The Suicide Mission sure is something else.

[SofNascimento]

I know I still have a soul when I play ME2's finale and it still elicit some of the same feeling it did way back 10 years ago when I first playet it. It's just so good.

Every aspect of it is good. It doesn't begin after you go through the Omega 4 Relay, it begins at the very start of the game. And it build up until the moment you finally start the actual thing. The cutscene direction, the godly soundtrack, the gameplay, the decisions you have to make... I suppose some people will always complain about the terminator final boss and I understand why, still I don't think it diminishes the mission in any way.

It operates at the best place sci-fi can operate, which is in a line right in the middle between personal and epic. Sure your mission is to destroy the collectors and so save humanity and the galaxy, but it's your attatchment to your squadmates and crew that gives the mission so much of its weight. When you pick a comrade to do this or that, what makes you second guess yourself is not if you will fail, because in the end you know you're gonna succeed in the mission, it's if everyone will make it. And this was Bioware at its best.

In hindsight, Bioware create a challenge for themselves that they couldn't handle in ME3 (in terms of squadmates) and they said this themselves. Maybe they didn't antecipated how quickly they would have to put out ME3, but I can't ever call the Suicide Mission a mistake.

Mission accomplished.

 

[Bane]

The feeling I had watching the Normandy escape the base as the theme ramped up, knowing I'd gotten everyone through alive, was a gaming high I very rarely feel. A masterpiece of a finale.

 

[dipship31]

A fantastic moment with one of my top 5 gaming tracks ever:

 

[chandoog]

full marks for me.

I still remember going in blind the first time I played ME2 with only the vague knowledge that any number of things can cause your squad mates to die. I was on the edge through and through and breathed the biggest sigh of relief when I managed to get everyone out alive.

 

[Zukkoyaki]

It's a better final boss away from being absolute perfection

 

[Deleted member 56803]

I liked it when I first went through the game, but I now find it arbitrary and way too gamey. "Invest in those technologies, do this mission, choose this character," it feels so artificial.

 

[Skade]

It was extremely good until the silly terminator. But the music saved it all.

 

[Man Called Aerodynamics]

Yeah, in hindsight this mission really screwed them over for ME3's plotting. They should have just retconned the possibility of, for instance, Miranda dying. ME3 really strains under the necessity of sidelining all these major characters.

But solely in terms of ME2, it was worth it. What a ride.

 

[adj_noun]

Darn good quest

 

[Lyre]

Everyone please watch this, the design of Shepherd alone brings me to tears of laughter.



Edit: Also this fucking youtube comment

EDI: Jack is dead
Shepard: K thanks
Miranda: They got Thane
Shepard: Who?

LOL

 

[dogbox]

I think the fact that it's relatively easy to get most if not everyone of importance through it diminishes the "suicide mission" conceit.

It is a very good finale though.

 

[Lifejumper]

That soundtrack..

 

[RecRoulette]

You mean the one that ends with the Terminator?

I feel like it was way too easy to get through it unscathed. Then again others I know lost multiple people and that's fun.

 

[Chivalry]

It's pretty good, but I still hate the final boss.

 

[Duffking]

It's good atmospherically but the end boss brings it down a notch and I think it's showing its age a bit now, some bits feel a bit stilted. I think the game could have made more of the various negative outcomes in particular too, though that could have been a lot of work.

 

[Mad_Rhetoric]

Its a masterpiece.

 

[Almagest]

One of the all-time highs in gaming IMO. It wasn't executed perfectly, but the premise itself and the feelings it conveyed were absolutely amazing the first time around, I was legit excited, terrified, and ultra motivated. The theme song still gives me goosebumps.

The

Spoiler

Human-Reaper larva

was also conceptually a solid final antagonist, too bad the design was so weak.

 

[Deleted member 51248]

ME3's final mission should have been this on steroids! instead its just the wet fart that is Priority London...

