casterofdreams wrote:I don't want to quote any one person specifically but I see a common trend that people feel Mass Effect 2 dumb down the RPG elements and made it more of a third person shooter.
So what where these RPG elements that was in the first game that the second game lost? And what made the second game more of a third person shooter over the first entry?
Partly, it's streamlining. The first game has a more involved inventory system, or rather, it has an inventory system at all (poorly regarded as it may be). In 2 and 3, when you get new stuff, it just becomes available at your equipment locker. There are stats to put level up points into purely there to beat conversation checks. In 2 and 3, those are based on your Paragon/Renegade scores from previous decisions (and there are QTEs in some conversations enabled by them as well). Stuff like that.
Additionally, the game can be faster. Guns use heat sink clips instead of having unlimited ammo but heat generation to work around as in ME. Powers share a cooldown, but it's a fraction of what the individual cooldowns tended to be in the first game. Health regenerates as well as shields, so healing items are basically for reviving KO'ed squad mates.
I think it depends on what you're looking at for RPG-ness. The second and third games do away with a lot of the inventory and stat management of the first, but they build on the morality system, extend the choices you make, and that kind of thing, and are more refined shooters to boot.
ME3 does give the option to play the game more like a straight up action game, by making decisions for you. There's also an option to play with easier combat if you want to focus on story/role playing (such as it is).
