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[gbpackers25]

Another great video by Raycevick. Definitely worth a watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlDyol1hs4g

 

[Systolique]

Was waiting for it, great timing !

 

[BannedEpisode]

I actually liked all the characters and the mechanics of building a resistance army.

The ending pissed me off but that was because I wasnt prepared for it. If I had known it was going to be such a let down I would have been fine.

I think as a whole ME3 was still pretty good.

 

[Lime]

I'm glad he included this in the pre-production explanation:

If you look at the most-left milestone, you see that "Focus on Beginning and End" needs completion. This was in November, 2 months before the game went gold. This also explains why both the beginning and especially the end are so rough, unpolished, and incredibly rushed in terms of plot and narrative. And it's so terrible that they had to work their asses off to near the launch date. Game development is so ungrateful when you on one hand face the outcry from the fans and on the other are exploited and over-worked by your publisher.

EA should've given them more time.

 

[J_Viper]

I'm glad he included this in the pre-production explanation:



If you look at the most-left milestone, you see that "Focus on Beginning and End" needs completion. This was in November, 2 months before the game went gold. This also explains why both the beginning and especially the end are so rough, unpolished, and incredibly rushed in terms of plot and narrative.

Yeah, that explains a lot.

The quality of the ending is of course well documented, but I remember being equally stunned at how rough the intro of the game was. The pacing was completely off, and there was no flow in the conversations between Shep and Anderson.

Thankfully, things pick up for the better once the crew hits Mars.

 

[arigato]

I'm glad he included this in the pre-production explanation:



If you look at the most-left milestone, you see that "Focus on Beginning and End" needs completion. This was in November, 2 months before the game went gold. This also explains why both the beginning and especially the end are so rough, unpolished, and incredibly rushed in terms of plot and narrative. And it's so terrible that they had to work their asses off to near the launch date. Game development is so ungrateful when you on one hand face the outcry from the fans and on the other are exploited and over-worked by your publisher.

EA should've given them more time.

Fable 3 too suffered from a eerily similar outcome. Coincidentally, both Fable 2 and ME2 were my favorite games of that gen. Would you guys say ME 3 is worth playing for the multiplayer alone?
I found Fable 3 to be at least a very replayable good game. But upon the first 30 minutes of playing ME 3 I instantly said nope and threw it in the trash.

 

[Disxo]

Fable 3 too suffered from a eerily similar outcome. Coincidentally, both Fable 2 and ME2 were my favorite games of that gen. Would you guys say ME 3 is worth playing for the multiplayer alone?
I found Fable 3 to be at least a very replayable good game. But upon the first 30 minutes of playing ME 3 I instantly said nope and threw it in the trash.

You missed a great gem of a game.
Better than Me2 imo

 

[Drillary Clinton]

Honestly I think ME3 is a great game, ending aside. Gameplay wise it took all of the improvements they made in 2 and refined them but also opened them up, implemented more RPG mechanics in the customization that was missing from 2, and building up your resistance army for a final stand and the final stand itself was extremely satisfying. Once you go into the ending tho.... ugh

 

[Aureon]

ME3's ending was an insult, but it was a good game as a whole.
It definitely lacked that whole "Where are they now" little montage that most JRPGs give you, and THE ENDING SCREEN LITERALLY SAYING BUY OUR DLC was a goddamn insult.

 

[maquiladora]

Shit. It's been half a decade already...

 

[moustascheman]

Fable 3 too suffered from a eerily similar outcome. Coincidentally, both Fable 2 and ME2 were my favorite games of that gen. Would you guys say ME 3 is worth playing for the multiplayer alone?
I found Fable 3 to be at least a very replayable good game. But upon the first 30 minutes of playing ME 3 I instantly said nope and threw it in the trash.

ME3 easily has the best gameplay in the entire trilogy, with the best enemies, the best combat, and the best weapon selection. The multiplayer is probably the apex of the entire trilogy in terms of gameplay, with such a large range of playstyles and powers, 4 factions that each have their own unique traits, and speed that really makes the significantly improved mechanics shine. I really think it's worth it.

 

[BigTnaples]

Great game. Didn't mind the ending as much. Narrative wise, but the lack of choice was dissapointing. And the lack of Harbinger was really jarring, and a let down for me.

 

[Lime]

I feel like people who say that the game was good except for the ending/beginning, didn't watch the video. Just look at the analysis of the narrative in the video with how much damage the various plot devices and characterizations did to previously established characters and themes, or the broken quest log, or the limitation in dialogue choices, or the number of turret sections, or the multiplayer maps used as side missions, etc.

Also, I don't think I'll forgive the environmental artists for putting in red phone booths in future sci-fi London. That was really, really dumb.

