Mass Alex: Mass Effect 2 - Part 23

Tali o7

Alex should replay and save TALI, for all its faults, ME3 best parts involve her, and not having her is a real bummer.
#SAVETALI

Alex I beg you, please restart this mission so you can have Tali in ME3!

@krizstof: Some of, anyway. Mordin and Wrex really shine, and Citadel is just amazing regardless.

Can I just say, I LOVE it when Alex says Ma'am the timing is always perfect!

Oof.

Definitely one of the "locks you out of the best ending for an ME3 storyline" deaths.

@alex, nobody would blame you for going back and choosing a different fireteam leader so that Tali survives, or using a save editor for ME3. She has some amazing stuff in the next game, so really, if you want to fix the mistake go right ahead.

Yeah, I would have never guessed that Miranda was a good choice. Especially since Jack *just* *said* that nobody wants to follow the cheerleader. Jacob I thought was okay because of his Alliance experience, but, ultimately, I figured Garrus was the only one *Shepard* would trust.

Samara as biotic expert was the *only* choice that made sense. And I went with Legion as tech specialist as who would be better at tech than a robot. Also, with Legion, you dont get the desparate cries of 'it's too hot' that you get with Tali and Kasumi. Those pleas unnerve me a bit.

Keelah Se'lai fair Tali! :(

I'd say just live with the consequences. Unless you would've got Garrus killed, of course. Edit: Reading most of these comments kinda gives me GOTY vibes and how Alex doing things differently means that now the game you first played nine years ago has been ruined for you too. Maybe people are right and the lack of this character does hold you back from some good stuff in ME3, but it's still such an odd thing to get upset about.

But hey, I never played ME3 and don't really have any deep fondness for ME as a whole, so I guess I'm kinda detached from all this.

Edit 2: If they do end up redoing it, I hope they'll just do it off-camera, because I imagine it has literally no affect on how the mission plays out otherwise and I can't say it'd be interesting to watch Alex fight a dumb terminator robot again.

Anyway...looking forwards to the last episode! Wonder if it'll be another two months before season 3?

I think we've both gone over Miranda's exact wording ad nauseum so I don't think I've ignored her.

But which points of yours did I ignore?

You said the game's phrasing was bad, that it was not Alex' fault and it should have been more detailed in it's criteria. I said the phrasing was fine and good enough and Alex messed up.

You then criticised the phrasing again and argued the correct team members haven't had experience with commanding the Normandy Crew or been shown to have gained any loyalty from them to warrant their selection. I stated the experience in question includes time before they join the mission, which hasn't been very long. I added that choosing Samara would imply you include pre-Normandy life experience, so why the different standard?

You edited on the bit about Jack's line suggesting Miranda was a bad choice for the player which I just saw, and as I implied in my reply to radish about Miranda praising the Samara choice, I can see how that would have an influence. But unlike that line, Jack has a explicit and well-defined bias against Miranda, far moreso than Jacob. I woudn't use yet another in a long line of incidents where Jack mistrusts Miranda and is vocal about it to assume Jack is right.

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a player to put some thought into potentially life-or-death decisions in a mission called the "suicide mission" that the whole game has been building up to.

... by Jack. There's that name again.

This is where the crux of your argument seems to have shifted a little since your initial comment. You acknowledged that Miranda's line and the menu text afterwards are clear if you give it some thought, and I concede it isn't ideal.

But then you start taking Jack as a reliable judge of Miranda's merits, in a story where Jack has proven herself to be at the very least biased against Miranda and at worst a hot-headed impulsive unstable danger to herself and others. This is coming from someone who LOVES Jack, especially her character development. But at this point in the game I wouldn't take her testimony on Miranda's pros and cons as particularly reliable or reasonable.

Is the phrase 'command loyalty through experience' perfect? No. and you could absolutely substitute words or rearrange them to make it more immediately crystal clear. But again, I don't mind being asked to think about a decision I'm making in a strongly narrative-based game concerning characters I've grown attached to over 20-60 hours.

