#me2 critical

[mass-effect-anonymous]

CONFESSION:

I've always disliked the idea of Shepard being dead - and then a hate group bringing them back. Whats worse, Liara, who Shep can be romatically involved with, cooperated with the group to get their remains to the Lazarus Research Station. It just seems such a strange solution for 'we need time to pass between the titles and need a good reason for Shep to be away from all their friends and not know what happened to any of them or what is going on'

And its not like the project is really explored either. Like there are so few implications drawn from it. Shep is asked about some things from the last game (To confirm some game choices) and then thats that. Sure I know the whole thing comes back in the DLC - but then its treated as a one off as well. I mean imagine if Shep was plagued by the doubts of them being a clone as well - or not knowing if they came back right.

You are told Shep is full of implants now - but you literally have the choice to erase the scars forever and never worry about it again! I just wish this was explored more. Like, it kind of reminds me of the body horror of Aliens: Resurrection where Ripley (the galaxy's savior) comes back wrong. How about reaper tec being used in bringing Shep back? Or discovering a cloning facility at the Colleactors ship? There's just so much that could have been done aside of just 'They died and came back like jesus'...

It's such a shame BioWare didnt really choose to explore this further.

[omegastation]

their friendship is everything

from the way he makes them join the dancefloor, her comment about him not knowing how to dance, his little smile, the way they proceed to dance anyway

me2 is so bad regarding mshep&jack, and this makes things so much better. i love them like this

[shepardlives]

I’m going to make a longer post about this later but Lair of the Shadow Broker should’ve been about Liara coming to terms with her mother’s death and her legacy

Edit: thoughts on this hypothetical under the cut

[solstheimtxt]

So i resumed my me2 insanity pt:

Squaddies are absolute ass no matter who you bring, so i googles it and apprently the best thing to do is literally have them wait back a bit, and just solo the whole mission and use their powers as needed

✌️😭✌️ fuck me2 man this shit sucks can the squadmates pls just get out of the line of bullet fire??

So far my pt has been:

>keep squaddies back, run forward to cover. Use squaddies powers, use combat drone, get a few shots in as needed, rinse and repeat

[miyku]

i will never move away from this .....

[lizzybeeee]

DATV explaining the 'Regret Prison'

A REGRET PRISON IS STUPID AND I'M TIRED OF PRETENDING THAT ITS NOT

TL;DR: a prison can serve as a metaphor but it shouldn't be entirely comprised of a metaphor.

From what I understood from what the game gave us: Solas has made a new prison to move the God's too - since bringing down the veil would free them from the Black City. This new prison is separate(?) from the fade or so far removed/contained that bringing down the veil would not compromise it...apparently. We interrupt his ritual, Solas gets sucked into the new prison he made, and the elven gods are free.

When Rook gets kicked into the fade they're physically there - which means it's a physical place in the fade, like how it was a mixture of physical/thought when we entered it in DAI. Which makes sense - the gods are real and living beings, they need to be in a place, there must be some aspect of physicality to it.

Alright, cool, it's a Black City 2.0 - I assume it's better defended to prevent people breaking in/out again?

NOPE.

We get there and it's a 'regret prison'?? It's tied to the regrets of those within it? Composed of regrets??? Solas had to wait for the right moment for Rook to be sufficiently 'full of regret' that they could switch places?

So is the prison tied to Solas's regrets? If so, how can Rook escape? The prison seems to work around the idea that it relies on the regrets of the person it's holding to work - which is how/why Rook was able to be trapped and later free themselves (along with whatever remains of the team apparently being able to do something on their end, not that we hear about it).

WHICH IS STUPID!

Are you telling me the prison intended to hold to megalomaniac elven gods was going to imprison them based on their own regrets? Is Solas assuming that Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain are as self-pitying as he is? They'd break out quicker than Rook did! He made a time out corner for the elven gods to sit in and gave them an out if they reflected on their emotions/regrets or decided that they don't regret what they did. Elgar'nan, a spirit of tyranny, is not going to 'regret' his actions - he is going to justify them by telling himself and others that he knows what's best.

