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[The Artisan]

tl;dr at the bottom

It's been a few months since the release of MeA, and it looks like the future of the series seems bleak now. I never actually got to play the game but enough about it turned me off where I just felt like I could wait till a significant price to play it if I ever wanted to.

But yo...the OG trilogy? I came to GAF in 2014 but there are plenty of people saying things like the ME trilogy are some of the best games they've played of last gen, if not ever. Colin Moriarty love him or hate him said Mass Effect is one of the defining video game franchises of the 7th generation.

And I would agree with that, that and Uncharted both; but Uncharted has seen a good amount of success this gen, ME hasn't; I don't know if it'll be announced MeA sold 8 million copies by next year, and this game is multiplatform.

But for me, the game Mass Effect 2 keeps coming back to my mind. I've made threads about it before; never have I played a game before that had me so immersed in a fictional universe; the immersion for me rivals that of Westeros in Game of Thrones.

So the entire time everyone was waiting for MeA in anticipation, the whole while I felt like I'd be more excited if EA & Bioware announced a remastered trilogy than the fourth installment itself. Me3's ending really fucked things up, though. I get that no matter what, Me3 was supposed to be the end of Shepard's story, however, I do believe that Me4 would NOT have made itself so distant from the OG trilogy had it not been for Mass Effect 3's ending. In fact, there was room to make Me4 much more connected to the trilogy's ending given how the vast majority of people didn't find Me3 to be a satisfactory ending in the first place; if the ending did please the majorities though, maybe Me4 would've been Shepard again after all; or just a story with him more involved somehow.

Even though the Citadel dlc was warmly received (Me3 overall was still critically acclaimed), it literally doesn't stop the player from still going through the fuck awful ending of the game - and the trilogy. The IP was HUGE last gen and now it has started to fade. It's awesome that Bioware wants to move on from it, but it's a shame that ME couldn't have been left off on a high note.

Instead, it ends with a very disappointing ending to the first full story in the series being told, and the first installment of what some people consider a soft reboot was a disappointment as well; for many reasons beyond just the story. Now if there ever was to be a MeA2, will the series have a chance of redeeming itself or will the Me3 ending, coupled with the launch of MeA forever have stained what was once one of the most promising IPs?

tl;dr

I love Mass Effect 2. No game I have ever played since then has given me the same feeling. Yakuza 0 comes close, but even that game while I loved it, isn't one I'd play over again like I would and did with Me2 like 10-20 times.

The series kinda fell off when it was at its own peak with Me3's ending, but then it fell off even more when MeA released - and not just because of the game's stories. The glitches didn't prevent the previous games from being masterpiece-status by many, but MeA certainly did and with good reason.

So ME, did the series peak with the OG trilogy, each installment which was critically acclaimed and broke sales records for the series? Or can the series improve even further in the future when/if there is a MeA2?

 

[killroy87]

Of course it can improve, they just need to do a better job at it.

Games like The Witcher 3 show that massive open world RPGs absolutely did not peak with the Mass Effect trilogy.

 

[TC McQueen]

Mass Effect blew its potential off at the knee caps by starting with a galaxy threatening bad guy as the core of the OG trilogy narrative and wrecking the setting. I think they can do more stuff with the Andromeda setting, but the clusterfuck that was MEA's development makes me think they're probably going to reboot the whole damn thing, hopefully without the Reapers in the Milky Way.

 

[Fury451]

Andromeda was a great idea; frontier exploration of a new galaxy. It did nothing with that.

Unfortunately it was with all the exact same parts as before, and some were worse (like combat). Even the new alien crew member was basically Javik again.

So basically yeah, I think it's hit it'd prak. The potential is there but it's going to require a risk to basically do most everything different.

 

[Jawmuncher]

I feel like things would be back on track if they went for the ME2 style again. A shooter with some RPG mechanics. That way you're getting a lot of the good content back to back and not having to worry about exploration or anything else outside the areas that call for it. Giving it a less is more vibe since more work will be put into the fewer areas you can explore.

 

[JigglesBunny]

I say this as someone who would readily indentify as a Mass Effect fan - after Mass Effect 3 and now Andromeda, I'm starting to chock ME 1 & 2 up to being flukes.

