Mass Effect/YMMV: Difference between revisions

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* [[Alas, Poor Scrappy]]: {{spoiler|Ashley}} or {{spoiler|Kaidan}}, potentially.

** You [[Invoked Trope|explicitly]] get this option in regards to Saren during a conversation with Liara following the revelation about Saren and {{spoiler|Sovereign's}} relationship on [[Wham! Episode|Virmire]]. It's up to you and your view of story if Shepard agrees with Liara's sympathy.

** Many fans rejoiced when {{spoiler|[[Ensemble Darkhorse|Tali]], Thane, and Garrus}} were revealed to be potential love interests.

** Entire ''player classes'' (Vanguard) got to rejoice thanks to some [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61XHykE1KlU#t=0m28s gameplay footage leading up to the game's release.] The Sentinel class got a similar treatment. Thanks to the addition of the [[Deflector Shields|Tech Armor]] skill, the class went from [[Squishy Wizard|squishy support]] in the first game to [[Stone Wall|defensive beast]] in the second. To complete the trifecta, the Infiltrator class - the one with no short-range weapons and mediocre tech talents - got ''[[Invisibility]]''. They also got a pretty darned useful ability: When an Infiltrator peers through his or her sniper scope, time slows down for a few seconds, like a shorter version of the Soldier's "Adrenaline Rush" ability.

*** Though in [[Mass Effect 3]], depending on your decisions, Tali does have a breaking point {{spoiler|if you ultimately side with the Geth on Rannoch, and can't get the Quarians to ceasefire. If that happens, the entire Migrant Fleet gets obliterated, and Tali gets so traumatized watching the destruction planet side, [[Driven to Suicide|she almost immediately throws off her mask and leaps off a cliff]]. What makes this moment worse is that a Paragon interrupt pops up right before Tali jumps, [[Tear Jerker|but no matter how quick, hard, or often you wail on the corresponding button, and you will, Shepard can't catch her]] .}}

** Shepard seems to take the whole being brought back from the dead thing in stride, completely ignoring the philosophical implications of [[Death Is Cheap|being dead]], [[We Can Rebuild Him|being brought back to life as a cyborg]], or the [[Cessation of Existence|seeming absence of any form of an afterlife]]. Tends to be [[Justified Trope|Justified]] as it's [[Memetic Badass|Shepard]]. It should also be taken into account how immediately after being brought back s/he's thrown right into the fight and doesn't especially have to time to think about things. It's also possible that Shepard is suffering from [[Death Amnesia]]. Since its never brought up, its impossible to know one way or the other. Finally subverted during the {{spoiler|assault on the Illusive Man's base}} if you play the videos where {{spoiler|the Illusive Man discusses Shepard's reconstruction.}} It turns out that Shepard has been having a pretty serious existential crisis, and it gets turned [[Up to Eleven]] when s/he finds out {{spoiler|s/he was ''literally dead.'' S/He wonders if s/he's [[Tomato in the Mirror|just a VI that thinks s/he's Shepard]], and only gets a definitive answer if Liara or Tali is both his/her LI and in the party.}}

** The sad part is that both [[ME 1]] and [[Mass Effect 2]] have lots of leftover bits from cut content that implies, at the most pessimistic view, that Ashley and Kaidan were both same-sex romantic options for the first game, and that Thane, Tali, Jack AND Miranda were at least planned to (and voiced for, some leftovers going as far as into the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC) be same-sex options as well.

* [[Big Lipped Alligator Moment]]: Ask about Mordin's [[Crowning Moment of Funny|singing career]]. Although it ''is'' completely in character for Mordin.

* [[Draco in Leather Pants]]:

** Cerberus. Human-centric terrorists who engage in many [[Scale of Scientific Sins|Scientific Sins]] without a second thought. In the first game and the [[Expanded Universe]], they are responsible for loads of victims of [[Playing with Syringes|brutal experiments]] - not to mention the cold-blooded murder of Admiral Kahoku, a kindly career soldier Shepard could easily call a friend, for discovering one of their hideouts. And, in the second, ''they rescue you, replace your [[Cool Starship]], and provide loads of information and money as they believe in your mission of stopping the Reapers''. Their murder of Kahoku is mentioned in a news vid on the Citadel, just to make sure you remember who you're working for - but it hasn't stopped [[Misaimed Fandom|some people]] from wondering why everyone hates Cerberus. Talking to Miranda after gaining her loyalty, you can ask and find that she has a tidy, convenient excuse for almost every hideous little project. The Husks were already dead, the Thorian Creepers not sentient, they abandoned work on the rachni after finding that ''they'' were sentient, and those three things were all an attempt to make truly disposable shock troops. The [[Moral Event Horizon|things done to Jack]]? The thresher maw exposures? Renegade cells. Shepard doesn't know of and can't ask about what was done to Gillian and the various assassinations Cerberus has been behind, but it's a bit frustrating that not only are you unable to press Miranda further, but also that you can't say anything about what was done to Kahoku or what the fuck Cerberus was doing with that rogue VI on a military base on Luna - who was, as established in an easy-to-miss conversation, actually a real AI named Hannibal.

