Not gonna lie, as I get older and don't (cant) have kids, listening to a one sided conversation addressed to a father figure about a mutual interest is greatly appreciated. Please keep up the great work! 👍
Same here. I love Garrus. I never romanced him as my female Shepard, because her heart belongs to Kaidan, but he is the best friend with an amazing delivery. The line “there is no Shepard without Vakarian” made me weep and by the time I finished the game, I didn’t stop crying. Masterful game trilogy.
I generally find myself wanting to renegade any ME playthrough, but I can never go 100% in any direction, I usually end up with about an 80/20 split. It may end up hurting your max score for Paragon/Renegade, but I think the best playthroughs actually are somewhere in the middle, where you just choose the answer you like best/how you would answer if you were Shepard. You're still always able to save Wrex, romance whomever, its all just adds yet another layer to a universe where things aren't black and white...or blue and red for that matter
@@YourFavoriteSon1 oh yes usually so, but many you can always still get regardless of what path you've chosen, like doing a full paragon run and still punching the reporter lol. Honestly I think the only time it benefits to go full hog is for the VERY hard alignment checks at the end game
Totally agree, I very much play as a Paragon in general but I selected the 'Ruthless' background, killed Wrex and let the Council die at the end. My version of Shepard came across as a good, well-meaning guy but he was willing to get his hands dirty when needs be for the greater good.
As long as you're a completionist there is some wriggle room that allows you the freedom to mix things up. I usually go mostly renegade but skip a few of the more sociopathic choices.
There's a glitch in the game (even the remastered version) that will allow for unlimited renegade or paragon points. I use it every time I play so I can make whatever choices I want. Google it if ur interested
Oh no! I suppose I have to replay the whole series again so I can have it fresh in my memory while you go through the series. Truly a tragic fate. Good job, son.
I love your Renegade commentary! it's a shame you didn't play one character as FemShep, Jennifer Hale's performance is top-notch but I can also understand why you kept things consistent. I can't wait for ME2.
Fem shep is just not fun. I usually play women over men characters in RPGs and this is the one game I just can’t do it. I hate femshep. I hate her voice.
I always picked what I waited to say or do in mass effect. This made for an interesting character. I played a female shepherd that was the both the nicest person in the world and a monster no one wanted to piss of become she would drop kick you out s window or pouch a report in the face. It turned out rule interesting in mass effect 2 and 3 .
Just doing this to correct some narrative mistakes. Many of them don't amount to much but I thought it important to correct these as technically they are still mistakes. 20:00 Barla Von isn't a shadow broker but an information broker who works FOR the Shadow Broker. 20:40 Wrex didn't kill Fist because of a feud between him and Fist but because it was his job to do so. He even says as much right after the execution. 24:03 The Consort isn't just what you implied (though she is that too) but also a therapist, psychologist, and others as well. Essentially whatever a client needs/wants to relieve their stress she provides. This is why when you ask the human bartender at the embassies about her he doesn't quite know how to describe her. Just mentions that "If you haven't hear of her yet, you soon will." and "She is an important person but also very respected."
Just discovered this video....very well done. It may be an unpopular opinion, but Mass effect 1 is my favorite of the trilogy. It's the most RPGish of the 3, and the story and world building is top notch. I'll be checking out your other mass effect videos. Thanks for your efforts!
I've been waiting for you to cover the Mass Effect games. I've never had the chance to play them when they were new but the universe and characters did intrigue me. It's interesting hearing someone else talk about the world, characters and how they interacted with the narrative.
Nuts, I just started a new playthrough - first of the Legendary Edition - this weekend. First time I played it in, I wanna say, nine years. And the muscle memory I got slipping back into the groove of things was immense. For a game I didn't take to right away - impatience and ignorance on my part, due to treating it like a Gears of War clone - it grew on me with repeated playing and I got to love it's immersive world and likeable characters. Oh, and FemShep is OnlyShep
In retrospect and with multiple playthroughs, I can definitely say that the 1st Mass Effect is my favorite in the trilogy (even before the Legendary Edition). How they introduced you to the world, its inhabitants, the sense of mystery and exploration has no equal for me to this day. And even if it was really simple and quite barebone, I really like the way you explore the galaxy and the many uncharted planets, it's just the unknown and emptiness of space that is fascinating to me, not like in other sci-fi franchises where every planet is full of life and host of aliens species, sometimes you just don't find anything but the empty void of space and that is really appealing to me. And I'll add something, playing as a renegade in ME1 is one of the best and funniest things in gaming, especially with a femshep 😂
Oooooo man the hype is real for this. Just played through Legendary Edition after not having touched the games since high school. They're still excellent! Excited for your thoughts.
