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Airaku on 02 February 2017
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SvennoJ said:
                                         

It started with ME2. First of all I had to start with a generic origin story as I had lost my ME1 save due to rrod. ME2 focused more on the shooter aspect which I wasn't really into, and the universe seemed to be filled with warehouse like structures containing chest high walls. The story parts were still good, but the gameplay became tedious to me rather than fun. The planet scanning mini game was horrible, so I skipped it. The game punished me for that by killing one of my favorite characters on approach to the final mission without any choice in the matter. Apart from going all the way back and be forced to do the stupid mini game. Well F that. I finished the game and deleted my save, wasn't happy with it.

When I heard there was a story focused mode in ME3 I was interested again. However the demo made it clear that it was mostly a joke, merely turning the difficulty down instead of removing the repetitive corridor shootouts. The demo looked just like a shooter to me, more chest high walls, lot more fighting with cutscenes. Perhaps a bad choice of demo, but if that was what they wanted to present the game with, then it wasn't for me. That plus more going around about another meta mini game that might be required for a good ending and ofcourse all the uproar over the ending itself.

When everything had settled down I figured I would play the trilogy one day in a remaster, not remembering much of what was going on anymore anyway. The remaster is still not here, and frankly, going through all those tedious battle sequences doesn't sound all that enticing. ME1 was just right in the action vs exploration balance for me. ME2 wasn't and ME3 looked even more action focused. Plus my backlog has only grown since then, there are better things to play now.

And all those things about the story and ME universe, it was allright yet all a bit cliche. I've been reading sci-fi all my life so to me it was mostly a reminder of how limited world building story telling is in games. ME1 had a really promising start, yet the second one dropped the ball already.

That's a very interesting story. I also had an RRoD before ME2 came out and lost all my save data. I was really upset about this, though ironically it all played out for me with my story. The intro of ME2 where Shepard basically dies and is revived was kind of a beautiful metaphor of that experience for me. I made some alters to my characters appearance, while making other things the same. I swapped from Renegade to Paragon and other things. In retrospect fitted my experience with the story to my RRoD and it was quite poetic for me. So I truly do understand your frustration with that, but you got to make that stuff work. It's not BioWare's fault that Microsoft sold us faulty hardware...

I agree that the mining mini game was boring. I've spoken out on that before. Thankfully it was only really prominent in ME2. Andromeda will see the return of planetary exploration in the new version of the Mako like ME1 had. Something that I am really excited for. It will also have a new mechanic of scanning objects like you can do in Metroid Prime.

As for the ME3 demo. That sounds interesting. I would argue that ME2 is by far the easiest game in the series! ME3 is definitely a jump in difficulty over ME2. Much closer to ME1, I couldn't really say which of the two is harder to be honest. ME3 had encounters that were well designed that were hard for some classes, while easier for another. It's interesting to hear other people say what part was difficult for them in ME3 because their answer seems to vary with their class and playstyle. I've heard many people actually state that ME3 is by far the hardest game in the series. Though I suppose there are parts that would top ME1 thanks to the A.I. and the placements. ME2 on the other hand has maybe one difficult part in the whole game imho. It was really easy.
So I did go and look up the demo. Apparently it's the first mission (Vancouver) which is more of a cinematic escape experience. Yeah... the enemies don't really do much against you as it's a tutorial level. The other level is the beginning part of the Salarian world which wasn't a difficult level, but it was very engaging and emotional in terms of story. Lots of tears were shed there. I for one doubt the demo gets that far in the level. It appears that those weren't really good showcases. They should have gone with the Academy mission for the demo. Hmmm, well... I can't argue with your argument about the demo giving a good taste of the gameplay.
As for the ME3 demo. That sounds interesting. I would argue that ME2 is by far the easiest game in the series! ME3 is defaintely a jump in difficulty over ME2. Much closer to ME1, I couldn't really say which of the two is harder to be honest. ME3 had encounters that were well designed that were hard for some classes, while easier for another. It's interesting to hear other people say what part was difficult for them in ME3 because their answer seems to vairy with their class and playstyle. I've heard many people actaully state that ME3 is by far the hardest game in the series. Though I suppose there are parts that would top ME1 thanks to the A.I. and the placements. ME2 on the other hand has maybe one difficult part in the whole game imho. It was really easy.
So I did go and look up the demo. Apparently it's the first mission (Vancouver) which is more of a cinamatic escape experince. Yeah... the enemies don't really do much against you as it's a turtorial level. The other level is the begining part of the Salarian world which wasn't a difficult level, but it was very engaging and emotional in terms of story. Lots of tears were shed there. I for one doubt the demo gets that far in the level. It appears that those weren't really good showcases. They should have gone with the Academy mission for the demo. Hmmm, well... I can't argue with your arguement about the demo giving a good taste of the gameplay.