 

[ciddative]

It set the bar on how to deal with a larger ensemble cast and a smaller playable party, something which most games still get wrong (or don't even bother trying) 10 years later

 

[Obsonet]

ME3's final mission should have been this on steroids! instead its just the wet fart that is Priority London...

Click to shrink...

Yeah they set the bar really high with this and really did not deliver at all with ME3

 

[Deleted member 10726]

Honestly it was pretty neat, I felt that overall it did feel like a far more rewarding/emotional conclusion to your journey and choices through the game than Mass Effect 3 overall did. Wasn't a huge fan of the Terminator final boss but overall I played through Mass Effect 2 multiple times and I really liked that having everyone survive was actually an accomplishment (tho then again, so was actually getting the worst ending where everyone dies)

 

[The Archon]

It's one of the best ending missions, but the bossfight imis literally the only thing in my eyes that could have been better.

 

[Snake__]

I dropped it 2 whole points to 5/7 because of that boss
I really care about boss fights and that boss just makes all the building tension completely nosedive

I feel like the other negatives to the mission have more to do with the game before it than the mission itself
(Mostly the fact that crew member loyalty just relies on one mission each and a couple of speech checks)
I always felt like KOTOR was way better about handling crew loyalty/ the crew falling apart at the end

 

[SofNascimento]

ME3's final mission should have been this on steroids! instead its just the wet fart that is Priority London...

Click to shrink...

I've said this so many times, mostly in my head, but it still counts. And, as silly - or worse - that may sound, it makes me feel rage that EA has the chance of improving on that in the upcoming remaster but will not. They have such a treasure in their hands, why not give it the treatment it deserves?

 

[RR30]

Best mission on one of the best games of the generation. Even with a weak final boss.

 

[Fanto]

It's Swimmin' in Sevens baby.

 

[MadLaughter]

I remember there was some ambiguity over whether Mordin survived in my game and so when the achievement EVENTUALLY popped for getting everyone out alive I got hyped AF, one of my favorite gaming moments

 

[Stowaway Silfer]

Love it. I remember losing 3 of my party members because I ignored the planet scanning thing I think and I replayed through the whole game, which I was gonna do anyway cause I loved ME2, to have a perfect save to carry into ME3 lol.

 

[SofNascimento]

About the final boss, as always it is the biggest perceived shortcoming of the mission. And as I mentioned in the OP I can understand why.

I think the idea is not bad, having a glimpse at the human reaper at the end is an interesting concept, but the execution could have been better. Maybe something more embedded in the base structure, that has more subtles outlines of a human but is not clearly such a terminator looking robot. Shooting at weak points while avoind fire and fighting other enemies is a proven concept and could work here.

 

[Kapryov]

It was great, the song alone is great.
It was a little too easy to keep everybody alive though. I had to actively try and kill them on a second playthrough and some still made it out.

They should've saved the general concept to end ME3 instead...

 

[WestEgg]

Mass Effect 2's finale is like the absolute pinnacle of "Your choices matter" game design. There's just so many variables, so many moving parts, and such high stakes.

 

[Almagest]

About the final boss, as always it is the biggest perceived shortcoming of the mission. And as I mentioned in the OP I can understand why.

I think the idea is not bad, having a glimpse at the human reaper at the end is an interesting concept, but the execution could have been better. Maybe something more embedded in the base structure, that has more subtles outlines of a human but is not clearly such a terminator looking robot. Shooting at weak points while avoind fire and fighting other enemies is a proven concept and could work here.

Click to shrink...

Something akin to this:

Would have been much better.

 

[Phellps]

It's a masterpiece, no other way to describe it.

 

[WestEgg]

Also, I'm still salty that for the part that you need to pick a team commander for the second group, Zaeed is considered a wrong choice that gets people killed. Dude founded the Blue Suns, he seemed like a way more obvious choice than Garrus and I think Jacob.

 

[Watership]

Everyone please watch this, the design of Shepherd alone brings me to tears of laughter.

Click to shrink...

Yikes. Character creation options are a mistake.

 

[Gunny T Highway]

There are very few games that actually nail the final mission/area as much as Mass Effect 2 did. Truly a masterpiece.

