Mass Effect Series: A Beloved Franchise Treated Like a Battered Housewife 

YO, WHY THE FUCK AM I JUST NOW SEEING THAT RU-vid DELETED MY PINNED COMMENT WITH ALL THE MUSIC I USED FOR THIS VIDEO?

"Doesn't take long to realize the Galaxy is run by idiots-" Most realistic thing about the Mass Effect series.

Synthetic ending: “well boys, we did it, we ended racism”

In fairness to Tali recognizing Shepard even if he's in a full helmet, I'd assume Quarians are really, really good at recognizing people in full face helmets.

The only dumb thing about Leviathan is that the supposed elder gods of the universe are only worth like 400 in war assets like wtf

It's exactly as George R. R. Martin said. Just because your audience found out the butler did it ahead of time is no reason to change it so that the maid did it instead. You just make a mess of the entire story.

Harbinger calling Shepard the n word should be cannon

"You exist because we allow it. You will die because we command it." Is like my favorite fucking line from a badguy of all time. Sovereign is such an immeasurably cool villain.

- Discover massive Cthulhu-like Alien Gods who have telepathic powers and literally created the Reapers. - War assets increased by 400

Sorry, my face is tired from dealing with everything

"Ahoy Ryder me boy, I just overdosed on Ketamine, and I'm about to die!" - Alec Ryder, Mass Effect: Andromeda.

For all it's faults ME3 did a fantastic job of making you feel the weight of everything. Had some of the best story moments in the series.

I still hate how they changed the ending of mass effect 3 over a single leak

The sad part is, they probably decided to remaster Mass Effect because all of their recent games are bunch of failures Mass Effect Trilogy : *_"You couldn't live with your own failure. Where did that bring you? Back to me"_* 56:30 I was expecting her chest to expand bigger and bigger, dang it -"We'll bang ok?"- xD

James is the only character in Mass Effect that actually acts like a Marine.

15:05 Actually due to their near immortal lives, “magic” prowess, and always attractive appearance Asari are much closer to the space elves. While it’s a bit weird to say Quarians are closer to space dwarves, they’re mechanics capable of creating automatons and technology above most other species and usually stay within their own isolated culture.

The image of a ptsd-riddled quarian thrown into a bdsm dungeon to be subjected by the tender mercies of the lords of the locker rooms will forever haunt and arouse me.

Never forget Marauder Shields.

Omg that reaper roasting Shepard in lamars voice was pure gold

Also, Shepard danced a lot better in Mass Effect 1; I mean A LOT better, especially female Shepard. She knew how to move it.

Your ideas for Andromeda are so good it hurts. Seeing Mass Effect return to a more RPG focused game like 1 and double-down on the Star Trek influence is a dream for me. Too bad it's never happening, probably.

feels bad for North Koreans, they can't watch the video.

Liara about to enjoy a nice meal. Javik right out of the corner: Tell me Assari, don't your people pray to their gods before they eat? Well, I'm waiting.

Another absolutely infuriating detail that gets overlooked in the ending? One of those mindless fetch quests involves locating a device capable of detecting Reaper signatures. The story goes that you secure it and have it sent to the Crucible so that not only can it detect Reapers anywhere in the galaxy, but it can also SPECIFICALLY target THOSE signatures when the time comes. This is such an enormous plothole that the community effectively had to just handwaved it away by saying the Reaper Code the Geth and EDI use is enough to get them targeted, despite the fact that nowhere in the game does it actually state that.

The random acts of violents joke in the Citadel DLC was a damn gem

Me in ME1: Hey Tali how come the Quarians were never considered to be on the council? Me in ME2: Okay well glad we cleared that up

Hopefully they give Tali a non-stock google image face reveal this time around

That "because it's a big stupid jellyfish" caught me completely off gaurd

Fun fact about Pinnacle Station: the code for that DLC was so corrupt, it couldn't be brought onto the PlayStation or Legendary Editions of the game. It can only be found on original Xbox 360 versions of Mass Effect.

I actually think citadel is a really good "quiet moment" for the game. Its kind of a fun-time relaxed breath-break. No space-smashing bullshit, just a bit of fun times. And most importantly we finally get to see our beloved crew outside of action and mortal peril. Their personalites is the highlight of this dlc in my opinion. Sure it didn't have to be a dlc, but its EA so duh.

the "Because AI" = The reapers are malfunctioning roomba's.

