Unpopular opinions

ME2 was designed to be an Empire Strikes Back type of middle chapter story. It wouldn't work as the first entry to the series.

Cue Doomsday music as the Reapers suddenly realize that organics were the problem all along. And they will figure that out.

The ME2 Adept is the best Adept.

Kai Leng is hated for the wrong reasons because his boss fight sucked. He was supposed to be a monster heel, and got serious hype from expanded universe readers when his trailer dropped. He wasn't meant to be a petulant child, but rather an evil Shepard. And what does he have to show for it in the optimum ME3 run? A kill on a guy who would have died next week anyway, and "COVER ME WHILE I RECHARGE!"... Pathetic.

Multiplayer was a bolted-on afterthought that was good enough to deserve more story integration. Just seeing promoted characters in place of generic redshirts would have been enough. Maybe they'd perform better than the generics, like Grunt.


Fixing both with one fell swoop? Here we go. First, he has armour. He's immune to Stasis anyway, so give him armour. Make him immune to armour mitigation like how the CAT-6 heavies are immune to cover piercing weapon mods: let him use his speed to be hard to pin with single-shot weapons that care less about mitigation. Second, you fight Leng on Tuchanka, as an introduction to the Phantom fighting style - he kills Bakara unless you can keep him off her, which is hard - but not unreasonably so - to do. If you have Citadel, Wrex crowbars himself into your squad for the fight: Kai Leng will start the fight by synckilling him. Use First Aid and he can be a good tank.

Second, Thane gets cured. Kai Leng kills him anyway. And it's not a protracted fight - Kai sneaks up on Thane and slits his throat. (Neck snaps are not his style, but if you broke his sword before, he'll snap Thane's neck instead: drell are hard to strangle) The first fight sold him as a credible threat, incapacitating Wrex and possibly killing Bakara despite your best efforts, so this will make you love to hate him, rather than just hate him. If you fail to drive him off, he'll kill the salarian councillor... unless you have at least one multiplayer promotion, then one of your promoted characters will die alongside Kirrahe to protect the councillor. Two promotions (at least one Infiltrator) will work if Kirrahe is dead.

Thessia remains a foregone conclusion, and serves as a preview for the final fight where you actually have to win. You're allowed to be defeated - if you are, the gunship doesn't target the supports, and Liara dies, unless your LI is in the squad - then s/he dies.

By now, a weaker player will be intimidated by Kai Leng, and a stronger player excited. The final battle on Chronos goes like in vanilla with the stronger Leng, but if you lose, the final cutscene is reversed, with a wounded Shepard staggering behind Leng only to have Leng shatter the omni-blade and run Shep through with his sword. "That was for Tuchanka/The Citadel/Thessia, you (son of a) bitch!" if you had wins before. I think you can take away the important part of selling a monster heel like Leng is to give him opportunities to dominate the heroes, and make you earn wins against him.

I don't mind that. it will piss off alot of fans. I don't know which would be funnier, Liara as a villain or  her onscreen death

ME2, despite being great as a standalone game, is the weakest link in the original trilogy of Mass Effect games. It does nothing at all to advance the main plot and is essentially nothing more than one big (though entertaining) side quest. As such it's the most problematic of the three games & created issues for ME3 that were never going to be sorted.

ME3, despite having an atrocious ending, is the best Mass Effect game.

Cerberus sucks Vorcha dicks and was never interesting, though Martin Sheen gave a great performance as the Illusive Man is S-tier casting.

Tali is highly overrated and is a mid tier squadmate at best. She's the weakest squadmate in ME1.

The Suicide Mission, though great, should have been a suicide mission. Which is to say that a flawless no death run should not have been possible. The best possible outcome should have been something like Virmire, where Shepard can't avoid some deaths but decisions he/she makes during the mission determine who lives or dies.

The ME3 Normandy was the best Normandy. Lived in > Sterile interiors

Jacob, though my pick for weakest squadmate of the original trilogy...is not nearly as bad as fans often make out. So long as he's paired with BroShep and isn't a romance option, he's fine, if a little dull.

Vega is the best human squadmate. Some of the hate the character received wasn't based on anything on how the character was written or acted but rather because he wasn't Wrex or Grunt, or because squeaky nerds are often threatened even by imaginary chads. The funny thing about the latter is that how they view the character is completely divorced from his actual content. They'll describe him as some stereotypical bro or fratboy for example...when his best friend in the universe is an openly gay man, he's not arrogant at all and is one of the most easy-going of squadmates, has self-doubt & needed a pep talk from Shepard to go forward with the N program, he's not rustled at all if Shepard beats him in the pull-up contest & cheers him/her on for the accomplishment instead, and is not comfortable if Fem Shep comes on too strong. Stereoyptical bro? What game were they playing?

Leviathan is a better DLC than Citadel, though Citadel is great.

The dream sequences are fine. Shepard should be having PTSD or survivor's guilt. The only mistake was how the child was handled & having the Catalyst assume the same form. If the child had been handled better & wasn't as weird in Priority: Earth, and there was no association with the ending either because that was actually good, or the Catalyst took the form of the Virmire casualty instead, I don't think there would have been as many complaints about the dreams. Most of that was residual ending hate.

Cora's booty > Miranda's booty

On repeat playthroughs the citadel dlc becomes largely skippable.

I use house rules to get around that. Recruitment missions must be prioritized before loyalty missions (it makes no sense that Hold the Line works on average strength rather than total strength, and Shepard should be expecting the world's mechanics to be rational). Reaper IFF is forced after the Collector ship mission, the way Horizon was, although I do allow one mission in between for pacing's sake. Also, Shepard doesn't know about the timer, so you have to do N7 missions if you stumble on one, although this one usually doesn't typically matter unless you remove the starting minerals bonus first.

Using these rules, I don't think it's possible to get through the SM without either losing a squadmate or letting the crew be turned into Reaper chow. I randomize whoever dies at the end of the SM, unless there's something I really want in ME3. Last time I forced Thane dead rather than Tali, because this is one of the rare saves of mine where Kirrahe is dead (I walked the wrong way on Virmire), so I get to see something new in ME3.



Agreed. Jacob also synergizes nicely with Miranda, since he can set up her warp bomb. Makes sense that Cerberus paired them. (Ironically, Jack works for that too.)

But I really hate talking to him as FemShep. Way too much creepy stalker energy for me.

The Turians are more boring than the Asari in the media we've gotten so far ( more boring, not necessarily less likeable)