This review refers to the final part of the "Mass Effect" trilogy from the "Mass Effect: Legendary Edition" and NOT to the stand-alone game.

🕗 Total time played (approx.): +50h
🏆 Completion: 100% (39/39 Trophies)

REVIEW:

"Mass Effect 3" seamlessly plunged me into a world on the brink of destruction, with the weight of entire civilizations hanging in the balance. The remastered visuals breathed life into every poignant moment and heart-stopping battle, making each interaction and decision more impactful than ever. The meticulously designed characters, the awe-inspiring locales, and the breathtaking space vistas transported me to the heart of the action, evoking a sense of urgency that gripped my every move.

The essence of "Mass Effect 3" is undeniably rooted in the rich and complex relationships that have been cultivated over the course of the trilogy. The reunion with old comrades and the formation of new alliances added layers of depth to the narrative, while the emotional weight of past decisions loomed large. Every interaction felt genuine and resonated with the sense of camaraderie that had been nurtured over the previous installments. The path to 100 percent completion in "Mass Effect 3" was a journey fraught with challenges, discoveries, and heartrending moments. Engaging in heart-pounding battles, making morally complex decisions, and delving into the intricately woven side quests provided a profound sense of immersion. The captivating DLC missions, which I am proud to say I conquered, further enriched the experience, adding new layers of storytelling and depth to the universe. As the final chapter in an epic trilogy, "Mass Effect 3" bore the heavy responsibility of delivering a conclusion that would live up to the lofty expectations set by its predecessors. While it is true that some aspects may not have matched the monumental build-up, the game nevertheless delivered a gripping and emotionally charged ending that encapsulated the essence of the series. The culmination of relationships, the resolution of storylines, and the weight of the choices I had made throughout the trilogy all coalesced into a bittersweet yet gratifying finale.

Revisiting the "Mass Effect" trilogy once more was an opportunity to relive cherished memories, forge new connections, and explore the vast expanse of the galaxy. The blend of intense combat, emotionally charged narratives, and character-driven moments made every minute an unforgettable experience. As the curtain drew to a close on Commander Shepard's odyssey, I was left with a profound sense of satisfaction and a lingering anticipation for what the future may hold.

In conclusion, "Mass Effect 3" for the PS4, as part of the Legendary Edition, is a triumphant and emotionally charged finale to an unforgettable trilogy. The remastered visuals, the intricate character dynamics, and the impactful narrative all contribute to an experience that resonates deeply with players. As I bid farewell to Commander Shepard and their companions, I am reminded of the transformative power of interactive storytelling and the indelible mark this series has left on gaming history.

⭐ Rating: 4/5

Played on the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition on Xbox Series X

I don't care how much the multiple beams ending is a bit guff. This game made my cry multiple times. It's the opposite end of the spectrum from Mass Effect 2's B plot esque tightknit character piece instead presenting a bombastic 30 hour epic. But it's just fantastic. I look forward to replaying these three games every few years.

PS - How overpowered is that bloody M-11 Suppressor? Forget the Crucible Shepherd give everyone in the Alliance one of those bad boys and the Reapers would of been offed within a day.

Mass Effect 3 feels like a frustrated writer spitting on the previous games in the series because he had to work on a sequel to someone else's work.

Mass Effect 2 is a darker game than Mass Effect 1, but both games are "Space Opera" adventures. Mass Effect 3 is not a Space Opera, it is a war story begrudgingly told in space. It's not impossible to do a genre pivot like that well, but Mass Effect 3 doesn't do that well. Mass Effect 3 feels like the (new for this game) writer's gritty unrelated war story wearing the skin of the Mass Effect series grotesquely stretched over it's face because it's not the project the writer actually wanted to be working on. Plot hooks and intrigue as to the true motives behind the Reapers and overarching narratives from past games are completely thrown out for derivative and uninspired motivations delivered by ridiculous deus ex machinas that weaken the past games and their stories by association and retrospective context. While there are some nice character moments with companions from the previous games if you import a save file, the game at time feels outright contemptuous of being part of an ongoing story and like any "happy outcomes" made possible or easier through past decisions are handed over with a scowl like the writer's hand is being forced. Shepard no longer feels like your character and simply the writer's pre-written protagonist, any pro or anti Alliance, Council or Cerberus sentiments you pushed in past games thrown of the window for the pre-assigned ideals and beliefs of the new writer's ideal player character.

