Mass Effect: Andromeda -- Opening Sequence

Sept 10, 2016 5:43:04 GMT straykat said:

And while Humans were special in the original, it still had an air of humility about it. At least until 3. It was just colony defense, where people squeezed out a living on worlds no one wanted to live... and they constantly got jacked in the process. Nihlus' first lines hinted at how pathetic it was. "Is the Alliance truly ready for this?" So the idea that Shepard was a human hero had some charm to it.

I always thought the first Mass Effect had the best and most interesting portrayal of humanity out of the games in the trilogy: look at Ashley who loved human poetry, was religious to an extent and had a xenophobic tinge to her character that seemed realistic given her family and humanity's history. Humanity had a sense of an identity that was influenced by their culture(s) and history especially the First Contact War.

As you said, there was a sense of humility to it including in that humanity made mistakes in how they handled certain things like biotics. I also think that they portrayed humanity's determination as both an asset and a flaw: humanity has accomplished a lot in their short time in space like, say, building colonies but at the same time, it seems this is also a flaw because they seem to sometimes bite off more than they can chew like not always being able to properly protect their colonies.  

After the first Mass Effect, I felt humanity became the blandest of the races and they just stopped being interesting to me. Individuals could still be interesting but humanity itself didn't interest me the same way the turians, krogan, salarian, batarian or even the asari did.

Sept 10, 2016 9:29:21 GMT straykat said:

I agree, but I think it applies to 2 as well. It's still just about colony defense and people getting by, living in those makeshift buildings and getting kidnapped by Collectors. They're not special per se. They're pretty helpless. And then they meet a terrible end no matter what. Humanity doesn't really win anything here. It just ends with you or TIM deciding who's really going to look out for them from now on.

I'll admit the flaw still applies to an extent in Mass Effect 2 but I still consider them more or less a bland race because outside of Kasumi, I felt humanity lost a lot of characterization they'd had in the first game. It began to feel like they expected you to care about Mass Effect's humanity simply because they were humans but that dosen't work for me because they aren't real life humans so I don't care about them simply because they exist.

Earth, I felt, was a pretty egregious example of this. We've only ever seen Mass Effect's Earth from space and we've never been able to set foot on Earth yet it felt like they wanted us to be invested in Earth. Compare Earth to the Citadel: the Citadel was a hub that players could and did visit in each of the games. The players could explore it and they saw it change over time. including from events that had occured. They met people who lived there. It was the stage for important events like meeting companions and Shepard becoming a Spectre to name a few. I was personally invested in the Citadel because of all of that allowed me to built a connection with it.

Example: when I heard that Cerberus (I still wonder how) or the Reapers had taken the Citadel, I was worried about some of the people I'd met there and hoping they had made it to safety. I still wanted to know by the end of the game.