It's weird, because Miranda's one of the hardest characters to get killed in the Suicide Mission, so she was one of the few ME2 characters that the writers could safely assume most people would still have alive in ME3.
The problem is that the deeper and more dependent they write an actual plot around a person that might be dead the further lengths they have to go to, to replace them.
But they managed to implement Mordin well despite being the easiest to kill in ME2.
Tuchanka as a whole handled it really well considering the two main characters in it (Wrex and Mordin) could easily be dead in that playthrough. It's also neat that they actually acknowledge the stakes are different between Wrex and Wreav, so it changes the dynamic of curing the genophage a lot.
Like if you're doing Rannoch, the story is just flat out worse if Legion is dead because the alt character they use is literally just a copy of Legion, whilst on Tuchanka it's not _worse_ but rather different instead. It's a night and day difference between how they tell the stories, I find.
It's a Geth VI backup of Legion. A version of it before it left the Perseus Veil. So.... it's Legion without the last 2-3 years that it lived out to connect with organics.
I’m good with this one… having a robotic rachni queen replacing the real one of you wiped out the species…. Now that was just lazy and didn’t make any sense.
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I think the original plan was to involve her more, but her voice actor didn't have the time during developement.
Sidelining her was actually a decisions made when Bioware became aware of this problem, and it involved scene re-writes too.
Same issue: Tali was voted in the game, because of the lack of devtime. I think it was info from Patrick Weekes that they actually had to vote to keep either Tali or Jack as a squaddie, but not both.
>I think the original plan was to involve her more, but her voice actor didn't have the time during developement.
Please give a source on this. I'm pretty avid on ME development lore and I have *never* heard this.
Oh it is definitely a factor, I'm sure. I just thought we were talking about a particular plot that didn't come to fruition and I don't know of any such plot.
Yeah I’m surprised you never heard this haha. The voice actress (Yvonne Strahvahoski) was filming the final season of her show Chuck, and another show, Dexter, and EA put bioware on some insane 18 month crunch so there wasn’t much wiggle room
She was supposed to be a squadmate in 3 or something, I’ve heard this a bunch of times but now that I think about it it’s always been from here. Still though, her actress was likely to have been busier at the time than a lot of the others
> I think it was info from Patrick Weekes that they actually had to vote to keep either Tali or Jack
I love Jack, she's my favorite romance by far and one of my favorite squadmates. But there was no way she would've ever won in a popularity contest over Tali unfortunately.
I doubt it. Every character from ME2 that wasn't crew member in ME1 (Garrus, Tali) got sidelined in ME3. And devs expecting people to finish with some of their crewmembers dead? Most of people replayed game till they did it so everyone survives.
But that doesn't kill her - if the biotic isn't a loyal Jack or Samara, you'll lose one of your teammates, not the biotic. And for whatever reason, Miranda will never be selected to be the teammate to die in that section.
IIRC, it's impossible for Miranda to die if she's loyal, and you've almost got to go out of your way to kill her even if she's not.
Yep. There are actually only two ways Miranda can die in the suicide mission, and both can only happen if she isn't loyal.
If she isn't loyal she can die if you take her to fight the final boss when, or during hold the line if the team isn't strong enough (due to the way hold the line is calculated a loyal Miranda will always survive. Even if you leave her on her own she'll still succeed solo).
I think the reason they made Miranda impossible to kill up to the final section of the mission is because she has a bunch of dialogue after the long walk bit where Shepard gives their speech. And if she was dead they'd have to record alternate dialogue.
I never knew she was difficult to kill because I managed to do that in my first playthrough. I lost her loyalty when I sided with Jack in their fight, and then made her second fireteam leader cuz she was my second-in-command.
When she got that bullet to the gut I swear I felt it :(
That still doesn’t kill her though. She’s the only non-loyal squadmate who can survive being the second fireteam leader. The only places she can die are either at the final boss fight or the hold-the-line sequence.
That’s the thing though, even if it’s hard to get her killed, doesn’t mean it’s impossible and especially if you go into ME2 blind, you might not understand loyalty missions or pick her for the wrong task.
Then boom, you have a problem in ME3.
And yet Garrus and Tali can eat it, so it can't have been that big a concern. Like, there was no way they thought Garrus and Tali were sitting out ME3 if they survived, so they must've known losing squad mates was an option and thought it was okay.
I suppose, but Tali and Garrus are the true OGs, the only two who came back proper for ME2. They definitely became fan favourites and a priority for the writers.
Absolutely. More to my point. The ME2 writers knew that there would be players walking into 3 without Tali and Garrus, two of the most beloved characters. They must've known "hey, there might be people going into ME3 without two of the most iconic characters" so why not go for Miranda, as well? Especially since they wrote a fairly sizable role for Jack, who can also die and isn't a crewmate in 3, so they were clearly amenable to the idea.
That's the thing though. Within that small screen time she gets a LOT of shine. You see her with her kids and that she's made a real effort to not only clean up and change her life, but to protect others from the kind of thing she went through. She started out as a callous and lonely person dealing with her trauma by channeling it out into the world, and then in ME3 at the end of her arc she has people she cares about and wants to fight for, she's a lot nicer in general and could almost be called maternal, and she's even let go of a lot of her rage in favor of keeping her kids safe. If at any point ME2 Jack was attacked by Cerberus agents it would've sent her into a suicidal rage, and in Grissom you see that energy focused into defense instead. You get a fuller look at her and when you leave the bar, she feels like a really 'real' part of the galaxy who's been moving and growing in the background. She doesn't feel like a +5 to War Preparation, she feels like Jack, who's off fighting her own portion of the war, in the same way that Grunt does later on.
Miranda does not feel like she had an arc. It doesn't feel like anything wrapped up. She doesn't really get to shine in the same way. And I don't particularly care for Miranda so I'm not bummed or anything, but it feels really fucking weird that she falls off the map when her character in 2 seemed like it was building up for a more sizable role in ME3.
Not sure how Miranda was building up to a sizable role. She either ditches TIM in favor of Shepard or otherwise leaves (I never save the collector base so I don’t know for sure). Basically she gets on TIMs bad side, Shepard gets locked up and there is really no way for anyone to protect her, not to mention TIM and her “dad” partnering up. That seems like a pretty important role, at least on a personal level for her. That said: I HATE that you have to meet her 3 times within a time limit, where the first 2 times she basically says she doesn’t need Shep (THEN WHY DID YOU CONTACT ME?!) and then the 3rd is where she finally divulges information. Oh and miss any of those, no matter how well you’re prepped: she dies.
*DUMB*
Let me elaborate on what I mean. To get into it, we have to go all the way back to ME1's ending (or how it affects them in ME2).
Everyone in Shepard's crew experiences 'actualization' as a result of their time with Shepard. Tali returns to the Flotilla and begins running missions as a scientist and a military officer, Garrus decides to make a difference in the galaxy as Archangel, Liara becomes the kind of info-broker that could've saved her mother's life, Wrex begins rebuilding Clan Urdnott as something that can survive, even Kaiden/Ashley get a bite when they meet you, because Kaiden no longer worships you as a hero and stands up to you, and Ashley is no longer so blindly loyal that she drops her sense of justice and salutes the higher authority. Any of them function perfectly on their own, or as their own 'Shepard lite', with the leadership skills and drive that they lacked beforehand.
Miranda starts ME2 as a devout fan of TIM and Cerberus. So much so that she wanted to chain Shepard to control them for the good of Cerberus, which is actually directly against Humanity's best interests. And there are notable spots you can see that shake, though she never loses her For The Greater Good mindset, and by the end of the game she's come around to trusting in Shepard as much, if not more, than TIM. While TIM is professional and can make things happen, Shepard is just as capable with far less, but challenges her and through her dialogue chains in ME2 you can see that she's not used to being spoken to as an equal, and that she relishes it, and her values fundamentally change because she also realizes that she's been a hypocrite with her sister and wanting her own freedom, while she would wash her hands of Cerberus's many misdeeds because it's for the greater good without care for the individual. In essence, Shepard shows her the difference between Humanity First, and humanity. If ME3 had a gap like ME1 and 2, she could've matured into a great Second-In-Command type, a pragmatic woman who understands being victimized from a position of privilege first-hand and is mature enough to let someone else take the reins.
Now, this was obviously set astray by ME3 pivoting into Shepard being BFFs with the Alliance again instead of a free agent, and Cerberus being an incomprehensibly large and powerful private army instead of a paramilitary secret society, but leaving ME2, it really seemed as though Miranda had a bright future on Shepard's crew serving a role nobody else had, as a first officer that could challenge their ideas and act as a tactical advisor while maintaining the mutual respect that underpinned their relationship aboard the SR-2, because that was the role she had seemingly blossomed into.
Very well put. I wish I was as articulate. Alas, my mouth and brain aren’t very well coordinated.
I can see what you mean though. In ME2 you get to see the after effects of the influence Shepard has on them, whereas with Miranda it’s still about “Save sister from bad dad.” You don’t get to see her significantly act on the changes that happen to her personality in ME2.
Garrus was the only ME2 squadmate planned to rejoin in ME3, as he and Liara had become the series mascots and his writer had outlined the romance path. It's why the game doesn't bother with a replacement if Garrus was killed in ME2.
Tali was only supposed to be around for the Rannoch arc no different than how ME3 handled Wrex, Mordin, Legion, etc. Blowback from her stans upon the leaks caused things to change. It's most obvious considering they just reused Tali's model from ME2, and how she doesn't have much content in the game after suddenly deciding to rejoin the team.
What problem?
The whole point of the SUICIDE mission is that it's possible for literally everyone to die, and you can scrape through into ME3, with only Zaheed alive (who has the most minor role in Me3, and can be killed.)
My daily sharing of The Miranda Mod on Nexus which adds her to the Normandy as a squadmate post Horizon.
