Game Anatomy: Tuchanka

Believe it or not, I do have good things to say about Mass Effect 3.  I mean, it’s not a lot, and four years on, I still haven’t played Citadel or Leviathan (although I plan to while preparing for Andromeda), but there are good things to talk about in Mass Effect 3.  I mean, the game is a raging dumpster fire in most aspects, but man, when the game works, it comes together in ways the rest of the series doesn’t.  Tuchanka is the best part of any Mass Effect game, including the Suicide Mission (but not by much), because it actually delivers on something the series always promised, and never managed to do.

This image is actually the best part of Mass Effect 3. Copyright Electronic Arts and Bioware

First, let’s start with the best part: Mordin’s death.  It’s one of the few video game deaths that isn’t emotionally manipulative, while also being the culmination of a character arc, a plot arc and the end of just a damn good mission.  Whether Mordin sacrifices himself for the right ideals, or whether Shepard betrays him and murders him, it ends Mordin’s story in the only way it can: trying to fix his great evil.  Someone on a forum I used to go to once compared Mordin to Josef Mengele due to his work on the geonophage.  It’s not a comparison I would agree with, and not just because Mengele was a real life monster, but the inaccuracy of the comparison has stuck with me for years because it does speak to Mordin’s culpability in making sure that 1 in 1,000 krogan were stillborn.

1 in 1,000.

It’s a stark number, and even though we’re talking about fictional dinosaur men, it’s a terrifying thought.  Mordin wasn’t the only one who did that.  Maelon, of course, and the rest of his Special Task Group squad were involved in it, but he was the one who led it, and he considered it “humane.”  So humane that he had to hide in Omega as a doctor after he did it.  Mordin is driven by guilt because he did something terrible and horrifying and he rationalized it to himself that it was the greater good.  He can’t be Josef Mengele, because he got to die trying to redeem himself, and that says a lot about one of the themes of the series, second chances.

Tuchanka is all about that second chance.  For the Krogan, for Mordin, for the Primarch’s son, for the galaxy itself, Tuchanka embodies a lot of the themes that are present across the series and the best part, all of it comes down to Shepard.  It’s the one fo the few parts in the whole series that has true consequences, and if Shepard screws it up, well, then it’s over.  Kill Wrex in Mass Effect 1 (which is like, why?  Wrex is the best) and you have to deal with Wreav, who shouldn’t be in charge of anything.  Mordin didn’t survive, well, Mordin wasn’t kidding when it had to be him.  Someone else does get it wrong.  Not take the data in Mass Effect 2?  Then the data isn’t complete.  All of some of the hardest choices across the whole series culminate right here all in an explosion of one of the major themes of the series, and the impetus of the Paragon/Renegade divide: do you give them a second choice or not?

For me, I managed to get the best ending.  I gave everyone a second chance across all three games, and Amanda Shepard was rewarded with one of her best friends giving his life to save a people he had greatly wronged.  I cried.  I seriously did.  I cried like I do whenever I read the Grey Havens in Lord of the Rings (or, hell, see the movie).

It’s not just across the series, either.  In order to get everything needed, you can’t just plow right into the fight.  One of the themes of Mass Effect 3 is that running headlong into the fight is going to get people killed, so in order to get the best ending for each of the two major campaigns is to do all of the side missions, whether it’s to curry political favor, destroy an emplacement or get reinforcements for the battle.

In order to make everything work, Shepard has to save the Primarch’s son, which gives access to Turian fighters who can cover Shepard, Wrex, Eve and Mordin from the Reaper.  Deactivating the bomb prevents Cerberus from murdering a bunch of people after completing the main mission, including Eve.  All of it comes together in ways the rest of the series never manged.

Of course, it helps that it has some of the most intense battles against the Reapers, too.  One place where Rannoch falls down is that the missions aren’t as intense of as well designed, either.  There are also some issues with who you have to side with on Rannoch that bring it down a bit too, as well as the weird scoring system to determine if you can save both the Geth and the Quarians.

