#still sulking a bit over ME3 and HFW

[kobbers]

(criticism for the Mass Effect and Horizon series below the cut; slightly rambly)

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I sometimes like to indulge in media analysis video essays while working on art, because it can help corral my brain when I need to focus for lengthy chunks of time.

An interesting one I watched a couple months ago proposed that many of the problems people complain about in ME3 actually started in ME2, and I found myself nodding along with most of it. The discussed problems weren’t even ones I’d never recognized before in ME2; it was just a little eye-opening to have someone focus on them and tie it all together into a “compare with ME3, contrast with ME1″ kinda way.

What I didn’t expect, however, was my brain continually pinging on how Forbidden West exhibits many of these very same flaws, the primary one being a willingness to sacrifice consistency with pre-established rules and tone in order to solve short-term problems or engineer a dramatic moment. I wonder how much of this (in both cases) can be attributed to Corporate Daddy rolling up to the new successful IP and worrying too hard about drawing in and wowing new customers.

This comparison flared up again during another video I watched just this week, where the author argues Legion and the geth were done dirty in ME3 - pointing out where the stated character motivations and logic quietly did a 180 under the hood. and where some slight retconning robbed the geth-quarian conflict of some complexity. It was like the writers that handled the character in 3 didn’t properly understand what had been established, and couldn’t commit to the alien thinking... yet we know it’s not a simple case of Writer Bad because there are beloved characters that these same folks did do well! It ended with a little side helping of Higher-Ups Mandating Nonsensical Things Because They Are Awesome).

And I just... man. Too familiar.

I hope Horizon 3 can get itself back together on this front, but so much damage has been done already. =_=

#words #kobb tl;drs all over the place #still sulking a bit over ME3 and HFW #and letting headcanon bend them into the right shapes in my mind #because I love what was initially built! a lot!! #I was so excited to see where that would lead but they YANKED the steering wheel and now we've crashed into a cactus #the cactus has pretty flowers and there are a few cool lizards on it but one was killed in the crash and now the tires are flat #gorrammit