 

[JCHandsom]

It absolutely can improve. I love ME2, but that game sabotaged the potential set up by the first game by focusing on a different threat (the Collectors and Baby Reaper instead of, you know, preparing the galaxy for the Reaper Invasion/finding some way to stop them) and morphing Cerberus from background bad guys into the Worst Thing About the Series.

 

[Cartho]

Andromeda was a great idea; frontier exploration of a new galaxy. It did nothing with that.

Unfortunately it was with all the exact same parts as before, and some were worse (like combat). Even the new alien crew member was basically Javik again.

So basically yeah, I think it's hit it'd prak. The potential is there but it's going to require a risk to basically do most everything different.

You think Andromeda had worse combat than the OG trilogy? How come, out of interest? I felt like combat was the only thing MEA did well.

 

[patapuf]

It absolutely can improve. I love ME2, but that game sabotaged the potential set up by the first game by focusing on a different threat (the Collectors and Baby Reaper instead of, you know, preparing the galaxy for the Reaper Invasion) and morphing Cerberus from background bad guys into the Worst Thing About the Series.

I actually think the series would have been better off to just let the reapers lie for a while. You can have other scources of conflicts, like between citadel Aliens.

 

[Raven117]

I say this as someone who would readily indentify as a Mass Effect fan - after Mass Effect 3 and now Andromeda, I'm starting to chock ME 1 & 2 up to being flukes.

Mass Effect 3 was fine but for the terrible ending. All three games were of solid quality overall.

 

[TC McQueen]

I actually think the series would have been better off to just let the reapers lie for a while. You can have other scources of conflicts, like between citadel Aliens.

ME2 was pretty great precisely because it sidelined the Reapers and focused on Milky Way threats for the majority of the missions. Sure, the Reaper plot was the excuse for the whole suicide mission, but aside from some missions directly connected to that, it was pretty minimal.

 

[Transistor]

Mass Effect reached its full potential with Mass Effect 2. Only went downhill from there

 

[inky]

I loved ME 1 and 2. I must have played them 20+ times combined, easily.

I think there won't be a ME:A 2. I think EA and Bioware are still capable of making a decent game in the setting, one that will review well and people will like more.

That said, I know (at least for my tastes) that they are not capable of recapturing what made those games special and at least as far as I'm concerned, the series is dead.

 

[JeffZero]

All three games are in my top 10, yeah. I love 'em to pieces. The series straight-up got me back into gaming; I'd left it behind.

 

[JCHandsom]

I actually think the series would have been better off to just let the reapers lie for a while. You can have other scources of conflicts, like between citadel Aliens.

I think that would have been a pretty cool direction to take, but unfortunately Mass Effect 1 ended on a pretty definitive note with "The Reapers are still out there and I'm going to find a way to stop them!"

Granted, it does make Sovereign's actions seem oddly impulsive if Shepherd's urgency is meant to be taken at face value; if the Reapers are enough of an immediate threat (say, within 1-2 generations to be generous) that Shepherd feels he needs to get on it pronto, then the amount of time it would take the Reapers to just roll into the galaxy from dark space would be nothing to the Reapers, who are billions of years old. Sovereign's actions in the first game only make sense if the Citadel Relay was the only way for the Reapers to invade from dark space. The sequel could have been about finding backdoor Mass Relays the Reapers had put in and shutting them down, all the while fighting indoctrinated foes and exploring the galaxy. Instead we got a story that is a sidequest in terms of significance to the main threat and a new faction (Cerberus) that ended up taking over the focus of the story.

 

[epicnemesis]

Absolutely not. The original trilogy was great, but there is still a lot of room to play in that universe. The problem is there is a stark difference between Bioware pre and post the doctors leaving and I'm not sure there is enough heart and soul in bioware these days to reach those highs.

 

[Acinixys]

Mass Effect 2 was the best one

1 was rough and 3 lost a lot of what made the first two games special

 

[AAK]

Plenty of room where the main character is a Turian or a Salarian. But as far as a human main character goes, the trilogy definitely peaked in my opinion.

ME3: The Citadel is the trilogy's magnum opus.

 

[JeffG]

That said, I know (at least for my tastes) that they are not capable of recapturing what made those games special and at least as far as I'm concerned, the series is dead.

I didn't realise that games had to recapture the moments of previous games to be any good. I must be doing it wrong then.

