If Mass Effect: Andromeda doesn't have a cheesy line about looking for odd new species and governments, bravely travelling where nobody has ever been.

Eh, the only bad thing about ME3 was the ending, which was only that way due to time limitations, which they fixed soon after.

@Fangirlsarah1996: Nah, the writing completely fell apart. Bad cutscenes are the result of time limitations. Failed writing happens months in advance.

@Sicarium: I didn't see anything wrong with the story, where are you getting this from? Care to share an example?

@Fangirlsarah1996: I'm getting this from playing it.

The entire narrative about synthetic vs organic being inevitable was completely shot to hell if you got the Geth to side with you.

If the Catalyst was an advanced AI, packaged as a cliched god-child, tied into all the Reaper tech, there wouldn't be any reason for Sovereign to show up in ME1. The Catalyst could've activated everything from it's side.

The Catalyst itself was a lazy mechanism Bioware brought in to disregard every decision you made in actual gameplay. No matter what you did, you were still forced into one of three decisions that led to the same outcomes. You just got a different color in the cutscene. And, like I said, the writing was done months in advance, the major story point was more like years. Bioware developed the game as a trilogy from the beginning, which means they knew what was going to happen before ME2 came out. The Catalyst was part of that, they wrote it years before ME3 hit the shelves.

Those are just a few examples. There's quite a few more. The overall gist, their writing completely fell apart.

@Sicarium: Well nobody says the Geth wouldn't try and "Do their thing" after the Reapers were defeated, Shepard just knows they'd help because common enemy and all that, even if you saved the Quarians who says they wouldn't get annoyed with that relationship a second time.

I'd assume Sovereign was supposed to be more of a "Yeah guys it's all clear" kind of function in the Reaper fleet, y'know, to make sure that nothing went wrong, since the "signal" wasn't sent in the Prothian cycle, he was left behind to do "manual control" and such, plus the Reaper god AI thing was connected to the Reapers, not their tech (For some reason, seriously remember in Arrival with that relic thing? Being basically a signal booster.)

I'll give you that, the ending was a big shitshow, at least they added something to it later (With free DLC, can you imagine? EA letting them make that!)

@Fangirlsarah1996: True, but it at least shows conflict isn't necessarily always inevitable, which completely invalidates the inevitability argument.

Hmm, gonna go with no on the one. The Catalyst could've easily manually triggered the signal, preventing the Reapers from ever having to show up until they were ready. If they're an advanced AI looking to cull organic life in the most efficient way possible, that means not giving that organic life a heads up.

And yeah, a free DLC from EA was huge. But don't forget the universal scorn Bioware was getting for that fucktastic fail of an ending.

I'm not telling you to hate ME or not buy MEA. I just have zero faith that Bioware can actually follow through on storyline anymore.

@Sicarium: You could always just kill them all...that works too.

It was explained that the keepers were supposed to do a thing to turn the Citadel relay on (The best invasion point, it's like if Russia went to war with the US and their entire army teleport to Washington DC in seconds) plus given how the Turian councillor treated the story, it wasn't much of a heads up, if Sovereign hadn't been so much of a video game villain and brought Saran back from the dead then the Reapers would've won, that's it, simple.

Agreed, they made a huge series with a massive story and it just sort of ended, no boss fight like ME1/2 (Unless you count Marauder Shields, he shall be missed) it ended on a very Lost style ending, that a lot of people theorise just happened in Shepards head.

In the grand scheme of things though, I think they've learned their mistakes, plus this won't be a "standard" Mass Effect game, they've said the main dude(Or dudette) won't start famous like Shepard did, they'll be a nobody then become a somebody.

Plus there's the feeling of exploration, it was kinda "there" in the other games but never expanded on, that's the reason for the Trek pun in the title.

@Fangirlsarah1996: Yeah, and the Catalyst aboard Citadel controlled the Keepers. That makes Sovereign redundant and foolish too. It was a heads up in the sense that Shephard was out there preparing and triggered the dudes in ME2 (Collectors?) which triggered the early invasion attempt in the ME2 DLC, which...etc, etc.

Maybe, but after ME3 and DA2, I'm going to need more convincing.

We'll see. Hopefully their idea of exploring is more than launching probes at a circle on the screen this time.

@Sicarium: I think the Collectors were Harbingers pet project, because they don't show up in the Reaper fleet after that.

Perhaps the Reaper fleet (Since Sovereign said each of us is a nation, which leads me to think each "ship" is independent) is largely unorganised, think about it, have you ever seen the Reapers use actual tactics ever?

I've never played Dragon Age...well...I played Inquisition, but the opening turned me off (Getting yelled at for causing something I never knew about might be good in film, but not in gaming)

Well it does look like you can actually go down on planets now, like the old Mass Effect and there's going to be more stuff on planets, y'know, apart from occasional piles of trash, bits of rock and gang hideouts.

@Fangirlsarah1996: I took them to be more of a force left behind to do the Reaper's dirty work; and that they all died at the end of ME2 when the station was destroyed or they were purged when the station was captured.

Nah, they used tactics. They all stuck together outside the galaxy. They used husks based on the species they were targeting to demoralize that species. They wiped out defensive stations before moving on capital planets. They took control of and organized the Geth into a battle fleet. Etc.

Yeah that whole sequence was stupid in DAI, and it was a leftover from DA2.

@Sicarium: Yeah, but Harbinger was the only one who chatted with them, I think he just did stuff when the others weren't looking.

Oh so I see they all studied psychology but not military tactics, I mean sure they made their army look mean (The Geth were probably used cause everyone knows how dangerous they are or something) but they didn't really do anything "smart" did they? They kinda just did sweeping strikes and that's it.

Then they made me the boss, didn't really make much sense :/

@Fangirlsarah1996: My take was always that the Reapers were a linked AI capable of separate thought processes. Meaning Harbinger, and Sovereign, could individually speak for all Reapers at the same time.

Psychology is a tactic, it's how you wage the mental aspect of war. The Reapers were all about utterly dominating an opponent, crushing them with superior intellect and technology before the victim could mount a response. That was their overall tactic.

That's the thing, the Reapers never did any one thing that was smart. It was all just superior, like they were always just one level higher in thinking. It was a brilliant enemy and fantastic writing. Until Bioware fucked it all up.

@Sicarium: They seemed oddly unique, when Sovereign said "Each of us is a nation" I'd assume each is a network in and of themselves, of course bound by programming and such, but otherwise individual, it's just if a group of individuals do the same task the same way for millions of years, they'd seem less individual.

I know that's a tactic, but I'm talking military tactics, they don't form blockades unless it's something they really super need, they don't flank or take the high ground, their tactics are Zerg rush and thats it.

Well...the Reapers always were arrogant, they never stopped...perhaps that's why they don't use military tactics, because they could just rush them and win every time 🤔

@Fangirlsarah1996: That's not wrong. Think of individual networks linked by an internet. That's the Reapers.

I get what you're saying, but tactics are situational. If you've got 1,000 troops armed with rifles, you don't bother trying to circle and flank a dozen guys with knives. You just shoot them. That is your tactic, pretty much like a zerg.

@Sicarium: It's basically Facebook, except everyone ignores eachother most of the time and are kilometer long spaceships.

They don't care about their troops because they can just turn civilians into more, it's not like they lose, they just get interrupted.