>Male >Earthborn >Sole survivor >Male Shepard >Sheploo >Soldier >Garrus and Tali >Paragon >Talimance >Destroy ending with high EMS Yep, time for my 30th replay.

>Male >Earthborn >War hero >Sheploo >Vanguard >Garrus and Wrex >Rengon >Ash or Miranda <Refuse to play ME3 ever again

>>1134933 >Shepard Sheploo, Earthborn, Sole Survivor, Paragade >class Infiltrator >squadmates Wrex, Javik >planets Noveria, Maji, Sur'Kesh >quests Noveria planet arc, Genophage arc, Leviathan DLC >>1135663 3 was better than 2 doe

Batarian Lives Matter.

>>1136254 >3 was better than 2 doe It was even more streamlined then 2 and had even less player choice.

Should I replay the original series instead of LE? I've looked at nexus mods and LE has basically nothing.

>>1137738 >It was even more streamlined It literally offered more RPG choices be them narrative or mechanical (especially mechanical) than 2, what are you on about. It took 2's weak base and refined it with far better skills, skill trees and weapons. Choosing the last three ranks of all your skills means you can basically make a build tailored to your playstyle: weapon or power cooldown? melee or weight? self-reliant or buffing squadmate ammo? Same with the equipment weight, letting you equip any weapon you want but tying weight to power cooldown is easily the best choice they made in that game. You can make an Infiltrator that ditches the sniper for a shotgun paired with Tactical Cloak. Do you want to mod your weapon to do more damage or to weight less so you're under the weight threshold for your Power recharge (oh yeah it brought back weapon modding from ME1, which ME2 cut)? Only in replays do you get just how barebones 2 is compared to the RPG of 1 or the far better hybrid of 3. Don't get me started on the weapon description and lack of stats in 2, or even weapon variety in general: not counting the Heavy Weapons slot ME2 had 3 rifles (+3 from DLC), 3 shotguns (+2 from DLC), 3 snipers (+1 from DLC), 2 SMGs (+1 from DLC) and 2 pistols (+1 from DLC). Mass Effect 3 has 9 rifles (+10 from DLC), 9 shotguns (+4 from DLC), 8 snipers (1 of which unique to multiplayer then +3 from DLC), 5 SMGs (1 of which unique to multiplayer then +3 from DLC) and 7 pistols (+4 from DLC). Far more weapon variety and thus build variety that allows you to pull shit like https://youtu.be/ZPbB4qfsA14 even with squadmates. Or how about how it improved on the Paragon/Renegade mechanic? ME3 fixed the problem ME2 and to a lesser degree ME1 had where you had to mostly stay on one path or the other all the way if you wanted to hit lategame checks by coming up with a single Reputation bar that's filled by both Paragon and Renegade points whenever you make a choice. What choices does ME2 offer? Because it sure as fuck didn't let my Akuze Shepard tell Cerberus to fuck off and go back to the Alliance. How many ME1 choices mattered in it anyway? Where's my Human Council? Why were 90% of ME1 choices relegated to simple radio messages and emails?

>>1137788 LE has more mods

>>1137915 >It literally offered more RPG choices Ok I'm not even gonna take anything you said seriously.

>We have Cuckchan refugees unironically defending ME3 Holy fucking shit I'm speechless.

>>1137987 Refute him then

>>1137958 I will accept the concession

>>1136254 >3 was better than 2 doe no at best it was equal to 2, which wasn't good enough given the massive expectations the series had built up and on top of that the ending sucked. ruined the series and then Andromeda finally killed it.

Man I remember when 4/v/ mocked anyone who liked ME3. The user base that came during the last decade really lost its standards.

>>1137915 You're talking about combat choices which honestly I could care less about. Why can't you tell the alliance to fuck off given that you have the authority to in ME1 since we're bitching about allegiances? There's less dialogue choices that have an actual impact in ME3 than the other 2 games and that's a fact, ME2 having dialogue options with the most impact

>>1138091 ME2's choices genuinely impacted, the final mission at the Collector base. If you fucked around people did die.

