That's a little complicated, so let's take a step back and look at the evolution of combat, level design, and storytelling in the Mass Effect series. Mass Effect 2's Final Mission Was the Apex of the Series Most every time you go into combat, the encounter design corresponds to the emotional state and motivations of the player, and these feed into the themes of war and resolution. For the most part, Mass Effect 3 does this really well.
This process doesn't work if it doesn't channel players into parts of the game that work well.
The real benefits of this thematic streamlining in Mass Effect 3 show up in the combat. Sure, there's a bit of exploration and side questing to be done, but that's largely a sprinkle of flavor-everything is about war and resolution. This is a game about shootin' and talkin'. See you in hell, time-consuming planetary scanning. Mass Effect 2's excellent Shadow Broker DLC laid the groundwork for Mass Effect 3.Īnd if it doesn't serve those purposes? It's gone. It's also about resolving the stories set up in the previous games in the series-from the resolution of the Krogan genophage (arguably the single best piece of world-building in the series) to minor stuff, like the final fate of Shepard superfan Conrad Verner. Mass Effect 3 is the story of the grand galactic war, a World War II metaphor where the ultimate evil has arrived, threatens to dominate and destroy everything, and only a grand alliance of every not-evil group in the galaxy can defeat them. There are two overall themes in Mass Effect 3: war and resolution. More than its two predecessors, Mass Effect 3 utilizes its level design, combat mechanics, and more in order to harmonize its gameplay with its story. But the story of Mass Effect 3 isn't isolated from the rest of the game. Oh, don't get me wrong-the story is incredibly important to the game, and it's mostly great, albeit with, ahem, a few teensy-weensy issues at the end.
Here's the thing, Mass Effect 3 isn't a great game because of its story. That's understandable, but it sells Mass Effect 3 short. And with the sheer amount of emotional investment players had over multiple games and years, the first thing everyone talked about with Mass Effect 3 was its story. That's usually a recipe for at least mild disappointment. Not only was it a sequel to one of the most acclaimed games of all time, but it was also the end of an epic science fiction trilogy. The final game of the Mass Effect trilogy was always going to have a difficult time.
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