Written by: Rik
Date posted: August 11, 2021
I’ve been fairly careful to avoid spoilers in the main reviews, but I figured that those who’ve also played the game might be interested in some of the choices that I made throughout the trilogy.
Obviously, there are big spoilers here. That’s mentioned in the title of this piece, and I’m mentioning it again now. Go no further, if you want to avoid them.
Also, there are many, many more little decisions and choices that you can make in the trilogy that have an impact later on in some way. Here, we’re just dealing with the fairly major ones.
Ok? Ok!
***FINAL SPOILER ALERT FOR ALL THREE GAMES BELOW***
I was a soldier
Ok, I’m obviously a basic kind of guy. But from limited past experience, you can’t usually come unstuck in an RPG if you’re handy in the essentials of combat. Plus it’s not like you can’t call upon your squad mates to use their more interesting powers when you need them.
If that second playthrough ever becomes a reality, then maybe I’ll mix it up a bit.
I saved Kaidan at Virmire
Look, Ashley is a space racist, and I didn’t really care for her much, based on our interactions in Mass Effect. And, at this point, I quite liked Kaidan as a sort of bland but solid and loyal second-in-command type character.
Plus, from a practical point of view, his biotics were more useful to me.
Sorry Ashley. You do get your name written on the wall inside the Normandy in Mass Effect 3, if that’s any consolation.
Wrex lives!
Well, of course he does. A scenario in which Wrex has to die is not one I’m interested in seeing.
Apparently, there’s a set of circumstances in which Ashley guns Wrex down at Virmire. Ooh, I bet she’d love that.
Everyone survived the suicide mission
I was careful. Extremely careful.
I never trusted Cerberus
I mean, it seemed to be fairly transparently the case that ‘The Illusive Man’ was a nefarious presence, and a dick. Even if he did bring you back to life.
Sorry Martin Sheen, I’m destroying the Collector base.
I’m saving myself for marriage. Or death.
I didn’t pursue any romantic relationships.
In the first game, the flirting all starts a bit too quickly for my liking. Can’t we get to know each other first?
As discussed, Ashley’s space politics are a bit too right wing. Meanwhile, Liara’s approach is a bit weird, too: she’s too earnest and sort of wants to study you and stuff.
In Mass Effect 2, as discussed, my man-Shep seemed like such a colossal mega-dork, potential romance was just too embarrassing.
Once you kind of start getting on with Miranda, it just seems to work better with her as your trusted number two. Meanwhile, Jack has a lot of problems, and it feels a bit wrong, and kind of an abuse of power, to pursue a romance. In fact, that goes for pretty much all these relationships, frankly.
And, I do like Tali, but that’s more like a brother/sister dynamic to me.
I don’t know to what extent you can reinvigorate old relationships in the third game having been so prudish and distant up to that point, but the only thing I did notice was Kaidan behaving extremely weirdly throughout, and it turns out he is now a romantic possibility for a male Shep.
But he’s so awkward and whiny here, harping on about Cerberus and not being able to trust Shepard, I sort of regretted ever saving him in the first place. Then I wondered if by being nice to him and getting him back onto the Normandy I was possibly taking advantage of his feelings and leading him on in some way. Gah!
(Oh, and Steve Cortez? Diana Allers? No, thank you.)
I cured the Genophage
Oh, Mordin!
I brokered peace between the Quarians and Geth
Sorry, Legion.
I panicked a bit at the end
And I chose synthesis. It seemed like what my Paragon man-Shep would do, although I don’t think he really understood what he was doing.
Ah, well. The ending seemed sort of happy, I guess?
And I don’t think my Shep was ever meant to survive it all. Goodnight, bleached prince.
Posts
I reviewed my Xbox achievements, and my choices pretty much mirror yours (except for romance, because achievements). Right down to picking Soldier, which that article around the enhanced edition’s release made it sound like everyone did.
I can’t remember what was so “off” about biotics. Do you have any insight, coming fresh off the games? I remember you could levitate someone out of cover, and maybe bend an orb around cover to get to them, but was that just extra steps compared to “shoot them now with more bang?”
Also if I’m remembering correctly, no one ever stayed in cover in a way that aiming for the part peeking out didn’t work.
Good coverage of the trilogy!
August 22, 2021 @ 4:57 am
I haven’t tried to play as another character class, so I can’t say with any certainty how the main experience differs.
But with that caveat in place… well, your guns are always mapped to the main controls, which kind of makes them feel like they’re integral to what you’re doing in a way that hitting up the menu (or shortcuts) for other powers doesn’t. Those tech and biotic powers can be really cool but it also feels like you’re set up to deploy them in between bouts of blasting.
And as mentioned above, if you take the right squad, it sort of feels like you have access to them anyway.
Plus, asking a squad mate to weaken an enemy using biotics or tech, allowing you to then finish them off with guns, is a viable strategy, but I don’t *think* that if the roles were reversed, it would work as well. If you were to weaken an enemy, could you rely on Ashley, Garrus or James in the same way?
Those are my speculative thoughts! Perhaps it would all be fine. I mean, it’s unlikely to ever happen, but I wouldn’t rule out mixing it up and trying to give it all another go sometime and play in a slightly different way.
August 22, 2021 @ 3:29 pm