ME3 Flaws

Repetitive dialogue is an issue throughout the entire series... not just ME3.  It's at it's worst in ME1.  Remember how we were told multiple times that Tarak was using a gunship or that Archangel was holed up in his base of operations?  and how clicking on different dialogue options in ME1 resulted in exactly the same line being said?

Failure to lead properly into the ending is present in all three games... not just ME3.  (ME2 - Seeker swarms suddenly go from freezing people to devouring them.  Shepard just happens to have both a bomb and an EMP pulsar in his pockets.  Reapers suddenly look human in ME2... but then revert back to Leviathan appearances in ME3)

A story that complete undermines it's own purpose is a failure in ME1.  (Searching all game for a Conduit that just takes you back to the public courtyard in front of the Citadel Tower.)

Various graphics bugs exist in all three games... not just ME3.  Remember Tarak's see through head in ME2 and falling out of the map or getting stuck in the CIC in ME1?

All three games are great games for sure... but "you have to acknowledge their failings too" (i.e. not just the failings of ME3) to get a sense of the Trilogy as a whole.  Yes, ME3 was rushed and, as such, could have been a lot better if it had not been rushed.  ME1 could have been a lot better if an entire planet, Calleston, had not been cut from the game.

Well, the problem in the trilogy is that including exploration is incoherent. It isn't Shepard's job, and doesn't help with her mission in ME1. It works best in ME2 since she does need resources and often can't advance the main plot.

This shouldn't be a problem in ME:A.

Seeker swarms are multipurpose- what use would you have to incapacitate intruders when you could just shred them? Unlike in the field where the Collectors collect, non-Collectors in their base are not supposed to be there. Shepard has neither a bomb nor an EMP in his pocket, he overloads the core (typical trope in these kinds of things). He can either overload it to go boom (destroy) or merely irradiate (keep). The termiReaper is an unfinished core, since it's not kilometers long. The theory is the core of a Reaper is a likeness of the original species while the outer shell is a cuttlefish. We never get Reaper crossections so we can't confirm or deny this. The termiReaper is dumb, I'll grant you but at least it's a final boss and not a little kid spouting nonsense.

I'm not going to get into ME1 or accruing issues again, but just wanted to point that out.

I was trying to enjoy myself as a Mass Effect fan back in 2012 and I never questioned 2 aside from just a few odd moments, but ME3 had things I took issue with every 10 minutes at least. Every time I was put into combat I felt like I had just finished up earlier and every time a conversation was about to end I was already groaning over how little it felt like a game and more like... MGS4 but extended way longer because of the lack of dialogue options. The autodialogue was so bad that literally every conversation in the game I was left just a little bit annoyed because two or three opportunities for choice-responses were replaced with default Shepard dialogue that didn't match my prior characterization headcanon for him that ME1 and ME2 let me have.

ME3 was just littered with disappointments for me. Even the ever so reknowned Tuchanka part took me out of it a little bit when I knew I was about to definitively cure the Genophage after one or two missions that mentioned we "need to cure the Genophage" and now there was some new thing called the Shroud which was convenient and another thing called THE MOTHER OF ALL THRESHER MAWS which conveniently was there just because a Reaper was also unconveniently there just so it could look cool and urgh. I really don't get the massive circlejerk over how good a writer John Dombrow is. From Overlord DLC and his contributions to ME3 it has been self-referential, nostalgia-pandering dialogue and theatrically cool moments from day 1 and that's not the Mass Effect I grew to love. I like cool, but don't get too cute with it. I also didn't realize what happened when Legion died. In fact I still don't realize it. I also groaned every time a cutscene triggered that had to emphasise how heroic and sacrificial some new, or returning character like Victus or Grunt were with sad piano music for their final stand montage.

Mass Effect 3 was the point where the franchise, and BioWare, lost their innocence. All over ME3 you can feel Casey and his team patting each other on the back every day going "Guys, we did it. ME2 won GOTY. We're stars now! We're legitimate. We're making something meaningful and fantastic!" and ME3 has "MEANINGFUL" and "DEEP" and "TRYHARD" written all over it in every scene that doesn't just go back to feeling like Mass Effect should which is primarily on the Normandy when talking to Tali, Garrus, Joker, EDI etc.... but then, fuck, they had to fucking ruin that too. No it's so unrealistic and badly designed to have the same intro to conversations every time amirite? We definitely can't have Garrus saying "What's up?" every time you approach him and then give you the same 3 investigate options in case you wanna repeat them, and Shepard definitely shouldn't say "Anything new, Garrus?" Every time you wanna hear him talk about what's on his mind. No, instead, we'll do it so there's no cinematic angles and the crew members will immediately talk about the last mission every time you approach them -- it'll make it more immersive when it's in-gameplay, it'll be an improvement.

...NO. IT. WASN'T.

God damnit. Why didn't BioWare just get the hint? ME2 was perfect! It was a mainstream success and I personally view it as a success too! It has 96 on Metacritic, it had people making songs about how awesome Commander Shepard was. It has people roleplay as Harbinger on Reddit and 4chan, and it was all because everyone loved the game for being everything that it was. Don't change a thing! But no, no. "We can improve. We're legitimate now. Let us prove it to you, how much more real we are now that we've become GOTY-developers with the Mass Effect Series. We can make art, an artistic vision and countless of glitches and a dumbed down conversation system because we can! It's all part of our artistic integrity. We'll ruin the ending too, for the sake of an artistic message that descended upon us from heaven, and we'll introduce a very meaningful child that indicates how meaningful Mass Effect has become now that we're artists here at BioWare."