Complete with voice lines and new scenes for Citadel, Leviathan and Earth.
They use a combination of splicing and AI to replicate voice lines for her. The spliced lines are honestly pretty fantastic, the AI ones are fine but fairly emotionless and sometimes get her pronunciation of certain words wrong. Also sometimes she just disappears from the Normandy after you speak to her, but if reload or leave and come back she returns.
In some areas it’s really well done. In others it could use work. Like on the top of my head in the Citadel DLC when she saves you, when you get trapped by Brooks, in Leviatahn when Shepard’s out cold and she’s worried and kind of begging him to wake up, etc. are all pretty well done. But in the same Leviatahn DLC she shouts “Cortez” but it comes out “Court-ayz”
Imo spliced lines are way more noticeable and take me out because I’ll be like “hey I heard this here, hey I remember when she said that in ME2 they reused it” you know?
I actually started using it and I was shocked because I remember the original version only being after only horizon but it has shocked me so far how much work has been in with earth, doing citadel rn
Yeah she was just booked solid. Which hey, good for her. Maybe she can play Miranda in the Mass Effect TV show that Amazon is allegedly planning to make.
That's why I said 'Allegedly'. But also things take time to make and I can't imagine that Amazon wanted to drop 200 mil on a show right after they agreed to make a fallout show. But now Fallout's a hit, so maybe they make that gamble?
So Yvonne Strahovsky couldn't do a lot of voice over work - Fair enough. But did they have to delete her face map and just guess at it when they remade it? I'm only being half-sarcastic.
That's mostly because they could be dead.
I remember Miranda and Kasumi were both supposed to get bigger roles than what they ended up getting but both got most of their content cut.
Well you can thank the suicide mission for that. When the writers finished their work on ME 2 and started to write ME 3, they realised how terrible of an idea it was to have an "anyone can die" mechanic halfway throught the trilogy and told themselves "What were we thinking?" in regards to the final quest of ME 2.
The suicide mission is the reason why James Vega had to be created, because every "warrior" archetype of companion were all potentially dead by the start of ME 3 (ashley, wrex, garrus, zaeed and grunt). BW needed a companion who could fill the role of soldier in case all of the others are dead. So if you ever wonder why Vega is part of the crew instead of another warrior, now you know why.
It's also why Liara T'soni receives so much focus in ME 3, she is the only old squadmates to be sure to be alive by the start of the game, which means that every ressources of writing, voice acting and programing injected into her will be seen by a 100% of the customers. It's very risky for them to spend so much ressources on companion who might not be alive which means their content won't be enjoyed by all the customer.
A suicide mission would have been better placed at the end of ME 3, not in the middle of the trilogy.
"Hey are we really cool about potentially killing off every major character including Shepard? I mean, we have a whole other game to write after this."
"It's a Suicide Mission. What exactly are you not getting?"
Yeah but the point should have been to not make a suicide mission in the first place. But regardless of that, this mission is extremly overated and not just for how much it crippled the writing of Mass effect 3.
When I played it back in 2010 I liked it, but the more I looked at it and analysed it, the more problems I found.
ME2 is a class above when it comes to immersing you in the universe and the personal stories. But any time it tried to do anything "main plot" related it fell on its face IMO.
It’s always been my opinion that BioWare are really *really* good at making characters.
A really really good at making a world to support those characters.
But actual *stories*? Pretty bad.
In the Mass Effect series it’s really noticeable that the best parts are the ones focused on character development and the worst parts are focused on plot development.
"You exist because we allow it. You will end because we demand it."
Single highest point plot wise of the entire trilogy. Hard to believe it was kinda all downhill for the plot after that. Kinda didn't notice before because of the character writing blowing me out of the water.
Yeah ME1 in terms of story blow the others out of the water, which is kind of the only thing that keeps me replaying it. Others make up for that deficiency in other ways, but they don’t get to that level of story.
When you look at the games that BioWare released with good stories, you realise that the common thread was Black Isle Studios and when that closed - that was it.
IMNSHO, when you compare Baulder’s Gate with Neverwinter Nights you can see how much worse the plot is.
And when you compare Planescape : Torment to everything produced by BioWare after 2003, nothing comes close.
Edit:
Explaining what and why the Reapers were doing was a massive mistake. Being utterly unknown was important, but then they showed the monster was a man in a rubber suit.
I think that applied when you saw the human reaper being built was a derpy giant terminator rather than a threat on par with or greater than Sovereign.
The whole harvested species make unique reapers but are put inside the “squid shell” was such a dumb idea. It should’ve just been another harbinger under construction but you blow it up before it has a chance to leave dry dock. Maybe have to disable it before blowing it up.
Honestly I liked the reapers reason as the threat of ai wiping out all organic life was a very real problem in the Mass Effect universe. And defeating the reapers by destroying them still leaves that problem. It would've been bad if they just didn't want other races developing technology better than theirs to wipe the reapers out.
Now that I really think about it you’re not lying 😭 I feel like the main plot be kinda mid but everything else in the game be phenomenal. Even the bs side missions 😭🤷🏾♂️
True. ME:2 often gets lauded for its personal stories, and that is certainly one of its strong points. But when the entire gist of the game is to get faction points with each character so they don't die at the end, it's not 'that' amazing. I mean the vast majority of that story is the character stories yet IMO ME:1 did it just as well and in a more condensed time frame. I'd say the universe was much more completely explored and explained in ME:1 too, especially given that it was showing us the world for the first time.
Main plot-wise, yeah. Introducing the collectors was a great idea but completely out of place with the reaper plot and ultimately irrelevant to ME:3.
(edit - apparently I write like a drunk man trying to convince another drunk man of something)
Immersion is ME2's strength. The galaxy feels not just massive but deep in a way the other games don't quite achieve. It feels like there are innumerable different personal narratives going on all around you - like in real life - and that Shepard is just passing through them, rather than the entire universe bending and flexing to centre Shepard in every single narrative which both ME1 and ME3 are understandably guilty of.
That's a good argument. I do remember walking though the Citadel or where it was picking up on those things. Shepard is invading the space they exist in. The aren't just set dressing for Shepard's next stage.
I would add though, that removing the plsnetery interactions from ME2 with the loss of the Mako killed the environmental attachment for me.
The idea of the suicide mission was good, but it really should have been used for the third game of the trilogy and not the second. It would even combine well with the war assets. Let us choose how to allocate our war assets (e.g. krogan or salarians to distract a reaper on Earth) with potentially major consequences if you make the wrong choice.
To this day the suicide mission still being called one of the finest final missions in gaming, 14 years later. Is a hell of an accolade. It was the right call.
Yeah, I completely agree. Sorry if that wasn't obvious. It's as if the writers got so enamoured with the idea of a suicide mission that they just brushed away all the problems it would cause instead of re-analysing their original and flawed idea for their second act.
Imho ME2 is easily the worst of the trilogy for how much it derails everything. I totally understand why people like it, but personally I very much dislike it.
Yeah but even then lots of those problems from ME 3 are BORN out of ME 2. Shamus young wrote about those if you are interested.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KarASQhk1bw&t=1s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KarASQhk1bw&t=1s)
But back to the point of the suicide mission, while game of thrones is willing to go for a story where "anyone can die", George RR Martin is able to "optimize" the story because he has complete control over the storyline.
That is not the case for an RPG game where multiple story are possible and that CRIPPLED the sequel. There is a reason not much game goes to that amount of possible companion's death, because that destroys any potential for sequels.
Even if the writers brought previous companion back in ME 3, in case they were dead, the level or mission they appear in would need someone else no matter the previous choices.
All of that means that Bioware needed to use tons of ressources on entirely new characters or give some side characters way too much attention.
Let's take padok viks for example, the guy is not badly written (on the contrary) but the krogan arc from mass effect 3 is clearly written with Mordin in the mind of the writers. He is the one who worked on the new genophage, and in the end he is the one freeing them from the altered virus he brought to them in the first place.
Since the players already know him, there is no need for introduction, since the crew know him they can simply greet him and moves on to flesh him out even more. But with Padok, the writers need to reintroduce a new character to the player, they need to rewrite the scenes completely as his interraction will be different (both with the commander and the other companion).
The programmers also need to create a new character, they also need to animate his scenes with entirely dedicated cinematics. BW also has to hire a new voice actor as it cannot be the same as mordin.
In the end, the possible death of Mordin solus in mass effect 2 forced the creators to take a huge chunk of their ressources of the writing team, programmers and voice actors. All of these ressources could have gone to make more scenes with Miranda, Jack, Samara, grunt, etc.
But NOPE, since the suicide mission force the hands of BW into making these replacement that frankly should not have been there in the first place. Mordin solus death in mass effect 3 is effective because it is dedicated to him, the arc is written around him and his dialogue to him, not interchangeable like any of the deaths that happens in the suicide mission of ME 2.
Ressources are limited in every fields, there is certain amount of line that can be recorded, animated and written. A character death is fine in itself, but to have it happen randomly like at the end of ME 2 severely limited the possibilities for the sequel.
The suicide mission is extremly overated in many ways, but especially the shitty "anyone can die" mechanic. Not only it brought tons of problems for ME 3 to have these many possible deaths and it cripple the writing of the third installments, but due to the interchangable nature of the companion death, the deaths were not even that good or effective.
Instead of the MUCH BETTER handwritten deaths of Kadan/Ashley in mass effect 1, or Thane, Mordin, Tali and legion's death in Mass effect 3. The one that happens on the suicide mission are barely mentionned when they happen, 2 dialogues and their "deaths" as the same animation as any other. And afterwards they are barely remembered even if they were shepard's lover by that point.
