THOUGHTS ON THE MASS EFFECT TRILOGY

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**SPOILER ALERT: Major spoilers for Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, and Mass Effect 3 follow.

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Just wanted to address some things before I completely put this trilogy to rest. 

First of all, yeah, I know it’s silly to be this emotionally invested in a game, but I can’t help it with this one. Very few games have made me cry, and far fewer have made me care so deeply. 

After I finished Mass Effect 3, I decided to go back and change my rating of the first game to nine out of ten stars. It felt… wrong, somehow, to have both Mass Effect 2 and 3 be nines, but the original — the basis of everything and everyone I had come to love — to be only an eight. This is a minor, even arbitrary distinction, but it’s important to me. It’s difficult for me to think of these games as standalone texts, even with the length of time between my playthrough of the first game and the last two. Even after all my comments about how a game should stand on its own, I understand a bit better now. Mass Effect isn’t like the other series I’ve played; it’s not a series that tries to profit off of the success of whatever the last game is, at least not from my perspective. To me, it just feels like a good story, restrained where it needs to be and ambitious where it can be. This is the story of Commander Shepard, and of the Normandy and her crew. Ultimately, it is one story; interconnected and woven together at all the right parts. 

I wasn’t always happy with how things played out, but that’s life, isn’t it? Part of what makes this series so good is just that — it’s lifelike in ways I’ve never really seen before. My relationships grew as I sank more and more time into the game, and my feelings responded to actions in the way they would in real life. I couldn’t help but feel resentful of Liara’s absence in the second game, or irate that Ashley wouldn’t trust me. I was concerned for Wrex, but proud of his progress. I felt the weight of every death I was responsible for, and the faces of my lost friends stuck with me longer than most. I fell in love — slowly, curiously, and then all of sudden rushing face-first into the unknown. I laughed when I could, taking joy in the small details of my friends’ lives. I forgave, even when I wasn’t expecting I would.

I grew to care for every member of the Normandy’s crew, past and present. Minor and major. I felt the loss of those who had passed, and even those who had simply moved on. But I also grew to care for Shepard, in a way I never had for any protagonist before. 

I always identify with video game protagonists, to a certain extent. Not in the sense that I imagine them as myself, but more so that I imagine myself to be them. When playing Mass Effect, I embodied Shepard with every part of myself. In this way, I know exactly who she is — and part of what made the game so effective was that others responded to that as well. To know a character so well, and to feel as though you are embodying them, it makes the events around you feel more… personal. My relationships felt real, because in a way, they were. Those characters responded to the actions of my Shepard, not any other, and I responded to those characters in turn. Every event, every minor detail that occurred in this game, was entirely unique to me and my crew. No one else can claim the same experience. 

My Shepard doesn’t know whether to consider herself a good soldier. Or, more accurately, a good Alliance Marine. A good Spectre. She has always been forced to be a soldier, from the time that she was a child. Enlisting in the military merely gave her a formal rank and title. Official orders to follow. But she has been fighting her entire life. Is she a good soldier? She understands the importance of pushing through. Of saying yes, and refusing to waver, even if you feel out of your depth. But she also understands that there are more important things than following orders without question, and as she became older and less tied to the official channels of things, I think her priorities and values shifted as well. The Shepard who fought during the Skillian Blitz is a different Shepard than the one who watched her team die on Akuze. And that Shepard is a different Shepard than the one who went through N7 training, who is a different Shepard than the one that served briefly under Anderson. The Shepard who became the first human Spectre and the captain of the Normandy, who survived the Battle of the Citadel, who was resurrected by Cerberus and destroyed the Collectors, who was arrested for destroying a batarian colony and recruited once again to destroy the Reapers — she is one woman, of course, but she has grown so much, with each new moment in her life defined by all the moments that came before. The Shepard who sacrificed herself to find peace between all organic and synthetic life did so because everything she went through built the person she was in that moment. And that person couldn’t have made any other choice. 

