Dragon Age II: EA boogaloo

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I think the introduction where mankind tried to invade heaven and turned it into a blackened hellhole resulting in god abandoning the world nudged the setting into Grimdark for me

A lot of Dragon Age was about the medieval style politics in the midst of a Lord of the Rings style invasion of evil monsters. With Alienages, possession, prejudice and betrayal mixed in body horror and existential terror. It tends towards the dark side of the spectrum. Not entirely hopeless like Dark Souls but covering very mature themes in a dark ages setting with high fantasy magic.

Even if you're genuinely heroic and act like a true saviour or the land, it's still a pretty crappy place to live.

The whole question of what the afterlife actually is now that humanity blackened the golden city and the Chantry's religion not being exactly reliable in it's own interpretation nails it for me.

Honestly I think the afterlife question is much more open than you realize. We only have Andraste's word for it that the Black City was ever the maker's Golden City and that tevinter mages corrupted it. Maybe that was just an allegory about hubris that got literalized and jarbled over the ages. Maybe there never was a golden city at all. With a lack of Ressurection spells, the people of Ferelden are just as in-the-dark about the afterlife as you and me.

[Wargriffin]

Me3 is a flawed story, Its got problems LONG before the ending 15 minutes, Thats just when you can't ignore them anymore

[Winter]

Me3 is a flawed story, Its got problems LONG before the ending 15 minutes, Thats just when you can't ignore them anymore

For me I think the biggest issue with ME3 are, a lack of control of Shepard, unfulfilling side quests, new characters who were boring and, of course, the ending.

I actually wrote up a series of articles for a alternative ME3 which took a lot of its inspiration from Witcher 3 though I may go back and change the ending to be a bit more grand and not nearly as short but I did what I could to write a story that could work as a finally to Mass Effect while still being fun in its own right. If you like I can provide a link I would like to know what someone else things of it.

[RobbyB1982]

ME3 kind of failed when it came to the main Reaper plot and everything related to that. (Gathering the army and the side missions and the elusive man and the final resolution at the end of the game.)

But the species subplots, and the character threads that carried over from the previous game were all really solid. Thane's story is good for the small part he has, the Geth/Quarian peace (and what it means for Legion and Tali) the follow up with Jack, and all the stuff with the Krogans is really strong. Especially everything with Mordin.

Man. That final scene with Mordin alone makes the entire franchise for me. From "I made a MISTAKE!" to "someone else would have gotten it wrong" (and there's even different variants depending on your choices that are all touching in different ways) to his singing Modern Major General if you got that bit in part 2.... just.. SO EFFIN GOOD.

I'm willing to forgive a LOT of weaknesses in the game for the sake of that scene.

And if you had Moridin die in the previous game there's a replacement Salarian who has a major inferiority complex to him that's also pretty interesting in the same role in different ways. (That was a major issue, they needed backup versions of every major character and choice... otherwise it was possible people would play a game that had 4 missions.)

[GloatingSwine]

It was kinda the same in Mass Effect 2.

Whenever you were hanging with your space bros doing recruitment and loyalty missions it was great (even if the loyalty missions were a dozen different variations on "daddy issues"), whenever the main plot reared its head it went from great to monumentally stupid in nothing flat. (And worse didn't even actually affect the overall arc of the trilogy at all).

(Even from the very beginning. If the collectors had just not attacked the Normandy Shepard would have been off chasing phantoms for the next two years. Also apparently the Reapers' whole plan in the first game is the equivalent of inventing a portal gun because you don't want to walk to the fridge because it only takes them like six months to drive to the galaxy and doesn't affect their ability to invincibly conquer it in the slightest).

Now, it was probably too early for it to all be EA's fault, but there was clearly a major cultural and tonal shift in Bioware's output from their acquisition. And not for the better.

[PaladinWolf]

My biggest problem with the ending to ME3 was that no matter which ending you picked, you were going against a core theme of the trilogy. If you pick destroy or synthesis you were agreeing that there was no way for organics and synthetics to get along, and if you picked control you basically agree that the Illusive Man was right and control is necessary.

[RobbyB1982]

I think the ending choices all made sense from a *story* perspective. As in, yeah, there's no legitimate way to actually fight the reapers no matter how much you unite the universe, and the lead character's personal choices and beliefs get challenged in a way you don't expect, Were it the ending to a movie or a novel any of the three choices would have been fine.

Unfortunately, they were all terrible from a *gameplay* perspective, where you wanted your choices to have mattered and assembling an army to have made a difference. And yes, betrayed everything you'd been building.

