Reviews Franchise / Mass Effect

... Really? *Sigh* Why do people always talk about rebooting a franchise in the middle rather than from the start? That's not how it works! There's a reason nobody does that. Plus doing so would just be regression, and I hate that. You don't fix your mistake by retconning away and pretending they never happen, you fix them by learning from them and using them as base to improve things. When you reboot something, you start all over from scratch, which is a reliable solution in some opportunities, but you can't reboot the franchise half-way so you get to keep all the parts that worked. THAT'S JUST NOT HOW IT WORKS!

And was Mass Effect Andromeda really that bad? I can think of two persons at least who thought it was decent. Not as great as the original mass effect yes, but it had its plus. And really, the problems were less about the story and more about the bugs.

Actually it does happen, all the time, it\'s called Canon Discontinuity. Sure it\'s not always, if ever, a reboot of a specific sequel but ideas and villains are reused in this sequel. The best example that I can think of is the Star Wars Disney Era vs. The Thrawn Trilogy, both have the Empire returning while a new hero, in both trilogies cases a young woman, takes on the role as the series protagonist as Luke works as a mentor to her. Sure the villains are nothing alike and Rey and Mara are complete opposites in terms of characters, goals and their respective relationship with Luke but break it down and The Thrawn Trilogy was Episodes 7, 8 and 9 decades before the Disney films. So yes this sort of thing can happen, it has happened before and will happen again in the near future.

And as for Mass Effect Andromeda, regardless of if you liked it or not the simple fact is it was largely poorly received by the general audience due in large part of how poorly written it was. The bugs were just salt on the wound and recall that Dragon Age Inquisition had it\'s far share of bugs and yet was very well received, with many praising the game as return to form for BioWare, even though many of the side quests are considered lack luster and having a disappointing ending (and please note this is coming from someone who LOVES DAI).

Still this is just my opinion and you are free to disagree with me if you so chose.

Actually it does happen, all the time, it's called Canon Discontinuity. Sure it's not always, if ever, a reboot of a specific sequel but ideas and villains are reused in this sequel. The best example that I can think of is the Star Wars Disney Era vs. The Thrawn Trilogy

Right, and that worked out so well- oh, wait, no it didn't; it pissed off all the Star Wars expanded universe fans, The Force Awakens was a borderline rip-off of A New Hope, and The Last Jedi is possibly one of the most polarizing sequels I know of, to the point a petition was made to ask from it just what you're asking of ME 3 (and just like your suggestion it's a completely unrealistic expectation).

But putting that aside, the context isn't even close to be the same thing than what you suggest for Mass Effect:

• Both the Disney Era movies and the Thrawn Trilogy are distant sequels to a complete trilogy that had received a proper conclusion; they didn't apply Canon Discontinuity to an entire opus in order to retcon just the finale of a trilogy while keeping the two people liked.
• But more importantly, the Thrawn Trilogy was a supplement material in book format rather than actual movies, making it much easier to ignore in favour of doing a new movie, because only hardcore fans would even know about these books (heck, I only know about them because a friend of mine is that kind of big Star Wars fan). Mass Effect 3 is an actual, official video game sequel that wasn't delivered in supplement material, and most Mass Effect fans will have likely played it (and even if they haven't, they probably at least know about the ending thanks to how much people hated it).

So yeah, not a good comparison at all. And even if they could, I wouldn't want them to do that, because again, it'd be the easy way out. You can't just pretend an entire video game never happened and expect everyone to just roll with it. These guys made a mistake, they should leave with it instead of slipping it under the rug to please fans.

And as for Mass Effect Andromeda, regardless of if you liked it or not the simple fact is it was largely poorly received by the general audience due in large part of how poorly written it was.

Eerrr, no. Most criticisms about it seemed to be about the fact it had lots of bugs and didn't bring much new on the table, but I didn't find that much criticisms on the poor writing. In fact, I know people who liked the added focus on exploration.

Still, yeah, matter on opinion on the second one.