I always tell new players they need to save Jenkins at all costs

I'm a huge Mass Effect fan and a huge Lovecraftian horror fan, yet I've never heard the whole thing about 3's original ending. The pain of 3's ending has now doubled.

You gave Red shirt Jenkins the respect he deserves. Rest in digital peace

"Mass Effect 5 will stay in Andromeda" man did that age poorly

The Almighty Loli: "I don't want to talk about the Mako." The Mako: My superiority seems to have caused some controversy.

The Reaper telling Shepard to do something about his yiggy ass hair cut is now my favorite moment of Mass Effect of all time.

ME 1: Every race, creature, etc could be a friend or foe. ME 2: Collectors mostly, but occasionally you fight a range of baddies. ME 3: Geth, Reapers, and Cerberus. Every time. No room for variation.

Jenkins full name is Richard L. Jenkins. The "L" stands for "Leeroy". And NOW you know why he didn't survive...

No matter how you try to fix it, Andromeda's only reason to exist is to run away from the endings. And ME4 takes place in our galaxy again, so Andromeda is 100% irrelevant. We should all just make believe it never happened.

Sincerely i just wanted to have an epilogue after the ending of the story showing up Shepard and Tali happy together, or whoever Shepard has formed a romantic relationship with.

Little note on the first contact war: The Turians found some humans trying to turn on a relay. Highly illegal as that started the Rakni wars. The turians fired upon the humans, the humans returned to their colony, The Turians GLASSED the colony. Thus beginning the First contact war

"The Drell seem specifically designed to make teenage girls fall head over heels." *Glances over at the Asari.* Y-yeah. The Mass Effect series hasn't been known to do anything like that before...

Oh my god, EA is the reapers, every 50,000 hours they come and harvest a studio, perverting it and making it a hollow synthetic shell of itself before ultimately leaving it to die and rot or keeping it around as a hollow slave.

I love Zaeed, one of my favourite characters in the series, i was disappointed that he wasnt a party member in me3, i would have preferred him over vega.

"Space Lobsters" Jordan Peterson: *Heavy Breathing*

Interesting . . .

In defense of sabotaging the Genophage (which I never will because Wrex lives), it’s only a viable option if Wrex dies. Because if Wreav is in control (because Wrex does on Virmire$), then you can actually get both the Krogan & Salarian support.

I think they never should have promised that "your choises matter" and write all these different endings to the trilogy. The choises should have been limited to the crew mates and their stories and Shepards personality. The grand plot should have been set in stone so they could have written something that actually makes sense at the end of it all.

"There are very clear good and bad decisions." I agree. Letting the council live is a huge mistake.

"Also there's the Mako. I don't want to talk about the Mako." A whole ass mood, but also we gotta love the Mako.

I am not a big Mass effect guy. Finding out about how the ending was changed literally made me start yelling.

"Fix the ending." My first thought exactly. I think that's literally the one and only thing fans of this series actually want to see. A total rewrite of the last two hours or so of ME3 would not only attract old and new fans alike, but it'd pump some much needed life back into the series.

Hope they keep that ME:1 glitch where you gain infinite paragon or renegade points by repeating the conversation with lorik quin

I couldn’t stop laughing at 47:00 when Harbinger says what we’re all feeling at this point in Arrival 😂

I hadn't heard of the whole 'Dark Energy destroyinf reality' thing until now, and that's so much better.

God, that dark energy ending could be SO GOOD. Hearing it like this, it sounds fucking amazing. Can't believe they threw it out just because people spoiled it.

I’m so glad that you mentioned ENDING THE GETH-QUARIAN WAR. I was like “God Child I have definitive proof that you’re absolutely wrong”.

Omega feels like something that would've been cool if the writing were as strong as the first game's. Gradually make choices throughout the DLC that actually influence who gets to control Omega. You could overthrow Aria and allow Nyreen and her gang to run the show, get it back into Aria's hands, or maybe let the Cerberus guy keep it (assuming you could side with Cerberus at all in this game but I digress.) It's just too linear for its own good, which is a shame because it feels like it could've been much less so but someone at Bioware really couldn't stand the thought of being able to fuck with Aria and get away with it.