 

[Clarkus Darkus]

Worst of the series.... My 1 playthrough experience

Had day1 dlc
Couldn't import my shepard
1 hub with 5 floors ( Citadel)
Journal was bugged and you always had to scroll up
Cameo roles from squadmates who had no reason not to join
IGN reporter ingame
No end boss
Harbinger just flys away at the end.
Becoming an eavesdropper just so you can deliver artifacts from scanning
Action mode

Then they had the cheek after completing it, To tell you to buy dlc to further the legend of that guy they left lying under some rubble.

And all that was before the ending masked what was, A very mediocre game.

But yeah the ME3 MP was good so i'll let them off.

 

[Man Called Aerodynamics]

Despite flaws it's still a great game. Many fantastic characters moments and difficult choices that make Mass Effect Mass Effect. What let it down for me were the abrupt ending and the choice to make Cerberus and the Illusive Man into this simplistic Evil Empire and the main villains in the game, after the much more interesting and ambiguous role they had played in Mass Effect 2. Also the game was even more strictly linear and less dependent on player choice than Mass Effect 2 was, which while not an inherently bad thing was kind of disappointing because you would have expected the story to branch more as it went forward, not less.

 

[Y2Kev]

I wasn't a fan of how they portrayed the reapers. In me1, like the entire fleet has to take down one reaper who doesn't even really care about the fleet firing on it. Now people can fight back. Didn't like it.

Game was okay but unremarkable imo.

 

[Kthulhu]

I'm glad he included this in the pre-production explanation:



If you look at the most-left milestone, you see that "Focus on Beginning and End" needs completion. This was in November, 2 months before the game went gold. This also explains why both the beginning and especially the end are so rough, unpolished, and incredibly rushed in terms of plot and narrative. And it's so terrible that they had to work their asses off to near the launch date. Game development is so ungrateful when you on one hand face the outcry from the fans and on the other are exploited and over-worked by your publisher.

EA should've given them more time.

I've been meaning to ask this. What does it mean for a game to go gold? Is it just when the game exits production?

 

[geomon]

I had fun playing it but man, I still get nightmares about random turret missions. "Man that gun!" "No!"

 

[- J - D -]

Good vid. It's been enough time passed that I've come to think of ME3 fondly, though that could be due to how my last time with the game was with its well-received dlc. Still not happy about Leviathan being apart from the core game though.

 

[mullet2000]

Half way through the video now. This is an excellent look at Mass Effect 3. I've found myself nodding in agreement with the author multiple times now.

 

[Aeana]

I feel like people who say that the game was good except for the ending/beginning, didn't watch the video.

Maybe they played the game instead? I don't need someone else to tell me what I should like or dislike after experiencing it for myself.

 

[inky]

I feel like people who say that the game was good except for the ending/beginning, didn't watch the video.

I think that for better or worse, the overwhelming "commentary" around the ending (and yes, I'm saying there was a lot of legitimate points but also a lot of vitriol) makes pushing the idea that there are in fact plenty of other issues in the game much harder to address.

I've seen this narrative of "if you ignore the ending" or "if you ignore the haters who didn't like the ending, the rest of the game is perfectly fine" grow so much in the past few years, and I think it's very inaccurate. I think you detail it very well in that mega-post of yours where you address some of those issues and from what I'm seeing in this video (haven't finished it yet) similar points are being made.

There's a lot in there that either for lack of understanding, care or time, doesn't work. The game has some of my favorite moments in the series, mainly character moments and culminations to long quest lines, but overall I think it was a very disappointing game compared to the previous 2, and yes, that's even if you ignore the ending debacle.

Also, I'm the kind of player who doesn't give a shit about multiplayer and that's why I particularly hated stuff like turret sections and MP maps repurposed as SP levels in it.

 

[Diablohead]

the first 4 minutes pretty much confirms what happens when you get bought out by a big publisher and have to meet demands, it hurts everything.

 

[Man Called Aerodynamics]

I wasn't a fan of how they portrayed the reapers. In me1, like the entire fleet has to take down one reaper who doesn't even really care about the fleet firing on it. Now people can fight back.

The potential upside of that was that instead of writing themselves into a corner where ONLY some deus ex machina magic superweapon could disable the Reapers, maybe it was possible to defeat them conventionally, or fight them to a truce, or other story possibilities. And then... they went with the deus ex machina magic superweapon anyway.

 

[geomon]

Worst of the series.... My 1 playthrough experience

Had day1 dlc
Couldn't import my shepard
1 hub with 5 floors ( Citadel)
Journal was bugged and you always had to scroll up
Cameo roles from squadmates who had no reason not to join
IGN reporter ingame
No end boss
Harbinger just flys away at the end.
Becoming an eavesdropper just so you can deliver artifacts from scanning
Action mode

Then they had the cheek after completing it, To tell you to buy dlc to further the legend of that guy they left lying under some rubble.

