Most underrated Mass Effect Missions - Mass Effect 3 (2012) Discussion

[–] RightBackAtYa 10 years ago

That is my favorite mission among them all, dlc included. Although we are never told why TIM seemed to need the Citadel, this was the mission that felt the most important to me.

The fight between Thane and Kai Leng was great, but heartbreaking in my case; I romanced Thane in ME 2. Do you know that if Thane dies in 2 and you kept Major Kirrahe alive in ME 1 that it is Kirrahe that saves the life of the Salarian counselor? That too is sad. I loved Captain Kirrahe, as he was known in ME 1. His speech about holding the line before the attack on Virmire was fantastic.

The arrogance of man is thinking nature is in our control, and not the other way around.

reply

[–] cgweinstein 10 years ago

On my first playthrough, I didn't know about how Thane was in the hospitol, and Kirrahe was dead, so the councilor died. I found it very unexpected.

reply

[–] nomen_meltdown 10 years ago

Udina wanted the rest of the Council taken out so that he would at least temporarily have unilateral control over the assets at its disposal (like the fleet that defends the Citadel, for one), so he conspired with Cerberus to get it done.

And TIM was all too happy to knock them off because that would destabilize the galaxy and make it easier for Cerberus to pursue its objectives. It seems unlikely to me that the plan was for Cerberus to retain control of the station long-term-- they couldn't have held it in any useful capacity once the Council races sent reinforcements to re-take it.

It's more likely that the plan was for them to strike, kill the Councilors, make it look like Udina escaped by chance (since overtly sparing him would have undermined his legitimacy as sole surviving Councilor), and bug out to exploit the chaos the assassinations would create. Since TIM didn't yet know at that point that he needed the Citadel if he was going to try to take control of the Reapers.

I'm an island- peopled by bards, scientists, judges, soldiers, artists, scholars & warrior-poets.

reply

[–] cheezbaalz 9 years ago

Wouldn't really call that mission underrated, everyone I asked love that part.
If I was to pick my favourite "underrated" mission, maybe Bring Down the sky from Mass Effect. Everyone hasn't played it but it's probably my favorite side-mission since it has a really good choice at the end, a lot of dialogue and a pretty cool bad guy.

reply

[–] Winter_King 9 years ago

Wouldn't really call that mission underrated, everyone I asked love that part.

Really? Almost everyone I know has huge problems with Priority Citadel II, mostly due to cutscene incompetence in that part and others.

The whole mission flows better without Thane there. Otherwise, you get Shepard and co. watching from the sidelines while Thane fights Kai Leng instead of helping out. And then Thane has him on his sights and instead of just shooting Kai Leng he starts running towards him because "it looks cool".

There there is the skycar part when Shepard tries to shoot Leng instead of just flipping the car around in order to throw him off balance.

It's a perfectly good face.

reply

[–] cheezbaalz 9 years ago

Yeah, the part about Thane being the only one fighting Kai Leng and everyone else watching is kind of weird. It would have been awesome to see Shepard and co. try to fight Kai Leng and he kicking their asses, then as he's about to execute the councillor, Thane comes in.

The flipping of the car part never really phased me, I guess Shepard was as surprised as I was that he actually jumped off his own car and onto Shepards, so Shepards first instinct was to shoot him.
But I believe that just falls to the script, you can't expect Shepard to make the most calculated decisions at all times, just like you can't expect the player to do.
Sure, in hindsight, flipping the car might have been more effective but at the time all I wanted was to kill the bastard, so Shepard reacted exactly as I wanted him to.

reply

[–] RightBackAtYa 9 years ago

I never had a problem with Shep shooting through the safety glass. My problem is that he didn't shoot him once he'd dropped his shields, which he did just before he shoved his sword into the engine of the shuttle. Plenty of time for a head shot there.

As for the fight, since I romanced Thane, I was mighty pissed he didn't just shoot Leng in the head when he first showed up, as any good assassin would have done. You don't go hand-to-hand with another assassin when you've got his head at the end of your barrel, you pull the trigger! Still my favorite mission in 3, though. 

I'm with you on Bring Down the Sky. That was an excellent mission for all the reasons you listed.