 

[SofNascimento]

Something akin to this:

Would have been much better.

Click to shrink...

I was using some concept art as a reference to my post!

I think Bioware struggled there to make it from concept to gameplay. We should remember that ME2 was only the second RPG that play as a TPS that they were doing and even if I would argue ME2 has one of the very best combats in a TPS, they lacked someone that could envision that boss fight. They should have hired someone from Platinum!

 

[TheMango55]

ME3's final mission should have been this on steroids! instead its just the wet fart that is Priority London...

Click to shrink...

the perplexing thing is that ME3 already had multiple bombastic set pieces that were extremely satisfying. Tuchanka is the real stand out imo, but they couldn't manage it for the end of the game.

 

[Hybrid Rainbow]

Pretty good, but not the greatest thing ever.

 

[Crossing Eden]

The entire game being a character driven RPG building up to this moment. The possibility that team members can die based on your decisions and/or preparation. The Reapers controlling the Collectors. The chase scene with Joker coming out and shooting the dudes who were chasing you. It being followed up with a scene of you telling the Illusive Man to eat shit. 👏 👏 👏

 

[defaltoption]

One of the best finales in gaming, I was so devastated on my first play through because I lost 1 person. Never had that feeling in gaming before.

 

[Doomguy Fieri]

I prefer the final mission from Mass Effect.

The Suicide Mission is good but has some flaws.

First, really think it shouldn't be possible to save everyone. There should be at least a couple points where it's not a question of whether someone dies, but who.

Second, the collector (right name? The main bad guy) just isn't on the level of Saren and Sovereign, who are just fucking perfect. Doesn't feel as climactic finally doing battle with him, speaking of which...

The terminator monster is silly looking and for me immersion breaking. I know there's this in-game lore reason for why it looks that way, but end of the day eldritch squid ships are infinitely cooler looking than a rip off of the Contra 3 boss.

First game also has better music.

 

[Siggy-P]

It was next level for that sort of ending. So few games even come close to it.

The scope. Your choices mattering. The drama. The intensity. The music. The constant build up to it from the start of the game.

Perfection.

 

[SweetBellic]

Absolutely. It's a huge part of why ME2 towers above ME1 and ME3 for me. The stakes feel high and all of the choices during the mission feel weighty. The outcome being dependent on your actions throughout the game makes your choices feel like they matter far more than in most other games, in addition to providing some fantastic replay value (the everyone dies scenario is great). I love all the Mass Effect Trilogy, but man, ME2 was just on another level in this respect.

 

[BlueJay]

The suicide mission is the finest moment in the entire franchise. From all your decisions counting, to the music, to the final run. Absolute perfection.

Definitely one of the best endings (and really, best games) of all time.

 

[N.47H.4N]

It was incredible,and I only played for the first time in 2015 the entire saga,spoiler free.

 

[ChaosXVI]

The build-up to it throughout the entire game is so perfect. And then you finally go through the relay and, as expected, it is so incredibly chaotic and dangerous that it's unreal. Then the potential to permanently lose your squad that you spent the whole game building up. It's just good. They really put themselves into a corner with ME3 because of it, but fuck was it worth it for ME2. Still my favorite in the series.

But that final boss was weird as hell and felt completely out of place. It was literally a giant T-800.

 

[AaronMT]

It's been so many years I forgot most of it. Found the cutscenes on YouTube. I don't remember much of the gameplay from the mission though.

 

[Deleted member 1627]

Even with the inevitable deconstruction of the underlying mechanics, it's just fucking phenomenal. Magical, even. Hoo boy.

 

[SofNascimento]

Glad to see so many people acknowledging how much the entire game contributes to the mission. It might be obvious for someone who played the game, but I don't think it's something that can be achieved easily. Anyway, I doubt it was by design, but I love how these two moments come together:

The beginning and the end.

The feeling of accomplishing something great, something impossible.... it's one of the great achievements of Mass Effect 2.