The gameplay can't even save Mass Effect 3 if you enjoy playing the series on a higher difficulty. Sure, the gunplay and usable powers are some of the most fun they've been in the series, but the enemy and encounter design comparative to previous games is a tedious, unfun slog of drawn out encounters that take the weakest points of Mass Effect 2, the various arenas of wave survival into bullet-sponge bosses like on Horizon, and seem to base every other combat encounter on the same template.

The only things that come close to saving Mass Effect 3 are two truly incredible DLC in the forms of the Omega and Citadel DLCs, which are easily two of the highest points in the series, but even if you save them for last to end on a high note you're still going to have your spirits dampened by the infamously terrible ending that throws away three entire games worth of decision making for a choice between three pre-canned endings.

The multiplayer used to be fun for a laugh with friends, if not particularly deep or fleshed out, but it's been over a decade since the original version of ME3 released and LE3 removed the feature entirely so it's difficult to enjoy now.

Mass Effect 3 is overall an insult to the two games that came before it, only worth trudging through if you're commited to seeing your Shepard's story through to the end.

In the critically-acclaimed, award-winning, commercially successful game Blades of Time, there is a moment near the beginning where someone informs the treasure-hunting heroine that she has been transported to "Dragon Land," and this coincidentally was the moment where my eyes glazed over, my brain shut off, and I gave up caring about the storyline. It was the Dragon Land Moment.
A Dragon Land Moment is that moment in a game (book, movie, etc.) where I stop caring. It's the moment where you realize the narrative has gone off the rails. A plot hole changes from a forgivable inconsistency to an intolerable contradiction; an annoying character finally gets on your last nerve; a trope is used, not because it makes sense in the story, but because it's a popular trope. In a game, it could be the moment where you realize you've been doing the same thing for the past hour with no variation. It could be the part of the game where the mechanics go from challenging to frustrating, or from easy to brain-dead. Or it could be a part of the game where you are asked to do some random crap that has nothing to do with the core gameplay, or forced to sit through multiple cutscenes instead of actually playing the game.
In Assassin's Creed II, it was when the game forced me to do Video Game Side Quest Bullshit during the Carnival mission, a good 15 hours or so into the campaign. In Nu-Raider, it was the third time that Lara walked off a life-threatening injury. In Remnant: From The Ashes: it was the first boss that kept throwing exploding trash mobs while I tried to adjust the world's worst camera this side of the N64. In Wolfenstein: The New Order, it was when I installed the game during the 15th 30-minute cutscene where Billy "BJ" Blazkowitz muttered something like "Was this last war even worth fighting?" [Gee, I don't know. I'm sure there were, like, maybe one or two or six million good reasons for fighting the Nazis.] In Mass Effect 2, the Dragon Land Moment was when Shepard asked The Illusive Man how he knew the Reapers were connected with the Collectors, and TIM was like "Lol, I just know, don't ask questions."
Mass Effect 3 doesn't have just one Dragon Land Moment. Mass Effect 3 doesn't just have multiple Dragon Land Moments. Mass Effect 3 is nothing but Dragon Land Moment after Dragon Land Moment. It is the Dragon Land Moment Simulator.

