The worst part of Mass Effect 3 was not the ending, it was

[waterpuppy]

I think one of the worse aspects of EDIs design is not just the sexy robot thing, it's the fact that she instantly starts moving like some sexy runway model and develops romantic feelings for the first douchebag guy she sees. And the fucking belly button.
It would have been pretty great if her design had been more practical, especially since she's based off a Cerberus spybot. Like, she could have looked like a blank slate, ready to have her appearance customized in order to infiltrate. A more tactical, subtle design, with maybe the sexbot variation being an armor skin or whatever. Oh, what could have been.

Mass Effect, and honestly most BioWare games in general, tend to create female characters dripping in sexist stereotypes and design choices. Don't even get me started on how every lesbian they've ever written is either straight up evil/abusive to their parter or only there to be objectified by the player.

 

[shiba5]

Played and finished it on release month, I was stunned at this screen really:

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I wondered how that got past QA or anyone. It was like a giant middle finger.

 

[Beelzebufo]

Yeah that design was pretty garbage.

Worst part of 3 though was

The only thing I remember about him was that he liked cereal - and that wasn't even in the game!

After you get past the ending, there are a lot of things about 3 that are just not great. But the ending stunned me. I just stared at the credits rolling by for like 10 minutes wondering what the hell I'd just seen.

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How could you forget the ultimate final boss that the whole trilogy was building up towards? The whole journey was leading to this, the final showdown between Shepard and…..Some Dude.

 

[TheJollyCorner]

Just looked at that:

VS

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this was immediately hilarious to me when I first saw it.

 

[Doug Dimmadome]

The design of female characters in Mass Effect as a whole is worth raising an eyebrow.

Miranda has an in-universe reason for looking the way she does (being genetically designed to be the "perfect human" is admittedly a pretty weak justification - but it's at least some kind of explanation). And there is even a part on Illium in Mass Effect 2 where an antagonistic character says to her "I was just waiting for you to finish getting dressed. Or does Cerberus really let you whore around in that outfit?" This tells me BioWare was keenly aware of how overly-sexualized her character was and doubled down by making Ashley and EDI just as sexualized in Mass Effect 3

 

[Mesoian]

I mean it's still the ending because Edi is a big part of said ending.

But yes, Edi was ridiculous.

 

[louiedog]

There was so much wrong with that game but I totally forgot about this. It's really, really bad.

The ending, specifically pretty much everything from the moment you last leave the Normandy, was top to bottom a huge disappointment for me.

I even read the novels (except that last one that was apparently nonsense that didn't fit with the series) and was familiar with the Kai Leng character before the game came out and I wasn't prepared for how lame he looked and behaved. It was all so stupid.

 

[nihilence]

Played and finished it on release month, I was stunned at this screen really:

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They couldn't even make the text bigger?

Also, Miranda butt in 2 or 3 were pandering.

 

[Fiery Phoenix]

Agreed, OP. I much preferred the ME2 version of EDI.

 

[Geist]

I really like EDI as a character and at first thought it was cool that we were getting her as a squad mate but the sexy metal body really was so jarring. I hope with the sequel they leave that shit in the aughts.

 

[ToddBonzalez]

I wondered how that got past QA or anyone. It was like a giant middle finger.

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QA reports bugs. This one is on design/narrative.

 

[Khanimus]

I wondered how that got past QA or anyone. It was like a giant middle finger.

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That's not QA's job?

 

[dskzero]

For the remastered edition, they back-ported ME3 assets to ME2 in some cases, because they were usually higher fidelity. But it unfortunately also resulted in this nonsense coming back for certain characters:

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You know this is why I haven't played the remastered editions. I fucking hate they did this.

There's some really fun, classical science fiction philosophy you can discuss with EDI, on the nature of identity and self, consciousness relative to physicality (Ship of Theseus), that I quite enjoy.

But the hyper sexualisation was fucking bizarre. Like I get that...someone at BioWare was really keen to tap into that "sexy scifi" thing as a homage to the 70s, given her robo haircut, and the series general homage/referencing of other scifi. But they just went so fucking weirdly hard (pun intended) on the idea, right down to her alt uniform having a camel toe.

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I can't remember this though, but I probably didn't use her enough.

 

[Killzig]

Let's not pretend Mass Effect didn't have this kind of cornball stuff since the start. Like not that they couldn't have done better, but the series has always leaned into this dated cheesecake shit. This was inevitable.

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Yep, the entire origin of the Asari are "sexy blue ladies" regardless of it having been fleshed out over time. They even mention it in the art book.

