@Brodehouse said:

Basically, the problem here is that people didn't pay attention and then got mad when they made shitty assumptions. Sounds like the Endurance Run.

Or Bioware just fucked up and sovereign was much cooler.

@DylabalooandBrodehouse:

I would go on on how wrong you two guys are, but I'll allow Shamus Young to explain why Harbinger was a colossal joke and how the plot in ME2 was shit.

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=7004

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=7006

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=7007

If it weren't for the characters and their loyalty missions, Mass Effect 2's story would've reeked.

Harbinger is not nearly as intimidating as Sovereign because he doesn't fight you directly - he always employs his little friends to fight you. As a result, he looks smaller and feels less powerful. With Sovereign, you spend the game seeing how powerful, how huge, how advanced his technology is. You don't even directly fight him, so you never really know exactly how powerful he is.

Sometimes less is more - with a mysterious villain, the more you see of him, the more you fight him, the less menacing and the less intriguing they become. It's story-writing 101 here, folks, and although I really loved ME2, it surprises me that BioWare overlooked a very simple point: if you kill or defeat the main enemy too many times, they become less of a threat and they lose their mystique. I killed Harbinger so many times in ME2 that he became a joke to me, a nuisance rather than a threat. Was I supposed to be scared by an enemy that I defeated 15 times before, who only spouts the same "threats" over and over again? He became just a regular enemy grunt by that point.

I liked the design of the Collectors, but they were hardly scary. Hell, their big ship is 10x more scary than Harbinger or his minions.

"You exist because we allow it. And you will end because we demand it." Sovereign without a doubt. We have not faced Harbinger yet, but something tells me nothing is going to grasp me like the first time I faced off against Saren and Sovereign. 2 had a different lead writer, Mac Walters, and 3 will retain him as lead I believe. It also will have Clint Mansell doing the score, which for this game makes me nervous. Bottom line: I love 2 and I may love 3, but I will not love either as much as 1.

@Natesaint said:

"You exist because we allow it. And you will end because we demand it." Sovereign without a doubt. We have not faced Harbinger yet, but something tells me nothing is going to grasp me like the first time I faced off against Saren and Sovereign. 2 had a different lead writer, Mac Walters, and 3 will retain him as lead I believe. It also will have Clint Mansell doing the score, which for this game makes me nervous. Bottom line: I love 2 and I may love 3, but I will not love either as much as 1.

I wish Drew Karpyshyn came back as the lead writer for ME2, instead of just working on half of the game's development cycle. Mac Walters doesn't seem to be a very good writer, judging by ME2's plot and the godawful comic books. Drew Karpyshyn's novels were at least half-decent, and didn't ruin so much of the game's lore.

Sovereign is mysterious and imposing like the Reapers and you aren't really sure what to expect when you meet him. Throughout ME2 you hear Harbinger so much in nearly every single firefight with the Collectors and although you don't know he is a Reaper until the end, I was tired of him and you just get the impression that he was kinda useless. I mean Sovereign was kinda useless in the grand scheme of things since he was basically just the door man for the other Reapers but at least he made some serious shit go down on the Citadel.

@DylabalooandBrodehouse:

I would go on on how wrong you two guys are, but I'll allow Shamus Young to explain why Harbinger was a colossal joke and how the plot in ME2 was shit.

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=7004

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=7006

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=7007

If it weren't for the characters and their loyalty missions, Mass Effect 2's story would've reeked.

@2HeadedNinja said:

@greenygrey said:

@DylabalooandBrodehouse:

I would go on on how wrong you two guys are, but I'll allow Shamus Young to explain why Harbinger was a colossal joke and how the plot in ME2 was shit.

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=7004

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=7006

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=7007

If it weren't for the characters and their loyalty missions, Mass Effect 2's story would've reeked.

Besides the decision regarding the collectors station his points were kinda taken out of thin air. I agree that destroying the station == good decision is a little dumb, but when it comes to the human reaper his argument is: "Why do they need human ... goo ... to build a reaper?". He is not even arguning the human shape of it (which makes sense to me tbh) but just that one fact. Saying that the end is stupid because of the way the reaper is build is kinda dumb since noone knows how the reapers are actually supposed to work. It was never explained to us what exactly the reapers are, the seemed to be machines, but who knows if they are not some biologic/machine hybrid? That concept is certainly not new in Sci-Fi. So unless Bioware decides to explain to us how the reapers work and came to be, saying they are a hybrid that needs some biologic component is as good an explanation as any.

Reapers are supposed to be made up of both synthetic and organic attributes. I remember EDI stating as such when you uncover the giant terminator reaper, if not earlier.

@2HeadedNinja said:

@greenygrey said:

@DylabalooandBrodehouse:

I would go on on how wrong you two guys are, but I'll allow Shamus Young to explain why Harbinger was a colossal joke and how the plot in ME2 was shit.

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=7004

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=7006

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=7007

If it weren't for the characters and their loyalty missions, Mass Effect 2's story would've reeked.