ART

FFFHSU#¤#%#YHFER/AR&%AS%

It had flaws that I easily let go because it's such a fucking well-designed game. It has consistent rules that are set up right at the start and the entire game's focus relies on that whilist providing one unique mission and added lore after another. It was excellent!

The plot had issues but the game was well-designed and it's not like the plot was completely worthless. It was pointless as a middle act in a trilogy, good thing we're in video games and not a book or a movie where the primary entertainment is in breathing in the author's vision -- we are actually allowed to interact with it and find entertainment where the author isn't dictating our experience!

And again, ME2 is just well-designed. The conversation system is varied and you understand its layout and you always get a choice when it feels like there should be a player inquiry to either make a decision or express them or their character to the fictional world and the game allows you to go with Cerberus willingly or in skepticism or dislike all the way through. The rest is that the game right from the get-go signals that we'll spent time preparing for a tough mission so we need a team and we need our crew and ship to be ready for it. That's what you spend all the game focusing on and as an offspring we get Loyalty missions as the secret spicy ingredient that pepped up the game and then we got the Motherfuckin' suicide mission that made an end mission to an action-like game and RPG on a level I hadn't seen before. We've had choice/consequence endings before, sure, but I've never had one that paid off on the game's primary gameplay- and story-focus so well. I felt like my upgrades mattered and I felt like my choices mattered and I Felt like taking the time to help my crew mattered and I felt the individual choices I made in the final mission directly impacted the way it played, and on top of that it's a high-octane, entertaining level that would've gone down well if it had been part of a movie or an animated movie.

It was just fucking great and ME3 doesn't even come close to paying off in the same way and it has nothing on ME2 when it comes to establishing a proper focus, because it spends half the time derailing itself with poorly implemented consequences for choices or character lives or deaths BioWare hadn't properly planned and instead it slavically tries to address all of it but ends up disappointing you with almost everything that isn't directly tied to Tuchanka, Rannoch or romance options and on top of that you have all the directorial problems of Mass Effect feeling like it wants to be oh so impressive with how deep it is.

Just like how the Vorcha just happen to have a virus that just happens to not effect humans that just happened to be in full swing while Shepard was there. With Mordin just happen to create an antidote that just happened to require being dropped into the air vents. And Mordin just happen to be able to capture some swarmers and just happened to create a counter measure just as they happen to need it.

You're right. ME2 was the first mass effect I ever played and it got me hooked. ME1 probably had the best ending out of all of them. With MEA they've been forced to start from scratch which is good. I just pray that if they make any future sequels that their is at least a 4 or 5 year gap in between each of them. ME2 came out barely 3 years after ME1 and ME3 came out 2 years after 2. see what I'm saying? they need to get more time. EA wants their money and they need to invest and get the highest quality games out of their subsidiaries like Bioware. I'm no business expert but better games equal more money and less hate. Let's face it, we all hate EA.

You were doing well until you mentioned the conversation system and reminded me of the awful way ME2 handled persuasion checks.

Then I start thinking about the other things ME2 did wrong, like the cringe-worthy dialogue around the Collector Base choice.

Ok, acknowledged... EA is hated; but they aren't going anywhere anytime soon.  They'll either suck Bioware right into their corporate mass or, at best, continue to own it as  semi-separate, self-functioning entity.  Because of labor laws in Canada, Bioware can't fire Mac Walters unless Mac gives them cause to fire him.  They also can't fire Manveer Heir without cause.  They'd get their asses sued off if they did.  So, we're all stuck with it.  Incessantly and repeatedly running ME3 into the dirt and promoting ME1 and ME2 as god's gift to gaming ain't going to help matters in the least. (IMO).

OK, I get that... Does rehashing all of ME3's fails help people in "overcoming" (i.e. being eventually able to overlook) those flaws?  After 5 years of seeing this on the BSN boards... I don't think so.  There is a core group here who have, quite simply, been unable to overcome it after 5-years of rehashing and rehashing it.  IMO, what it takes is a concerted effort to just accept that it's the way it's going to be... nothing can change the past now.  Second part  is to develop a head canon that "makes the best of it."  It's not ever going to make it perfect... but it can go a long ways towards making it better.  I have come up with "acceptable" head canons for every ending of ME3.  Honestly, they don't bother me any more.  I can play the game knowing full well how it is going to end (can't say that I'm disappointed anymore because I just know what to expect).  I play now really just to tinker with it and unlock dialogues that I've not unlocked in previous playthroughs.

I'm hopeful that Bioware writers are learning some things with each game they make.  Hopeful that ME:A will be a big improvement over ME3 story-wise.  Hopeful that I'll still be able to see enough when it finally gets released so that I'll be able to play it... and knowing that I'll probably be totally blind by the time ME:A 2 comes out (if, in fact, I'm still around at all)... but those are my own problems.  Trust me - Life's too short to bear grudges.

Let's just look at this one point you mentioned that's bothering you.

If you look at images of the Collector Base from ME2, it's not all that different from a Collector Ship.  In fact, to me, it looks exactly like a Collector Ship and probably is just a large Collector Ship.  It looks the same as what TIM shows you, only TIM's image is upside down from the image of the Base that we see as we approach it in ME2.  Unfortunately, I'm don't really know how to cabbage images off the internet, but I'd encourage you to go back and take a careful look.  It doesn't erase the flaw (it's still a flaw) - just as making up a head canon about seeker swarms in ME2 doesn't erase the switcheroo I mention... but maybe it helps make it one ME3 flaw you can now overlook... just as you can overlook the flaws in ME1 and ME2?