The Catalyst docks with the Crucible over a war-ravaged Earth
This is my granddaddy review of the entire gaming trilogy. It’s been a lot of fun (and a little bit of frustration) to play through it all again. If the plot is too long to read, I hope you’ll jump to my Critical Notes at the end
ONE
We meet Shepard and the Normandy. Humans are a new addition to the galaxy civilization, which includes multiple races. Geth, though, are an AI race that most of the worlds have never seen in person. We learn about the universe’s elite special forces group just in time to meet our ME1 villain, a rogue Spectre named Saren.
TWO
The First Beacon overwhelms Shepard and implants a vision in her brain. At this point she doesn’t know what it means, only that something bad happened. War, destruction. Later we look back and realize this is the first warning about the Reapers, delivered by the Protheans, a doomed race that was wiped out.
THREE
Tali, by dismantling a Geth, has information about the Reapers. This is the first time anyone has learned their name. The amazing Protheans, inventors of all our advanced technology like the mass effect relays, were hunted to extinction by this machine race. Saren, with his Geth helpers, wants to bring them back.
Thematically, this becomes a very strong Three. Visually, not so much. It’s a bunch of people standing around talking.
FOUR
The rest of ME1 goes here. Finding Liara, Feros, and Noveria. Encountering Cerberus for the first time. Virmire with Saren and the Second Beacon, where we learn that the Reapers (not the Protheans) built everything. Ilos and further information about the Reapers. The details of the Prothean extinction. Saren’s death.
Rebuilding Shepard and partnering with Cerberus is the beginning of ME2. Collectors abducting human colonies and how we will fight back while the rest of the galaxy pretends they’ve never heard of the Reapers.
SWITCH
Ghost Ship, ME2. Here’s where we discover that the Collectors are actually Protheans. Until this moment we know about the genocidal cycles every 50,000 years. We consider the Protheans the last harvested species, doomed to extinction. Now we learn it’s worse. Species don’t disappear, they’re repurposed and genetically rewritten to become a Reaper slave race.
FIVE
The rest of ME2, including the suicide mission, goes here. Reapers arrive, and we’re now in ME3. Gathering allies and building the Crucible. Each mission is a grimmer reality, and the galaxy is losing the battle.
SIX
This is the Sanctuary mission where we help Miranda rescue her sister and learn that colonists escaping the Reapers were tricked into becoming experiments. The Six moment is when we have confirmation that the Illusive Man has indeed discovered how to reverse engineer the Reaper mind indoctrination. What was done by the Reapers can now be turned about and done to the Reapers.
The mission itself is visually strong, but it doesn’t mirror with the Three. I wish some kind of clue indicated that we were looking at key beats. Because indoctrination is presented as software upgrades and mind control, it has no image associated with it. That could’ve changed without too much trouble.
SEVEN
As in ME3, the decision to confront the Illusive Man at Cronos Station and discover the meaning of the Catalyst is the Seven.
EIGHT
The Eight is also the same as in ME3. The trip through London, fighting the worst beasties, leads to the Reaper in the street guarding the portal to the Citadel. It’s the only time we fight a Reaper on foot. The trash mobs can be a little distracting from that fact. Really we’re just syncing missiles, not stabbing the actual Reaper. I think, as the culmination of the trilogy’s Two when we first discover the Reapers as an antagonist, this part needed more visual impact. All of that orange apocalyptic vision in ME1, which was too annoying and chaotic to mean anything, really needed a link here. Otherwise, it’s a strong sequence. I don’t even mind running in slomo for a little while!
And then we have the Citadel, the Illusive Man confrontation, and Boy, the director of the Reapers. The last moment of the Eight is Shepard’s choice.
NINE
Again, the Nine for the trilogy is the same as it is in ME3. Shepard is (most likely) dead. The galaxy has been reset in some fashion. The Stargazer gives their shiny little summary.
And that’s a wrap.
CRITICAL NOTES
One reason I find Boy annoying is because he represents a solution that is based on evolutionary atheism. The Mass Effect series has no Supreme Being (except for the Asari using “Goddess!” when they’re upset). Survival of the fittest is the rule, which is why so many defeated enemies, if Shepard has the achievement points, commit suicide. They’re strong enough — fit enough — to kill themselves. It’s not my ethical standard. Bioware’s Dragon Age series has many different belief systems and the player can role play accordingly. Not here. In a game with multiple consequential options, choosing a different religious framework is not one of them. For Boy to work as he’s written, the system must be like this. Organic species evolve until they create a technological race, at which time the AIs will wipe them out. Because the strong must survive, conflict is inevitable. This emphasis on evolution is evident right from the beginning of ME1. It’s a consistent metaphysics. Are my expectations and my own personal ethics the source of my dissatisfaction?
If I accept Bioware’s framing, does the ending suddenly get better?
No, lol. If I have the trilogy’s Enneagram right, the Three is: The Reapers are uncontrollable machine monsters that wiped out our heroes, the Protheans. The Six is: The Reapers are now controllable machine monsters that repurposed our heroes. That leads me to a very different Eight.
As Shepard, I’m going to deal with the Reapers as I’ve dealt with the Geth. Heretics are destroyed; sentient and cooperative beings are saved and incorporated into the galaxy. It’s similar to the Rachni question. Let the bugs live or exterminate them. Paragon decisions vs. renegade have been the template of the trilogy. When the Illusive Man learns how to control Reapers, and Boy says that Shepard, as someone not indoctrinated, can use that power, more options become available than the game gives us. Reapers, in theory, should become possible teammates.
And the game, although it chooses to focus on a strict evolutionary reading at the end, has not been consistent throughout the trilogy. Shepard has multiple story lines that emphasize whether or not she’s compassionate. Why give her the ability to be kind — definitely not a “survival of the fittest” mindset — if it means nothing at the finale?
Boy’s plan is the renegade option. What’s the paragon? I think that’s what upset us all. I’ll buy into your metaphysics if the world build is consistent. I’ve been able to play paragon for three games, and at the end I don’t have a paragon option. (The choices the game gives are all a variation of renegade.) Wiping out all technology, including Shepard herself and EDI, is not paragon. Playing god and becoming a new Boy controlling the galaxy is not paragon. An integrated community is paragon. If Bioware had used their Enneagram — this story does have one — to initiate a real confrontation with the Reapers, one where our ability to control them had more blatant consequences to the endgame, they may have seen they were missing a paragon leg. The impact of the Three/Six progression — learning enough about the Reaper cycle to control it — is absent in the game as written. Although the beats are there, they don’t mean anything. We only have a limited Boy confrontation as endgame. It’s incomplete.
This idea puts Bioware in a pickle, though. A Reaper is a big space ship. We can’t really sit at a table together and negotiate. Boy is the anthropomorphized representative we talk to. And he sucks, lol! I love that image of Reapers, like worker bees, rebuilding society. But we can’t just order them about. That’s a renegade option that removes their free will. The paragon option allows them, like the Geth, to self-determine their fate. Boy has controlled them the entire time. What happens if Reapers are loosed from his programming? Let me finally shoot him, I beg you! Haha! I can even do it in slomo, if it means that much to Bioware.
Give me a real Boss battle. Give me a way to destroy Boy. Give me a chance, even if it’s incredibly difficult, to play paragon. It’s endgame. All of that energy and tension, all of that roleplaying, must have a release.