I want to the game to make me think about that type of thing.

You'll never be better than Commander Shep Shep.

Good luck with These rest of the reapers, buddy.

I think it would be funny if Alex replayed the suicide mission offscreen and then pretended like he didn't even understand what Vinny was talking about if questioned why T was alive again.

I think it's an overreaction (if not mostly inaccurate) to say that @alex is at risk of significantly missing out on any gameplay sections for the sequel. Lots of significant choices can be impacted depending on the outcome of Mass Effect 2 moving forward, but if nothing else Mass Effect 3 is extremely careful in ensuring the quantity of content remains the same.

That said, I did find it extremely jarring that the game would pretend to low-key congratulate the player (by way of Miranda going "oh what a great choice") for making a suboptimal choice. I'd find it pretty awkward if this LP series decided to rewind and go "well fuck that" because that's very much not how it was played up until this point, but Tali is still close to podium finish in my list of favorite cast members so on a personal level I don't mind if Alex decides to do that instead of biting the bullet on his choices.

(Also as much as I like Kasumi I do think it would have been miles and away a better trade)

I am on the team of sticking with the decision, even though I don’t know how it will affect ME3. I won’t blame him if he changes his mind though.

I am actually a ME3 apologist and I really love the way it ties everything together, even if it is forced sometimes.

The one thing I am hopeful for is that with us past E3 and Mass Alex ending for a while we may get more Film and 40’s!

Yeah, I'm perfectly OK if Alex decides to re-do the mission or just use a save editor to get Tali back.

@curiosus: I agree that it's odd Miranda is still treated as a viable team leader considering Jack's strong dislike of her. However, I wouldn't entirely call it a mislead, for one simple reason: you can pick Garrus. When I first played Mass Effect 2 and came across this moment, after hearing the "command loyalty through experience" recommendation, I picked Garrus. Reason being: he had experience on Omega leading his own team. Furthermore, his bio in the "pick team leader" screen highlights that experience.

If a loyal Garrus wasn't a viable pick, I would agree that would have been a big mislead. With him, it results in a logical option that also appeases Jack.

100% this. Considering the tremendous impact not having Tali has on a major choice in ME3, I can see Alex coming away with a bit of a poor taste in his mouth about the series, particularly considering he's otherwise on track to get the best possible outcome for that choice..

Get Tali back. Normally, I'd be all "accept the loss", but Mass Effect 3 has a number of problems and one of those is how they weight certain sequences involving teammembers who may or may not have died in the Loyalty Mission: most have little "this is what we're doing now" cameos, maybe a single mission where they're playable again, but a few (like Tali) have major franchise-long arcs that come to a close in ME3.

Then again, I'm speaking as someone who despises this "ah, well" approach to preventable deaths in narrative-focused games and will always reload. It's why I rarely touch Fire Emblem games. So... your mileage may vary.

Since others seem to be chiming in on certain things... I'd be fine with reverting a save for Tali, Mass Effect 3 is a lesser experience without her. I'd rather see Alex have a more complete experience but staying the course is understandable as well albeit with slightly less of an engaging story. All things being considered, good job Alex.

@ciddative: As someone who did the same thing as Alex, and was also pissed (I want to say I wanted to use Garrus in my main party which is why I didn't pick him?), unlike ALL the other choices in this section, Samara feels like a weird trick answer. The wording given to you on that screen where you actually make the choice, and Miranda's reaction after, make her seem fine (as does every cutscene afterwards), but then someone just dies. Which is kind of my other problem with it, in that it's super unclear from that scene what you did wrong (which I would just call bad game design, period).

So that, combined with all the other choices being really obvious, this I've choice, with Samara in particular, feels like a weird "Gotcha!" in the middle of everything else.

You . . . you killed Tali. You monster.

