I love Kasumi's loyalty mission with all my heart but it really asks us to suspend our disbelief the most, and in a way that doesn't really work to me. Others have said it before so it's nothing new but I do want to talk about it a bit.
Usually, in a more general sense, I think we can accept suspension of disbelief when we feel it has a purpose. Shepard seems to know nothing about the galaxy in ME1 but we, the players, know it's not because they lack curiosity. It's because dialogues are used to explain the world to the players. So we get it, we know why it happens.
But when we don't get it, when there is no specific purpose, the suspension of disbelief is harder to maintain.
With Kasumi's loyalty missions, two things bother me from the very beginning:
Kasumi knows enough about a party like this to know how to dress Shepard so they wouldn't look out of place. She even explains her reasoning to Shepard.
But she, who is also suppposed to get into the party, arrives dressed as usual. No matter how you look at, it makes her look suspicious and makes us think she will cloak herself. She just looks like a thief!
So she dresses Shepard for the part but conveniently forgets about herself. And it's one thing if the character is kinda mediocre and not smart, we can let that pass, but we are told Kasumi is the best at this. She knows how to blend in. So that makes no sense.
(Now someone might say they're going to a place with criminals but all of them are still dressed for the party. They don't look like thieves, smugglers, etc. And Kasumi would have been to a party like this in the past, she has enough experience to know what it's like.)
The entire game is based on a weird idea: half of the galaxy will recognize Shepard immediately, the other half will not and believe they are someone or something else. But to me, the fact that Kasumi drops info about this Gunn character on the extranet and we're supposed to believe that no one, not even Hock, will recognize Shepard, either on the extranet or face to face, is insane. Especially when rumors are flying around that Shepard is alive, when people love conspiracies or can actually see Shepard, either in pictures or when they answer a reporter's questions in ME2. The Conrad Verner of that world will obviously comment on a Gunn article to say "that's Shepard!!!".
BUT ON TOP OF THAT, Kasumi chose a giant Saren statue as a "gift" to Hock. Saren, a character directly linked to Shepard. Might be fan service, but it doesn't help the situation here.
Everything weird about this in one picture:
And Hock asks Kasumi not to enter the party, saying something like Gunn is invited but their companion has to step aside. It's rude af right? For a party like this? And he knows they're coming from Ilium, so all the way to get there? Kasumi tells us it's probably normal: "We've never seen each other in person and no one knows what I look like. Just watching his ass, I'm sure. I can't blame him."
Come on lol.
And inside the party we see some of those criminals entered with companions. Like those three:
Now inside the party, anyone with eyes can see Shepard is behaving weirdly but we can suspend disbelief again because:
The game has this habit of already making us believe that people drop datapads everywhere with crucial non-encrypted or badly encrypted information. So the security is shit but it's shit everywhere, and we know mercs aren't always good at their job.
Hock knows they will get into the vault no matter what so he's not going to stop them even if Shepard is obviously going downstairs, upstairs, checking security guards, following power cables, etc.
And to be clear, I don't think the fault is on Kasumi here (I love her!!!!), I think it's the writing. I also believe they wanted to keep covering Kasumi (which is not a bad thing obviously) but that meant they didn't want to dress her for the occasion.
Why not make Kasumi arrive cloaked from the beginning then? So Hock doesn't see her at all. Change Shepard's looks a bit so Dunn doesn't look exactly like Shepard. That's totally doable in that world! Also change the statue so it's still an impressive gift to Hock, but it's not Saren. Subtle changes, but without changing the mission too much.
And when they arrive at the vault, the dialogue would have been different but that means Kasumi actually entering the vault would have been a real surprise to Hock, which makes sense to me.
I think Kasumi is a good thief because no one expects her and no one sees her. That's what we need to believe, and what the original mission made us doubt.
andulkaphoto
ellievsbear
jacobvanloon
stormborns
