mass effect 1 is a game that has stood the test of time. it has gone through the ringer of controversy and drama with later games in the series, and it has stood fast and firm. no, there's no amount of sequel damage that can happen that will retroactively ruin what this game was and what it did. can you blame this game for overpromising, for writing too many checks that it should've known that later games wouldn't be able to cash? potentially. but i write this review not to play the blame game or to do an exploratory autopsy of the series, but to praise a game that i've played in complete a double digit amount of times and have yet to tire of.
there's been very few modern RPGs (well, i remember when it was modern at least. . .) that have been able to create a universe this colorful and vibrant and nuanced with lore that's not only informative but relevant to current species relations. this goes beyond just sitting in the codex and reading entries, which, don't get me wrong, i love to do. even casually, you'll learn of great historical events that impacted humanity's relationship with other species, whether it be the first contact war with the turians, the skyllian blitz against the batarians, or the tentative appeasing that humanity has to do to major citadel races like the asari and the salarians. you even get to see this extend in smaller stories/moments as well; turians are so ahead of the curve when it comes to military training and biotics that human camps attempting to train human biotics have use turian instructors just to get as much bang for their buck. humanity being a galactic underdog certainly isn't first done here, but it's fleshed out with complexities that make it more than just a typical "root for us because we're lowest on the totem pole" situation. humanity's not that well off, but they're in arguably better positions than the batarians and volus, and the game wants you to question that. or, in some ways, it wants you to ponder it, but unfortunately never reach any satisfying conclusions. many problems i could lay at the doorstep of the entire series i will lay here: mass effect 1 creates a lot of political intrigue and discourse that ultimately goes nowhere. it's more interesting to generate discussion on than actively seek an endpoint to, sure, but i wish the game had bothered to give some level of narrative closure to things like biotic suffering or racial nepotism. they're left by the wayside entirely come mass effect 2.
character-wise, i've very little negative things to say if it doesn't involve liara. i adore how every character has their own unique and informed perspective, especially in the case of the 4 alien squadmates. you can tell there's a real sense writing-wise of trying to have a character embody multiple aspects of their species (tali gushing about the normandy and talking about ship white noise helping her sleep) while simultaneously having them be their own character that can reject the elements of their culture that they individually don't align with (garrus chomping at the bit to reject the rules and regulations culture of the turians). coming around to liara, the only reason she grates on me is that, at several points in the game, it feels as though the devs shove her down your throat and insist that you like her. fuck, i can't tell you how often i'm remotely nice to her and five seconds later have her offering to fuck me. she feels so. . . thrust upon the player, and it's that invisible hand of the dev constantly pushing her towards me that i lean back against. as her own character divorced from all those moments, she's fine, just a bit dull. she certainly lacks the complexity and contradictions of any other squadmate in the game, and it's likely to make her the most palatable romance option (which is efficient, considering the bisexuality of it all).
topicjumping to gameplay, i've never understood why such a vocal subsection of gamers hated the gameplay of this game. hell, i remember all of my friends saying "yeah this game was great but FUCK the gameplay" when we played this game on release. i truly don't understand this logic and likely never will. the only complaint i could levy against the gameplay is that throian creepers and any variant of its enemy design are murderously boring to fight against, and have no business being able to one shot on insanity. and sure, rachni can be a pain to fight, but otherwise i think this game's combat is smooth and gives the player a lot of room for self-expression both in how they want to fight and how hands-on they want to be with their squadmates. inventory management can be a chore, but considering that later games in the series make it vanish outright, i'm hesitant to say anything more harsh than that.
i think ultimately i just have a homeyness for this game because of how calculated and political everything in this game feels. again, this is speaking ex post facto, and as someone who reallllllly got fucked off by mass effect 2, i can always come back to this game and appreciate how so many of the major conflicts in this game revolve around politics and have internal logic. again, it feels quaint and borderline juvenile to say "this game has character motivations and political intrigue that actually makes sense", but the older i get, the more i start to appreciate things like this. this was a game that really gripped me as a teenager and still hasn't let go. i've gone through waves of thinking that i overrated this game too much, but ultimately this game deserves as much love and praise that i've given it over the years. i always find it mildly astonishing whenever people besmirch this game or say anything to the effect of "mass effect 2 is when the series REALLY started getting good" because it feels like that's when the series lost all identity and just became a garden variety hallway TPS with light-at-best sci-fi elements. i'm definitely less than eager to replay 2 on legendary, but i do want to see if time has made me kinder to that thing. but, i know i'm never going to sit right with people failing to give this game its due. this game was a moment. there's a reason mass effect, despite all the mountains of controversy and failings, still has a tie on culture. it was a moment.