My Shepard has had to fight her entire life, but at heart, she is a peacemaker. She cares too much about people, has too much compassion and empathy to be anything else. At times, she wishes she could be more ruthless. Those who do not know her might assume her to be — they mistake conviction for ruthlessness. But Shepard is not ruthless, not really. She’s just not naive. She can sense the moments where she can’t afford to hesitate, can’t afford to be kind and trusting. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t. A truly ruthless person wouldn’t have given up all that she could to cure the genophage, or to help the geth achieve self-actualization. A truly ruthless person wouldn’t have diverted all of her resources and attention to the needs of her crew, her allies, her friends. But my Shepard did. She doesn’t consider herself to be a hero, doesn’t see the point in exaggerating her heroic actions and diminishing the terrible things she’s done. She feels honoured by the public’s admiration of her, but understands the reservations of those she has hurt or slighted. She wishes to let the facts speak for themselves, but part of her is a bit prideful. She cares about the truth, which means getting credit for the things she has done — good and bad. Facing off against her clone is the perfect example of this; she isn’t willing to entertain the idea that her clone is a superior version of herself, because the clone has not been through everything she has. The clone wasn’t there on Akuze, or on the Citadel, or on the Collector ship. The clone doesn’t have the friends and allies and enemies that Shepard does. Those are the things that make Shepard. Not genetics or skill with a rifle. 

I’ve never cared this much for a protagonist. Never wanted so badly for a protagonist to survive. I believe Shepard deserved a better end, but ultimately, she wouldn’t have made any other choice. When she went up there, to the Catalyst, I know that all she wanted was to make it back alive — to make it back to Garrus. But after everything she had been through, there was no way she could have resolved to destroy all synthetic life. She couldn’t do that to the geth, and she certainly couldn’t do that to EDI. And I don’t believe she would’ve trusted herself to control the Reapers in death. One person pulling on all the strings, the galaxy subject to their whims? She wouldn’t want to become another Illusive Man. Synthesis between organics and synthetics was the only real option. But rather than being filled with a sense of pride, or peace, all Shepard could think — all I could think — was of Garrus, and how badly she wished she could come back to him. 

I think it’s safe to say that Garrus was one of my favourite parts of the Mass Effect trilogy. There are other moments, of course, that moved me as well. As I mentioned, Shepard is one of the best — if not the best — video game protagonists I’ve ever played with. And I grew to care about each and every member of the Normandy’s crew. Moments like Wrex’s thanking me for being a friend to the krogan, an ally to Clan Urdnot, and like a sister to him? Like Thane and his son saying a prayer for me on his deathbed? Like Tali taking off her helmet for the first time since I’ve known her, standing on her lost homeworld? Like watching my entire crew fight for me when my clone was trying to steal my identity? All the sacrifices I’ve had to witness: Kaidan, Kasumi, Miranda, Mordin, Thane, Legion, and all the other people who put their trust in me? Those moments moved me, deeply. Because of my connection to Shepard, and the amount of time I’ve invested into each one of these characters and all the events of this galaxy — as I’ve said, I feel like I’ve never cared this much before. 

At the end of it all, I think I regret only three choices. Everything else, I can accept — even if they were unbearably difficult or led to something I didn’t expect, even if they would’ve saved someone further down the line — because I can’t imagine Shepard choosing to do anything else. So just three choices, one from each game, stand out to me as things that, if she could, Shepard would go back and change. Everything else, I believe we stand by. 

The first choice I regret is not so much a choice but rather a series of choices, or lack of choices, I suppose. In the first Mass Effect game, I prioritized all of the main missions and didn’t really play through any side missions or activities. Part of the reason Mass Effect was only an eight stars for me was this; the organization of the various side missions and activities wasn’t as effective as it could be, in my opinion. The sense of urgency from the main missions turned me away from minor, less immediate tasks. This means I missed a lot of content in the first game, and I believe my overall experience would have been enriched had I been a part of these events that I missed. 

The second choice I regret is a simple one, but weighs on me more than any other. Shepard, in my mind, would’ve given anything to go back to the assault and just make one tiny change: assign Jacob to lead the second strike team, not Miranda. Had I done this, I would’ve saved both Miranda and Kasumi. I shouldn’t have put her in that position. I definitely carry the burden of that decision on my shoulders. It stuck with me a lot longer than I expected it to.

Finally, the last choice I regret is a bit of a silly one. Honestly, I only wish I had waited a bit longer before completing the clone-adjacent missions on the Citadel. I couldn’t have predicted how those missions would’ve played out, but had I waited just a bit longer — I could have had Tali with me during that mission, with the rest of the crew, and I could’ve invited her and Jacob and Samara to my party afterwards. They could’ve been in that photo hanging on my wall. I know, just a minor, frivolous thing. But Tali has been with me for so long that I regret she wasn’t there. 

I can’t help but notice again, these regrets all revolve around these characters and how deeply I care for them. And of course, at the heart of it all, there’s Garrus. 

