I overall enjoyed my time with this game, especially the DLC. However, it had some flaws that not even a remaster and years of updates could solve. Surprisingly, I had a very different experience from nearly everything I’d heard.

I primarily refer, of course, to the infamous endings. I can’t say I went into this completely spoiler-free, but mostly-so. I knew the ending was controversial—widely-hated, even. I had heard that the endings were presented as an illusion of choice. I didn’t really know more than that. Perhaps it was this reputation softening my expectations, but I really didn’t find it that bad. Instead, I found disappointment nearly everywhere else. I figured that if I had heard so much about the ending being bad, surely the rest was fine—perhaps even good?

I was legitimately surprised at how wrong I was, repeatedly.

It’s clear to me that this game was rushed. There are so many elements of the story that feel weirdly out of place or missing obvious detail—like they bear the phantom pain of the content cut away to meet the extremely aggressive deadlines this game was developed under. More on that later. It’s wild to me that they tried to release this only 2 years after Mass Effect 2. From what I heard, they were actually chasing a 1-1.5 year gap, and reluctantly pushed it to 2 years. It probably should have had another year on top of that, or more.

It was also extremely ambitious, especially for the time. It frequently strives for increased levels of fidelity and realism that just weren’t yet ready at the time. Each step it took to do so firmly planted a foot deeper in the uncanny valley. It released in that cursed era of games during which the “state of the art” managed to look artistically worse than the previous techniques, but all the “big” projects felt the need to do the popular thing, no matter the aesthetic cost. I legitimately think Mass Effect 2 was a better looking game from every angle. More on that later, too.

Even the writing was overambitious. The series championed “choices matter” and is still brought up as a prime example of that style of game many years later. Many choices were waved aside or even outright ignored in some cases, relegated to offscreen changes and retcons. This was true even in Mass Effect 2, but it all came crashing together in this one. All the “your decisions will matter, we promise!” debt came calling all at once and Bioware unfortunately declared creative bankruptcy.

The combination of overambitious and rushed is a poisonous one. It was impossible to avoid the consequences of this. Yet, I had an overall positive experience with Mass Effect 3. I think it’s worth pointing out that positive side. I’m going to complain a lot in this review. Please remember this paragraph.

The Review#↑

Audio & Visuals#↑

I found this game’s audio oddly… empty? It was uncanny the entire time.

There was a notable lack of background music for a significant number of scenes. I doubt it was a lack of budget or time, there were plenty of applicable tracks in the game (and series) that could have been re-used. That would have been acceptable at worst, and could have really elevated some scenes at best. Instead, there was this emptiness—which felt intentional. I get the feeling that they were going for a “war is hell” kind of thing. No need for music, just let people sit in emptiness with nothing but gunfire and explosions. I don’t really think it worked out. I honestly adore stuff like that usually. It did nothing for me here. Worse, the lack of background was so notable that it actually distracted me from the scenes I was watching.

This game also has the worst case of attempted action-movie audio balancing I’ve ever heard. I say attempted, because I don’t think it even accomplished what it usually does for action movies. It’s like they started going down that path and then slapped a compressor on afterwards. Everything is super muted, with the only loud sounds being the reapers, but then the reaper sounds are so compressed that they don’t even achieve that edge that they were probably going for. Upon opening the game for the first time, I actually went and checked the settings multiple times to make sure it wasn’t something I had misconfigured or anything. Nope, it’s just like that. Bizarre. It made every environment I walked through feel extremely fake. It decimated my immersion.

On the visual side, I found it to be largely inconsistent and incoherent. So many things felt oddly out of place, like their colors just didn’t quite work together as they should. Every once in a while, something would look like it was poorly photoshopped in, rather than being a natural part of the scene. This usually happened with character models, so I assume there was something slightly off with the character lighting, or perhaps the art direction simply wasn’t tight enough.

The animations were also surprisingly stiff. Perhaps I only noticed this so much because this game had so many uniquely animated cutscenes. Perhaps it’s because only some scenes felt mo-capped, leaving the others much more stiff in comparison. Perhaps mo-cap just wasn’t good enough yet (back to the over-ambitious thing again).

The worst offending animation was Shepard’s walking animation in casual attire, at least as FemShep. It always looks like she shit herself. It also looks like her spine is about 6 inches too long, like they stretched her out so that all the camera angles could be the same as the male version of Shepard.

All of these audio and visual flaws combined together in the opening of the game. It felt like I had jumped back a generation of games. It made such a weak first impression compared to Mass Effect 2 that it deterred me from coming back to the game for a month.

