience before the ending. The game worked on an emotional level just like the previous two games did.

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It really didn't though? People were accurately mocking the ghost child crap as it was happening. The humans stumbling across the Crucible designs on Mars was an extremely lazy deus ex machina on the part of the writers. The retroactive blaming of Cerberus for everything bad in the universe. ME3 had a crapton of issues besides 'narrative plotholes' and just the ending. It's the worst written of the 3 games by a good margin.

Edit: Holy hell I forgot about Kai Leng's shitty emails. God damn was ME3's writing super shitty at times.

 

[SofNascimento]

It should be said that the idea that ME2 "broke" the trilogy is completely and utterly unsustainable. And for that matter, so is the idea that ME1 did that, or ME3. Or even ME3's ending. And the reason is simple: the Mass Effect trilogy is not broken. You can argue it's not perfect, it's not. You can argue the ending left a taint in it, it did. And you could argue you envisioned it going into other directions when you played on of the games, that's up to each one.

But the trilogy is not broken. It was, and still is, three games that became a hallmark in videogame storytelling. And that's why the LE exists, and that's why people are still talking about it today.

 

[TC McQueen]

You just agreed, I think, that the overarching Reaper plot is a hindrance as written, but you'd rather ditch the plot and keep the universe, whereas I would keep the plot and ditch the universe.


We'll have to disagree here then.

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Well, I'm looking at things from the perspective of Bioware's stated goal, which was to have Mass Effect be an in-house IP they could make money off of long term. In that scenario, ditching the plot to keep the universe is objectively the correct thing to do, because universes and characters are the lynchpins of long running franchises.

If Mass Effect was a one-off thing, with no franchise starting aspirations, then I think they could've gone in your direction. And that could have been interesting, assuming they put in a lot more work to build up the universe that was going to be destroyed and the characters who'd be abandoned (barring a sequel story in the immediate aftermath).

 

[HBK]

It should be said that the idea that ME2 "broke" the trilogy is completely and utterly unsustainable. And for that matter, so is the idea that ME1 did that, or ME3. Or even ME3's ending. And the reason is simple: the Mass Effect trilogy is not broken. You can argue it's not perfect, it's not. You can argue the ending left a taint in it, it did. And you could argue you envisioned it going into other directions when you played on of the games, that's up to each one.

But the trilogy is not broken. It was, and still is, three games that became a hallmark in videogame storytelling. And that's why the LE exists, and that's why people are still talking about it today.

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You can argue it didn't broke the trilogy, but the franchise is now pretty much dead. Sure Andromeda didn't help. But with ME3 ending Bioware is now in a very bad spot with the ME franchise ...

 

[SofNascimento]

You can argue it didn't broke the trilogy, but the franchise is now pretty much dead. Sure Andromeda didn't help. But with ME3 ending Bioware is now in a very bad spot with the ME franchise ...

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Not, it never was in a bad place coming out of the trilogy. That's why Andromeda happened. Moreover, the easiness of creating of a sequel is no metric to dictate if a story was successful or not. The fan's desire to have more games yes, and that was always there.

Andromeda killing the franchise has to do with its massive shortcomings alone.

 

[astro]

You can argue it didn't broke the trilogy, but the franchise is now pretty much dead. Sure Andromeda didn't help. But with ME3 ending Bioware is now in a very bad spot with the ME franchise ...

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How well has the LE sold?

It seems to be popular enough that this is not true.

 

[Weiss]

How well has the LE sold?

It seems to be popular enough that this is not true.

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Yeah pretty much. The consensus you'll get on Mass Effect as a story is "it was good until the ending of 3."

I certainly don't think that way, but you've got a lot more fans of the trilogy as a whole than folks like me who are willing to curbstomp ME2 and even ME3 beyond its ending.

 

[Avis]

I'll watch this after completing the trilogy but as someone who is half way through 2 after playing 1, 1 was literal hell to get through and 2 is heaven.

 

[Serpens007]

Nah, dude's wrong on almost everything.