 

[HellofaMouse]

could it be better? ofc. any game can be better.

but in reality, considering that bioware never made a great game after the doctors left, me 2 is as good as that series ever going to get

 

[Rats Off To Ya]

I think it's a wonderful universe that could be used to tell pretty much any kind of story. I was never really on board with Andromeda's premise because I felt like they were trashing the world they spent so much effort in building (a process, admittedly, that began with ME3's ending).

I want to see the series continue, but they need to take it back to the Milky Way by whatever means necessary: a reboot, a retcon, a large time skip, or simply hand-waving inconvenient bits of where they left the galaxy. And I'm in no rush. Do it, but do it right the next time.

 

[Alpha Phoenix]

ME peaked when it was handed over to the B-team.

 

[Gitaroo]

It has reach biowares template full potential. Most of their rpg since kotor1 felt like the game game with different setting.

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

I feel ME biggest misstep was that from 2 on every conflict was solved by shooting your gun. I would love a ME with more diplomacy, and less of an overarching "only one person can save the universe" narrative.

 

[Ralemont]

You should give MEA a shot on sale, OP. Many of the glitches have been fixed, a lot of animation work as gone into the patches, and if you ignore the open world stuff the game can actually feel like a discount ME2, which isn't a diss. Combat is great and shines in the hand-crafted missions like loyalty missions, Ark missions, and main missions. Characters aren't as good as the OT but are still pretty decent. And Andromeda has a great ending mission.

 

[Q8D3vil]

Reached it with shadow broker dlc.

 

[Snacks the sober sea lion]

They never properly fixed up the planet exploration, just straight removed it, even though that was one of the main points of the series. Mass Effect 2 has good combat but the story is awful.

 

[patapuf]

ME2 was pretty great precisely because it sidelined the Reapers and focused on Milky Way threats for the majority of the missions. Sure, the Reaper plot was the excuse for the whole suicide mission, but aside from some missions directly connected to that, it was pretty minimal.

I agree

I think that would have been a pretty cool direction to take, but unfortunately Mass Effect 1 ended on a pretty definitive note with "The Reapers are still out there and I'm going to find a way to stop them!"

Granted, it does make Sovereign's actions seem oddly impulsive if Shepherd's urgency is meant to be taken at face value; if the Reapers are enough of an immediate threat (say, within 1-2 generations to be generous) that Shepherd feels he needs to get on it pronto, then the amount of time it would take the Reapers to just roll into the galaxy from dark space would be nothing to the Reapers, who are billions of years old. Sovereign's actions in the first game only make sense if the Citadel Relay was the only way for the Reapers to invade from dark space. The sequel could have been about finding backdoor Mass Relays the Reapers had put in and shutting them down, all the while fighting indoctrinated foes and exploring the galaxy. Instead we got a story that is a sidequest in terms of significance to the main threat and a new faction (Cerberus) that ended up taking over the focus of the story.

I mean, you can say the reapers are still a threat and just ignore that in the sequels.

Cerberus was a pretty cool concept, the execution wasn't great but an extremist human faction is exactly the kind of conflict that would have made the ME universe more interesting than whatever they attempted with 3. When you go that big/epic the ending is often pretty bad.

 

[Ralemont]

They never properly fixed up the planet exploration, just straight removed it, even though that was one of the main points of the series. Mass Effect 2 has good combat but the story is awful.

Planet exploration isn't what would allow Mass Effect to fulfill its potential and it's why I bemoaned the refocus on exploration for Andromeda as soon as they said it five years ago.

Mass Effect is at its best when it's Blade Runner, not Interstellar. It needs hubs, it needs mercenaries, it needs characters.

 

[Jawmuncher]

Planet exploration isn't what would allow Mass Effect to fulfill its potential and it's why I bemoaned the refocus on exploration for Andromeda as soon as they said it five years ago.

Mass Effect is at its best when it's Blade Runner, not Interstellar. It needs hubs, it needs mercenaries, it needs characters.

I agree. The open world and exploration just slow everything down. While the smaller style allows for so much more.

 

[inky]

I didn't realise that games had to recapture the moments of previous games to be any good. I must be doing it wrong then.