Not everything is great.  It does feel like the game is sending mixed messages on the use of Maelon’s data, considering Mordin goes back and forth on whether or not it was necessary or should be destroyed, but ultimately, it’s the best part of Mass Effect.  It’s almost worth playing Mass Effect 3 just to repeat it, but then I remember Priority: Mars and I turn of the system.

DLC Difficulty

I don’t mind a difficult game, but I do have issues with difficulty spikes, but it’s something I can sort of understand.  Difficulty is not exactly easy to balance, and even games that do a really good job of it most of the time sometimes just have areas where the difficulty jumps to high or the balance is not great.  Dark Souls III was a fantastic game, for certain, but the Silver Knights guarding Anor Lando with the Dragonslayer Greatbows is a good example where even a game that is generally fair can fall into bad traps.

On the whole, though, this is just something that’s merely annoying.  Yeah, it’s a bad spot in a game, but it’s just a (hopefully) singular part that kind of sucks.  Even the best games have them, it’s why I don’t go to the Anti-Chapel first in Symphony of the Night after I beat Richter.  However, recently, I’ve noticed an issue with some DLC expansions, particularly to action RPGs, that have done a really bad job of understanding how to improve difficulty, after complaints that the base game is too easy, and wound up making the game more of a chore than anything else.

This is my picture, which is why it looks so bad.

So, I beat Witcher 3: Blood and Wine yesterday, and I had an extended problem with the final boss.  I’m not going to get into details, since the expansion is fairly new and not everyone I know has had a chance to experience it.  The thing was, I beat the entire game on the Broken Bones difficulty without too many problems, mostly because the Witcher III really isn’t that hard, and that’s sort of an issue for some people.  Unfortunately, CD Projekt Red decided that the best way to deal with the criticisms were to add bosses that had instant kill moves, enemies that decide to just peace out of the fight, making Geralt wait on them, multiple self healing bosses (weirdly, some of the less annoying ones, actually), and at least one boss that straight up ignores the most popular and effective way to play the rest of the game.  It’s very annoying.

The thing is, none of those things actually made the game more difficulty, just because a boss could kill me in one hit, or had weird hitscan abilities that I’m still not sure how to dodge, even after I beat the boss.  It just makes the game feel cheap and the tools that the player is used to working with are outdated.  Yes, it is possible some abilities are exploits and those should be plugged, but, for instance, in Witcher III Hearts of Stone, the Frog Prince boss is almost completely immune to swords (along with other anti-melee abilities), the primary form of combat in the game.  It’s great that the game wanted to incentivise the player into using magic and alchemy more, but making one point in the game where the main form of combat just doesn’t work, doesn’t do that.

It’s not the worst offender, that would be the final boss of Dragon Age: Inquisition’s Trespasser DLC, which is immune to all forms of crowd control, including taunts, and can ignore some of the basic defense mechanics the game is built upon.  Yes, it’s true that Armor is probably too powerful (I have killed dragons with a single hit point thanks to armor), but making it so it can just ignore that isn’t the approach.  If the game doesn’t allow for the actual difficult the developer wants, it’s not good to just throw in ways to ignore it.

The issue is that a lot of developers don’t really know what they should do to make the game more difficult.  First, it’s important, and this goes for players too, is that not every game needs to be Dark Souls.  A challenging game is great, but challenge isn’t the only thing that needs to be in a video game.  Second, when building an expansion, don’t ignore mechanics.  Look, if something is too powerful, unless it’s a complete exploit, throwing in a boss that ignores it isn’t actually making it difficult, it’s just being a dick.  Find a way to utilize the mechanic in a way that works better.  If that’s impossible, like how it probably is in Dragon Age: Inquisition, then maybe an upped difficulty isn’t a good idea (also, games with tanks shouldn’t have bosses that can ignore tanking mechanics, I mean, that’s just a bad idea, since the whole concept of having a tank is to make sure the high damage, low defense people aren’t murdered in seconds).  Developers need to look at what they’re doing when they build their expansions, and not try to bounce up, just because Dark Souls is so hard or whatever.

Anyway, enough of this rant.  It was something that bothered me and I had to get it off my chest.  I know it’s not my best, but, well, it’s something I would like to talk about again.  I’ll probably revisit it soon.  For now, I needed to say something to get my thoughts in order.