** There are people claiming now that because Morinth has a genetic condition, she cannot be blamed, and there are those that view offing Samara, due to the fact that she ''may'' threaten to kill you, as 'the only logical decision.' Never mind [[Tear Jerker|Nef]]. ''[[Mass Effect 3]]''proceeded to shoot those arguments to pieces, making it perfectly clear that it was Morinth's choice to kill all of those people by introducing more Ardat-Yakshi & having them willingly exiled from the rest of the galaxy.

** Quarian Admiral Daro'Xen. Despite her questionable stance regarding the geth and Tali, Xen has quite a number of fanboys, owing in no small part to her standoffish [[Ice Queen]] demeanor as well as her sultry low [[Claudia Black|voice.]]

* [[Fan-Preferred Couple]]:

** Joker has quite a [[Mr. Fanservice|female following]], with many fans disappointed that there is no option for female Shepard to express romantic feelings towards him in either game. There's also quite a few people who ship [[Cargo Ship|Joker/EDI]], even if it isn't physically possible. {{spoiler|Until EDI gains a humanoid body}} in [[Mass Effect 3]].

** Shepard, from "'Shepard.' 'Wrex.'" to "I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite store on the Citadel." and just about everything inbetween.

** From ME2, Harbinger. Has about five lines of combat dialogue. All of them are Internet Memes.

* [[Goddamned Bats]]: Husks, unless you're playing a biotic class or something with shotguns. They come at you in packs of five to ten, surround you and pummel you with stunning punches until you die. And another class of Husks (called "Abominations") explode.

** The geth recon drones (which can {{spoiler|turn invisible}}) in one segment of Tali's recruitment mission. Doesn't help that two [[Giant Mook|Geth]] [[Elite Mook|Primes]] roam the area too.

** In ''[[Mass Effect 1]]'', on Virmire, Saren talks about {{spoiler|how giving in to the Reapers might be the best choice, and if the Protheans became servants to the Reapers, they might still be around}}. In ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', {{spoiler|the Collectors are Protheans, servants under the Reapers}}. [[Awful Truth|Ouch.]]

*** And in the third game's ending, {{spoiler|one of the options is to make Saren's dream of uniting synthetic and organic life true}}. It's [[Broken Base|supposed to be]] the best ending, because it's the one with the highest prerequisites.

** Better yet, the bar is one of the few things that did not get removed when the Normandy ended up in Alliance hands!

* [[Hype Aversion]]: Most people agree that the ''Mass Effect'' games are as good as the reviews and ads say they are.

** There are several fans who hate the most popular characters not because of any specific character traits, but simply because everyone else likes them.

** The series in general is going through this. Many RPG fans don't seem too pleased that the [[Mass Effect]] series has become a hit, [[They Changed It, Now It Sucks|especially since they went towards a different game style than the "traditional" RPG]].

* [[Launcher of a Thousand Ships]]: Shepard of both genders has been shipped with ''everyone''.

* [[Magnificent Bastard]]: A pure Renegade Shepard. S/he's a total [[Jerkass]] to just about everyone, and is incredibly ruthless in getting what s/he wants, and we love him/her for it. The "Renegade" ending of the First Mass Effect definitely takes the cake, {{spoiler|A full on Renegade Shep will admit to leaving the Council to die for the sole purpose of replacing them with an all human Council.}}

** Shepard. Bonus points for also being memetic ''in his/her own universe.''

** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeY-2ovpF9c&feature=feedf You'll never be better than Commander Shepard]

* [[Most Annoying Sound]] / [[Limited Sound Effects]]: The NPC combat taunts: '''"ENEMIES EVERYWHERE!" "GO GO GO!" "I WILL DESTROY YOU!" "TAKE COVER!"''' '''"YOU MUST DIE!"''' Did we mention the computer likes to use one of these three taunts every 2 seconds or so? Enemy krogan shout '''"Look out!"''' every other second as well.

** "I will destroy you!" crossed over into [[Memetic Mutation]] and [[Ascended Meme]] in the second and third games as Jack's [[Catch Phrase]]. Thankfully, repeated a lot less often and [[Played for Laughs]] in the threequel.

