Topic: The Presidium - A General Mass Effect Topic

@Tjuz Will do. This'll be my fourth complete run; did two on PS3 a couple years apart, and was considering a third when the Legendary Edition was announced. What about you?

Yep, the trophy lists for the Legendary Edition are much more straightforward. They separate out all of the difficulty, romance and cumulative trophies into their own list, so that each individual game's platinum is basically "play the story and use everybody's powers" (with some specific "keep everybody alive" requirements where appropriate). I never managed to platinum any of the PS3 versions before, nor did I get the Andromeda platinum, either, thanks to the multiplayer, romance, and Insanity trophies.

As for Ash, um... Nope, sorry!

I'm totally blanking her again, now that I've gotten the two trophies that require her presence. Next time I speak to her, it'll be to tell her to die well. As much as I adore Kaidan (he's my eventual romance choice) I do agree that he doesn't become a truly great character until ME3, although that's partly thanks to the legacy he carries forward, and the complex history he has with Shepard.

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@Pizzamorg Do you not have the Legendary Edition, then? What mods interest you?

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@Thrillho Appreciate the tips, buddy! I'm almost all the way home on all three lists; I only fell short before because of my stubborn refusal to engage with certain in-game mechanics (namely biotic powers and the Space Racist). I've only got a couple of the x25 power trophies from ME1 left, and I think my ME2 list is something like 95% complete already! I'll keep your ME3 warnings in mind, though, as I think I'm missing the pyromaniac trophy, and would obviously need to snag that Lvl.10 weapon, too.

It's kinda fun forcing myself to play differently and use biotics, but it's also making the combat far clunkier than I'm used to. I'm quite looking forward to letting my squad cut loose once I'm done!

@RogerRoger Pyromaniac really doesn’t take long. If you get to the bit on Earth where you meet the injured soldier and it tells you to get into cover and take down the enemies, stay stood up and fire away. They respawn endlessly and ammo keeps appearing where you are.

And it’s funny that you’re anti-biotic (no pun intended) as I think that’s always been my go-to style. I probably played as a soldier on my first every run of ME2 but warp is just so damn useful, particularly being able to fling it over cover and around corners.

I own the games on multiple consoles, I have the original trilogy on PC and also the Legendary edition. Mass Effect is like my Skyrim 😂

Honestly I just mostly wanted more character customisation to be honest, it is weird it is so limited given you are looking at that face in such detail for up to a hundred hours over the trilogy.

Instead I keep making the same Goth Mommy female Shepard over and over again in a clear subconscious push as I think Male Shep options are just so bad.

My name is @RogerRoger and I'm a Mass Effect addict.

Been playing through Mass Efeect off and on this passed month myself as it goes. As someone who loved it back on 360 (bought my 360 specifically for it) it took me a good while to get back into it with the Legendary Edition… but having just finished Ilos, overall I’ve enjoyed it. Massive… like MASSIVE Liara T’soni fan 😍

@colonelkilgore Rule 34 massive fan or just massive?

@JohnnyShoulder why not both?

@colonelkilgore You could do, but there is just a bit of a difference between the two! 😆

@Thrillho Now that I've popped the ME1 platinum, I'm finding it interesting that I'm still reaching for the manual power wheel and commanding my squad to use biotics. I seem to recall that I had limited biotic abilities in my preferred Andromeda class, and enjoyed using them semi-frequently in that game, so I might try and play around in the rest of the trilogy. I often use the events between ME1 and ME2 to "reset" my Shepard, as it makes the most canonical sense to do so at that moment (build back better an' all that). Along with any facial tweaks, I'll consider adding some in, if I'm still feeling 'em.

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@Pizzamorg I know what you mean. I've definitely found my groove with my custom male Shepard. I wanted to make a totally unique face this time around, but explored all the alternatives and realised that no, the only good options to fit the voice are "default" and "what I had before" (although I did make some subtle changes, as I'd made him slightly exaggerated and cartoonish last time around).

Didn't realise that PC mods added facial customisation options, though. I knew some folks had re-activated unused dialogue and romance paths in ME1. It's cool how talented fans can step in and make such improvements. Makes me wanna do more PC gaming wherever possible.

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@KilloWertz I mean... yeah? Your point?

@colonelkilgore Here ya go, pallo. Fresh off the Share button.

@RogerRoger 🤯

@RogerRoger That you've played the Mass Effect series a lot and would probably be in Mass Effect Anonymous if it existed. Not that I blame you given that it's one of, it not my favorite game series of all time (either this or Uncharted), which is something I realized after finally replaying the series via the Legendary Edition. Cue the song from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly while Shepard and Nate walk out into the middle of town.

Even though it's PS4 only, Mass Effect Legendary Edition is still easily my favorite release during the PS5 generation. Obviously Horizon Forbidden West was a huge deal for me as well and would be my game of the generation so far (PS4 only releases excluded of course), the Legendary Edition release was something truly special.