Mass Effect 2 advanced the plot on many of the main points of the saga. Mass Effect never was just about the reapers, it always was about the whole galaxy and how the different species and civilizations interacted with each other. ME1 was about giving humanity the chance to prove themselves, and your decisions impacted how the other species would react to this. It sets the stage about a galactic threat that the galaxy needs to learn about. But the species are involved in a whole lot of stuff going on between them to care about some boogeyman. Hell, in the first game, the fucking humans are the ones saving the day. It serves as proof that humans are capable and a valuable asset to the galaxy, but there's a lot of tension between species and humans just aren't enough. The tension about the genophage, how the galaxy turned their backs to the Quarians after the Geth, are just some of the examples that the series provides.

Being a Spectre was important to the first game, it was an official Council mission after all. But during ME1 the council continuosly dismissed Shepard warning. It was very logical that the galaxy would consider only the most inmediate threat and think that Sovereign was just another Geth ship under Saren's command. In ME2 the idea is that the colonial abductions are *just* a human thing, and the new council - and the Alliance - had their hands too full to just care about humans above all else. So the only organization that could do something about it is the renegade story: Cerberus. The spin is that humans aren't able to do this on their own. During ME2 companion missions, you don't learn just about your partners, you learn about the different cultures of the galaxy. Through this, they can take on the Collectors to stop the inmediate threat.

And that's how Shepard has to stop the reapers. Together. Not just the team finding a mcguffin, but solving the Galaxy's problems so the different civilizations can work together. That's what ME3 actually builds upon and does it succesfully.

I agree that some of the points are weirdly left out, like Liara stopping her research for example, but other than that, it leaves out some of the develomental problems of Mass Effect 3 and how they basically rushed the ending. Mass Effect 2 focus on world building, because the third game wasn't just about stopping the reapers, it's about saving the galaxy. It makes you care about the galaxy you are gonna save, not just being the hero that defeats the reaper.

 

[Andrew J]

The search for the Crucible plans should have been the entire point of 2, instead of being crammed into a single early mission in 3.

 

[THErest]

are you Mac Walters?
have you... ever heard of... ME3? and why it's ending needed a patch?

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I don't know who Mac Walters is.

I just looked up the original choose-your-own-ending to ME3.
It's not at all the same as what I proposed for ME1's ending. Just because everything changes or is destroyed in some way doesn't make my idea redundant.

It seems ME3 really rolled with a "real people vs robots but wait robots are real people too what ever shall we do" approach.

None of that had anything to do with what I was talking about for ME1. I don't care if Reapers are synthetic, organic, or otherwise.

The interesting part of it isn't even just that the Reapers are coming to destroy everything and are seemingly unstoppable. That's just an alien invasion story.

No, the interesting and unique facet is that our entire galactic civilization, all our advancements, were shaped and contrived by them. To be exploited and consumed by them.

Defeating them, then, isn't enough. To be truly free, we'd have to excise them from our very core. IE, blowing up the mass relays. Otherwise, even if we kill them all, we're still just their fruit, forever growing on their vine.


So again, I'd prefer the story where Shepard blows up their garden/poisons the well, to the story where Shepard wins some gunfights and space fights and then gets bigger guns and a deus ex machina to sort of just decide, in one of three ways, if robots are people too.

I'd prefer the the very hard, necessary, costly solution in the face of unfathomable cosmic power to, umm, fighting space robots and then some really big space robots but still only space robots. Story-wise, that is.

 

[Rover_]

You can argue it didn't broke the trilogy, but the franchise is now pretty much dead. Sure Andromeda didn't help. But with ME3 ending Bioware is now in a very bad spot with the ME franchise ...

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there's a new game in development, announced last year.

 

[GSG]

Not only do I agree with the article, I don't think it goes far enough in its criticism of ME2. It was a downgrade in almost every way to ME1, and is a good example of the trend in game development at the time of going with flash over substance and dumbing down gameplay to satisfy dudebro Gears of War/CoD type gamers. After BotW, ME2 is probably my most disappointing game of all time.

 

[Indy in the Fridge]

Sure ME3 shits the bed at the end, but it is disingenuous to want to bash ME2 (or even ME1 for that matter) when the trilogy itself remains in the 1% of good sci-fi storytelling in video gaming.

We rarely get a series as consistently good as Mass Effect very often.

 

[Ralemont]

It really didn't though? People were accurately mocking the ghost child crap as it was happening. The humans stumbling across the Crucible designs on Mars was an extremely lazy deus ex machina on the part of the writers. The retroactive blaming of Cerberus for everything bad in the universe. ME3 had a crapton of issues besides 'narrative plotholes' and just the ending. It's the worst written of the 3 games by a good margin.