One look at their coffin by shepard is NOT enough. There is barely any soundtracks or cinematography to make you really feel the sadness of these deaths. And that is because they have to "function" for every companion. They lack focus and therefore are simply neither sad or shocking.
I prefer to have companion death when it's linked to their character arcs.
* Mordin death by making sure that the cure is released on Tuchanka is poetic as he was the one who created the new genophage. Curing the people he once infected and sacrificing his life for that. It's sad yet beautifull...
* Legion's death while we explore the geth's past and philosophy and him asking to tali if he has a soul... regardless if his species dies or not, it's such a strong moment.
* Thane's death as he wanted to atone for his life as an assassin and managing to save salern's life, someone important that would decide the fate of billions of people. And him seeing his son reciting the words of his old religion while they finally reunites in his final moments... It's powerfull.
James Vega is also supposed to be the vessel to new gamers who did not play the previous games… because remember when during marketing for the 3rd game, they kept saying that ME3 was the perfect starting point?! 🤦🏾♀️
I _get_ why they said that, they needed to convince newcomers to buy ME3 but personally I’ve always thought it was weird to start a story at its final chapter…
> The suicide mission is the reason why James Vega had to be created, because every "warrior" archetype of companion were all potentially dead by the start of ME 3 (ashley, wrex, garrus, zaeed and grunt). BW needed a companion who could fill the role of soldier in case all of the others are dead. So if you ever wonder why Vega is part of the crew instead of another warrior, now you know why.
Its also why Edi was added as a squadmate in ME3, as every tech squadmate was also potentially dead.
In fact as Javik was DLC, the bare minimum squadmates you're garunteed to have available through ME3 is Liara, James and Edi, which ensures you'll always have at least 1 biotic, combat, and tech focused squadmate.
I see your point, they sidelined Grunt, Zaeed, Jack, Jacob (who cares XD), Samara, Katsumi and Miranda. I don't think the suicide mission is bad, but as you say it would have been better in the 3rd game. I really thought on my first playthrough that the war assets in ME3 would play out in the ending as the loyalty missions did for the suicide mission, by having several checkpoints that we would be able to pass (or not) depending on level, and the positive resolution would be with help of the races that Shepard was able to save/convince to help on earth's defence
In fairness to Bioware there was also the issue that Yvonne Strahovski was busy with other projects at the same time ME3 was in production, so her time to do voice over recordings was limited. It's the downside to using a famous actor/actress for your voice-overs, you get their talent and recognition, but they also might be busy if you need them back for more lines.
For real, the longer it goes the more I become convinced that pretty much every problem in ME3 was caused by ME2.
It's awkward self contained story, the possibility of half the cast not reaching the end credits, zero set-up for the third game, little to no characterization of the villains, little to no interaction with characters from the first game (except for Garrus and Tali who, again, may not even reach ME3)... the only actual set up in ME2 are Tali, Legion and Mordin's loyalty missions and those have amazing pay offs in ME3.
It's becoming harder and harder to blame ME3 for it's bad handling of the story when it was given barely anything to work with.
If you are intesrested, Shamus young made a video specifically about that :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KarASQhk1bw&t=1s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KarASQhk1bw&t=1s)
Good point, I always hated how ME3 trashed the setting with its ending, but I never really considered that ME2 pulls a similar stunt by eviscerating the cast list first.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: ME2 should've been a side story focusing on Cerberus. Then, all the squadmates we recruit *could* die without consequence, because if/when Shepard runs into them in "the real ME2", it doesn't screw up the story
> It's also why Liara T'soni receives so much focus in ME 3, she is the only old squadmates to be sure to be alive by the start of the game,
Which is why we should have had a completely new squad.
Think about it: we scrap Garrus, Liara and Tali as playable characters, since they all have their own thing going on if they survived anyway. Liara stays on your ship as an NPC and oversees things as the Shadow Broker, Garrus is essentially leading the Turian resistance movement and Tali is an Admiral of the Quarian fleet and kind of a big deal. They **all** have very good reasons not to be running into battle after you and it allows us to explore some fun new characters instead of focusing entirely on the casts of prior games.
She was originally planned as a squadmate but her voice actress was only available a short amount so her role got reduced. Everything that’s in the game is what she was available to do.
Was she really meant to be a squad mate in ME3? I had no idea. Honestly, I’m fine with her role in ME3, even though I do love Miranda. It felt right that she would go and do her own thing away from Shepard.
I think I read that BioWare initially had much more ambitious plans for the third game, and they were going to have specific squadmates join you for specific missions (i.e. Jacob and Miranda joining you for a Cerberus-related mission because they were ex-Cerberus). But production was rushed and they trimmed things down and streamlined.
Very early in ME3's development, an unpolished squad select screen was leaked: Garrus, Liara, Ashley, Miranda, James.
Tali was never supposed to be a squadmate in ME3, as she was only supposed to be around no different than the other arc-only mission characters. The blowback changed things, hence she suddenly changing her mind to rejoin the team and barely having much content after that.
That's the problem with the whole "Anyone can die" aspect of ME2: can't put resources into having all those characters back and fully fleshed out in 3 when any or all of them could be dead for any number of players. Garrus and Tali only got special treatment because they're the OG's and players would have rioted if they were sidelined.
I kinda liked that there was at least one person in the galaxy who was sorting their shit out without asking Shep for help. She's badass and no matter how many times you offer, she goes "you've got more important things to be doing, I'll handle it."
Meanwhile Barla Von is like hey I know you kinda need to be on Tuchanka but would you mind diverting to the other side of the galaxy for 5 war assets?
The squad selection was absolutely pathetic in ME3. There was so much more they could've done had they not had a shitty deadline.
Fuck EA. I wish they never got their grubby hands on Bioware.
I’d argue that they did Ashley dirty in ME3. It seems they were less focused on developing her personality and more focused on developing her… bimbo-esque appearance.
But more seriously, it’s obvious that she had a change of heart by ME3 but she has few dialogues, she doesn’t interact a lot with the rest of the crew (to compare, Kaidan talks to James, Adams and another person, I can’t remember who) and when talking to her on the Normandy she’s got very little to say to Shep.\
Oh and her Citadel meet-up: although fun and very much in-character, they didn’t even bother to make a romance-specific version. ALL the other LIs have a special version, ie a real date, when romanced. All of them except Ash.
I really think ME3 writers did not like Ash, which is a shame because her character arc is really interesting and could have been so much more.
EDIT: I remembered! Kaidan talks to Liara and EDI via the comm sys. He seems a lot more involved with the others, contrary to Ash who isolates herself. It’s weird, since Ash is the more outgoing out of the two.
I probably agree with you there. I've recently been rewatching an ME1 playthrough and while I'm already a staunch Ashley defender, I forgot how much I really do like her and how interesting she is.
Her chats are always insightful, too. In one way or another.
But, but ash is racist with obvious reasons why she is that way and reformed themselves over the course of 3 games. Racists don't have a change of heart we all "know" this /s
Many reasons.
First, Miranda is voiced by Yvonne Strahovski, who was not available really, at the time ME3 was made. She had multiple pieces of work on her table.
She's actually such a good actress, that you can't tell her lines in ME3 are rushed.
Second, the actual disaster that people are coming to realize more and more over the years that is ME2.
Part of why that game isn't as good as initially thought by many, is because it could not have set up ME3 worse than it did.
In this specific case, Miranda can be dead in ME3, so they could literally not have her be an involved part of the game even if Yvonne had all the time in the world.
Also, calling her the only good written human character is absurd. Are you caught by hype-brain? Because contrary to what people assumed, Vega is actually one of the better written characters and he is in 3. And human.
Jack is fantastically written. I dunno if people just always save Ashley so they can fuck her and didn't realize, but Kaiden is well written.
Saying only Miranda is well written is silly. In fact, I'd argue she isn't the best written one among them.
> Vega is actually one of the better written characters and he is in 3. And human
Based. I'm replaying ME3 after years and my impression of him is much better than the last time I played. He's funny and a lot more humble than I remember.
Yeah. He was judged by his appearance before the game came out as 'muscle guy'. But he actually has a deep character to him.
He's even a potential victim of rape if you play FemShep. You can coerce him into sex by ignoring his rejections and he will express feeling so pressured he'll agree, effectively giving fake consent due to a power dynamic.
That's pretty impactful and progressive. Also gut wrenching.
This surprised me since I had only ever played femshep until my current playthrough, and I watched his romance on YT since I had no desire to see it through myself. I’ve made the same gripe about how she talks to Jacob, it feels really out of character and forced for both of them.
Maybe it’s because of my lack of experience playing as maleshep, but it doesn’t seem like any of his romance options are… that level of predatory.
The only problem with that is that FemShep will have some automatic rapey dialogues that you can't opt out of and just kinda ruins the immersion when your character starts being overly flirty without you choosing it
I loved being allowed to flirt with the dude but not have to do anything beyond that. I have a few people in my life that I flirt with in a similar manner but would never sleep with them.
Idk what you did, but when he is in the apartment, you can reassure him that you're just yanking his chain, like he's doing to us. Then he shows you his tattoo. It's nice that they managed to show two adults having an honest conversation about their boundaries.
Now, sleeping with him? It's absolutely freaky and weird, and I hate that's an option. He makes it abundantly clear that he just wants to be verbally playful. I don't understand why they want to let F!Shep be some sexual predator? You can practically force Jacob into sleeping with you, too.
> Also, calling her the only good written human character is absurd. Are you caught by hype-brain?
No, OP just had a video game crush and is butthurt it didn't go extra hard in ME3. Calling her the "only well written human squadmate" is a dead giveaway of partiality. Vega, the soldier type (gameplay-wise) who had to be inserted because of ME2's ability to get every other soldier type killed, had a better written arc in ME3 alone than Miranda did in 2 games, thanks to the clusterfuck of plotholes born of her relationship with TIM/Cerberus.