I'd say the Arrival DLC was really good mainly due to the fact that you get to kill 300,000 batarians

There WERE some "good" renegade moments. Like when you headbutted the Krogan during Grunt's trial.

I will be honest, before the "endings" of Mass Effect 3, I thought the Crucible would turn the Citadel into a giant gun to shoot asteroids at the Reapers.

Now that I think about it, wouldn’t ME2 been more interesting if shepherd was actually a clone with tailored memories planted by Cerberus? You would cold open in the facility, no clue about the Normandy’s destruction, and would be gaslighted by the writers about the events that led to the opening of ME2. Cerberus operatives would “stick to the script” about how Cerberus were actually “the good guys” who saved shepherd when (s)he was critically injured on a patrol in the Terminus Systems after the events of ME1 because the council wanted to keep him/her in a remote area while they handled the aftermath of the Citadel attack. You could have had one of the operatives slip up and say something they weren’t supposed to say, and have Miranda “accidentally” kill them in a mildly suspect method. “The robots were hacked” She would say, as they begin to attack the other crew. This, of course, would be a blatant lie. What the truth is would have to be sinister, with elements of truth to it for Cerberus to “justify”. How the Council are bumbling fools that almost led to the end of sapient life in the galaxy. How Cerberus wasn’t associated with the horrid experiments of ME1, that were falsely associated with them as “propaganda” by the Alliance forces to scapegoat Cerberus due to their open rejection of the Council so the Alliance could get in bed with them. The mission to the crash site could have contained clues that showed Cerberus lied to you about the nature of the attack. Fuck, you could make all of these elements have an aspect of truth to them to really fuck with the audience. You would play through as bits of truth slowly emerged, creating a dramatic irony for players of ME1 and a sense of paranoia in newer players. It could have been a true evolution of storytelling within the series that showed you a completely new perspective on the shiny and chrome future that the first game presented. Before anyone says anything, I’m a few pints in and I have a basic idea of what I would want from a sequel. I love you all, fuck you, and I hope you have something interesting to add to my drunken ramblings. Goodnight.

Also fun fact "Red shirt" Jenkins is also the mo cap actor for commander Shepard.

"I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite domestic abuse video on the citadel."

Also, the largest sin here is that ME:A got the Titanfall treatment. That is to say, it seems like the publisher literally tried to sabotage the devs. Oh, you won't to release your cool FPS? how about we release it within weeks of new CoD AND Battlefield releases? Oh, you want to make a third person RPG? well you have to use the Frostbite engine, an engine that is designed for first person shooting. It doesn't have any inventory management, party AI, facial animation OR even fucking advanced character animation. WHAT. THE FUCK. WERE THEY THINKING?!?

Tali'sAss in 4k..... WIN! There's nothing that can make Andromeda good.

“I killed asari commandos in the first game, they ain’t shit!” Me1 noobs: Take that shit back now!

So the Reapers were originally the Anti-Spirals? We definitely got the worst timeline.

"We need more money, here's a remaster!" lol

I'm also deeply glad that I let Veetor leave with Tali instead of letting Cerberus torture him

Asari theory debunk attempt: it’s implied that Asari have some innate genetic trait to attract other species with certain physical aspects. Turians: head fringe Salarians: Eyes or head Humans: their figure But the Asari still have one immutable form. We see it literally in concrete on Thessia with their religious statues. We also see their form digitally in advert screens. So unless Asari biology can morph itself both in concrete sculptures and digital surveillance they really do look like that. That same bar scene in ME2 have the guys remark at certain physical traits of that Asari dancer. But the Turian never said she had scales, or the Salarian say she had bulbous eyes. Hope this reassures people. If not then ask the devs on Twitter or something.

Let's just hope that by "modernize," EA doesn't mean "monetize."

