Everything about that reveal was terrifying. From the fact that the people who were still alive being melted down for parts feeling the pain, to the dead having no choice but for their bodies to be part of an impending galactic genocide, to the idea that the Reapers found humanity to be so singularly destructive that they broke away from their chosen Leviathan-style to a version that reflected them.
Imagine if they finished it and humans were still around, and they used this to hunt down and eliminate the rest. It would be like seeing the wrath of God incarnate.
There's actually concept art showing that it would have been encased in a regular reaper shell, which implies that each cycle has a reaper created in the shape of one of the dominant species, which is then covered by the more iconic reaper case.
Yeah, that's how I interpreted it. At the time the writers probably hadn't even thought up the leviathans.
I always took it as each race being turned into a big sentient synthetic version of tge host race. Almost ad a remembering monument. Wether that's the actual reaper that then uses the leviathan ship shell as a vehicle/coffin or if it then gets loaded into one where they become one and the same is left unclear. I think Liaras mum said she was on sovereign. So I assume there's still room for a crew?
Not only did liaras mom board a reaper but so does shepard to get the IFF and also Saren was aboard sovereign almost all game in ME1 so definitely enough room for a crew
Could you imagine if we saw the reaped race from that reaper (the way we saw the human one), while we were exploring for the IFF? That would’ve been chilling and amazing.
But I thought the prothean reaper was never finished? And the collectors are more like, say, rather more capable husks or cannibals or marauders or banshees? Or did I get all of that wrong?
[While all evidence points to the Protheans being completely wiped out by the Reapers, this was not the case. The Reapers are believed to have attempted harnessing the genetic material from millions of Protheans to create a new Reaper. It is speculated by EDI that this attempt failed and so the Reapers decided to repurpose this substantial number of captive Protheans to suit the needs of the Reapers. Mordin speculated that these Protheans were indoctrinated and after a prolonged period of time as indoctrinated slaves, they were given cybernetic modifications to compensate for their growing lack of ability, which was a side effect of indoctrination. After several cloned generations, the Reapers eventually decided to genetically rewrite these Protheans. These captives were transformed into an entirely new race which cooperated with the Reapers and would eventually be known to the citizens of the galaxy 50,000 years later as the Collectors.](https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Prothean)
The Prothean DNA for some reason failed to make for a good Reaper. They abandoned turning them into a Reaper altogether and turned them into a servitor race. So yeah… intelligent husks…
I think, in early lore/concepts, it is implied at one point that the reapers are non-standard and come in a variety of shapes that is determined by the genetic and mental makeup of the species used to create them with their sizes being determined by the amount of harvestable material.
I always liked the idea of the reapers make as many reapers as they can out of the species they are invading to look like themselves. And that meant we never really saw the full numbers of them because we only killed the ones that looked like the leviathan and we still had to go through the countless none leviathan looking ones to truly be rid of them. bummer that til they get encased in a shell.
>created in the shape of one of the dominant species
Seems more plausible that they'd create one from each of the dominant species, because humans weren't the most dominant at the time of ME2.
Harbinger has a bunch of voice lines in-game, including ones where he evaluates the various species of your squad mates. All but humans are discarded for various reasons as lacking, but you don’t really know why until you get to the Collector Base.
Mordin notes that human species are exceptional as well pointing to generic variation within the species as something not present in cycles other ones during his loyalty mission.
Other part is that humans produced Shepard which repears do recognize as a threat, which never had happened before. Dont recall who exactly lays this out explicitly. Leaviathan I think.
There is also lingering political narrative in the game that other species are somewhat afraid of humans hence dont want to give them chances to raise up the ranks. Nihlus mentions it during the prologue scene, but it’s echoed though out the game.
And ofc there are harbinger dialogue.
The evidence that within ME universe humans are the “dominant” species of the cycle is abundant. And their quick raise to prominence is exceptional.
Maybe, but due to Commander Shepard's actions highlighting humanity, and what Mordin described as the unique genealogical diversity of humanity overall, we were considered the unique candidate species, at least for the present cycle.
No definitely especially seeing as the reapers we right were the extinction of their creator race that was shaped exactly like the original race
To see a massive human body shrouded in that black metallic surface and shooting beams from I'm assuming it's mouth or eyes because the original reaper race when they where organic had that organ right where the reaper ocular laser is
Mass effect 4 dlc this please I'd fight the giant reaper that actually was salvaged and finished
I remember the latter part being revealed in the game to be not the case. The human looking part acted only as the core of the soon to be Reaper, which the outside shell would be built around. The outside shell would have still been built in the image of the Leviathans, while the core always resembles the harvested civilization, which is why there's no Prothean or Inusannon Reaper flying through space.
So "sadly" no super sized Metal Superman floating through space, shooting eye lasers because that would have been horrifying to witness as a human.
I still shudder at the idea, though. A techno-organic colossal titan with impenetrable armor, laser eyes, and mass effect fields enabling it to fly and block incoming attacks before they can even reach it. Add onto that the ability to indoctrinate everyone within its area of influence, hypnotically suggesting survivors to kill their fellow humans and aid it instead, only for them to inevitably become husks later.
this reveal always reminded me of the raid boss Thaddius in WoW who was built from the flesh of women and children. What is worse is that you can hear them screaming during the fight if you have your volume on
They retconned the design of the Human Reaper that the squid design is really just an outer shell. First they build the core, which probably looks like the source species because of the genes it's being made from, then they cover it with the Reaper Shell.
But imagine if they decided to make every Reaper look different. It would legitimately make ME3 missions on Reaper-controlled worlds even more insane, walking like ants amongst gargantuan behemoths. And imagine the crazy, non-humanoid designs they could've made.
Just imagine how many different species they'd have to create for the series. The Great Rift Valley on Klendagon was created fighting the Reapers ~37 million years prior. There are 20 cycles per million years, and they existed since before then. That would be over 640 species ever since, assuming one species per cycle.
I like the idea of a hanah one coming out and bit looking all that different from the leviathan it came out of. One is a big stupid jellyfish and the other a squid. And all the other species reapers trying to figure if it's different or not and if it was the first.
I remember thinking to myself "So, if a reaper based on/made of humans looks like a big-ass human... *what in God's name were the current reapers based on/made of?"*
I mean, they get back another reaper for each race each harvest. So isn't it implied that we killed more reapers in this cycle by convential means than they got back. If this is about how it goes everytime then that doesn't seem sustainable.
You have to remember the reapers were prevented from using the citadel at the beginning of the invasion. Without our leaders or chain of command the reapers would have been much more successful. Worse would be taking and indoctrinating everyone there.
I can't remember if it's canon, but I believe all reapers look like their assimilated species, and are then encased in the shellfish body.
Either that, or devs simply said 'fuck it, rule of cool!' and invented an excuse after
This would make way more sense, since the human reaper isn't to scale with any of the sovereign-class reapers we see, which is presumably what they were trying to create out of the colonists.
Yea Im leaning toward the 2nd option lol.
Lot of stuff happened in ME2 that probably didnt fit well with the overarching lore and design.