Dragon Land

To give credit where credit is due, the combat (which is now the majority of the gameplay) has improved from ME2. The level design in particularly is greatly improved--combat arenas look like actual places instead of randomly placed assets, while there is a greater use of verticality. Enemy variety is another area of huge improvement--instead of just fighting mooks, heavily armored mooks, and mooks with missile launchers, we now have a bigger variety of enemies including shield carriers, ninjas who will one-shot you with melee attacks, tiny bugs that will charge you, giant brutes that will charge you, massive mechs, and Asari Banshees that attack you with biotics. Enemies will also throw smoke grenades, which is a cool mechanic that I haven't seen in many other games (I don't even think that enemies do it in The Division 2). Shepard gains the the ability to roadie run and to dodge roll in order to avoid grenades. Yes, after all these years, Mass Effect has finally caught up with Gears of War. He even has a special long-jump. Beat that, Marcus Fenix!
Unfortunately, all of these improvements only serve to make Mass Effect 3 the second-worst third-person cover-shooter of all time rather than the worst third-person cover-shooter of all time. [1] The button for dodge-rolling is mapped to about twenty other functions as well. The cover system still does not work correctly. This meant that my attempts at getting into cover broke down to 50% successfully crouching, 25% rolling around like a Dark Souls character, and 25% just standing in the open like an idiot.
Much like Mass Effect 2, Enemies are massive sponges on normal difficulty, and you are constantly pinned down. With no blind fire and no way to activate your powers without popping out of cover, fights became tedious, like one of those John Cena wrestling matches where he spends half the match lying on the mat. There are no good ways to get enemies out of cover--supposedly there are grenades that you can get if you do the Ligma build or something, but locking what should be a basic feature of a third-person shooter behind one branch of a skill tree that you might not be able to access depending on how you played the first two games is astoundingly bad design. As far as Vanguard powers go, the shockwave power's AoE got so narrow that it was practically useless, while the Pull power that is supposed to make your enemies float never worked for me--it seemed like it was supposed to work like a magical homing missile, but half the time it wouldn't hit any enemies, and even when it did hit them it often wouldn't levitate them. The only power I used regularly was the Vanguard Charge, as once again melee is completely busted in this game. It was fun to destroy a giant mech with my bare fists, Mace Windu-style, but not fun enough to justify playing the game.
The Dragon Land Moment for the combat was during one of the earlier levels when the shield guys started to show up. Now, in a normal third-person shooter game, say, The Division 2 or Resident Evil 4 or Nu-Raider, shield guys are designed to make you use different tactics. These generally include shooting at their feet or other exposed areas, switching to a heavy weapon such as a shotgun, throwing a grenade, or using some kind of special ability to make them drop the shield. None of these, however, worked on the shield guy in Mass Effect 3. I had no grenades. The shield guys' shield covered their entire body. My shotgun didn't blow the shield away, my Pull power couldn't make it levitate away, and my Vanguard Charge couldn't make him drop it. Worse yet, the shield wasn't a layer of armor that was supposed to be blasted away--shooting the shield damaged the enemies health bar directly. This entire situation was so dumb and frustrating that I just gave up and turned the combat difficulty down as low as possible so I could get through the game as fast as possible.
And even if that hadn't been the case, I would have reached another Dragon Land Moment with the turret sections, which are both dull (even by turret section standards) and over so quickly that you wonder what the point was. If the game had to have on-rails shooting sections, why weren't they in space?
I am being very negative in this review, so in the spirit of fairness, I would like to point out the one really cool mechanic in the game. In the Normandy's "War Room," you can view a computer that shows your progress in liberating the galaxy and recruiting soldiers for the cause. I really like this in theory; I would love a game that mixed in some grand strategy-lite with real-time action, and there are all sorts of ways that you could integrate this thing with the rest of the game [2] Unfortunately, the mechanic is wasted. As far as I can tell, the consequences of this only really come into play with the ending, and I wasn't about to sit through more mind-numbing sidequests in order to 100% the game.

