People need to stop praising ME1

I could never really bring myself to do a whole lot of playthroughs of ME1. I've never left a playthrough incomplete, but I think one of the major deterrents of more frequent revisits is its combat system. I both hate it and like it because it has certain charms, like biotics, but then there's the awful sounds the guns make. But also I think the later games spoiled me on character interaction. The later games feel a bit more dynamic, so they end up being more fun overall. But also, being such an awful quest hound, ME1 can feel exhausting as a result of these things lol. Stupid consort. Why am I running around helping this damn lady? Helena Blake, I should shoot you in the kneecaps for having me jump planets to take out random bosses. Picking Destroy makes up for having to jump from one geth outpost to another. All Matriarchs should be eaten for leaving their writings all over the galaxy. 

WH40K is not sci-fi, and nor is it even remotely good. It's an infantile wet dream for neofascist edgelords and that's it.

No.


I will call you Jorgal Struxth.

I never play anything but the trilogy, so it will probably permanently bring down the amount of playthroughs I have done of each game. I don't have the luxury of skipping titles.

I agree to an extent OP. I mean i feel like Mass Effect 1's main story has always been B-Movie rubbish. The Reapers are the worse aspect of the series imo. And with ME2 Bioware realised that and a much more character focused story.

But with regard to ME1 having better story(as so many like to say) im not seeing it. Again i've heard quite a few other people make this claim, but have never understood the stance. What is it about the story that they think is better than the others?.

I look at ME1's main quest and see a story that starts with the Normandy randomly stumbling into a distress call from Eden Prime that leads Shepard to discover Saren's evil plans, goes to the Citadel and lucks into finding half a dozen others that join your party for various unrelated reasons and then proceeds down a series of loosely connected stories that feel more like a Saturday morning cartoons 'stop the villains evil machinations' than steps down a logically plotted path. The stories on Virmire, Noveria and Feros have nothing in common except that Saren went there and caused some trouble because Sovereign told him to. It's a patchwork of stories rather than a single cohesive one.


Now With ME2(the pinnacle of the series imo), the 80% team building, gathering a group of individuals for an incredibly dangerous mission that will decide the fate of the universe and making them a unified team is the story. In learning more about their pasts, you better understand them as people and are better equipped to lead them. Hell, the game builds to a point that tests your ability to utilize their individual specialties- gameplay that rewards your investment in the story. It definitely has a smaller scope, but that focus ensures relevancy and thus, cohesion. And its all the better for it.

And granted, yes it might've stripped down the RPG elements(although ME1 was never much of an actual RPG to begin with. Just having lots of pointless loot does not an rpg make). And sure ME2's its main plot might've not been up too much, but it wasn't about that.. It was character focused/driven which is what Mass Effect did best. It was the fantastic world building, the thick atmosphere etc.. That is what Mass Effect 2 was about. It wasn't the pretty crap main over arching story that ME was liked for..It was the characters, world building, atmosphere and ME2 did all that justice, characters especially they were no longer just walking codexes, it really excelled at that aspect and also making the universe feel alive and lived in, it had a great abit darker atmosphere(yes the galaxy it was somewhat smaller in comparison to ME1 but it was still big and defo it was much more richly detailed & interesting and all the different, varied worlds during the side missions/anomalies etc. With regard to exploration that is far better than copy & paste job buildings with the same monotonous & mountainous planet terrain with the difficult to control mako repeated over and over again like in ME1(btw Dragon Age 2 did the same thing and ppl complained yet at the same time praise Mass Effect 1 for having the exact same system..i don't get it. Plus i'd disagree with the other popular ME2 criticism "that ME2 had a less sci-fi vibe/political vibe"... See in ME2 your no longer part of the Alliance thus you can't be directly involved in galactic politics. Your involved in the dark underbelly of the galaxy, you operate more in the shadows now with Cerberus yet still i feel the politics of the criminal underworld as it were... your very much in involved in and influence. Yes you watch from a distance more, but again i feel like this makes you feel like your one small part of a much bigger galaxy. They're events/politics happening that are outside of your control and you have no direct say in...its more realistic in creating a more lived in, believable world as they're other powerful npc's/characters beside you that don't need your input, they actually feel like real people in ME2 with things to do & lives to live).


