The cycle continues

Mass Effect 2 was better the second time around, because I knew what to expect and what I should focus on. Mass Effect 3, in my Legendary Edition revisit, ... was not. But it's still a fun adventure and (now more than ever) a satisfying conclusion to Shepard's story.

Some of Mass Effect's game systems have really improved in its third outing: snapping to cover is less error-prone, a "reputation" score allows you to benefit from mixing Paragon and Renegade decisions, and exploring the galaxy map is much less tedious (no resource scanning!). Some other improvements are more debatable: hacking minigames have been removed entirely, and - as an Infiltrator, again - moving the time-slow buff from a character stat to a weapon upgrade is just confusing.

But there are other changes in Mass Effect 3 that are irrefutably for the worse. Its plot structure is more linear, with more opportunities to miss content. Customization fatigue has unnecessarily regressed, with way too many weapon options and misleading stat sheets -- like, the fact that the harpoon gun's projectiles have travel time isn't even a statistic!

And, most notably, ME3's squadmate roster is a significant downgrade from ME2's. In pure numbers, we're down from 12 to a mere 7; and only two of those are "new" characters (and also, Vega is a shitty character). And there are no loyalty missions at all!, or in other words, even this reduced cast has less one-on-one character development than the last game's crew.

... well, EDI develops, not just physically but also emotionally, from her Mass Effect 2 state. But otherwise the most interesting characterization in Mass Effect 3 is when Shepard catches up with Grunt, Jack, Mordin, and Samara as NPCs in side-quests.

It feels great to finally bring the fight to the Reapers, and shooting alien monsters to death feels as good as it ever has. But Mass Effect 3 still feels like a step back from its predecessor's non-linear mission structure and character-centric storytelling.

Better than: Mass Effect, any of the second game's DLCs.
Not as good as: Mass Effect 2, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
And, as for this installment's DLC: fewer in quantity, greater in quality! But I'll talk more about those soon.

Progress: Finished on Normal.