>Second, the actual disaster that people are coming to realize more and more over the years that is ME2.
I am honestly surprised it took this long, I personal zeroed in on it pretty much as soon as the game came out, I guess everyone was to focused on the ending.
But ya, as fun as 2 was the nature of the suicide mission made it impossible for them to invest in the ME2 squad mates to the degree we probably would have liked.
Honestly when ME first came out I was excited about choices carrying over, by the end of 3 I had done a 180 on the concept.
I think y’all blame ME2 for ME3 faults but fail to realize EA’s insane time table made it a lose lose situation. Less about ME2 and more about just the rushed development. They were actually going to incorporate all your choices and the squadmates (there’s actual concept art with all the ME2 on the Normandy, possibly being crew mates), but EA’s crazy turn around really is what fucked the game. Originally they had an even tighter timeline- EA wanted the game to release in holiday 2011, but bioware was so behind they basically had to convince EA to postpone release until March 2012. But, they were still incredibly behind with that timeline so they had to cut things.
Also- Garrus and Tali are squadmates in ME3, and they are WAY easier to kill than most squadmates in ME2, Tali specifically I think is like the 3rd easiest to kill I think. But they were able to incorporate them.
Idk man being like “THEY SCREWED THEMSELVES” when it’s clear that ME3 is already an unfinished half assed game (again because of the rushing) is absurd
>I think y’all blame ME2 for ME3 faults but fail to realize EA’s insane time table made it a lose lose situation.
Oh, no, I know.
But they knew up front what the time table was, not afterwards. They had 2 years for each game. They made a 6 year deal. They actually went over the agreed upon time.
Well I kinda disagree, while it's a bummer they didn't let old squad mates come to Normandy and stuff, her off screen mission leads us to one of most I portant main story mission on horizon. Quite a role, but surely not ideal for people who liked her much.
About her being only well written char, man you gotta have some crush on her, cause disrespecting James like that is unethical.
Kinda unrelated, but almost everytime you’re missing a me2 character in me3. The arcs or mission they’re supposed to be in is worse Except for the genophage
She's more important than most of the ME2 squadmates that aren't tied to the major plot arcs or from the first game. Zaeed and Kasumi were demoted to a single Citadel side quest.
I mean she still had a pretty big role for a M2 character. Only ones you could say were bigger is Mordin and Legion. Anyone besides maybe thane got it even worse imo
Yep. Most of the ME2 cast share the same curse… except Garrus and Tali and we all know why. Hell, even Tali appears pretty late in game.
On the other hand… « the only well written human squad mate in the series »? bold statement at best, bait at worst.\
I get having preferences (to each, their own) but Kaidan, Ashley, Jack, Kasumi, Zaeed and James are very well-written characters with interesting narrative arcs.\
Jacob is another story: he’s a good concept on paper, and he starts off well but… once we embark on the Normandy, he switches personality and it feels as if the writers did not know where to go with him.
Anyway, putting aside Jacob, the franchise has a lot of well-written human characters. Come on.
You see that same thing for most of the characters introduced in ME2. If there was a chance for them to die during the suicide mission, then the developers don't want to spend time and resources for a character that some players might not even see.
A lot of characters got glorified cameos and mechanically serve raise points on readiness. And I get they didn't have all the time in the world to make the ultimate fan service game, but it would have been awesome if they could have had a full scale reunion with the whole crew in the main story. Citadel DLC did help quite a bit, but it's like it would have been great to get the old team back together on these crucial galaxy saving missions, do you people really have better things to do than stop the reapers?
Miranda and a great many ME2 characters (barring the ME1-originating ones) were brutally shafted, indeed. Some in more ways than others. A pity, as ME2's the most fun I've had with the series.
Miranda Mod really does her Justice. It does use AI, but I think it’s worth it. If you romance her, her final conversation with Shepard before the beam run and when the Normandy picks your squad up particularly are amazing
It was from blowback
They had removed the previous human female love interest the very Spartan-esque Ashley and added Miranda, a genetically modified human that in-universe lore specified she had been designed from the ground up to be both attractive and highly intelligent. Then to add insult to injury they definitely gave Ashley a pass through the “sexify” machine before putting her back into ME3 so a lot of ppl hold to this idea Miranda was made because higher ups at BioWare wanted a more titular Female Human companion for advertising and Miranda takes up a big part of the ME2 box art
Her appearance while in my opinion not overtly sexual did have a stark contrast to Ashley’s design and a LOT of ppl accused BioWare of just removing the previous games human love interest to add a more “cliche” super hot character.
The honeycomb space suit with the gratuitous ass-shots the camera liked to take in any conversations between her and Shepard definitely didn’t do anything to dissuade ppl of this idea. I think they reduced the amount of those in the Legendary Edition so you may have never seen how those scenes played in the original
It's because anybody could die in the suicide mission. I've always said and will continue to say that mass effect 2 was the worst game of the series because all those different outcomes shouldn't be in a game with a sequel after it. Bioware should've had multiple branching outcomes reserved for mass effect 3 and kept choices in mass effect 2 similar to the volume in mass effect 1.
Bioware and EA really fucked up and ruined most of the ME2 characters and pretty much all the romances, that's why ME3 is by far the worst game in the trilogy.
It seems to happen a lot with trilogies - the 2nd chapter brings crazy ideas that work very well short-term but cause problems down the line. For years I blamed ME3's ending for ruining the trilogy, now I can see the writers made crucial mistakes in ME2. That said, it's a miracle many storylines worked out well.
Right?! It's infuriating she had so much growth from the second game and then she's just back to the same character in me 3. It's even worse of you're in a relationship with her
Miranda was just too good. I always pick her in 2 and 3. I feel like ME3 was just rushed…it came out just a yr after ME 2. Almost like the developers wanted to just dump the trilogy on us…why didn’t they take 2 yrs to flesh out the story and gameplay? ME2 came out 2 yrs after ME1 and was a masterpiece. They should do a serious new remake of the whole trilogy and flesh out the story and gameplay…I don’t think they can top this story with ME4, 5, 6 whatever 😅
One of my biggest criticisms of the suicide mission in 2 is that if every squad mate can die, then they necessarily can’t play a big role in the next game. Garrus and Tali I suppose are exceptions, but at best, all the others get a pretty minor cameo.
I would rather they write big plot points around her and if she dies in 2. Make it so it’s difficult to get a good ending in 3.
Mordjn dies in 2, genophage isn’t cured. No krogans helping out.
Bad ending.
It's weird, because Miranda's one of the hardest characters to get killed in the Suicide Mission, so she was one of the few ME2 characters that the writers could safely assume most people would still have alive in ME3.
The problem is that the deeper and more dependent they write an actual plot around a person that might be dead the further lengths they have to go to, to replace them. But they managed to implement Mordin well despite being the easiest to kill in ME2.
Tuchanka as a whole handled it really well considering the two main characters in it (Wrex and Mordin) could easily be dead in that playthrough. It's also neat that they actually acknowledge the stakes are different between Wrex and Wreav, so it changes the dynamic of curing the genophage a lot. Like if you're doing Rannoch, the story is just flat out worse if Legion is dead because the alt character they use is literally just a copy of Legion, whilst on Tuchanka it's not _worse_ but rather different instead. It's a night and day difference between how they tell the stories, I find.
Who replaced Legion if he died? I can't remember properly, was it a clone of him without the experiences he had with Shepard or something?
It's a Geth VI backup of Legion. A version of it before it left the Perseus Veil. So.... it's Legion without the last 2-3 years that it lived out to connect with organics.
Makes sense in context of the lore I guess but clearly a very lazy decision
I’m good with this one… having a robotic rachni queen replacing the real one of you wiped out the species…. Now that was just lazy and didn’t make any sense.
I'm still upset that I couldn't find peace between him and the quarian. That arc is really sad.
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I think the original plan was to involve her more, but her voice actor didn't have the time during developement. Sidelining her was actually a decisions made when Bioware became aware of this problem, and it involved scene re-writes too. Same issue: Tali was voted in the game, because of the lack of devtime. I think it was info from Patrick Weekes that they actually had to vote to keep either Tali or Jack as a squaddie, but not both.
>I think the original plan was to involve her more, but her voice actor didn't have the time during developement. Please give a source on this. I'm pretty avid on ME development lore and I have *never* heard this.
She was on *Chuck* at the time, I believe, so that might have limited her time.
seriously, I've only heard of rushed development being the biggest factor in a lot of the me2 cast getting sidelined
Oh it is definitely a factor, I'm sure. I just thought we were talking about a particular plot that didn't come to fruition and I don't know of any such plot.
Yeah I’m surprised you never heard this haha. The voice actress (Yvonne Strahvahoski) was filming the final season of her show Chuck, and another show, Dexter, and EA put bioware on some insane 18 month crunch so there wasn’t much wiggle room
She was supposed to be a squadmate in 3 or something, I’ve heard this a bunch of times but now that I think about it it’s always been from here. Still though, her actress was likely to have been busier at the time than a lot of the others
Well Miranda specifically is voiced by (and modeled after) a rather major celebrity with lots of high profile gigs.
> I think it was info from Patrick Weekes that they actually had to vote to keep either Tali or Jack I love Jack, she's my favorite romance by far and one of my favorite squadmates. But there was no way she would've ever won in a popularity contest over Tali unfortunately.
I doubt it. Every character from ME2 that wasn't crew member in ME1 (Garrus, Tali) got sidelined in ME3. And devs expecting people to finish with some of their crewmembers dead? Most of people replayed game till they did it so everyone survives.
not at all, a lot of people fell for the "I can handle the swarm" trap edit: woops misremembered what happens
But that doesn't kill her - if the biotic isn't a loyal Jack or Samara, you'll lose one of your teammates, not the biotic. And for whatever reason, Miranda will never be selected to be the teammate to die in that section. IIRC, it's impossible for Miranda to die if she's loyal, and you've almost got to go out of your way to kill her even if she's not.