This is the hardest line of dialogue in any of the games and in a dlc of all things and it is proof that your choices mattered the most in ME2

>>1137915 I kneel >>1138091 >Why can't you tell the alliance to fuck off given that you have the authority to in ME1 since we're bitching about allegiances? Because the game *starts* with Shepard as an Alliance Commander, which he has been for 11 years and counting. It's not a switching of allegiances, it's the one you're told to accept if you're to immerse yourself in the universe presented by the devs in the first entry. That's who Shepard is by default, REGARDLESS of player choice. You might be Earthborn, or a Spacer, or a Colonist, but you're always an Alliance soldier. Might as well ask why are you forced to be an N7. Fairly different as anon said from an entire sidequest chain where you're shown how retardedly evil this random terrorist group is then the direct sequel forces you to work for 'em (even if they could have been personally responsible for the slaughter of your entire past squad and at no point are you allowed to bring it up). >There's less dialogue choices that have an actual impact Define "actual impact". Nothing in ME2 matters. See >>1138221, in fact. The dialogue option is available regardless of what choices you actually went with, with Shepard's tone remaining the same. You don't need to have been a Renegade in the past for the threat to be sold, or for specific narrative choices to have been made. Shepard simply switches "dude I let the Destiny Ascension be destroyed" with "dude I let human ships be destroyed". Same way your Spectre status has zero impact to such a degree you might or might not even have it and NOTHING changes, because that'd be too much effort. No options are opened or closed to you, Shepard will just switch "Spectre" with "former Spectre". Where's the "actual impact", when the decision doesn't inform the situation, the characters or the narrative? Same way Liara is obsessed with you, even if you let her go crazy in Therum and were awful to her in the short time aboard the Normandy. Same way Garrus is forced as your best bud, even if you never even recruited him. Same way the choice between Spectre/C-Sec you made with him was handwaved away so he could be scripted to me Omega's Batman. Same way the Council forgot they believed the Reapers to be real during ME1's epilogue. Same way geth weaponry in ME1 did not, in fact, use thermal clips. Same way so many other things were handled because they cared more about spectacle than cohesion. ME2 opened that floodgate.

ME3 had the least choice in the series. Did some jewtuber make a video essay defending it recently?

>>1134933 >male >Earthborn >War Hero >Vanguard >Jack romance >Wrex, Thane, Zaeed, Javik, ME3 Kaidan >planet Solcrum >Cerberus sidequest with Kahoku in 1, the Ardat-Yakshi monastery in 3 >>1137987 2 gets worse the more times you replay it, it's like the game desperately tried to not be a direct sequel to the game it was a direct sequel to. And Andromeda isn't even remembered

>>1138640 The game doesn't advertise half the choices it bears in mind. Tons of quests are full of things like pic related. And did you know the Virmire Survivor can like Shepard enough to survive the coup but *refuse* to join the Normandy, even if Shepard asks for it? Or that Grunt can in fact die in the rachni cave, it's not a guaranteed fake out? Even text-only based differences like >>1138221, in previous games they were the exception while in 3 they're the norm, to such a diminutive degree literally 99% of players out there haven't noticed 13+ years later and probably never will, yet the care to create said variations is still there. For example depending on what you tell Victus at the end of the Tuchanka storyline his reasons for appearing on Earth will change. Or depending on how many artifacts you click on in the Thessia monastery, as well as how much you push the Investigate dialogue options, the argument between Javik and Liara will also change (quite a lot). Want a specific example? When the dalatrass calls you with the offer to sabotage the genophage cure, she will say: >"Commander, you cannot allow the diplomatic pressures of this war to cloud your judgment" but if you expressed sympathy for the krogan during the summit she will instead say: >"Commander, you cannot allow your misguided sympathy for the krogan to cloud your judgment" Small change? Sure. But it's there when it didn't need to be. ME3 does this, plus it remembered to be an actual sequel to the Reaper threat of 1, plus this time around it had to keep in mind and acknowledge choices not from one but two previous sequels (one of which blew its load a game too early and made it possible for any one combination of 12 squadmates to be dead and already written off the story). With all that in mind, "ME3 had the least choice in the series" is just... well, funny.

>>1140505 none of that matters tho

The mental gymnastics are wild.

I wanna fuck Garrus. That's all.

>>1141089 Seems enough people disagree, even ITT. It also seems it being true makes some anons seethe hard enough to not wanna direct reply to the post at hand

>>1141364 I never replayed the series because overall it was a massive let down on its original spec, but I fondly remember ME2 for the wow factor it had. ME1 - amazing game pushing the boundaries, so you forgive the janky combat and exploration ME2 - great combat, more exciting cutscenes and story telling. Feels like a big step up in overall quality, so you forgive the lack of continuity between it and the previous game ME3 - quality pretty much the same as the previous game, plays out in almost exactly the same formula as the previous game overall good but you've seen it all before so you can't forgive the shitty ending They fucked themselves by being overambitious in the first place, all those claims made about continuity through the series turned out to be pretty much technically impossible.

