Unpopular opinions

Currently replaying ME3, thus most points related to it.

- I like the Synthesis ending, though shooting the Citadel AI in the head was the first reaction (Epilogue DLC changed it a bit);
- I dislike fully-voiced PCs and limiting player's agenda in any way (there should have been completely dumb, violent and silent dialogue options);
- Listening to the Illusive Man at the Citadel was annoying, I didn't care about his motivations;
- It's confusing that a Spectre (Shepard, the player) has to obey a random local military (Hackett), instead of the Counsil;
- For some unknown reason, the game assumed that a Spacer (the background chosen) would care about Earth any more, than about Palaven or a random large space station;
- Mako was the ultimate source of evil;
- Lore contradictions and lack of actual control over Normandy in ME3 are disappointing;
- I like helmets being visible;
- D&D-esque alignment system shouldn't have existed in the series.

Edit. Almost forgot about those "dream" sequences in ME3. That was one of the reasons for attempting to shoot the Catalyst. I understand that the boy was meant to represent something (sorrow, maybe), but it was awfully implemented (both slow movement and lack player's agenda).

I miss the elevators and the decontamination sequence.  I also miss the PC version of the puzzles.

It's better than "Enemies everywhere" or "I will destroy you" every five seconds in my opinion.

Love this show.  Need to catch up on it.

Hey! This thread is for unpopular opinions.

I think Sheploo looks like a total derp in ME3.



I also wish I could make Mac Shepard look right.

After having installed ME3 to my Xbox One, I decided todo a playthrough without the Extended Cut... my first without it after many years... and I've been reminded just how much better I like the original ending(s) than the EC. They are much simpler and enable leaving much more to the imagination.  (ETA:  I should also say this is with a new ME3 save, i.e. no import; no Genesis comic, no other mods; but with the other DLCs installed.  I don't know if the ending(s) behave differently with an imported file, but right now I'm not getting any aftermath ending slides... just the scene of Joker and 2 other crew members exiting the crashed Normandy and then a jump to the credits and then the after-credits Stargazer scene.  There is no scene showing Shepard in the rubble at all).

For example, without the Normandy swooping to rescue the crew, one can imagine that one of them may have died in that push. I used EDI and James as my final squad mates and chose destroy and, of course - because I did select Destroy, EDI is not seen exiting the ship after it crash lands on Planet X, but James is. Without seeing her rescued, I can imagine that she died during the run to the beam and not as a direct result of my using the Destroy option. Since the Quarians wiped out the geth earlier in the playthrough, the impression of the collateral damage with destroy is much diminished.

In addition, there is no speech by Shepard after the Control ending, which leaves what he does with Control completely up to my imagination. Since my Shepard was Paragon, the change that occurs at the console does not show any signs of it being a mechanical change. The structures under his skin are clearly just human skeleton.

The description of synthesis is much briefer; therefore, it allows more room to be able to imagine a more equal change to both organics and synthetics... because the catalyst does not say the line that implies the change is really only to organics.  Sure the glowing green eyes are still there... but I can just imagine that effect fades over time.

Since there is no memorial scene, I can even just imagine my Shepard lives after every "destroy" explosion regardless of my EMS. I don't need to get that last little ragged breath to just imagine that he's just knocked unconscious by the blast, wakes up eventually on the Citadel, and gets on with his life there with others on the Citadel who also survived.

I think it's too bad that the fans forced Bioware to overwrite their original endings... and I'm now thinking I just won't bother to install the EC on my Xbone. If I want to play with the EC ending, I can still play that on my Xbox 360.  Leaving more to just the individual's imagination would have given Bioware more options with respect to MEA without declaring a "canon" ending.

I'm saying it leaves it open so that the player can then imagine it to have been either one; and allowing them to construct the relevant situation into whatever role they've "designed" for their Shepard.  Whatever Bioware doesn't define, I'm free to define for myself to suit my individual roleplay.  I would know if the Catalyst was trolling me... because I would be deciding that if it fit my roleplay.  In a different roleplay, I could still decide just the opposite.  It means I'm writing the ending... not Bioware.

The only real issue is that Miranda could die in ME2.  Liara, Vega and EDI are the base squad in ME3 to ensure that the player (regardless of what they did in ME2) has at least 3 to choose 2 from.  If Miranda replaced either one of those, then the player might be reduced to just having two squad mates if, for example, Garrus, Tali and Miranda all died in ME2 and they wind up shooting the Virmire Survivor during the Citadel coup.

I would have liked to have seen them add any of the other ME2 LIs in as recruitable squad mates in ME3... Jack, Miranda, and Thane; but they obviously wanted to keep the squad smaller... probably due to the cost of the additional VA work it would have taken to make them squad mates.

However, making it so you don't shoot the VS only IF you have only 2 squadmates doesn't give you an additional squad mate for the first 1/2 of the entire game.  EDI represents your tech squad mate while James is your soldier, and Liara is your biotic... so they can give any class of Shepard balanced support from a gameplay perspective. 

So, based on your wording, let's call a spade a space - You probably wouldn't have cared at all about this if EDI was just an new organic tech-based squad mate.  It's the fact that she's synthetic that bugs you the most.

The dialogues leading up to the decision to cure or not cure the genophage change considerably with the decisions you made in the previous two games.  If Wreav is in charge of the Urdnot rather than Wrex and if you destroyed Maelon's data in ME2, the overly agressive dialogue from Wreav compounded by the concerns expressed by Eve and Mordin actually make it very clear that there are some very good reasons to not cure the genophage.  Similarly, if you did not save Legion and Tali was exiled, the dialogue makes it very clear that 1) peace is not an option and 2) that the Geth VI can't be trusted... making it a very easy decision to "side with" the Quarians.

I see why it could not be enough to have 3 companions for 1/2 game, but consider that to only have such few squadmates it would require a very specific playthrough (killing Tali, Garrus and the other "new" previous ME2 companion). But I can see why you dislike this idea.

I don't care about EDI in ME3 because I didn't like the evolutions of the synthetic characters in ME3. Making EDI and Joker fall in love and making every Geth an individual kind of cheapens (to me) the idea that they could have been alive while still be different from organic life. So in a way EDI bothers me because she is synthetic but not because I am "racist" towards them.

I disagree with the genophage part. It works that way only if you kill Wrex and don't save Maelon's data in ME2, then and only then you can actually make Mordin change his mind. If you decide to take any other combination of these two choices (so the other 3 out of 4 possibilities) the game makes you feel like a monster if you don't trust Eve and/or Wrex to be able to change the krogan's culture and decide to not cure the genophage.
Similarly in the Geth case, excluding the peace option, to me the game tries too hard to make the Geth the good guys (maybe in an untrustworthy way as you suggest, but still...).