I still need to finally play Andromeda. Maybe sometime after I finish Final Fantasy XVI and then Life is Strange 2.

@RogerRoger I've done two complete runs myself, and the only the first game a third time. That was supposed to turn into a full playthrough as well, but I got distracted at the time. Confession time though: I've never actually played the Kasumi or Overlord DLC. They are my only two total blindspots when it comes to the trilogy as I didn't own either in my two full playthroughs. I did buy them in advance for my third but like I said, never got to Mass Effect 2 there.

Hope your run is going well so far!

I loved the Kasumi mission. You get a new outfit to wear on the Normandy (Femshep's dress is great) and arguably the best gun in the game, the M12-Locust submachine gun. Love that weapon.

I'm so happy to see that there are other ME diehards with several trilogy playthroughs under their belts on here. I'm at three full trilogy playthroughs, myself, with five playthroughs of the first game in total and four for ME2. Only the last two playthroughs was with all the DLC and the very last was the Legendary Edition. (All the other playthroughs were on my old X360, where I managed the Insanity achievement on ME1, but for some reason never managed to 100% the achievement list).

What I loved about the trophies/achievements for ME3, which I wish more games would do, is that all of the multiplayer ones also had a singleplayer objective that would pop it, so if you didn't want to bother with the MP you could still get them all. There was one trophy, the War Readiness one, I think, that either required you to play the MP or carefully follow a checklist in order to get enough points to pop it, but it was doable without MP... unfortunately, the Insanity ones stopped me in ME2 and 3, so I never managed to get a full list on those either.

@ApostateMage I loved the Kasumi mission as well. Not that I ever found the game overly repetitive or anything, as Mass Effect 2 is one of my all-time favorites, but it was very different from all of the other missions in the game. I also ended up really liking the Kasumi character and would have loved if she either more than just a DLC character or got to come back for a role in 3.

I'm seriously considering returning to Andromeda once I've finished this trilogy run. I played it a heck of a lot when it was launched, so I probably know it better than any of Shepard's adventures, but it's been long enough that I'm curious to re-assess my (currently glowing) opinion of it. So yeah, before I do and realise that it's actually hot garbage, I'd recommend it, especially to a fellow fan!

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@Tjuz Oh, not to make you feel bad or anything, but you're missing out! Overlord is absolutely great (ends with a real gut-punch, too) but Kasumi's loyalty quest is on another level, and is one of my all-time favourite Mass Effect missions (and is definitely the best part of a "complete" ME2 playthrough). As @KilloWertz suggests, it's a superb tonal shift and just a heck of a lot of fun, and then integrating her into the endgame as a squadmate can be incredibly useful, too. She does pop back up in ME3 for a brief side quest, and is obviously part of the Citadel DLC as well, but I miss her as a full squadmate.

At least you've pre-purchased both DLCs ahead of your next playthrough. I'm actually kinda jealous; I wish there were more missions and characters that I could discover for the first time!

@RogerRoger I would be so excited to finally experience both the DLC because like your impressions, I have only heard great things about them! I feel like a fake fan for not having seen what they have to offer. If and when I go back to the trilogy I will definitely start with the second game this time around since I should still have the third playthrough's save from the first lying around. Just hard for me to get excited about starting a ME2 since, as we've gone through before, it is controversially my least favourite entry. Since I'm playing on PC, I was also very excited about the opportunity to add some of the big ME3 mods to my playthrough. Some of them seem very interesting and game-changing in all the best ways. Do you happen to know if non-Legendary Edition saves are compatible with the LE versions? The third ME1 save I have was pre-LE, so if not I'd have to replay that one first again anyway!

@RogerRoger Thanks for the recommendation. The glowing review from @LtSarge last year for Andromeda sold me on it enough to finally give it a shot at some point. I wanted to play ME3 first since I had never finished 3 back in the day and then figure out how to fit it in along with other games, but it should be sometime before the end of the year. That would possibly be after Final Fantasy XVI and Life is Strange 2 if I decide to wait and do my second playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077 (this time a female V instead) until after the DLC comes out with the changes it makes to the core game. It'll be weird playing a Mass Effect game without the crew of the Normandy, but I have a feeling I'll still enjoy it, especially waaaay far removed from the game's extremely controversial release.

I had forgotten about Kasumi briefly appearing in ME3 even though I played it early this year. Ok, I'll revise what I said and I wish she was a regular character in ME3.

@KilloWertz Hope you have fun with Andromeda I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. Sure, I was a bit let down by it; it wasn't the Mass Effect game I wanted, but as is so often the case, it was what I got Still, the gameplay was quite solid and once you get over the fact that it's almost completely removed from the characters of the original trilogy, the story and characters are pretty good as well. I enjoyed it quite a bit and think I might go for a second playthrough one of these days.