A Post For Old People

Okay, so Liara's saying that the Asari high council wants us to investigate something?

Say whaaaaat?

(If you don't know what an Ardat-Yakshi is, let me assist you. The short version is that they are asari sex vampires. Mass Effect.)

Sex killing. Mass Effect.

Anyway, let's roll up to the Ardat-Yakshi monastery.

... okay, stay with me a second.

The Ardat-Yakshi monastery is my favorite sidequest in the game. The story has a certain delicateness to it, and the monastery itself is almost entirely monochrome. You know what it makes me think of? Old school Super Nintendo JRPGS, also known as one of my favorite things on the planet.

See, back in the 90s, you had to fit an entire game on one cart. Now we've got huge cartridges or even games stored on disks. (Or even multiple disks. Like, say, Mass Effect 3.) Back in the SNES era, games really had to be compressed to fit into their storage space. One way they did this was by making games shorter, sure, but another was by cutting back on dialogue or graphics.

The monastery isn't a perfect representation of a SNES RPG. It can't be, and it shouldn't be. It's an XBOX game, for fuck's sake. But I don't know, it occupies the same sort of space in my head. Going through the level feels all like:

... just kidding! Black Sigil was on the DS! Also I am the only living human being who played Black Sigil all the way through. Even the people who made Black Sigil didn't play Black Sigil all the way through, or else they would have seen what a glitchy shitheap it was.

Can I have Canadian RPGs for $400, Alex?

Meanwhile, I think we found something:

Rila and Falere allowed themselves to live a life of seclusion in the monastery instead of going out like Morinth and sex killing.

Let's follow Samara through the monastery.

Ah, yes, wave hello to the banshees! You'll be screaming their name later!

These are probably the most awful fuckers in the game. They can send big ass biotic blasts, they can teleport around the map, and in general, they're big and gnarly enough to ruin your day.

("Bean, banshees do not have nipple lights." Banshees have nipple lights, I hate it for you. Mass Effect: The Horniest Game.)

So we take care of them in the usual way, right?

Well ....

If you get too close to a banshee? They can pick you up and instakill you. As a vanguard, your two most important tools are charge and nova, close quarters attacks, so that's fun.

Sometimes, if a banshee's in the middle of an autokill, one of your squadmates can shoot you down or detonate a biotic skill, which will cause the banshee to drop you. Good luck getting the AI to realize it needs to help you, though.

What are you supposed to do?

I don't know, take cover and try some complicated ass thing, probably.

What do I do?

A vanguard's greatest gift is speed. I think it's easier to charge the hell out of a banshee and try to outpace it then to try to leave it alive and pull off some sort of big complex plan. Does it leave you open for an instakill? Hell yes it does, but I still, amazingly, wind up dying less when I vanguard my way through the level.

NEXT TIME: Palom and Porom.