Spoilers ahead. Some of this is rant, other bits are compliments to the devs. Overall I loved this trilogy and would definitely replay, but only 2 and 3, will do the comic and skip ME1.

I went into the reaper war with 7312 assets and picked Synthesis ending. I tried to be this thorough with all 3 games. ME1 was the most tedious with the mako adventures. ME3 was locked out of a few quests due to timing.

I played sentinel in 2 and 3. Half the games are robots, so overload is a must. Tech armor was amazing. And if you have at least one biotic.

Romanced Liara in 1 and 3, made sure to capture videos on 3. Apparently Tali doesn't like female Shepard's so that may be worth replaying all 3 by itself. Disappointed I couldn't talk to Kasumi much. And Samara is a hell of a neck turner with "harder mommy" vibes. Miranda was always on my team in 2 because her powers boosted everyone else's. Made for nice synergy.

Was a little bummed I couldn't do peace with Geth and Quarians, and sided with the latter of course. But there's definitely some replayability so that's good news. Will have to save Legion.

Cured the genophage entirely. Wrex is my boy and I figured we needed krogans in the end.

Was disappointed in the self suicide paragon ending in ME3, felt too similar to ME1. If I could go back, I'd read up on the one to have Anderson survive. ME3 made me feel as if the ending to ME2 didn't matter much.

Had much higher hopes for Rachni queen I saved from ME1 which brings me to the whole plot resets they did. Having to save the queen a second time after getting a status update in ME2 from a random Asari that she was doing good. On top of that Udina worming his way back into a council spot after I blocked him in ME1, felt more lazy writing than foreshadowing. Some of these resets were expected, like somebody to take the place of each person that died in ME2.

Though apparently my character did it with Javik at the party, did not seem as interesting a character as I had hoped for a live Prothean. Maybe I missed something but he only ever talked about the history of the ship and we were in a bad movie together.

Favorite quote from the whole trilogy is probably: "God I want to pin that voice against a wall and lick it's collar bone" -EDI quoting Traynor at the party

Each game made vast improvements on the last. Decrypting and bypassing was improved vastly in ME2 and completely phased out for ME3 which in my opinion was the best choice. Mini games can make or break some games for people due to difficulty and learning curve but making them all optional in Silversun Strip was a smart move. I was sad I couldn't actually play Towers of Hanoi. All this bring said I felt like a lot of shore leave was being asked of me throughout the last half of ME3; it's like guys come on I have a galaxy to save.

Speaking of learning curves they went from coddling you on the journal on ME1 and ME2 to giving you almost nothing to go off of in ME3. You say there's a resource on a planet, but I don't get a flashing marker in the menu or the name of the system it's in. This made be feel like I had to 100% each system, but not in a good way. And I did.

Which brings me to politics. Everything in ME3 turns you into a politician. Want a volus resource? Go do a volus a favor. Want a turian resource? Go do a turian a favor. Either this favor is a simple scan and probe of a planet (dunno which one, scanned em all) or it's saving their entire freaking homeworld almost.

Which brings me to side missions. ME1 was almost in unbearable walking the same 2 dungeons with different stacked crates. And these two dungeons are pretty small but they are also what I call pimple dungeons. Let me explain, with a pimple you have to go in and remove all the bad stuff from the interior so it will heal. This is fine if you have a giant metal object to squeeze it but as a character that has to traverse the interior AND THEN walk all the way back out every time was very annoying as I got to experience that same dungeon forwards and backwards... With different stacked crates of course. I applaud the devs for reusing as many resources as possible though. ME2 did great about providing a different environment for each thing. ME3 had the perfect solution too: "Come pick me up, I'm done here [loading screen]". And requiring you to team up with different people was a great shake up in ME2 for the loyalty quests and for reunions in ME3.

The clone thing was an excellent midgame bumpstop. Unexpected, but well deserved as I slowed down how I completed the game after that.

ME3 doesn't like you to make your own saves. Often times I was blocked when I felt big stuff coming and the blockage was more confirmation. I was worried I was going to die but not too many issues. I feel like I cheated pulling my save from ME2 into ME3. Was able to max nearly 2 skills out of the gate. And honestly I used predator pistol and Avenger assault rifle almost the entire game, nice to have options but know I don't need them.

Let's talk gunplay. Across the trilogy I saw maybe half a dozen encounters which would have benefitted heavily from having a sniper rifle. I feel like this was a hard miss, but I looked that you could forego then for weight bonus in ME3. Now I'm not a fan of third person shooting but will say I had no need for sensitivity settings which is very good because to my knowledge there are none.

Boss fights. Nothing special. Dodge the attacks and hit it hard when opening shows, repeat 3 to 5 times. I think the story and world (galaxy) building make up for this. Most don't play to be tortured anyways so more involved boss fights would only be detrimental to the series. I will say fuck thresher maws in ME1; why are they on every damn desert planet and why do I have to fight them in the Maako. ME2 made up for this with awesome boss fights though and ME3 drive it home with the queen and the reaper. Excellent progression for a worm. Kai Leng and Harbinger controlled Saren were disappointing probably because the fights weren't phased well, but again good story.

And to wrap up, let's talk story. If I had to summarize it in one word: Reapers. if I had to add another: Cerberus. And if you insist on a third: Relays. These aren't the story though. You could swap those words out for other words and it would just be the pillars for the rest of the story, which is everyone you meet and their stories. Squad mates: each one has a different personality and they embody their race to some extent which is why you see them become prevalent members of their societies though creative writing blames Shepard for that influence. Each one is unique and ME2 goes all out making loyalty missions to give you a real idea of what each person is about. Beyond the squad though you have municipalities like Omega and Samaras second daughter at the bad Asari compound. These areas embody ideals and the player (Shepard) can latch onto any one of them and even fight for them. Heck even Feros you have to be pretty cold blooded to just mow down all the researchers. And back to Omega you have the complex history with Aria and Patriarch in ME2 and Aria with the Red Suns leader in ME3. This game does an amazing job of dartboarding the player with latchable ideals. Sure not all of them will stick but eventually one will. Even for the cold blooded you have Wrex/Grunt and Zaeed ready to make Swiss cheese out of anyone. Meet someone and identify with them. Then learn about them and their culture. That's what this game does and what it will do to you and that makes the stories incredible.

If you made it this far, I have a question before I start Andromeda: should I try to forget everything I know about 1-3 going in?