People need to stop praising ME1

Lolz. It's just a joke. Don't worry it.

I feel like you must not be that familiar with Sci-Fi as a genre. The Mass Effect OT is not a stunning gem of originality. It's pretty derivative.

Cool. I have over 50 playthroughs.

To be fair, most genre based content is the same. Star Wars is a Frankenstein monster of different derivative sources. 

I have more with ME2, and even more with ME3.

And the Cyclons are derivatives of Asimov, it's all a giant karmic wheel of idea stealing. 

Well I did not read everything that was wrote since the beginning, so maybe this point has already been discussed.

What I could say about ME 1, why it was praise so much and his flaws were forgotten was because it came out at a time where games could get away without a story, we were barely in the seventh generation consoles, we were in a time where it was totally ok for an fps to have mute protagonists with no personality whatsoever, it was actually the norm for fps. So when ME 1 came out it was something spectacular because a game that was so narrative, that was pushing the story that far, that was something impressive and that is the reason why it was ctitically acclaimed, we did not see something like that at time.

A combination of a tps with an rpg system and a very good story, it might not have been the very first to do it, but it was among the most popular and it was also very influential for the years come. When I first discovered mass effect, I was done with the freaking gamecube and not much narrative games because I did not had the money to buy a lot of them (concentrated on metroid prime and mario kart games). So back then, I witnessed a game that pushed the narrative beyond what was done at the time. Right now, mass effect 1 suffer the "Seinfield is unfunny" tropes, it was impressive back in the day but right now since so many games that pushed narratives has come out and refine the formula, well mass effect 1 is much less impressive compare to what we got. Ill leave the link here : tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny

NOW THAT SAID,

it does not mean that the people should have forgotten his MANY PROBLEMS and flaws at the time. The combat system was terrible, the AI was the stupidest (both ennemy and ally), the cover system was certainly not good, and the side quests... While some side quests were good, like the arms dealer quest on the citadel, a lot of them were freaking boring, for some of them you had your story reward, with a cinematic conversation at the end, it still meant you needed to go on multiple bases with the exact same architecture and the horrible combat that I talked before. But many of the quest had an ending where it was written in a square of text instead of you know, being shown on screen, I am not reading novel I am playing a cinematic video game.

But since a lot of those quest were not implemented right, you had to forced yourself into other galaxy or solar system, verify each one of them for hacket to tell you what is going on there and know what to do. Since it was not on the way of your main story and you had to make extra efforts to find these quests, most people not only did not bother finishhing them, but they did not even bother looking for them so they had the impression that these quests did not even exists.

When I first played mass effect, I was so impress by what I was seeing that I did not bother looking for the other quest. Its only after doing many paythroughts, when I started doing more exploration that I realise that once I left the main planet and the main quest, the universe was not that interesting especially for some quests (like picking up turian badge on the many planets or something like that).

The repeating architecture did not started with dragon age 2, it was there since the first mass effect, if you go on a ship that was NOT the normandy, whatever it is the ship where a crazy girlfriend kill all her crew to keep her boyfriend in a catatonic state alive or dr saleon ship, they had all the same architecture. Same thing for a base on a planet, when you saw one, you have seen them all even if they are from cerberus, slaver, red sand dealer, biotics fanatics, all the freaking same.

The dialogue system also had the so called "auto dialogue" people complained about in future ME, its just that to realize it, you needed to play ME1 multiple time and remember the line exactly for what it was back then. Some time the lines were all the same whatever you choose, and having a dialogue wheel every time was not practical because it broke the rythm, sometime for just one word of dialogue. Like a response of 3 words "what's happening joker?" should not require a dialogue wheel whatever you are renegade or paragon. Some middle dialogue also were sometime the same as the highest or the lowest, its just the game did not told you that, it made you believe you had 3 choices when in truth, sometime you had only 2 choice, and others you had none at all.

In the end the first mass effect had tons of problems, its just that at the time where narrative was not as important, it made something so good (the story) and the flaws could be hidden enough for many people to not realise them in their first playthrought. And most people don't bother playing a game again once they finished it. I believe it deserve the praise because it pushed the narrative in the video game industry to a higher point. But as much as I love the first mass effect, at the same time ME 1 made story in video game more important than ever, the game had HUGE problems that many people forgot and these flaws were not small.

I have over 70 complete PTs of ME1. The total declines with each game, as single PTs turned into multi-game/trilogy PTs. I've played the hell out of these games, in any case. I generally just assume I've played more than the most other persons, unless I'm speaking with you.

There's your answer.

I bought an xbox to play it on release, and tbh that year there was only Bioshock and Halo 3. Yes the controls were clunky on console but at the time it was the best sci-fi game I had ever played.

ME2 took all that was good about ME1 and threw it out the window... instead turning into a Michael Bay type action film with a joke of a story and the only saving grace being a few of the characters and the combat (I'm any case the neutering of biotics was bad). I personally don't get all the praise for ME2 as in my opinion it is by far the worst game in the series (it's still a good game but it does not do justice to the setup that ME1 gave it and is also the reason for ME3 having to cover so many plot points in one game).

Jesus Christ.

i think i have thirty ish...combined over three games. Out of curiosity how many do you see Andromeda getting?