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With the announcement of the newest BioWare game, Anthem, I wanted to know what everyone's Most Favorite and Least Favorite games are in the BioWare Canon.

Out of ME1-3 and DA1-3... kind of two different answers for favourite, depending on what you want a 'game' to be.

For the setting, Mass Effect 2, with ME1 a close second. I love the Mass Effect galaxy (y'know, the one Andromeda isn't in at all, so that's $50 I got to spend on Lego instead) and pretty much everything in it, apart from that one batarian guy I shot. ME2 added polish to a lot of ME1's already good elements, but I feel what really sets it apart is Omega and Illium and Tuchanka, and the way the playthrough structure takes you back to those locations several times so they felt like real places with their own 'life' you just happen to visit, rather than levels you play through and never look back from (in fact, could you go back to Noveria and Zhu's Hope after you'd finished them? It honestly never occurred to me to try). I could spend years in that galaxy (thanks to the magic of forum roleplaying, I did). ME3 I enjoyed, but I feel like everything I loved about it was stuff it had found already there when it showed up, and the new material it brought to the table was weaker; particularly, I don't think I needed every major societal conflict to be resolved (not that I begrudge the krogan and quarians getting their fertility and homeworld back respectively) and I was disappointed to visit two major species homeworlds (well, a moon in Palaven's case) only to find Generic Wartorn Zone #1 and #2 and, with the exception of being spoonfed some exposition in the temple) experience basically nothing of the societies there. I know there was a war on, but honestly...

But Dragon Age 2 did something Mass Effect didn't, which was to really put me into my hero, and make choices based on her feelings and her friendships and relationships and history, living at ground level rather than playing the setting with a view to the 'overall storyline'. Maybe that's more on me that Bioware, that could well be. I like Elizabeth Shepard, I think her love story with Liara (Destroy ending, she's fine, little blue babies - and the geth and EDI are fine too, stop making up nonsense you little hologram-twit) is a warm central story for this whole wonderful galaxy to exist around (yeah yeah she fights a war too, whatever), but she didn't challenge me - I pretty much picked up 'upstanding officer' as her core trait from the start, and that bloomed into this omni-hero I could be lovely to the galaxy with (except the aforementioned batarian guy - he had it coming). The moral of this story is, put me on a spaceship, you're going to see some Starfleet behaviour. Aislinn Hawke made me look through her eyes, be affected by what she experienced and choose her path based on those influences - in a sense she took on a life of her own, and that's never happened to in a video game (and only occasionally at all, when I've been doing the writing). So that was pretty special.

Least favourite is easy though, Dragon Age Inquisition by a mile. I'll allow room for disagreement since I never finished it, or even got to the bulk of it, but the plain fact is slogging through the opening mission - fighting the controls and camera, sitting through stilted dialogue and ugly charmless character models, discovering nothing to interest me (or even anything I can remember now) about whatever the heck my character's name was (Trevelyan? Like 006? Not sure, don't care) - was such a miserable shell of the DA2 experience that I shut it down and never played it again. So I can't pretend I'm really qualified to assess the game as a whole, but nor have I ever regretted not trying again.

My favorite to Least Favorite BioWare games.

Dragon Age: Inquisition

I know that a lot of fans have a number of issues with this game and that's fine but personally I LOVE DAI. I love the characters, I love the world, I love all the romance options, I love the love the missions and I love the story. And in my honest opinion, I think that Solas is the best villain in the BioWare canon as I find him to be more, for lack of a better word, human and relatable unlike the Reapers or Saren, (though they are great villains to) and I love all the hints and clues hidden throughout the game that hint at his true identity making it, in my humble opinion, one of the best twists in video game history.

Again I get that a lot of fans don't like this game and I do admit that the game does have its issues, like the maps unrelated to the main story have a lot of plot and side quests but no story making those areas feel more like padding, but I personally think the Pros outweigh the Cons. And my God that sound track and those visuals Mmmm! Easily one of the best music scores of ANY series of all time. Up there with Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Avatar: The Legend of Aang/Korra, Batman: The Animated Series and The Legend of Zelda.

As of the time of this post I've begun my I've lost count of how many times I have played this game playthrough and thanks to this game I am now a huge fan of the Dragon Age games and look forward to DA4.

