In Character

The story itself isn't as exceptional as its characters who carry it with every scene. As recycled as its broader elements can be, the material can always find itself with new life in the right hands in as much as a good director can breathe a new dimension on top of an old story with their skill. With ME2, Bioware has clearly demonstrated their talent for taking classic themes and in representing them in new ways that draw players in.

Pocahontas? Is that you?
 

Particularly with ME2, it is the characters that make it shine. The Illusive Man, Joker, Dr. Mordin, and many others bring their own special cases into the narrative. Often, their stories bring in a degree of grey that wasn't present within the first game or in many of their peers such as Dragon Age. Was the genophage that checks korgan reproduction ethical or not? Should you sacrifice your own humanity in saving all of humanity instead? And not everyone may survive the final battle depending on your choices, choices that will undoubtedly play major parts in the final part of current arc. ME2's storytelling is certainly darker, but it is also much better for it.

Historically and generally speaking, RPGs have also demanded a degree of combat as the easiest method of developing character attributes, but ME2 continues to take players beyond the character portraits and skill trees in focusing on developing who they are as opposed to what they are capable of doing in a fight. The simplified combat merely moves players along. Combat doesn't define its characters as much as what they do outside of it making no two Mass Effect playthroughs exactly alike.

If Darth Sidious came away with these scars after fighting Samuel L. Jackson, I might have actually liked Revenge of the Sith.

Coupled with transitioning save states into the next game and carrying that over into the third iteration, it becomes increasingly clear that the series is experimenting in focusing players into a redefined sense of the “role” part of “role playing” by encouraging a greater investment within how they want to craft their own stories. It's not a new approach as this type of player-led empowerment was briefly explored in titles such as Shining Force III or the Wizardry series, but Bioware has worked to expand the concept.

The reduced skill sets, loot, and the elimination of inventory housekeeping have also served in focusing more on doing rather than idling on a screen filled with bars and row upon row of potential omni-gels. While it certainly granted a sense of customization to each character, it's hardly missed in ME2 thanks to the transparency that its changes have enabled in focusing the player on the next quest. It's a daring play to make in a genre filled with jaded PC veterans and a JRPG audience defined by Final Fantasy