there's been very few modern RPGs (well, i remember when it was modern at least. . .) that have been able to create a universe this colorful and vibrant and nuanced with lore that's not only informative but relevant to current species relations. this goes beyond just sitting in the codex and reading entries, which, don't get me wrong, i love to do. even casually, you'll learn of great historical events that impacted humanity's relationship with other species, whether it be the first contact war with the turians, the skyllian blitz against the batarians, or the tentative appeasing that humanity has to do to major citadel races like the asari and the salarians. you even get to see this extend in smaller stories/moments as well; turians are so ahead of the curve when it comes to military training and biotics that human camps attempting to train human biotics have use turian instructors just to get as much bang for their buck. humanity being a galactic underdog certainly isn't first done here, but it's fleshed out with complexities that make it more than just a typical "root for us because we're lowest on the totem pole" situation. humanity's not that well off, but they're in arguably better positions than the batarians and volus, and the game wants you to question that. or, in some ways, it wants you to ponder it, but unfortunately never reach any satisfying conclusions. many problems i could lay at the doorstep of the entire series i will lay here: mass effect 1 creates a lot of political intrigue and discourse that ultimately goes nowhere. it's more interesting to generate discussion on than actively seek an endpoint to, sure, but i wish the game had bothered to give some level of narrative closure to things like biotic suffering or racial nepotism. they're left by the wayside entirely come mass effect 2.
character-wise, i've very little negative things to say if it doesn't involve liara. i adore how every character has their own unique and informed perspective, especially in the case of the 4 alien squadmates. you can tell there's a real sense writing-wise of trying to have a character embody multiple aspects of their species (tali gushing about the normandy and talking about ship white noise helping her sleep) while simultaneously having them be their own character that can reject the elements of their culture that they individually don't align with (garrus chomping at the bit to reject the rules and regulations culture of the turians). coming around to liara, the only reason she grates on me is that, at several points in the game, it feels as though the devs shove her down your throat and insist that you like her. fuck, i can't tell you how often i'm remotely nice to her and five seconds later have her offering to fuck me. she feels so. . . thrust upon the player, and it's that invisible hand of the dev constantly pushing her towards me that i lean back against. as her own character divorced from all those moments, she's fine, just a bit dull. she certainly lacks the complexity and contradictions of any other squadmate in the game, and it's likely to make her the most palatable romance option (which is efficient, considering the bisexuality of it all).
topicjumping to gameplay, i've never understood why such a vocal subsection of gamers hated the gameplay of this game. hell, i remember all of my friends saying "yeah this game was great but FUCK the gameplay" when we played this game on release. i truly don't understand this logic and likely never will. the only complaint i could levy against the gameplay is that throian creepers and any variant of its enemy design are murderously boring to fight against, and have no business being able to one shot on insanity. and sure, rachni can be a pain to fight, but otherwise i think this game's combat is smooth and gives the player a lot of room for self-expression both in how they want to fight and how hands-on they want to be with their squadmates. inventory management can be a chore, but considering that later games in the series make it vanish outright, i'm hesitant to say anything more harsh than that.
i think ultimately i just have a homeyness for this game because of how calculated and political everything in this game feels. again, this is speaking ex post facto, and as someone who reallllllly got fucked off by mass effect 2, i can always come back to this game and appreciate how so many of the major conflicts in this game revolve around politics and have internal logic. again, it feels quaint and borderline juvenile to say "this game has character motivations and political intrigue that actually makes sense", but the older i get, the more i start to appreciate things like this. this was a game that really gripped me as a teenager and still hasn't let go. i've gone through waves of thinking that i overrated this game too much, but ultimately this game deserves as much love and praise that i've given it over the years. i always find it mildly astonishing whenever people besmirch this game or say anything to the effect of "mass effect 2 is when the series REALLY started getting good" because it feels like that's when the series lost all identity and just became a garden variety hallway TPS with light-at-best sci-fi elements. i'm definitely less than eager to replay 2 on legendary, but i do want to see if time has made me kinder to that thing. but, i know i'm never going to sit right with people failing to give this game its due. this game was a moment. there's a reason mass effect, despite all the mountains of controversy and failings, still has a tie on culture. it was a moment.