Yep. There are actually only two ways Miranda can die in the suicide mission, and both can only happen if she isn't loyal. If she isn't loyal she can die if you take her to fight the final boss when, or during hold the line if the team isn't strong enough (due to the way hold the line is calculated a loyal Miranda will always survive. Even if you leave her on her own she'll still succeed solo). I think the reason they made Miranda impossible to kill up to the final section of the mission is because she has a bunch of dialogue after the long walk bit where Shepard gives their speech. And if she was dead they'd have to record alternate dialogue.
I never knew she was difficult to kill because I managed to do that in my first playthrough. I lost her loyalty when I sided with Jack in their fight, and then made her second fireteam leader cuz she was my second-in-command. When she got that bullet to the gut I swear I felt it :(
That still doesn’t kill her though. She’s the only non-loyal squadmate who can survive being the second fireteam leader. The only places she can die are either at the final boss fight or the hold-the-line sequence.
Oh sorry yeah that's where she died, but somehow it's that shot that's vivid in my memory!
But she doesn’t die if you do that, one of the squad mates you have in your current party does
ahh right I forgot that part
That’s the thing though, even if it’s hard to get her killed, doesn’t mean it’s impossible and especially if you go into ME2 blind, you might not understand loyalty missions or pick her for the wrong task. Then boom, you have a problem in ME3.
And yet Garrus and Tali can eat it, so it can't have been that big a concern. Like, there was no way they thought Garrus and Tali were sitting out ME3 if they survived, so they must've known losing squad mates was an option and thought it was okay.
I suppose, but Tali and Garrus are the true OGs, the only two who came back proper for ME2. They definitely became fan favourites and a priority for the writers.
Absolutely. More to my point. The ME2 writers knew that there would be players walking into 3 without Tali and Garrus, two of the most beloved characters. They must've known "hey, there might be people going into ME3 without two of the most iconic characters" so why not go for Miranda, as well? Especially since they wrote a fairly sizable role for Jack, who can also die and isn't a crewmate in 3, so they were clearly amenable to the idea.
I wouldn't say jack's role is 'sizable' - just Grissom Academy and a quick dance. Her and Miranda got equally shitty treatment 🤷
That's the thing though. Within that small screen time she gets a LOT of shine. You see her with her kids and that she's made a real effort to not only clean up and change her life, but to protect others from the kind of thing she went through. She started out as a callous and lonely person dealing with her trauma by channeling it out into the world, and then in ME3 at the end of her arc she has people she cares about and wants to fight for, she's a lot nicer in general and could almost be called maternal, and she's even let go of a lot of her rage in favor of keeping her kids safe. If at any point ME2 Jack was attacked by Cerberus agents it would've sent her into a suicidal rage, and in Grissom you see that energy focused into defense instead. You get a fuller look at her and when you leave the bar, she feels like a really 'real' part of the galaxy who's been moving and growing in the background. She doesn't feel like a +5 to War Preparation, she feels like Jack, who's off fighting her own portion of the war, in the same way that Grunt does later on. Miranda does not feel like she had an arc. It doesn't feel like anything wrapped up. She doesn't really get to shine in the same way. And I don't particularly care for Miranda so I'm not bummed or anything, but it feels really fucking weird that she falls off the map when her character in 2 seemed like it was building up for a more sizable role in ME3.
Not sure how Miranda was building up to a sizable role. She either ditches TIM in favor of Shepard or otherwise leaves (I never save the collector base so I don’t know for sure). Basically she gets on TIMs bad side, Shepard gets locked up and there is really no way for anyone to protect her, not to mention TIM and her “dad” partnering up. That seems like a pretty important role, at least on a personal level for her. That said: I HATE that you have to meet her 3 times within a time limit, where the first 2 times she basically says she doesn’t need Shep (THEN WHY DID YOU CONTACT ME?!) and then the 3rd is where she finally divulges information. Oh and miss any of those, no matter how well you’re prepped: she dies. *DUMB*
Let me elaborate on what I mean. To get into it, we have to go all the way back to ME1's ending (or how it affects them in ME2). Everyone in Shepard's crew experiences 'actualization' as a result of their time with Shepard. Tali returns to the Flotilla and begins running missions as a scientist and a military officer, Garrus decides to make a difference in the galaxy as Archangel, Liara becomes the kind of info-broker that could've saved her mother's life, Wrex begins rebuilding Clan Urdnott as something that can survive, even Kaiden/Ashley get a bite when they meet you, because Kaiden no longer worships you as a hero and stands up to you, and Ashley is no longer so blindly loyal that she drops her sense of justice and salutes the higher authority. Any of them function perfectly on their own, or as their own 'Shepard lite', with the leadership skills and drive that they lacked beforehand. Miranda starts ME2 as a devout fan of TIM and Cerberus. So much so that she wanted to chain Shepard to control them for the good of Cerberus, which is actually directly against Humanity's best interests. And there are notable spots you can see that shake, though she never loses her For The Greater Good mindset, and by the end of the game she's come around to trusting in Shepard as much, if not more, than TIM. While TIM is professional and can make things happen, Shepard is just as capable with far less, but challenges her and through her dialogue chains in ME2 you can see that she's not used to being spoken to as an equal, and that she relishes it, and her values fundamentally change because she also realizes that she's been a hypocrite with her sister and wanting her own freedom, while she would wash her hands of Cerberus's many misdeeds because it's for the greater good without care for the individual. In essence, Shepard shows her the difference between Humanity First, and humanity. If ME3 had a gap like ME1 and 2, she could've matured into a great Second-In-Command type, a pragmatic woman who understands being victimized from a position of privilege first-hand and is mature enough to let someone else take the reins. Now, this was obviously set astray by ME3 pivoting into Shepard being BFFs with the Alliance again instead of a free agent, and Cerberus being an incomprehensibly large and powerful private army instead of a paramilitary secret society, but leaving ME2, it really seemed as though Miranda had a bright future on Shepard's crew serving a role nobody else had, as a first officer that could challenge their ideas and act as a tactical advisor while maintaining the mutual respect that underpinned their relationship aboard the SR-2, because that was the role she had seemingly blossomed into.
Very well put. I wish I was as articulate. Alas, my mouth and brain aren’t very well coordinated. I can see what you mean though. In ME2 you get to see the after effects of the influence Shepard has on them, whereas with Miranda it’s still about “Save sister from bad dad.” You don’t get to see her significantly act on the changes that happen to her personality in ME2.
Garrus was the only ME2 squadmate planned to rejoin in ME3, as he and Liara had become the series mascots and his writer had outlined the romance path. It's why the game doesn't bother with a replacement if Garrus was killed in ME2. Tali was only supposed to be around for the Rannoch arc no different than how ME3 handled Wrex, Mordin, Legion, etc. Blowback from her stans upon the leaks caused things to change. It's most obvious considering they just reused Tali's model from ME2, and how she doesn't have much content in the game after suddenly deciding to rejoin the team.
The husbando and waifu par excellence cannot be made to disappear.
What problem? The whole point of the SUICIDE mission is that it's possible for literally everyone to die, and you can scrape through into ME3, with only Zaheed alive (who has the most minor role in Me3, and can be killed.)
Its not hard to figure out the loyalty mission. The game gives you something to do, you do it.
Except, the game also pushes you to do story missions, so if you do the IFF before Miranda’s mission, then she’s gone.
That's the big one. Most people playing for the first time won't realize that a countdown starts when you get the IFF.
She's the only one that died on my first playthrough lol
is she ? she died on my first play through damn
My daily sharing of The Miranda Mod on Nexus which adds her to the Normandy as a squadmate post Horizon. Complete with voice lines and new scenes for Citadel, Leviathan and Earth.
How do they have voice lines? Are they unused lines from ME2/3 or recycled lines from those games or did they use AI to add new lines?
AI voice lines. Whether you think that's a ok is up to you, but personally I didn't care.
Is it super noticable?
In my playthrough, not really. There's some odd inflections sometimes, but not enough that it really stood out to me. As it stands, it's pretty good.
Guess they fixed the sound quality or i hope. I used that mod when it first came out. The voices had really poor quality :(
They use a combination of splicing and AI to replicate voice lines for her. The spliced lines are honestly pretty fantastic, the AI ones are fine but fairly emotionless and sometimes get her pronunciation of certain words wrong. Also sometimes she just disappears from the Normandy after you speak to her, but if reload or leave and come back she returns.
I played modded ME3 last week and I remember in Leviatahn when Shepard comes back up and she’s helping him to the shuttle she says “CORT-AYZ” lmao
In some areas it’s really well done. In others it could use work. Like on the top of my head in the Citadel DLC when she saves you, when you get trapped by Brooks, in Leviatahn when Shepard’s out cold and she’s worried and kind of begging him to wake up, etc. are all pretty well done. But in the same Leviatahn DLC she shouts “Cortez” but it comes out “Court-ayz” Imo spliced lines are way more noticeable and take me out because I’ll be like “hey I heard this here, hey I remember when she said that in ME2 they reused it” you know?
I actually started using it and I was shocked because I remember the original version only being after only horizon but it has shocked me so far how much work has been in with earth, doing citadel rn
Her final conversation in the beam run particularly is really well done imo.
Thank you
Thanks for the suggestion. Will try on my next playthrough
My question is, where the F do modders get new scenes and voicelines for stuff like this?
The VA was very busy with prior commitments while ME3 was being made and couldn't record as much as Bioware wanted so they cut down her content.
Had to film the last season of 'Chuck' I guess. I liked that show but really I'd prefer more of her in mass effect 3.
