Mass Effect 3 (LE) - Review After 100%

Wrapping up the legendary edition with the last entry in the trilogy after doing all of the things

Timestamps
00:00 Intro
00:38 LE Changes
02:26 Story Set Up/Thoughts
04:40 Story Thoughts With Spoilers
11:59 Character Progression
13:39 Gameplay
16:23 Combat
18:03 Companions
20:11 DLC
23:08 Positives
24:10 Negatives
25:26 Conclusion
26:28 Mass Effect 4
27:05 Wrap Up

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#gaming #masseffectlegendaryedition #masseffect #masseffect3

[vlado]

I think Mass Effect 3 is at it's strongest when telling the smaller more personal stories like Tuchanka, Rannoch, or the Ardat-Yakshi Temple, Utukku, and Grissom Academy. But it fails completely with the larger plot points, like Cerberus, the Reapers, and the Crucible. The problem is that Bioware never had a plan moving forward, and at best, had rough ideas of how the war would play out and end. Even Drew Karpyshyn, the lead writer for the first two games had no idea where the plot would go. The Dark Energy storyline was practically in it's early drafts, barely even mentioned outside of the Haestrom mission, and the way the war was going to be supposedly resolved according to him was Shepard luring the Reapers to the Relays and blowing them up, which doesn't sound all that compelling either. It's a shame that such a fantastic series had to have such bad end, but it is what it is.

[iandevine]

Its truly impressive that you 100% games this quick but even that takes a back seat to your work ethic. Well deserved success so far and more to go.

[ZrodyApo]

With retrospect, I really think that Leviathan could have been the main plot for either ME2 or even for ME3, rather than just be a DLC. It's just the foundation and core of the Mass Effect universe we're exploring with the themes of cosmic horror, space exploration and detective & mystery investigation

[innominato]

Hello, nice work as always; i just want to point out a thing about the plot hole that you mention about the reaper choosing not to use the citadel and blocking mass relays etc: not to say that they shouldn't be able to do something like that, but if you remember in mass effect 1 on Elios (hoping i remember the name correctly), before reaching for the conduit, it is said that some prothean scientists survived the cicle and, despite not being enough to save their race, they went (through the conduit) to the citadel and modified it so that the next cicle the reapers wouldn't be able to take control of it, at least remotely, supposedly. This doesn't really resolve the plot hole but i suppose it can be used as a kind of explanation.
Again, keep up the good work, i really enjoy the channel.

[karlklein]

Something that I dont see mentioned as much anymore is the entire plot of ME3 got rewritten because the original one was leaked online. Originally there was going to be a larger focus on dark matter, and actually one of Tali's mission in ME2 was supposed to lead into. The one where she says stars are dying faster than normal and the sun is burning you if you're not in shade. Anyways, I think this is also why leviathan is what it is, because it was made after the game launched to help tie up the new plot. Anyways at least citadel was an absolute banger

[lep]

For Mass Effect 4, it seems like they're going to canonize the Destroy ending and bring the geth back (and possibly Shepard as well).

[shawngillogly]

The Javik thing is even more messed up than him just being a DLC character. He originally was going to be The Catalyst. But when EA wanted a DLC character, they had to strip that role from him, because they couldn't make a plot-crucial character a DLC.

And yes, ME3 is a game that feels like it was written by two teams that didn't talk to each other until post...which it was. And neither team had an ending that they even liked.

[JunRozenovich]

As I remember Reapers couldn't turn off mass relays because Protheans reprogrammed Keepers to ignore orders from the Reapers.
It's supposed to be like this reapers leave 1 reaper behind (whom we fight in the first game) him send a signal to Keepers (Alenn lifeform on Citadel) they activate mass relay for Reapers and block it for other races. But Proteans reprogrammed them before they die

[RichardSekmistrz]

I can explain why Javik was a DLC!
This was back in the day when games were made for consoles but Gamestop was reselling games and the publisher would see none of that residual sales from the new players of their game, since it may get sold 2-3x more as used. So! Publishers would break a large part off that would seem important (and was important!) to the game to get those used copies to generate some revenue for the publisher.
This actually happened in ME2 as well, as the character Zaeed Massani was also busted out in the same way.

[nngn]

It's a shame that the multiplayer co-op is not included in the legendary edition. I remeber playing the demo and i liked more the multiplayer than the singleplayer. It was a co-op horde mode with game objectives and it was very fun.

[fagarou]

What added insult to injury about the endings with the original release is that Bioware went on record shortly before to say that it wouldn't be a "choose end A B or C" type of deal when it was exactly that. Add to that the slap that was the day 1 DLC companion, bullshit "franchise" integration for the war effort and the whole Cerberus storyline debacle, that why it left such a bad taste in the mouths of a lot of people. Of course now with the LE, a couple of those points are not present anymore and you also didn't had to wait between ME2 and ME3 which make it so you cant get caught in the hype.

I'm still mad about Cerberus going from this shadowy organization doing dubious things for (what they perceived as) the good of humanity to maniacal cartoon villains putting the logo of their secret org everywhere.

