So I decided to write up my opinion/analysis of the Mass Effect trilogy and see not only whether it lived up to its promises but also the fan expectations. The ME trilogy is probably one of my favorite new franchises this gen and also simultaneously, one of my most hated. My main intention isn’t so much to compare the games to each other, although I somewhat have to do this as it is a trilogy composed of vastly different games, but if the games themselves worked by their own standards. Oh and there will be trilogy spoilers throughout so if you haven’t played the games then bail.
Inspiration-
I suppose I should start out first by looking at quotes from Casey Hudson before Mass Effect 1 was released. This is mainly to see whether Hudson lived up to the goals of the trilogy.
I think the most obvious comparison to any of those four movies is to Star Trek. Commander Shepard is obviously Captain Kirk in that the player bangs aliens, saves the galaxy, and essentially gets to be a badass. Hudson pretty much confirmed this in an interview with IGN where he stated
At the core of the franchise is wish fulfillment, which isn’t inherently bad but it is what it is. The franchise has always been upfront with that when the player is inducted into the hall of Spectres early on into the first game. They definitely kept that overtone throughout the games where Shepard becomes more and more of a mystical figure. In the Citadel DLC, there is the whole conversation where it’s pointed out how the rest of the Alliance admire the crew of the Normandy and in ME2, Shepard is worshiped even without his Spectre status. There was also scenes in ME1 such as with Verner. That’s something Bioware did do successfully in that the player does feel like a somebody in the universe, even if the gameplay design sometimes undermine that(mining in both ME1 and ME2). The other inspirations are there but in much less overtones.http://www.ign.com/articles/2007/01/19/mass-effect-interview-2 said:
Blade Runner and the questions of what it means to be human, is not really discussed in any detail until the 2nd game. Syd Mear’s influence also doesn’t come into play until Omega and Illium. There is very little in regards to Alien/Aliens except for Peak 15 and the the Aralakh Company mission, where the player destroying eggs in a hive with a flamethrower is via reminscient of Aliens. In general, there are not a lot of horror elements in the games and all of the sexual undertones such as male rape in Alien, are gone. I will say though that the audience/characters are afraid of the Reapers in the first game, so in that regards the fear of the unknown in Alien is carried through here. Of course the later games abandon this for a more shootbang approach to the Reapers. As for 2001, I can definitely see elements of that, mainly in regards to how the monoliths guided human evolution is similar to how the Reapers guided the technological progress of civilization. Did the trilogy live up to the expectations stated by Casey? I would say partially. Something all four of those movies excelled in, was atmosphere. The audience really felt like they were there and that was crucial for many of the scenes. This idea of atmosphere is something that the ME trilogy definitely attempted and somewhat succeeded. With the original ME, this was done through planetary exploration and other smaller ways such as elevators. Mass Effect 2 scrapped planet exploration and there is a stronger emphasis on the audiovisual component and art direction.
For example when the player enters Afterlife for the first time and hears the music before seeing the main area with lights everywhere. The ‘gritty’ setting also helped with the atmosphere in that things looked less sterile compared to ME1. This was a deliberate choice on the part of Bioware in regards to reducing scale and instead putting more oomph on what they had, both for technical (the Unreal Engine had issues with the larger spaces in ME1) and artistic reasons. As for ME3, this was accomplished again through the settings such as the refugees on the Citadel and the ‘work-in’progress’ setting of the Normandy. For the later two titles, there is generally less emphasis on scale and more focus on detail. I feel that it both benefitted and harmed the trilogy in that the sense of exploration found in the first game is gone in the sequels but some of the places found in ME2 in particular, really stand out in comparison to ME1. The atmosphere in 3 was something that Bioware was partially successfully but they also really fucked up. The way that the sidemissions tied into the main narrative arc is something that Bioware had wanted to do, in order to give the story a sense of urgency, and it worked to an extent. There are definitely some filler missions, however many of the sidemissions did feel vital to the war effort such as Grissom Academy. However there was also an issue with time progression in that the audience never really gets a sense of how much time has passed and how badly Earth is being wrecked. The game repeatedly states that there is a time limit and the player should hurry however there is no real negative or game component that emphasizes that. Mass Effect 2 attempted this idea of urgency but was even less success compared to ME3 as people are being kidnapped however the player can just wander about. This creates a sort of narrative dissonance that Bioware somewhat tried to fix in the near engame portion of ME2 where after a certain point, the player is punished for doing other missions other than the suicide mission with parts of the crew being dissolved. ME1 and ME3 never bother with this to a heavy extent and the player has to just roll with it and just ignore that element of the story. There’s another comment by Drew Karpyshyn, the lead writer for ME1 and ME2, where he stated
