It would be nice to live in a world where this was given more than a year and a half of development time. I don't understand the logic behind rushing this when Mass Effect 2 released the same year. Why not take the time to polish it and have back to back big sequel released, at the very least? It seems smarter even from a profits standpoint.
It's not a perfect game, but you already know that. Even the biggest fans can't deny it has issues. I actually liked the gameplay, and only had it weighed down by the notorious endless waves. If it only stopped at one wave of enemies per encounter, I'd have enjoyed my time even more.
But the character writing is fun, and if you're someone who pursues characters over all else then it's an ideal game as that is its strongest and most finished aspect.
I loooooove the concept of the plot centering solely on the lives of a group of misfits in a single city over a decade. That is something I wish more stories would focus on, and one I'd love to have seen Bioware revisit instead of returning to their usual story formula.
But the real star of the show: The friendship/rivalry system. Even now, in 2024, RPGs prefer the shallow, binary affection system over this. Why? It is so much more rewarding, with such replayability potential to see all story of a character, and different perspectives on their personality, without having to behave like a perfect cypher to attain enough Good Boy Points to prevent yourself from being locked out of their arc. If Trespasser, a far worse game and bigger failure, inspired the likes of Half-Life, why couldn't this system spiritually live on in other games? That's the real tragedy to me after playing this.
It's not a perfect game, but you already know that. Even the biggest fans can't deny it has issues. I actually liked the gameplay, and only had it weighed down by the notorious endless waves. If it only stopped at one wave of enemies per encounter, I'd have enjoyed my time even more.
But the character writing is fun, and if you're someone who pursues characters over all else then it's an ideal game as that is its strongest and most finished aspect.
I loooooove the concept of the plot centering solely on the lives of a group of misfits in a single city over a decade. That is something I wish more stories would focus on, and one I'd love to have seen Bioware revisit instead of returning to their usual story formula.
But the real star of the show: The friendship/rivalry system. Even now, in 2024, RPGs prefer the shallow, binary affection system over this. Why? It is so much more rewarding, with such replayability potential to see all story of a character, and different perspectives on their personality, without having to behave like a perfect cypher to attain enough Good Boy Points to prevent yourself from being locked out of their arc. If Trespasser, a far worse game and bigger failure, inspired the likes of Half-Life, why couldn't this system spiritually live on in other games? That's the real tragedy to me after playing this.