What is Mass Effect to you ?

No wait..



I jest...

It's a game I've enjoyed. Setting could have been better, but still more interesting than the elves and dwarves. I thought it was ballsy that they killed Shepard, it stood out. If they make another story in the setting that does not reverse ME3 in any way, I will likely buy it.

Enterrainment. In the best of cases it's escapism. A place to retreat from real life. MEA managed the entertainment part for once. But it didn't offer the escapism.

It's an escape, just like any other game.

But mainly i loved the cool characters and (especially in andromeda) the slick rpg-action gameplay. Also, the stargate style humor was always fantastic.

An amazing Sci-fi world I can escape into. It is a pity there are not more rpg franchises that explore the space opera sci fi setting more. Quite frankly it is surprising that there isn't.

To me Mass Effect is an old friend - whose taken a beating - and just needs to sit back and relax and take a break while his mommy (BioWare) and daddy (EA) work out their domestic issues. I hope it doesn't end in divorce.

For me Mass Effect is the future as I always imagined. Exploration of space, knowledge and friendship with alien cultures, dialogues and romances with alien and non-alien characters. And of course the fighting that is useful to vent nerves. An escape from reality.

Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship.... ah nuts wrong universe.

Right crowd though!

An enemy to hate. I didn't care about the Archon at all, I had no drive to defeat him other than him getting in my way, and the Kett were basically little plastic soldiers to me. The exaltation thing should have been terrifying but it fell flat IMHO.

He is a bit cute!

I think he was more impressive in the battle, and the moment when he suspends you in mid air, but he just wasn't built up enough for me to feel anything one way or the other. I've had cups of white tea with more bite.

First off, I like sci-fi RPGs. That beats out DA games and it beats out Witcher games, etc. That's why I was excited to be getting a new game in the genre. However, I'd heard of ME when it first came out but thought it was just some kind of military shooter game and didn't have any interest. For various reasons I won't get into, I had neither console nor computer for a number of years. Finally got a computer again in early 2016. I got Steam and found ME1/ME2 bundle on sale and bought them. Then I heard that it was possible to romance Kaidan in ME3 and forced myself to get Origin for that. It was my hook. The more I played, the more I loved it. I remember being timid about making Renegade decisions in the past and have slowly gotten over it (not completely, still can't kill off the krogan or shoot friends in the back). Those choices meant a great deal to me, especially seeing the impact it could have. Knowing that killing not saving Maelon's data would lead to krogan extinction was mind-blowing to me. Knowing rejecting Miranda in ME3 after a romance leads to her death was amazing. Knowing killing the Rachni Queen in ME1 leads to a betrayal in ME3 was surprising. I loved (for example) that not putting some upgraded armor on the SR2 could lead to the death of Jack during the SM. Stuff like that was really awesome. Sure, you still got the same RGB choices at the end (more or less, depending on EMS) but I loved seeing the impact of my decisions in other areas than just the ending.

To me, it's the choices, it's the ability to romance, it's the building (or destroying) of friendships that made me fall in love with this game. It's getting to play Soldier, then Vanguard, then Sentinel, etc. It's the way I can't save Corporal Toombs (at least that's been my experience) unless I was on Akuze, or the "I Remember Me" mission with a Colonist background. It meant the the very first decisions I made regarding my background affected certain aspects of the game. I got the role play in a more serious way.

Removing these aspects has lessened some of what most appealed to me. I would definitely bring back Paragon/Renegade options. There could even be a True Neutral option (I didn't feel that was actually in existence in ME1, despite the middle option) if you don't want to take stark good/evil choices (sorry, but I felt some Renegade choices were not pragmatic but outright evil and that some neutral choices were more how I would define Renegade). I would want to be able to romance who I want and not be stuck with some ill-defined "what makes sense" bullshit like we got in ME3. Hate to tell you, but I often "pass" for straight (not any kind of act, just my general attitude) and that "makes sense" crap doesn't fly with me because I wouldn't make sense by their definition.

Also, for me, the mass relays, eezo and biotics are a must, since I think those things actually are fundamentals of the "mass effect". Removing mass relays, to me, was a mistake. It's not just the space opera, but the setting that's important. I have no problem with an Andromeda spin-off as a secondary game, but not as the heir to Mass Effect. Doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the game but I never really played it with the feeling of playing a Mass Effect game. I mean, where the hell were the freaking quarians? I may have wanted to shoot the admirals but otherwise I them a lot. They're part of the setting and no angaran can adequately take their place. In fact, would have loved to have found that race through one of the previously unused relays post-Reaper War and introduced them to the Council as an existing space-faring race they'd just never met. The rest could have followed along similar lines just as an extension of the game universe we already had.

Probably more I could say but this is at least a picture of what I look for in a Mass Effect game.