Dragon Man

"B-but you don't play Mass Effect games for the gameplay, you play them for the characters and the story."
Even if this is correct, Mass Effect 3 is still a failure. Its story is by turns nonsensical, cliché, and contrived, while its characters are in varying degrees bland, obnoxious, or dead.
Mass Effect 1's story and world reminded me of Star Trek. Now, I'm not a huge Star Trek fan, but my impressions of the franchise is that it is heavy on exploration, world-building, and character dynamics, while light on combat. Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock were on a mission to boldly go where no man has gone before, not to blow up anything that moves. Similarly, while Mass Effect 1 had (terrible) combat, the combat was never the focus. The focus was on the adventure storyline--visiting new planets, learning secrets, hanging out with aliens, and learning about the galaxy. Shepard wasn't a space marine like Master Chief so much as a space version of James Bond--a spy whose skills go beyond mere gunplay.
Mass Effect 2 kindasorta continued this trajectory, with Shepard retconned into being something more like a spec ops commando, but even this game, however, had a large and expansive story. The main plot still revolved around adventuring and meeting characters. You still got the feeling that there was more going on than just your personal mission, that you were going on an adventure rather than being funnelled through a series of linear objectives. And the final mission wasn't a large, conventional military battle, but a covert operation, almost like a heist.
The overall point I'm trying to make is that the established Mass Effect style story involves several elements: Commander Shepard adventures across the galaxy experiencing new people and places; he uses a variety of skills to solve problems rather than pure gunplay, and his missions are the kind undertaken by an elite spy rather than a space marine.
Mass Effect 3 takes a completely different turn. It is set the game during a war, and not just a conventional war (which would have its moments of downtime as well as opportunities for espionage), but an apocalyptic war against soulless, implacable enemies with no apparent weaknesses. In short, it's a reskinned version of Gears of War with Commander Shepard starring as Marcus Fenix in Space! Or it's Call of Duty: Reaper Invasion! I swear that in the final mission you can hear bargain-basement versions of Soap and Price on the radio. Get to the Burgertown, Shepard!
Unfortunately, this means that the game gets rid of the previous essential Mass Effect story elements. Commander Shepard can't really have any open-ended adventures across the galaxy because the galaxy is facing an immediate threat. Pretty much all of Shepard's major new missions involve shooting everything that moves; progress happens not when Shepard learns something new or interacts with another character but when he shoots stuff. This means that the missions are now the kind of thing suited more for a space marine than a special agent. Old Shepard was kind of a mix between Captain Kirk and James Bond, while Nu-Shepard is a weak ripoff of Marcus Fenix. Old Mass Effect's story was "Go here, because you might be able to learn something useful or meet someone who will help you." Nu-Mass Effect's story is "Go here and shoot some wannabe Master Chiefs who just randomly managed to be at the exact spot on this planet that you needed to be in."
This might be forgivable if Mass Effect was able to successfully pivot from space adventure to gritty military sci-fi, but it can't even get that right. It rips off Gears of War and Call of Duty, but misses what made those series actually work. Gears of War absolutely nailed its 80s action movie tone. It's full of wisecracks and one-liners, which makes it seem like it's not taking itself seriously until you realize that these jokes are gallows humor, an attempt by the main characters to deal with the fact that they are not only fighting eldritch horrors, but also being screwed over by their own chain of command. [3] The "everything sucks, might as well make the best of it" tone of the original trilogy (especially the first one) is something that has rarely been replicated successfully in games. Call of Duty (specifically the Modern Warfare trilogy) on the other hand, basically presents a highlight reel of 21st-century warfare as filtered through Hollywood. It throws in just enough military terminology and tech to sell you the illusion of being a soldier while keeping the gameplay streamlined and simplified enough to deliver the action-movie highlights. If Gears of War is an 80s Sylvester Stallone/Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is something closer to the Bourne series as filtered through Michael Bay: a mix of "realistic" military action with over-the-top bombast. And in both cases, the games are narrow, linear, streamlined experiences, funneling you from setpiece to setpiece, with only a few cutscenes in between for exposition or building pathos.
Mass Effect, on the other hand, doesn't really fit the tone of either game. It doesn't have the 80s action movie mix between wisecracking and graphic violence that Gears has; Commander Shepard has his own ship and can kind of do as he pleases, so the feeling of being stuck between implacable enemies and out-of-touch command that Gears 1 nailed isn't here. On the other hand, there's not enough military stuff to go full Call of Duty. If this was really Call of Duty In Space, we would have enough military jargon, technology, and trappings to sell us the illusion that were were really part of the Alliance Navy, as well as a setpiece where you watch while someone else blows up the moon. Mass Effect 3 has a lot of generic space marine enemies, but neither they nor your allies do a good job of pretending to be actual military. The game can't quite decide what it wants to be and fails.
And overall, the military focus makes the game feel claustrophobic compared to the first two--like a linear game awkwardly grafted onto the semi-open structure of Mass Effect. It no longer feels like you're exploring, just like you're being funneled from one setpiece to another. But unlike Gears and Call of Duty, the game is pretending that you aren't being funneled between setpieces, which makes it the worst of both worlds.
Good characters can make up for a weak character. Unfortunately, most of the characters in Mass Effect 3 are dead on arrival, either figuratively or literally. With the exception of the female Krogan (whose name I can't even remember), The new characters are all garbage. EDI seems like she wandered off the set of an Austin Powers' movie (Dragon Land Moment #17). The new human companion looks like a reject from Gears of War and is so boring I don't even remember his name (Dragon Land Moment #5). Specialist Traynor exists solely to be hot. Admiral Anderson is stupidly replaced with Admiral Hackett, because nothing will please the fans like replacing a beloved character with a sentient sack of potatoes (Dragon Land Moment #32).
Speaking of beloved characters, every character from the previous games either died in my playthrough of 1 and 2 (sorry, Wrex and Garrus) or lived to see themselves become a mockery of whom they once were. Councilor Udina has now gone from "unpleasant guy who knows how to play the game of politics" to "cackling villain who is going to betray the galactic council for no reason at all." Anderson is stuck on earth waging a guerilla war against an enemy with no supply lines. Mordin dies. Miranda dies.[4] Ashley argues with you about nothing and then you shoot her. The Illusive Man argues with you about nothing and then you shoot him. There's an ugly kid who dies at the beginning only to reappear in dream sequences where you chase him while moving like a sloth on heroin. Unfortunately you do not get to shoot him [Dragon Land Moments #7, 12, 25, 63, 102)
Liara is back as a squad member, but despite the fact that I romanced her in Mass Effect 1, she never acknowledges this. You would think that being on the ship with your (ex?)boyfriend who came back from the dead in the last game would be a big enough deal to at least mention, but apparently not. It's weird to me that with all the care that was taken in making the decisions from the first game impact the other two, the romance barely makes a dent in the story. Tali is back as well, and is apparently an admiral now. This doesn't really make sense because she was on my ship at the end of Mass Effect 2. There's some sort of timeskip between 2 and 3 that's never really explained, and I'm not about to pay for a DLC to understand what exactly was going on.
I unlocked almost every character in the first two games during my relatively short playthroughs. Here, I only unlocked four by doing the main missions, and I stuck with Liara and Tali on every mission. And let's be honest, if being able to live out my fantasy of being a space marine going on dangerous missions with my hot Jewish computer programmer girlfriend can't save this game, nothing can.
I have saved the worst for last: Kai Leng. The worst character in all of gaming. A character who looks like a Nightwing cosplay and talks like Shadow the Hedgehog. I would say that he looks like a character who dropped into the game from an edgy early 00s anime OVA, but this makes him sound a thousand times cooler than he actually is. Kai Leng wouldn't even be cool in an over-the-top anime game; he's utterly ludicrous in Mass Effect. He shows up only three times, does "cool" ninja poses with his sword, says one-liners, and gets killed. No motivation, no character development, and a costume that looks like it was purchased from Hot Topic. And he's in the middle of a relatively grounded space game that has no other masked ninja characters. Did someone involved in the development of this game strongarm everyone else into allowing his 12 year-old kid's OC to be in the game? [5]
Other characters had their Dragon Land Moments; Kai Leng is a Dragon Land Moment. He the very incarnation of the platonic Dragon Land Moment in human form.