Actually, you shouldn't feel too bad. My first time through, I picked Zaeed to lead the strike team because (a) I kept Garrus and Tali with me at all times, (b) the other obvious choices were Miranda, an unlikable harpy literally no one on the crew got along with, or Jacob, who was consistently portrayed as a born follower rather than a leader, and (c) I thought that a guy with decades of combat experience who also put together one of the biggest mercenary companies in the galaxy should be able to handle running a small squad. Turns out it was the wrong choice, but the only casualty was Jacob, so I kind of shrugged my shoulders, went "eh, at least he did something memorable" and moved on.

This also makes me realize that if you stick with this choice and don't save-scum that ME3 can, in fact, get worse, since the moments with the long-term companions are the only worthwhile writing in that game. Kind of an achievement, actually.

@garwalk: I guess I just don't see the point of "100%ing" or having "the perfect run" for a game where decisions matter and have consequences. You're essentially breaking the game by going back or replaying something or editing a save. Tali died, it sucks but this is part of the adventure, this is what makes Alex's playthrough unique. To ignore that seems kinda lame to me. My first ME2 playthrough, Mordin and Jack died. It didn't make it worse it made it much more memorable to me.

I would understand if they decided to go forward with the current timeline into Mass Effect 3, but honestly I think losing [REDACTED] just makes that game so much less fun. They're such an important character to a major story arc in the next game and their personality adds so much.

Oh boy. Tali....that's gonna make ME3 turn out an interesting way. It means a certain quest is going to force a very difficult decision on Alex at some point.

I agree with being fine if you reload to get Tali back, Alex. She's one of the best and this is sad.

In fact, I would prefer if you did.

Samara is a lone wolf, not a leader. I fucked up there too...they word it weirdly. "More experience" is kind of a strange attribute to mention when thinking about who is the better leader. The worse leaders in the game are also, technically, the most experienced veteran fighters. ( Samara and Zaeed)

As a viewer, I would be more than ok with them rewriting history on that one. If they wanted to.

Great show! I love that Alex had the right reaction to that bullshit reaper.

I’m in camp Reload. The amount of stuff in ME3 that’s contingent on exactly which character is alive at the end is such a fucking dumb decision

I'm starting to realise that almost everything I remember from Mass Effect 2 is actually Mass Effect 3.

If they decide to do ME3 playing without tali is going to ruin a major part of the game. I hope they redo that choice.

Basically, if you want the full ME3 experience, you need to have Wrex/Mordin and Tali/Legion alive. Anyone else dying is far less important, and I would have been okay with it if anyone but them died.

Alex should have really spent more time reading every character's description when choosing that fire team leader. And yeah, if you keep all the characters' histories in mind, you'd remember that Samara was never a leader and always did things alone.

Personally, I'm fine with them sticking with this outcome, and I'm actually super interested in seeing how some of the storylines in 3 play out without Tali. because I've never had that happen in both of my full playthroughs of the trilogy.

But yeah, whatever Vinny and Alex wanna do, if they wanna redo the mission, I'd be okay with that too.

Real decision to be made on whether or not to retcon Tali surviving. There's some merit in just playing is it as it lays, but considering ME3 has a smaller party and Tali is one of them, and an important one at that considering she's one of only two full-trilogy characters, it might cut Alex off from a fair amount of stuff he'd enjoy seeing so I doubt anyone watching would be miffed about finessing her back to life.

Especially considering Alex otherwise did everything right and the game kinda baited you both into making a bad choice with Samara having the "centuries of experience" line in her bio, when in reality its just centuries of experience being a solitary weirdo. It could be a bit of a rain cloud over an ME3 playthrough.

@epidehl: you’re right, the cause and effect is a bit obfuscated but on the other hand I think I prefer it to ‘you choose wrong person and they die’. This way every decision matters and you can’t just send people you don’t care about

@garwalk:

Alex not living with his choices removes any and all tension and one the great joys of this playthrough is watching someone who isn't using a guide to get a perfect play through. I already think he was given too much help though I understand why.

Regardless, no ME3 content is locked out by any character loss in ME2, just altered. Same way you could kill Wrex in ME1 and you got the same missions with different dialog in ME2.