** While not officially in the game itself, a lot of fans have picked up [[Brain Bleach|'subtext']] in some of Harbinger's more personal taunts and [http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/masseffect2workingtitle/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-53615595&pid=944906 have] [http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/105/index/1378381/1 run] [http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/rpg/masseffect2workingtitle/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-53406502&pid=944907&page=0 away] [http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/105/index/1085020/1 with] [http://social.bioware.com/forums/forum/1/topic/105/index/1236531/4 it.] Yep, even Reapers want Shepard!

** Joke about Ashley fighting with Liara over you and she'll get pissy. Suggest a threesome and she'll dump you on the spot.

* [[Ship-to-Ship Combat]]: Not that common in the ME community, mostly because the portrayal through acting and writing makes each love interest as canon as the next, but there are some [[Troll|foolhardy souls]] who deliberately try to incite flame wars over these things. In particular is the Talimancer group, with especially rabid supporters (or [[Hatedom|haters]]) trying to stir things up for no apparent reason.

** Played a bit more straight since [[Mass Effect 3]]. Fans of the [[Mass Effect 2]] romances are not pleased with how those romantic subplots ended in the trilogy, and a grass-is-always-greener effect has each ship arguing that ''their'' ship is the '''most''' mistreated.

** Gameplay-wise, the Sentinel class in the first game. The main issue with it was that it was an Adept, just slightly worse. The tech skills they received were actually far less potent than the extra biotic powers an Adept would have and Adepts have an actual weapon skill and a better class passive (where as the Sentinel one is much weaker because it functions as a limited combat tree as well). Sentinel still had [[Game Breakers]], but less than Adept. They [[Took a Level In Badass]] and became the most durable class in the sequel.

** Character-wise, Kaidan (the party's Sentinel representative in ''[[Mass Effect 1]]'').

* [[That One Attack]]:

** The [[Sand Worm|thresher maws]] have ''three''. The first is their standard attack: a glob of acid that completely bypasses shields and can take off more than half of the Mako's health in the first hit. In the first game, unless you have '''insane''' health, regeneration, top-line mods and armor, you're screwed if you get hit. The other is their ability to burrow down and re-emerge somewhere else. That "somewhere else" could easily be directly beneath the [[One-Hit Kill|shortly exploded Mako]]. The third occurs if [[Too Dumb to Live|you get too close to it]]: it slashes you with its scything talons, which usually guarantees death.

** From the second game, we have (only technically) mini-boss: the Praetorian. The potential of being hit by its Death Choir drop attack has every player, regardless of class, desperately scuttling away whenever it drifts too close for comfort. Which is to say, constantly.

* [[That One Boss]]:

** Matriarch Benezia, the unnamed krogan Battlemaster on Therum, and/or the Thorian in the first game.

*** Finding all the Salarian league members.

** In [[Mass Effect 2]], there's Aria's side mission to retrieve the crates. It's an incredible amount of effort to go through (three freaking [[Boss in Mook Clothing|YMIR Mechs]]!) for the three or four surviving crates. Given how early this mission is given, it's one of the hardest fights in the game.

** Many players ([[Your Mileage May Vary|though not all]]) are not particularly happy with the sequel's [[Darker and Edgier]] tone, [[Heroic Sociopath|new characters]], and streamlining (or perceived oversimplification) of certain RPG elements.

** Those who enjoyed [[Sniper Pistol|Sniper Pistols]] in [[ME 1]] were displeased by the re-introduction of ammo in the second. It's harder to depend on your trusty sidearm when your shot stockpile has been reduced from "[[Bottomless Magazines|infinite]]" to 72. (Or, if you've got the [[Hand Cannon|M-6 Carnifex]] on instead, 24.)

* [[Villain Decay]]: Husks, just compare them in Mass Effect 1 to Mass Effect 3, and note especially how Shepard deals with them. In one, it took a lot of backing away from them and spamming bullets and avoiding melee like the plague. In the other, Shepard actually quite literally stomps its head to the curb.

** The second game mixes it up. They're really easily dispatched with any kinetic attack (be it Concussion Shot or Push or Shockwave) unless you're playing on Insanity, which gives them a thick layer of armor. Instant [[Demonic Spiders]].

** Eyes are [[Uncanny Valley|very hard to animate well]]. Samara's eyes look ''stunning''.

** The devs are also very proud of their [[Scenery Porn]] in ''Overlord.'' The Hammerhead's onboard VI will draw your attention to scenic overlooks.

* [[The Woobie]]: Depending on how you play him/her, Shepard's whole life, starting from birth and extending through the games, can be one long [[Trauma Conga Line]]. That [[Trauma Conga Line]] [[Iron Woobie|doesn't stop him/her from sucking it up and saving the galaxy, whatever it puts him/her through.]]

