Fucking catbirds and blue women.

Especially Garrus.

But for a real answer.

I completely forgot about that one til now. So thank you, goat, for always being so... helpful. X3

I really miss Party Temple.

Beat the game earlier. I'll write something proper if I manage to sleep at all cause insomnia is saying hi and it's just about 0400. But the long and short of it is I really enjoyed it and it felt like the tonal sequel to 1 I've been wanting for 10 years.

Well see that's just it. The longer answer could be that I love the cultures of the series and woo space faring and hey, sci-fi RPGs are few and far between. Sure I can name roughly 903467093760 sci-fi games that have exactly nothing to do with the ME sort of play, but what's the point? Lmao. It fills a void, I enjoy BW's games and when they don't do stupid shit like 3, the story and cultures make me happy.

Now, as for MEA. Like I said before, the quick summary is that it's the "sequel" to 1 I've been wanting for 10 years now. Is it derpy as fuck at times? Of course. Does it have the best ever writing? ME has never ever had that, so no. X3 Hamminess is part of the series' charm for me. I'll be honest here, poor goat already knows since I've ranted far too much about it when we got on the topic of 2. X3 While it might sound like I dislike the game, my issues with the series started forming with 2. Do I still love it? I do. It's never been physically painful to go through it or anything like that, but for my own mentality 2 was where BW decided to do a lot of "edgy" bullshit just for the fuck of it and it bothered me a lot. That of course didn't just disappear come 3 but I'm not touching that can of worms right now. MEA does a lot to bring back the feelings I had in 1. Exploring a galaxy, the tone not necessarily going too far in either super happy fun times or dark edgy sleezy alley way murder brawls, but flits between both. You know, much like 1.

I know a lot of people have an issue with MEA because it isn't the OT and Ryder isn't Shep. Can attempt to refute that for days but I've seen enough "Shepard would have done that better" or "Shepard vs Ryder" topics to know it's still a case of people not letting go of the OT. Trust me, I get being attached to characters, I do. But well.... 3 did a good job of basically nuking that poor bridge off the face of the earth for me. So, it's kind of like Star Trek, same universe, new crew. Fine, happy. It's an uphill battle for Ryder pretty much the whole way, and my penchant for underdog stories makes me super happy there. Is the crew for MEA perfect? Nope, much like the rest of the series, there's characters I'm drawn way more to than others. Thing is, a lot of their problems are... personal "human" problems and I like that a lot. If there's one thing I've said repeatedly, it's that personal stories mean so much to me, because there's a stronger chance of a relation point for me. Not spoiling anything either way here, but just going to throw out that the family stuff in MEA is how I wished it was done in FO4 (forced family stuff is a huge griping point for me, but here you can at least mold the background of the tone of said relationship).


Are there gripes? Of course there are. While I like SAM a lot as a character, they really *really* need to patch him giving me tutorials all the time and not shutting the fuck up about mining zones even though I put 106 hours into the game. He's also a liar about me having new emails. X3 Not to mention there are issues with banter cutting off since other landscape dialogue hooks override it. The soundtrack for the most part, as addressed before is pretty forgettable, aside from the *fantastic* selection of licensed tracks, plus I was fond of the music that plays during the whole of the last planet/mission. VA is give or take quality, but that's been a BW thing for ages really so I laugh and go on my way. I can look past technical herp derp as long as it doesn't create game breaking issues for me, since I've been playing games since the late 80s, and blobs of pixels used to be all we had. Plus, sometimes that herp derp gets a real laugh out of me and let's remember, half the reason I started calling Taurians catbirds was cause in ME1, Garrus' face hated loading. I game for story, enjoyment and hey, sometimes even personal connections to things, not cutting edge graphics and shit. Sure, sometimes it's awkward as hell and disappointing buuuuuut it's not a deal breaker for me. Yes there is cringey dialogue and points that made me , but again that's happened with pretty much every BW game I can think of so it's par for the course. Nothing that truly made me go "Lmao worst ever!" X3

I kept that spoiler free and hey I'd like to go into things more but that'll be at a time when conversation regarding actual story points happens. We know it's not going to lead to a new trilogy cause BW has said this repeatedly before, so yeah I'm hoping the plot threads hinted towards the end and such get resolved in DLC. So yeah, more patches and QoL fixes will greatly improve the game for sure, but as a whole? I'm very happy with the 106 hours I put into it, and it was worth the money for me.

Finished the game, on insanity as always

This is without a doubt, the best Mass Effect game I've played. Yeah the animations are a bit clunky in terms of facial, yeah it sucks all Asari have the same face (save for PeeBee) and yes, it can be slightly annoying with the forced diversity. But you know what? I had a GREAT time playing it. Did almost everything there was to do.

I might replay it again. Maybe not on insanity this time lol.

First time I realize Sara Ryder originally looked a lot better in a previous build of the game.





Below is the source for that picture. It was a French stream of the game. You can see they made a quick start and, thus, didn't edit their character.

People aren't perfect? Or have different tastes to what they find attractive.

I just did a custom job on my Ryder and changed her name from Sara to Christine and she has bright red hair and green eyes.

The game gave me a warning about my AMD drivers being 17.2.1 and that I should be using 17.3.3 with the option to try the game regardless. I chose the latter and everything seems to run fine regardless of the warning. Some of the animation was a little iffy but nothing deal breaking, I found some of the background characters walking animations were a bit funny and that was about it.

Onto the game, well so far FUN.

OK a bit lost here. Some of the menus are a bit confusing the way the game lays stuff out.

Can you change difficulty in the game while playing if you are in the main menu or do you have to start over if you do that?

Also lost on the map. I got past the first bit of shuttle wreckage, and explored a cave, found an animal that had been trapped but keep bumping into nasty aliens that want to kill me. The first time you meet them you can't even avoid fighting them. Anyway which way do I continue walking? Do I have to head for where the flares are, just seems like a huge hike and lots of nasty aliens.

Yeah I'm trying to explore but keep dying by nasty aliens..  I don't like the nasty aliens. They're mean. lol

The jump jet makes things fun. I really don't like the keyboard layout.

Left Control for climbing over things is awkward. That's going to change. I might do as you suggest and explore everywhere else before heading for the flares but so far everywhere I go I keep getting attacked and it's not fun. That is the being attacked part, not the game. The game itself is fun.

Femshep was what I chose for my character history too.

So when exactly did these arks leave? Was it during the war with the Reapers? Or is the timeline best not thought about?