[Dermetsu]

The multiplayer was a lot of fun, giving you boat loads of new abilities to play with on character classes representing races we never got to have companions for like Batarians and Volus. The ending will always sadden me, but the series still remains some of the best games I've ever played.

[SquashGuy]

Instead of Javick being a DLC it should have been James, and it should have come with a free copy of "Paragon Lost". That would have made more sense and I'm pretty sure people would have liked James more if they did it that way.

[Scarecrwn]

Hoo, I am glad you don´t belong to the group of people who hate the endings like it´s some humanity erasing virus. Yes, they are not the best, they definitely did rush the game and the endings, but the extended cut did improve it and overall trilogy ending is still something that shatters me emotionally every time I play these games.

[REALVINERGY]

In a weird way the ME trilogy reminds me of Fallout New Vegas; both incredibly flawed, with 99% of those flaws being the fault of time crunch and impossible demands from publishers or management. But even after all of that, beloved in their own ways and games that most people will never forget. I still think ME3 is my favorite from the entire series and I'm sad to see it will never get the following up love it deserved. Sure, maybe Bioware will somehow spawn a perfect new Mass Effect out of their ass in a few years but I just don't see that happening

[Mythaelos]

Andromeda is fine. It could have been way better, the potential is clearly visible. Janky as fuck, but decent gameplay. I hope they revisit this sometime, if they manage to do justice with the sequel to the main series.

[Fissiccisst]

Months late to this but oh well! ME3 is my favorite game I think I've ever played, if not top 5. So I do love this game a LOT.

I feel like the biggest casualty of Legendary Edition was the Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer. You mentioned you liked the combat, the MP made the combat even more amazing. Each character you picked had a pre-set skill loadout(you still spent the points) and you could equip any gun(s) you wanted up to 2 for that class and you were off to the races. What was REALLY cool was, the MP had skills even Shepard never got, had guns not in the main game, AND many of these characters were not human, You had Turians, Quaraians, Krogan, Batarians, Vorcha, Geth, and some I'm probably forgetting. Each of these had different melee attacks, sprint speeds, dodge mechanics, hp/shield levels, etc. It truly felt like playing something unique from the main game with almost every character. Even some of the humans had totally different setups and designs as if they were a different race(looking at you N7 Destroyer and Paladin). it was PvE vs AI and while that sounds boring the difficulty levels truly made them way more fun than they had any right to be. I honestly can't gush enough about the ME3 MP, and it still has players to this day.

I did like that you talked about the endings post DLC. I do wish more people went back and tried them to see if they became more...acceptable to them. I personally never had a huge issue with them myself. One thing I do have to disagree with you about is which ending is the canon or intended ending. You mentioned that Synthesis(green) is the intention, but I actually think its destroy. Primarily because a very high war asset destroy ending has Shepard waking up in the rubble with a sharp intake of breath. None of the other endings end this way.

My headcanon does follow the Indoctrination Theory though, where basically everything after the big boom on the hill is just the reapers making an attempt to convert Shepard while he's out. And the destroy ending is the final rejection. Thus why Shepard wakes up in concrete and rebar(if you choose high asset destroy). One of my favorite tidbits about this theory is that: In the entire game trilogy, blue is paragon, red is renegade, but for the final choice, Control, which many would consider a renegade option is the blue, and destroy, is the red. But why would controlling the reapers, the choice the Illusive Man made and failed at, be the good option? Saren tried synthesis in ME1, ended poorly. Illusive Man tries control throughout ME3, ends poorly. Destroy is the only choice left. Which if this theory is correct, would be a mind blowing fourth wall break attempt at indoctrinating the player themselves to leave the reapers alive, despite all they've done, because blue = good, and don't think too hard about it. Which many people doing a paragon run for the sake of it would do. just pick blue cause blue = good regardless of the situation cause vidya gamez. Final note: shooting the kid makes him get really mad and just go to "You LOSE, GOOD DAY SIR" ending. Which I think reveals more that the kid is meant to be a palatable and softer interaction interface for Shepard instead of having him talk to another Reaper Hologram like he's done for the past 2 games.

Anyway, just nerding out, I do love my indoctrination theory. Really does make the ME3 ending so much more interesting for me.

[ladnil]

Javik was worse than just being DLC. He was the exemplar of day one DLC that ships on the disc with the game but you have to pay EA extra money to unlock him. One of the many things that pissed so many people off about this game on release, along with the original endings being terrible and requiring playing the multiplayer to get the least terrible versions of.

[tacbravo]

An excellent, detailed and quite thorough review, Mortym. I am looking forward to following in your footsteps with this game. I am about to start another playthrough of ME1 and will try the Vanguard build you suggested. I tried the Infiltrator build and that worked okay in insanity mode. Thank you for all the MELE videos and for making the experience more enjoyable!

[marlondemello]

All I wanted for an ending was to humbly spend the rest of my days with dear Tali in a peaceful Toussaint vineyard, was that too much to ask? 😢 oh glorious Shodan, why have you forsaken me?