Mass Effect series Review + Retrospective #3: Mass Effect 3
Oh boy, Mass Effect 3. The game that divided a fan base and practically killed the IP until Andromeda's incredibly short lived "revival" in 2017. Call me a contrarian, but I feel like the years have been kind to ME3 and it's probably my second favorite game in the original trilogy.
The gameplay got a big upgrade from ME2, and I think it's a pretty competent third person shooter now. Combat feels snappy and fast paced, enemies are far cleverer and more aggressive, and battles are more intense than ever. Enemy variety, which was a huge sour point for me in ME2, is remedied here with three distinct factions of enemies (Cerberus, Reapers, and Geth), each with a half dozen or so unique enemy types within that faction. The game constantly mixes up who you'll be fighting, so it keeps things a lot fresher and fun. They've dropped any pretense of it being an RPG and leaned fully into action-shooter gameplay, which in this case is much better than the clunky fusion seen in ME2.
Weapon variety is also a massive improvement. With all DLC or when playing the Legendary Edition rerelease, there are dozens of weapons, most of which are satisfying to use. ME2 had a handful of useful weapons, but ME3 has so many, it's purely up to player preference. Weapons are also no longer restricted by class, so you can roll out with your preferred weapons regardless of what class your Shepard is, with weapon weight only affecting power cooldown speed.
Squadmates are much stronger now. It actually feels like BioWare overcorrected from the previous titles, and now certain squadmates, especially Garrus, can basically solo the game for you. Shepard also feels godlike in this game, blowing away hordes of foes without breaking a sweat. This increased power level makes the game feel too easy for the most part, so I recommend boosting the difficulty up to Insanity to keep things feeling more balanced.
With all the new gameplay features out of the way, time to shift focus to the most controversial aspect of Mass Effect 3 - its story and writing. I'll be the first to admit ME3's story is an absolute mess. Drew Karpyshyn's exit is felt and for every high (Tuchanka, Rannoch, Grissom Academy) there is an equal low (The Illusive Man being reduced to a cartoon villain, Udina is evil now! just Kai Leng in general). It feels like ME3 drops the ball on as much as it resolves storylines in a satisfying way. It's a very mixed bag.
Probably most common complaint is the handling of ME2's squadmates. Yeah, it really sucks. BioWare wrote themselves into a corner allowing the entire cast to potentially die in the Suicide Mission, so most of the cast is reduced to cameos that are easily exchanged with a new character. Miranda, Mordin, Legion, and to a certain extent Thane, are more plot important and show up as more than cameos, but the rest are mostly found in missable side quests. It really does no favors for the "ME2 is skippable" argument.
However, Tuchanka and Rannoch stand out as some of my favorite moments in the trilogy. Fantastically paced missions with incredibly memorable setpieces, as well as satisfying and rewarding finales to two of the longest running plotlines in the series, being the Krogan Genophage and the Quarian-Geth war. These missions, as well as the Citadel Coup, are also some of the best examples of choices mattering, pulling your decisions from all 3 games to make a complicated conclusion. Brilliant stuff from a game often maligned for its lack of choice consequences.
Perhaps most importantly, ME3 does a phenomenal job of making you feel weak and utterly hopeless in the grand scheme of the Reaper war. The game shows the overwhelming defeat at the hands of the Reapers in detail, and we get to see nearly all the main alien races' homeworlds in ruin. You really do feel like you're on a hopeless mission and like you're watching the actual end of the world around you. ME3 has an impeccably bleak and horrific tone all the way up to its final moments.
Oh man... the final moments of ME3. Most will agree the game ends on an utterly baffling and bizarre note - I'll say more in detail in my review for the Extended Cut DLC, but for now I'll leave it at, yes, it really is as bad as its reputation may lead you to believe.
I want to talk a bit about the original release’s multiplayer – a big part of the game that was sadly cut from the Legendary Edition release.
I think the ME3 multiplayer was a shock for everyone. Basically everyone thought that it was going to be a forced and tacked-on crappy MP mode, which was super common in the industry at the time, with single-player franchises getting lame multiplayer modes thrown in – Batman: Arkham, Bioshock, and Tomb Raider being notable examples. However – I think most would agree that the MP mode in ME3 was an absolute gem. Despite it being a simple horde mode style cooperative game, there’s just something about it that’s super fun, and I have great memories playing it with friends and random strangers online. It feels really cool to finally be able to play as the various alien races and even more were added in later updates.
It was supported for a shockingly long time – and for free. EA and Bioware released 4 separate expansions for it, adding more playable characters, a ton of new weapons, new maps, and even the Collectors from ME2 as a new enemy type. There’s so much to collect and upgrade in the MP mode that it had an even longer lifespan than ME3 itself. It helped lessen the blow of the original game’s ending and I really wish it had been included in the Legendary Edition and given it a new breath of life.
After all’s said and done, I still do really like Mass Effect 3. I think it plays the best of the three, has the greatest enemy and mission variety, and does a wonderful job in its setting and environmental storytelling. However, the game’s very clearly rushed development time took a big hit on the writing and story. So much of it feels cobbled together in a hurry to get it out the door, especially the dreadful ending. Mass Effect 3 does so much right, but drops the ball in so many other places, that it’s kept from being a great game and ends up just being a good one.