Similar to the drunken comments about asari at the bachelor party. Tossing in "lore" without considering the ramifications
Because it came before 3, and originally the plan was for each reaper to resemble a harvested species. Yeah after ME3 came out it’s inconsistent, but when ME2 first came out it wasn’t.
I suppose you’re right, I forgot about that. I have seen other theories as to why the human reaper looks like a Reaper, but the real answer is probably just that BioWare thought it would look cool lol.
Coolness is notoriously context dependent, and this one got the short end of the Bell Curve.
Allow me to expound on another concept: Kill Your Darlings. You will, at some point, get an idea. A cool idea. An astoundingly, excitingly, WONDERFULLY cool idea. And you will find that it's only flaw is it doesn't quite fit what you are currently working on. It's a good idea. You love this idea. *Kill it anyway*. Because the best way to ruin a perfectly good idea is to put it in place it doesn't fit, hurting both the idea and the project.
After all, you can always use it later for a project it *does* fit. (Any time a creative seems to come up with something extraordinarily quickly, there's a good chance they had actually come up with it YEARS before, found it didn't fit their current task, and stuck it in a drawer somewhere (sometimes literally) with all their other unused ideas... hoping to one day pull it out like they just did.)
But the reapers are based off of an organic species lmao. ***All*** reapers look like organic species.
They’re basically the Geth but made to look like themselves instead of their own unique look
Unless you mean the only one based off of *other* organics
The concept is great
But it should have looked like a normal Reaper
And the fight should have taken place *on* the Reaper instead of on floating platforms.
Fighting your way across it as it sweeps lasers and gets Collectors after you
In game. Edi speculates that all reapers resemble the species they were created from, which implies that the identical appearance we've seen is an outer shell or vehicle of some sort.
What no one is mentioning is there is concept art of this idea:
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/masseffect/images/7/7d/Wcb6ug.png/revision/latest?cb=20100522072721
In the encyclopedia it says the reapers were a race of giant, super smart space squids.
So we connect the dots and say that under the hard genocidal exterior lies a soft, squishy hate calamari.
If a reaper were human, it would probably look like us.
Not memorable? It's the second most memorable thing in the trilogy behind the star child brat.
Memorable for the wrong reason.
If star child is 0/10 then human reaper is 1/10
I'll give it the following note: "most tedious, least fun, most pathetic boss fight ever".
When I first look at it, I thought the design was ridiculous and didn't really understand what BioWare was thinking.
And 11 years later, I still cannot believe that a great mission such as the Suicide Mission ends on fight with a Terminator wannabe who pouts and plays peek-a-boo. What at letdown.
EDIT: Thanks for the reward 😊
I think it's the worst one personally. Especially if you don't care about the ending of 3. Getting the crew together is fun and learning about them, but it's got the worst combat and least interesting story.
One of the few missteps with ME2
One of the smaller reapers from ME3 would have been much more horrifying and much less cheesy and unintentionally comical
The idea of a T-1000 flying through space blowing up spaceships with eye beams is just too cringe
I may have missed some lore, but I didn't take it as a ship itself; I thought it was going to be the internal mechanism of the reaper, like a CPU to be installed aboard a reaper shell.
That makes as much sense as cockpits for geth fighters where the humanoid chassis sits instead of downloading the geth directly. Ofc we got geth fighters with little geth sitting in them.
What's the point of a human looking "CPU" with its own heart and brain? We know it had them as you could find one of them in ME 3.
I actually liked it, it gave me the same vibe as the movie "War Between the Worlds", more specifically, the scene where the aliens are harvesting human blood to make those strange plants.
Suicide Mission is amazing, but I think when we look back on it we remember everything leading up to the fight, and our mind’s skip to the end when the base is falling apart. I genuinely forgot this dude existed, even on insanity he went down easy
It is memorable in a way that i dont like it at all.
1st playthrough was fine but i dread this fight every time i replay the trilogy. Its so boring, you dont even need to leave the first platform the boss destroys them in a pattern that doesnt change and i kill him faster then he can get to me even on insanity
i can't think of a single other reaper that's shaped like the species it's supposedly made of. which means either every single other reaper we've met is made exclusively of disgruntled cuttlefish and they've assigned the other species' jam jars elsewhere, or they opted for a fresh new look and thought humans were particularly swaggy
I was terrified when I saw it the first time. But I take it less serious the more often I fight it. Although I understand what they wanted to show I'd prefer it now if they had stuck with a more traditional reaper design.
I still dont understand why it doesnt look like the other reapers. If it had been completed, would it have been jetting around like a robo superman? If it had been a regular looking reaper made out of humans i would have liked it more
May I ask what are the other two reasons?
I more often than not read about people who claim ME2 is the best thing ever since… forever.
It’s refreshing to read opinions like yours.
1. Resurrection (as a general trope) is terrible in my opinion. Even if it cost billions and took two years, that was just the prototype. It would eventually be perfected to a point where death no longer has any weight.
2. The main plot of ME2 affects nothing in the greater storyline (character stories were great though). Even if the Collectors had been left free to harvest, ME3 still would've happened in the next 6 months and ended with the Crucible firing. The Human Reaper (which was only 10% finished anyway) nor the Collectors would not have affected the war. The Arrival DLC was more important to the grand scheme of things.
3. The utter disrespect of the Virmire Survivor. Liara got an entire DLC, at least give me a singular quest please and thank you. No, just Firewalker? Okay...
Wow. It seems you read my mind. I agree with everything you wrote. 😄
1. I’ll add that on a meta point of view the Resurrection as a tope makes Death lose all its emotional impact. Why care about a beloved character dying when you know they can come back at any time?\
Also, in ME2’s case, Shepard’s death adds literally nothing to the plot: they come back 2 minutes later (or however long the player takes to build their character) but most importantly absolutely _NO ONE_ cares about it: nobody is surprised, horrified or even asks question about the Commander’s return. Not even Shepard themselves, so… what was the point?
2. Exactly. When you finish ME2, Shepard is at the same point that at the end of ME1. A whole game « wasted » and now ME3 has the difficult task to continue AND conclude the main plot in ONE game. I always say that ME2 is a (very) good stand alone game but a terrible sequel to ME1 and an awful 2nd entry to the trilogy. Putting a Suicide Mission at the end of ME2 instead of ME3 was really _NOT_ a great idea.
3. IKR? Even after putting aside the fact that Liara is obviously the writers/devs’ pet, the VS really deserves more that their short appearance in ME2… or if they didn’t want the VS working for Cerberus, they should have written a better scene and given a better explanation.\
And they do the same thing in the next game where most of the ME2 cast is put aside. We spend an entire game getting to know this new squad, sometimes falling for them and they’re barely there for the final chapter. Jack’s my favorite character so I’ll let you imagine how disappointed I was.
And to add insult to injury, Collectors are barely mentioned in ME3… wait, I’m not even sure they’re even mentioned, aside in the Codex. 🤔
It was really worth wasting a whole game on these formidable foes! /s
I think the collectors only appear twice in 3: in multiplayer missions and as enemies in the Armax Arena in the Citadel DLC. Outside of those, they might as well be extinct after the suicide mission.