Would be nice to not have to hear an in- game character's name get mispronounced over and over. Sounds like someone wrote the script for you to read from, if you don't know Kaiden's name
Son, now we can finally start using you in Mass Effect memes! Dad: "Son" Son: "Dad" Dad: "Son" Son: "Dad" ME always had an odd place in my heart. By time the second game came out I considered it one of the best sci-fi stories ever told. There was practically nothing about it that I actually disliked. Then 3 came around and it suddenly dawned on me how quick and easy it is to make someone despise something they had previously considered a lifelong love. 3 had a lot of what made the previous 2 so great and then some, but the narrative plotholes, inconsistencies with the rest of the franchise, and outright denying the primary theme of the previous two games (personally surviving the impossible) made it thoroughly unenjoyable by the end. It's crazy how much a couple of bad cut scenes sprinkled throughout the game and the entire ending made me do a 180 on something I loved- something literally no other franchise has ever managed to make me do. It'll be one heck of a fun ride listening to you tackle the rest of the games though. Especially Andromeda lol.
I love how there's a document that shows how all the choices played out on average from all the players in the Mass effect series. With female soldier Shepherd ending up with liara and killing Caden being the most common outcome.
Twitter just hasn't been showing me your posts so I didn't actually know this was the next series. (I'm one of the weird ones that liked Andromeda the best. Story wise it wasn't that great, but gameplay wise it's 100% the best)
@@YourFavoriteSon1 I'm not going to defend their decision to use college, or students or whatever they used for the Animations cause it was dumb. But I liked it and do think it's at least worth a try. It's just a shame the story remains incomplete because the DLC got scrapped. If EA didn't do their usual EA BS, Andromeda would have been much better
I finished playing the Legendary Edition, after my husband told me I would love the game. He was right. Now, I am replaying it on insanity mode and I am completely hyped about the fourth one. I played the female Shepard and all the characters were so well developed, I hope I see them all again in Mass Effect 4. Lovely video.
Same thing happened to me. My guy told me to play cuz he thought I would love the games. He was right. Who did you decide to romance? 😅 Garrus is my boy 👀
@@nataliem86 I romanced Kaiden. I love Garrus, but I always felt there was just a friendly quality between them. I especially liked the fact that Kaiden didn't go with her in the second one. It gave depth to their relationship, since love also means staying true to your morals. I felt that he was a more serious romance. Garrus is the guy you flirt with. For me, Kaiden was her rock. Someone she could break down and have him bring her back up. Cheers.
Sorry for the late viewing, The moment I saw you start playing the first three again, I went back and played them. watching your renegade synopsis made my day. "She unlocked the doors to his base, she wanted to leave. Not on my watch." 😆
I do actually think you're doing a disservice to the amazing writing and voice work for FemShep by not playing as her in one of your alternate (in this case Renegade) playthough. I played MaleShep for years but when I played FemShep it was a while new experience cross the Trilogy.
I love Mass Effect but I've only completed it twice, and I played the original a year or two after it's release and the subsequent games day one. Bought the PS4 version a while back and this is just making me hype to play it when I get home this week.
I thoroughly enjoyed your renegade roleplay! I dislike people being edgy and roleplaying evil from the get go, but as a comparison to the Good roleplay, it was amazing.
I have done so many play throughs of all three, and currently doing another trilogy run but with the legendary edition. Truly a great series, one of my favorites. I always did paragon/maleshep and renegade/femshep, lots of fun. These retrospectives are so good
idk why but the opening made me laugh and slam my desk, I think it was the pause "Mass Effect is a game series". TRUE!!! Joking aside, super comfy vid.