 

[JasonV]

Mass Effect had a sexualization problem since they made an entire species of omnisexual booby blue women with conventionally attractive faces, who also make up half the strippers and pole dancers in the galaxy. They implemented "sitting in front of table dancers" as a world interaction. Liara is often talked about in terms of how young and naive and innocent she is (but don't worry she's like 90 years old). Her mother spends the game wearing this outfit. The Extremely Wise And Important Matriarch on the citadel who everyone is desperate to get advice from is implied to be fucking at least some of her clients, and offers to bone you as a reward while your ground crew presumably waits outside.

The outfits got more clingy throughout the series, no doubt. But make no mistake, the series has had "issues" from the start.

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One of the first cut scenes in the game has a shot of Liara's Mum's massive ass sashaying up to Saren and then we get to ogle her enormous breasts in her barely there top. It was maybe the horniest cutscene I've ever seen that wasn't overtly sexual.

 

[Persephone]

actually listening to a Let's Play of ME1 while doing other stuff and I'd forgotten how skeevy the series' treatment of women is from the start. I mean I knew it was bad but the asari really are on another level. Bioware literally said "their three life stages are whore, milf and crone". and they're genderless but of course they all look like sexy blue women, use she/her pronouns and are treated as cis women for all intents and purposes because ????? (we know why). Liara being treated as a wide-eyed innocent child who just wants to fuck you (but don't worry she's 106!) is like the evolution of the 1000-year-old dragon

 

[disparate]

actually listening to a Let's Play of ME1 while doing other stuff and I'd forgotten how skeevy the series' treatment of women is from the start. I mean I knew it was bad but the asari really are on another level. Bioware literally said "their three life stages are whore, milf and crone". and they're genderless but of course they all look like sexy blue women, use she/her pronouns and are treated as cis women for all intents and purposes because ????? (we know why). Liara being treated as a wide-eyed innocent child who just wants to fuck you (but don't worry she's 106!) is like the evolution of the 1000-year-old dragon

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lol, ME1 Liara's relationship with Shepard is straight up some Shonen anime bullshit. She might as well have said "Do, do you like me Shepard-senpai?"

 

[Taruranto]

Eh, I enjoyed her character in 3 and her evolution.

 

[Jebusman]

actually listening to a Let's Play of ME1 while doing other stuff and I'd forgotten how skeevy the series' treatment of women is from the start. I mean I knew it was bad but the asari really are on another level. Bioware literally said "their three life stages are whore, milf and crone". and they're genderless but of course they all look like sexy blue women, use she/her pronouns and are treated as cis women for all intents and purposes because ????? (we know why). Liara being treated as a wide-eyed innocent child who just wants to fuck you (but don't worry she's 106!) is like the evolution of the 1000-year-old dragon

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Samara was a huge bummer because I liked her character in 2, and Bioware somehow had the restraint to not "actually" allow you to romance her (just sort of in a really offputting "shepard take a hit jesus" kind of way), but then 3 had to go and break that, and throw in a "oh yeah I was a turboslut in my younger days" for good measure.

Every cool Asari character eventually get undermined in some way, shape or form by the series needing to be pervy about it.

Tbh it kind of feels like Bioware really bought into the bisexuality=promiscuity stereotype and just couldn't let go (as opposed to their other favorite choice, playersexuality, where the character just happens to be whatever orientation is convenient for the player's romantic interests).

 

[senj]

It's not a great design but the original ending was worse.

 

[Fawz]

Sci-Fi frequently does this whenever it deals with Robots/AI that have a human resemblance. If it has a male esthetic it's all about "they're out to kill us". If it has a female esthetic it's all about "can there be a romantic relationship". Plus the ME trilogy sure didn't shy away from sexualizing it's female cast (ie: Miranda) so not all that surprising (or even jaring).

It's a real shame too because EDI was an interesting character, especially her interactions with Joker and the various banter you heard her say

 

[Rixan]

Wait, I always though the cameltoe was a mod - are you saying it was direct from BioWare art department like that?

 

[Fudgepuppy]

She was great as a companion in combat though.

 

[GamerJM]

As someone who hasn't played any of these games, that design is legitimately more ridiculous to me than almost any sexualized anime design. It looks straight out of a crappy erotica with CG characters.

 

[YohraUtopia]

This is/was bad. The narrative is/was bad but I never played ME3 when it first game out because I think I didn't want to bother with the EA launcher at the time and I generally enjoyed ME1 and ME2. Currently on a long playthrough of all 3 and ME3 is terrible. I don't mean just like "bad for a game in this series" I mean full on pretty much everything is bad. I suppose some people may like the shooting better but... who cares? It's so stripped down of everything else. It suffers intensely from the prevailing styles of its period (everything should be a juvenile military shooter aimed at teenage boys) and that includes these not so subtle aesthetic choices.

EDIT: Ironically for all the guff it gives - some deserved, Mako for example - ME1 holds up really well.