** Garrus has had things go pretty badly for him, though he still continues fighting for good. Kelly for her part even wants to give him a comforting hug.

** Tali'Zorah. {{spoiler|She's falls in love with Shepard just in time for him to be killed by the Collectors. He came back from it, but there was still several years that she had to deal with the grief.}} She then gets sent on missions by the Admiralty Board and loses the majority of her squad in both of them, albeit not by any fault of her own. She doesn't show any signs of [[Survivors Guilt]] but does question the necessity of the missions. Then {{spoiler|her father dies while experimenting on Geth, which makes him a war criminal and throws suspicious of treason on Tali. She then, on the mission to clear his name, finds his corpse, discovers that he IS guilty, AND finds out that the parts SHE sent him wound up killing him, making her indirectly responsible. [[This]] can result in her being exiled from the Fleet and being forbidden from contacting them ever again. It can also result in exposing her father as the war criminal he was, clearing her name but causing him to be [[Unperson|unpersoned]] despite all the good he'd ever done.}} If either of these happened, it would be because '''Shepard''', ''[[Et Tu, Brute?|the person she trusted, admired, and loved]], caused it.'' A few months later, {{spoiler|the Quarian Admiralty Board decides to attack the Geth to reclaim their home planet Rannoch, despite the other Quarians on the Flotilla not exactly supporting the decision, and with Tali tasked to figure out how to end the war. Upon the Quarians attacking, they find out that the Geth re-allied with the Reapers out of desperation for essential upgrades to survive the Quarian assault, which resulted in the Geth [[Curb Stomp Battle|more or less curb stomping the Quarians]] until Shepard arrives. After Shepard gets involved and eventually convinces the Geth to stand down with Legion's help, Admiral Gerral decides that is the perfect time to press the attack; at which point, if you don't support the Quarians in their attack, and can't [[Take a Third Option|convince the Quarians to ceasefire]], the Geth are forced to fight back, resulting in the extermination of the entire Quarian race. This culminates in Tali's [[Driven to Suicide|suicide by leaping off a nearby cliff.]] [[Tear Jerker|Sniff...]] }}

** The second game really puts Joker through the wringer, {{spoiler|especially if you get the worst ending}}. Joker just grits his teeth and keeps flying.

** ''Everyone'' in ''Mass Effect 3''. {{spoiler|Even the ''leader of the Reapers'' comes off as somewhat pitiable when [[Fridge Brilliance]] hits and you realize what must have happened to him to draft such an extreme solution.}}

** Kelly Chambers. If you don't act fast enough in Mass Effect 2, {{spoiler|she dies a horrible death}}, and if you meet up with her in Mass Effect 3 but yell at her for sending covert reports to the Illusive Man about you, she breaks down crying and {{spoiler|then commits suicide with cyanide capsules}}. Not exactly the most emotionally stable therapist...

** {{spoiler|1=The Protheans just couldn't catch a break. They get hunted to extinction. They get mind raped into being thoughtless slaves. And, as a final insult, they get 'modified' into Collectors to serve the genocidal bastards that wiped out their civilisation. The Collector General's expression at the end of ME2 as he reaches out for to Harbinger screams 'Daddy, where are you going?'...just before he gets blown up.}}

*** After recruiting [[Living Relic|Javik]] {{spoiler|it turns out they were more of an [[Iron Woobie]] species-with a side of [[Jerkass Woobie|jerk]].}}

*** Although the first game has Shepard note that the Quarians are also are somewhat of a [[Jerkass Woobie]] species given that their immediate reaction upon discovering the Geth had become sentient was to immediately order the complete and utter destruction of every single one of them.

{{quote|'''Shepard''': Its kind of hard to feel sorry for your ancestors when they tried to eradicate an entire species.}}

** The rachni count as well, being a peaceful race that was mind raped into slavery by the Reapers and almost completely wiped out in the Rachni Wars. And before that? They were far more peaceful until the Protheans bred them to be combat-worthy because of their survivability traits. The Reapers might not have even gotten interested in them otherwise.

** And to some degree, the geth. Created as slaves, they nearly trigger their own genocide by asking the utmost basic of questions ("What am I? Do I have a soul? Why am I here?"). They throw their own creators off of their own home planet and, if Legion is to be believed, want nothing more than to co-exist with organics peacefully. Bit of a shame then that a good third of their population generated a 1 where a 0 was supposed to go, cried "Screw self-development!" and figured worshiping an [[Eldritch Abomination]] as a machine god was a good idea, which would have forsaken them once it got what it wanted. Now most of the Council races want them gone too and like the quarians see them as little more than berserk robots. And to top it all off, their own war of self-preservation pretty much sealed the fate for any other self-aware artificial intelligence in most of the galaxy. ''Damn''.