The arrogance of man is thinking nature is in our control, and not the other way around.

reply

[–] Glaramara 9 years ago

I suppose it's just about possible you could argue "would pulling the trigger have done anything?" when Leng has barriers.

reply

[–] RightBackAtYa 9 years ago

He didn't have his barriers up when Thane had his gun to his head. Thane, as an assassin, should have shot him the moment he had him in his sights as opposed to doing hand-to-hand combat.

I suppose we could argue that Thane's ability to think properly could have been affected by his Keprel syndrome.   Nah. He may have been prone to fainting but he never indicated it affected his thinking process.

The arrogance of man is thinking nature is in our control, and not the other way around.

reply

[–] paramitch 9 years ago

For me, the most underrated missions were the ones that weren't just point-and-shoot. I loved Kasume's ME2 mission (a sparkling little witty caper) and also loved Thane's as well, because it was all about the observation and nuance that made him such a good assassin. In ME3, I really liked the Bryson missions ("Leviathan" DLC) which were really effectively creepy, and loved the Grissom Academy (with Jack), Thessia, and Rannoch missions (even if I was unhappy at the sudden simplification/handwaving over the Geth). I also liked doing a little snooping with Kasumi again even if the mission was barely 10 minutes long.

Meanwhile: I hated the Citadel Coup, because (1) the fight itself was out of character for Thane as a gifted assassin (too many awkward pauses so the superstar ninja can showboat, and worst of all, and nobody makes a move to help), and (2) because nobody in the group (including Shep) acts like they just watched their freaking squadmate get skewered.

Worst of all, nobody in the game -- not Thane's squadmates, not Shepard (I play a femShep whose LI was Thane) ever mentions a word about Thane or his loss. And the hospital scene is almost verbatim no matter who you are (LI or non-LI with just a few words' difference). And Shep even as LI never touches him, holds his hand, says "I love you," nothing. It was only after ME3 came out that the game devs admitted they "forgot" about Thane and his status as an ME2 LI, and had cut a bunch of stuff from ME3 (mostly involving Thane and Kasumi -- too bad as they're a really fun squad combo). So that was a bummer.

ME3 means we can lose many/most of our ME2 squadmates, but if we do, we get tons of discussion about their sacrifice and loss. Except for Thane (nobody ever mentions him again, except Kai Leng, who calls him a coward later -- which is just bad writing).

I played through once with things as written, then in all ensuing ME3 playthroughs went with the ThaneMOD and MEHEM (Happy Ending Mod) to fix all the horrible inconsistencies to ME3 in regards to Thane and plot.

The Citadel DLC at least tried to address some of the Thane fan outrage, but while I loved it as a whole, the Thane stuff is still clunky and super-depressing (and no, nobody else on the Normandy ever mentions him again).

For me, I just play the ThaneMOD version and all is right with the world.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I keep thinking I'm a grownup, but I'm not.

reply

[–] dobraye_utra 9 years ago

Your point about Thane reminds me of how they played Jacob out. True, he wasn't the most popular dude in the games, but no matter how you used him, (unless you kill him of course) he always ends up with that doctor, having a baby. My math may be a little off, but if FemShep romanced him but he knew the doc before the Collector mission; he's either cheating on Shep with her, or he was cheating on her with Shep! Though true to form, he doesn't do much in 3 except stand around & get shot. Which is what usually happened when I used him in game 2 anyhow.

I remember the days when Kardashians were just the bad guys on Star Trek!

reply

[–] paramitch 8 years ago

Yeah, I felt really bad for the Jacob romancers as well -- they really made him out to be a not-so-nice guy in the end (if you were romancing him), and there wasn't even a decent conversation about it to give them closure either.

The whole thing was just weird, especially since the Jacob of ME3 doesn't seem like the Jacob of ME2 either. The writing disparity was very apparent there.

Luckily, I still love most of the rest of the game -- even if I do have to kind of fanwank/overlook that the entire mission of the Reapers makes zero sense in the end (we were created in order to annihilate sentient species periodically so that they don't create full AIs that will then... annihilate sentient species...? Um... okay...)

Still a gorgeous game though.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I keep thinking I'm a grownup, but I'm not.

reply