 

[ItchyTasty]

Don't forget this was the game you could also have a quickie with the IGN reporter...

 

[SofNascimento]

actually listening to a Let's Play of ME1 while doing other stuff and I'd forgotten how skeevy the series' treatment of women is from the start. I mean I knew it was bad but the asari really are on another level. Bioware literally said "their three life stages are whore, milf and crone". and they're genderless but of course they all look like sexy blue women, use she/her pronouns and are treated as cis women for all intents and purposes because ????? (we know why). Liara being treated as a wide-eyed innocent child who just wants to fuck you (but don't worry she's 106!) is like the evolution of the 1000-year-old dragon

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Indeed. And this isn't the kind of thing you can fix. You can improve design and writing, but this is part of the ME lore. You can always retcon it or try to justify it in some way like Javik very slight hint that the Asari are like that because the Protheans designed them to be sexy slaves but their original goal will always be to fill the role of sexy aliens.

 

[LastNac]

There's some really fun, classical science fiction philosophy you can discuss with EDI, on the nature of identity and self, consciousness relative to physicality (Ship of Theseus), that I quite enjoy.

But the hyper sexualisation was fucking bizarre. Like I get that...someone at BioWare was really keen to tap into that "sexy scifi" thing as a homage to the 70s, given her robo haircut, and the series general homage/referencing of other scifi. But they just went so fucking weirdly hard (pun intended) on the idea, right down to her alt uniform having a camel toe.

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I forgot about this, now the nightmares are back.

 

[Otakunofuji]

I was more bothered by the whole "EARTH IS THE MOST IMPORTANT! ALL OF YOU ALIENS ARE SELFISH ASSHOLES BECAUSE YOU'RE MORE WORRIED ABOUT YOUR OWN PLANETS THAN EARTH, WHICH IS SO IMPORTANT TO EVERYONE!" plot.

 

[captainpat]

"creepy, basement-dwelling RPG fan's male-gazey fantasy"? it's a generic sexy robot. If she has some weird mgs5 Quiet I could understand. Anyway, the ending is way worse.

 

[Jebusman]

Indeed. And this isn't the kind of thing you can fix. You can improve design and writing, but this is part of the ME lore. You can always retcon it or try to justify it in some way like Javik very slight hint that the Asari are like that because the Protheans designed them to be sexy slaves but their original goal will always be to fill the role of sexy aliens.

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If there was any one bit of lore I did (sort of) like, it's the slight implication in 2 that the asari are actually mind projecting their looks to everyone so that they take on an appearance that's most attractive. The quarian and turian arguing over an asari, each one saying they have features that resemble quarians/turians even though we (the player) see them more like humans.

It's still dumb, but I got a chuckle out of it.

 

[shiba5]

QA reports bugs. This one is on design/narrative.

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That's not QA's job?

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I know, but they play the game and I wonder how many of them thought, "WTF?"

 

[TaleBknB]

Javik should never be a DLC. The whole game should be around him and his vision of this era, how his people failed at their time and how he gradually teach you from his mistakes to overcome the danger.

 

[Sanguine]

I don't know, I think the ending was still bad (and i played it way after release). Kei Lang (or whoever) was also really bad - he went down very quickly for a guy who seemed to be hyped up so much (and only to have a shitty scripted scene for him to beat you and send your character into a depression, though I guess if such a weak, shitty dude still somehow manages to beat you, I guess I would be depressed too). The ghost boy was really stupid too and I hated how the sequences were so slow. As was an important character like Javik being DLC.

I would also add that EDI was only part of the problem and the sexualization was something that was there.

 

[Caped Baldy]

This game has so many problems that I had honestly forgotten about EDI and her robot body. It was an eye roll for sure, but as other's have pointed out, they used one (1!) body type for every female in the galaxy. She must've just blended into the background to me.

No, shitweasel Kai Leng and the vent boi ruined it for me. Way to take 2 years worth of build up and completely shift the focus to two inconsequential characters that no one has any attachment to. Fuck Bioware, and fuck EA for ruining one of my favorite franchises.

 

[Lumination]

Her animations are so awkward too (along with all the women iirc).

The ending soured my first playthrough. Cringing about EDI and Kai Leng has stopped me from replaying it ever since.

 

[The Masked Mufti]

🐫 🐫 🐫 🤦‍♀️

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I can't believe that there was a designer who sat there thinking, "Somethings missing... What if I add a cameltoe to the robot?"

 

[ascagnel]

instead of the already well-established character Emily Wong (who was then killed offscreen on Twitter).