Dragon Universe

Against my better judgment, I kept playing this game after witnessing Kai Leng.
First mistake. Last mistake.
One of the major features of the Mass Effect games is making meaningful decisions. Specifically, the dialogue wheel in the game gives you Paragon and Renegade options (sometimes explicitly, sometimes subtly), and your choices that you make in dialogue determine the course of the entire story. Act like a jerk to people in Mass Effect 1 and they will dislike you in Mass Effect 2.
In the first game, Paragon and Renegade represented a choice between idealism and pragmatism; by the time we get to Mass Effect 3, this has degraded into a choice between being a moron and being a d-bag. Dialog options were always confusing in Mass Effect--you would pick one option and say something slightly different--but now every option that isn't "Brain-dead Paragon" results in Shepard saying something wildly inappropriate that isn't even close to what's on the dialogue wheel. Choose "Maybe we should think before curing the genophage" on the dialog wheel and Shepard will say "I hate Krogans so much! TOTAL KROGAN DEATH!" And that's assuming you even get to choose any dialog. A lot of the dialog for Shepard that would have been a choice in Mass Effect 1-2 is now scripted, and most of it is either banal or mean-spirited.
To be completely fair to this game, there are two large-scale story arcs where decisions that you made in the first game finally pay off--namely, the resolution of the genophage situation and the end of the Quarian-Geth war. Just characterizing these choices as "Genocide good/genocide bad," as some reviewers have done is thoughtless. [6] On the other hand, the quality of the other choices surrounding them is so low that it's understandable that these were tainted by association.
And in any event, none of it matters because the completely ridiculous ending makes it pointless.
After going through the final mission (which really, really wants to be a level in Gears of Duty), you slowly walk toward a generic late '10s blockbuster movie skybeam and get sucked into the Citadel. Then you slowly walk to a room where you, Anderson, and The Illusive Man talk about nothing. The Illusive Man makes you shoot Anderson, then you shoot the Illusive Man, then you and Anderson sit down to look at the window. So far, not good, but not absolutely horrible.
Then, in the last five minutes, out of nowhere this ethereal ghost kid shows up, only he's the kid from your nightmares, only he's also the physical manifestation of the king of the Reapers. [7] Spaceboy gives a nonsensical talk about the Reapers preventing organics from being destroyed by synthetics. Given the fact that the Reapers are themselves robots, and that you solved the Geth-Quarian conflict one way or another just a few hours earlier, this is monumentally stupid. It's like someone saying that he is committing suicide in order to save himself by killing the person who wants to kill him.
After this nonsense talk from Space Ghost, I then find myself tasked with making a "choice," which boils down to "walk in a certain direction and then do something, but we won't tell you what exactly that will do."
For me this involved walking up to mechanical gizmo. Once I got there, I realized I was supposed to shoot it. Figuring that this was a bad idea, I turned around, only to realize that I was stuck and couldn't move. So not only did the writers of this game give me a set of "choices" without at all telegraphing what those choices were or what they would entail, they also locked me into a choice once I walked close enough to it instead of letting me figure out the context clues and decide whether or not I wanted to make that choice.
So I shot the thing and then…something happened. I think I blew up the Earth. I know I blew up a bunch of spaceships and the entire Mass Relay system. And I also made everything that happened in the previous games irrelevant. Saving the Krogan? Reclaiming Rannoch for the Quarians? Asking Tali to be my lawfully wedded wife? Lol, none of it matters, because everybody is dead and the relays don't work anymore, so anyone who is still alive is stuck on their home planet. I shut down all the Geth, and recruited the Krogan, but it wouldn't have mattered either way because I would have still blown up Earth and all the Mass Relays anyway. It doesn't matter that I reclaimed Rannoch because the Quarian fleet was pretty much all destroyed. [8] It doesn't matter that I reverse-engineered the Genophage because the only Krogans that were cured are dead or stuck on Tuchanka, so I don't have to live with the possible consequences of this action. It doesn't matter that I spent the whole game worrying about Earth instead of all the other cool planets because I just killed everybody on it. And it doesn't matter that I spend valuable time playing this series, because screw you, that's why!
The ending was awful. It was worse than anything I could have imagined. I had known that the ending was going to be bad (the word "Starchild" had been used), but it exceeded my expectations. And it taught me a valuable lesson. I spent a good chunk of my time hate-playing Mass Effect 2 and 3 because I wanted to see how it ended. I wasted valuable time, time I could have spent on another game, another hobby, something useful or enjoyable, and all because I wanted to feel like I could be part of this conversation about the game.
First mistake. No more mistakes.
I am done with this. I resolve to no longer slog through a game because it is the sequel to a game I like, or because I want to be part of the "conversation" around the game. I am not a professional reviewer; it is not worth my time to subject myself to such torture. If you see a review of Final Fantasy X where it is marked as "Shelved," know that I am applying the lessons learned from the Mass Effect Trilogy.
I don't want to spend any more time in Dragon Land.