See the difference between ME1 & ME2 is like the difference between Star Wars: A New Hope and the Empire Strikes Back. One is more grand a story, an epic, but see it lacked emotional depth, was stilted and ultimately not that amazing...Whilst the other is less grand...smaller in scope but much more detailed, atmospheric, intimate, more character focused, focused in general with emotional depth and far superior, more engaging moments to the bigger more epic predecessor. And most prefer TESB for obvious reasons.  ME2 was just a better, more fully-realised, all around refined game, the story was closer-knit, characters were better rounded, gameplay was tightened and the story felt like it had a direction as where ME1's story didn't have any real context, it became too grand too quickly to properly build suspense.


Now i would say its ME3 that is the game from the OT that is for most part just complete ass. Whilst ME1 & ME2 were good and great respectively...ME3 had so much potential but was just rushed and pretty much completely wasted. There's no real redeeming qualities to ME3 outside of the combat, and the Tuchunka & lesser extent Rannach arcs. Thats it.

When 6 billion people around the world say "1+2=4" then 6 billion people are wrong, it is simple as that. Shit is shit. MEA have miriads of problems, just because you "maybe" do not see them does not mean they do not exist. And this is nothing about opinion, whether you like the story or not, the humor or not, the lighthearted approach or not or xyz, it does not make the problems go away, that is just wishfull thinking. And yes, if you do not see the problems, I highly doubt your intelligence and perception. Time you arrive in the reality mr special snowflake, wrong is wrong and not "oh he is not wrong, he is just special", thats how like everyone treat their kids nowaday and the kids then wake up to the reality.

It's really a fair of characters. It's the largest cast since BG2, at the time when casts were getting smaller and smaller, so a lot more folks were able to get a favorite companion and a romance they've liked. It's also all about short stories, and most folks just does not realize how they miss this form of storytelling in the world overrun by the sprawling serialization of materials. 

This.
I mean, I love the game regardless, but to me it's the weakest because of basically rendering biotics useless (and being boring duck/shoot in general), having no real plot and injecting waaaay too much juvenile action flick over the top coolness. It's FUN. It's the most polished and stylish game of the trilogy and I understand why it's the most popular, but it completely lacks the geeky feel of ME1. ME3 is actually a decent blend of 1 and 2 and a far better game in my book than the ending haters give it credit. Biotics were finally awesome and very powerful.

I remember how I HATED the ME2 trailer, thinking they turned a great RPG into a dumb action shooter. And in a sense it was mechanically. But then I realized the characters were still awesome and Shepard was still awesome (despite being the terminator now), and so I ended up having a really good time.

A good story can still save a game from becoming outright atrocious if most of the issues become apparent only if you do the optional side content.

ME1 with rushing the main story locations is a 8 to 10 hour long game where you can treat combat as a side thought and still be fine, where you only need to deal with the Mako 4 times in total, all 4 of those entirely linear driving sequences being short. The side content of ME1 is a 20 hour long collecthaton slog that long outstays its welcome.

It's kind of the opposite problem as to what ME:A has. The combat is good and the Nomad plays well, but the main story never really picks up and and is frankly quite boring right up until the last 2 missions, just as the game ends when it's finally starting to go somewhere.

The characters and the main story is what saves ME1 as a game, everything coming after it was better in other areas though. Bioware's combat designers has it all nailed down pretty well by ME:A NG+ balancing issues aside, the writing team and narrative design just seriously needs to keep up with the part of Bioware that seems to have given a damn about Andromeda.

Are you kidding me? Lol. It has the best writing in the whole series. The other games didn't even come close. 

I love ya STE100, we see things the same way, but when it comes to Geralt...

He's not Shepard, Ryder, the Hero of Ferelden, Hawke or the Inquisitor. He's a great character inside a well-written universe strapped to perfectly molded mechanic... that just doesn't appeal to me. I know, it's crazy, but I had a hard time connecting with the character.