Mass Effect 3 > Mass Effect 2

If You Think Mass Effect 2 is the Best in the Trilogy, You Are Sadly Mistaken

So, clickbaity controversial opinion stated, now time to back up my assertion with critical reasoning! (By which I mean: unfounded claims and generalised opinions.)

Now, cards on the table: I haven’t yet bought Mass Effect Legendary Edition, although I have every intention to--once I’ve worked through the backlog of PS4 games I still need to finish in the hangover of last gen consoles. The last time I played a Mass Effect game (excluding Andromeda, which, once again an unpopular opinion: was a much better game than people give it credit for!) was 2014. It seems crazy now to think that it was that long ago, but with the release of the PS4, my PS3, creaking at the seams, pretty much went into cold storage, and since that day hasn’t seen the light of day. I therefore right this piece not through recent retrospective, but entirely through memory. I would like to emphasise that, unlike many other gamers who have recently written pieces about Mass Effect, my experience with the games is not limited to a single or couple playthroughs of each; I will lay out my credentials in a moment, but for now, I would simply like to nip in the bud any argument that could be made that my claims come through the lens of rose-tinted spectacles.

So, what qualifies me to make the audacious case for the third entry in the trilogy being by far and away the best? By my reckoning, I played through the original Mass Effect a total of four times, each being a completionist playthrough, Mass Effect 2 at least four times, and Mass Effect 3 nearer six, and none of those tallies include the partial playthroughs that I never completed. I have tried every class in each of the games, played both male and fem shep; I’ve gone paragon and renegade, I’ve saved all the squadmates I could and I let just about all of them die—though I must confess that I never went so far as to achieve a full party wipe at the end of ME2. So, all in all, I must have more than four hundred hours of gameplay under my belt.

If you hadn’t guessed by now, Mass Effect was my jam back in the day, and it still is now. I still regularly listen to the soundtracks in full, I reminisce over the heart wrenching decisions that the trilogy forces upon you, and I yearn for a new entry to the series, be that an Andromeda sequel or otherwise. I came upon the series just as I was getting into RPGs. Dragon Age Origins was my introduction to both Bioware and proper roleplaying games, and hungry for more, I was advised by an old friend to check out Mass Effect. At the time, the original Mass Effect was Xbox exclusive; ME2 had been announced, but was still a short time from release. As mentioned earlier, I was the owner of a PS3, but fortunately my brother had not yet converted from the darkside and was himself the owner of an Xbox 360. The rest is history.

The original Mass Effect holds a special place in my heart, and whilst the sequels were undoubtedly the better entries in the trilogy, I think there is a super controversial argument that could be made to say that the original might actually also be better than 2. That perhaps, however, is an article for another day. The argument I am making here is that 3 is better than 2, and not just by a slim margin.

Whilst Mass Effect 2 is a shining beacon in the world of RPGs, it is actually fairly RPG light. Compare it to its predecessor, or even its sequel, and the mechanics are stripped down. It plays like more of an action game, and though for the most part I argue that is a good thing, the upgrade system is very shallow with only a few choices to make beyond the original class selection. Likewise, though there are countless dialogue options throughout the game, most actually have little impact on the overall narrative other than how Shepard comes across, both renegade and paragon dialogue resulting in little variance of response from the NPCs.

Furthermore, the game is actually quite sparse of world-changing decisions. The main choice at the end of the game is: do you destroy the Collector base, or do you let the Illusive Man salvage the technology from it? And I’m sorry, but if you think that is better than the Red, Blue, Green option from the end of ME3 then I don’t know what’s wrong with you. The final ramifications are negligibly different with the Illusive Man still successfully salvaging loads of tech from the base even if you ended up destroying it, as we discover in ME3. The other choices are once again, relatively inconsequential, only actually having effect in Mass Effect 3. Do you save or discard the genophage data in Mordin’s loyalty mission? The consequences only really play out in the sequel, determining if Eve survives. Sure, come the suicide mission, any of your squad mates can die, but that’s not really a choice, is it? Sure, you can screw up—the game punishes you for skipping vital side content, but really the loyalty missions aren’t side content, they are the main story.

Remember, you don’t actually have to recruit Garrus or Wrex in the original Mass Effect. You can class those as ‘decisions,’ but all you are doing is shutting off future parts of the story. Opting not to complete loyalty missions or making bad assignment decisions in the suicide mission, don’t really come across as ‘choices’ to me, especially when you are more or less guaranteed to replay the suicide mission if you screwed up in order to create the best possible save to import into ME3.

Mass Effect 2 is thrilling. The story is amazing, but, I tell you what: its not so great for multiple playthroughs. There is very little actual divergence across the overall game, even if you go out of your way to do everything differently.

Mass Effect 3 on the other hand, well... that’s a different beast altogether!