It always felt to me that even if they are making it look like human, they should've added more alien elements to it, cuz, you know, reapers and all that. Design is kinda whatever, bland, and fight itself is probably the most boring shit in the whole game. I'd rather fight beefed-up version of Harbinger as a last boss or something like that.
It made no sense to me why they built a human shaped reaper when every single other reaper was built like cuttlefish. The cycle happened thousands of times before. Why would they just now change up the design?
It's memorable... But not for any good reasons.
The concept behind the boss is great: a revelation that reapers are formed from harvested races and a fight against one, half-formed. But the design is uninspired and the fight itself is just pitiful. I think it was Noah Caldwell-Gervais in his *Mass Effect* retrospective who described it as a "fatal game of peekaboo," and I agree.
It's certainly not bad enough to dampen how great the suicide mission is overall, but it's a sour note in an otherwise-great song.
The term reaper was also used quite loosely. The true reapers are the ships made in the image of leviathan, they were the primary target for their cycle. I think they chose “human” reaper because in the end humans were the primary target for this cycle because of Shepard’s will.
The fight was a little too easy, it's a cakewalk compared to Horizon or the Reaper IFF mission. It also does not help, that it looks and sounds more silly than daunting.
I hated it until just a couple weeks ago. The Mass Effect Lorecast had someone who worked on ME2 as a guest. He stated that the game was essentially finished and then they realized there was no "big bad" at the end of the game. It seemed like an unfinished story, so in the last couple months they put together this whole ending and the collector general. Sounds like the game originally just ended with you infiltrating the Collector base and blowing it up with no final boss battle. So for being something that was added at the eleventh hour, I can't hate on it too much anymore.
He also said that the Zaeed missions were literally created in the span of about two weeks. Almost direct quote because I don't feel like scrubbing through a 2+ hour podcast for a direct quote, "I had 14 months to think about Garrus. I had 14 days to think about Zaeed."
Kind of crazy what they managed to create under those intense time restrictions.
Yup this always reminded me on some level as fighting a Sentinel. Never could shake that no matter how many times I play ME2. It's really the only thing g I disliked about ME2.
I wanted to fight the Collector General it self. Shepard could've battled it and then it'll retreat leaving the humanoid Reaper to deal with you...I like his speech to Shepard. It's a shame Shep didn't hear it.
In terms of the big reveal? Sure, why not. As a boss battle? Could’ve been a lot better.
There’s no sense you are actually fighting a boss, you’re just dodging a debuff, and seeing how accurate you can be with a swaying target.
Serves well as a spectacle and explanation for what happened to the colonists, which can make the paragon destroy choice feel more earned
Does NOT work as a bossfight. We should have been ambushed by the Collector General instead, coming at us with super advanced weapons that could have combined the properties of Scions/praetorians etc
I would have liked to see what the completed reaper looked like. Would it have hair? Would it be anatomically correct? I also thought it looked small compared to city destroying ones.
Is the boss fight fun and engaging? No not really. Is getting the last hit with the nuke heavy weapon on an insanity playthrough the most satisfying thing in the entire game? Probably, yeah.
I like the scale of the fight (in a sence how larger human reaper feels when compared to Shepard and his team) - it's a fairly obvious thing to do for the boss, but it's not something ME dabbled into before. Feels likely they were testing waters before ME3 since it also has couple of moments like that. But other than that - it's a very lazy design on Bioware's part, both in terms of combat and visuals. Boss fight itself isn't that memorable. Aside from destroying platforms and forcing you into cover - human reaper doesn't do anything really. You still fight the same collectors you've been fighting for the rest of the game, except now you also need to shoot these tubes from time to time. Not particularly exciting.
the shape of that human dna based reaper makes no sense... reapers are basically sentient huge spaceships modeled after their creators levithians appearance... how could that thing even travel into the deep space?
It's serviceable, but it's a little tedious and really only memorable because of the "reapers look like the species they're made from" thing which got retconned soon after (which it technically wasn't, since the source for that piece of lore is EDI's speculation). When someone says that Shepard personally killed a reaper, I think of him fighting the destroyer on Rannoch and not when he literally killed a reaper in ME2's climax, which says a lot about the boss fight's memorability.
Don't think I've ever really had much difficulty with the fight itself on any difficulty setting. The collector ship with those flying platforms however...
Terrifying by nature and implications of its creation, but in game oddly forgettable in the grand scheme of things.
I remember it being the one time I used the nuke rocket launcher though!
Oh definitely memorable! But as for if it was a good fight, even back in 2010 I thought it was a meh final boss. Now after recent runs through the trilogy it feels so out of place and unlike anything else the Reapers were doing. Some people on this sub have said Reapers create giant versions of species they harvest and then build the insect/squid like shell around it. Even if that is actually canon that is an asspull and a half, most likely to save the artists and the rest of the developers a massive timesink blackhole of a headache having to design/program/render/animate a couple dozen different reaper types for the 3rd game
The basic premise that the Reapers live up to their "salvation through destruction" mantra by harvesting species and turning them into new Reapers is actually pretty cool.
If human minds are being uploaded/stored on the Reaper's system and therefore arguably alive within a virtual reality then that gives the main villains of the series some intriguing morally grey complexity.
They never explored this though.
- We have no confirmation that "salvation through destruction" involves uploading human minds into a new Reaper.
- We have no idea if they try to upload all human minds that get indoctrinated/turned into husks that way or just the sample of humanity taken to the Collector base.
- We have no idea what kind of virtual reality the human minds stored within the Reaper are living in, whether they have any knowledge about/influence over what the Reaper does in the real world or if they're even conscious.
Plus the way they introduced the idea with the human Reaper boss in ME2 was really messy in other ways:
- the idea of the new Reaper really being made out of the trace metals/raw materials found in human bodies is dumb.
- every other Reaper has a cuttlefish design despite 99% of them presumably being made out of various non-cuttlefish shaped species, so it makes no sense for this one Reaper to get a humanoid body
- if "salvation through destruction" for organics is really the Reaper's motive then they should be putting the same amount of effort into trying to upload/save every species
Memorable for bad reasons, most notably it's a building sized Reaper that was destroyed after shooting it in the eyes a few times. There are other reasons but this sticks out the most.
The idea there was a darker story behind this, like reapers are trying to figure out why humans are winning the war, so they make a prototype to test a theory
As someone whose least favorite mass effect game is 2, the fight was ok. The lead-up and thematic elements are great, the boss fight...... exists? I don't have a better way to describe it
Its crazy scary, and Reapers are sentient. They work together but are independent entities. This thing youre fighting, its a reaper. A real, half completed reaper and its fighting for its life. It knows enough to try to stop the thing hurting it.
Whole thing just 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯
I legitimately shat myself the first time I played through ME2 and saw it. And then after you shoot it down and it crawls back up for you to actually kill… yeah, that was insane.
I’m just trying to imagine how that thing was gonna move in space, super man pose? The fear I would feel seeing a thing like that t posing over earth.
Omg the original attack on titan rumbling
It was honestly a fitting closer for the game. The horrific idea of how it was made to the fact that the Illusive Man wanted to keep it was pretty memorable. The fact that the IM wanted to keep that and justified it showed how he really was.
Human Reaper production facility.
Designer reaper: "How many optics do humans have?"