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Yes I've heard all this before, just like I've heard about how people hated how ME2 started or the Human Reaper. The point isn't the existence of flaws, but what broke the franchise. And in that respect, it certainly wasn't randomly finding the Crucible on Mars or Kai Leng's e-mails.

I remember when all the fans were writing their reviews on the old BSN board, virtually all of them gave two scores, one for the game up until the ending and one including the ending to emphasize how happy they were with the game until that point. So yes ME3 largely fulfilled people's emotional satisfaction. Plot holes are rarely things thought about in the moment as you're going through a story, and nitpicking a plot in retrospect wields a lot less power for someone's overall opinion of an experience.

 

[Hailinel]

Sure ME3 shits the bed at the end, but it is disingenuous to want to bash ME2 (or even ME1 for that matter) when the trilogy itself remains in the 1% of good sci-fi storytelling in video gaming.

We rarely get a series as consistently good as Mass Effect very often.

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What's disingenuous is to argue that ME1 and ME2 are above criticism because they sit in a fabricated percentile of "good sci-fi storytelling in video gaming."

 

[Foxnull]

The search for the Crucible plans should have been the entire point of 2, instead of being crammed into a single early mission in 3.

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This pretty much. They could've even left most of the game the same it is now, only somehow combine the Collectors with the Crucible.

 

[Indy in the Fridge]

What's disingenuous is to argue that ME1 and ME2 are above criticism because they sit in a fabricated percentile of "good sci-fi storytelling in video gaming."

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Where in my post did I say you can't levy criticism?

 

[Hailinel]

Where in my post did I say you can't levy criticism?

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Sure ME3 shits the bed at the end, but it is disingenuous to want to bash ME2 (or even ME1 for that matter) when the trilogy itself remains in the 1% of good sci-fi storytelling in video gaming.

We rarely get a series as consistently good as Mass Effect very often.

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This reads as the comment of someone that doesn't want their pet games negatively critiqued.

 

[Weiss]

Where in my post did I say you can't levy criticism?

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I feel it's in that you chose the word "bash" in regards to ME1 and ME2, which they don't deserve for remaining "in the 1% of good sci-fi storytelling in video gaming."

 

[Indy in the Fridge]

This reads as the comment of someone that doesn't want their pet games negatively critiqued.

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Well maybe read it again once you step outside and take a breather

I feel it's in that you chose the word "bash" in regards to ME1 and ME2, which they don't deserve for remaining "in the 1% of good sci-fi storytelling in video gaming."

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A "curbstomping" or "bash[ing]" is not the same thing as criticism. Come on now...

 

[Deleted member 81119]

Would you rather have an all time classic game like Mass Effect 2, or a compromised Mass Effect 2 that's only there to create a more satisfying trilogy.

 

[Kirksplosion]

So I've just read the article and I found all of his points very convincing. It's really well argued.

And yet...I disagree with the central thesis that Mass Effect 2 "broke" the franchise.

Despite the jettisoning of these threads introduced in Mass Effect, I still loved both of the following sequels (including the original ending). So, no, the writers didn't continue down the most clear, obvious path set forth by ME1, but it certainly didn't break the franchise in any perceivable way, at least not so much that it affected the coherency of or my enjoyment of the story.

 

[Weiss]

Would you rather have an all time classic game like Mass Effect 2, or a compromised Mass Effect 2 that's only there to create a more satisfying trilogy.

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Can't it be both? Shouldn't it be both?

 

[Hailinel]

Well maybe read it again once you step outside and take a breather

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I'm totally relaxed. For me, it's an easy-going Thursday morning before I get ready for work. I would say that you should relax, as it seems you can't take people poking holes in your hyperbolic argument that ME1 and 2 are, again, in the "1% of good sci-fi storytelling in video gaming."

You want to put the games on a pedestal where they are above being criticized.

 

[Weiss]

Well maybe read it again once you step outside and take a breather



A "curbstomping" or "bash[ing]" is not the same thing as criticism. Come on now...