>>1140505 >"ME3 had the least choice in the series" is just... well, funny. ME3 is just where the bad writing and plot holes ultimately accumulated to such an extent that they could no longer be ignored or paved over with superficialities. Choice wise there's a ton going on under the hood, sure, it's just that none of it really mattered enough to wow me. "Neat, character says X instead of Y" did little to bandage the gaping wounds, and on each replay I did, the more and more I realized that the real issue was the main story itself and its failure to truly branch. Even offering two or three major pathways through the game would have felt more satisfying, especially if those pathways were only unlockable from choices made in ME1 or 2. Instead it was mostly a series of modular islands where choices influenced things in a bubble (mostly.) Anyway this series was an abusive relationship for me. It seduced me, gaslit me, robbed me, raped my dog and deported my mother. It took years of therapy to recover from the psychological damage it inflicted and I still find myself going back to suckle on it like a broken needy whore for semi-annual replays that always end in frustration, disappointment and self hatred. I read Shamus Young's Mess Effect retrospective three times trying to make sense of what this thing did to me. At least the citadel DLC is the greatest piece of fan service ever conceived. Strangely sublime after all the suffering.

We love Jack here

>>1137723 True. Who would we genocide without repercussions if batarians went extinct?

>>1134933 >Shepard (gender, background, military service, class) FemShep. Earthborn. Ruthless. >class Vanguard with the shotgun, baby! >squadmates Tali and Garry >planets Uranus :^) >quests Shadow Broker mission

>>1137723 Indeed if we strap them to the front of the ship they might absorb some Reaper laser fire.

>>1141828 ME2 did not have great combat. Vanguard is literally the only class in that game even remotely fun to play because it isn't forced into the shitty fucking Gears "hug the cover" playstyle. People who defend ME2s playstyle belong on a depopulation list.

>>1155837 kek well funnily enough during my one and only play through all those years ago I did in fact pick vanguard so you may have a point. That said the combat is still miles better than ME1 and dropping the Mako was a genius move.

I played through the trilogy recently. 1>3>>>>>2 in retrospect. 2 does not hold up. I remembered about shepherd dying at the beginning of 2 but seeing it play out again really reminded me how stupid it was. I gaslighted myself into thinking the illusive man was in cahoots with the collectors because the recovery of shepherd was so implausible. everyone says the cast was the best of the trilogy but it feels bloated. for sure thane and grunt could have been cut and made way for legion, a much more interesting character, to come in earlier. the gameplay is also weak, and this falls to balancing more than gamefeel. yeah it's certainly less jank than 1, but the contrived 4-types-of-health system, obviously concocted as a band-aid fix to overpowered biotics, only results in clogging up utility in favor of simply using whatever skill deletes a certain type of health bar. they also removed A LOT of gear customization, and having each character's skill pool be only 4 skills makes the late game leveling unexciting. however, although also poorly balanced, having actually different weapons to use was nice. I will say the introduction of paragon/renegade QTEs was pretty great. I played paragon, but I found myself hitting almost every renegade QTE possible just to see what certified thug move shepherd would pull next. 3 massively improves on the direction 2 took gameplay-wise but the story is so bad. I wanted to see if it was just the ending that sucked but no it's basically all trash from the jump. there are also barely any choices being made in dialogue. also why did they hate liara so much after 1 god damn

>He's still trying to force the ME3 was better then 2 meme We have IDs and we can tell you're IP hopping.

>has gay romances >exclusively gives gays the worst possible romance options >gives lesbians and straights good waifus/husbandos bravo bioware

>>1177960 >Alright team, what character should we use for a male/male romance?

<idk, this dude The worst attack on The Gay Community in history. How did they get away with it?

>>1155837 >Vanguard is literally the only class in that game even remotely fun This guy gets it. Nothing better than slamming into an enemy across the room and unloading a shotgun to their face.

1 is king. 3 is a fairly fun shooter with some good moments like Tuchanka but is trash overall. 2 is trash and ruined everything, not even a decent shooter.

>>1134933 >Shepard (gender, background, military service, class) Sheploo, Spacer, Sole Survivor >class Adept in 1, Soldier in 2, Infiltrator/Vanguard in 3 >squadmates Wrex, Thane, Javik >planets Noveria and Virmire were peak, planets in every other game suck balls. I guess Mars' song was neat >quests Peak 15, Kasumi's DLC, Tuchanka, first half of the Citadel DLC >>1178075 Steve was a bro, I liked how they gave more personality to the shuttle rides. Samantha > Chambers too