Mass Effect General Discussion (spoilers)

To be fair, outside of the High Dragons (and even then), a lot of Dragon Age's bosses are virtually carbon copies of each other, especially when it comes to you fighting demons or human bosses. Case in point: Imshael, who literally just switches between three different types of demons in the fight. Very Melon isn't wrong in that virtually every boss fight in Dragon Age is more of testing a player's mechanical understanding. If anything I'd say Mass Effect's boss fights tend to be more memorable than Dragon Age, especially if you don't count fighting any of the High Dragons across the three games

The ultimate problem is ME 2 and ME 3 abandon scaling enemies...

Essentially A Brute is only as tough as when you fight it the First time and you aren't leveled. and unlike say dead space... there isn't a overall upgrade in enemy quality halfway through the game..

Enemies represent changes in tactics... but They NEVER upgrade

Basically a Banshee might have 4000 Barrier and 1000 Armor when you first fight it, and your best anti barrier weapon then does maybe 500 barrier damage per clip and you have to clip away at armor.

but latter in the game when you have weapons and abilities that caneffectively strip 5k barriers in maybe a cast and two shots and then switch to an anti armor cannon that deals 750 per shot to Armor.

Well Banshee stop being a threat since ME 2 and 3 are more about tactic assesment, Do this to deal with said enemy

But that's what boss fights are supposed to be, tests of understanding and skill. You framed that like I was putting down any of the bosses in Dragon Age.

Not at all, and if that's what my last post sounded like I should rephrase it. What I meant to say is that while Dragon Age's bosses are better in that they require better tactical and mechanical understanding of the game itself as opposed to Mass Effect, Mass Effect's bosses (at least for me) are what I actually find to be more memorable, even if only for the handful that pretty much define the series.

I do find Husk-Saren and The Human Reaper memorable, even if the fights themselves aren't the most interesting, but I do get what you mean.

Mass Effect's bosses are perfectly memorable as characters and setpieces, but most of them are pretty dull as boss fights. Saren is basically a glorified drone first, hopper second. Kai Leng is a phantom, except with more shields and he cheats. I actually really like taking down the Reaper on Tuchanka, but that's all about running and dodging, not fighting. Part of this is just down to cover shooters requiring more cinematic bosses and setpieces— the gameplay doesn't really scale all that well— but if a big splashy setpiece is what's called for, then that's what you've got to have.

All of DA's bonus bosses— the high dragons, Cauthrien, the DLC bosses— they're unique, they're effortful, and they're tactical. Which just shows that Bioware can do this. They just need to...y'know, do it.

edited 22nd Oct '16 4:50:39 PM by Unsung

The epitome of that would be the Rannoch Reaper. All you have to do is dodge at the right time and shoot at the right point. It doesn't even last that long. But holy shit is that sequence intense.

That's what taking a 150 meter Reaper destroyer on foot while epic orchestal music blares involves, pretty much.

Also, been experimenting with the save editor in 3; Ashley and Kaidan make a damn solid squad, everything shatters and explodes. Then bursts in fire and explodes. And they even have matching armors!

edited 22nd Oct '16 5:21:43 PM by Eriorguez

While it certainly isn't a boss fight per se, for me one of best fights in the whole trilogy was the assault on Afterlife @ Omega, regardless of what is said about Aria or that DLC.

Also, Final fight of Leviathan DLC, just because you get to shoot reapers down in a damn MECH!.

The best boss fights are always unique bosses. The issue games like Mass Effect run into is that they don't want to just drop random enemies against you but properly build the world where they exist. Kai Leng may not have been the best boss encounter, but story-wise defeating him was especially satisfying. It's similar throughout ME-3 where we are introduced to new enemies and there is a real sense of trepidation and fear in their first appearance (especially Banshees), but are unfortunately demoted to common and comparatively easier enemies to defeat later on. ME-3 also makes good use of giving you a big enough skirmish while the cutscenes show the epic finale, just see the Reaper Destroyer vs. Kalross.

Destiny has been criticized for making their boss enemies more about putting the characters in a specific boss battle room with a bigger and tougher version of an enemy you otherwise encounter on a regular basis.

Honestly the only reason I had any issues fighting Kai Leng in Cronos Station (on Insanity) was because of the bloody Phantoms he summons. Stabbing him in the face was satisfying as hell, though.

Kai Leng would have worked better if he had show difficulties dealing with Shepard and had to resort to pragmatism, rather than getting cutscene power. Making a beeline at Thesia rather than recharging his shields, having armor instead of health and immunities...

Thane jumping into his blade was also quite lame, specially knowing that Kirrahe may die instead there if Thane isn't present.

Also, on the topic of bosses, grabbing Tela Basir with Liara's singularity once she is down to health, then instakilling her by launching her over the edge, never gets old.