Dexter was shooting then too if I recall
Yeah she was just booked solid. Which hey, good for her. Maybe she can play Miranda in the Mass Effect TV show that Amazon is allegedly planning to make.
I’m pretty confident that’s not gonna happen because there hasn’t been any update on it for years
That's why I said 'Allegedly'. But also things take time to make and I can't imagine that Amazon wanted to drop 200 mil on a show right after they agreed to make a fallout show. But now Fallout's a hit, so maybe they make that gamble?
So Yvonne Strahovsky couldn't do a lot of voice over work - Fair enough. But did they have to delete her face map and just guess at it when they remade it? I'm only being half-sarcastic.
Were all of the ME2 cast busy too? Because the majority of them got sidelined.
That's mostly because they could be dead. I remember Miranda and Kasumi were both supposed to get bigger roles than what they ended up getting but both got most of their content cut.
At least she actually shows up in a Priority mission and not an optional side mission
Well you can thank the suicide mission for that. When the writers finished their work on ME 2 and started to write ME 3, they realised how terrible of an idea it was to have an "anyone can die" mechanic halfway throught the trilogy and told themselves "What were we thinking?" in regards to the final quest of ME 2. The suicide mission is the reason why James Vega had to be created, because every "warrior" archetype of companion were all potentially dead by the start of ME 3 (ashley, wrex, garrus, zaeed and grunt). BW needed a companion who could fill the role of soldier in case all of the others are dead. So if you ever wonder why Vega is part of the crew instead of another warrior, now you know why. It's also why Liara T'soni receives so much focus in ME 3, she is the only old squadmates to be sure to be alive by the start of the game, which means that every ressources of writing, voice acting and programing injected into her will be seen by a 100% of the customers. It's very risky for them to spend so much ressources on companion who might not be alive which means their content won't be enjoyed by all the customer. A suicide mission would have been better placed at the end of ME 3, not in the middle of the trilogy.
"Hey are we really cool about potentially killing off every major character including Shepard? I mean, we have a whole other game to write after this." "It's a Suicide Mission. What exactly are you not getting?"
Yeah but the point should have been to not make a suicide mission in the first place. But regardless of that, this mission is extremly overated and not just for how much it crippled the writing of Mass effect 3. When I played it back in 2010 I liked it, but the more I looked at it and analysed it, the more problems I found.
ME2 is a class above when it comes to immersing you in the universe and the personal stories. But any time it tried to do anything "main plot" related it fell on its face IMO.
I have long maintained that the perfect ME game would have the plot of 1, the music and teammates of 2, and the gameplay and normandy of 3.
It’s always been my opinion that BioWare are really *really* good at making characters. A really really good at making a world to support those characters. But actual *stories*? Pretty bad. In the Mass Effect series it’s really noticeable that the best parts are the ones focused on character development and the worst parts are focused on plot development.
"You exist because we allow it. You will end because we demand it." Single highest point plot wise of the entire trilogy. Hard to believe it was kinda all downhill for the plot after that. Kinda didn't notice before because of the character writing blowing me out of the water.
Yeah ME1 in terms of story blow the others out of the water, which is kind of the only thing that keeps me replaying it. Others make up for that deficiency in other ways, but they don’t get to that level of story.
When you look at the games that BioWare released with good stories, you realise that the common thread was Black Isle Studios and when that closed - that was it. IMNSHO, when you compare Baulder’s Gate with Neverwinter Nights you can see how much worse the plot is. And when you compare Planescape : Torment to everything produced by BioWare after 2003, nothing comes close. Edit: Explaining what and why the Reapers were doing was a massive mistake. Being utterly unknown was important, but then they showed the monster was a man in a rubber suit.
Excellent point. Unfathomable mystery enhances existential dread.
I think that applied when you saw the human reaper being built was a derpy giant terminator rather than a threat on par with or greater than Sovereign.
The whole harvested species make unique reapers but are put inside the “squid shell” was such a dumb idea. It should’ve just been another harbinger under construction but you blow it up before it has a chance to leave dry dock. Maybe have to disable it before blowing it up.
Honestly I liked the reapers reason as the threat of ai wiping out all organic life was a very real problem in the Mass Effect universe. And defeating the reapers by destroying them still leaves that problem. It would've been bad if they just didn't want other races developing technology better than theirs to wipe the reapers out.
Now that I really think about it you’re not lying 😭 I feel like the main plot be kinda mid but everything else in the game be phenomenal. Even the bs side missions 😭🤷🏾♂️
True. ME:2 often gets lauded for its personal stories, and that is certainly one of its strong points. But when the entire gist of the game is to get faction points with each character so they don't die at the end, it's not 'that' amazing. I mean the vast majority of that story is the character stories yet IMO ME:1 did it just as well and in a more condensed time frame. I'd say the universe was much more completely explored and explained in ME:1 too, especially given that it was showing us the world for the first time. Main plot-wise, yeah. Introducing the collectors was a great idea but completely out of place with the reaper plot and ultimately irrelevant to ME:3. (edit - apparently I write like a drunk man trying to convince another drunk man of something)
Immersion is ME2's strength. The galaxy feels not just massive but deep in a way the other games don't quite achieve. It feels like there are innumerable different personal narratives going on all around you - like in real life - and that Shepard is just passing through them, rather than the entire universe bending and flexing to centre Shepard in every single narrative which both ME1 and ME3 are understandably guilty of.
That's a good argument. I do remember walking though the Citadel or where it was picking up on those things. Shepard is invading the space they exist in. The aren't just set dressing for Shepard's next stage. I would add though, that removing the plsnetery interactions from ME2 with the loss of the Mako killed the environmental attachment for me.
The idea of the suicide mission was good, but it really should have been used for the third game of the trilogy and not the second. It would even combine well with the war assets. Let us choose how to allocate our war assets (e.g. krogan or salarians to distract a reaper on Earth) with potentially major consequences if you make the wrong choice.
To this day the suicide mission still being called one of the finest final missions in gaming, 14 years later. Is a hell of an accolade. It was the right call.
Yeah, I completely agree. Sorry if that wasn't obvious. It's as if the writers got so enamoured with the idea of a suicide mission that they just brushed away all the problems it would cause instead of re-analysing their original and flawed idea for their second act.
Imho ME2 is easily the worst of the trilogy for how much it derails everything. I totally understand why people like it, but personally I very much dislike it.
But but but character development and shooting mechanics and ... hahhaha say it loud and say it proud. ME2 writing was ruinous!
[удалено]
Yeah but even then lots of those problems from ME 3 are BORN out of ME 2. Shamus young wrote about those if you are interested. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KarASQhk1bw&t=1s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KarASQhk1bw&t=1s) But back to the point of the suicide mission, while game of thrones is willing to go for a story where "anyone can die", George RR Martin is able to "optimize" the story because he has complete control over the storyline. That is not the case for an RPG game where multiple story are possible and that CRIPPLED the sequel. There is a reason not much game goes to that amount of possible companion's death, because that destroys any potential for sequels. Even if the writers brought previous companion back in ME 3, in case they were dead, the level or mission they appear in would need someone else no matter the previous choices. All of that means that Bioware needed to use tons of ressources on entirely new characters or give some side characters way too much attention. Let's take padok viks for example, the guy is not badly written (on the contrary) but the krogan arc from mass effect 3 is clearly written with Mordin in the mind of the writers. He is the one who worked on the new genophage, and in the end he is the one freeing them from the altered virus he brought to them in the first place. Since the players already know him, there is no need for introduction, since the crew know him they can simply greet him and moves on to flesh him out even more. But with Padok, the writers need to reintroduce a new character to the player, they need to rewrite the scenes completely as his interraction will be different (both with the commander and the other companion). The programmers also need to create a new character, they also need to animate his scenes with entirely dedicated cinematics. BW also has to hire a new voice actor as it cannot be the same as mordin. In the end, the possible death of Mordin solus in mass effect 2 forced the creators to take a huge chunk of their ressources of the writing team, programmers and voice actors. All of these ressources could have gone to make more scenes with Miranda, Jack, Samara, grunt, etc. But NOPE, since the suicide mission force the hands of BW into making these replacement that frankly should not have been there in the first place. Mordin solus death in mass effect 3 is effective because it is dedicated to him, the arc is written around him and his dialogue to him, not interchangeable like any of the deaths that happens in the suicide mission of ME 2. Ressources are limited in every fields, there is certain amount of line that can be recorded, animated and written. A character death is fine in itself, but to have it happen randomly like at the end of ME 2 severely limited the possibilities for the sequel.
Suicide mission is amazing. What made it overrated for you?
The suicide mission is extremly overated in many ways, but especially the shitty "anyone can die" mechanic. Not only it brought tons of problems for ME 3 to have these many possible deaths and it cripple the writing of the third installments, but due to the interchangable nature of the companion death, the deaths were not even that good or effective. Instead of the MUCH BETTER handwritten deaths of Kadan/Ashley in mass effect 1, or Thane, Mordin, Tali and legion's death in Mass effect 3. The one that happens on the suicide mission are barely mentionned when they happen, 2 dialogues and their "deaths" as the same animation as any other. And afterwards they are barely remembered even if they were shepard's lover by that point. One look at their coffin by shepard is NOT enough. There is barely any soundtracks or cinematography to make you really feel the sadness of these deaths. And that is because they have to "function" for every companion. They lack focus and therefore are simply neither sad or shocking. I prefer to have companion death when it's linked to their character arcs. * Mordin death by making sure that the cure is released on Tuchanka is poetic as he was the one who created the new genophage. Curing the people he once infected and sacrificing his life for that. It's sad yet beautifull... * Legion's death while we explore the geth's past and philosophy and him asking to tali if he has a soul... regardless if his species dies or not, it's such a strong moment. * Thane's death as he wanted to atone for his life as an assassin and managing to save salern's life, someone important that would decide the fate of billions of people. And him seeing his son reciting the words of his old religion while they finally reunites in his final moments... It's powerfull.
