Just finished the series for the first time over the course of about 2 weeks. Did pretty much every mission I encountered (except hunt monkeys on Tuchanka) as long as they were still able to be completed (lost out on the help colonists mission from the javik dlc). I'm not going to write out a long, autstically detailed review of the trilogy, just going to put down a few bullet points.
- 2 had the best story, in that it was focused almost entirely on the party members that make up much of the series' appeal
- 1 was the overall best game, and had the best mood and atmosphere. I wish the mako segments had been expanded and updated in the later games instead of being axed. Easy to imagine submersible and cave segments with interesting landmarks.
- 3 had the most engaging combat, but I wasn't looking for that. I prefer the build crafting of 1 over the streamlining of the later games
- Didn't care much for ashley, kaidan or liara in the first game, although kaidan was much more interesting in 3. Legion was my favorite new character between 2 and 3, its a shame that console limitations and bad design choices forced him into being an 11th hour party member. 3 completely ruined the geth by turning them into pinocchio-styled Real Boys, instead of of just letting them be the fascinating digital hive mind that they are. I was glad that I achieved peace between the geth and quarains because the geth did literally nothing wrong, but Legion's sacrifice was hamfisted and the fact that they used reaper code to make it happen goes against everything Legion was talking about in 2 with the true geth deciding to determine their own future instead of relying on the old machines. Legion even agrees in 3 that destroying the heretics was better than rewriting, but then he immediatley rewrites the hive mind into Real Boys. The new writers clearly didn't understand the appeal of the geth, (hence why they rewrote the original question from 'Do these units have a soul?' to 'Does this unit have a soul?') but at least Legion goes out like a hero.
- Romanced tali, miranda would have been my second choice.
- Pretty much the only information I looked up was 'points of no return'. Based on the fact that every main mission in 2 force starts except for the Reaper IFF, i was pretty sure it was going to be a big, story changing moment, which I confirmed with a quick search, and did so for 3 while I was at it. Other than that I was mostly blind except for the knowledge that ending of 3 was hated. I didn't like me2's morality system speech lockouts because it prevented me from reconciling with miranda after I sided with jack, which caused her to be the only casualty in the suicide mission. I was pretty mad at the bad morality system, so I looked at a guide for the suicide mission to get her to survive. (Don't send grunt with the normandy crew survivors). The only other revert I did was to redo the final choice on Rannoch because I misunderstood that the left side dialogue options lead to the peace I was looking for. Tali suiciding after hearing the final tranmission from the ship she was born on was harrowing, although let down by male shepard's weak voice delivery. Like come on man, your girlfriend who was talking about building a house together just jumped off a cliff.
- I was surprised at how affected I was by Mordin's final moments. The entire Tuchanka plotline was the best part of the game
- 3's writing in several parts felt fan fictiony with the party (male shep trying to get miranda and jack to kiss was ??????) and the constant call backs (garrus and calibration must have been a meme back in the day with how often it gets referenced in 3).
- Edit 2 because I forgot, having the illusive man be indoctrinated was absolutely fucking retarded and i hated it. this detail completely ruined him in 3, all they had to do was just not have this and keep most everything else about him and it would have been fine. kai leng was fucking retarded. Why does thane go into melee range against a guy with a sword when thane has a gun? why is there a katana wielding weeb in my western made scifi shooter? its not even a special mass effect warping sword or something, its a just a fucking piece of steel. Just imagine if this guy was in the first game. you can't because he has no place in the series.
- I'm not going to write a huge entry on the ending. It fucking sucks. Making EDI and the geth get upgraded with reaper code not only contraditcts everthing legion stood for in 2, it also is a completly hamfisted, transparent way of stopping you from picking the correct ending, which is destroy. Trying to pivot the story into being a organic vs robot conflict is nonsense, because I just peacefully ended a literally centuries long conflict between ai and organic life. The fact can't point that out to starchild is obnoxious, never mind the differences in the quarian/geth war vs the milky way/reaper war. (Namely, the reapers are harvesting for the lulz, whereas no geth or quarians were doing anyting just for lulz)
- Starchild is a fucking retarded 11th hour 59th minute introduction. The ending should not be about the reapers, it should be about the squadmates and supporitng characters like Hackett. They should have left the reapers entirely unexplained, since the only purpose they served narratively was to put a bunch of weirdos on a space ship and have them talk about romance, technology, politics and fighting aliens. Anything beyond that is wasted on the reapers.
Overall pretty good series, my ranking is the same as the release order. I might pick up andromeda since its only 10 bucks on steam sale right now, though I will be going in with low expectations. My hopes for me5 are literally zero. The only possible way they can right the ship is if 5 starts back at the conversation with the catalyst and shepard goes 'lol fuck u' and then the starchild explodes, killing all reapers and saving both edi and the geth. Then the rest of the game is pretty lighthearted adventure where you go around and help rebuild tuchanka, earth, palaven, etc, and at some point I go back to rannoch to build a beach front house with my quarian wife. Anything other than that is retarded and they should therefore not bother making it.
I think the best way the could continue the series at this point is to just reboot it legend of zelda style, with an entirely new continuity. Keep the mass relays and the citadel and the major races, but change the variables. What if somehow the geth created the quarians? What if the citadel was on the opposite side of the galaxy and therefore earth was part of the terminus systems? What if the rachni and vorcha were major races, while turians and asari were demoted? That's before even coming up with new ideas, like what lies beyond the deactivated mass relays that are confirmed to exist. Whatever happens, I just don't see that the current setting has much of anywhere left to go.
Edit: Removed spoilers because it fucked up my formatting and made it hard to read