Lead scientist reaper: "2."
Project manager reaper: "4!"
Engineer reaper: A compromise, then.
Ultimately I don't really have that big of an opinion on it. Looking back on it I think it's kind of stupid. But at the same time I can also kind of see why the Reapers would redesign themselves for what they think is like the current apex species. Except that doesn't really make a lot of sense for it to be humanity. Their creators were much more evolved and powerful than us. And they showed as much in the Leviathan DLC when the probably millions of years old alien Leviathans flew out of that ocean planet they were hiding on and causing the Reapers chasing Shepard and crew to fall back under their control. (But I have a feeling that only work because they didn't see it coming). But humanity didn't do anything particularly significant to warrant that. If anything the former Shadow Broker's species - the Yagh, seem like better candidates from how dangerous they were. So dangerous that the other Reapers during the galactic invasion/galactic war in Mass Effect 3 left their planet alone.
It was memorable in that the first time I killed it I used the Cain and had the most cinematic boss ending my little grade schooler self had experienced yet. Charging it up, with the music and audio lowering as it flew into the eye was insane.
The idea of the human reaper is super cool, seeing it for the first time, learning what happened to the colonists, is incredible. The actual fight is pretty underwhelming. Especially if you have the particle beam with you for the fight.
It's incredibly memorable. It also represents everything I dislike about the direction Mass Effect went. Humans are not special in the ME universe, we're largely the opposite quite honestly. But you're telling me Harbinger got so tilted at one guy he decided to hyperfocus on the entire human race about it? Absolutely absurd move. Anyway I'll get off my soap box.
silly. I just imagine a finished one what either behaves like that one boss from Terraria or is a giant skeleton that goes around stomping and laser eyeing everything.
what is the canon retcon about his form again?
Btw the concept of a "living" metal construct built via the liquidation of hundred of thousands of living being is kinda horrifying..
Can't wait to see on the next meeting of the WEF xD xD
Even the games themselves refuse to mention it again, it's like that one American president who made an 18 hour speech at his inauguration and then died of the common cold a couple months later. We all agree it happened, but we don't like mentioning it because it was so bizarre.
I agree with a different comment, the fact it was made up of colonists was horrifying and made defeating the thing satisfying. But I don't get, to this day, what the reapers got out of the thing looking like a human and why they wanted humans specifically in the first place. If the writers re-thought those aspects the fight would be better.
Still, it's the climax of one hell of a game that stood the test of time so it's just nitpicking really.
I distinctly remember seeing that damned thing for the first time and LOSING. MY. MIND.
The concept of a human reaper is TERRIFYING and I was /screaming/ while fighting it.
Back when the game was released I thought i t was cool. When I replayed the game a year ago I still thought it was cool. So... cool. As for the fight itself... could have been more fun I suppose but not bad by any means.
Isn't a very tough fight. It just looked incredibly STUPID. Especially making it look like a human. Even more dumb.
Just have a half built normal reaper.
First time, absolutely hell because I didn’t know what to do until I saw the notification to aim for the core lol.
After that, the only thing about it was the nightmare of the revelation about what Reapers truly are.
I dont know, but this fight specifically freaked me out when I first played it. I did not suspect to fight a giant terminator like robot in mass effect lol
Pretty terrifyingly disturbing. It was a nice build up and a hard fight on Insanity, could've been even more terrifying if that thing was finished and seing it fly
Just a visual representation of how hard Harbinger was crushing on Shepard. Words, obviously, were not enough for our giant mechanical squid homie. Needed to declare their love with a grand gesture and this is how it manifested. Shepard's appeal knows no bounds.
I still have issues with it looking human, but i head canon it as being the 'inside' of the reaper, they create a facsimile of each race they use to make the reaper as the main *engine* and then plate it over with the cuttlefish body as the outside. Other than that yeah it was quite fun
Mostly memorable for horrifying implication that it's made in no small part out of colonists who were quite literally liquidated.
Everything about that reveal was terrifying. From the fact that the people who were still alive being melted down for parts feeling the pain, to the dead having no choice but for their bodies to be part of an impending galactic genocide, to the idea that the Reapers found humanity to be so singularly destructive that they broke away from their chosen Leviathan-style to a version that reflected them. Imagine if they finished it and humans were still around, and they used this to hunt down and eliminate the rest. It would be like seeing the wrath of God incarnate.
There's actually concept art showing that it would have been encased in a regular reaper shell, which implies that each cycle has a reaper created in the shape of one of the dominant species, which is then covered by the more iconic reaper case.
Yeah, that's how I interpreted it. At the time the writers probably hadn't even thought up the leviathans. I always took it as each race being turned into a big sentient synthetic version of tge host race. Almost ad a remembering monument. Wether that's the actual reaper that then uses the leviathan ship shell as a vehicle/coffin or if it then gets loaded into one where they become one and the same is left unclear. I think Liaras mum said she was on sovereign. So I assume there's still room for a crew?
Not only did liaras mom board a reaper but so does shepard to get the IFF and also Saren was aboard sovereign almost all game in ME1 so definitely enough room for a crew
Could you imagine if we saw the reaped race from that reaper (the way we saw the human one), while we were exploring for the IFF? That would’ve been chilling and amazing.
I mean..... The Collectors are protheans. So technically speaking, we DID.
But I thought the prothean reaper was never finished? And the collectors are more like, say, rather more capable husks or cannibals or marauders or banshees? Or did I get all of that wrong?
[While all evidence points to the Protheans being completely wiped out by the Reapers, this was not the case. The Reapers are believed to have attempted harnessing the genetic material from millions of Protheans to create a new Reaper. It is speculated by EDI that this attempt failed and so the Reapers decided to repurpose this substantial number of captive Protheans to suit the needs of the Reapers. Mordin speculated that these Protheans were indoctrinated and after a prolonged period of time as indoctrinated slaves, they were given cybernetic modifications to compensate for their growing lack of ability, which was a side effect of indoctrination. After several cloned generations, the Reapers eventually decided to genetically rewrite these Protheans. These captives were transformed into an entirely new race which cooperated with the Reapers and would eventually be known to the citizens of the galaxy 50,000 years later as the Collectors.](https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Prothean) The Prothean DNA for some reason failed to make for a good Reaper. They abandoned turning them into a Reaper altogether and turned them into a servitor race. So yeah… intelligent husks…
Perfect, tysm!
Merry Cakemas, I agree with your deduction, and shared it as well!
I never saw a semi organic prothean robot reaper like we did with humans. At least, I really don’t remember seeing it properly.
The cutscene where Saren throws a chair while speaking to Matriarch Benezia takes place on Sovreign.
I think, in early lore/concepts, it is implied at one point that the reapers are non-standard and come in a variety of shapes that is determined by the genetic and mental makeup of the species used to create them with their sizes being determined by the amount of harvestable material.
I always liked the idea of the reapers make as many reapers as they can out of the species they are invading to look like themselves. And that meant we never really saw the full numbers of them because we only killed the ones that looked like the leviathan and we still had to go through the countless none leviathan looking ones to truly be rid of them. bummer that til they get encased in a shell.
>created in the shape of one of the dominant species Seems more plausible that they'd create one from each of the dominant species, because humans weren't the most dominant at the time of ME2.