I truly think that Mass Effect 2 is a better looking and sounding game in pretty much every way. It’s possible that Mass Effect 2 got a ton more effort put into it with the remaster, and 3 was left with fewer improvements. I’m not sure. Though even looking at screenshot comparisons from the original releases, I prefer the art direction of Mass Effect 2, even if it’s a touch lower resolution and isn’t as “shiny”.

Story#↑

Note: I’m dropping full spoilers here. Here’s a link to Gameplay if you want to skip this section.

Speaking of weak openings, I was supremely disappointed that my choice to make Anderson a Councilor was completely reversed off-screen. Legitimately, they took the exact story that happens in Mass Effect 2 if you make Udina Councilor, and just made all of it happen after the end of Mass Effect 2 instead. It was a complete retcon of one of my choices. So much for those mattering…

It wasn’t a dealbreaker on its own. Just surprising, and contributed heavily to how weak I felt the opening was.

Even ignoring all of that, I thought the opening was a mess. We’ve spent years in-universe fighting off the reapers. We literally killed one at the center of all civilization in the first game, and another in the center of the galaxy in the second. It’s not like these were secret events. The whole galaxy was aware. There were huge numbers of witnesses to the collectors being involved with the reapers, especially humans. Yet, we’re led to believe that people disbelieved so hard that they didn’t even pick up signals of a massive reaper fleet descending on Earth? It makes no sense. It’s a shallow excuse to play off the destruction of Earth for shock value. It was so ridiculous that it wasn’t even effective shock value.

Then we’re shipped off on an out-of-place detour (completely cutting any remaining sense of tension) to pick up some conveniently-recently-discovered research. Liara is here, for some reason. It makes no sense in the story. It feels like they just needed a place to reunite her with the crew, and picked here arbitrarily. Then we dedicate the rest of the mission to picking up an overly sexy new robot body for EDI, because that was necessary. Then we have Ashley/Kaidan receive a mortal wound out of nowhere. Gotta make the player feel some kind of stakes, right? This whole mission was pretty trash, to be honest. It felt like the worst offender of the game being rushed and them needing to tie a lot of random things together after other, more interesting content got cut. It was their design-equivalent of a waste bin for ideas they couldn’t fit anywhere else.

Fortunately, what came after was much better. I really liked traveling around the galaxy, recruiting allies and making deals to secure as many advantages as we could get. It reminded me of the best things about Mass Effect 2’s story.

Unfortunately, they weren’t all winners. It wasn’t long before more of my previous decisions would be paved over again. In Mass Effect 2, I had chosen to destroy research that could have assisted the krogans in curing the genophage. What did that amount to in Mass Effect 3? Wrex gave me a couple stern lines of dialogue. That’s pretty much it. I’m then presented with all the options of saving the krogan anyways and the rest of the mission plays out the same. Once again, not a dealbreaker, but disappointing.

…and then we get into Act II. Oh boy.

It’s finally revealed why the Anderson retcon happened! A betrayal by Udina, only possible if he was the Councilor! It came completely out of the blue! How shocking!

I found this really lame. It didn’t feel like it made sense in the story, plus it was apparently so important that they had to retcon to make it happen.

Not only that, it introduces the supremely lame Kai Leng. I don’t like this guy. Not even in a “love to hate him” way. I just don’t think he added anything to the story. It’s like they made a boss design and then found a way to fit him into the story later. It feels like perhaps there were supposed to be some more interesting things to do with him, but it was all cut. We’re left with this empty facade of a “cool” character.

All of that aside, the actual idea of a betrayal on the Citadel is a good one. That part actually works really well, even if the execution was poor. The aftermath of it, the way the Citadel changes, and what it does for the story are all great.

Smooth sailing again for a bit!

I really enjoyed the story of the quarians and the geth. It was compelling throughout the series, and this was a great culmination. The missions were fun, and full of good lore, too. Facing down a reaper with nothing but a targeting laser is one of the most badass setpieces in the series.

Then we get another mission that feels oddly disjointed. We need to get some important data from an asari relic, and we see firsthand how much is being sacrificed to get us there. Then we get interrupted by Kai Leng (lame!) at the most convenient time for him. This completely undermines the stakes set up by the rest of the mission. We’re sold on this being a super secret thing that nobody else knows about. We’re shown just how hard it is to push into this region currently. Then, JUST as we’re about to learn the most vital information, “John Edgelord” pops up out of nowhere. I guess it wasn’t really that secret then? Why did Cerberus know about this ahead of time? Why did they not do this sooner? Why now, precisely? Wait, did that VI just say it detected someone indoctrinated nearby? They have that technology? Why did none of our interactions with Prothean VIs (or a live Prothean, with DLC), or any of our many prothean technology excavations reveal the existence of this technology, even if without providing it to us directly? Nothing makes sense here. It’s another convenient, “waste bin of ideas” mission that was necessary to pull this rushed game’s story into a semblance of coherent.