I didn't say they had to recapture any specific moments or beats, and I definitely didn't say it had anything to do with you. I said that for my personal tastes I don't think they can recapture some characteristics that made them special. I even stated twice that it was a personal preference after admitting they might still do something everyone else likes.

You definitely are doing it wrong if a simple sentence is giving you this much trouble. Reading is hard. Understanding what was read appears impossible.

 

[Sephzilla]

I want a Mass Effect game that has the exploration and feel of Mass Effect 1 with the combat of the sequels, basically. Mass Effect 1 is still my favorite because the galaxy felt so huge.

 

[Maledict]

I feel ME biggest misstep was that from 2 on every conflict was solved by shooting your gun. I would love a ME with more diplomacy, and less of an overarching "only one person can save the universe" narrative.

Um, 2 had multiple key missions where you couldn't shoot your gun to win...

 

[Maledict]

Planet exploration isn't what would allow Mass Effect to fulfill its potential and it's why I bemoaned the refocus on exploration for Andromeda as soon as they said it five years ago.

Mass Effect is at its best when it's Blade Runner, not Interstellar. It needs hubs, it needs mercenaries, it needs characters.

Yep, absolutely. Bioware needs to stop chasing this fools dream of exploration. They simply cannot do it, it does not work in the type of game they make and what their fans want. I'm really sorry for all the people who wanted that from Mass Effect, but we've now had two attempts at it and both attempts were fucking awful in execution (albeit some truly glorious skyboxes in ME1).

Mass Effect is about characters. It is not about driving some damn stupid buggy over an empty planet chasing another collectible, be they Matriarchs writings in 1 or mineral scans in Andromeda.

 

[Snacks the sober sea lion]

Why are people comparing Mass Effect to Blade Runner? Mass Effect was always a space opera. Even though ME2 reduced the scope, the plot was more than ever about ONLY ONE MAN CAN SAVE THE UNIVERSE, which is not at all Blade Runner.

 

[jtb]

What sales records did ME break? The series was never a mega hit.

Why are people comparing Mass Effect to Blade Runner? Mass Effect was always a space opera. Even though ME2 reduced the scope, the plot was more than ever about ONLY ONE MAN CAN SAVE THE UNIVERSE, which is not at all Blade Runner.

They're both overrated slogs?

 

[killroy87]

What sales records did ME break? The series was never a mega hit.

I think he just meant each installment sold more than the last (of the original trilogy)

 

[Taker34]

The franchise definitely didn't peak with the OG trilogy but indeed set the bar high for any predecessor to come. MEA made mistakes by trying to be the game which Mass Effect 1 wanted to be, just without the technical limitations and supposedly much greater in scale.

The problem is that the Montreal team never understood what made the explorer premise and RPG roots of ME1 and the purely character driven story in the sequels so fascinating in he first place. Though heavily criticized for many random planets in ME1, it was the sheer scale, choice and premise in that game which sparked the imagination of players. The sense of a to be explored Milky Way was crafted carefully and in my opinion that was the most important factor.

Think Elite Dangerous which has a whole galaxy full of 99,9% empty and uninteresting systems, compared to the amount of stars and systems with actual stations or alien relics. Yet the explorer community has a huge following and the few notable explorations made are reason enough for many to keep discovering the most distant areas of the Galaxy.

MEA didn't understand that graphics, lots of (uninspired) "content" really in this case on a planet doesn't do the job. Planets full of content. Nothing to explore, you drive from content to content. I couldn't care less about how much there's to do on any Andromeda planet but it breaks the immersion of knowing that every planet plays like a badly made computer game map with Assassins Creed style collectibles. The possibility in Mass Effect 1 of finding literally nothing on a planet and the sensation of stumbling upon a undiscovered base or life form was so much more exciting than the entirety of MEA had to offer.

 

[JCHandsom]

Planet exploration isn't what would allow Mass Effect to fulfill its potential and it's why I bemoaned the refocus on exploration for Andromeda as soon as they said it five years ago.

Mass Effect is at its best when it's Blade Runner, not Interstellar. It needs hubs, it needs mercenaries, it needs characters.

At that point you could set the game all on one planet and get rid of the Normandy, the ship's crew, the Relays, the galaxy map, etc.

Mass Effect isn't Blade Runner or Interstellar, it's Star Trek. Going to strange new worlds, meeting alien races, solving ethical dilemmas, and uncovering the secrets of the universe are what Mass Effect was built on.