If you look at the overall arc of the trilogy, how the story progresses from the first scene in ME1 to the closing scenes in ME3, there is a definitive narrative that takes place across the three games, but the second act in that story is somewhat disconnected. Mass Effect 1 is Shepard discovering the truth about the Reapers. Mass Effect 3 is about stopping them. Mass Effect 2 on the other hand, is about... inconveniencing them? Sure, the main point of the game is stopping the collectors from abducting humans, and in the end, surprise, surprise, it turns out the Collectors are working for the Reapers, but at the start of ME2, other than the Illusive Man’s alluded to suspicions, there is seemingly no indication that the Reapers are in any way involved. Furthermore, stopping the Collectors doesn’t seem to actually have too much of an impact on the impending Reaper invasion, other than maybe the mild inconvenience of them losing an embryonic human protoreaper. (And let’s not even talk about that final boss battle!)

Mass Effect 1 sets the stage, Mass Effect 3 is the epic conclusion, but ME2 sort of just tides you over between the two other entries. It absolutely does an incredible job at deepening the lore, enriching the world, fleshing out existing characters, and introducing a cast of loveable and interesting new ones, but realistically, you could cut ME2 from the trilogy and lose very little from the overall narrative.

Finally, combat. The shooting was a huge improvement over Mass Effect 1. The updated and new abilities really helped distinguish the six classes from one another. Weapons were decent and enemy tactics much improved. But, when you see the refinements made for ME3: the introduction of dedicated melee attacks, an improved cover system, the ability to combat roll, refined weapon sounds... well, there is no denying that in this respect, whether you have agreed with me up until this point or not, Mass Effect 3 is better than Mass Effect 2.

At this stage, it might seem like I’m just trying to put Mass Effect 2 down. I am not. I love that game to pieces, but sometimes, it is only by appreciating improvements made that you can see previous shortcomings.

Mass Effect 3 is start to finish a higher stake, more epic story. Sure, every single one of your squad mates can die in ME2, but in ME3, Liara can die! Yeah, in the extended cut, if you screw up bad enough, failing to accrue enough galactic readiness for when you take back Earth, she can get vaporised by Harbinger right before you make it to the Citadel. I remember watching in horror as both her and Garrus glanced Shepard’s way in the seconds before annihilation in one of my renegade playthroughs—worse than shooting Mordin in the back in my opinion. Sure, James Vega and Javick (the DLC Prothean squadmate many people probably never had) are spared through plot armour, although, come to think of it, if they are in your squad come that final charge to the beam, I think they might be killable too! But, everyone else can die. Jack can get killed saving her students. Mordin... well, we don’t even need to go there. You’ll be forced to kill Wrex on the citadel if you go behind his back and he finds out. Either Ash or Kaiden can take a bullet from Shepard or a squadmate if you fail to talk them down on the citadel. EDI can obviously meet her end if you choose to destroy the Reapers in the final climax, and Tali will throw herself off a cliff if you side with the Geth over the Quarians!

It is upsetting watching Garrus take a bullet in Mass Effect 2 because your tech expert couldn’t open a door quick enough, but in some cases the assignments you make in the suicide mission aren’t always particularly clear, resulting in squadmates dying when you thought you’d made a decent decision. The deaths in Mass Effect 3 however all have significance—there is no sense of randomness about it, no feeling of being slighted for picking the unobvious incorrect choice. Mordin’s sacrifice is heart-wrenching, him giving his life to undo the error of his youth that has haunted him for years. Having to shoot Kaiden yourself because, unable to trust Shepard after working for Cerberus, he refuses to step down! These deaths have real meaning and impact!

The romances complete their arcs, whether begun in ME1 or 2. If you see a romance with any of the original Normandy crewmembers through, across all three games, those final conversations before the climax of ME3 offer perfect closure. If you played the Citadel DLC (if you haven’t, what is wrong with you!?) you get one last hoorah with a cast of characters you’ve probably spent over a hundred hours getting to know. Everything wraps up in this amazing crescendo of fire and emotion. The music is on point. The dialogue is the best its been. The decisions impossible to make. ME3 is Mass Effect at its absolute best. And then we come to the end. That end.

When I first finished ME3 at four in the morning before lectures on a Monday, I was disappointed. The ending was incomplete. Unlike many people, I had no qualms with the final decision to make, but I felt a distinct lack of closure. The original ending is rushed, hollow, and confusing. It sparked outrage across the internet. Fans demanded a new ending. People threw tantrums in forums, they started petitions, they harassed Bioware and the writing staff. But, as shameful as the uproar was, I cannot condemn it, because from the toxic fandom came the Extended Cut DLC. If you never played it, you have done yourself a massive disservice. For me, it fixed everything. The additional cut scenes and the closing epilogues gave me the conclusion I originally yearned for. It offered the finality I so desperately needed. It was the ending Mass Effect deserved.

Others disagree. But I can’t help but feel that many of those people let their grievances with the original ending get in the way of forming their opinion. Like the Director’s cut of Blade Runner, or Zack Snyder’s Justice League, for me the Extended Cut is the cannon ending. I’d never dream of playing the original now having played the superior version.

The ending of Mass Effect 3, still to this day, is one of gaming’s biggest controversies. There seems to be this universally accepted opinion that the ending was terrible, but I disagree. I love it. It might have taken a few months following the game’s release for it to get to where it needed to be, but let’s not forget the DLC was free.

So, with the extended cut sorting out the biggest shortcoming of ME3 (or at the very least somewhat improving it,) I rest my case. ME3 > ME2. If you disagree, you are just plain wrong.