Oh, Garrus. It’s such a silly thing, to be so emotionally invested in a fictional relationship between two fictional characters. I’ve played a lot of games, experienced more romance arcs than I can count, and found a lot of love interests that I really, genuinely liked a lot. But something about Garrus is different. I can’t tell if it’s just that I’ve spent so many hours with these games, with Garrus accompanying me on nearly every mission, that he’s just become so familiar to me — or perhaps it really is the way he talks to Shepard and the context of their relationship. The narrative arc there is so special to me, and I think it mimics my experience as a player to the point where I feel like I’ve genuinely been through these experiences with him. I think the fact that I got to make so many choices, both within the specific context of a romantic relationship and outside of that, as well as the fact that the game is so good at responding to your choices, that this relationship felt so lifelike and dynamic. It’s not just choosing to explore a romantic arc with a given character, and then following the same, relatively linear path as anyone else would. I understand that ultimately, there are restrictions on what you can say and what you can do, but my choices felt like they mattered. I felt like everything I said to him, and everything he said in turn to me, really built our relationship as allies and as friends and as lovers. It’s little things, like the fact that I trusted him immediately after meeting him and chose to work very closely with him. Or the fact that I knew he went off the grid very shortly after I died. Or the fact that I knew, intuitively, that he was Archangel, just after reading a very brief profile. It’s the fact that the flirting started off so subtle, and that we both wanted so badly for the other person to be happy — for both of us to be happy, and wondering if we could find that with each other, even if it was unexpected, because we had come to trust each other so implicitly. It’s the fact that he stood by me during it all, even during the hardest decisions and the scariest moments, and that we were able to truly commit to each other and be there to comfort each other at the very end. It’s the fact that he could’ve died so many times — and that my efforts, our efforts, were enough to save both of us. It’s the fact that we pushed each other in order to get through the war, promising each other a future was waiting for us once it was all over. It’s the fact that we were able to agree to meet up in the afterlife, if that’s the only future that was waiting, and that we each insisted that the other make it out alive, already mourning their absence before it was even there. It’s the fact that the very last thing I said to him was a reminder of how much I loved him, and how I would always love him no matter what happened. It’s the fact that the very last thing he said to me was that he loved me too. 

I know that it’s a lot. It’s stupid, and silly, and it’s just a game. But if there’s one thing that video games have taught me, it’s that they can really pack a punch — and I maintain that they can hit you way harder than a non-interactive medium. Mass Effect is a really, really great example of that punch. It’s easy, in the moment, to say that this has never been done before, that you’ve never felt this way before. But truly, Mass Effect hit me in so many ways that I truly struggle to remember if any other games have as well. Have I ever loved a protagonist as much as I love Shepard? Have I ever been so giddy and enamoured with a love interest as I am with Garrus? Have I ever loved a crew so deeply as the Normandy’s, even to the point of caring about and trusting those I initially disliked or had doubts about? Have I ever felt this guilty about and weighed down by character deaths? I’m sure the answer to at least some of these is yes, but right now, in this moment, I’m content to imagine that this is the best and the worst I have ever felt. 

As I mentioned at the beginning of this, I gave the entire Mass Effect trilogy nine stars out of ten, going so far as to even change the rating of the first game because of how inseparable the three games have become in my mind. But what is stopping me from giving them ten stars? At this moment, I’ve only given three games this elusive top ranking: Far Cry 4, Hades, and Unpacking. But as I’ve said, Mass Effect feels like a series with so many firsts, a depth of emotional investment unlike any I’ve ever felt. And I keep thinking back to my thoughts on the first game and that eight-star rating; does it even feel fair to give ten stars to a game that five months ago I was relatively ambivalent about? Does it feel fair to give each of the games unique ratings when it’s such a tightly woven trilogy? I look at my other nine-star ratings: my top five Ubisoft titles, Grand Theft Auto V, and Night Call. Does the Mass Effect trilogy feel like it belongs among these? Or does it surpass them where it matters? After all, part of what is holding me back is all of the minor issues I had with the trilogy; problems with the organization of missions or the complex levelling and upgrading systems. Have I been this critical for other games? I can’t help but think of how I really didn’t care for Night Call’s taxi mechanics, or how much I disliked Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag’s ending. And yet these have such high ratings — because other parts made up for these flaws. Doesn’t the emotional weight of Mass Effect make up for its negligible flaws? 

I return once again to my rating guidelines: a nine-star and a ten-star are both indicative of a favourite game of mine, set apart from other games by some kind of “gut-punch moment”. I find a nine-star rating as the epitome of this sentiment, described simply as “had a gut punch-moment, definitely a favourite”. Whereas a ten-star takes it a step further, in my typical dramatic fashion: “Absolutely sickening, one of my favourites of all time, life-changing”. So I suppose, here lies the question. 

Was the Mass Effect trilogy life-changing?

… I believe I have answered my own question.