Summary

Review

Wild to me the idea of reviewing Mass Effect. But try we shall. For the sake of completeness.

I do have a soft spot for Mass Effect. I started playing the series very shortly after the 3rd game came out and I fell in love. If I turn on my genuine critical eye I can point out a number of inadequacies that I would normally look past. The writing is really no great shakes. A 2nd playthrough immediately shows you how little you're really changing anything with your dialogue. And just on the whole the minute-to-minute dialogue is very standard video game. Which is to say, not great. Even though that is ostensibly the series' draw.

I think, in general, the shape of the characters does a lot of heavy lifting for the actual content of those characters. The player fills in a lot of details that we don't really see. How much dialogue does Garrus and Shepard actually have together in the first game? Not a huge amount. But the player thinks of Garrus as a sort of protégé and friend. And so he's frequently at the top of most people's lists. Same for Liara or Tali. They're interesting-looking, and friendly. They're people you'd like to know more about. And the general atmosphere of the game helps that. You feel that you're a scrappy group of underdogs fighting the good fight. Something that gets underlines repeatedly in later series entries.

And so a lot of the things that would normally get criticized, are instead swept aside. Mass Effect is a game that is more than the sum of its parts. Its some of the best of Bioware, though I can't help but feel a little disappointed in that. Again, I can critically point out many things I don't like even though I like the final product. What could we have had then if the writing had proper depth and nuance. Imagine injecting some Disco Elysium into the Mass Effect universe. My gawd.

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