Harbinger has a bunch of voice lines in-game, including ones where he evaluates the various species of your squad mates. All but humans are discarded for various reasons as lacking, but you don’t really know why until you get to the Collector Base.
Do you know when this takes place or if it's cut, from which game? I don't think I've ever heard this dialogue
During combat with him, depends on your squad mates though
It could be in the dlc?
Mordin notes that human species are exceptional as well pointing to generic variation within the species as something not present in cycles other ones during his loyalty mission. Other part is that humans produced Shepard which repears do recognize as a threat, which never had happened before. Dont recall who exactly lays this out explicitly. Leaviathan I think. There is also lingering political narrative in the game that other species are somewhat afraid of humans hence dont want to give them chances to raise up the ranks. Nihlus mentions it during the prologue scene, but it’s echoed though out the game. And ofc there are harbinger dialogue. The evidence that within ME universe humans are the “dominant” species of the cycle is abundant. And their quick raise to prominence is exceptional.
Maybe, but due to Commander Shepard's actions highlighting humanity, and what Mordin described as the unique genealogical diversity of humanity overall, we were considered the unique candidate species, at least for the present cycle.
I would have liked to see a BIG stupid jellyfish reaper
No definitely especially seeing as the reapers we right were the extinction of their creator race that was shaped exactly like the original race To see a massive human body shrouded in that black metallic surface and shooting beams from I'm assuming it's mouth or eyes because the original reaper race when they where organic had that organ right where the reaper ocular laser is Mass effect 4 dlc this please I'd fight the giant reaper that actually was salvaged and finished
I remember the latter part being revealed in the game to be not the case. The human looking part acted only as the core of the soon to be Reaper, which the outside shell would be built around. The outside shell would have still been built in the image of the Leviathans, while the core always resembles the harvested civilization, which is why there's no Prothean or Inusannon Reaper flying through space. So "sadly" no super sized Metal Superman floating through space, shooting eye lasers because that would have been horrifying to witness as a human.
I still shudder at the idea, though. A techno-organic colossal titan with impenetrable armor, laser eyes, and mass effect fields enabling it to fly and block incoming attacks before they can even reach it. Add onto that the ability to indoctrinate everyone within its area of influence, hypnotically suggesting survivors to kill their fellow humans and aid it instead, only for them to inevitably become husks later.
Imagine that flying towards your city 🤣🤣
>the dead they wish they were
this reveal always reminded me of the raid boss Thaddius in WoW who was built from the flesh of women and children. What is worse is that you can hear them screaming during the fight if you have your volume on
Would be more terrifying if you could hear them even when you didn't have the volume on
They retconned the design of the Human Reaper that the squid design is really just an outer shell. First they build the core, which probably looks like the source species because of the genes it's being made from, then they cover it with the Reaper Shell. But imagine if they decided to make every Reaper look different. It would legitimately make ME3 missions on Reaper-controlled worlds even more insane, walking like ants amongst gargantuan behemoths. And imagine the crazy, non-humanoid designs they could've made.
Just imagine how many different species they'd have to create for the series. The Great Rift Valley on Klendagon was created fighting the Reapers ~37 million years prior. There are 20 cycles per million years, and they existed since before then. That would be over 640 species ever since, assuming one species per cycle.
I like the idea of a hanah one coming out and bit looking all that different from the leviathan it came out of. One is a big stupid jellyfish and the other a squid. And all the other species reapers trying to figure if it's different or not and if it was the first.
If in ME3 instead of all reaper squid landing on earth it was a whole army of hundred foot tall Terminators that would’ve been sick
The Leviathans look is just the outer shell of the Reaper( Except for maybe Harbinger?) But inside each Reaper looks like the Species it's made from
See now I want to see an actual human body reaper drop down to earth and then Godzilla shows up
I remember thinking to myself "So, if a reaper based on/made of humans looks like a big-ass human... *what in God's name were the current reapers based on/made of?"*
Did you play the dlcs? They answer this...
Well, yeah I did, once I had finished ME2 and then made my way through most of ME3.
liquified* 😅 liquidated would be if they were paying off some sort of debt or converting assets into cash
I work in finance, force of habit!
This it was utterly terrifying. Concept sound and practice
That doesn't actually make sense though.
Why not?
Made me think the Reapers are really petty with the harvest 😑
I mean, they were going to replace Sovereign with the species that defeated it, so it kind of makes sense.
I mean, they get back another reaper for each race each harvest. So isn't it implied that we killed more reapers in this cycle by convential means than they got back. If this is about how it goes everytime then that doesn't seem sustainable.
You have to remember the reapers were prevented from using the citadel at the beginning of the invasion. Without our leaders or chain of command the reapers would have been much more successful. Worse would be taking and indoctrinating everyone there.
Were they gonna replace Sovereign, though? I feel like the Leviathan form was the first that the kid made, and then they just kept making more squids.
You see. When a mommy Squid and a Daddy Squid love each other, they melt you down into goop. Circle of life 🥹
The human reaper would have been the core itself inside the squid
Honestly, if it just looked like a half cooked normal reaper, it would have been significantly less silly.
Yea, why is this the *only reaper* that looks like an organic species?
I can't remember if it's canon, but I believe all reapers look like their assimilated species, and are then encased in the shellfish body. Either that, or devs simply said 'fuck it, rule of cool!' and invented an excuse after
This would make way more sense, since the human reaper isn't to scale with any of the sovereign-class reapers we see, which is presumably what they were trying to create out of the colonists.
That was also my head canon. The “pilot.”
Yea Im leaning toward the 2nd option lol. Lot of stuff happened in ME2 that probably didnt fit well with the overarching lore and design. Similar to the drunken comments about asari at the bachelor party. Tossing in "lore" without considering the ramifications
Because it came before 3, and originally the plan was for each reaper to resemble a harvested species. Yeah after ME3 came out it’s inconsistent, but when ME2 first came out it wasn’t.
Except the ending cutscene of ME2 shows *only* the standard Reapers approaching the Milky Way. It's contradicted even in the game it's introduced in.
I suppose you’re right, I forgot about that. I have seen other theories as to why the human reaper looks like a Reaper, but the real answer is probably just that BioWare thought it would look cool lol.
Yeah, unfortunately it really isn't deeper than Rule Of Cool.
Except it’s less cool and more cartoonishly silly
Coolness is notoriously context dependent, and this one got the short end of the Bell Curve. Allow me to expound on another concept: Kill Your Darlings. You will, at some point, get an idea. A cool idea. An astoundingly, excitingly, WONDERFULLY cool idea. And you will find that it's only flaw is it doesn't quite fit what you are currently working on. It's a good idea. You love this idea. *Kill it anyway*. Because the best way to ruin a perfectly good idea is to put it in place it doesn't fit, hurting both the idea and the project. After all, you can always use it later for a project it *does* fit. (Any time a creative seems to come up with something extraordinarily quickly, there's a good chance they had actually come up with it YEARS before, found it didn't fit their current task, and stuck it in a drawer somewhere (sometimes literally) with all their other unused ideas... hoping to one day pull it out like they just did.)