[1] Mass Effect 2, although I haven't played the Kane and Lynch games, so consider this pronouncement tentative.
[2] For example, maybe liberating certain areas grants you access to new guns or AI companions. Maybe recruiting a certain amount of troops allows you to call in airstrikes or unlocks a new mission.
[3] The first game reminds me a little bit of the movie Predator.
[4] Not that I miss her that much.
[5] If this is what actually happened then I can almost forgive Bioware for this. Almost.
[6] People seem to forget that the Krogan aren't reskinned humans or a stand-in for a real world minority group. The Krogan are giant murder frogs who became the apex predator of the harsh planet of Tuchanka and then nuked the place before the Turians gave them spaceflight. They are evolved for fighting and killing, to the point where they can regenerate health when attacked, and they breed at incredible rates . And their entire culture is based on a might-makes-right philosophy that is utterly opposed to enlightened liberal democracy. Curing the genophage opens up the possibility of a galaxy-wide fascist dictatorship. If there's a real-world parallel to the genophage, it's not genocide the decision to use nuclear weapons in World War II. It's more complicated than Krogan apologists some people make it out to be. On the other hand, the Geth "genocide" is less complicated, because it's basically just shutting down a bunch of VMs, and the game forces you into an arbitrary choice where this one action will destroy all the Geth because the writer said so. It's like one of those stupid "trolley problems," only now the choice is "Shut down five computers or let them stay alive so they can kill the space Jews later," and the writer expects us to feel sorry for the computers. Sophomoric.
[7] Why an eldritch entity from dark space choose to manifest themselves as a snotty-nosed ten year-old is a mystery to me. Truly their goals were beyond my understanding.
[8] At least I kept Tali from building a house in the middle of a creek.

The second game was what should have been a one in a lifetime moment. A monumental achievement in gaming history that would take decades to replicate. Mass Effect took a few years and did it again. They took everything again that made 2 great and made it GREATER. This is the finale of the trilogy (and at the time of reading, the shepard story). But they took all that and ramped the emotional moments up to a 10. This game will make you think, it will make you question, and you will discuss it over and over, the ethics, the dilemmas, and how they closely relate to our real world. Thank you for this game and this series. It changed my life.

Лучший рескин в истории.

Полная рецензия: Именно здесь и кончается лучшая игровая трилогия.

