Finally finishing Mass Effect

Hi Giant Bomb, I'm in a bit of a weird situation.. One of my friends brought up Mass Effect and that reminded me of something. I've finished Mass Effect 1 in its entirety and enjoyed it. I played all the way through Mass Effect 2, recruited all the party members, did all of their quests, got right to the end, and RIGHT before the final mission some shit came up in my personal life that distracted me from the game. I was away from it for so long that I just kind of lost interest in playing it and never finished it. That was 2 years ago.

But now I have a sudden hankering to finally end the story on my Shepard, finish Mass Effect 2 and then finish Mass Effect 3. I'm just curious if anyone has anyone ever been in a scenario like this, especially with Mass Effect? If so, how did that work out for you and how did you remedy it? I'm considering going back and watching an abridged movie of Mass Effect 1 and 2, watching to all the way up to where I left off. Do you guys think that would be adequate? I realize that the best thing to do would be to play through them both again, but don't know if I'd want to spend 60 hours or so playing through both of them again. If so, does anyone have any good recommendations for catching up on the story? And I guess finally, is the third really even worth playing?

Yeah you should probably watch some videos to catch up on the events of Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 instead of replaying them (I'm not sure where there are some good recap videos though, sorry). I've never had this experience with Mass Effect (or any other game for that matter) where I had stopped right at the end and never finished the game. I did, however, stopped playing Mass Effect a few hours in when I first bought it for PC because I didn't find it interesting or particularly engaging. Then suddenly it just clicked for me and I loved it ever since.

I reckon you should play and finish Mass Effect 3, if only to finish Shepard's story and the overall narrative of the trilogy. I personally think Mass Effect 3 is a fantastic game, and I didn't think the ending was all that terrible. It's also the best playing of the three, with much better team AI this time around.

Don't worry about replaying, to be honest. I do this with story-based games on occasion (stop riiiight at the end), and when I come back things will come back to me quickly. The first two are excellent games, but you may find yourself burning out or running into another thing that makes you stop. Followed by another thread like this in two years.

So here's what I think:

Mass Effect 1 is a self-contained story in a lot of ways. Lots of setup and world-building, but the fantastic Saren arc gets wrapped up while Reaper tidbits are dropped here and there. If you remember what the world is like, you'll be fine finishing the series.

Mass Effect 2 doesn't have a great overarching narrative, as it's mostly about the characters. There's Collectors and you're gathering people for a suicide mission. I suppose if you lose a squadmate you might not feel the emotional hit as much, but is it worth playing the whole thing over again when you're so close to the end? They'll be dead, you won't miss them. It's better this way. Who knows, you might want to do another runthrough after the credits like I did.

Mass Effect 3 is amazing, the story and atmosphere draws you in and the wartime vibe is completely different from the other games. In a way, it also tells its own story but with threads from the prior games. I love it. People complained about the similarity of endings, but they all have drastically different outcomes on the future of the galaxy. So use your imagination a bit and you'll hopefully love it, too. It's not that popular on this site, but that's not the case elsewhere so don't let it get you down.

Yea the 3rd game should only be cheap now so I'd say it's worth it, the way they wrap up the genophage and quarian vs geth issues are really good. Bring over your save files. If you start playing the last mission now the memories of 2 years ago should start coming back anyway, if it doesn't then just wing it lol.

If it comes down to you replaying them, you can easily mainline them and finished both 1 and 2 around 20 hours. Just don't do any sidequests.

Thanks guys, I found these two videos on Youtube which seem to condense all the important Mass Effect 1 and 2 cutscenes into a movie of sorts. I'll probably watch those, watch a bit of a let's play of Mass Effect 2 to remember the controls and mechanics, and then finally finish it. Probably going to re-read everything in the Codex because that's honestly my favorite part of those games. Such a well-realized universe and history there. And it's good to hear that Mass Effect 3 is great for the most part, it seems like the last 30-40 minutes is the most polarizing part of the game, and that may have soured a lot of people on the whole experience, which is understandable, really. I'm still looking forward to it though, thanks guys.

There's a great smartphone codex app if you want to read/hear that stuff!

The ending of 3 isn't terrible, it's just... not satisfying, and after 3 games it was not what I wanted to see. So i think finishing 2, and playing through only 3 will have you divested just enough to not be bummed out by the ending. Also if you play with the ending DLC it's much more fleshed out, I chose not to do so because my ending was the original ending and there was no going back for me with that story.

I personally think ME3 was the best game of the series at it's base, lots of content, all your favorite characters, interesting story beats up until the end, but that ending shook me up.

If you're not playing as FemShep, then yes, you should start over from the beginning.

@fuzzy_dunlop: And as far as "is the third one really worth playing?"

Go to this video, skip to 5:50, listen to someone with some authority.

I am actually in that exact scenario almost right now. I had finished my playthrough of mass effect 1 and 2 and then got into a little bit of three but then stopped for some reason. I can't remember if it was because of personal reasons or because of other games. I wanna say it was a bit of both. But what I did recently to get back into things is to just start over from mass effect 3. I remember fine everything that happened from the first two games. And anything I don't remember they don't skimp on reminding you in mass effect three. They make sure to plainly tell you the choices you made as those particular situations come up. As long as you know the main overarching storyline, you will be fine.

