From Ashes is one of the most infamous cases of the Day One DLC shenanigans, doubly so due to Javik, ever since early on in ME3's hectic development period, was intended to be introduced as a new companion from the start. Considering EA being, well, EA, you had to pay 10USD upfront, alongside the game (or games for trilogy boxset owners like myself in late 2014, but even then I was SOL since I couldn't work since I was still underage at that point) in order to get all the new, juicy lore, worldbuilding, and character tidbits. It's pretty obvious this was content cut to sell for extra cash too, this is all you're gonna get once you got the add-on in your hands.

To be completely fair though, the revisit to Eden Prime, the actual mission, as well as all the setup and reveal of Javik and his Prothean origins are legit damn good. Javik's one of the best parts of ME3 too, bringing a nice twist to what was expected of this mythical alien species for a time by revealing that him and all of his compatriots were, basically, warmongering imperialists hellbent on ruling the whole galaxy. His interaction with Shepard and Liara are well done, given the back and forth between the expectations and the reality of both parties and what that means for them all. I also like that, despite being a hardass at first, there is a sense of growth felt with him, being rather proud of you for making sure all of this assault against the Reaper was able to get as far as it did, and reluctantly accepting the fact that he's pretty much set to pass off due to being the last survivor of a whole race. Plus, like, That Line, is pretty damn good, even if the actual context as to why it's said is a bad attempt at justification lol.

I already mentioned this the last few times, but it really needs to be stressed that the Legendary Edition bundle pretty much has this and all other DLCs fully available, which means you don't have to suffer the wrath of bad practices... as much (why is that remaster still going for 60USD?).

Mass Effect series Review + Retrospective #3.2: From Ashes

From Ashes is the first story expansion for ME3 and was originally released as part of the game’s special edition back at the initial release. It includes a single mission and a new squadmate, Javik, the last surviving Prothean.

Right off the bat, I think including a living Prothean is in itself kind of contrived and stupid from a story perspective. Adding to the stupidity, outside of Liara, there’s basically no characters that think this is a big deal? People just go, “huh that’s interesting” and move on.

However, I think Javik is a fantastic character. He is a powerful squadmate with great utility and strength in combat, and is pretty well-written. He has a lot more dialogue than ME2’s DLC companions, and he actually feels like a real character and a part of your team, rather than an underwritten tag-along. Javik also drops one of the rawest lines in the franchise with “Stand amongst the ashes of a trillion dead souls, and ask the ghosts if honor matters. The silence is your answer.”

The mission on Eden Prime is whatever, it’s cool to visit the first place we saw in the trilogy again, but it’s pretty short and nothing particularly interesting happens. The real focus of this DLC is Javik as a party member and character.

I think that this probably should have been part of the vanilla game. Not only does he actually feel like a real part of the cast and story, without the DLC, Liara is potentially the only biotic on your squad if you’re rolling with Ashley over Kaidan. I feel like a Prothean is important enough to be part of the default game.

This should’ve been part of the default experience, but nowadays most people are gonna be playing with the Legendary Edition, so it doesn’t really matter in 2022.

The mission itself was decent. Although, the fact that Javik is a very important character in the franchise and was (and still is if you don't have Legendary Edition) locked behind a paywall was an unethical move on Bioware's part, especially since Javik contributes way more to the story of ME3 than a typical bonus character.

In the mission you're fighting Cerberus troops revisting a location from the first Mass Effect game, and its set up to be a pretty standard wave shooter with flashbacks of the character. It's three and a half stars if I were to grade the mission alone, but I'm still sour by the paywall that EA and Bioware put up when I first played the game eleven years ago.