The concept of the Andromeda Initiative is exactly what I wanted the Crucible to be in Mass Effect 3 back when I finished it. A desperate gamble to evacuate what's left before the Reapers finally find the last holdout. A generation ship, basically, with the intent of leaving the galaxy, hoping the Reapers won't just pursue them to Andromeda. Hell, even I hated the whole Cerberus becoming saturday morning cartoon villains, and wished we had an option to work with them or the Alliance/Council. If the Crucible were a generation ship, choosing Cerberus or Alliance/Council could mean whether or not you wanted to allow every race aboard it (and all the problems that would involve), or go with the Cerberus and only allow humans on it. But yeah, Tali's recruitment mission really had me intrigued about that sun, and I wanted to know more. I am so sad they ditched that idea in favour of a weak premise. BioWare these days really has that undesirable trait of thinking they're way more clever than they actually are.

I know this was a ton of work but DAMN- this was fantastic! I would love it if you did more long-form review videos like this. Keep killing it, dude!

I'm putting this here... The Overheat mechanic without ammo was better than going back to "space" guns. Shit, give me a phaser. And when was the last time you saw a storm trooper reload?

Mass Effect isn't a battered housewife... she's a zombie at this point. They killed her. This is just them shambling the corpse around.

>Also there's the Mako >I don't wanna talk about the Mako I rewatched this moment 10 times in a row and still can't help laughing

I was passively watching this at work after beating Legendary Edition. I nearly spat out my drink with that Harbinger ’Lamar’ GTA bit.

Miranda is described as 'OnlyFans highest earning user'... seems like you are a man of culture. Subbed.

I really want the remastered collection to have the scrapped alternate ending as an actual ending

One of the things that always bothered me about hoodie wearing god child is that the writing tries to pretend that the reapers are an unfeeling agent of order that maintain the universe, but throughout the whole trilogy every reaper you talk to actively hates you and takes pleasure in your destruction. Like we’re supposed to just forget about that and assimilate/control them...destroy is the only ending

Oh, and for ME2 it has the fact that you can ""Link suit environments"" with Tali.

Not gonna lie as much as I like Fallout New Vegas and "true" RPGs, I much more enjoyed the story driven "You are playing this character" approach than the standard RPG layout when it came to Mass Effect.

There will NEVER be another series like Mass Effect, which makes all the stumbles and f*ck ups of 3 hurt all the more.

"Is brought to you by 'random acts of violence'." I chuckled.

Yes, I do all the loyalty missions and kill off Jacob regardless. Jacob yearns for the vents. It's his destiny. Who are we to deny him?

Can’t say I’ve ever seen anyone talk shit about the Citadel DLC before

Cerberus was by far the biggest disappointment for me in mass effect 3. The ending pales in comparison. Great the ends justify the means character turned into generic villain.

I never considered just how much the firs mission of Mass effect accomplishes. In A few hours it effectively sets up the universe, the main character, the mechanics, the personal stakes of the protagonist, the villain, and the events the propel the rest of the story. This is all pretty basic stuff that writers SHOULD do, but the lack of this kind of setup in more recent games just speaks to the decline of writing in games.

47:03 didn't know sovereign got indoctrinated by Lamar

It took me a long time and plenty of Fan Fiction to get over the ending of ME3, but low and behold I ran across the new trailer. Now I’ve replayed the entire series again from scratch and damn it just hits raw all over again. And here I am binging Mass Effect videos on RU-vid! Lmao, this game is so emotionally investing, I love & hate it!

All I want them to add is a proper 3D and animated face reveal for Tali at the end of the Rannoch mission in ME3. That'd literally be all the reasons I need to buy the remaster.

Shepard: "You brought me here to confirm what you already know." Me: "The remake is here."

I love Zaeed he is like your PTSD war uncle who tells war stories around the holidays

Dude it's like you took all of my thoughts and feelings about this franchise and distilled them into a single video. Holy shit! Amazing. I did believe Cerberus was always gonna turn out evil and bad and never really believed in saving humanity (at least not in the way that we intended) so I wasn't surprised there but your point still stands that they could've had more depth to them.

I wouldn't say Mass Effect is an abused housewife, it is more to that of a band. They were popular, in a local way, then got super popular let that get to their heads, took a load of drugs and ended up in a ditch. A tribute band tried to come along and instead the lead singer projectile vomited onto the audience. That is Mass Effect in a nutshell.

I'm commander shepard and this is my favorite channel on RU-vid.

Still coming back to watch this gem, thank you for all your hard work.

I love that the entire fanbase agrees Tali is best girl.