So "we moved on". Did it benefit the franchise afterall?

When Bioware adopts a more serious tone, entire species die.

He also said in an interview that because a couple of people at a con told him the endings were "perfect" for them, that he KNOWS they were good.

Maybe, instead of letting them die, they should have just been left back in the Milky Way.  This game was populated by so many favorite species Bioware had to constantly remind you that "this was party of the Initiative," and "this is Andromeda."  Instead of hitting us with something new and alien around every corner, they smothered us with the familiar.

What I mean is Bioware seems to have a developed a difficulty in distinguishing "serious" from "grimdark".

My guess is that it was partially supposed to show that this wasn't a military operation, that it wasn't a rigid hierarchy, chain of command "I'm in charge, you follow my orders" type group. But yeah, not done well.

Regardless if this is military, civilian or any other kind of organisation. You're there, you're their only hope of solving their problems. Maybe they're insulting you anyway, but you should have gotten the opportunity to respond in kind. To make them shut up. There are some lame attempts later on with Tan and Addison, doesn't change the fact though that you have to take the initial ridicule in stride without being able to at least verbally come back. As son or daughter I just lost a parent and a sibling in a coma, and I can't imagine anyone being in that situation to take that in without having some say in the matter.

I had no real issues with the Nexus leaders either.  Addison I could accept that she is just a bitch, sometimes you come across people like that.  The rest all seemed cordial enough.

I also agree with how ham-fisted a lot of the Ryder and team interactions felt.  Even if Liam and PeeBee didn't range from immature to downright intolerable at times Ryder often just acted like a complete dunce.  Most notable are the team meetings and when Jaal first comes on the ship and after some of the loyalty missions (again Liam and PeeBee). 

I get Ryder isn't supposed to be a "big god damn hero" but she is supposed to be the Pathfinder, the captain of the Tempest, and the leader of the team.  It just makes the whole thing feel unbelievable that a crew that would show her that mush disrespect in those situations would be able to follow her lead in any other.  Especially when crap is hitting the fan in combat, settling hazardous worlds, or any of the many high risk situations the team finds itself in. 

Only through the magic of plot armor did that 'team' manage to accomplish anything instead of completely falling apart.

That's why I always keep saying, it's not the story. They never delivered a story that makes you go wow. Their strong suit always was to deliver on engaging companions and a strong lead. That's where they lost their skill set and that's why this game got so much flak.

I'm not in the camp of calling this a bad game, but if some real effort had gone into developing Ryder and team, most of the bad vibes could have been avoided entirely. They failed there, not in telling the overall story, which isn't better or worse than in any other of their games.

Honestly, I can only facepalm at the ones believing that these pseudo comical moments were the right way to go.

IMO when game devs take a new approach to re designing a game franchise it can either turn out awesome or it can suck. ME A is a good looking game it has a ton of content it just lacks that "Mass Effect" feel. It seems to grab most of its functions from DAI and ofc it has the plethora of additional tasks which are a good time filler between the priorty missions but can be bland and repeative.

So yeah I get the whole moving on from the orignal ME series but bioware need to make it up with a decent follow up.

As in how? What were your options of punishing her?

Or they simply chose not to make another game in TMW. The ending they presented sort of invited you to headcanon the future of TMW, and any new game in that setting would have stepped on player's headcanon.

Aside from all of the other problems they'd have needed to solve, there's a substantial dichotomy between what the lore says about TMW (most of it unexplored) and what we saw on the galaxy map. The known relays and systems cover the entire galaxy.

Also - IIRC, they did a fan survey to ask people what they might like in a new game.


Ryder accomplished everything she set out to do - and then some. She also disobeyed a direct order (along with the other pathfinders) when she went to Meridian, which was a huge risk - and pretty much had all of the other pathfinders in her pocket. Yeah, Shepard took the SR-1 out of lockdown in ME1, but it was because a superior officer encouraged and helped her. ME1 started by telling us what a big goddamned hero Shepard was, a Spectre candidate no less, and provided multiple ego strokes throughout (telling). Ryder proved herself (showing) and earned others' respect in the process.

Shepard did ultimately defeat the reapers, but the cost made it almost feel like a pyrrhic victory.  She was not able to save a lot of what she was fighting for - and had to make some huge compromises in the process.