where an impoverished young woman is trying to sell herself into slavery and the game presents the most ethical outcome as helping her negotiate a better contract for her indentured servitude?
Looking back those games were Fukuyama'd as shit, jfc
where an impoverished young woman is trying to sell herself into slavery and the game presents the most ethical outcome as helping her negotiate a better contract for her indentured servitude?
Looking back those games were Fukuyama'd as shit, jfc
Because the mass effect games were never about actual choice, but rather the aesthetic of choice.
Even putting aside that 90% of the player base made the same choices; the alternative options never even changed the story that much to begin with.
And that's because choice in the mass effect games was always nothing more than a charlatans magic trick. Bioware never really had to give players an actual choice: just the illusion of one. The player never really had a sense of true freedom or agency within the games...but the choice and dialogue system was really good at making players feel like they did. That feeling of engagement is really powerful even if it's all smoke and mirrors.
...but hey, enough about the American system of democracy.
That's def another reason why Bioware games fall flat for me. Although games that offer narrative choice that is actually substantial are few and far between - does Disco Elysium count? There's a lot of routes, but the ending is always the same. Fear and Hunger has a ton of possible outcomes, but they aren't really signposted and honestly feel more like discovering bonus content than interacting with a narrative. Heavy Rain had a ton of routes and endings, but also a lot of very ham fisted writing that felt like it was forcing you onto certain paths even if it wasn't.
Maybe having narratives with genuine choices in a computer RPG is actually a cursed problem without a solution.