Discussing the 4 Sacrifices of Mass Effect 3

[CharlesPhipps]

Bioware would never do it but I totally would have taken advantage of the determinant status written into the game that whoever you took with you at certain points could have resulted in them dying.

* Of the two who go with you to fight Kai Leng, Leng will kill one of them. It will affect subsequent plots and be like they'd died in Mass Effect 1 or 2. You will lose them permanently as a party member.

* You will lose whichever squadron members you take on the final mission and they will not be there for the epilogue (in which Shepard survives).

I think THAT would have been interesting.

[hammerofglass]

It's funny but Kai Leng is basically Kylo Ren before Kylo Ren exists. All of the things that are designed to make him badass are undermined to the point that he comes off as incredibly pathetic. Which is something a lot of fans thought was unintentional with Kylo Ren (narrator: It was not) and without Adam Driver's performance to carry it.

* Kai Leng looks like Nightwing went to the Citadel's Hot Topic
* Kai Leng kills one of your companions - except it's Thane, who is already sick with Space Cancer.
* Kai Leng kills the most powerful biotic in the world in the novels - except it's a 16 year old autistic girl.
* Kai Leng fights you but it's with some generic mooks and a gunship and STILL loses.
* Kai Leng isn't indoctrinated or is but it just makes him more of a douchebag with his letter, which is his ONLY characterization.

Hell, he even has the memetic I EAT YOUR CEREAL.

Weirdly enough, this sort of character is strangely popular with writers. Rafe in Uncharted 4, Konstantine in Rise of the Tomb Raider, Cesare Borgia in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Ahmet in AC: Revelations, Daniel Cross in AC3, Charles Lee also from AC3 (yeah this was annoyingly common in Assassin's Creed for a while) and of course Kylo Ren and Kai Leng.

I've no idea why writers like these sorts of character as I don't know many fans who like these characters. Even in the stories that are well loved like Uncharted 4 the villain in that story is seen as one of the least interesting parts of that game.

This character is pathetic, everyone treats him as pathetic and as such we can never take him seriously in the story itself. It's like the Kazon in Voyager, we know these idiots aren't a threat and they need someone else to help turn them into a threat and when their gone their not missed.

Contrast this with Prince Zuko or Catra as both are, when you get down to it, pathetic. Zuko wants his father's love and do get it he has to capture the Avatar but fails for most of the series and the one time he DOES capture Aang he fails so badly that he needs the Gaang to save him. Catra refuses to join Adora because of her need to beat her at ANYTHING to prove she is Adora's equal or better.

But there are few who see these two as pathetic and are seen as intimidating and effective villains despite the fact that they almost never succeed. When the Gaang learn that Zuko is on their tale their response isn't to laugh at him but instead are filled with fear and despite never succeeding to capture Aang the only reason for that was because the Gaang had to escape him or knock him out. In a straight up fight, they almost always retreated.

With Catra, Adora was terrified of the idea of dealing with her, not just because she loved her but because she knew that Catra was the better planner and it was thanks to Catra's strategical mind that lead to the Horde almost conquering Etheria.

Same thing with Hunter over on The Owl House or Sasha in Amphibia. These are characters who do things because of selfish and often petty reasons but are seen as threatening and a force to be reckoned with.

You don't get that with characters like Kylo or Leng. They're just pathetic and we all know it.

I think it's because that's what the kind of villain you're likely to actually encounter irl is like, and then the power fantasy is that they're easily dispatched instead of just destroying your life and facing no consequences for it. Big dramatic world threatening villains there are like ten on the planet; man children with school shooter energy and purely imagined grievances you meet six before lunch.

[CharlesPhipps]

I kind of hate the number of games that insist on killing the hero versus any sort of happy ending or even continuing adventure:

Mass Effect 3
Fallout 3
Assassins Creed 3
The Force Unleashed (which led to the complete crap of TFU 2)
Resident Evil: Village
Bioshock II
Bioshock: Infinite (Which the fucking DLC did again! TWICE!)

[hammerofglass]

I kind of hate the number of games that insist on killing the hero versus any sort of happy ending or even continuing adventure:

Mass Effect 3
Fallout 3
Assassins Creed 3
The Force Unleashed (which led to the complete crap of TFU 2)
Resident Evil: Village
Bioshock II
Bioshock: Infinite (Which the fucking DLC did again! TWICE!)

Wait, I haven't played it since 2013 but I remember Infinite having a happy ending. Didn't Booker respawn in his PI office you go to when you die one last time with his version of baby Elizabeth at the end? Because you destroyed all the Comstock timelines and she was never kidnapped? It might have been after the credits.

The DLC had the excuse of "we lose our IP after this so we're burning it to the fucking ground".

[Winter]

I kind of hate the number of games that insist on killing the hero versus any sort of happy ending or even continuing adventure:

Mass Effect 3
Fallout 3
Assassins Creed 3
The Force Unleashed (which led to the complete crap of TFU 2)
Resident Evil: Village
Bioshock II
Bioshock: Infinite (Which the fucking DLC did again! TWICE!)

Well, some of those deaths I think worked rather well most notably, The Forced Unleashed, Bioshock: Infinite and Resident Evil: Village. For me, these deaths work because how how much time and effect was put into them and are set up throughout the game.

[ProfessorDetective]

I kind of hate the number of games that insist on killing the hero versus any sort of happy ending or even continuing adventure:

Mass Effect 3
Fallout 3
Assassins Creed 3
The Force Unleashed (which led to the complete crap of TFU 2)
Resident Evil: Village
Bioshock II
Bioshock: Infinite (Which the fucking DLC did again! TWICE!)

Fallout 3... pre-Broken Steel, after fans made enough of a stink.

And I agree with others about Infinite and Village. At least one Booker got to be with his daughter in the end and Ethan went out in a genuine, bonified, blaze of glory.

[Riedquat]

Bioshock: Infinite sort of worked. The DLC though, that one p1ssed me off.

[CharlesPhipps]

Bioshock: Infinite sort of worked. The DLC though, that one p1ssed me off.

Yes, it has the message of, "Once you experience trauma, you're broken forever and need to die."