I think that element comes through fairly clearly in ME1, moreso than ME2 or 3. You can see this in the armor designs and some of the levels as well. It’s again something where the franchise shifted directions after ME1 into something more Gears of War like. I’m not so much a fan of this but some people prefered that shift.http://www.ign.com/articles/2007/01/19/mass-effect-interview-2 said:
Narrative-
This is far and away the greatest failing of the ME franchise as a whole. I’ll be frank, ME was supposedly designed as a trilogy however it doesn’t feel like one. This is mostly the fault of ME3 in that there are no eureka moments where things snap into place instead it feels like the writers are trying to explain away past writing mistakes. The whole Cerberus base being filled with voicelogs seemed like a forced moment on the part of the writers where they attempted to salvage some of the bad writing. The moment with Space Casper while fitting thematically in terms of ME3, doesn’t fit in regards to the franchise as a whole. I will say that ME2 does put some emphasis on it, but organics vs AI wasn’t a real driving point of ME2 and there are tons of conflicting points that doesn’t justify the actions of the Reapers. Javik did a rudimentary job of justifying the eternal organics vs synthetics debate but problem is that he’s DLC, same with Leviathan, and so some audience/players are going to miss crucial parts of the story. Even then, in both cases, it’s just a conversation instead of something more substantial. Part of the problem is that there is a huge gap between each game where there is a reset involved, thus breaking any sort of narrative flow. I understand why Bioware did it, in that the idea of a freeflowing trilogy was too much for them in that there were way too many choices and outcomes for them to keep track and extrapolate and having some sort of reset between games was a way of reducing stress on their part, however it goes against their mantra of “Your choices matter”. That mantra became some sort of impossible standard that Bioware was never able to meet.
Fans wanted a truly dynamic world where Garrus reacted differently depending on whether you were Paragon or Renegade to him in the first game and instead what they got was a 2nd game that completely swept that under the rug. Bioware did have some luck with that in the 3rd game with the point system between the Geth and Quarians(whether you could save both the Geth and Quarians) which was dependent on one of your actions in the 2nd game but they never truly embraced that. I will say that they did do a semi-decent job at times in the third game, such as whether Mordin or Wrex was dead. They however didn’t want to exclude or lock players out of content as they felt it would be punishing the player for a wrong choice, which I feel is the wrong way of looking at it. Having a lockout system not only increase replayability but also gives consequence to the player’s actions. Having played through Witcher 1 recently, I really feel that this is not the correct road to go down in regards to RPGs. Bioware has to acknowledge that not everyone needs to see everything the first time through and that consumers are fine with that. Ultimately though, I think it was too ambitious for them. Even with the bigger choices, Bioware fell way short. Choices like whether to blow up or keep the Collector base has no effect on the story and it feels like there is no moulding of the universe. While choice mechanics usually are superficial in regards to long term game impact, the problem here is that the superficiality is slapped in your face to such a hard extent. Bioware should also be held accountable for some of the hyperbole in press releases before ME3 was released. There’s the famous Hudson line,
There were also some flat out poor writing decisions as well.
Obviously this wasn’t the case. The player doesn’t get to see any sort of consequence resulting from all the War Points. What this creates is a feeling that the player has been adding a bunch of numbers to a spreadsheet rather than some tangible. For something that has been built up to for roughly a decade and multiple games, disappointment doesn’t come close to accurately describing the sensation.
Yea...
There also other plot issues within ME1 as well as ME2. The main issue with ME2 though is that it doesn’t really take advantage of the amazing intro when you are spaced and follow through with multiple implications such as whether Shepard is Shepard, they brush it off with a quick throwaway line. It serves as a plot device to force the narrative down the path that Bioware wants it, mainly that the player is forced to work with Cerberus. A more natural option would have been to allow the player the ability to choose whether to work with Cerberus or the Alliance. There are also issues again with the forced reset, mainly in regards to the behavior of the Council who act oblivious despite a Reaper being right at their door. Other than minor stuff like the Thanix cannon, there doesn’t seem to be any sort of investigation or intelligence in general on the part of the leaders. It’s just another way to stall the narrative. There are also some narrative dead-ends created in ME2 due to the way ME3 panned out, mostly the dark energy emphasis in Tali’s recruitment mission and the Suicide Mission. There seemed to be something building there and going by Drew Karpyshyn comments after ME3 was released, this seems like a dropped plot thread.