We can come across some of Solas's regrets in the prison if you run around a bit and explore:

Remnant of Failure - talking about the orb from Inquisition.

Remnant of Parting - talking about Mythal

Remnant of Reflection - more vague, talking about the Titans I believe.

So maybe he altered it - maybe he intended the prison to be 'locked' with his own regrets because after a millennia of having a pity party he still can't bring himself to self-reflect and look to the future. But what if Solas died? Or if his guilt lessened - would it diminish the strength of the regret prison?

We already have pre-established lore (though DATV has shown they don't really give a crap tbh) that once the being that has claimed/altered an area of the fade is slain, it's influence diminishes both in and outside of the fade. So if the prison was tied to his regrets then it would require Solas to basically live forever to keep it stable - especially if he brought down the veil and removed the one barrier that kept the world and the fade apart.

Rook and Solas needed some assistance to exit - but it doesn't seem like it was much! Solas used his dagger and Rook just...got out through a fade tear? This is Solas's 'more secure' second prison? It has a worse track record than the Black City! If Rook - who is not an elven god - managed to escape the regret prison what is to stop anyone else from breaking in and out of the prison?

And what did Solas intend to do with the blight - the bulk of which is apparently in the black city?? If bringing down the Veil would free the gods in the black city doesn't that mean that the blight would also be released?! Did he have a plan? Why does he go fully ahead with bringing down the veil at the end if the black city is still there and filled with blight?!

I get it: the 'regret prison' is a metaphor for how Solas holds onto the past and how Rook can move past their regrets and grow. He's trapped by the past - it's a prison. Cool. But this prison is supposed to by a physical place to contain the gods - not just to solely contain Solas. The mission is literally called 'A Cage for Gods'.

The Black City is an actual place that's so far out of reach of anywhere else in the fade that no mage can ever reach it while in dreams - let alone physically, which was only done once and took tremendous effort/blood sacrifices. It made sense - it was cool to see floating in the sky in DAO!

Though it's not said specifically, it's strongly implied that Arlathan is the Black City. You can see in the concept art that floating elven city is exactly the same as the black city in DAO! It's this foreboding thing just lurking in the sky - a constant reminder of the sin that led to the horrors of the blights and darkspawn. A real place with lore and history that also serves as a metaphor for the hubris and destruction of those who call themselves gods and act as tyrants -> for both the evanuris and the magisters.

I WANT TO UNDERSTAND THIS BIOWARE!

WHAT IS THIS KINGDOM HEARTS NONSENSE???!!

[turbo-virgins]

Some special predictions for the upcoming mass effect game based on my veilguard experience 🥰

The Reapers are back except this time they don’t follow any of the previously established lore and mechanics because *checks notes* um… the Leviathans.

The Reapers were created by the Leviathans and actually the Leviathans were being manipulated by some suspicious cloaked figures from a long time ago in a galaxy far far away…

The citadel was miraculously rebuilt after the events of ME3 but then got destroyed off screen via one line in a codex entry. No we're not sorry about it.

There will be no mentioning of the genophage. Anyone who mentions the genophage will be taken out back and shot. You can tell the genophage was cured by the suspicious amount of baby krogan on the map that you CANNOT interact with under any circumstances. No we will not be exploring any potential socio-political fallout from this scenario.

We have opted to replace the renegade speech options with a series of HR approved counseling sessions.

All paragon and renegade reactions in cutscenes have been replaced with the ability for the player character to put their hands on their hips in a heroic pose and announce “Well, this is awkward…”

Don’t worry, we’ve included a blood dragon armor set.