The next mission, and the last one in Act II, was actually pretty good. Following Miranda through the facility and learning about Cerberus’s plans along the way was tense. It was also a pretty cool setting, with the terrifyingly empty living spaces and such.

On to Act III! Sadly, by far the shortest.

Raiding the Cerberus base was fun. Cathartic, if nothing else. Finally get to show these bastards some consequences. Finally get to shut Leng down. Arguing with the Illusive Man was also pretty fun. It had a number of good bits of lore and necessary context. It’s a tad unfortunate that the only way they could deliver all of this information was through a series of recordings. It seems like a lazy way to give the player all the information. Like, “here you go! Here’s all of the missing information dropped into your lap! We needed to give it to you somehow or what comes next wouldn’t make any sense! So here’s a massive disjointed lore dump!” That said, it’s at least an enjoyable lore dump. What comes up is pretty interesting, and the sheer quantity of it made me enjoy the mission more.

Mysteriously, the Citadel is moved to Earth, just as we learn that it is the “Catalyst” needed to stop the reaper threat. How convenient—we can set up the final events of the game over Earth instead of just out in space. I don’t see any reason for this other than story convenience. It struck me as very odd and contrived.

Okay then, whatever, off to Earth!

Having a final sendoff with all the companions was very nice. Those conversations and final moments were all pretty great. No complaints there. Though, again, the beam of light and the Citadel feel extremely contrived just to make such a plan possible—it was at least enjoyable to see happen once I got over that.

The desperate plan and the rush to pull it together against all odds was also very satisfying. I loved the brutality of the final push with the reaper decimating all of my allies. It made everything feel even more desperate, and I was very tense trying to get to that light.

Unfortunately, that’s where it falls apart again. There’s so much potential here. My thought process during it:

Shepard is alone on the Citadel. The Citadel is massive. It looks different, like it has been transformed into something else, that’s cool. What are we going to explore through to get where we need to go? What are we going to have to struggle through to see this thing done? How hard will Shepard have to push to make it through all of the enemies that are surely between here and the end, while being so wounded? Will I need to do some tense sneaking?

Oh… I just… need to walk 30 feet? Through a completely uncontested area? I really just got miraculously teleported exactly where I needed to be? Lame.

Anderson is here? What? Why? I mean I love the guy, but… oh, got it. He’s just here as a contrivance for The Illusive Man to take a hostage. Whatever, just makes me hate TIM even more. It’ll be great to kill him in a bossfight, he’s clearly enhanced like Saren was. This really ties it back to the first game in a cool way! Oh, I don’t get to fight him at all?

Wait, there’s really no final boss at all? I’ve already done all the combat in the game without realizing it? That’s anticlimactic.

Oh, and to top it all off, this section drops probably the most infuriating reputation check in the series, as a middle finger on the way out to remind you how shit that system is.

The final visit to the Citadel feels extremely unfinished. It’s emblematic of all of the problems I have with the game. It’s a hollow shell of an experience that had so much promise. It’s a contrived facade of a story that feels like it started with a list of cool moments it wanted to include, and then figured out a plot to tie them together later.

Then we get to the endings! This is the part I heard about!

If I can be so, so honest, I actually thought they were pretty good. I thought, if anything, these choices of endings actually stuck the landing and improved my opinion of the game. Were they the best endings ever released? No, but they were pretty good.

I had heard ahead of time that the endings were basically “pick a color, the ending cutscene will play out in that color, that’s all the choice you get”. While it’s true that your choice changes the color of the ending, it’s deeper than that. You’re choosing the fate of the galaxy. The available fates are very, very different. The choices:

• Destroy all synthetics, including your allies, but allow organics to live free from the reaper threat.
• Control the reapers and order them to stop, but give up your humanity (and it’s implied that in giving up your humanity, you’ll simply come to the same conclusion that the reapers did anyways).
• Merge organics and synthetics, embracing the reapers and their goals, but permanently ending the war.
• A secret fourth option, shutting down the Crucible and losing the war, hoping the next cycle will do better.

Yes, these options are represented visually by different colors, but I’m not sure what else they could have done. “A wave of energy across the whole galaxy” was always the purpose of the Crucible. It’s not like they could have legitimately shown the future of the whole galaxy after such radical changes were made to it—not in a satisfying way anyways. Much better to leave that up to the player’s imagination.