Exploration-
This took an asswhooping over the course of the trilogy. We started from openworld barren planets to barren solar systems to ping. I think I confidently say that this element was one of the biggest disappointments of the trilogy. While the first game was chokefull of the same damn cargo bay or different reskins of planets, the skyboxes were glorious. Nothing in the franchise captured that exploration feeling like landing on some random rock and exploring with your Mako for half an hour looking for a base. A lot of people hated the Mako due to the floaty physics and the 90 degree vertical incline on some of the mountains but I had a blast. I loved getting out of the vehicle and taking a Thresher Maw on foot. It was obvious though that Bioware couldn’t flesh out the universe, due to either ram or developing prowess, in the way that most of the fans or I wanted. People wanted something like a space version of Skyrim and Bioware just flat out isn't capable of that. Part of the fan's expectations is on Bioware due to marketing but Bioware also just underwhelmed even by a limited standard as well. They tried to compromise a bit with the 2nd game but inadvertently created the awful mining game. The main problem with the mining game is that it’s boring. There is no possibility of failure and so there isn’t any tension on the part of the player. It becomes a big timesink necessary in order to completely trick out your ship(unless you mod on the PC). The missions themselves were better but you lost out on that open-world exploration. ME3 pretty much threw everything out and left you with a Pac-Man minigame. The exploration is just gone, obviously done to create a sense of urgency. I can understand the motivation behind it, however it really creates the sense of a linear shooter instead of the open-world in ME1. There really aren’t any missions like Overlord either where you can explore within the confines of the mission. Overlord should have been (and before ME3 released ,reportedly was) the model for all ME3 missions. It was a fantastic mix of ME1 and ME2.
Gameplay Mechanics-
The only real case of Bioware attempting to fix something, and pulling it off, is in regards to the powers and weapons mechanics in the third game. The Bioware running policy when it came to gameplay was ‘if it’s broken, axe it’. This can most easily be seen in the planet scanning in the 2nd game. People in mass hated it for good reason, so Bioware instead of fixing the minigame, pretty much axes it. In doing so, they create this odd void where the user interface looks like it’s still designed around the minigame but it’s just not there. There was a whole host of changes implemented in ME2 that riled people up. The first of which was the elimination of the inventory. This complaint was something I never really understood, as the player still acquired loot. A more valid, IMO, criticism had to do with the change to the XP system where XP is granted at the end of the mission instead of after a kill or during the middle of a mission. I understand both perspectives on this in that a more ‘aggressive’ XP system allows for level ups during missions, which some people like, and also that it rewards players for going out of their way to kill more enemies. That said, Bioware’s point of view in this is also valid as XP not based around the enemies killed, puts more of a priority on objectives. This allows them to create missions where the player might not kill any enemies or a low amount of enemies but can still get an equal amount of points by just completing the goal. I do think ME3 nailed the balance between the two by still giving a good amount of points for objectives but also points for kills as well. Then there is also the crucification that Bioware received from fans about how the game shifted to a covershooter in the veins of Gears of War in the 2nd and 3rd game. I think Bioware implemented the shift fairly well, purely in terms of cover mechanics. There was a bigger emphasis on the shooting aspect compared to the biotics in the first game, in that the Infiltrator and Soldier class are the best in ME2, and so the shift works fairly well. I’m trying to imagine how Bioware could have implemented a ME1 gunplay system into ME2 or ME3 and I can’t imagine it working well. Even in ME1, the player had to use cover in their environment. That said, I do think a bigger problem was the nerfing of biotics in ME2 with the whole rock-paper-scissors design in regards to the enemy. It pretty much made biotics useless and so the bigger focus on shooting made it feel like a more traditional shooter rather than ‘Mass-Effecty’.
I do think though that Bioware again fully tackled it in ME3 in regards to biotics combat. Biotics are again very viable but also not completely broken as they were in ME1. They really nailed the RPG mechanics in regards to powers and weapons in ME3. The level up system had a noticeable effect on your powers and allowed for a lot of experimentation and variation. This stands in sharp contrast compared to ME2 which is much more linear in regards to power progression. The weapon system in ME3 is also the best, by far but it again allowed for more variation on the part of the player and there is a very noticeable effect when the player modifies a weapon. Bioware stated that they wanted the gun to feel as personal as the player’s Shepard and I think they did a relatively satisfactory job here. There is also a lot more variety in ME3 compared to ME1 in terms of weapons due to the similarity of the weapons in ME1 where there is just a palette swap. That said, one area that got a huge hammer taken to it from the 1st game and never really recovered to ME1 levels, was the armor. The number of armors in the 2nd game are just completely gone and you can’t even customize your squad in all pink armor. While the customization in regards to armor color in the 2nd game is nice, there is just a big dearth of armor selections and modifications. The 3rd game is slightly better but still falls short of the first game by a large margin. Decking your crew out in matching Spectre X armor was a highlight and that joy never came back.
The 2nd game was also a bit janky when it came to melee combat.