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I always see this thrown around, but looking back, that whole sequence (kind of a future version of Orson Welles' infamous War of the Worlds broadcast) was some of the most inspired stuff around ME3.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs0K4ApWl4g

Alliance News Network/SolComms

During the initial Reaper invasion of Earth, FCC News reporter Emily Wong managed to secure a Quantum Entanglement Communicator (QEC) from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). With it she was able to live-cast the opening hours of the Reaper invasion via the Alliance News Network...

masseffect.fandom.com

 

[Phellps]

That was ridiculous.

But it was the ending.

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Yeah, this. EDI is still wonderfully written, so I could slap clothes on her and focus on her story instead. Can't ignore the ending.

 

[Pey]

Animations, graphics, music and the fact that previous decisions regarding your squad didn't matter much, among other things.

 

[Watershed]

The oversexualization of women in Mass Effect is quite bad. It's classic nerd sci-fi sexual fantasy that does nothing for representation of women and continues gross characterizations to satisfy pent up dudes' sexual desires.

The sprint animation in ME3 is also atrocious.

 

[Trick_GSF]

EDI is pretty bad, but the complaints Ash gets are strange, she looks fine to me.. A bit more, "dolled" up I guess, but nothing offensive whatsoever.

 

[blacklotus]

A bad character design doesn't trump an ending that shits all over everything that was built over an entire trilogy.

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<3

 

[HK-47]

WTF? I never noticed that

With EDI at least her character stayed mostly consistent

What I found underwhelming was Legion's story in ME3. The concept of the Geth and Legion in ME2 was really interesting. The way he explicitly wasn't an individual in a human sense, but a collection of programs that might all be individuals or form some sort of hive mind. There were some really cool ideas around identity and consciousness in there, AI as an actually distinct form of being

Then ME3 threw all that out in favour of some Pinocchio story of Legion finally becoming a real human boy, because actually the form of identity we know is the best one and everybody should be the same

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You and me? We can be friends. Possibly the worst thing 3 did in terms of character assassination. And they did it to one of 2's highlights and a whole species. It screams "written on the back of a napkin at a Denny's at 1 in the morning." The poor writer from 2 really just had to watch all his careful work go to utter waste.

 

[Crushed]

What I found underwhelming was Legion's story in ME3. The concept of the Geth and Legion in ME2 was really interesting. The way he explicitly wasn't an individual in a human sense, but a collection of programs that might all be individuals or form some sort of hive mind. There were some really cool ideas around identity and consciousness in there, AI as an actually distinct form of being

Then ME3 threw all that out in favour of some Pinocchio story of Legion finally becoming a real human boy, because actually the form of identity we know is the best one and everybody should be the same

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Not only was that terrible and one of my most hated parts of ME3, but EDI herself even justifies it later with one of those unprompted automatic conversations on the Normandy. She goes on about how the geth having a unique collective intelligence actually made them weaker and more susceptible to Reaper indoctrination, and that changing to copy our sense of individual identity is objectively superior. It fucking sucked!

 

[HK-47]

EDI is pretty bad, but the complaints Ash gets are strange, she looks fine to me.. A bit more, "dolled" up I guess, but nothing offensive whatsoever.

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She is suppose to be a career soldier, a military brat through and through, that is also obsessed with her family's image. Why does she look like a shampoo model?

 

[butterbutt!]

I assume it was pressure from EA or within the studio itself to try to make the series more mainstream led them to deciding the redesign was somehow a good idea.

 

[HK-47]

I think one of the worse aspects of EDIs design is not just the sexy robot thing, it's the fact that she instantly starts moving like some sexy runway model and develops romantic feelings for the first douchebag guy she sees. And the fucking belly button.
It would have been pretty great if her design had been more practical, especially since she's based off a Cerberus spybot. Like, she could have looked like a blank slate, ready to have her appearance customized in order to infiltrate. A more tactical, subtle design, with maybe the sexbot variation being an armor skin or whatever. Oh, what could have been.

Mass Effect, and honestly most BioWare games in general, tend to create female characters dripping in sexist stereotypes and design choices. Don't even get me started on how every lesbian they've ever written is either straight up evil/abusive to their parter or only there to be objectified by the player.

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Joker and EDI were already trending in that direction in 2 and it's obvious why. They like each other and their jobs have them working together a lot. But BioWare couldn't just have a non standard relationship. Get her in a sexbot.

 

[penguindrum]

Those cameltoe screenshots keep jumpscaring me.

This thread has really expressed everything I felt when I played through these games for the first time exactly a year ago.

 

[Nigel Tufnel]

Javik should never be a DLC. The whole game should be around him and his vision of this era, how his people failed at their time and how he gradually teach you from his mistakes to overcome the danger.

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Replaying it years later with Javik from the start this was a hardcore take of mine. Absolutely should have been a central character in the original shipped copy, and more focus on him and the story beats he opens up would have been welcome.


...Not sure it would help them out with the ending, but still.