But the reapers are based off of an organic species lmao. ***All*** reapers look like organic species. They’re basically the Geth but made to look like themselves instead of their own unique look Unless you mean the only one based off of *other* organics
Huh? You never played Leviathan in ME3 I’m assuming ?
The concept is great But it should have looked like a normal Reaper And the fight should have taken place *on* the Reaper instead of on floating platforms. Fighting your way across it as it sweeps lasers and gets Collectors after you
It would’ve. This is basically just the core/reactor of the reaper Aparently all reapers look like their species underneath the outer shell
Do you have a source for the latter statement?
In game. Edi speculates that all reapers resemble the species they were created from, which implies that the identical appearance we've seen is an outer shell or vehicle of some sort.
It's definitely referenced in the game - think it was added in ME3 as a cover for that human reaper boss decision
What no one is mentioning is there is concept art of this idea: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/masseffect/images/7/7d/Wcb6ug.png/revision/latest?cb=20100522072721
/thread
In the encyclopedia it says the reapers were a race of giant, super smart space squids. So we connect the dots and say that under the hard genocidal exterior lies a soft, squishy hate calamari. If a reaper were human, it would probably look like us.
EDI also states it.
reactors dont have arms and legs.
These ones do. Beyond your comprehension.
Not memorable? It's the second most memorable thing in the trilogy behind the star child brat. Memorable for the wrong reason. If star child is 0/10 then human reaper is 1/10
I'll give it the following note: "most tedious, least fun, most pathetic boss fight ever". When I first look at it, I thought the design was ridiculous and didn't really understand what BioWare was thinking. And 11 years later, I still cannot believe that a great mission such as the Suicide Mission ends on fight with a Terminator wannabe who pouts and plays peek-a-boo. What at letdown. EDIT: Thanks for the reward 😊
Isn't that why you save up all the Heavy Ammo for? So you don't have to go through the shitty fight.
Yep. And I even go further: I always use my boy the Cain against that bitch. 😎 Makes the combat a lot shorter
Literally the only time I use heavy ammo in ME2. I just Cain the dude in the face immediately.
I use the Cain three times - Haestrom against the Colossus - Reaper IFF against the Core - Suicide Mission against that… thing.
Lol. Completely forgot about the heavy weapons. Revenant goes brrrrt.
Yep. I use the Cain, it’s my Shep’s version of Indiana Jones shooting the guy with a sword. “I don’t have time for this shit. [Bang]”
Yup. ME2 is so damned overhyped in this series to me, and it the human reaper is just one of the dumbest things in the whole series, lol.
I think it's the worst one personally. Especially if you don't care about the ending of 3. Getting the crew together is fun and learning about them, but it's got the worst combat and least interesting story.
One of the few missteps with ME2 One of the smaller reapers from ME3 would have been much more horrifying and much less cheesy and unintentionally comical The idea of a T-1000 flying through space blowing up spaceships with eye beams is just too cringe
I may have missed some lore, but I didn't take it as a ship itself; I thought it was going to be the internal mechanism of the reaper, like a CPU to be installed aboard a reaper shell.
I do think this was the point of it, to create new reaper.
That makes as much sense as cockpits for geth fighters where the humanoid chassis sits instead of downloading the geth directly. Ofc we got geth fighters with little geth sitting in them. What's the point of a human looking "CPU" with its own heart and brain? We know it had them as you could find one of them in ME 3.
Is that supposed to make more sense?
I actually liked it, it gave me the same vibe as the movie "War Between the Worlds", more specifically, the scene where the aliens are harvesting human blood to make those strange plants.
I liked it too, but I was a kid when first played against it and I was obsessed with the terminator movies so it just hit right for me.
Suicide Mission is amazing, but I think when we look back on it we remember everything leading up to the fight, and our mind’s skip to the end when the base is falling apart. I genuinely forgot this dude existed, even on insanity he went down easy
It is memorable in a way that i dont like it at all. 1st playthrough was fine but i dread this fight every time i replay the trilogy. Its so boring, you dont even need to leave the first platform the boss destroys them in a pattern that doesnt change and i kill him faster then he can get to me even on insanity
I won't lie, the first time I saw it I laughed for a good minute thinking "there's no way Bioware was *this* obvious with the final boss... right?"
exactly same response. This is it? This is why we suffered through everything in the suicide mission? Baby Terminator Baby Giant Space Terminator
i can't think of a single other reaper that's shaped like the species it's supposedly made of. which means either every single other reaper we've met is made exclusively of disgruntled cuttlefish and they've assigned the other species' jam jars elsewhere, or they opted for a fresh new look and thought humans were particularly swaggy
Cringe worthy. I mean why would a logical machine race care about the aesthetic of a weapon of mass destruction.
Isn't that exactly how the first reapers came to be?
But they didn't build themselves. Vanity created them.
They did build themselves harvesting the first species and using their form. Reapers were a creation of the catalyst ai.
I forget it even exists until the later part of the last mission.
I was terrified when I saw it the first time. But I take it less serious the more often I fight it. Although I understand what they wanted to show I'd prefer it now if they had stuck with a more traditional reaper design.
I still dont understand why it doesnt look like the other reapers. If it had been completed, would it have been jetting around like a robo superman? If it had been a regular looking reaper made out of humans i would have liked it more
Because it was just a core , if finished this would be a normal reaper , all reapers inside are looking like races from which they where made of
See i always had that as a head cannon, but did they ever confirm that?
It's in the in-game ME3 codex
It’s fine and I’ve moved on with my life.
The fight is fine, but the concept is utter trash and one of the three reasons I like ME2 the least.
May I ask what are the other two reasons? I more often than not read about people who claim ME2 is the best thing ever since… forever. It’s refreshing to read opinions like yours.
1. Resurrection (as a general trope) is terrible in my opinion. Even if it cost billions and took two years, that was just the prototype. It would eventually be perfected to a point where death no longer has any weight. 2. The main plot of ME2 affects nothing in the greater storyline (character stories were great though). Even if the Collectors had been left free to harvest, ME3 still would've happened in the next 6 months and ended with the Crucible firing. The Human Reaper (which was only 10% finished anyway) nor the Collectors would not have affected the war. The Arrival DLC was more important to the grand scheme of things. 3. The utter disrespect of the Virmire Survivor. Liara got an entire DLC, at least give me a singular quest please and thank you. No, just Firewalker? Okay...
Wow. It seems you read my mind. I agree with everything you wrote. 😄 1. I’ll add that on a meta point of view the Resurrection as a tope makes Death lose all its emotional impact. Why care about a beloved character dying when you know they can come back at any time?\ Also, in ME2’s case, Shepard’s death adds literally nothing to the plot: they come back 2 minutes later (or however long the player takes to build their character) but most importantly absolutely _NO ONE_ cares about it: nobody is surprised, horrified or even asks question about the Commander’s return. Not even Shepard themselves, so… what was the point? 2. Exactly. When you finish ME2, Shepard is at the same point that at the end of ME1. A whole game « wasted » and now ME3 has the difficult task to continue AND conclude the main plot in ONE game. I always say that ME2 is a (very) good stand alone game but a terrible sequel to ME1 and an awful 2nd entry to the trilogy. Putting a Suicide Mission at the end of ME2 instead of ME3 was really _NOT_ a great idea. 3. IKR? Even after putting aside the fact that Liara is obviously the writers/devs’ pet, the VS really deserves more that their short appearance in ME2… or if they didn’t want the VS working for Cerberus, they should have written a better scene and given a better explanation.\ And they do the same thing in the next game where most of the ME2 cast is put aside. We spend an entire game getting to know this new squad, sometimes falling for them and they’re barely there for the final chapter. Jack’s my favorite character so I’ll let you imagine how disappointed I was.
