Returning to Mass Effect - 13 Years Later

I have been playing the Mass Effect series for almost as long as they have been out. I picked up a used copy of the first game in early 2008 (I'm surprised people were already getting rid of it only several months after its release). I completed my first playthrough over the course of a week where I was home from school incredibly sick (I probably could've done it faster except having the screen on made me motion sick especially scenes with the Mako).

I was immediately hooked and in love with the game. It was the first RPG I ever played, and I found the options available to be incredible and expansive. There were scenes that left me with goosebumps - like the Hold the Line speech on Virmire. Choosing between Ashley and Kaidan was a difficult choice (I saved Ashley on my first playthrough because she was with the bomb and I was worried that if I went for Kaidan they would manage to disarm the bomb). Accidentally stumbling into a romance with Ashley was incredibly awkward as a 13 year old kid whose mom happened to be in the room as I travelled through the Mu Relay (I must've somehow missed the context of the conversations because I had no idea that could happen in a video game at that point in time!) The ending of the first game blew me away.

I was hooked and a massive Mass Effect fan for years to come. Looking back at it now though as I play through the trilogy in the Legendary edition, things feel different. The dialogue choices don't feel nearly as great (or even as accurate to what I intend when I click them), the characters don't feel as great (my long-time favorite space lizard boy Garrus is a fricken cop), and even the scenes that felt so powerful before don't carry the weight they used to (the Hold the Line speech just feels meh now).

I am sure that part of this comes from not being a teenager now, and the fact that I have consumed much more media in the last almost decade and a half my standards have changed, but even during my last playthrough (2017 I think) everything for the most part felt exciting and vibrant.

I wasn't very politically aware growing up - and even as a young(er) adult. Thanks to a mixture of privilege, a whitewashed history curriculum, and growing up in a conservative leaning family, I have been playing catch up in a lot of ways when it comes to my understanding of the world. I think this growth of understanding definitely plays a big part of exactly why my enjoyment felt so muted in this current playthrough.

Everything from the space racism, the issues with how extensive corporate power is in the game (even when ExoGeni uses the Thorian to mind control innocent colonists there's nothing Shepard - a Spectre, the most powerful of all space cops - can do about it.) I hope that I enjoy Mass Effect 2 & 3 better as I continue my way through the Legendary Edition (I have always preferred them over 1 because from a gameplay persepctive they stand years ahead of the first entry into the series).

I am certainly not the first person to criticize this game from over a decade ago and I also am not trying to take away your enjoyment of the series (heck I have a Garrus art print setup next to my Xbox that I don't plan on taking down). I'm simply sharing my sadness at one of the games I have enjoyed so much over the years not living up to my memories.

The tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) Into the Black by Monkey's Paw Games does a good job of being a Mass Effect like world - without turning you into a space cop. You can check it out on itch by clicking here.

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