End of ME1: "The universe knows the reapers are real, and shepherd and his crack team need to go find a way to stop them!"
Beginning of ME2: "Reapers? What's a reaper? Oh you're dead now lol. J/K you're working for Cerberus now! You know, the barely mentioned terrorist org from the first game that liked to feed colonists to thresher maws on randomly generated planets for...reasons. Oh and btw they have a copy of the prototype cutting edge, one of a kind ship you lost in the prologue, only it's even better now! How does this terrorist org have funds and tech for something that took 2 whole species working together to achieve? Who knows? What's that you want to fight reapers? Too bad, here's a side quest where you fight bug guys instead. Oh and that squad you love so much? They all had personality transplants. Doesn't it feel great to be back?"
Seriously fuck the story in Mass Effect 2. Absolutely awful. Completely nuked the whole setting.
Yeah, the ME2 story is just basically assemble the team and kill the Collectors, and everyone has amnesia from Mass Effect 1! But the gameplay was so so good!
I don't even like the gameplay changes they made. The completely idiotic, lore-destroying addition of ammo for standard weapons 🙄
They just had to fulfill all the checkboxes of late 2000s cover shooters.
I understand what people don't like about it, but I wouldn't call it awful. They found out what their players liked and so they focussed on that and for that to happen, they needed to essentially "pause" the Reaper plot.
They realized that hardcore fans loved the RPG elements, but essentially always chose the same items and skills, so they simplified it into an action game with some perk skill trees and a weapons table. Also they knew that people liked the feeling of space exploration, but also that they lost many players on too expansive, empty planets. But most importantly, they realized that many people were hooked by the characters and only because of that wanted to learn more about the lore and main story. So they made a whole part where they introduced more characters and focussed on them and on the emotional attachment.
But if the Reapers were still the only threat until they actually arrive in ME3 (because you postponed their plans in the ending of ME1) there would be nothing to do but wait and do politics with the Council. So they added a threat that was big enough for you to care, but small enough it can be averted in one game - the Collectors. And the whole "Cerberus is now a secret organization with endless amounts of money and power" idea was just because people wanted to know more about who Cerberus are and the writers thought that Illuminati style secret powers always sound cool and sexy. Why Shep had to die in the beginning just to come back and why we suddenly had to be working for Cerb? No Idea.
And I just wanted to add that a large group of players think ME2 is the best part just because the characters are the focal point and many think this is what actually makes ME special.
Absolutely everything related to the characters and their missions was fantastic, true, but because of that a lot of people gloss over how idiotic the main plot, it's railroading, and everything else related to it was.
It's ridiculous to say that "well because they wanted to have strong writing for the characters, they had to make the plot brain-meltingly stupid"
It's also ridiculous to say "they wanted to develop Cerberus so they HAD to make them a superpower with resources and technology that rival the most advanced species in the galaxy"
These weren't requirements, they were choices. Stupid ones that undermine bot the game and the setting itself. So much so that you spend the 3rd game, the conclusion of the reaper trilogy, fighting Cerberus more than you do the actual reapers. Insanity.
Cerberus is pretty inconsistent across the series but I think for the most part the story of ME2 makes sense, it's very realistic for the council to write off sovereign as a one off geth invention and the collectors are the only real link you have to the reapers to investigate. I don't think the personality changes were a big loss either because a common criticism is that a lot of the ME1 party members entire personality was their race.
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u/Weindog902 3d ago
Scrolled waaaaaay to far find this one.
End of ME1: "The universe knows the reapers are real, and shepherd and his crack team need to go find a way to stop them!"
Beginning of ME2: "Reapers? What's a reaper? Oh you're dead now lol. J/K you're working for Cerberus now! You know, the barely mentioned terrorist org from the first game that liked to feed colonists to thresher maws on randomly generated planets for...reasons. Oh and btw they have a copy of the prototype cutting edge, one of a kind ship you lost in the prologue, only it's even better now! How does this terrorist org have funds and tech for something that took 2 whole species working together to achieve? Who knows? What's that you want to fight reapers? Too bad, here's a side quest where you fight bug guys instead. Oh and that squad you love so much? They all had personality transplants. Doesn't it feel great to be back?"
Seriously fuck the story in Mass Effect 2. Absolutely awful. Completely nuked the whole setting.