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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1806 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 23, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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ME2 and 3 had high production values, but were mostly my little pony friendship is magic simulators with non equestrian characters.

Wild take. Mass Effect 3 had its issues, but Mass Effect 2 was outstanding.

ME2 had a main story which railroaded you into working with one of the villain factions, in which characters from the first game continually acted like idiots in order to "justify" you having to work with the space Nazis, and which didn't even give you options to try to work to undermine them from within. It did nothing to advance the overall plot of the series (causing serious problems for ME3), and made serious tonal errors with the main villains (the Reapers are Lovevraftian gods, who see mortals as insects, and yet Harbinger not only notices Shepard but has personal antagonism towards him/her). It also dumbed down the game mechanics so hard that the game wasn't even really an RPG any more, it was just a shooter with a very extensive story and dialogue.

The characters were (mostly) well written (except when they had to get the stupid bug to "force" you into working with Cerberus), and the loyalty missions were (mostly) well executed. But the game was a whole was not outstanding. It had serious problems, was a big step down from the first game, and was the start of Bioware's decline.

Outstanding-ly stupid?

What exactly was outstanding? The stupid story? The destruction of the worldbuilding of part 1? The mediocre gameplay? The totally irrelevant paragon system? The humanoid reaver?

The only quality thing was the writing in the loyalty missions.

The only quality thing was the writing in the loyalty missions.

That's part of the tragedy: the loyalty and recruitment missions outnumber the main plot missions, and are far superior... but unlike the loyalty missions, you can never choose to skip the main plot on a playthrough.

ME2's characters and sidequests were outstanding. The main storyline and Cerberus and the Illusive Man? Not so much.

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