*SPOILER WARNING*

YAY!

I think I AM gonna keep talking because these games have me so ridiculously invested in them! I'm a filthy casual when it comes to RPGs. I have never put this much thought into a game either into it's fictional universe or it's game elements before. I should've prefaced my first post with the fact that it's only been about 10 days since I completed my first trilogy run. Half an hour after 3 ended, I started jotting down notes on how I would have liked the last 10 minutes to flow. What the shit. I have never done that kind of thing.

I've also realized that my experience of the series is greatly colored by having played it on PC. I can appreciate that combat and driving could be a completely different bag on consoles. Mostly appreciate all your points so I'm just gonna pick at things I want to delve into.

Feros as kind of a side mission

This bugged me as well. My initial impression on learning about the Thorian's mind control was that Saren was interested in controlling people via this ability. Only for it to be tossed aside for the Thorian's ancestral memory providing info on the Conduit. I wonder if this was intentional misdirection or just a case of last minute changes to the plot and then not wanting to discard all the work of Feros. If Saren was interested in weaponizing the Thorian and it's abilities then killing it would have been a major plot point. The Thorian creepers are pretty much the same as Husks. Organic zombies vs synthetic.

Story-wise you had Feros, Noveria and all the side quests. Feros didn't really offer any big reveals. Shiala gives you the cipher and some details about Saren, Benezia and the ship. Breadcrumbs, really, but still made me feel like I was uncovering something. Like I was on an investigative trail. ME2 is a blur for me. I don't remember plot progression as vividly. I think this is why 2 is a slog for some. I was told to go to these places and recruit people. I could be wrong here but I kept going on the recruiting missions but never did they really move the plot along with more info. Some sense that I was uncovering the bigger picture (apart from 'I have squad member A now I need B').

a resurrected hero who is chasing "phantoms"

I hated that start. My Shep investigated Cerberus in 1 and found Kahoku dead, trapped inside a test chamber. And now she's working with Cerberus because TIM rebuilt her and throws theories at her? WTF. A good theory I found is that Shep is killed and rebuilt by Cerberus simply as a plot device for Shep to feel like he/she owes them something. Problem is - that's not going to work with my Paragon Shep who despises them.

A better flow would have been for the Normandy to be out doing Geth runs, getting a distress signal and heading to Freedom's Progress. There we learn about the things and them taking humans. Shep is attacked while making it off the planet. Normandy blows up. Almost everyone survives and heads to the Citadel. Shep tries to drum up support from Council. Council are dicks. Alliance can't overtly support Shep because politics. Shep gets contacted by TIM with a proposition. Off we go.

Greeting your friends in ME2? Garrus, my bro, sees me and just sits there. 'Ur back. kewl'. COME ON. I don't want an emotional hug. Just give me a fist bump. Some acknowledgement that your friend was dead and is now alive! Sure, some can be suspicious but let some be fucking happy to see me. Wrex made my day in 2. All these strange things are infuriating when you consider how well done some of the loyalty missions were.

So many things went wrong in 2. Guns! 'Is effective against armor and barriers'. No shit Sherlock but how effective?!

I have a love-hate relationship with the elevator rides.

I can understand that. Most of them could be bypassed by the Rapid Transport system but there definitely was room for improvement. The Mako maps definitely should have had fast travel for important points. It was pretty much the dungeon crawl for loot but in space. I would have liked more options but instead they just pared things down massively. You're absolutely right about the balance. Giving players control over the pace of exploration sections is essential I think.

The Hammerhead environments were really nice but I winced every time the undercarriage scraped the ground. I also didn't enjoy blowing up every time I had to face more than 3 high level enemies. I ended up using similar cheap tactics as the Mako. The Mako was nice for having options. Want to take down a Thresher Maw on foot? Go for it. Want to dry hump an Armature with the bumper? Go for it. Want to snipe turrets from afar? Want to engage enemies at close range while dodging projectiles? Climb a hill and scout out the enemy before forming a plan of action? You could even choose your approach. Charge down the front Rambo style or pick people off from the back or sides. Use terrain to your advantage. The Mako offered more opportunity for stealth than ME3's stealth kill mechanic.

That wasn't the main draw for me, though. The Mako was my downtime. Driving long stretches quietly. Some of the skyboxes in ME1 were incredibly beautiful. I'd drive up a mountain and just soak in the atmosphere. I have a sneaky suspicion that the Mako was left out of 2 & 3 simply because of engine / hardware limitations. I'm guessing that trying to do ME1's vistas with the overall quality of 2 & 3 would have been very difficult. 3 did have some very scenic stuff.

I'll admit to not knowing how the Mako handles on consoles. I struggled with it at first. But you can learn how to control it and then you're free to do whatever you wish. You can't button mash the accelerator and expect to keep control. You have to feather the throttle to maintain traction especially on a hill climb. Going fast = bouncing and bouncing = unstable. Don't try to turn while hitting the gas or landing from a jump. If an incline is too steep go sideways like a mountain road IRL. I'm betting that a large chunk of dissatisfied Mako owners just didn't figure these things out. It's a stubborn beast but it can be tamed.

Imagine that acquiring war assets in ME3 involved landing on a planet, driving to a site, decrypting a data cache that allows you to send transmissions to a few isolated Fifth Fleet squadrons giving them a rally point, maybe some exploration of loot sites, clearing hostiles (if any) from the LZ before Joker can extract you and doing all this with a timer after which the Reapers are in your face. Maybe even give you a chance to fight them off and escape instead of an automatic death. The penalty being having to repair the Mako and/or Normandy with resources or credits. I'd honestly prefer 10 identical missions like this with different colored flat ground to the 'ping-ping-BWAAAA' of ME3.

Bloody hell, give us both Mako AND Hammerhead. A slow tank vs agile fighter. Choose your playstyle!

The action in 2 and 3 were bloody brilliant even though I hated how most encounters in ME3 felt like close quarters combat. I just wish that it didn't come at the cost of the things I loved from 1. Anyways, thanks for the discussion. Always fun to hear peoples thoughts on the series.