Shepard X Traynor OTP.

Yeah, I definitely agree that Bioware not-so-subtly pitches Synthesis as the "best" ending, I just reject it every time because I'm a stubborn sentimental dick.

Kinda.

I think you need to have had dinner with her in order for her to show up in ME3. Completing the romance isn't necessary, I don't think.

The very beginning of ME2 is probably the part of the series I have the most problems with. My pure Paragon Sheps would, in my opinion, almost certainly tell the Illusive Man to shove it and go looking for the Collectors themselves if they had the option. I never bought that Shep felt like she "owed" Cerberus anything…

Hahaha, yeah. Mass Effect 2 is probably the most "fun" game in the series, because 80% of the story is spent just making cool friends in outer space, but it makes some pretty astonishing leaps of logic throughout. You raise some pretty good questions about Cerberus' various screwups, but to my mind the stupidest thing…

I've seen some people describe ME2 as the game that most hammers in the "Shepard as Jesus allegory" angle. Like Jesus, Shepard dies, Shepard returns from the dead, Shepard has twelve followers, Shepard is a lesbian who captains an interstellar spacecraft, etc.

Yeah, the game's hoo-rah militarism is a bit of a black mark against an otherwise stellar series for me. Among humanity, at least, the highest moral authority- and seemingly the only form of organized governance, at least outside Earth- is the Alliance Military, and the very picture of pure evil is Cerberus, a private…

Non-loyal characters can survive the suicide mission in ME2, but they're also much more likely to die in ME3 if they do. My first time playing ME2 Zaeed was my only non-loyal squadmate, and he died liked a chump in ME3 while I stood there not caring. To my knowledge, Miranda, Tali, Kasumi, Samara, and Grunt are all…

When I was finished replaying the series to research this article, I took to Twitter to vent some of my thoughts about the ending (which I love, by the way,) specifically the Destroy/Control/Synthesis aspect of it. I agree with you that Synthesis is pitched by the game as the "best" ending, since it's the hardest to…

Fun fact: if you kill the rachni queen in ME1, the queen who shows up in ME3 is some kind of Reaper hybrid monster thing. You can still choose to ally with it, but if you do it goes to the Crucible and starts killing people, and you lose a bunch of your Effective Military Strength.

Sad Libs.

I'm glad you brought that up, because I'm getting entrenched enough in this game now (and understanding it enough, with some assists from fine folks like yourself) that I'm actually starting to develop opinions about the world. Specifically, I think I'm becoming a rebel mage sympathizer, and this whole Circle business…

I would love to speedrun one of the old, glitchy PS1 JRPGs, something that required less twitchy reflexes and more encyclopedic knowledge of exploits and loopholes. Suikoden II would be a really good candidate for me, since I know it inside and out and I'm familiar enough with most of its exploits. Or maybe Final…

My resolution for this year is to play more new games. When we were doing the Games We Liked roundup last month I realized with terror that I had only played like four new releases last year: the two I picked, one I hated, and one I reviewed. So this year, in addition to struggling to finish all of last year's games I…

This is mostly just the first time a Dragon Age game has really got my attention, and I wanted to jump straight in without having to play 100 hours worth of backstory first. If I really like Inquisition (which I do so far) I might go back to the beginning and play the entire series, like a weird person.

This is honestly insanely helpful, thanks so much Skelly. I somehow ended up in a conversation with Vivienne about what life was like in the Circle, and all throughout that conversation I had no idea what we were talking about, so this is great.

Score!

I'm not really familiar enough with how the game even works to call anything an ideal party, but right I'm rolling with Sera, Cassandra, and Vivienne. It gives me a sneaky-sneaky rogue (me), an archer, a tank, and a magicy person, and has the added bonus of making every expedition Girls' Night.

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT UPDATE: My favourite character is no longer Varric but SERA, this game should be called Sera Age: Inquisition, Sera 10/10, Sera is best girl.