Shamus Young: Mass Effect 2 Broke the Franchise

[Ushojax]

ME2 is exactly Dead Space 2 to me. It's slicker, it's has a more lavish presentation and it's really fun to play, but there's something about the tone that tells you things are heading in a very stupid direction. I mean the game ends with you fighting an enormous Terminator. No surprise the next game got even dumber.

 

[SofNascimento]

One thing that I want to add to this discussion. A lot of people talk about how ME2 was a "second start" for the franchise, and one evidence of that is how Bioware kept saying ME2 was a excellent point to begin to jump in. I don't agree with that argument, but it is true that Bioware developed ME2 in a way that people could just jump in. The thing is, that is true for ME3 as well. The sentence "ME3 is a perfect time to jump into the story" was said time and time again. When discussing the ME trilogy we need to remember they are, at the end of the day, products that need to be sold, and maximizing that potential is a concern Bioware needed to have.

In other words, ME2 could have been the middle chapter many people wished it was, and then ME3 could very well have dropped all of that to tell a completely different story with little connection to the things that were set up by that hypothetical ME2. Or maybe ME2 being less "standalone-ish" would make for a weaker game, that would have been less well received both commercially and critically, making EA completely change the strategy for ME3, resulting in a entire new different game, again.

I prefer to celebrate the Mass Effect trilogy that we've got. Even with its flaws.

This is semantics, but it is what I am trying to say, the author is speaking about the long term consequences of ME2 main plot structural problems, as you said yes the race was incredible but it affected the last lap (in my view it doesn´t make it to the finish line, since I think the ending of ME3 is horrible).

Let´s remember that after ME3 Bioware had no idea where to go with the franchise, which yeah it was in part because of ME3 but also because of the structural flaws ME2 had that the author is speaking about, then came Andromeda, and EA putting the franchise on ice, it was not until recently that it was brought back.

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Well, yes. Some people think you can really relativize what breaks mean, I think it means something that makes the title inherently wrong and a gross hyperbole. But the points that are actually made are valid points that I've been aware for a long time. I strongly disagree with them, and I think ME3's ending is a self-contained problem. The last lap being awful had little to nothing to do with the previous ones if you will.

 

[Deleted member 85465]

One thing that I want to add to this discussion. A lot of people talk about how ME2 was a "second start" for the franchise, and one evidence of that is how Bioware kept saying ME2 was a excellent point to begin to jump in. I don't agree with that argument, but it is true that Bioware developed ME2 in a way that people could just jump in. The thing is, that is true for ME3 as well. The sentence "ME3 is a perfect time to jump into the story" was said time and time again. When discussing the ME trilogy we need to remember they are, at the end of the day, products that need to be sold, and maximizing that potential is a concern Bioware needed to have.

In other words, ME2 could have been the middle chapter many people wished it was, and then ME3 could very well have dropped all of that to tell a completely different story with little connection to the things that were set up by that hypothetical ME2. Or maybe ME2 being less "standalone-ish" would make for a weaker game, that would have been less well received both commercially and critically, making EA completely change the strategy for ME3, resulting in a entire new different game, again.

I prefer to celebrate the Mass Effect trilogy that we've got. Even with its flaws.



Well, yes. Some people think you can really relativize what breaks mean, I think it means something that makes the title inherently wrong and a gross hyperbole. But the points that are actually made are valid points that I've been aware for a long time. I strongly disagree with them, and I think ME3's ending is a self-contained problem. The last lap being awful had little to nothing to do with the previous ones if you will.

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I think I understand better now, I agree with celebrating the Mass effect trilogy with flaws and all (actually bought the legendary edition earlier today).

I see the ME og trilogy as a whole, really love the games but I like to also speak about its flaws so that maybe Bioware doesn´t repeat the same mistakes in the future, I guess we disagree on the subject of this article and that is fine.

Speaking about how ME2 and ME3 where made as "easy to jump in" I would argue that ME2 is basically a restart (with the whole Shepard death and resurrection and a tutorial explaining what is happening and happened in the universe), while ME3 handles it with exposition and not really derailing the main plot, since it could not do this at the climax, maybe I am remembering wrong but I remember interviews where the developers said that Vega was made for the newcomers, so that he would ask in the first missions what was happening.

Games are products and all, but in my view that doesn´t really justify the flaws of any media, since all media is a product, and while some can see videogames as a product I prefer to view them as entertaining art.

 

[obeast]

ME2 is exactly Dead Space 2 to me. It's slicker, it's has a more lavish presentation and it's really fun to play, but there's something about the tone that tells you things are heading in a very stupid direction. I mean the game ends with you fighting an enormous Terminator. No surprise the next game got even dumber.

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To be fair, there are also ways in which ME2's and even ME3's writing is more sophisticated than ME1's. The companion dialogue is much deeper and more natural, and lore dumps are handled much less awkwardly. I'm kind of charmed by ME1's dorky lore dump conversations, but I won't try to argue that they're perfect writing.

I more or less agree with the thrust of Shamus Young's argument, and it annoys me to this day that BioWare didn't build more on ME1's foundation in ME2 and ME3, but I don't think it's quite as simple as a descent into stupidity. Posting this image again just to remind everyone that even the author of this apparently somewhat incendiary article mostly likes ME2:

Most of that green stuff is quite well written for an action RPG.

 

[Siggy-P]

Dismissing the entire argument because you don't like the tone of the title (whether that be the name of the video series to which this video belongs, or the title of this video in particular) just comes off as refusing to engage criticism because you don't want to hear negative things about your favorite game.

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Wanna quote me on that accusation?

I litteraly said in my next post (made before your post i quote) here that I agree with whats in the article. I love ME2 but it its short comings are obvious.

I quoted the authors smart ass comment and highlighted that he happily contributed to the same level of toxicity. Its an off-topic issue.

I'm amazed at how both you and the other person think I disagree with the article and try to sue that to dismiss me when I never said any such thing.

 

[The Artisan]

They're not sidequests.

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They kind of are though, aren't they? Iirc, if the player wanted to they could skip several of the loyalty missions and just do the story missions that would straight progress the plot, of which there aren't many - Horizon, derelict reaper, empty Collector base, maybe a few more. It's great that the player is incentivized to do the loyalty missions but it seems like more like that, the game's story relies on that.

"...The funny thing is that people will say 'other than gathering your crew and building your team and getting ready for this mission, there's not much story there.' But that is the story."