Kai Leng

Neither the comic or the book even expand who he is. Would have love something less like "I'm the Asian bad guy, half-machine, I got reaper tech in me, you die"

Kinda wish that Shepard failing to stop him was a real consequence in the game. Shepard arrive with all dead bodies and the scene fade out. Citadel being more chaotic than normal. Aliens being full on hostile against humanity again.

I read some Bioware interview about how proud writers are about their mid-story villains and somehow its always Saren... and not Kai Leng. Figures.

And yet they did not put a boss fight at the end of the series, which was fine (the endig(s) sure had a multitude of problems, but the lack of a boss fight was not one of them). The only two boss fights I like in the series (storywise) are those against Saren in ME1. 

I guess based on this interview but mostly its about DA villains but they're also ME writers at some point. I've read some of Karpyshyn IAMA too.

If they're that traditional about making mid-plot villains relatable, Kai Leng being a former N7 operative should illicit some reaction to either Shepard and Anderson. Even much of his hate against Shepard are unexplained in the game. Even the earlier draft about VS and Kai Leng still didn't place him being significant.

Aih, Leng-chai Baker...

Sifr
wooo... would really love a mod for that.

Exactly

They regurgitated the plot with not just Brooks, but the Clone too. The Clone thinks he's what you should have been. Same with Leng. But Leng had also played a nerdy Alliance rep when he was bullshitting the VS. That's Brooks.

I know I posted in this thread not that long ago, but I just finished the trilogy again. My rage is fresh. This is why I think Kai Leng was the worst villain in any BioWare game I've played.

1) He comes the fuck outta nowhere. When I played ME3 for the first time two years ago, I didn't know anything about the leaked script except for it's existence. I almost never buy comics or book from the games I play. So far, Dragon Age is the only exception.

You can imagine my confusion when Anderson starts about crapping himself over the thought of this guy. One of my biggest pet peeves that any game company can do is make the player feel almost forced to buy the EU just to understand what the hell is going on. BioWare did that with DA:I as well and it pissed me off there too.  Not to mention that Kai is much different in the comics than he was in the game.  So I'd be out the cost of the comic and still not understand what is going on.

2) Too many cooks. TIM was a fine villain and I was okay with Cerberus being the secondary villain. It made sense to me. Javik even mentioned that one of the reasons why the Crucible wasn't completed in his time was due to a group of separatists that thought they could control the Reapers. Kai Leng was completely unnecessary in the role he ended up getting in the game.

3) One of the most egregious cases of Plot Armor I've ever seen. I grew up on Squaresoft, Enix and Blizzard. I've seen myself some serious Plot Armor, but this takes the taco. Combinations of powers unavailable to the player, scripted boss fights (fuck those things,) as well as the power to make Shepard and company turn into drooling bucketheads.

4) Troy Baker is an excellent voice actor. I pick his voice when I play a guy in Saints Row the 3rd. As the voice of Kai Leng...well, he still has a nice voice. Yet Leng almost never raises his voice outside of his real boss fight. He's supposed to be indoctrinated, not a plank of wood. There's no passion there and I honestly think that Troy Baker was utterly wasted in that role.

5) The ME team had just under a year to give their full attention to ME3. I looked it up. ME2 came out on January 26th, 2010. Arrival came out on March 29th, 2011. ME3 came out less than a year later on March 3rd, 2012. Don't worry, this has a point.

I've been a little lenient on the ME team in light of that fact. That being said, the project leads decided that cramming a different version of Kai Leng was a good use of their time. Um, what the hell? So I need a mod to restore the full conversation with Zaeed, but that clown was shoved in there. Give me a break.

6) His design. The hair looks good, but ridiculous. I think it's because it looks too good. I hate his Super Villain style face mask, I hate that sword that appears to be made out of real metal. I've seen him called a Capcom reject, but he's always reminded me of a Final Fantasy character. Down to bringing a sword to a gun fight.

Whew! Okay, I feel better now.

That would have given good reason for the plot to work even more though.

Because Leng ends up holding Liara and VS hostage. You have to choose one. A lot of people want to kill Liara and they could have used those reasons above and feel pity that the VS has been in a quagmire for so long because of it. It was all supposed to come a head finally.

If I'm understanding you correctly.

Fair enough. It may not have went that far. But the option opens up more roleplaying options at least.

I wasn't giving my own opinion on boss fights, merely pointing out Bioware's incredible inconsistency regarding them. I don't think ME3's end needed a boss fight either, at least not in its current iteration. I think it would have worked well with another hypothetical script. So I guess I'm neutral about them. A battle in the center of the mind as a boss fight sounds the best, though. What better way to end the trilogy about mind-altering beings than to beat their mind games?

Shepard really gets messed-with in ME3, huh? I mean, even without this. It reminds me of using the kid in the end. It's pure emotional manipulation, both in and out-of-universe. Some people even had the idea that the VS should have taken the kid's place, in a similar way to your idea. Certainly would have been weird.

Kai Leng thread, I've been waiting on a chance to drop my judgement on that 舞弊 for a long time...

<cracks knuckles>
"Boy oh boy, where to begin ?"

Kai Leng was the experience of a dish which you receive at a 5* restaurant, saucisse dans le pain à la sauce tomate... Which translated is a hotdog with sauce...
At first the character seemed to be a potent concept. A new sidekick to T.I.M., who has proven enough skilled to replace Shepard and is of Asian origin, one which we greatly lack in terms of story-important characters. (besides the Ramen Guy in ME2, love that boy !)

Yet what we received was probably the result of EA pushing pedals on the release date...

Leng comes across as a cybernetic wanna-be antagonist who relies on failed attempts of being edgier than his monoblade, a haircut of the recent KPOP boyband and 9/10 gymnastics.

The first confrontation of this character had severe issues.
We've been faced a first impression which has gone to total hell, Kai Leng has proven to be a very underdeveloped rawly written Phantom Rule 63...

Let me just quickly go over the penalty list !

•Too hot-headed : When you are faced with a 3-1 fight, saying "Now it's starting to get fun" is a statement worthy incineration of the manuscript and whomever wrote that line.
•Swordsman : We can agree melee weapons serve some use in the future if you got the augs to utilize them but having a ninja be taken seriously is hard as is.
•Pet Character : It is pretty obvious this idea was belonging to a favored developer because Leng is not only hard to take serious but does not die in the first battle, and squeams out in the second, only to go down in a QTE on the third run.

I personally feel AGGRAVATED over the idea of having to take Kai Leng as a serious plot element.

"For a franchise which relied on story, well developed characters and deep motives, this was by far the entity I'm putting on the same spot as the end."

Kai Leng, like Shepard (and many other ME characters) tend to suffer from '90s Anti-Hero complex

He reminds me of the point in the 90s where everything was "extreme." Mountain Dew Extreme! The Extreme Loony Tunes, featuring "Buzz" Bunny. The X-Games was huge too. Kai Leng is like he's a ninja, but extreme and he's in space. An extreme space ninja!

Yeah, I think one of the writers was trying a bit too hard to make him cool.