They of course later patched in a fourth choice where you try to fight and just get wrecked so its the survivors 10,000 years later that get to try... and that's not a satisfying game experience either, even if it works as actual story.

Babylon 5 sort of ran into the same thing. For all that Sheriden united all the worlds together against Shadows and Vorlons, they couldn't actually fight that battle and win, the millions of years in tech difference were too strong. It took a *different* non combat solution to end the war.

[Winter]

My biggest problem with the ending to ME3 was that no matter which ending you picked, you were going against a core theme of the trilogy. If you pick destroy or synthesis you were agreeing that there was no way for organics and synthetics to get along, and if you picked control you basically agree that the Illusive Man was right and control is necessary.

The ending of ME3 has a million problems but that is the biggest one, the central theme of Mass Effect is strength through diversify but in the end it doesn't matter what path you chose the endings are always, You can't rely on anyone to help you, you are on your own and depending on others is a weakness that must be purged.

At least with DA2's ending the game tells you right away that its going to end badly no matter what you do so while it is also frustrating as Hell it was at least up front about the idea with you to begin with and does match the theme of the game, "Everyone is terrible and there are no in-betweens, die, Die, DIE!"

At least DA learned from its mistakes and went on to make a much better game with DAI and while that game does have its flaws I do consider it a step up from what DA2 and ME3 were.

[Fixer]

Honestly I think the afterlife question is much more open than you realize. We only have Andraste's word for it that the Black City was ever the maker's Golden City and that tevinter mages corrupted it. Maybe that was just an allegory about hubris that got literalized and jarbled over the ages. Maybe there never was a golden city at all. With a lack of Ressurection spells, the people of Ferelden are just as in-the-dark about the afterlife as you and me.

I hadn't considered that. It's a good point.

Though I am willing to give Andraste some benefit of the doubt since her Ashes are holy enough to be a plot device.

My biggest problem with the ending to ME3 was that no matter which ending you picked, you were going against a core theme of the trilogy. If you pick destroy or synthesis you were agreeing that there was no way for organics and synthetics to get along, and if you picked control you basically agree that the Illusive Man was right and control is necessary.

The ending of ME3 has a million problems but that is the biggest one, the central theme of Mass Effect is strength through diversify but in the end it doesn't matter what path you chose the endings are always, You can't rely on anyone to help you, you are on your own and depending on others is a weakness that must be purged.

At least with DA2's ending the game tells you right away that its going to end badly no matter what you do so while it is also frustrating as Hell it was at least up front about the idea with you to begin with and does match the theme of the game, "Everyone is terrible and there are no in-betweens, die, Die, DIE!"

At least DA learned from its mistakes and went on to make a much better game with DAI and while that game does have its flaws I do consider it a step up from what DA2 and ME3 were.

I noticed early problems in ME3. The convenient plot device discovery. When the council asked me why I let the council die I couldn't answer "Because I didn't want to risk the safety of the galaxy in defeating Sovereign." I had to admit to intentionally killing the council, or apologise for intentionally killing the council.

Mass Effect 3's ending is fractally bad. As soon as you look closely at one one problem you see another new level of shitty writing and plot holes.

The Reapers supposedly are there to preserve life, though in the previous games it was made clear they were an eldritch horror that only cared about specific resources they could cull from "viable prospect" species.
Control is a solution that works, despite "convincing people they could control the reapers" was how Cerberus and a previous race the Protheans fought were both indoctrinated that way. Go put your hands on that exposed fuse-box Shepard. It'll totally work.
Synthesis says the only way to resolve conflict between organics and synthetics is to homogenise the entire galaxy without consent when Jaavik says your success was through the diversity of species fighting the Reapers.
The entire organics vs synthetics argument was one most people resolved a couple of hours ago.

It's sad because up until that point, the Mass Effect series was the one you'd point to as an example of great storytelling in interactive fiction. I still remember Chuck's comment that Mass Effect 2's profound emotional connection with characters and your own decisions was an argument for games as art.

[Gridlock]

Honestly I think the afterlife question is much more open than you realize. We only have Andraste's word for it that the Black City was ever the maker's Golden City and that tevinter mages corrupted it. Maybe that was just an allegory about hubris that got literalized and jarbled over the ages. Maybe there never was a golden city at all. With a lack of Ressurection spells, the people of Ferelden are just as in-the-dark about the afterlife as you and me.

There where a chance to really explore the whole myth of golden city, as Corypheus both in Legacy and Dragon age inqusition told a much different story than the chantry.

That yes they broke into the fade in physical form to seek the golden light, but all they found was an empty place filled with darkness and dead whispers.
So maybe the magisters didn´t create what created the darkspawn they only released it.