And all that was before the ending masked what was, A very mediocre game.

But yeah the ME3 MP was good so i'll let them off.

 

[Madness]

I'm glad he included this in the pre-production explanation:

If you look at the most-left milestone, you see that "Focus on Beginning and End" needs completion. This was in November, 2 months before the game went gold. This also explains why both the beginning and especially the end are so rough, unpolished, and incredibly rushed in terms of plot and narrative. And it's so terrible that they had to work their asses off to near the launch date. Game development is so ungrateful when you on one hand face the outcry from the fans and on the other are exploited and over-worked by your publisher.

EA should've given them more time.

One of the writers of the game also commented how Casey and Mac developed the ending themselves, didn't really take into account what the other writers are saying. I have what was originally posted saved because as soon as people found out which writer from BioWare it was, the account was nuked and the post was gone and Penny Arcade removed all mention of it.

Safe to say, had the actual writers who did the characters or missions like Rannoch and Tuchanka been given any say, the game would have ended differently altogether. So I think your point stands. That awkward first intro, the shitty final elevel etc. They were worked on and completed quick and then the rest of the writing staff and team had to flesh out characters and motivations etc. Another tidbit few fans know is, From Ashes aka Javik wasn't supposed to originally be cut. I cannot substantiate now but there things I read where the writer who wrote Thessia and Liara always planned from Javik being a squadmate from day one, rather than it be dlc and a lot of players miss out on perhaps some of the most important story/lore/Prothean dialogue ever.

EA has and always will be a pretty crappy publisher. Run numerous franchises into the ground, shuttered studios etc. It is probably why all the BioWare founders and long term employees have peaced out.

 

[Lime]

Maybe they played the game instead? I don't need someone else to tell me what I should like or dislike after experiencing it for myself.

That wasn't my point - of course people are entitled to their own subjective experiences and sentiments. I was just saying that the sentiment that 'everything was fine besides the ending' overlooks/ignores/whitewashes the apparent flaws that this video (and others) points out. That doesn't mean people can't feel good or positive about their experience, it just means that we at least have to recognize or acknowledge the somewhat clear flaws of the game that this video and others have pointed out elsewhere, instead of building up a narrative that misrecognizes other significant negatives of the experience.

EDIT: Inky explained it a bit as well.

 

[STILLethal]

Never forget. RiP

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

Cant wait to watch it tomorrow (big festivity at my city today), loved his other 2 videos.

 

[Clarkus Darkus]

He tried to stop us, Never forget.

 

[Sojgat]

He could have saved us all. He died valiantly.

 

[Jumeira]

I loved ME3, the ending didn't piss me off, i actually thought ME2 was the weakest but still great.

I'm so scared of post ME3 BioWare, and the Dragon Age : Inquisition taint creeping into new BioWare games that I'm for the first time nervous of thier output. I don't hate games, but i HATE DA:I and everything it stands for. Fingers crossed, impressions seem to be positive about story and structure.

 

[I H8 Memes]

I actually liked all the characters and the mechanics of building a resistance army.

The ending pissed me off but that was because I wasnt prepared for it. If I had known it was going to be such a let down I would have been fine.

I think as a whole ME3 was still pretty good.

My feelings as well. That ending was terrible though.

I expected an epic final battle where the amount of crew and overall military members lost was based on how well or how poorly I had done at bringing the galaxy together. Simple. Do that with no moral choice at the end and were good.

 

[Lt-47]

EA has and always will be a pretty crappy publisher. Run numerous franchises into the ground, shuttered studios etc. It is probably why all the BioWare founders and long term employees have peaced out.

I wouldn't blame anyone quitting after something like that. It has too be incredibly frustrating to not live up to you creative vision and disappointing your fan because of stupid business decision.
To this day ME3 and DA2 always make me wonder how things would have turned out with much more dev time. It's incredibly frustrating to think about what could have been.

My feelings as well. That ending was terrible though.

I expected an epic final battle where the amount of crew and overall military members lost was based on how well or how poorly I had done at bringing the galaxy together. Simple. Do that with no moral choice at the end and were good.

Well they had a suicide mission 2.0 planned at one point. But like many things it was cut.

 

[Ushojax]

It was a half-baked game that never felt cohesive. The ending was just the final insult.

 

[theCalamity]

I feel like people who say that the game was good except for the ending/beginning, didn't watch the video.

The Tuchanka and Rannoch missions have some of the best moments of the series. The game falters a bit in the middle with Cerberus invading the Citadel and the Thessia mission with its dumb, lame boss fight, but Tuchanka and Rannoch were amazing.


And the Citadel DLC was fucking amazing.