I just replayed the trilogy not that long ago. Originally I never finished ME1 (when it first came out) and besides some technical flaws, I'd say it's tied for 2nd with ME3 imo. ME2 is still the best one (even though I know some ppl didn't like the direction of more action vs. RPG)
I have very cherished memories about this game from when I was younger. For context: My father doesn't play play video games. Or if he does he doesn't get really far with them. Either too busy or just no interest despite my small attempts to get him interested in the hobby. But to each their own. Anyways, we had gotten this game randomly I don't remember from where. I know we didn't buy it but I think we rented it, I want to say from Gamefly (anyone else remember that?). I didn't have much interest in the game myself, I liked the aesthetic but at the time rpgs didn't appeal to my gotta go fast COD brain at the time and the combat was meh at best but my dad started playing it. My curiosity to watch wasn't for the game itself but rather just to see my dad play a video game. I don't know for how long, it felt like several weeks but was prolly just a week or so I'd watch him play it every night in the living room. One time, he had been sitting on the ottoman in one spot for so long that it broke and you could feel the piece of wood that had snapped to the day we threw that out. He accidently managed to romance Liara, I'm pretty sure Wrex bit a bullet, and I think Kaiden died. And when he was done we gave the game back and I still hadn't really played the game and didn't like what I had played. Fast forward to today: Mass Effect is my favorite gaming trilogy of all time with no other game series even coming close. I have played through all three games so many times that to measure my time spent in them isn't in the dozens of hours but rather the hundreds. Bought the games about as many times as Todd Howard has sold us Skyrim. I know the games backwards, forwards, up, down, left, and right. I make yearly pilgrimages through the trilogy, and all companions in other games I compare to Mass Effect companions (Tali/Garrus are the GOAT and I will die on this hill). And I feel like I owe this in no small part to that playthrough my dad went through so many years ago of this game. And even before the legendary edition came and made some much appreciated quality of life changes, I still held Mass Effect 1 in a special place in my nostalgia driven heart because of that journey. Also before anyone asks, no my father has not played any of the other games much to my chagrin. Though he has has watched me play them from time to time. Not like how I watched a full playthrough back in the day though just bits and pieces. Probably for the best, I fear my innate desire to backseat game would take over since I know the games so much.
We need to have a word, son. I think you are being objectively unfair completely dismissing morality of mass effect as black and white. Chad Shepard from my universe was a sort of chaotic good type flawed hero, and ended up with max paragon points, but also plenty of paragon points. I think you're so locked in on exploring paragon and renegade playthroughs and miss out on finer points of morality choices and perspective which would have been interesting to hear
I started a playthough a few days ago. My first playthough on the legendary edition, but my fourth overall of the first one. I have literally never heard of your channel before nor have i seen any of your videos. I wanted to listen to a retrospective while i was knocking out uncharted worlds and the part where your going over your character creation choices is _absolutely_ uncanny. You and I made _the exact_ same choices, every. single. one. of them, the default appearance, the name, the gender, class, psyche, background, paragon, identical. Its bizarre.
Renegade playthroughs are the most entertaining playthrough in the series, me and my brother was playing these games on launch, and he always go for Paragon, it makes me play renegade by default. We both watch each other's play so we know what happens each path. 😂
Kinda cracks me up that in his Paragon playthrough he chose to save the alien-hating racist who talks back and in the Renegade playthrough he kept Kaidan, who is thoughtful and dedicated to the mission and worries about doing what's right.
Playing both sides of the narrative both in the game and in your retelling is fantastic. Personally I always enjoyed playing the game more in the shades of gray but telling the story as diametric but equally as potential universes really heightens the drama. There are 3 moments in particular in the next two games I am interested in seeing the difference in how John and Jacoby justify their actions.
My personal favorite and most played trilogy besides perhaps halo trilogy since I play them with my boy almost everyday but this series too me has the best story lore and characters. Hope m4 does our patients justice but I expect it to be shit but hoping to be far off wrong
There are multiple minor mistakes in the history lesson. If you are interested in the lore I suggest you read the wikis available online or search for other videos on this platform. Edit: ok it's not just that part. The video has many errors when it comes to story and lore.
I never played the series before. I just started playing the first one from the legendary edition and I’m hooked. Love everything about the game so far