It worked for the Zelda series, 'cuz the fandom has outright denounced the existence of both the CD-i games and, apparently, so has Nintendo. They're not even mentioned in the Hyrule Historia.

So TheMasquerade has a point: it's been done before and successfully at that.

It worked for the Zelda series, 'cuz the fandom has outright denounced the existence of both the CD-i games and, apparently, so has Nintendo. They're not even mentioned in the Hyrule Historia.

Of course, the CD-i games were essentially spin-offs on a console that was never popular, in a game series with a loose canon. It's not really the same situation

Not to mention that, you know, these games weren\'t even done by Nintendo; they were, as suggested by their nickname, a CD-i product they had to let another company do as part of a deal. So once again, the situation isn\'t comparable.

@Hylarn and Theokal3: I'd say that's moving goalpost since the original statement I quoted didn't stipulate that it was only in regard to mainline games.

In that case: Nintendo did it themselves with Super Mario Galaxy 2, which effectively ignored and retconed the original SMG, since Miyamoto felt Rosalina's backstory was too dark for the series. There was little complaint from the fandom, and the series has continued to sell.

If you want another example, Dave Lumsdon and Gisele Legace (the co-writers of Eerie Cuties and Magick Chicks) did a soft reboot of both series in an attempt to make it easier for new readers so they wouldn't have to be familiar with most of their previous events. Gisele said that most of parts were still canon while others would be ignored.

So the original point stands, it can and has been done.

I'd say that's moving goalpost since the original statement I quoted didn't stipulate that it was only in regard to mainline games.

.... So? The point I'm trying to make is that it can't be done with Mass Effect, which can clearly be seen in the context of the line you quote. If your point is that it has been done before, then, yes, I'm aware (comic book fan here). Doesn't make any less lazy and a cop-out.

People are not bothered by it when Mario does it, because that one, much like the Zelda example above, has a loose continuity at best with a simple base story that boil down to "Plumber must jump to save a princess from a giant turtle", with games being less multiple parts of a same story and more multiple installments to be enjoyed more or less separately; Mass Effect, meanwhile, is a game series with a very strict continuity, to the point they actually gave you the ability to download your datas from one game to another so all your choices mattered, and the fact each game was a continuation of a big epic saga a la Lord of the Rings was a big selling point. Again, what works for one doesn't work for another.

As for the other two examples... Webcomics? Really? Give me a break! Those things are fan-made with no profit most of the time and no real editors, not to mention they work in a completely different format. Again, stop giving examples that have completely different contexts.

@Theokal3: You can't simply say that it's lazy without first seeing how it's done, assuming it happens at all. It mainly comes down to which parts are changed, in what ways, and how well its received by the audience.

Eerie Cuties and Magick Chicks were both produced and sold by Pixietrix Comix direct from their online site (I own autographed copies^note all copies of the collector's editions are signed of all 5 volumes) and both series were edited by T Campbell.

You can\'t simply say that it\'s lazy without first seeing how it\'s done, assuming it happens at all. It mainly comes down to which parts are changed, in what ways, and how well its received by the audience.

Just because it\'s well received doesn\'t change anything to the fact it\'s the lazy way out, no matter how it\'s done. I\'m sorry, but that\'s a fact; actually assuming you fucked up and trying to build something good from your mistake, or, if that really can\'t be done, reboot the entire series and start from scratch, is much harder but also much more honest and rewarding than just pretending an entire part of the story never happened.

As for these two comics, even if you\'re correct, aside from the fact doing such a retcon is more likely to confuse new readers than to actually make the series more accessible (and it\'d definitely be the case if they did that by retconning away all of Mass Effect 3), there is a huge difference between retconning away Broad Strokes and an entire game.

Maybe I\'m in the minority but I really like idea of retcon. I mean third game isn\'t completely bad but has many issues that retcon. Of course first and second second game has issues too but not third just has too much of them. But to be honest restart of entire series sounds interesting, and if Bioware get more time to make this they really can make good games ( again ) But to be honest I really liked Andromeda and I really would like to see some DLC for this game or Andromeda 2

/// Btw sorry for bad english this isn\'t my first language ///