Poll: do you think ME2 is to blame for most issues in ME3?

[Goofguy]

Well ME2 really didn't do much to further the overarching plot and it threw so many new characters at you that it couldn't properly develop any of them. Tell Garrus in ME to: stop playing by the book or rejoin C-Sec, it really doesn't matter. Destroy or preserve the Collector base, it really doesn't matter. Do either of these (and any other similar gripes) truly affect ME3? Maybe but when you stop to think about it, ME2 does sweet fuck all to advance the story despite it being a great game in and of itself. It's more so just a pit stop for Shepard to shoot at something different for a game.

 

[Smeggs]

No.

The idiot who headed the Dev team and locked all of the real writers out of the ending of ME3 is to blame.

Even Mass Effect 2's totally out of nowhere Human Reaper wasn't as outlandish as the star child. I can look back at the shit that happened in 2 and see how it all lead up to that point, I sure as hell can't see anything in 3 that would lead up to that ending.

 

[Godhead]

Really the only problems that I had found (outside of that stupid gimmick where you hop over six inches of nothing and climbing up ladders instead of putting back in those nice and functional ramps/stairs) was the main story line and the galactic readiness. The character arcs were done beautifully (especially Legion and Charr), the crucible just felt too convenient and poorly explained along with the original ending that they got. And the galactic readiness was just a bullshit way to pressure people into playing the multiplayer.

 

[Ishigami]

I picked yes because it was a waste of time.
ME2 certainly improved the gun play but everything else just got worse or ridiculous.
ME2 should have been about Shepard preparing the galaxy for the arrival of the Reapers, basically what you do most of the time during ME3: Solving the issues between the factions hence uniting the galaxy for the final confrontation.
ME3 would then be about the war while Shepard slowly uncovers the reasoning behind the Reapers.
Maybe with a game to story progression set up like this BW would have found a more reasonable and completely different ending.

I'm pretty certain that regardless of what BW or EA says ME did not start out as a trilogy in the first place. The trilogy was a afterthought as it is with Dragon Age.
Just think about it: Sovereign was destroyed and no one was there to wake the Reapers from their slumber in dark space. This is practically the same as removing the threat all together.
Therefore if ME1 ended on this note instead of the cliffhanger that the Reapers will return BW would have gotten around solving the ?reasoning behind your comprehension? build up from Sovereign and shipped a complete game.
But nooooo everything has to be franchise... BY LAW!
Anyway ME1 is the most comprehensible ME since it lacks the resolution of 3 and the stupidity of 2.

 

[TheKwertyeweyoppe]

Am I the only one here who thought that almost ignoring the whole reaper apocalypse was what made ME2 the best one? I maintain that it was ME1s fault for centering the plot around robot spider doomsday instead of something interesting. ME2 was them delaying the fact that they had to think of a way to resolve something like that and just doing something good instead, and ME3 was them having to rush the whole ending while trying to keep up the characters that ME2 did so right.

So yeah, in a way it was ME2s fault, but I don't blame it for messing up ME3, because we got ME2 out of it.

 

[Tom_green_day]

Not sure if name means you're trolling...
I think it damaged ME3 because the quality was so high, that people expected something even better...

 

[Austin Manning]

So, along comes ME3 and introduces its own MacGuffin at the beginning, and many of us, me included, are disappointed. But really, it's the only thing that makes sense. Without the Crucible or something similar to work towards, the game is essentially aimless. "Stop the reapers" is a weak central pillar around which to structure the plot. We know the reapers are a galaxy-devouring force, and even with the ultimate goal of stopping them before they kill everyone, without some vehicle to make the impossible happen the plot flails around without any specific thing for Shepard to do aside from prop up the walls as they fall in on everyone.

I do think that the Crucible could have been used better in the overall arc of the plot and gameplay, but its existence is, as much as I don't want to hear it myself, pretty necessary.

Interesting that you say that, because the crucible could probably be edited out of the game fairly easily. It would just be about Shepard traveling the galaxy, collecting technology, assets, and allies to launch at the Reaper armada for an apocalyptic final battle. In other words it would have been like the game we got but without the farcical nonsense created by the crucible.

Also the Omega 4 relay isn't a MacGuffin. A MacGuffin is a device/item/person that the entire plot revolves around. The Ur example being a briefcase of uranium in a spy thriller. The plot has almost nothing to do with Omega 4, the Normandy is more a MacGuffin than it.

As for the OP, no. Mass Effect 2 was written to set up the events of Mass Effect 3. When Drew Karpyshin left to work on the Old Republic, his ideas were scrapped and they abandoned the plot he foreshadowed in exchange for the tangled mess we got. Had 3 not done that, 2 would have been more integral to the plot and 1 would not have been retconned out of continuity, thus creating a time paradox that prevents the entire franchise (post Eden-Prime) from existing.

 

[Atmos Duality]

No. ME2 kind of let the plot spin its wheels uselessly for most of the game so the player could encounter new NPCs and explore a bit (though the immediate and convenient dismissal of Shepard from the Specters smacks of laziness).

Mass Effect 3's Deus Ex Machina ending was the result of a rushed script for their trilogy's grand climax; nothing more.
IMO isn't worth committing any more thought to than what has been committed already.