Mass Effect is definitely a game that you should consider finishing. It was easily one of my most enjoyable franchises on the Xbox and I don't know how many times I played through 1 and 2 (not so much 3 because that game for me was solely to finish the story of Shepherd). If you've been away from it for so long I would consider replaying them, as the choices you make will be more fresh and seeing them all come to light in 3 will have a better impact I feel.

Games like Mass Effect I almost always finish but my chronic issue has been getting to the end of JRPGs, encountering the final boss and being two low a level to win the fight and therefore the game just goes away until I get the urge to play again (Usually a couple of years down the line and even then still no success). Games like Eternal Sonata and Final Fantasy.

@fuzzy_dunlop: hi there, did you ever finish the series? Was just reading the forums and found your thread and am interested in what you thought. I've just finished my 3rd overall playthrough. Its also the first time I had every piece of DLC and found it to be a much more satisfying experience. Did you get any of the DLC?

i keep wanting to go back to it again for those DLCs, but cant force myself spend another 30-40 hrs on already finished game

I've wanted to play through the series for some time, so couple of moths ago I started Mass Effect 1 (one of my favorite games)... that game did not age well.

@dimi3je: Agreed. Story still stands up but the gameplay can be a slog. Makes you love 2 all the more when you get to it!

I'm kinda in your shoes. I've played through the first one countless times, only finished the second one once, and never started the third. I was waiting for it to drop a bit in price then all this hullabalooza about the ending kinda whittled down how much I wanted to play it. I still do at some point, hell I've got it on origin and all, but I'm gonna play through the other 2 first (First time on pc, I want the saves to carry).

I played 3 after all the DLC had come out, and I had a vastly different experience with it than others seemed to. I'd play 2 at least, again. It's good! Then go for 3.

I spent a lot of time yesterday on ME3.. Specifically importing busted-ass characters from 1&2.. My reason for not finishing the story was I mistakenly bought ME3 on pc... and there was no gamepad support at the time so I abandoned it until yesterday!

When ME3 came out I made a new character in ME1 and took it through the entire series to get perfect consistency but of course that takes a lot of time.

ME3 is easily the worst game of the three (although ME2 is at least partially responsible for some of its issues) but if you have already played 1 and 2 you might as well finish the fight. Bioware created that interactive comic to allow newcomers to make some of the decisions from the earlier games and give them a primer on the story but I do not know how complete that thing is.

Other than that I bet there are guides out there detailing every single decision and story beat.

Only way to do this right man, Fem Shep as an adept or vanguard so you can warp + singularity combo your way through the game. Also cryo blast followed by charge or melee punch is pretty cool. And make sure you piss off any batarians at every opportunity lol.

One day I want to replay all of the Mass Effects and that's when I plan to get all the major DLC for Mass Effect 3. I only had From Ashes during my playthrough. It was pretty great, but I hear Leviathan and that last one that's basically fan fiction are pretty excellent too.

@myketuna: yeah those are must haves. Omega is ok as a stand alone but not essential

I'm probably the wrong person to ask since I absolutely adore the ME series (and will always tell people to just play them again) but I was in a weird spot before ME3 came out as well. I started ME1 when it came out but I encountered a game breaking bug about halfway through the game and dropped it. When ME2 came out I barely had any interest in it at all and bought it mostly because it was the biggest release at the time. Three days later I had finished it and absolutely loved it but wasn't sure if I should go back and replay ME1. In the end I'm glad I did and I actually finished it twice before ME3 came around. Now for the second playthrough shortly before the release of ME3 I actually cheated so that enemies would go down in one shot and that worked well to just get the story bits again in a short amount of time. That being said you're gonna be fine if you watch videos especially if you've already seen most of the content. If you don't want to invest the time or just don't feel like it you're not going to miss out.

As for Mass Effect 3 I absolutely think it's worth playing. The highs of that game are on par with those of the previous games if not better and the gameplay is a more refined version of ME2. All classes are fun to play, the weapons and powers feel pretty great. I personally never got as upset about the ending as a lot of people did because I had such a great time up to that point that the last minutes couldn't really taint that experience. The extended cut improves the ending quite a bit too. If you come into it expecting all of your choices to matter then you're going to be disappointed but that point never bothered me.

Finally a few words about the DLCs. You should definitely buy Leviathan because it sets up the ending. I honestly still have a hard time believing that this was not in the game to begin with. It shouldn't be something you have to pay for and if there is one thing about ME3 that I really have an issue with it's that. The Omega DLC is a really neat sidestory with Aria. It is in no way necessary but if you want more regular ME3 then by all means go for it. It's probably best to decide that before you finish the game because there is little incentive to go back. Citadel is a great DLC but it's pure fanservice. It feels like part of a episodic series with the Mass Effect cast (I wish they'd actually done something like that). It's a wacky, off beat thing that doesn't fit the tone of the core game at all but if you're invested in the universe it's a great send off to the series. If you're interested I'd play it after finishing the main game.

Seeing that the OP is 3 months old it's probably already too late but maybe somebody else has a similar problem.