Третий Массыч это большое подведение итогов, долгожданное столкновение с Жнецами (а для кого то и с Цербером) и просто финал истории бравого бойца Коммандира Шепарда. Сразу скажу пару слов о сюжете. Как и прошлая часть, МЕ3 меняет свой стиль повествования и углубляется в масштабный галактический конфликт со своими препятствиями, лишениями, предательством и трудностями. Нарративно игра явно стала намного линейнее, чем ее предшественница, ибо в связи с апокалиптичным сюжетом у тебя уже не остается того обширного выбора куда пойти как раньше, здесь все заточено под отдельные глобальные арки, которые идут друг за другом. Сами события внутри этих арок очень эпичны и трагичны (в отдельных моментах даже шла скупая слеза за наших товарищей), но свободы выбора стало также заметно меньше, хотя и все равно есть где разгуляться (особенно в побочных квестах). Для кого то было проблемой то, как вплетен в сюжет в Цербер, но мне данный поворот оказался совершенно ожидаемым и логичным и особого негодования не вызвал (хотя Призрака можно было бы и раскрыть получше).

Единственная реальная претензия - это выборы в концовке. Проблема даже не в том, что они такие, решаемые выбором кнопочки. В этом я особо не вижу проблемы, ибо во многих культовых играх существуют такие же окончания (в той же серии Деус Экс). Проблема в том, что все это финальное откровение высыпается на тебя под конец (если не учитывать ДЛС Левиафан) и просто выбивает из колеи происходящего. Я прочитал изначальную задумку Карпишина и как по мне она была лучше, ибо хотя бы связывалась со многими сюжетными мостиками во всей серии, а тут просто с бухты-барахты во главу история встал конфликт синтетиков и органиков, который был побочным все 3 части. В любом случае, концовка не ужасна, она даже неплохая, возможно, хорошая, но фанатов и их ожидания понять можно.

Что касается геймплейной стороны? Масс Эффект 3 в какой-то степени можно назвать рескином 2 части, но наверно самым лучшим ее представителем из всех существующих в индустрии. Шутерные механики вновь были изменены и стали еще более динамичнее и живее (можно даже сказать доведены до ума), локации стали ультракрасивыми, а задники на них заставляют прочувствовать реальную войну и неизбежное поражение от Жнецов, если Шепард не высрет какое-то решение. Те же ДЛС стали намного круче, а особенно крутым является все, что связано с ДЛС Цитадель (шла скупая слеза на финале этого сегмента игры), да и в целом прокачка, апгрейды и тд стали более интуитивными.

Но есть моменты, которые стали явно хуже, чем в прошлой части. Во-первых, третьестепенные квесты, теперь они представляют из себя пострелушки на мультиплеерных картах и это не очень интересно. Во-вторых, куча сайдов на Цитадели аля "принеси-подай" под конец стали чуточку раздражать, как-нибудь их разнообразить и стало бы намного прекраснее, но увы. В-третьих, новый скан систем и общий сбор войск на финал мне показался хуже того, что было в прошлой части (сканировать каждую планету по отдельности мне было веселее, сори). Все остальное - ровно точно такое же по исполнению как в прошлой части, то есть МЕГА АХУЕННОЕ.

Возможно, если бы первоначальную концовку не слили, если бы ЕА дали Биотварям больше времени на разработку, если бы разрабы переосмыслил какие-то отдельно взятые элементы геймплея, то мы бы с вами получили очередной шедевр на уровне, а может и лучше 2 части, но в итоге мы получили просто отличную игру, которая хоть и хуже предшественницы, но даст пососать 90% игр современной индустрии.

Mass Effect, as a trilogy, is a complete videogame masterpiece. This is an almost perfect game (there are no 100% perfect games), and is the best videogame trilogy of all-time.
Playing it was really amazing. The characters are great, the narrative choice driven is amazing and the story is wonderful. The games are engaging from beginng to end.
So many emotions like sadness, happiness, enjoyment, anger, surprise, love, pride, guilt, shame, excitement, confusion, and relief.

How can we correctly describe a masterpiece?

I honestly think this game is actually very fun, the gameplay mechanics are exceptional, the different types of ammunition and weapons make the gameplay feel fresh and rewarding, without ruining the pacing.

Story-wise it has some weak moments, but for most of the time it's pretty interesting, and it has some great moments.

Even though the game lacks some RPG elements, the characters are the highlight of the game.

The ending is definitely rushed, but it doesn't really ruin the story. I had a lot of fun playing this game and I totally recommend it.

Final Rating: "Very Good" ~ 7.5/10.

If there's any game I wish got the Red Dead 2/Baldurs Gate 3 treatment of an massive amount of dev time and polish it would be Mass Effect 3.

Mass Effect 3 is an absurdly ambitious project on paper, It's the conclusion of a trilogy of RPGs that follows the same character and adapts to the many choices that the player makes as that character, as well as the many companions that also have their own storylines and choices. It also features a protagonist who has a vast amount of influence over the game world, and it takes place during an invasion of an entire galaxy. It baffles me that it only came out two years after the previous game.