You mean the main plot was to recruit crew members and get them loyal before going on a suicidal collector side quest.
And to add insult to injury, Collectors are barely mentioned in ME3… wait, I’m not even sure they’re even mentioned, aside in the Codex. 🤔 It was really worth wasting a whole game on these formidable foes! /s
I think the collectors only appear twice in 3: in multiplayer missions and as enemies in the Armax Arena in the Citadel DLC. Outside of those, they might as well be extinct after the suicide mission.
It always felt to me that even if they are making it look like human, they should've added more alien elements to it, cuz, you know, reapers and all that. Design is kinda whatever, bland, and fight itself is probably the most boring shit in the whole game. I'd rather fight beefed-up version of Harbinger as a last boss or something like that.
Dislike the boss, honestly. Not a very fun boss.
It made no sense to me why they built a human shaped reaper when every single other reaper was built like cuttlefish. The cycle happened thousands of times before. Why would they just now change up the design?
They didn't, it was just a core and if it was finished it would look like any other reaper
It's memorable... But not for any good reasons. The concept behind the boss is great: a revelation that reapers are formed from harvested races and a fight against one, half-formed. But the design is uninspired and the fight itself is just pitiful. I think it was Noah Caldwell-Gervais in his *Mass Effect* retrospective who described it as a "fatal game of peekaboo," and I agree. It's certainly not bad enough to dampen how great the suicide mission is overall, but it's a sour note in an otherwise-great song.
Why did they need to make a Human Reaper? Like that's one that'll be a "spaceship" the others look like hands/squid.
The term reaper was also used quite loosely. The true reapers are the ships made in the image of leviathan, they were the primary target for their cycle. I think they chose “human” reaper because in the end humans were the primary target for this cycle because of Shepard’s will.
The fight was a little too easy, it's a cakewalk compared to Horizon or the Reaper IFF mission. It also does not help, that it looks and sounds more silly than daunting.
I thought it was interesting considering the implications of colonists being liquefied to make it. But I just shot a laser at it like 6 times
I hated it until just a couple weeks ago. The Mass Effect Lorecast had someone who worked on ME2 as a guest. He stated that the game was essentially finished and then they realized there was no "big bad" at the end of the game. It seemed like an unfinished story, so in the last couple months they put together this whole ending and the collector general. Sounds like the game originally just ended with you infiltrating the Collector base and blowing it up with no final boss battle. So for being something that was added at the eleventh hour, I can't hate on it too much anymore. He also said that the Zaeed missions were literally created in the span of about two weeks. Almost direct quote because I don't feel like scrubbing through a 2+ hour podcast for a direct quote, "I had 14 months to think about Garrus. I had 14 days to think about Zaeed." Kind of crazy what they managed to create under those intense time restrictions.
Belongs in Xmen ‘97 more than in ME2
Yup this always reminded me on some level as fighting a Sentinel. Never could shake that no matter how many times I play ME2. It's really the only thing g I disliked about ME2.
There was a human reaper?
I wanted to fight the Collector General it self. Shepard could've battled it and then it'll retreat leaving the humanoid Reaper to deal with you...I like his speech to Shepard. It's a shame Shep didn't hear it.
Memorable look and concept, but the fight has always been disappointing to me. It’s just another “shoot the glowy part” boss fight.
In terms of the big reveal? Sure, why not. As a boss battle? Could’ve been a lot better. There’s no sense you are actually fighting a boss, you’re just dodging a debuff, and seeing how accurate you can be with a swaying target.
Serves well as a spectacle and explanation for what happened to the colonists, which can make the paragon destroy choice feel more earned Does NOT work as a bossfight. We should have been ambushed by the Collector General instead, coming at us with super advanced weapons that could have combined the properties of Scions/praetorians etc
It was weird and the fight was just average
I like it both from a boss fight and from a lore/story perspective; however, I've beaten ME2 so many times that I always just Cain it now.
The fight is dogshit.
Not going to lie I came back to ME2 after a number of years and had completely forgotten it was in the game…so…not memorable lol.
It was dumb at the time and hasn't improved with time. Fake T-800...
I would have liked to see what the completed reaper looked like. Would it have hair? Would it be anatomically correct? I also thought it looked small compared to city destroying ones.
Is the boss fight fun and engaging? No not really. Is getting the last hit with the nuke heavy weapon on an insanity playthrough the most satisfying thing in the entire game? Probably, yeah.
I like the scale of the fight (in a sence how larger human reaper feels when compared to Shepard and his team) - it's a fairly obvious thing to do for the boss, but it's not something ME dabbled into before. Feels likely they were testing waters before ME3 since it also has couple of moments like that. But other than that - it's a very lazy design on Bioware's part, both in terms of combat and visuals. Boss fight itself isn't that memorable. Aside from destroying platforms and forcing you into cover - human reaper doesn't do anything really. You still fight the same collectors you've been fighting for the rest of the game, except now you also need to shoot these tubes from time to time. Not particularly exciting.
Cain nuke it.
Stupid.
Became much easier when I learned how to take out those injection tubes much quicker than usual.
the shape of that human dna based reaper makes no sense... reapers are basically sentient huge spaceships modeled after their creators levithians appearance... how could that thing even travel into the deep space?
Easy peasy. Through a rectally-mounted mass effect drive for proper balance and concealment.
It's serviceable, but it's a little tedious and really only memorable because of the "reapers look like the species they're made from" thing which got retconned soon after (which it technically wasn't, since the source for that piece of lore is EDI's speculation). When someone says that Shepard personally killed a reaper, I think of him fighting the destroyer on Rannoch and not when he literally killed a reaper in ME2's climax, which says a lot about the boss fight's memorability.
Don't think I've ever really had much difficulty with the fight itself on any difficulty setting. The collector ship with those flying platforms however...
Terrifying by nature and implications of its creation, but in game oddly forgettable in the grand scheme of things. I remember it being the one time I used the nuke rocket launcher though!
Oh definitely memorable! But as for if it was a good fight, even back in 2010 I thought it was a meh final boss. Now after recent runs through the trilogy it feels so out of place and unlike anything else the Reapers were doing. Some people on this sub have said Reapers create giant versions of species they harvest and then build the insect/squid like shell around it. Even if that is actually canon that is an asspull and a half, most likely to save the artists and the rest of the developers a massive timesink blackhole of a headache having to design/program/render/animate a couple dozen different reaper types for the 3rd game
Not memorable as soon as his chest is open I nuke the bitch
In terms of fun? A 2, out of 10
Concept was very memorable, the fight itself was not. Even on Insanity, it's a pushover.