 

[Xarathox]

Eh, each game in the trilogy had its own faults.

The first was a bit tedious, had clunky combat and the voice acting was phoned in by all involved. The second game reintroduced a very minor faction from the first that if you didn't bother with a few side quests you'd never even know about. Only now they're a multi-trillion dol..er..credit galaxy spanning terrorist empire, that everyone knows about. Also, the beginning of the game, with the Normandy fubar'd and Shepard going missing, should have been the end of the first game to build suspense. Instead it was just a tacky mechanic to introduce a class re-role option. The third game was just rushed. Standard EA policy, really. It also didn't have Drew Karpyshyn around to say "Nope. That's just stupid, re-write it".

I enjoyed the series, to be honest. But, it was kind of just... all over the place in terms of what it wanted to be. Maybe I should Kickstart a remake and shoot for what Colonial Marines was supposed to be. Dark, scary and awesome.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

People here seem to be under the impression that ME2 had no point in the overall story and was ultimately useless narrative addition to the trilogy only adding more complexity and characters than were necessary. Fine. Maybe you're right. Honestly, I haven't really thought about level of plot-importance ME2 had in relation to ME3 simply for the fact that I don't care whether the plot is important to the overarching story. Nor to I care for the analysis of one pretentious youtuber.

I play Mass Effect 2 for interesting, fleshed-out and well-crafted characters. This is why I love Mass Effect 2 over anything Mass Effect 1 did (not including the god-awful shooter mechanics of 1). Besides maybe Wrex and Garrus who only had a couple good stories in them before being given nothing left to say, the rest of the characters in ME1 hold themselves so stiffly. I get it, they're in the military, they have a mission to complete, but when the ultimate climax of the romances (heh) is just as stiff and stilted as any of the other dialogue, there's a problem. Mass Effect 2 had such great character moments and interactions.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Bioware games are not about innovative narrative and story-telling. They're about great characters that you come to love by the end.

 

[Silly Hats]

People here seem to be under the impression that ME2 had no point in the overall story and was ultimately useless narrative addition to the trilogy only adding more complexity and characters than were necessary. Fine. Maybe you're right. Honestly, I haven't really thought about level of plot-importance ME2 had in relation to ME3 simply for the fact that I don't care whether the plot is important to the overarching story. Nor to I care for the analysis of one pretentious youtuber.

I play Mass Effect 2 for interesting, fleshed-out and well-crafted characters. This is why I love Mass Effect 2 over anything Mass Effect 1 did (not including the god-awful shooter mechanics of 1). Besides maybe Wrex and Garrus who only had a couple good stories in them before being given nothing left to say, the rest of the characters in ME1 hold themselves so stiffly. I get it, they're in the military, they have a mission to complete, but when the ultimate climax of the romances (heh) is just as stiff and stilted as any of the other dialogue, there's a problem. Mass Effect 2 had such great character moments and interactions.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Bioware games are not about innovative narrative and story-telling. They're about great characters that you come to love by the end.

I'd be inclined to agree.

Unfortunately, half my posts here have been about this particular subject and I just wiped a wall of text about 5 times.


I'm making progress I think.

 

[Doom972]

I don't think so. ME2's plot was about finding out and eliminating that which caused entire human settlements to disappear, which resulted in finding out the Reapers' objective - which is very important to the plot.

As for characters being able to die in the suicide mission - I think that it was worth it. The suicide mission felt very intense and I wish we had something similar in ME3.

One thing I really think needed improvement in ME3 was the combat. It got boring too fast. I think that it's because of not being able to carry super weapons and because there was no innovation to it.

 

[Username Redacted]

To me the answer is no. The problems that ME3 encounters are to me introduced in ME1. What I mean by this is that ME1 sets the Reapers up as this nigh unstoppable force of nature (well demonstrated with the resources that it takes to destroy just one) AND it also hints (more like tells but whatever) that there are a hell of a lot more of these things on their way. Now, it can be argued, that ME2 doesn't do much in the way of resolving this issue but that isn't the same as blaming it for the issues with ME3. With the Reapers I would compare them to Galactus, an extraordinarily powerful being from the Marvel universe who eats planets. I feel that this is a reasonable comparison because of their similar natures. In Galactus' case he has (as far as I can remember) usually been defeated through the use of something called the Ultimate Nullifier AKA Magical McGuffin BS Plot Spackle because he's too powerful to expect even the combined forces of whatever heroes happened to have encountered him to actually defeat him. Before ME3 came out I was really hoping for some resolution on how to deal with Reapers and I was honestly more pissed off when the concept of the Crucible was introduced than when I encountered the damn star child as the former represents lazy/shitty writing while the latter simply represents attempting to compensate for lazy/shitty writing from an earlier point in your story.

 

[Raikas]

I voted "no".

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Bioware games are not about innovative narrative and story-telling. They're about great characters that you come to love by the end.

This. Although I'd add world-building to the list (and I liked the ME1 characters more than you did).

The parts of the series that were weakest - including the end of ME3 - were almost always weak because they were focused on plot, and the plot was just never as central (or as well-crafted) as the character moments and the overall tone.