The most obvious improvement in ME3 is the combat, the combat is the best of the trilogy by a wide margin, more enemy and weapon variety and most importantly Shepard can dodge roll and sprint for more than 0.2 nanoseconds

While ME1 really focused on establishing the world of Mass Effect and ME2 shined at developing it's companion characters, ME3's selling point is the conclusions to all the conflicts that the first two games set up. It mostly succeeds on this front, Particularly with the conclusion to the fate of the krogan and the geth/quarians, which both brought me to literal tears. The character writing continues to be top notch through the entire game.

The effect of the galactic war is felt in every conversation and every mission in the game, this war is tearing people and societies apart, but it also brings quick solutions to problems that would take decades otherwise and this is the games greatest selling point, becuase of the unbelievably high stakes major consequences can occur in the game world.

The side missions are better but still very lacking, I hate the walk around the citidel, overhear one guy looking for something and then scanning a planet and bring it to him missions, they suck. Instead, some actual desision making would have been nice, or missions with more actual plot relevance or interesting storytelling.

Removing the neutral response from most dialogue scenes really made me realise how much I dislike the renegade/paragon system. It's still better than most binary moral choice systems in games, as the 'bad' options mostly have actual justification behind them unlike games like Fable and Fallout 3. However the system forces you to funnel down one path becuase there are certain dialogue options that only unlock if you have enough good/bad boy points. So I end up just sticking to one route the entire game just so I don't end up missing out on some important dialogue later.

The ending level is not terrible, and I still don't fully understand the backlash when the game first came out, but it is lacking in some real satisfying moments. First of all there is no scene where all the squadmates fight together in the final battle. Second of all over half the squadmates don't even show up to the final battle. But this is forgivable, and the final battle level is still impressive even if it really misses out on some potentiall great moments, particularly the conversation with the illusive man and the final conversation with Garrus.

However the actual ending is mostly bad, again not becuase of what they did, but what they didn't do. You don't see the consequences of basically every desicion you make in these games. You never find out what happens to the Rachni, the Krogan, The council, The Quarians, The Geth, anything the squadmates do after the war, the implications of the Asari hiding prothean tech, nothing. While the final choice you make is an interesting one, none of the other decisions you make have any satisfying payoff.

I can only imagine what Bioware could have done with more time and a bigger budget. It saddens me that this game will always feel like a stumble at the last hurdle, rather than the climactic conclusion it should have been

This game gets a bad wrap. Yes, at launch it was a bit of a disaster, with the rushed development cycle of 18 months churning out a game that in a lot of ways was inferior to it's predecessor. Since then however, the addition of the Extended Cut has at least made the ending palatable for most, and the excellent DLC drops have elevated the game into being a proper capstone for the trilogy, with some of the best moments in the entire franchise.

I would not recommend playing this game without playing 1 and 2 first, ideally carrying your character between those games; there's nothing quite like building a character over 3 games and seeing events shape around your decisions. While ME3 falls short of that promise in many ways, the payoffs are still worth it. If anything, this game is lambasted mostly for failing to meet the astronomic expectations placed on it, and when viewed in the context of what we got in the end, it's hardly the worst thing ever made. Again, considering the absolutely awful corporate decisions that pushed the game out so soon, it's a miracle it's as good as it is, and that fact should not be forgotten. The devs at Bioware should be proud of what they delivered under the circumstances.

One aspect of this game that is often forgotten is the absolutely fantastic co-op multiplayer mode, a mode which by all accounts is a tacked-on, lootbox-driven skinner box machine made to drive up revenue through micro-transactions. And yet, despite that fact, the mode still slap over 10 years later, and the reason for that is that ME3 sports one of the absolute best enemy rosters of any third-person shooter ever, with a fun and engaging power system to boot, and the frankly absurdly generous post-launch additions that made the mode so incredibly content rich. New guns, new classes, new powers, and entirely new enemy faction, the things added to this mode, for FREE mind you, are just absurd. I still play this mode to this day, and while the RNG based progression is very anti-consumer, there's a weird thrill in unlocking guns and classes entirely through in-game means, however slowly.

It took me a while to realize how much I love this game. From the multiplayer that remains engaging all these years later, to some of the most impactful, emotional, and heartbreaking moments I have ever experienced in gaming, Mass Effect 3 does justice to the Mass Effect franchise. It may have taken a while to get there, and the road wasn't without hardship, but as it stands, Mass Effect 3 is an absolute gem of a game.