Besides the decision regarding the collectors station his points were kinda taken out of thin air. I agree that destroying the station == good decision is a little dumb, but when it comes to the human reaper his argument is: "Why do they need human ... goo ... to build a reaper?". He is not even arguning the human shape of it (which makes sense to me tbh) but just that one fact. Saying that the end is stupid because of the way the reaper is build is kinda dumb since noone knows how the reapers are actually supposed to work. It was never explained to us what exactly the reapers are, the seemed to be machines, but who knows if they are not some biologic/machine hybrid? That concept is certainly not new in Sci-Fi. So unless Bioware decides to explain to us how the reapers work and came to be, saying they are a hybrid that needs some biologic component is as good an explanation as any.

The main problem with the Human Reaper plot twist, is that it doesn't hint what it's main purpose could be. It just sounds and looks silly, it comes off as too cartoony to be taken seriously. Mass Effect 2 is a little more over-the-top compared to its more grounded in reality predecessor, and I don't have much against that. But ME2 stretches the line with the human reaper larva twist, as it makes it seem the reapers have saw the Terminator movies one too many times.

@Three0neFive said:

Sovereign. Anyone who says otherwise has clearly huffed too much paint. Mass Effect 1: Mechanical space-gods who only allow life in the universe to exist so that they can harvest them. Takes an entire galactic coalition to destroy their paperboy.Mass Effect 2: Giant hungry spaceships, but they're lazy so they employ an army of space-bugs.Mass Effect 3: Evil spaceships of whom it takes an entire army to destroy a single planet. Entire army easily halted by Commender Broface McWomanizer - who spends more time trying to fuck his crew than actually fighting - and one of those Sarlaccs from the first game.

Nice summarization of my thoughts, as well. Seeing an endless amount of Reapers attacking Earth -- a ton of which look identical to Sovereign -- is just stupid. I'm sure they'll try to justify it by saying Earth has "the best defenses in the galaxy" or that "the humans proved more cunning than the Reapers anticipated." ME1 was the only game in this series that had me glued to the story; now I'm just in it for the roller coaster ride.

Sovereign is better, mainly his dialogue was great

Sovereign was way more menacing than a dude who shouts "Assuming Control" all the time.

Sovereign is cool, in spite of cliche. So Sovereign has that going for him.

Harbinger is cooler, just to piss off butthurt Mass Effect fans.

@greenygrey said:

His actions, plans, and motivations were contrived compared to Sovereigns. He's a joke among the face of reapers, and the conversation you have with him in Arrival was lame compared to Sovereign's on Virmire. Sovereign wins, hands down IMO.

I can't speak to Arrival; damned if I'm going to buy any more Bioware DLC... but...

His plan was to use the Protheans to harvest humans and create a human Reaper. His action was to kill the only living being to test the might of the Reapers and then go raid human colonies unfettered, as he would have if Shepard wasn't brought back to life. His motivations were because they're effing Reapers. We really don't know their motivations (unless that's something from one of the books or DLC I haven't touched), other than that kinda seems like the way they reproduce, and what does every living thing strive for? They're alive enough to do that.

It was much simpler in the first Mass Effect. The Reapers didn't really expect anyone to think they existed. Sovereign was supposed to march in there, activate the Citadel, and then "Reaper Madness." Why did Sovereign rely on a flesh-being that wasn't under his direct control (like the Protheans) until the very end of the game, when he had a complete sect of the Geth willing to do his bidding? He obviously wasn't afraid of the Geth being found outside of the Terminus systems to begin with.

I'm not saying I didn't like Sovereign and the plot of the first game better, but the word "contrived" was what got to me, unless they don't explain why the Reapers went ahead and started harvesting humans before they had really conquered the galaxy, which seemed to be their MMO*.

I think that as a Reaper, we hardly know Harbinger.

He does have a pretty good plan though after Sovereign's failure; kill Shepard and create a Reaper based off of the species that was the first in millions of years to be of serious opposition.

I think that ME2 is definitely the dark middle chapter that sets up for ME3s finale.

The core plot of ME2 is maybe a bit simple; hell of humans are being abducted by dudes we think are working for Reapers, blow them up and find out what we can about the Reapers plans.

But the bits in between are of more consequence. The rachni are gonna help us (if you're not a douche), Genophage might be cured, the whole fucking geth collective might be on our side, the quarian flotilla, all that shit.

I think that Harbinger will return and Shepard and co will be all like "oh shit, it's that Harbinger mofo."

But agree, Sovereign is pretty fucking cool in ME1

They are just different.

Sovereign was this scary, mysterious figure that had to be taken out by entire fleet.

Harbinger, on the other hand, has two sides:

I admit, he is funny, he generated a bunch of memes and won't shut up during a fight, but... I think that that's what kept my morale up when I was playing the game, otherwise I'd probably kill myself when he was ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL of another Collector I was about to finish off. ME3 Harbinger is mute and absent, so he doesn't count.

But many people forget, that he actually tried to make sure that his enemy is dead. Maybe because he is the oldest Reaper, he saw most of the battles in the galaxy and he's careful about what he does. This also leads to another thing: If he's the oldest Reaper and there is only one to zero Reapers created per a cycle, then there had to be a moment when he SOLO'D THE ENTIRE GALAXY, because there weren't any other Reapers around/they were yet to be created.

In my opinion, Sovereign is this scary af, but not careful type of villain who can give scary speeches and be scary in general, and Harbinger is this, at first dumb and funny type of villain who needs slightly more attention to prove himself as a good character.

In other words, they're too different to compare, I like them both, but in other ways, and sorry, but I sympathize with Harbinger more than with Sovereign.