Oh boy, Mass Effect 3. The game that divided a fan base and practically killed the IP until Andromeda's incredibly short lived "revival" in 2017. Call me a contrarian, but I feel like the years have been kind to ME3 and it's probably my second favorite game in the original trilogy.
The gameplay got a big upgrade from ME2, and I think it's a pretty competent third person shooter now. Combat feels snappy and fast paced, enemies are far cleverer and more aggressive, and battles are more intense than ever. Enemy variety, which was a huge sour point for me in ME2, is remedied here with three distinct factions of enemies (Cerberus, Reapers, and Geth), each with a half dozen or so unique enemy types within that faction. The game constantly mixes up who you'll be fighting, so it keeps things a lot fresher and fun. They've dropped any pretense of it being an RPG and leaned fully into action-shooter gameplay, which in this case is much better than the clunky fusion seen in ME2.
Weapon variety is also a massive improvement. With all DLC or when playing the Legendary Edition rerelease, there are dozens of weapons, most of which are satisfying to use. ME2 had a handful of useful weapons, but ME3 has so many, it's purely up to player preference. Weapons are also no longer restricted by class, so you can roll out with your preferred weapons regardless of what class your Shepard is, with weapon weight only affecting power cooldown speed.
Squadmates are much stronger now. It actually feels like BioWare overcorrected from the previous titles, and now certain squadmates, especially Garrus, can basically solo the game for you. Shepard also feels godlike in this game, blowing away hordes of foes without breaking a sweat. This increased power level makes the game feel too easy for the most part, so I recommend boosting the difficulty up to Insanity to keep things feeling more balanced.
With all the new gameplay features out of the way, time to shift focus to the most controversial aspect of Mass Effect 3 - its story and writing. I'll be the first to admit ME3's story is an absolute mess. Drew Karpyshyn's exit is felt and for every high (Tuchanka, Rannoch, Grissom Academy) there is an equal low (The Illusive Man being reduced to a cartoon villain, Udina is evil now! just Kai Leng in general). It feels like ME3 drops the ball on as much as it resolves storylines in a satisfying way. It's a very mixed bag.
Probably most common complaint is the handling of ME2's squadmates. Yeah, it really sucks. BioWare wrote themselves into a corner allowing the entire cast to potentially die in the Suicide Mission, so most of the cast is reduced to cameos that are easily exchanged with a new character. Miranda, Mordin, Legion, and to a certain extent Thane, are more plot important and show up as more than cameos, but the rest are mostly found in missable side quests. It really does no favors for the "ME2 is skippable" argument.
However, Tuchanka and Rannoch stand out as some of my favorite moments in the trilogy. Fantastically paced missions with incredibly memorable setpieces, as well as satisfying and rewarding finales to two of the longest running plotlines in the series, being the Krogan Genophage and the Quarian-Geth war. These missions, as well as the Citadel Coup, are also some of the best examples of choices mattering, pulling your decisions from all 3 games to make a complicated conclusion. Brilliant stuff from a game often maligned for its lack of choice consequences.
Perhaps most importantly, ME3 does a phenomenal job of making you feel weak and utterly hopeless in the grand scheme of the Reaper war. The game shows the overwhelming defeat at the hands of the Reapers in detail, and we get to see nearly all the main alien races' homeworlds in ruin. You really do feel like you're on a hopeless mission and like you're watching the actual end of the world around you. ME3 has an impeccably bleak and horrific tone all the way up to its final moments.
Oh man... the final moments of ME3. Most will agree the game ends on an utterly baffling and bizarre note - I'll say more in detail in my review for the Extended Cut DLC, but for now I'll leave it at, yes, it really is as bad as its reputation may lead you to believe.
I want to talk a bit about the original release’s multiplayer – a big part of the game that was sadly cut from the Legendary Edition release.
I think the ME3 multiplayer was a shock for everyone. Basically everyone thought that it was going to be a forced and tacked-on crappy MP mode, which was super common in the industry at the time, with single-player franchises getting lame multiplayer modes thrown in – Batman: Arkham, Bioshock, and Tomb Raider being notable examples. However – I think most would agree that the MP mode in ME3 was an absolute gem. Despite it being a simple horde mode style cooperative game, there’s just something about it that’s super fun, and I have great memories playing it with friends and random strangers online. It feels really cool to finally be able to play as the various alien races and even more were added in later updates.
It was supported for a shockingly long time – and for free. EA and Bioware released 4 separate expansions for it, adding more playable characters, a ton of new weapons, new maps, and even the Collectors from ME2 as a new enemy type. There’s so much to collect and upgrade in the MP mode that it had an even longer lifespan than ME3 itself. It helped lessen the blow of the original game’s ending and I really wish it had been included in the Legendary Edition and given it a new breath of life.
After all’s said and done, I still do really like Mass Effect 3. I think it plays the best of the three, has the greatest enemy and mission variety, and does a wonderful job in its setting and environmental storytelling. However, the game’s very clearly rushed development time took a big hit on the writing and story. So much of it feels cobbled together in a hurry to get it out the door, especially the dreadful ending. Mass Effect 3 does so much right, but drops the ball in so many other places, that it’s kept from being a great game and ends up just being a good one.