You cannot help but feel EA's expectations and influence in almost every facet of this game for better and (mostly) worse. Yet despite it all - the monetization, the cut corners, the rewrites, the expansive downloadable content, the retrofitted multiplayer - it features the mission "Priority: Tuchanka," thus making it the apex of this series' ambitions as a love letter to genre media and a steadfast example of what games are capable of as a medium.

(Full review for the whole trilogy coming very soon, just need to finish running some calibrations.)

I snagged the Legendary Edition for $5.99 during the Winter Sale on Steam, and it would become an itch on my backlog since it would be the longest game in my Backlog. But after considering and making time for it, I decided to tackle through the Mass Effect trilogy which was pretty new for me -- considering that I'm not big on games with a Sci-Fi setting.

One of my biggest recommendations is to mod the game heavily to add some QoL changes to it since I found some issues I had with the game (Camera shaking when running which was nauseous, making exploration easier, etc) and the community is really big when it comes to mods. Such as community patches that improve the bugs and new additions that EA couldn't handle themselves. Despite that, I had a fun time even though I found myself immersed in its setting and having a blast of what was to come.

The ending of ME3 isn't the best but I found myself enjoying the journey from ME1 to its finale, even if it was rocky, and found myself laughing badly at how unhinged or questionable the game can be at times. I didn't find the game to change my life compared to some who said so, it didn't change my perspective on games, but it was an experience for sure.

After racking up 70 hours on the Legendary Edition, I'd say Mass Effect was worth my time, and takes patience to get into the series. I thought I would be confused with the setting and lore but it comes together the more you keep playing, even if it's not for everyone. If anything, I'm more glad to complete the longest game in my Steam Backlog.

Completed all Side Missions for ME1-3, Synthesis Ending. Half Paragon/Renegade.

Problematic ending, terrible character writing on some dlc missions, killed most of my characters so I didn't get to see all the dope character moments, but the gameplay is vastly superior and far more fluid, some great character beats especially everything revolving the final send off before the last mission, some awesome missions & the dialogue still holds up quite well. So sort of a mixed bag where there's more good than bad, but a couple big problems mixed with this feeling that something has been lost in the process.

Backlash against ME3 was so immediate and vitriolic i didnt play it for many years despite being a ME2 superfan.

When i did play it, i found it fine? Returning characters all felt like they had parts to play, the gameplay was good if not great and the locations visited all felt like it was worth the time taken. I think the ending is a bit boring, but not world-endingly catastrophic like early critics wanted you to think.
Worse than 2, better than 1, Play it if you thoroughly enjoy 2 and want more.

I'm not going to go in depth here, but essentially, Mass Effect 3 is a mostly disapointing finale to the trilogy. The game lacks RPG mechanics and dialogue choices. On a whole, it feels more linear and driven by combat, rather than primarily focussed on interesting storytelling or character building like the previous two entries in the series. Your decisions in this game (and decisions from elsewhere in the trilogy) feel inconsequential here, and the ending is thoroughly unsatisfying. After all these years, I'm still bitter about it.

Played Legendary Edition

A repeated series of emotional gut punches peppered by small glimpses of hope amidst ruin. I'm not sure Mass Effect 3 is my favourite of the trilogy - that will still likely always be ME2's spectacular buildup and character work - but there is something about the mix of grandeur and intimacy that makes this particular installment hit so hard. There is a lot of great setpieces here but the moments that truly shine are so small; character stories in the background, hangout sessions in the brief times of rest, saying goodbye to a loved one. Poignant stuff.

And it's the best playing of the trilogy, which helps a lot. The more dynamic movement and improved melee system makes this still control like a dream, and the complete overhaul to weapons means the game is now also a legitimately high tier shooter. Wish the multiplayer was still around cause that's also excellent. Basically a perfect end to a perfect trilogy of games.

Bioware's last decent game and still a massive disappointment.

i don't just mean the ending, I mean the game in its entirety. I hate that this has become a boring linear third person shooter that occasionally remembers it's supposed to be an RPG. I hate that they felt the need to add unnecessary backstory to the reapers, despite them both not needing it and also being little else than a plot device to kickstart the story.

Still, there is quite a bit that is still enjoyable about this game. The party DLC pretty much singelhandedly kept me from throwing myself out of the nearest window. Still, this one will always hurt in that special way only things you loved can.

Complaints about the ending can bite me. ME3 is a 20 hour gut punch. It's great and heartbreaking. Same appeal as listening to a sad song or watching a movie you know will make you cry.

A beautiful goodbye to a pantheon of memorable characters.

"Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong."

Me sorprende la opinión que tiene algunas personas sobre el final de este juego y de como no les gusta, pero tengo que decir que este es el Mass Effect que más me ha gustado. El gameplay se ha sentido muy bien, los personajes han enseñado su lado mas real y vulnerable, y he podido sentir esa emergencia de estar al borde de la extinción.

Además, es el más espectacular visualmente, no por sus gráficos, sino por las cosas que ocurren dentro del juego en las misiones y durante los eventos del juego.

He ido con la calma jugando la trilogía, pero creo que son unos juegos bastante buenos, y que obviamente son un referente que ha marcado el camino para muchos juegos que tenemos actualmente.

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.

Even if it doesn't wrap up the trilogy in a very satisfying way I think this is a great game.
My major gripes with it are that the game feels incomplete and short without Citadel and Omega DLCs and that the dialogue and choices have been somewhat simplified. The latter especially feels like Shepard is a more flat character that for some reason just cares about saving earth no matter what past you chose for them in past games.
Still has some amazing characters, locations and missions which save it from being a failure in my eyes.