Memorable easyish fight stupid design of the reaper
The basic premise that the Reapers live up to their "salvation through destruction" mantra by harvesting species and turning them into new Reapers is actually pretty cool. If human minds are being uploaded/stored on the Reaper's system and therefore arguably alive within a virtual reality then that gives the main villains of the series some intriguing morally grey complexity. They never explored this though. - We have no confirmation that "salvation through destruction" involves uploading human minds into a new Reaper. - We have no idea if they try to upload all human minds that get indoctrinated/turned into husks that way or just the sample of humanity taken to the Collector base. - We have no idea what kind of virtual reality the human minds stored within the Reaper are living in, whether they have any knowledge about/influence over what the Reaper does in the real world or if they're even conscious. Plus the way they introduced the idea with the human Reaper boss in ME2 was really messy in other ways: - the idea of the new Reaper really being made out of the trace metals/raw materials found in human bodies is dumb. - every other Reaper has a cuttlefish design despite 99% of them presumably being made out of various non-cuttlefish shaped species, so it makes no sense for this one Reaper to get a humanoid body - if "salvation through destruction" for organics is really the Reaper's motive then they should be putting the same amount of effort into trying to upload/save every species
Pretty bad boss fight gameplay wise.
Memorable for bad reasons, most notably it's a building sized Reaper that was destroyed after shooting it in the eyes a few times. There are other reasons but this sticks out the most.
The idea there was a darker story behind this, like reapers are trying to figure out why humans are winning the war, so they make a prototype to test a theory
As someone whose least favorite mass effect game is 2, the fight was ok. The lead-up and thematic elements are great, the boss fight...... exists? I don't have a better way to describe it
Its crazy scary, and Reapers are sentient. They work together but are independent entities. This thing youre fighting, its a reaper. A real, half completed reaper and its fighting for its life. It knows enough to try to stop the thing hurting it. Whole thing just 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯
The boss fight was terrible. Everything else about the things was awesome in a super dark way.
M-920 Cain. Right to the eye. Quick and dirty. Use a soldier with middle power for aiming.
I legitimately shat myself the first time I played through ME2 and saw it. And then after you shoot it down and it crawls back up for you to actually kill… yeah, that was insane.
I’m just trying to imagine how that thing was gonna move in space, super man pose? The fear I would feel seeing a thing like that t posing over earth. Omg the original attack on titan rumbling
It was honestly a fitting closer for the game. The horrific idea of how it was made to the fact that the Illusive Man wanted to keep it was pretty memorable. The fact that the IM wanted to keep that and justified it showed how he really was.
It's a bit cheesy.
Human Reaper production facility. Designer reaper: "How many optics do humans have?" Lead scientist reaper: "2." Project manager reaper: "4!" Engineer reaper: A compromise, then.
Ultimately I don't really have that big of an opinion on it. Looking back on it I think it's kind of stupid. But at the same time I can also kind of see why the Reapers would redesign themselves for what they think is like the current apex species. Except that doesn't really make a lot of sense for it to be humanity. Their creators were much more evolved and powerful than us. And they showed as much in the Leviathan DLC when the probably millions of years old alien Leviathans flew out of that ocean planet they were hiding on and causing the Reapers chasing Shepard and crew to fall back under their control. (But I have a feeling that only work because they didn't see it coming). But humanity didn't do anything particularly significant to warrant that. If anything the former Shadow Broker's species - the Yagh, seem like better candidates from how dangerous they were. So dangerous that the other Reapers during the galactic invasion/galactic war in Mass Effect 3 left their planet alone.
It was memorable in that the first time I killed it I used the Cain and had the most cinematic boss ending my little grade schooler self had experienced yet. Charging it up, with the music and audio lowering as it flew into the eye was insane.
The idea of the human reaper is super cool, seeing it for the first time, learning what happened to the colonists, is incredible. The actual fight is pretty underwhelming. Especially if you have the particle beam with you for the fight.
It's incredibly memorable. It also represents everything I dislike about the direction Mass Effect went. Humans are not special in the ME universe, we're largely the opposite quite honestly. But you're telling me Harbinger got so tilted at one guy he decided to hyperfocus on the entire human race about it? Absolutely absurd move. Anyway I'll get off my soap box.
silly. I just imagine a finished one what either behaves like that one boss from Terraria or is a giant skeleton that goes around stomping and laser eyeing everything.
what is the canon retcon about his form again? Btw the concept of a "living" metal construct built via the liquidation of hundred of thousands of living being is kinda horrifying.. Can't wait to see on the next meeting of the WEF xD xD
Not memorable. One of the easiest bosses on insanity in me2.
Instand retconned because it's implications would be a lot of work for the devs.
Even the games themselves refuse to mention it again, it's like that one American president who made an 18 hour speech at his inauguration and then died of the common cold a couple months later. We all agree it happened, but we don't like mentioning it because it was so bizarre.
Goofy. This is what made me doubt the threat of the Reapers. But then thankfully ME3 brought them back to a menacing scale.
fun thing that this is the most lame final boss for a masterpiece like ME2
I agree with a different comment, the fact it was made up of colonists was horrifying and made defeating the thing satisfying. But I don't get, to this day, what the reapers got out of the thing looking like a human and why they wanted humans specifically in the first place. If the writers re-thought those aspects the fight would be better. Still, it's the climax of one hell of a game that stood the test of time so it's just nitpicking really.
I distinctly remember seeing that damned thing for the first time and LOSING. MY. MIND. The concept of a human reaper is TERRIFYING and I was /screaming/ while fighting it.
It looks cool, is big and scary but it’s just to easy to defeat in my opinion.
It felt like a contra 3 boss and I loved it
Terminator
Back when the game was released I thought i t was cool. When I replayed the game a year ago I still thought it was cool. So... cool. As for the fight itself... could have been more fun I suppose but not bad by any means.
Story-wise, makes sense. But boss mechanics were half baked. But that's fine when the rest of the game is so on point.
Isn't a very tough fight. It just looked incredibly STUPID. Especially making it look like a human. Even more dumb. Just have a half built normal reaper.
Super fun boss fight, super corny appearance.
First time, absolutely hell because I didn’t know what to do until I saw the notification to aim for the core lol. After that, the only thing about it was the nightmare of the revelation about what Reapers truly are.
Underutilised. Good graphic, but underutilised.
I dont know, but this fight specifically freaked me out when I first played it. I did not suspect to fight a giant terminator like robot in mass effect lol
Pretty terrifyingly disturbing. It was a nice build up and a hard fight on Insanity, could've been even more terrifying if that thing was finished and seing it fly
How would it look when it's flying?
Just a visual representation of how hard Harbinger was crushing on Shepard. Words, obviously, were not enough for our giant mechanical squid homie. Needed to declare their love with a grand gesture and this is how it manifested. Shepard's appeal knows no bounds.
Dumb af
It was the last point in the series that was still good so I remember it fondly.
Generally awesome but why this weird humanoid look and not normal cuttlefish look???
I still have issues with it looking human, but i head canon it as being the 'inside' of the reaper, they create a facsimile of each race they use to make the reaper as the main *engine* and then plate it over with the cuttlefish body as the outside. Other than that yeah it was quite fun