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It's important to remember that no one really gets to dictate the terms of criticism. It's perfectly fine not to want to engage with a certain level of hyperbole (say if someone were to feel that way about my posts), but they're still criticism even if they're not polite. Everyone, including yourself, has bashed a work of fiction before, including fiction that is as beloved by someone else as much you love Mass Effect.

 

[crimsonECHIDNA]

I'll have to take your word for it; she's never survived to ME2 in my playthroughs.

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Yeah if you romance Ashley and challenge her views on the Council/Aliens in ME1 then at the end of the game she will actually be the one arguing in favor of saving the council, even over other characters like Liara and Tali.

Same thing happens in reverse with Kaidan if you romance him as a Femshep. You can "harden" his worldview just like you could with Alistair and Leliana in Dragon Age. It's basically a feature that the writers just threw out after ME1 and ignored.

 

[HBK]

there's a new game in development, announced last year.

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After how many years? That will be released in how many years?

Sure the remaster sold well. They're good, critically acclaimed games. It'd be shocking if the remaster didn't sell well. I'm even considering getting it despite all my beefs with how they handled ME3.

They're still taking their goddamn time to make a proper sequel (Andromeda may not have been built as one, but it was definitely received as a spinoff), and that's because they put themselves in a very bad spot, even if many people, me included, still have fond memories of the trilogy and this galaxy.

 

[mancan]

Fully disagree in everything he said and I love me1. But 2 is better in everything except nostalo

 

[brenobnfm]

Would you rather have an all time classic game like Mass Effect 2, or a compromised Mass Effect 2 that's only there to create a more satisfying trilogy.

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Neither happened though

 

[nDesh]

Neither happened though

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Yeah, the ME2 that was in almost every top 10 of the last decade, including in this site, is not an all time classic.

 

[Waxwing]

Ehhh...I've always felt this way about 2, so not much of a hot take imo. It used to mystify me that people pointed to it as the best in the trilogy. I love lore and amplification of stakes. ME2 failed to adequately build on what ME 1 teased, with the main plot feeling more like a side quest.

 

[Coyote Starrk]

Yeah I can't get in board with this. ME2 is easily the best game of the trilogy and was a huge improvement over ME1 in a variety of ways. I could understand someone missing the more in depth RPG elements from ME1 that ME2 glossed over, but that's about it.


Better combat, better level design, better class identity, better voice acting, and MUCH better squad system. It took the bones of ME1 and made it better in every single way. ME2 didn't break the series it MADE the series.

 

[BassForever]

Mass Effect 2 -> 3's biggest flaw is that 90% of the cast build up in 2 got cast aside in 3 in favor of new characters and returning favorites from 1. I feel people are blaming the faults of 3's bad writing, story, and structure at ME2's feet.

 

[Taruranto]

Yeah I can't get in board with this. ME2 is easily the best game of the trilogy and was a huge improvement over ME1 in a variety of ways. I could understand someone missing the more in depth RPG elements from ME1 that ME2 glossed over, but that's about it.


Better combat, better level design, better class identity, better voice acting, and MUCH better squad system. It took the bones of ME1 and made it better in every single way. ME2 didn't break the series it MADE the series.

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Isn't ME2's level design literally corridor-planets?

 

[Deleted member 29639]

Ehhh...I've always felt this way about 2, so not much of a hot take imo. It used to mystify me that people pointed to it as the best in the trilogy. I love lore and amplification of stakes. ME2 failed to adequately build on what ME 1 teased, with the main plot feeling more like a side quest.

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You must love modern-day Hollywood as every studio blockbuster is more obsessed with lore and setting up future movies than developing characters in the movie that's actually, y'know, made :)

Mass Effect 2's focus on the personal is why it works. The Reaper invasion doesn't mean a thing if you don't care about the people who are being massacred. ME1, as much as I love it, is just a series of expositional lore drops. There's very little character there.

 

[Coyote Starrk]

Isn't ME2's level design literally corridor-planets?

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I never said it was great. I said it was better than ME1. Though to be fair ME1 level design was god awful so I guess it's not saying much.


Still it was a noticable improvement nonetheless.

 

[Taruranto]

I never said it was great. I said it was better than ME1. Though to be fair ME1 level design was god awful so I guess it's not saying much.


Still it was a noticable improvement nonetheless.

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I greatly prefer ME1's level design, where planets actualy felt like planets, even if the execution was spotty.