[jadequarze]

Replaying ME2 Suicide Mission ost while drawing Imogen with a long coat inspired by the new ME trailer. In my silly little zone

[clericofshadows]

REGIS SHEPARD MASS EFFECT 2 OPENING THE KROGAN TANK

[transmasc-tabris]

People saying that Davrin and Lucianis are really mean to each other or that Neve is an angry bitch if you help Treviso or that Taash is mean for finding Emmrich weird... Wouldnt last an hour in the asylum where they raised me or whatever:

[princessshikky]

DAO: Sometimes sacrifices must be made for the good of the many. Your Warden might leave Redcliffe to be ravaged by the undead, let Branca have the Anvil of the Void, convince the werewolves to massacre a Dalish clan, side with the man who committed fratricide for the throne and plans to usurp the power, recruit a man who started a civil war in his own country and sold its citizens to slavery - all in the name of stopping the Blight.

DA2: Sometimes there is no good choice. Shit happens because of things that are outside of Hawke's control, and the best thing Hawke can do is try to manage the outcome.

ME2: Shepard literally has to genocide the batarians in order to delay the Reapers' arrival and buy some time for the galaxy to prepare for a war.

ME3: Sometimes sacrifices must be made for the good of the many. Shepard might lie to the crogan about curing the genophage in order to get the salarians' help, sacrifice either the geth or the quarians (or potentially both) and forcibly alter the bodies and minds of every living being in the galaxy.

DAI: Sometimes the best outcome is the one where you let that Orlesian empress be killed and help that elven rebel blackmail the new emperor into submission. Also, you may convince the future Divine that killing people is the easiest and fastest way to victory.

...

DATV: Oh no! Solas, an army general fighting in a rebellion against slavers and tyrants, had to *gasp* sacrifice some people in order to obtain a weapon that could bring them victory! How could he!.. What an irredeemable monster, right?

Just. How? How did we get from genuine grey morality to this? I just... ugh.

[mass-effect-anonymous]

CONFESSION:

I'm going to be honest. I recently replayed ME2 and while I still enjoy it for the most part, the stuff with Kelly Chambers really made me uncomfortable now.  Maybe its dues to getting older and having grown a lot but it just makes me cringe now

[ndostairlyrium]

I think I'm less disappointed with the finale than others because I was there for the me3 finale debacle lol

The bad part is that me3 finale made sense. It was just um, straight up one of the worst ideas they could ever think of, but it made- sigh.

Here you have like, the perfect build up, the stakes are me2 level of "if I fucked up during the pt my friends are gonna pay the price", and closure with your companions. However it's contradictory asf, it forces you to break immersion and, in the wrongest moment for a rational thought makes you say "wait, why are we back to step 1? what about the bli- aw the lost elf theme ;; hold on, why aren't you bringing up the things that has been repeated nonstop via super long expositions throughout the game?? MR. MORRIS COME BACK, CONFUSE ME AGAIN"

It's gorgeous, but it doesn't make sense, and then it does, and then it doesn't again. I am confusion

Back in my days (lmaooo) we got an apology and a 2gb free dlc called "extended cut" that was like this meme

but it did patch only a few things. The finale stayed there. Immutable

and we only had to presume what went wrong during development, but then we all saw the artbook and agreed that maybe there were interferences from above and that the real treasure was the friends we made along the way and that would die horribly if you had 50% or less of reactivity that you could raise only by playing the multiplayer and those who were playing the game on a console had to spend money to gain access to it

Yeah, I don't think they're good at finales. "But at least"

[fenharel]

for the past month I've been musing about how much datv feels like as if someone at bioware was like "guys we are in the shit and we need a hit STAT. what's our most beloved game? mass effect 2!! let's make that again but in dragon age" and yet it's the most criticized da game I've seen

[solstheimtxt]

Jk the praetorian is murdering them

I FINALLY GOT PAST THAT FUCKING COLLECTOR SHIP ROADBLOCK ON THE COLLECTOR SHIP LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOO

[queenaeducan]

kind of bummed that i beat veilguard once and i have two replays going (once which is All Solas and mostly just for that) but my desire to play it is so fizzly.