Any satisfaction I might've gotten in killing Kai Leng is sucked out of the room by how ineffectual I found him. His big successes are killing a sick man with an army at his back (and he still fails to get the Council, in that case) and stealing the VI out from under you at Thessia. He talks a lot of trash, but mostly from the safety of an email account, and the biggest threat when he fights you is always something else— endless Cerberus goons, mechs, and the gunship on Thessia. His need to constantly call a time out and recharge his shield undercuts his fighting ability in favour of a gimmick.

I don't know. I just can't really hate him and find him pathetic both at once. The amount of drama ascribed to him is just irritating to me, more than anything else. /rant

I can't take him seriously at all because of how he looks exactly like Yuri Lowell by way of Nightwing. Yanno because Troy Baker.

Too bad the game insists that I do. Its like when Gretchen tried to make "fetch" a thing.

Kai Leng is one of the worst things in an already nearly unsalvageable game.

He's one of the worst things in a game that's actually pretty good, for the most part.

Unsalvageable?

ME 3 plays the smoothest and for the most part gets rid of the more stupid aspects of the class system by using the weight system

-Seriously the only reason to play a soldier was so you Weren't restricting in what guns you could use-

I consider ME-3 to be the best overall game of the trilogy. The best gameplay mechanics of all three games, a far more engaging storyline than ME-2, an epic galaxy spanning war, incredibly fun and atmospheric encounters and a multiplayer system I adored (I played it continuously through all DLC packs, and only stopped after close to a year and a half after release). There are some missteps here and there, I was befuddled by the negative reactions until I finished the game myself and even that is mitigated by the extended cut, but I consider them minor to the ambition and overall experience of playing the game.

The gameplay is fine except the story (you know, the reason to play Mass Effect) was god awful.

It's serviceable for a video game I guess, but Mass Effect is better than that. If it weren't for Tuchanka and Rannoch, and the magnificence of Javik, it'd be a complete waste.

Personally I felt the game failed at the "galaxy at war" thing since planets are getting razed by ancient machine gods but I'm still engaging in three-man ground level skirmishes with human racists.

edited 23rd Oct '16 6:16:46 PM by Mr.Badguy

3 is a better game that 1, in my opinion. Doesn't feel like a chore to replay despite taking longer to complete.

By the way, different options in a dialogue tree giving the exact same dialogue is ridiculous, but happens all the time in 1. Yet "we don't control Shepard in 3"...

edited 23rd Oct '16 6:44:28 PM by Eriorguez

Rose-colored goggles, and all that. I wasn't able to play the first game until after Bioware'd released the entire trilogy on the PS 3, so as good as I'd enjoyed the story itself of the first game, I found the gameplay a little tedious for me to play it as often as I had on the third game.

Part of the issue was that that problem from ME 1 had been resolved by later Bioware games (DA 2 and ME 2 to an extent) so it being a prevalent problem in ME 3 was a step back.

For me ME 3 was...alright really, but it pretty much continuedif not completed ME's transformation from an A Ction RPG Shooter to a full on Cover Shooter bordering on, to use a Yahtzee term, spunkgargleweewee.

I mean yeah you can run around in the open as a biotic, heavily armoured soldier or as a Vanguard but the game still expects you to use cover. At least if you're in multiplayer there's Krogan characters that are all about running in with big willy bullshit and smashing everything personally.

Ah well, at least Regenerating Health in ME 3 is not as stupidly useful as it was in ME 2 or your average Call Of Duty game.

Also any DLC you get (Javik, weapon DLC like the Cerberus Harrier or the M7 Lancer or things like Aria's Flare power) can break the game wide open, especially the Lancer which removes the need to scrounge for heat clips so if you're a biotic, there's your weapon of choice.

Shame the final level isn't that epic. Sure it was some great character moments for you and whoever your love interst was (Mine so far is, of course, Tali) but it still feels...murrrrrrh. And half the game is still fighting an army of angry, heavily armed space right wing extremists and sometimes the Geth, but not the Reapers all that much.

And if you like Ashley, the lack of her writer on the staff means she REALLY suffers compared to Kaidan

I will say one thing ME nailed tho: Mordin's replacement VA (William Salyers) sounds so much like his previous one that I honestly thought they DIDN'T change his VA. Well done!

But otherwise ME 3's okay. I guess there's multiplayer?

I still pick the first game tho

Erm, you get to see at the very first mission that the Illusive Man is Saren 2.0 and that Cerberus are the Collectors 2.0.

Also, I don't think I ever had trouble running out of ammo. Seriously, I don't see how that is a disadvantageous point.

Even on Insanity I never had an issue with running out of ammo in the third game, really. It was mostly playing as a heavy sniper (Mantis/Widow) in the second game that made me run out of ammo on the regular.