Right, so this is the part where I say I’ve beat the game and give you guys my final thoughts. Now I was going to be sarcastic and said “the game was great all around!” (and then say the truth immediately after).
Being spoiler-free as possible, the game has been somewhat of an emotional rollercoaster for me. After one part of the story arc, I started to wonder if this was worth fighting for. And then I was reminded of the outposts that were set up (because of my actions in the game). And this, is why I fight. That and the team I built up who’s ready for whatever adventures that I’m ready for.
As Joker said in Mass Effect 2: “We’re your team, Commander.” And that puts a small tear to my eye everytime I hear that.
The final boss ‘fight’ was more of a test of patience. It wasn’t Ryder VS overpowered final boss, but being able to shoot while running (and hearing the boss occasionally tell me that everything I love will burn.. yadda yadda yadda). And then the credits roll once the boss dies and the hero says his ‘final’ words. I expected a cutscene of Ryder thanking his team, then they get the itch to go back on the Tempest, fly off somewhere, and then the game would tell me that I’ve unlocked some new game mode for completing fully and stuff.
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However, that wasn’t the case. There was still a bit of gameplay left (not much, but it didn’t make me feel ’empty’ as I usually do after completing a game). It rewards you, in a way, for getting 100% viability on all worlds with outposts. You just have to collect it.
Honestly, I expected Viability to be like a Daily in WoW, and not rewarded for working on the main missions and major side missions (that really aren’t bad at all. Infact, most of them were interesting). Not even the ‘Task:’ missions were required to gain 100%. Gotta love optional missions (especially ones based around collection/destroy).
So…my final thoughts before I wrap this up and send it back to Gamefly. First off, I’m glad I was able to play this and just see if all of these game-breaking bugs people have been talking about, are true (instead of taking more drastic measures to acquire it). All and all, the story was pretty good (and it meshed in with Mass Effect 3 quite well). There were a few loopholes, such as how we went for “enemy that wants to kill us for no reason” to “They’re called ‘Kett'”. There are others, but I can’t reveal them without spoilers.
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There’s also a semi-hole, of some planets on the Heleus Cluster with the descriptions claiming “Milky Way scientists saw this planet”. Did they really have a telescope big enough to look inside of the galaxy? Also, it’s to be of note how every entry states “this planet was shown as beautiful before, but now it’s not”. Yet this isn’t surprising. Infact, it’s real world science of having a telescope that can peer into a galaxy. You’re looking back in time (before the Scourge). This is why it looks nice, yet it really isn’t.
This might also be the reason why Alec thought Habitat 7 was a golden world. He claimed they used “long range scanners”. Though, just how long range are we talking? If it’s the Milky Way, then it makes sense. But if it’s the empty space between the two galaxies, he should’ve known it wasn’t a golden world (because of the toxic atmosphere). The Scourge fucked with it (as it did with most golden worlds), which made it uninhabitable.
But really, I feel this whole thing was nothing but a cliche to get the player character to be the Pathfinder (and make it look like a tragic accident). That, or bad writing on Bioware’s part. But I guess it beats the “father struck by gunfire and makes kid their successor before dying” cliche.
Now for the smaller things. The credits alone, I think this is the first time in history that you can actually pause and/or fast-forward them. Gave me a bit of a chuckle.
Also, I wonder what happened to this claim that we can use points to help build the Nexus. Perhaps this got scrapped as it was too frustrating of a task?
As for bugs (which have been what’s made this game turn into a meme), I’ve only seen a few of the ones that have been shown on a video before (going through a door during a cutscene and stuff like that). Also, since visiting Kadara, I’ve been getting these strange, brief FPS drops. Happens during cutscenes, dialog, even normal play. And this has persisted since.
At least, all of the hilarious bone breaking head movements have been fixed. Though there was this one thing that I was talking to Addison through the Tempest’s VidCom, and she was looking off to the side while talking to me.
There was also this bug where after accessing the AVP thingy and collecting stuff (and then talking to someone), it gets stuck to the screen, requiring a reload of the save to fix.
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And so…there we go. I think this has been a very, very long time since I’ve done a “X completed, thoughts” blog post without having to hide spoilers. Though I feel it’s because, nothing felt really memorial enough to talk about. There’s no need to do any theorycrafting.
I just hope Bioware has learned from the feedback they got, and will apply it in any future DLC. I’d hate for this to die off like this; not from the way they ended it (as it literally screams “we got a DLC coming”). Plus, EA published this game. I think that’s positive proof we got an upcoming DLC to look forward to.
I hope it goes over of where the Kett came from, and maybe do battle against the high-ranking ones. This to me, still has a plot hole. We still don’t know where the Kett Homeworld is (or even if they have one).