What a magnificent spectacle this game is, I'm honestly in awe.
This was perhaps one of my most anticipated games, it looked absolutely phenomenal and I'm surprised how it actually lived up to the hype.

I was a little bit sceptical at first, because the gameplay felt very simple, but once you get the first 3 Eikons, it feels way better, the amount of abilities you get to unlock as you progress is kind of crazy, there are many Eikons to get by progressing the main story, and every single one has a different moveset, which makes combat feel fresh.

Also I've got to say, I was expecting the exploration to be way more restrictive but it's actually the opposite, there's a good amount of exploration, many side quests and areas to explore, and you can even hunt down monsters for materials to craft equipment. It takes a while for the game to open up though, it's very linear in the beginning, and has a lot of cutscenes that can be annoying, but once it opens up, it gets significantly better.

The story is one of my favorite stories the series has to offer, it's pretty dark and serious, has so many twists and turns, and arguably some of the highest peaks in any game I've ever played. The cutscenes are gorgeous and the boss fights are absolutely jaw-dropping, not only in terms of spectacle but also in terms of gameplay, they're so god damn fun, probably the highlight of the entire game.
Even the characters are very well written, Clive is undoubtedly my favorite character in the entire series, and the side characters are very likeable and relatable in many ways, you can really tell how much love and effort was put into creating this story overall.

As expected, the soundtrack is incredible, every track is beautiful and very much fitting, I found myself either humming some melodies or even singing along to some songs as I was playing.

What blew me away though is the Thousand Tomes, which works as some sort of a library for the game's world and lore where every single piece of information can be found there. It's honestly so important and useful, so much information and things to read so you can keep up with the story, learn about the characters, the monsters, the wars, the secrets of the world and pretty much everything the game has to offer. I actually reached the max level because I spend so much time collecting everything and it was a blast, for the first time ever in a videogame I genuinely loved reading, and finding new information was always very exciting.

That being said, I do have some issues with this game, with the most obvious one being the tedious side quests, which I did all of them yes, I spend way too much time in this game, it took me 87 hours to finish it because I did everything in the world and then finished the main story, and honestly... the side quests I genuinely liked were very few, specifically near the end of the game. Most side quests for like 80% of the game are actually kind of boring, they're not badly written, it's just that all of them are somewhat the same, you go somewhere, kill someone or collect something, go back to the person you first talked to, thats it.
Apart from the side quests being mostly tedious, the world doesn't have many things to offer, there's barely any endgame content, which is unfortunate.

However, my biggest issue with the game is the amount of fetch quests specifically in the middle of the story.
The game starts off very strong, but once you reach halfway through the story, the pacing slows down by a lot, and there's just a lot of random fetch quests that really kill the momentum, even though the pacing gets better shortly after, and the rest of the game has some of the most insane action I've ever seen in a videogame, the tonal shift is very noticeable.

Other than that, even with the issues it has, I'm in love with this game, playing it for the first time felt like a dream come true. What a beautiful experience, It's just so close to being a masterpiece.

Final Rating: "Amazing" ~ 9/10.

Never has a game gotten me so invested in its world surrounding it. Never has any piece of fiction, really. In most games, maybe only bar Horizon Zero Dawn, when you find a random note collectible or listen to an audio log, I almost always ignore them. They're usually just filler and ultimately unimportant. But Mass Effect proved to me that they don't have to be that way, and I read through and listened to just about damn near everything I could, stopping to exhaust all dialogue options whenever available. The worldbuilding is genuinely phenomenal and I can say with certainty that this is the coolest fictional universe I've ever experienced and likely will ever experience. Most of this is just do to the writing, its great. It can be humorous, witty, introspective or just about any other good sounding adjective you can think of and its just about always compelling. Characters like Liara, my love and Garrus, my bestie and Thane, my other love (and basically just about everyone else besides Jacob, fuck you Jacob) are fantastic to be around and really help make the world feel alive and The Normandy feel like a home. The combat is kind of shit, and the driving around in the Mako in the first game left a lot to be desired. The simplification of mechanics over the series was a little upsetting. The animations in dialogue/action sequences can be a bit jarring and mess up the tone of things. The ending had more potential than what was got out of it. All those problems are present here and a lot of it can be very noticeable. But even then? this series was still amazing and every of the honestly many problems mean jack shit in comparison to the sheer quality of everything else. This feels like I'm rambling now so this is the end. One final thing: The romance with Liara is the peak of the lesbian human-alien connection. Getting to tell her that you love her in the third game damn near broke my heart.

It was an honor serving with you Commander Shepard.

Nancyfly certified Top 10 game of all time
- 99/100