People need to stop praising ME1

I give ME3 plenty of sh*t about story, lore, characters, etc.  But from a purely shooting and inventory perspective, I think it had a decent balance.

I'm the same way. I see each engine (not game title, but engine) as the canvas. Baldur's Gate was artfully done to include music, art, real-time D&D combat (roll that dice quickly!), and writing with bits of excellent voice acting. It was followed up by a great train of Black Isle (a wonderful group of people that were under the Bioware/Interplay umbrella) products like the game's sequel, Icewind Dale series and the standalone Planescape title. Each title had its ups and downs, but the canvas was utilized all the way. Then came Neverwinter Nights. A super mod-friendly game that felt more D&D than what Wizards of the Coast (who had bought out TSR and now owns the license) did with it. Another great canvas that started the whole cult following of Bioware with mods, Machinima videos, etc. Then came Knights of the Old Republic. Another canvas that started to make the characters more realistic while retaining all the wonderful music, art, writing and voice acting. Then Bioware experimented and succeded in my personal opinion with Jade Empire. A canvas that didn't get enough attention, but in the end who cares? Because we got the standard bearer of all RPGs past and present. I give a damn what anyone thinks of Origins, because to me... it's the golden standard of all RPGs. It allowed complete character customization (limited compared to D&D titles) and your pick-your-patch adventuring was perfectly narrated by not some disembodied voice, but the awesome (F***ing best written characters) banter and dialogue by your companions. Throw in voice acting that only improved from KoTOR and well... you couldn't expect more. Then DA2 came. Then ME3 betrayed the very notion of pick-your-patch storylines and reduced it to RGB insulting garbage that was only partially fixed by Fallout style storyboard endings. I mean they already copied Fallout: Tactics ending, why the f*** not? Mass Effect 1 was done on the Unreal engine and not made by Bioware. Bioware whipped it into a space opera that has more meaningful moments than the entire Star Wars prequel trilogy. Then came Inquisition. Frostbite. Another canvas not developed by Bioware. Is it being whipped into shape to be called a true RPG? Yes, in increments. Is Frostbite their best canvas yet? No. It's big and beautiful, but if you fill all the space with doodles instead of meaningful art, it's just a big canvas with lots of problems. Do I see talent at Bioware whipping Frostbite into shape? Yes, but they're still a long way off and Andromeda and Inquisition proved that. With that said, I'm looking forward to the collector's edition, because I see no real reason to preorder anymore. Inquisition was a complete garbage fest at launch on the PC. Andromeda was a complete garbage fest at launch on the PS4. Knights of the Old Republic was a complete garbage fest at launch as well. This is pattern recognition and if you don't see it, the competition is seeing it. By the way, every AAA, seems it feels its okay to release lemons with the promise of fixing them up later. And I say to them, polish your resumes, because the IP is worth more in someone else's hands and you're out of a job. Capiche?

While I agree that a lot of things done in MEA are better than ME1, technical snags notwithstanding, but I don't know that I'd consider this a fact. 

But I think that overall ME1's gunplay wasn't so much a sacrifice so much as BioWare just not really being that good at designing a shooter at the time, like at all. It was so heavily stat based, but made the mistake of requiring total manual control at the same time that it could be frustrating if you were used to shooters that relied more on your own ability to control the aiming. I think MEA's sort-of hybrid between the old and new system in weapon handling struck a better balance overall, especially since it got rid of that crappy "untrained" nonsense that had you equipped with weapons certain classes couldn't even use properly. 

Some powers in ME1 I miss a bit, like throw. Throw was like a Jedi push field that could send entire groups flying, but overall, I thought the power evolutions in ME1 were kind of shallow. It had tons of slots, but no choice in the power's behavior, just the ability to increase its force. 

I will say this though, I agree with others that BioWare would not have disrupted the singleplayer gameplay by allowing more than 3 powers per profile. The loadout could simply have the abilities that were instantly accessible through the controller, with a complement of, say, 2-3 more powers relegated to a secondary power wheel, similarly to one of the old DA games. The profile system would remain largely intact, since the game has quite a few abilities to choose from. 

No it is not




Sacrificing gunplay for abilities that don't require a gun, is, imo, something to look into.  

I want an action-rpg.  Not an ACTION-rpg

AGREED.
ME1 is one of BioWare's worst games IMHO.

I know that I can read. My point is while ME 1 had its flaws (many in fact) the whole point of threads like these no matter how well intentioned tend to turn into (I'm right you're wrong and do as I say) type threads.

people need to stop praising mass effect 1 because it's unfair to compare andromeda to a game that's actually good :^(

ME1? Never heard of her.

ME1 has some wild science fiction ideas coupled with interesting and messy philosophical concepts, and never seemed to fall into "stupid" territory.
Ex: deciphering an alien vision by absorbing the perspective of a species by having it a transferred from a slave of a sentient millennial year old mind reading plant that surreptitiously enslaved a colony of that species.

MEA, not so much. With what interesting ideas it did have (genetic manipulation, created race, and terraforming), it didn't do a whole lot with.

I can't really recall much in the way of emotional bits in ME1, outside of the Virmire decision, since I really liked both Ashley and Kaidan. I guess there's Wrex's standoff, but he's super easy to keep alive. Benezia's death should have been an emotional scene (perhaps the most, since it's supposed to be a hard moment for a central character), but was utterly ruined by terrible delivery and flat follow-up. Personally I thought the memory sequences alone, namely "Final Day" and "Saving Ryder" were more emotional by themselves. Maybe I'm a sucker for the heroic father thing.

ME2 and 3 was really where I felt it started actually put more effort into the actual heart of its characters. 

Edit: There is one mission in ME1 that always kind of bugged me by how perfunctory its resolution was and should have been more thoughtful. There was a random encounter with a cargo freighter and a guy was on life support, and as soon as you turn the machine off, some crazy woman in the cargo bay spawns and tries to kill you. There's no confrontation, no perspective on her part. She's just some feral woman with a gun and we just kill her and leave. 

Proof?