#up next let me talk about how andromedas biggest flaw (not perceived flaw but ACTUAL flaw) is how it lacks these highs and lows

[nellasbookplanet]

'Enjoy it despite its flaws' is one thing, but Mass Effect somehow invented its own category: 'simultaneously one of the most flawed and the most well-crafted sci-fi stories I've ever experienced'. These games are incredible. They’re the worst. All the women are sexualized. All the women have deeply flawed and complex personalities without being either demonized or romanticized. The first available f/f ship seems to be written along the guidelines of 'what would a straight man find hot'. As the games go on, they effortlessly include multiple same sex romance options given just as much care and development as the the opposite sex ones. You can play as a xenophobic murderhobo asshole. You can play as someone genuinely caring but also harsh, who inspires growth and co-operation wherever you go but who makes hard choices when you have to. You can kill civilians and punch reporters and commit genocide. You can stop a generational war and mediate peace and save several species from extinction. The robots are stereotypically evil cannon fodder. The robots are deeply complex with a tragic history. Your team mates are assholes with xenophobic opinions or justifications for police brutality and genocide, or they just want excuses to Do Murder. You team mates are deeply flawed and can be urged to grow alongside you. The most important aliens are all humanoids. There are plant aliens and jellyfish aliens and insect aliens and elephant aliens and aliens who can’t share an atmosphere with us. You have to drive around countless identically boring planets with little to show for it. You get to discover hidden secrets and civilisations millions of years old and live through some of the most emotionally harrowing scenes in storytelling history. I am going absolutely insane about it.

#mass effect #up next let me talk about how andromedas biggest flaw (not perceived flaw but ACTUAL flaw) is how it lacks these highs and lows #sure it doesn’t fall into the same problematic tropes as the trilogy sometimes does #but in its fear to take risks it also fails to hit the highs of when the risks pays off #nella talks