Mass Effect 2: It's Like Stardew Valley, Actually
What I like about Mass Effect 2 isn’t a small detail, but its entire structure. Here goes: Mass Effect 2 feels satisfyingly tight as an experience because you finish the tasks that you start.
At the beginning of Mass Effect 2, you are resurrected with the purpose of stopping the collectors. You need to infiltrate the collector base, and you need to covertly recruit the right team for the job. You do… that.
This isn’t to say that the game never surprises you - it’s difficult to spoil who “Archangel” is in your dossier at this point, is the least I’ll say - but you do get to cross recruiting Archangel off your list.
What’s interesting to me is typically what pings this kind of feeling (“I get assigned tasks, and clear them”) are meditative, low-stakes sim games - Stardew Valley-esque. Mass Effect 2, as much a cover-based shooter as it is an RPG, is very tonally not that experience. But it does take a very open approach to its tasks.
Conventional RPG design is notorious for quests within quests, where following up on one lead only branches into three more leads, each with their own problem to solve. Often I find myself at the end of a quest arc, with my character going “finally! I can do that thing I set out to do!” and I no longer really care. I’ve lost my motivation among all the sidetracking.
In Mass Effect 2, it’s difficult to forget what I’m doing, or why. My goal is clear from the start, and I’m always working towards it. That’s just as satisfying as clearing up new weeds off my farm.
Oh, Also
This interview with the creator of Umurangi Generation is incredibly insightful. I’m still holding out for the Switch release because the photography game looks to be made for handheld consoles, but my resolve is weakening.
Ruth Cassidy is a writer and self-described velcro cyborg who, when not writing about video games, is probably being emotional about musicals, mountains, or cats. Has had some bylines, in some places.
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