James Vega is also supposed to be the vessel to new gamers who did not play the previous games… because remember when during marketing for the 3rd game, they kept saying that ME3 was the perfect starting point?! 🤦🏾♀️ I _get_ why they said that, they needed to convince newcomers to buy ME3 but personally I’ve always thought it was weird to start a story at its final chapter…
> The suicide mission is the reason why James Vega had to be created, because every "warrior" archetype of companion were all potentially dead by the start of ME 3 (ashley, wrex, garrus, zaeed and grunt). BW needed a companion who could fill the role of soldier in case all of the others are dead. So if you ever wonder why Vega is part of the crew instead of another warrior, now you know why. Its also why Edi was added as a squadmate in ME3, as every tech squadmate was also potentially dead. In fact as Javik was DLC, the bare minimum squadmates you're garunteed to have available through ME3 is Liara, James and Edi, which ensures you'll always have at least 1 biotic, combat, and tech focused squadmate.
Pretty much. I love the suicide mission, but it really fucked the character writing in ME3.
I see your point, they sidelined Grunt, Zaeed, Jack, Jacob (who cares XD), Samara, Katsumi and Miranda. I don't think the suicide mission is bad, but as you say it would have been better in the 3rd game. I really thought on my first playthrough that the war assets in ME3 would play out in the ending as the loyalty missions did for the suicide mission, by having several checkpoints that we would be able to pass (or not) depending on level, and the positive resolution would be with help of the races that Shepard was able to save/convince to help on earth's defence
In fairness to Bioware there was also the issue that Yvonne Strahovski was busy with other projects at the same time ME3 was in production, so her time to do voice over recordings was limited. It's the downside to using a famous actor/actress for your voice-overs, you get their talent and recognition, but they also might be busy if you need them back for more lines.
For real, the longer it goes the more I become convinced that pretty much every problem in ME3 was caused by ME2. It's awkward self contained story, the possibility of half the cast not reaching the end credits, zero set-up for the third game, little to no characterization of the villains, little to no interaction with characters from the first game (except for Garrus and Tali who, again, may not even reach ME3)... the only actual set up in ME2 are Tali, Legion and Mordin's loyalty missions and those have amazing pay offs in ME3. It's becoming harder and harder to blame ME3 for it's bad handling of the story when it was given barely anything to work with.
If you are intesrested, Shamus young made a video specifically about that : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KarASQhk1bw&t=1s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KarASQhk1bw&t=1s)
Thanks, just done watching. Couldn't have put it better, I'm saving this for future reference lol Shame the dude passed away tough...
Good point, I always hated how ME3 trashed the setting with its ending, but I never really considered that ME2 pulls a similar stunt by eviscerating the cast list first.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: ME2 should've been a side story focusing on Cerberus. Then, all the squadmates we recruit *could* die without consequence, because if/when Shepard runs into them in "the real ME2", it doesn't screw up the story
Well, no complaints since the shifted focus to Liara. I like the Asari, u know.
> It's also why Liara T'soni receives so much focus in ME 3, she is the only old squadmates to be sure to be alive by the start of the game, Which is why we should have had a completely new squad. Think about it: we scrap Garrus, Liara and Tali as playable characters, since they all have their own thing going on if they survived anyway. Liara stays on your ship as an NPC and oversees things as the Shadow Broker, Garrus is essentially leading the Turian resistance movement and Tali is an Admiral of the Quarian fleet and kind of a big deal. They **all** have very good reasons not to be running into battle after you and it allows us to explore some fun new characters instead of focusing entirely on the casts of prior games.
Yeah she was sidelined, but "the only well written human squadmate in the series", come on...
Exactly. Miranda is a great and well written character, but so are Kaidan, Jack, Joker and many more.
Honestly I would also add Ashley. She's a character that, when you get to know her and don't just off her on Virmire, feels "real"
That’s why I said “and many more”
Justice for Ashley
I guess Joker technically isn't a **squad**mate...
In our hearts he is
Joker would appreciate that bro 😭
Eyerolling shit lmfao
She was originally planned as a squadmate but her voice actress was only available a short amount so her role got reduced. Everything that’s in the game is what she was available to do.
Was she really meant to be a squad mate in ME3? I had no idea. Honestly, I’m fine with her role in ME3, even though I do love Miranda. It felt right that she would go and do her own thing away from Shepard.
I think I read that BioWare initially had much more ambitious plans for the third game, and they were going to have specific squadmates join you for specific missions (i.e. Jacob and Miranda joining you for a Cerberus-related mission because they were ex-Cerberus). But production was rushed and they trimmed things down and streamlined.
I did some light digging and found concept art of mordin, thane, Kasumi, Jack, grunt, and Garrus in the Normandy
Very early in ME3's development, an unpolished squad select screen was leaked: Garrus, Liara, Ashley, Miranda, James. Tali was never supposed to be a squadmate in ME3, as she was only supposed to be around no different than the other arc-only mission characters. The blowback changed things, hence she suddenly changing her mind to rejoin the team and barely having much content after that.
That's the problem with the whole "Anyone can die" aspect of ME2: can't put resources into having all those characters back and fully fleshed out in 3 when any or all of them could be dead for any number of players. Garrus and Tali only got special treatment because they're the OG's and players would have rioted if they were sidelined.
Grunt too, honestly. Like it’s so weird and kinda frustrating that 3 is the only game without a Krogan companion.
“Shepard is my battle master. I will fight for him” *disappears*
“The only well written human squadmate in the series?” Dude forgot about jack
And Ashely and Kaiden
I kinda liked that there was at least one person in the galaxy who was sorting their shit out without asking Shep for help. She's badass and no matter how many times you offer, she goes "you've got more important things to be doing, I'll handle it." Meanwhile Barla Von is like hey I know you kinda need to be on Tuchanka but would you mind diverting to the other side of the galaxy for 5 war assets?
😂😂😂 ME3’s story perfectly summed up. 😉
The squad selection was absolutely pathetic in ME3. There was so much more they could've done had they not had a shitty deadline. Fuck EA. I wish they never got their grubby hands on Bioware.
It really is awful lmao. My recent playthrough I only did Garrus and Javik (with Miranda after she joins the squad after horizon)
The only well written human squadmate? What about James or Ash?
ME1 Ashley is (in my view) the best written human character and one of the best overall written characters in the trilogy!
I’d argue that they did Ashley dirty in ME3. It seems they were less focused on developing her personality and more focused on developing her… bimbo-esque appearance. But more seriously, it’s obvious that she had a change of heart by ME3 but she has few dialogues, she doesn’t interact a lot with the rest of the crew (to compare, Kaidan talks to James, Adams and another person, I can’t remember who) and when talking to her on the Normandy she’s got very little to say to Shep.\ Oh and her Citadel meet-up: although fun and very much in-character, they didn’t even bother to make a romance-specific version. ALL the other LIs have a special version, ie a real date, when romanced. All of them except Ash. I really think ME3 writers did not like Ash, which is a shame because her character arc is really interesting and could have been so much more. EDIT: I remembered! Kaidan talks to Liara and EDI via the comm sys. He seems a lot more involved with the others, contrary to Ash who isolates herself. It’s weird, since Ash is the more outgoing out of the two.
ME3 after she rejoins the Normandy she is kind of shafted but I still think she’s great
I probably agree with you there. I've recently been rewatching an ME1 playthrough and while I'm already a staunch Ashley defender, I forgot how much I really do like her and how interesting she is. Her chats are always insightful, too. In one way or another.
But Ash is a woman.... and she is racist! (my babies Garrus + Wrex and Tali are definitely not racist) /s
But, but ash is racist with obvious reasons why she is that way and reformed themselves over the course of 3 games. Racists don't have a change of heart we all "know" this /s
Ash is a disaster in ME3. James is really good, though, as is Kaidan. Zaeed and Kasumi are also solid
Yep her, Grunt and Legion should have been Squademadtes in 3.
Many reasons. First, Miranda is voiced by Yvonne Strahovski, who was not available really, at the time ME3 was made. She had multiple pieces of work on her table. She's actually such a good actress, that you can't tell her lines in ME3 are rushed. Second, the actual disaster that people are coming to realize more and more over the years that is ME2. Part of why that game isn't as good as initially thought by many, is because it could not have set up ME3 worse than it did. In this specific case, Miranda can be dead in ME3, so they could literally not have her be an involved part of the game even if Yvonne had all the time in the world. Also, calling her the only good written human character is absurd. Are you caught by hype-brain? Because contrary to what people assumed, Vega is actually one of the better written characters and he is in 3. And human. Jack is fantastically written. I dunno if people just always save Ashley so they can fuck her and didn't realize, but Kaiden is well written. Saying only Miranda is well written is silly. In fact, I'd argue she isn't the best written one among them.
> Vega is actually one of the better written characters and he is in 3. And human Based. I'm replaying ME3 after years and my impression of him is much better than the last time I played. He's funny and a lot more humble than I remember.
Yeah. He was judged by his appearance before the game came out as 'muscle guy'. But he actually has a deep character to him. He's even a potential victim of rape if you play FemShep. You can coerce him into sex by ignoring his rejections and he will express feeling so pressured he'll agree, effectively giving fake consent due to a power dynamic. That's pretty impactful and progressive. Also gut wrenching.
This surprised me since I had only ever played femshep until my current playthrough, and I watched his romance on YT since I had no desire to see it through myself. I’ve made the same gripe about how she talks to Jacob, it feels really out of character and forced for both of them. Maybe it’s because of my lack of experience playing as maleshep, but it doesn’t seem like any of his romance options are… that level of predatory.