It's like me saying I would like Destiny if it was more like KOTOR and less like Halo; sure I might like it more, but at a certain point it ceases to be Destiny and becomes something new.

 

[JeffG]

I didn't say they had to recapture any specific moments or beats, and I definitely didn't say it had anything to do with you. I said that for my personal tastes I don't think they can recapture some characteristics that made them special. I even stated twice that it was a personal preference after admitting they might still do something everyone else likes.

You definitely are doing it wrong if a simple sentence is giving you this much trouble. Reading is hard. Understanding what was read appears impossible.

lol

 

[inky]

Why are people comparing Mass Effect to Blade Runner? Mass Effect was always a space opera. Even though ME2 reduced the scope, the plot was more than ever about ONLY ONE MAN CAN SAVE THE UNIVERSE, which is not at all Blade Runner.

Someone watched the new trailer and remembered the music was similar I guess.

 

[jtb]

Mass Effect isn't Blade Runner, it's not Star Trek or Star Wars, it's not Interstellar.

It's a fucking Michael Bay film. Even the first one. Which I like!

 

[prag16]

I agree. The open world and exploration just slow everything down. While the smaller style allows for so much more.

Yep. Ignore all that crap and play Andromeda as a 30-40 hour game and you'll have a much better time than if you get bogged down in the open world bloat and play it as a 60-100 hour game.

 

[a916]

I say this as someone who would readily indentify as a Mass Effect fan - after Mass Effect 3 and now Andromeda, I'm starting to chock ME 1 & 2 up to being flukes.

I don't know what this means because MEA was from a different team and 3 wasn't a bad game. Bad ending? Sure... but the rest was a really good game.

 

[JCHandsom]

Mass Effect isn't Blade Runner, it's not Star Trek or Star Wars, it's not Interstellar.

It's a fucking Michael Bay film. Even the first one. Which I like!

It's not as misogynistic, nationalistic, racist, or pandering as a Michael Bay film.

 

[Ralemont]

At that point you could set the game all on one planet and get rid of the Normandy, the ship's crew, the Relays, the galaxy map, etc.

And I would buy it. I'll take my Citadel detective noir game, thanks.

Mass Effect isn't Blade Runner or Interstellar, it's Star Trek. Going to strange new worlds, meeting alien races, solving ethical dilemmas, and uncovering the secrets of the universe are what Mass Effect was built on.

But it's not what Mass Effect was best at, besides the ethical dilemmas. Mass Effect was best at building drama within already established hubs and between known characters of catalogued races. It was at its best when you were an elite agent or sheriff, not an explorer.

In any case, the point was also largely about scope within the game world, which correlates with the focus on the game. I'd be fine with different planets so long as the game space within those worlds was small and dense, getting to the fucking point quickly with hand-crafted missions and quests, and moving on. "Exploration" in the Mass Effect games is a waste of time.

 

[inky]

lol

Much better effort. Run along now.

 

[jtb]

It's not as misogynistic, nationalistic, racist, or pandering as a Michael Bay film.

Misogynistic, definitely less than Mr. Bay.

The rest? Uh, did you see how "humanity galactic saviors" and "Shep is literally jesus" centric the ME series was? Which was particularly absurd given how the universe was built around humans being newcomers to the galactic stage in ME1.

 

[T.v]

Combine the good parts of 2 and 3 and you get the peak mass effect experience. The game, as Bioware is capable of making it, does nit lend itself to their open world formula. Andromeda proved this. Looking back, Andromeda as a setting is a waste, but I also understand that they wanted to distance themselves from 3's ending.
I think Mass Effect is dead in Bioware's hands. The team that worked on Andromeda has proven to be utterly incompetent, and I doubt the "original" team will ever get back to ME.

 

[Prophaniti]

First 3 were amazing. I didn't care about 3s ending, the game was fun.

I'll say this again. If Andromeda is the best they can manage at this point then just let the series die. Dont drag it out with a ton of broken Advent Rising like disasters. Even if they can only marginally improve on Andromeda. Just move on.

It still blows my mind that they would allow Andromeda to come out. How little do you have to care about a beloved franchise? How little do you have to care about your company? People keep posting that picture of EA killing Bioware. If this is Bioware now then who even cares.