@2headedninja: It was Samara. She's not one of the Leader characters despite her description.

So @alex.... do some off air work and come out with everyone? No one would blame you. Pretty sure at least half of us did that at release.

Yeahhhhh, you kinda picked a loner monk to command a military team... but yeah, it was worded badly. I'm all for a reload/save edit, it's cool if these deaths come as a surprise, but if it just annoys you... Also Tali is a *huge* part of ME3, and while she's not my favorite, I couldn't really imagine playing 3 without her.

Yeahhhhhhh, I don't think you guys'd face too much outrage if you were to, shall we say, retcon that one out a bit.

Not to Monday morning quarterback too much but it makes sense that Samara is not a good choice to lead a fire team. It’s true that she has centuries of experience but all of that experience came alone. She’s a justiciar, she doesn’t work with a team. I thought Alex would be fine when he made the choice but looking back it makes sense why it was the wrong choice.

I get the temptation to save scum it but nobody said this was gonna be a perfect run. The whole point of these games is that everyone has their own story. This is part of Alex’s story now.

Huh, I just finished Evangelion on Netflix, thinking about that reaper in a different way now.

Actually, I blame having to be on camera for that outcome. Alex probably would have sat and read everyone's bios thoroughly and come to a different conclusion if there wasn't the omnipresent threat of dead air.

ME3 is so much lesser without her, I really hope you'll fix that mistake, though I doubt you will...

Was this is the save file you ultimately imported into ME3? You said "first" so you (probably) had time to create a different file if you wanted to. I'm sure that when the game came out, many replayed ME2 to get the perfect ending (and the achievement ;)) . I wonder how many kept their first playthrough, regardless of the outcome, as their "cannon" through all 3 games.

Full disclosure, I'm team Retcon. Tali is my favorite character in the whole series, even over FemShep.

Well this will certainly make certain parts of ME3 interesting. I've never seen a playthrough with this team. Some of the best storytelling comes from the missing character, but I've never actually seen how the scenario goes down if they're not there. Thought if Alex wants to go through and give it another shot to get everyone through that'd be cool. Before ME3 came out I created a ton of Shepards and just chose my favorite for my 'canonical' playthrough. If Alex is just going to want to experience the story once it might be worth considering trying the suicide mission again since the character opens up some great outcomes.

Maybe we gave the corpse over to Cerberus and they rebuilt them just like Shepard heh.

@eldranth:The joy for me and seemingly most of everybody else is just seeing somebody experience the story of Mass Effect for the first time. The unnecessary tension of permanent choices doesn't play a factor in my experience at all. I save-scummed all the way through the trilogy and liked what I got out of it. If I would've had to permanently lose characters or miss cool optional story beats because I made a mistake in a bit of dialog I can't say for sure I'd have maintained enough enthusiasm to continue playing the games.

Alex's enjoyment of the final mission was very obviously negatively affected by what happened to Tali. He was frustrated and distracted and the bitter taste ruined the post-credits sequence. Maybe he'll be "over it" by the time he and Vinny start ME3, or maybe he won't. Other people are pointing out how much value Tali adds to the ME3 experience, even if certain quests just replace her dialog with someone else's (it's been a while since I played it). Not everybody relishes in the self-flagellation of permadeath in video games. If it's the case that Alex is not like that, then I feel he shouldn't be obligated to "deal with it" just because he's playing this game for an audience.

Wow, to all the people asking for a retcon in the most asinine way, do you really think you're helping your case?

I would be okay if Alex chooses to replay the mission, make the same choice of the Fire Team leader being Samara but sends Kasumi as a tech expert (knowing that she will die). Alex is clearly invested in the Geth storyline and having both Legion and Tali in Mass Effect 3 gives the player one of the biggest decisions to mull over. I'm curious if Alex nails all the choices for the optimal route, and if not, what his final decision will be. That was such a good moment in ME3 I would want Alex to experience that moment with Vinny and the audience.

I wanted Alex to lose someone (just so he'd know) but not Tali :(

Yay more Claudia Black