#please don't let my ambivalence towards garrus color your impressions of the series tho lmao

[sapphim]

@beansprouts replied to your post

as solely a Dragon Age fan these posts are really doing a great job at convincing me not to play Mass Effect lol

oh noooooooo was it the blowing up a planet thing 😅 we're not really supposed to talk about that part

dragon age and mass effect get lumped together as bioware rpg series that came out concurrently with each other and share a lot of design sensibilities, but they really were created with different target audiences in mind and it shows lmao. mass effect is a console shooter aimed first and foremost at the typical gamer audience (cishet men with xboxes), while dragon age is more of a crpg and far more willing to embrace its female and queer player base.

I love mass effect, I think it's a great (if deeply flawed and very controversial) series with great gameplay, great characters and some really great moments. it also has very passionate modders who have done incredibly impressive work to improve it further

in a heartbeat I'd recommend dragon age to mass effect fans who are specifically interested in the character interactions and romances, especially if they're queer. mass effect is a harder sell to the typical dragon age audience because if dragon age's politics are a centrist dystopia, mass effect is a military warcrimes hellscape lmao. it's great. hands down some of my favorite problematic war criminals of all time. but you do have to realize it was competing for attention with every other shooty space marine game on the market ca. 2007-2012.

I'd argue that mass effect andromeda would be the best jumping-in point for dragon age fans wanting to explore the series, as it's less gruff military, the protags are optimistic and cute and dorky, and it still has some top notch characters on par with the trilogy. it got absolutely thrashed on release but I think it's got the best "mass effect" vibes of any sequel in the series. ME2 & 3 didn't spark that same sense of wonder that exploring the universe at the start of mass effect did, but MEA hit those vibes again for me just like old times. just my two cents!