 

[Cerulean_skylark]

Having just finished me1 for the first time and me2 for the second time. Honestly, any shortcomings in 2s story relative to the grander narrative is more the fault of the first game.

They knew they were building a trilogy, but basically put all their cards on the table immediately. We knew what the reapers were, their motivation, their impending timeline, the process and all the other mysteries, there was nothing left for 2 to explore. But 2 actually makes you care about the characters and invests far more emotional stakes. The games should have been reversed, with me1 establishing emotionally complex characters in a lighter plot that hints at things to come. 2 did a much better job showing the universe they built than 1 did by far as well.

I cannot believe how weak 1 is both narratively and gameplay. Basically nothing of interest happens until noveria, which is too bad.

 

[BassForever]

I greatly prefer ME1's level design, where planets actualy felt like planets, even if the execution was spotty.

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ME1 had basically the same one level for 90% of it's missions

Drop onto a barren planet with the mako

Drive to the one base

Inside that one base you'd experience the following

A small room with some boxes
A big room with a lot of boxes and a big gunfight against enemies
Then a T shaped hallway
One room at the end of the had a chest in it
The other room had the mission objective that ended in either a boss fight and/or a dialogue option.

It was comically how many missions in ME1 copy and pasted the same layout over and over again.

 

[Zissou]

I greatly prefer ME1's level design, where planets actualy felt like planets, even if the execution was spotty.

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I assume they're talking about where the actual shooting/combat took place (the same copy/paste boxes they dropped on every planet to put bad guys in).

 

[Coyote Starrk]

I greatly prefer ME1's level design, where planets actualy felt like planets, even if the execution was spotty.

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To each their own I guess, but to me ME1 level design was trash tier. Stuff like the cookie cutter "bases" you found on planets were literally the same exact buildings. In a few cases the crates inside were even in the same exact spots. And the planets were not planets at all. They were barren landscapes with random items scattered about. Then when you "found" them you got a generic text message and some money/XP.



As annoying as the scanning was in ME2 I greatly prefer it to the planet stuff in 1 because at least the scanning gave me valuable currency that I could spend on meaningful upgrades. Whereas in 1 the planet stuff gave you literally nothing of value aside from some of the easily attainable currency you already have millions of by the end of the game or the few instances where you can do something for a squadmate like Tali's data for her pilgrimage. The only time you got anything different in 1 was when you did the story and even then the levels were relatively barren in 1 compared to 2 and especially 3. Barren corridors with a few placed NPCs in peaceful areas or the odd crate or two in combat areas.


The one thing I will give ME1 over 2 though in terms of design is the Citadel. The Citadel in 1 was easily the best version of the Citadel in my opinion. I love how huge it is and how grand it feels on the presidium and then you set that next to the comparatively cramped ward section. The random conversations that you would happen across were also funny. Love the dude in the markets trying to return his item without a receipt. It was fantastic.

 

[Weiss]

Having just finished me1 for the first time and me2 for the second time. Honestly, any shortcomings in 2s story relative to the grander narrative is more the fault of the first game.

They knew they were building a trilogy, but basically put all their cards on the table immediately. We knew what the reapers were, their motivation, their impending timeline, the process and all the other mysteries, there was nothing left for 2 to explore. But 2 actually makes you care about the characters and invests far more emotional stakes. The games should have been reversed, with me1 establishing emotionally complex characters in a lighter plot that hints at things to come. 2 did a much better job showing the universe they built than 1 did by far as well.

I cannot believe how weak 1 is both narratively and gameplay. Basically nothing of interest happens until noveria, which is too bad.

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Even as a stan for ME1 I appreciate perspectives like this. There are a lot of ways to look at Mass Effect and what lessons can be learned from the trilogy.

 

[Deleted member 24907]

I really liked ME2 for its writing but always kind of expected for Bioware to fold back in the parts of ME1 that hadn't worked so well now that they had clearly found their stride in ME2. Instead they went in the opposite direction with ME3 and basically turned the series into a Michael Bay franchise. So I remain conflicted with ME2, as it was Bioware beginning to find its footing but also through it ended up learning all the wrong lessons.

Needless to say it became a pattern for Bioware and ultimately ended up with Anthem.