Importantly, these choices are laid out in great detail, with a ton of lore, and form a very difficult decision. The most difficult decision in the series. The true final boss of the “ultimate choices matter game” is a really hard choice. It’s fitting. All the options are consistent with the story, too. Each brings the story to a close in an interesting way that plays well with the themes laid out over 3 games of content. I can imagine personalities of Shepards that would pick any of the options.

I find something about these endings interesting, but I need to get into Deus Ex spoilers to talk about that. The following spoiler boxes relate to Deus Ex (the original game from 2000), not Mass Effect:

The endings of Deus Ex are:

Merge with a world-dominating AI, giving up your humanity, but hoping to control it instead of allowing it to cause untold destruction. It is implied that in giving up your humanity, you’ll come to the same conclusions the AI already has.

Break all technology to enter a new dark age—killing many people, but completely cutting off the current threat and letting people rebuild.

Embrace the oncoming change to the world, allow it to take over, and become one of them.

They’re very similar! I don’t understand why Mass Effect’s endings are so hated, while these are so loved. It seems like an odd bit of double standards. Perhaps the reason people hate the Mass Effect endings is not because the endings themselves are bad fits, but because of how those endings were presented and the generally unfinished state of the game. There’s probably more to think about here.

I have heard that the endings (especially their presentation) were tweaked after release through some free DLC. Some new scenes were added for context, and most of the lore I enjoyed was added after the fact. I looked up everything that was changed. I still think the endings would have been fine without all this, but that stuff definitely did enhance the experience. Then again, I didn’t actually experience the original versions first, so what do I know? Still, it lends more evidence to my theory that people didn’t actually dislike the endings themselves, because those didn’t change, but rather they disliked the presentation of the endings (because the game was rushed). I’ve generally seen the consensus shift in a positive way after those updates. So maybe there’s some truth to my theory.

I was shocked that the endings were some of the best writing in the game (mostly because of the low quality of the rest of it), after hearing of the infamy of the endings. Sometimes I just disagree with the greater gaming community consensus, strongly. It’s not the first nor the last time it’ll happen.

I’m glad I got to see this for myself, and I’m glad I finally got to experience these iconic games, even if they weren’t all flawless.

DLC#↑

The DLC was extremely hit-or-miss for me. There were some high highs but also some very low lows. As seems to be a pattern with these games, I strongly disagree with the consensus.

In general, the integration of DLC into the game is fairly sloppy. All of them assume you’ve played the game at least once before, yet they are inserted into the game at random points instead of being postgame content. For example, you can encounter enemies in DLC from the basegame that you’ve yet to see in the basegame. When you first encounter these enemies in the basegame, Shepard and companions have reactions and comments like, “what is that thing?!” and so on. That feels weird when I’ve already killed 30 of them in DLC content.

I’m only going to talk about the DLC that adds new quests and stuff, not stuff like weapon packs (which are the absolute worst kind of DLC, if you want my opinion on them).

From Ashes#↑

This just felt like cut content. It was a very short set of very basic missions that did nothing special over the base game missions. It introduces a very cool character, that likely was supposed to be in the base game due to the lore implications. Indeed, I think many, many of the scenes in the game would have made significantly more sense if this character had been included from the start. Sad that the game got rushed to this extent.

Leviathan#↑

This is the big one (pun intended). I really liked this one, and I actually think this could have served as a really interesting end to the game. Very cool concept, very cool setpieces, and very cool lore implications. I am once again disappointed that this was not basegame content, because it could have been so much better integrated, and that would have really helped the basegame out.

Highly recommend playing this one if you’ve not gotten to it.

Omega#↑

I am baffled that the online community hates this one. It was good. It’s not as good as Leviathan, but it’s good. I really enjoyed it. My only complaint is that it has virtually zero impact on the rest of the game once complete, but that’s true of the rest of Mass Effect too! (zing)

Citadel#↑

Oh. God.

I’ve heard many times that the Citadel DLC is what “saved the game” for many fans. I think it may have doomed it for me. It’s a fanservice romp filled with Marvel-level “uh, so THAT just happened!” level quips. No, it’s worse, it’s the level of Marvel parody writing. I can’t believe it was Joking time and then Joker Joked everywhere. Yes, this is obviously parody. The problem is that it’s massive tonal whiplash (and honestly, not even funny).

