Mass Effect: Paragon Lost Review
Mass Effect: Paragon Lost Review 
Starring: Freddie Prinze Jr., Monica Rial
Director: Atushi Takeuchi
Year: 2012
As I’ve stated before on the site, I’m a pretty big Mass Effect fan. And so I like many fans was really intrigued with the animated movie announced taking place in the Mass Effect universe. It’s a prequel of Mass Effect 3, and around the Mass Effect 2 storyline. One of the new characters in Mass Effect 3 was James Vega, and it follows his back-story of which he mentions. Do you need to need to play the Mass Effect games to watch this? Well, I already played the games, so it’s hard to tell for me. But I felt parts being explained for beginners, and maybe some people could just watch it. But don’t bitch about some things not making sense because you didn’t play the games, to me it’s the same as someone who watched a Dragonball Z movie and said it didn’t make sense. You kind of have to follow the source material a little. That being said, is Paragon Lost a stand alone good movie? Yeah, it’s pretty good in my opinion. One time I heard a question is the Mass Effect universe better than the actual games. And my response to that would be no, its not. Mass Effect is a world that you are apart of, and you are Commander Shepard, or at least for games one through three. The world is amazing, but that’s part of the game. The books and stuff that I’ve read are pretty good too, just like this. The world is unique enough it can branch off into something new, and still be amazing. But there are some blocks when going into an anime movie from the Mass Effect video games. One, I think this shouldn’t have been a 2D animated movie. Many characters like the Krogan and Asari in this movie look just wrong, and don’t really get much care. It’s a lose lose situation because they can’t really be drawn, and you can’t really change it without people saying how that’s not how they’re suppose to look. Personally I would have been fine with taking liberty with the character designs for the sake of melding into an anime better. But a 3D anime would have fixed this, but oh well. That, and there’s a simple problem that I don’t think the animators really cared. Not that it looks completely like shit, it actually looks good on some parts, but I didn’t feel heart in the animation, and since most of them were probably forced onto the project, I can’t really blame them. And the character designs themselves aren’t that great either. James and other characters from the games don’t really look all that great, they definitely don’t look like cover characters you see as the star. And the side characters made for the anime aren’t exactly normal either. But all that being said, I personally couldn’t really give a shit, I just thought I had to say that. It looks like G.I. Joes, but I don’t think animation is always necessary, but it is nice. But let’s just get to the story. James Vega and his crew start in a standard mission, and then are put in charge of protecting a colony, one that suddenly is attacked by alien creatures that are paralyzing the colonists and capturing them, and if you played Mass Effect 2, you would know these are the collectors. The story is eh. It’s fun to watch, especially in the beginning, but it’s a hard story to fit for a complete climax and conclusion, and that shows. Too many things were "has to be this way,” or "had to be done like this.” It’s just not that gripping. As far as the characters go, don’t expect to know they’re name by the end of this. I would say watch the movie, because for me it was better the second time, and that’s actually when I got used to the characters and knew them well. But they’re all pretty one-sided, and don’t hold a lot of personality. They’re fodder with some clover dialogue for you to remember them, and add some flavor, but not much. And it gets really stale at points when one of the main characters is pretty much the stuck up version of Liara, who was a character from the game. Sorry, but at least make a more unique outfit so we don’t compare them. As far as James goes for a character, I’ll just do a quick synopsis of James in general. He’s a love hate character to most, and I kind of like him. But in Mass Effect 3 you don’t get some characters on your team, but some characters like James are coming along, and when he’s not as good, it seems to leave a bad taste, but it’s not like he’s terrible, he’s actually really good, just not up to people’s standards. And in this movie he isn’t fantastic either, but he does make a good lead. And to be honest the story of James and this mission probably would have worked better than a movie about Garrus, or Thane, or other characters from the game. James although not amazing is another great edition to the Mass Effect family, and deserves his spot on the Normandy. And for a end, just what is the movie as a whole. It is a movie I think mostly for fans personally, besides that it’s an experiment. An experiment to expand the Mass Effect franchise, move a game into an anime, put something Mass Effect into the hands of anime fans, see if Japan would like something science fiction, and just to see the reaction. In the end I like it, it’s one of those side stories you think, "man, I kind of just want to see what happened there,” and you see it, but in a new format completely new. Forever Normandy!
Mass Effect: Paragon Lost Review gets a 3/5
Spoilers: First off, the spoiler that was actually in Mass Effect 3, James at the end must decide between one person with data that might save millions, or save a whole colony straight up before it dies. And yes, he chooses the data. And for his decision that got many killed, he was given a god damn metal. And then the name Paragon Lost kind of makes sense, although I still don’t think it was the best choice. Also, Vega’s team died left and right. Why? Because like I said, they were kind of fodder. Only one lived, and the only person besides him was the wannabe Liara. (I’m sorry, but it’s true) But Vega really is more rounded by this movie, and I like that, and the movie is fun. It has Mass Effect writing with kind of unnecessary sexual comedic breaks and everyone apparently just drinks for their fun hobbies. (If you played the games that would make more sense) Also, little April died. Sad face. But I’m not going to lie the first time I saw her she annoyed me, but I guess in the end it worked out.
Badges
Mass Effect: Paragon Lost gets THE CHARACTER BADGE