 

[crimsonECHIDNA]

So I will say ME2 is probably my favorite of the three games, but on a story front it did fail in that regard. Mass Effect very much falls into the Two-Part Trilogy trap where the original entry was largely stand-alone with a more open-ended conclusion while the next two parts were more designed closely together once the creators made up their mind it was going to be a trilogy.

Like, ignore how much more you liked the characters and the sucide mission, what actually gets advanced story and lore-wise to drive the story forward? The game ends with Shepard seemingly fighting off the first wave of the Reapers attack....just like the first Mass Effect more or less. And he's going to use this information to try and galvanize the rest of the Galaxy...just like the first Mass Effect.

Hell, it takes the Arrival DLC to properly actually set the opening stage for Shep's status quo going into the third game, and even then it's more to brute force a way to explain why Shepard is back to working for the Alliance instead of Cerberus.

Also not helping that all the characters that were the "real" focus of 2 have to be tossed out because Bioware didn't really account for the whole "they could die on the suicide mission." Garrus and Tali being the exceptions they were too popular to exclude or the fanbase would've flipped.

 

[Siggy-P]

This is hard to talk about, because Mass Effect 2 is a really popular game. It's the most popular entry in the franchise, and so you're usually not allowed to say bad things about it. The Internet doesn't know how to parse nuance, so everything is either absolute perfection or total garbage.

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THIS DUMB INDUSTRY. MASS EFFECT 2 BROKE THE FRANCHISE

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[Waxwing]

You must love modern-day Hollywood as every studio blockbuster is more obsessed with lore and setting up future movies than developing characters in the movie that's actually, y'know, made :)

Mass Effect 2's focus on the personal is why it works. The Reaper invasion doesn't mean a thing if you don't care about the people who are being massacred. ME1, as much as I love it, is just a series of expositional lore drops. There's very little character there.

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I do love the MCU :P. But that aside...

You CAN do both- develop characters and have lore/plot that naturally develops over the course of a trilogy or something longer. I always think of the show Fringe when it comes to a stellar showcase. Season 1 does take a little bit of time to establish characters, but after that, it's an extravaganza of character and lore that really goes places and achieves everything it set out to.

 

[Deleted member 85465]

So I will say ME2 is probably my favorite of the three games, but on a story front it did fail in that regard. Mass Effect very much falls into the Two-Part Trilogy trap where the original entry was largely stand-alone with a more open-ended conclusion while the next two parts were more designed closely together once the creators made up their mind it was going to be a trilogy.

Like, ignore how much more you liked the characters and the sucide mission, what actually gets advanced story and lore-wise to drive the story forward? The game ends with Shepard seemingly fighting off the first wave of the Reapers attack....just like the first Mass Effect more or less. And he's going to use this information to try and galvanize the rest of the Galaxy...just like the first Mass Effect.

Hell, it takes the Arrival DLC to properly actually set the opening stage for Shep's status quo going into the third game, and even then it's more to brute force a way to explain why Shepard is back to working for the Alliance instead of Cerberus.

Also not helping that all the characters that were the "real" focus of 2 have to be tossed out because Bioware didn't really account for the whole "they could die on the suicide mission." Garrus and Tali being the exceptions they were too popular to exclude or the fanbase would've flipped.

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Agree a lot with this post, what I am noticing the most though is that the title of the article doesn´t help with what the author is trying to say, it seems most are reading it and thinking that the article is about ME2 being bad, but hyperbole gets clicks I guess.

I mean this paragraph is not really compatible with the title:

"But if we're going to talk about what happened to Mass Effect then I need you to at least be open to the idea that Mass Effect 2 had some non-obvious structural flaws. Yes, Mass Effect 2 features some of the best characters and sidequests in the history of the series. Mordin Solus is pure gold. Samara's loyalty mission is a brilliant crime thriller told exclusively through dialog. Tali's loyalty mission is an amazing courtroom drama with high emotional stakes. Legion's mission offers the most interesting moral conundrum in the entire series, and that's really saying something. But mixed in with those great stories and lovable characters is a story that creates tons of problems for anyone trying to write the third game."​

The ME trilogy has its flaws but even with them I still love the games, talking about its flaws is about looking at would could improve so that maybe in the next ME game Bioware could learn from them, at least in my view.

 

[Deleted member 90924]

Mass Effect Franchise: Mass Effect 2 broke the Shamus Young