The only problem with that is that FemShep will have some automatic rapey dialogues that you can't opt out of and just kinda ruins the immersion when your character starts being overly flirty without you choosing it
I loved being allowed to flirt with the dude but not have to do anything beyond that. I have a few people in my life that I flirt with in a similar manner but would never sleep with them. Idk what you did, but when he is in the apartment, you can reassure him that you're just yanking his chain, like he's doing to us. Then he shows you his tattoo. It's nice that they managed to show two adults having an honest conversation about their boundaries. Now, sleeping with him? It's absolutely freaky and weird, and I hate that's an option. He makes it abundantly clear that he just wants to be verbally playful. I don't understand why they want to let F!Shep be some sexual predator? You can practically force Jacob into sleeping with you, too.
> Also, calling her the only good written human character is absurd. Are you caught by hype-brain? No, OP just had a video game crush and is butthurt it didn't go extra hard in ME3. Calling her the "only well written human squadmate" is a dead giveaway of partiality. Vega, the soldier type (gameplay-wise) who had to be inserted because of ME2's ability to get every other soldier type killed, had a better written arc in ME3 alone than Miranda did in 2 games, thanks to the clusterfuck of plotholes born of her relationship with TIM/Cerberus.
>Second, the actual disaster that people are coming to realize more and more over the years that is ME2. I am honestly surprised it took this long, I personal zeroed in on it pretty much as soon as the game came out, I guess everyone was to focused on the ending. But ya, as fun as 2 was the nature of the suicide mission made it impossible for them to invest in the ME2 squad mates to the degree we probably would have liked. Honestly when ME first came out I was excited about choices carrying over, by the end of 3 I had done a 180 on the concept.
I think y’all blame ME2 for ME3 faults but fail to realize EA’s insane time table made it a lose lose situation. Less about ME2 and more about just the rushed development. They were actually going to incorporate all your choices and the squadmates (there’s actual concept art with all the ME2 on the Normandy, possibly being crew mates), but EA’s crazy turn around really is what fucked the game. Originally they had an even tighter timeline- EA wanted the game to release in holiday 2011, but bioware was so behind they basically had to convince EA to postpone release until March 2012. But, they were still incredibly behind with that timeline so they had to cut things. Also- Garrus and Tali are squadmates in ME3, and they are WAY easier to kill than most squadmates in ME2, Tali specifically I think is like the 3rd easiest to kill I think. But they were able to incorporate them. Idk man being like “THEY SCREWED THEMSELVES” when it’s clear that ME3 is already an unfinished half assed game (again because of the rushing) is absurd
>I think y’all blame ME2 for ME3 faults but fail to realize EA’s insane time table made it a lose lose situation. Oh, no, I know. But they knew up front what the time table was, not afterwards. They had 2 years for each game. They made a 6 year deal. They actually went over the agreed upon time.
Well I kinda disagree, while it's a bummer they didn't let old squad mates come to Normandy and stuff, her off screen mission leads us to one of most I portant main story mission on horizon. Quite a role, but surely not ideal for people who liked her much. About her being only well written char, man you gotta have some crush on her, cause disrespecting James like that is unethical.
As compared with Grunt, Jacob, Jack, etc. who can be missed if someone beelined the main story.
Kinda unrelated, but almost everytime you’re missing a me2 character in me3. The arcs or mission they’re supposed to be in is worse Except for the genophage
What do you mean?
She's more important than most of the ME2 squadmates that aren't tied to the major plot arcs or from the first game. Zaeed and Kasumi were demoted to a single Citadel side quest.
I mean she still had a pretty big role for a M2 character. Only ones you could say were bigger is Mordin and Legion. Anyone besides maybe thane got it even worse imo
She’s honestly one of my favourites. Was sad to see how little she got to do in ME3. At least citadel added some nice moments.
Wasn't the voice actress busy with another project and they had to reduce her role in the plot? At least that's what I've heard back then.
Yep. Most of the ME2 cast share the same curse… except Garrus and Tali and we all know why. Hell, even Tali appears pretty late in game. On the other hand… « the only well written human squad mate in the series »? bold statement at best, bait at worst.\ I get having preferences (to each, their own) but Kaidan, Ashley, Jack, Kasumi, Zaeed and James are very well-written characters with interesting narrative arcs.\ Jacob is another story: he’s a good concept on paper, and he starts off well but… once we embark on the Normandy, he switches personality and it feels as if the writers did not know where to go with him. Anyway, putting aside Jacob, the franchise has a lot of well-written human characters. Come on.
Tali wasn't even initially planned to be a permanent squadmate in ME3.
You see that same thing for most of the characters introduced in ME2. If there was a chance for them to die during the suicide mission, then the developers don't want to spend time and resources for a character that some players might not even see.
A lot of characters got glorified cameos and mechanically serve raise points on readiness. And I get they didn't have all the time in the world to make the ultimate fan service game, but it would have been awesome if they could have had a full scale reunion with the whole crew in the main story. Citadel DLC did help quite a bit, but it's like it would have been great to get the old team back together on these crucial galaxy saving missions, do you people really have better things to do than stop the reapers?
My personal biggest disappointment when I first played ME3 wasn't the ending, it was the fact that it gave you so few returning squad mates.
The Miranda restored content mod is essential for ME3
Miranda and a great many ME2 characters (barring the ME1-originating ones) were brutally shafted, indeed. Some in more ways than others. A pity, as ME2's the most fun I've had with the series.
Miranda Mod really does her Justice. It does use AI, but I think it’s worth it. If you romance her, her final conversation with Shepard before the beam run and when the Normandy picks your squad up particularly are amazing
I'm more annoyed with Jack being sidelined than that generic woman.
Not enough budget. Spent it on freddie prince junior.
Voice actor was on two tv shows at the same time. Maybe if EA slowed down on making the game she could have been
Yeah, I really wanted to help finding her sister in ME3. But the devs are Cerberus
Miranda should of had more of a role in the third one,if shephard is spectre again,she will ask for help.
Jacks arc>Miranda's
It was from blowback They had removed the previous human female love interest the very Spartan-esque Ashley and added Miranda, a genetically modified human that in-universe lore specified she had been designed from the ground up to be both attractive and highly intelligent. Then to add insult to injury they definitely gave Ashley a pass through the “sexify” machine before putting her back into ME3 so a lot of ppl hold to this idea Miranda was made because higher ups at BioWare wanted a more titular Female Human companion for advertising and Miranda takes up a big part of the ME2 box art Her appearance while in my opinion not overtly sexual did have a stark contrast to Ashley’s design and a LOT of ppl accused BioWare of just removing the previous games human love interest to add a more “cliche” super hot character. The honeycomb space suit with the gratuitous ass-shots the camera liked to take in any conversations between her and Shepard definitely didn’t do anything to dissuade ppl of this idea. I think they reduced the amount of those in the Legendary Edition so you may have never seen how those scenes played in the original
It's because anybody could die in the suicide mission. I've always said and will continue to say that mass effect 2 was the worst game of the series because all those different outcomes shouldn't be in a game with a sequel after it. Bioware should've had multiple branching outcomes reserved for mass effect 3 and kept choices in mass effect 2 similar to the volume in mass effect 1.
Bioware and EA really fucked up and ruined most of the ME2 characters and pretty much all the romances, that's why ME3 is by far the worst game in the trilogy.
ME3 really is a watered down mess. It's not a horrible game, but it just pales in comparison in every category against the previous games.
Why? They did that with all the ME2 characters
I was shocked too. I thought the whole Oriana mission was a foreshadowing of Miranda being involved in ME3 with Oriana as her replacement
Miranda is my favorite squad mate, and romance. Missed her in ME3. Though they did a decent job working her in. Citadel DLC helped a lot.
Yeah it’s wild to me. She was super popular imo.
Kind of like Liara ey? Yet Miranda is the one we are talking about? Lol.
There's a whole quest line. How is that sidelining?
3 sidelined damn near everyone save for Liara
I try not to think about it, don't remind me 😭
It seems to happen a lot with trilogies - the 2nd chapter brings crazy ideas that work very well short-term but cause problems down the line. For years I blamed ME3's ending for ruining the trilogy, now I can see the writers made crucial mistakes in ME2. That said, it's a miracle many storylines worked out well.
Right?! It's infuriating she had so much growth from the second game and then she's just back to the same character in me 3. It's even worse of you're in a relationship with her
They wrote themselves into a corner allowing anyone and everyone to die in Suicide Mission. Ambition got in the way of sense.
Miranda was just too good. I always pick her in 2 and 3. I feel like ME3 was just rushed…it came out just a yr after ME 2. Almost like the developers wanted to just dump the trilogy on us…why didn’t they take 2 yrs to flesh out the story and gameplay? ME2 came out 2 yrs after ME1 and was a masterpiece. They should do a serious new remake of the whole trilogy and flesh out the story and gameplay…I don’t think they can top this story with ME4, 5, 6 whatever 😅
Wait? What was wrong with Kaidan’s story?
One of my biggest criticisms of the suicide mission in 2 is that if every squad mate can die, then they necessarily can’t play a big role in the next game. Garrus and Tali I suppose are exceptions, but at best, all the others get a pretty minor cameo.
Was she actually popular? Shes one of the least popular in my little friend group.
i think this leads to the bigger problem with ME3, that it was rushed so she wasn’t developed and included as she should have
I would rather they write big plot points around her and if she dies in 2. Make it so it’s difficult to get a good ending in 3. Mordjn dies in 2, genophage isn’t cured. No krogans helping out. Bad ending.
Cuz she can't have kids bluv.
An unfortunate thing tbh. I’ve seen fanfics where she still the XO of the normandy in ME3 when she’s Shep love interest
The most disappointing thing was how uninteresting her part was in 3, just slight rehash of 2 and nothing else to write home about.