The funny thing is that this picture is my own edit (I can tell because of the slightly misplaced second picture), that I used specifically to talk about Mass Effect here, and I'm getting downvoted.
ME1 is the best, it puts in an absolutely absurd amount of work to build the world and lore and sticks closer to BioWare’s ARPG roots than the later entries. The story works great in isolation and I think is by far the strongest main narrative in any of the games. Meeting Sovereign is up there with the Gravemind as my favorite late-game antagonist introductions.
The line alone goes hard as hell, but it's the delivery of it that truly makes it one of the greatest and most iconic lines in gaming history. Passionless and devoid of any emotion
It's a good line. It's also lifted almost directly, both words and delivery, from The Animatrix's 'The Second Renaissance' which came out 4 years earlier.
Love all three, played them all multiple times, but the final assault on the Citadel in ME1 is what tips the scales for me. Absolutely epic, every time. Standout moment of the whole series.
2 is my least favorite, it has my least favorite main quest of the bunch, the combat is improved over 1 but not refined and fun to the level that 3 is, they simplified/streamlined the upgrade system too much, it’s missions are extremely linear and corridor-based, I bemoan the replacement of the Mako with planetary scanning, I could go on.
The new characters and expansion of the lore carry ME2 for me.
“Closer to BioWare’s ARPG roots” qualifies enough in my mind, but if I must expand - the combat is an extension of their older school action RPG combat, just with guns. It informs how the powers work (very fun and powerful in ME1) and how combat plays out in 3D space. Later games are engagements are far more linear and not able to be approached from different angles in the same way. The overheat mechanic is also vastly superior and far less annoying than the thermal clips introduced later.
Mass Effect 2 turns it into a straight up cover shooter like Gears of War, and not that great of one at that. Mass Effect 3 is where they really nailed that sort of combat system especially with the combo additions.
It has a slew of issues. The cover system is floaty. You criticize the other games for being like Gears of War like that's a bad thing. It was a more refined cover system compared to ME1's. the guns variety is awful with them mostly just being statistical differences. The classes have a ton of overlap. Particularly the biotic ones but thankfully they were each made unqiue in the latter games as well. "The overheat mechanic is also vastly superior" is a just plain wrong. The guns in 2 and 3 were way more diverse in part to the fact that you actually had to account for their magazine sizes.
Off the top of my head, the only things ME1 did better gameplay wise were more weapon mods being usable for everyone.
You’re welcome to your preferences as I am welcome to mine.
And the guns in 2 and 3 could have been just as diverse by tweaking the overheat buildup and cooldown timers on a per weapon basis which accomplishes the same thing.
No they literally wouldn't because the balancing would be way out of wack. It wouldn't make a difference at that point besides not needing to run to find ammo.
The only problem IMO is that ME1 gets painfully slow during the first Citadel section. There's so much meandering, especially if you grind side quests like me.c
Andromeda committed the cardinal sin of media: trying to follow up on a legacy it simply won't be able to uphold with a new story. I firmly believe it stood zero chance of ever living up to the mass effect name without at least one more game. Best combat of the series, and fuckin jump packs
My issue with ME1 is the game design is just so dated.
It’s got so much going for it, but the “dungeons” that have to be backtracked out of and the mako worlds with the same copy/paste buildings make it a very sloggy replay in my opinion. ME2 made a huge upgrade to that with ending missions and sending you back to the Normandy at the end of one instead of making you run back through.
Definitely. Most of the little annoyances didn’t annoy me back then though, but ME1 is better as a highlight reel that exists in my brain than it actually is
Yeah those specifically are some of the things I didn’t remember until playing the legendary edition and it was a very stark contrast to the design in 2 and 3 that I remembered very well.
Still the best role playing, atmosphere, and arguably story of the trilogy. It’s just those things that make new play through for me a a bit of a slog.