It’s just kinda dropped on you in the middle of a very serious campaign. Hey yeah, I know one of your allies just died or whatever and you’re having an emotional time but you’re trying to hold your emotions back so that you can finish this awful, awful war happening all around you—but would you like some cringe fanservice slop? This should have been a completely separate thing you load from the main menu. It has no place being integrated into the campaign.

If this DLC was released today, it would be hated. I think it only gets a pass now because people weren’t completely sick of Marvel writing back when it came out, and there’s a lot of nostalgia around it. It didn’t age well.

Oh, this section’s not over yet? No, there’s more.

Surrounding these godawful attempts at humor are awkward social situations. We get a little apartment on the Citadel and we get to invite people over for a very awkward house party. Does the cast of Mass Effect scream “good house party” to you? No, these characters live in an extremely hard time of peril. Their personalities throughout the rest of the games show this well. That’s not saying they can’t ever party, but it’s clear that they weren’t written with that side of them in mind. So, all of that “downtime” personality writing is done here. It feels very forced, it doesn’t feel like it naturally fits pretty much anyone, and it ends up just being a bunch of drunk idiots doing dumb stuff. I got more connection to “I’ve seen this type of person at parties before”, like “every group has the sleepy drunk, the cocky drunk, and the emotional drunk”, than I felt any connection to the actual characters. It’s like every character had a “standard party archetype” assigned to them and that’s the level of depth we got. This section is long, annoying, and I just wanted it to be over.

Then, the actual plot of the DLC is utter slop as well. I honestly don’t even feel like going to the effort of marking it as spoilers, so I just won’t write about it in detail. It isn’t worth it. It managed to hit like 4 major writing pet peeves I have and amounted to essentially nothing. Worthless slop.

I know, I know. The writing was never meant to be taken seriously. It’s also intentionally-bad slop to add to the humor. If you find it all hilarious, I can see why you’d call it the best DLC ever, like some people have. If that’s you, I’m glad it landed so well for you. It just wan’t at all my style of humor, so all the humor flipped from a strong positive to a strong negative and I constantly wished for it to just end.

3/10 DLC for me.

Gameplay#↑

I’ve delayed this review long enough, so I’m not going to go into detail here.

This was the best of the series when it came to combat. The loadout system was fun, and I enjoyed being able to equip very few weapons to keep my power cooldowns as low as possible. I wanted to use Biotics as often as possible, and it was fun that it allowed me to build in that direction.

There were a few small things I missed though. I liked being able to holster my weapons. Seems like a small thing, sure, but I noticed it constantly. I don’t like the picture of Shepard running around, guns out at all times. It’s not practical and it makes no sense. It took me out of the game a bit.

I think the “Reaper Threat” in the galaxy when you’re flying around exploring different systems/planets was just bad. It felt like maybe there was a deeper, more meaningful system in place but it got neutered before release. We spend the series seeing the Reapers be a massive threat, with a single one being a big fucking problem for entire fleets. They dominate whole systems with their mere presence. Our only saving grace is that they’re kinda slowly moving through the galaxy.

Then, in space, all this means is that when you scan, they might chase you. In theory, this could be cool. You might have to be more strategic and careful with how you approach exploration. You might have to abandon areas when you accidentally draw too much attention to them, because the Reapers dominate their claimed areas.

Instead, you just get kinda chased and then they leave you alone if you avoid them for 5 seconds. This doesn’t make sense to me. They’re Reapers. They’re supposed to be Reaping. If they’re in a system, they should be destroying all life there in a grand, grim harvest. If they’re in a system, it would take a similar level of effort to save that system as it would be to save Earth, and the whole game deals with saving Earth. We can’t put that level of effort into every system, we should consider those systems lost. Nope. You can just leave and come back and everything’s fine. No more reapers. They weren’t chasing life, they were chasing you.

None of this makes sense. It manages to make the Reapers feel weak in a game all about them being strong, completely ignores their purpose and motivations, and amounts to nothing more than a minor nuisance. The game would be better with it entirely removed. It has zero positive effect on the game.

On the positive side, the gameplay moment that sticks out most to me: Facing down a Reaper with an orbital strike laser linked up to an entire fleet. Fucking. Awesome. No notes. In fact, that whole section of the game was the best part. The best writing. The best setpieces. The best character moments. I think they should have split this game in half, with this as and ending to the third game. That would have given the finale more time to cook.

Final Thoughts#↑

Rating: 6/10
Playtime: 27 hours

I’m glad to have finally finished this. There are some moments I’ll always remember, and I overall enjoyed my time. A 6/10 is still a positive rating from me, it’s just a flawed game even if it has redeeming elements. Mass Effect 2 is still the peak of the series.