 

[The Silver]

The final earth mission was far more of a letdown to me than the ending, I was expecting the suicide mission on steroids with all the war assets coming together instead I got something pretty generic and Harbinger only got a small cameo after all his shit talking in ME2.

 

[shiba5]

I still, to this day, wonder who greenlit "Commander Shepard has become a legend by ending the Reaper threat. Now you can continue to build that legend through further gameplay and downloadable content."

I was completely dumbfounded when I saw it.

 

[Blue Ninja]

Recently replayed the trilogy, and I was surprised at how well Mass Effect 3 held up. In some ways it felt even better than ever. I really thought it nailed the desperate war atmosphere, hearing news reports as you're walking around the Citadel. Some great missions in there, too, with the likes of Mars, Tuchanka and even Rannoch if you don't think about the Reaper boss at the end.

It lacked the spit and polish that made Mass Effect 2 the greatest of the three, but its combat and rpg-systems were fantastic.

 

[Caayn]

I wasn't a fan of how they portrayed the reapers. In me1, like the entire fleet has to take down one reaper who doesn't even really care about the fleet firing on it. Now people can fight back. Didn't like it.

Game was okay but unremarkable imo.

Agreed. The reapers where indeed a huge let down.

Machines perfected over the course of billions of years taken down by mere bullets where first an entire fleet was needed to take one down.

 

[olag]

The final earth mission was far more of a letdown to me than the ending, I was expecting the suicide mission on steroids with all the war assets coming together instead I got something pretty generic and Harbinger only got a small cameo after all his shit talking in ME2.

This was kinda my expectation as well when I heard that the game had a "Readiness Meter". Heck I'm still wondering why the last part of the game had to take place on earth when earth was never a focal point in previous titles. Illos would have been a good place to end the trilogy IMO.

 

[Caayn]

This was kinda my expectation as well when I heard that the game had a "Readiness Meter". Heck I'm still wondering why the last part of the game had to take place on earth when earth was never a focal point in previous titles. Illos would have been a good place to end the trilogy IMO.

Something, something, humans best race evah, something, something.

The default sci-fi cliché sadly.

 

[LordOfChaos]

Thane Krios, forever the GOAT.

 

[STILLethal]

I enjoyed everything about ME3 except the ending :/

 

[Cranster]

I remember playing through for the first time with random thoughts of something feeling off with the game. It wasn't untill the final 15 minutes and the end credits started rolling that I finally felt confused and extremily bitter and betrayed by Bioware as they promised no Deus ex machina and multiple different endings that would branch off depending on your choices.

 

[Clarkus Darkus]

I still, to this day, wonder who greenlit "Commander Shepard has become a legend by ending the Reaper threat. Now you can continue to build that legend through further gameplay and downloadable content."

I was completely dumbfounded when I saw it.

It still is my lasting memory of the trilogy, As 1 playthrough was enough, They quickly changed it in the EC though, Remembering to thank the fans lol.

 

[Man Called Aerodynamics]

That ending was terrible though.

The big thing for me was that it threw some random stuff at you and then just... stopped. I didn't necessarily hate Priority: Earth or even the ending sequences with the Illusive Man and the Catalyst, but then it was like:

Joker seems to be flying the Normandy away from Earth as fast as possible, for unknown reasons... The energy from the Crucible is threatening to destroy the Normandy-- does this mean that it destroyed the other ships around Earth at the time? Then the Normandy has landed on some unspecified jungle planet-- it's not a planet in the Sol system, so where did they fly? Did they take a mass relay? Did everyone in Sol get killed by the beam except the Normandy because they were able to fly away fast enough? I honestly could not make heads or tails of what that sequence was supposed to portray. My best guess was that everyone in Sol died and the jungle planet was meant to be an impressionistic depiction of the afterlife. And... that was just it. No explanation for what that energy beam was, what it did, or what ultimately became of anyone.

The Extended Cut remedied a lot of that, but still. Just so abrupt and incoherent. Who did they think wanted that?

 

[Theslammer]

ME3 was my favorite. It brought back some of the more RPG elements in ME1 but trimmed the fat and made a better UI overall. Plus, it has the highest highs of the series with some truly incredible endings to many of the plot threads.

I've played it several times, Citadel several times... just freaking loved the game.

 

[Jarmel]

Not all the way through the video but yea this is a pretty great breakdown of the things wrong with ME3.

 

[Shinjica]

I remember playing through for the first time with random thoughts of something feeling off with the game. It wasn't untill the final 15 minutes and the end credits started rolling that I finally felt confused and extremily bitter and betrayed by Bioware as they promised no Deus ex machina and multiple different endings that would branch off depending on your choices.

I remember ME3 release and people were defending Casey Hudson word