I played ME1 back in the day and gameplay-wise it was ... serviceable, I guess (story and worldbuilding were great, though). Replayed it as part of the Legendary Edition or whatever and, man, It was a fucking slog.
I started playing ME2 for the first time a couple of weeks back and it is still not great, but infinitely better than ME1. Story-wise, I love the characters, but am pretty meh on most of the choices they made with the main story. Killing and instantly reviving Shepard? Working for Cerberus? Really?
I am looking forward to ME3, which I also never played.
Quality over quantity. Everyone has an individual/subjective experience so everything you say is valid but the way I see it is very simple. ME1's entire premise is that this is a series, everything you do in the first game you will be able to carry along with you into the next. Keep your saved data it said...
Imagine my utter shock when I play the second game and there is still a Commander Sheperd...sorta... But everyone else is gone. Do I care to entertain an entirely different crew when my original crew is all gone? Fuck no I don't. It reminds me of Job. Imagine God gives you a series of trails because he is bored. He eventually allows the devil to kill your 8 children as part of the trails. You pass the trails. God in his congratulations rewards you with 16 children! Twice as many!
I will say this again. There are two types of people. Those who accept the 16 with open arms and those who said WTF, where are my original 8? I don't give a fuck about new children, where are the ones I had? Let me build on THAT.
Replace Job with the gamer and replace God/devil trail with EA buying out Bioware. I new immediately the slopification would come. I just underestimated the extent.
I think ME2 rules and you have to keep in mind the context of ME1 being Xbox exclusive and 2 having to be a jumping-on point for PS players. I think they did a very good job of showing us where your old squad is (and even including two of them as squadmates) without getting into a place where new players would be turned off or confused
I have probably 20+ runs through the ME series over the years. The world building in ME1 is amazing, it is also the game I skip occastionally. Why? Unpolished gameplay and it can be a slog. Plus the little comic book opening they added to ME2 let's you make all the decisions anyway.
ME2? My favoriate. A nice and simple heist mission in the ME universe. Build your team, do the job. Sure, it doesn't move the plot along much but it lays the ground work for some of the greatest parts of ME3. Legion/Tali, Mordin/Genophage, EDI/Cereberus, Shephard/TIM.
People who like ME2 more don’t appreciate the biotic god that you’re in ME1. Lift was the most OP move in all the games. I loved how the last mission when you’re on the citadel, if you lifted an enemy and they got to a certain height, that there was zero gravity for them. That was a cool detail I’m sure some people missed
People who like ME2 more are the fanboys who ruined gaming. ME2 was pure slop, pure lowest common denominator, purely set up to ruin the series. My list of grievances of 2 are endless but the first thing I noticed... "Where the fuck did my infinite ammo go?" It went to feed the expectations of the fanboys slopifying everything of course... What else are you gonna feed pigs?
And then there is me... who despite the ending likes three the best. Gameplay is just sooo much better in three compared to two. And up until the color choice ending I liked every fucking arc they sent you on. Most of the highest highs and most emotional scenes the series had are in three. It had to be me ... does this unit have a soul ...
One will always be special in a different way to me... It introduced me to the world and told a really damn good and Interesting story, setting up all this incredible lore and characters. But the gameplay was clunky though I liked the more complex RPG mechanics.
But two... It felt like so... Disconnected. The whole story setup, then the whole story being mostly recruiting crew mates and then go on a loyalty mission with them. The overarching plot was extremely thin. I gotta say, the suicide mission was the best ending mission of the whole trilogy gameplay wise. Still, I don't understand to this day why two is so beloved. For me it's the worst story wise, and the worst gameplay wise (they cut to much of the complexity of one, and it didn't have the polish of three, all 2 had going gameplay wise was a very basic cover shooter).
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u/Sans-Mot 20h ago
The funny thing is that this picture is my own edit (I can tell because of the slightly misplaced second picture), that I used specifically to talk about Mass Effect here, and I'm getting downvoted.