Mass Effect 2

The Game that got me hooked on a series, (insert groans due to bad pun here) after watching Chuck's review of the game. The opening is awesome, the characters are memorable, the loyalty missions are a work of genius, the combat is fun and the Suicide Mission is one of the best final levels in video game history. I don't like all the characters, and a lot of your choices from ME1 seem to be rather inconsequential and I think that killing Shepard and bringing her/him back to life was a bit head tilting but just like DAI the pros more then make up for the games missteps, (though I would move this game up to #1 if I could romance Tali as Femshep)

Dragon Age: Origins

Pretty much everything Chuck said in his review of the game are my thoughts as well so go and watch that review for more and the only thing that I would add is that I wish the game was less brown and the combat went on a bit to long for my taste. Final Battle is awesome, the characters a among the best in BioWare and I do love just how much control you have over the games story. The ending of DAO is pretty much what the ending of ME3 SHOULD have been (no offense to people who like the ending of ME3) as it builds on the choices you have made throughout the game along with its epilogue is a game I will keep close to my heart as the "See?! That's How You End a RPG!"

Mass Effect 1

I think this is BioWare's most straight forward game in terms of story structure. Out of all the BioWare games I have played ME1 doesn't have much in the way doing things differently. Which isn't a criticisms Star Wars: A New Hope is also fairly straight forward as it sticks to a old fashion formula, the heroes journey which is pretty much the journey that Shepard is on in ME1. And that is executed very well and has a small yet memorable cast of characters and two of the best villains in the series. However, what drags it down, for me at least, is the combat and the levels structure. Aside from Virmire, which is one of my favorite missions in the original Trilogy, all the levels are rather straight forward go from Point A to Point B and kill everything that enters your line of sight. Also aside from the Ilos the music didn't really capture me the way that DAI's music does. Still a great game and a good starting point for the series.

Mass Effect 3

Okay I'm going to get this out of the way right now I HATE THAT LITTLE BLUE TROLL!!! That Little Blue Troll is the bane of this series, it is badly written goes against everything we've learn about the Reapers and makes replaying the series a chore at best, insulting at worst. Not to mention that EVEN IN THE EXTENDED CUT Shepard Never questions what this thing is, why it looks like some random kid that we NEVER learn the name of or how it is capable of doing what it can! There are also a number of minor things that bug me about this game, its attempts to make us care about the aforementioned kid with no name who appears in the post credits scene of the game, EVEN IF YOU WENT WITH THE REFUSAL ENDING! (Was he's one of the executives kids or something!!!) Some of the worst characters in the BioWare canon like Kai Lang, The aforementioned kid and The Little Blue Troll and why was Jessica Chobot in this game? Also not a big fan with the overly simplified Dialogue Wheel and how little control you have over Shepard but that was due to EA rushing them so I'm willing to give them some leeway on that at least.

However, ME3 has some of the best characters moments in the ME series, the best combat of the original game, great visuals, some great music, (not as good as DAI IMHO but still pretty damn good) and the REAL finally of the series, the Citadel DLC, is one of the greatest endings of all time, reminding me why I came to love this series and making me want to replay the series so long as I stopped playing the main campaign after Sanctuary and just played the last three story DLC's and filled in the rest with my imagination (Tzofi Shepard's fleet, combined with Leviathan's possessed Reapers, managed to destroy the Reapers and Cerberus and Tali and Shepard finally admitted their feelings for each other and retired to Rannoch).

Dragon Age II

For me, as I know that a lot of fans really love this game, I personally didn't care for this one. The Combat got repetitive, the game was way to dark with no real chance to breath and everyone was way to over the top. Its similar problem I had with the DCEU movies until Wonder Woman, everything is about these big moments with no time to process any of it, (another reason I love DAI so much was that it gave you time to just live in this world like the Citadel DLC in ME3 did) until the DLC Mark of the Assassin was released which had a much better pace and game structure. I really grew to hate Kirkwall after awhile due to the fact I kept going through the same three or four dungeons and given how most of the people were there it made me pine for the time I spent in Orzammar because at least there were different rooms and some people I crew to care about outside of my own team.

Still I the game is very memorable and has a number of characters I grew to care about even if I felt most of them were a bit shallow, for me at least. And because of that I did want to see these characters make it threw this and that scene where you Hawke loses her mother actually got me and my family more then just a little chocked up.

And given that this led to my personal favorite game in the BioWare canon and is the one that made the middle option snarky and fun rather then boring and bland I can see myself replaying this game again, just not any time soon.

Mass Effect: Andromeda

In my opinion, the worst overall game BioWare has ever made as, again IMO, it seems to do EVERYTHING wrong. The jokes are okay, the characters are so forgettable, (I have been trying to remember the name of the Krogan Squad Mate for the past two days and I am still drawing up a blank). The story is sub-par at best, boring at worse and the Kett are just so uninteresting. The Twist that they are genetically modified Angarin is so obvious I called it the moment I saw the concept art. And the game has, hands down, the WORST Dialogue Wheel in BioWare history. DAI has, in my opinion, the overall best DW as it gives you so much control over the Inquisitor to the point that I have played not only as a Paragon, Neutral and Renegade but also as a Manipulative Basted/Bitch (like Richard III) and as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold (like Dr. Cox).

But in MEA, you have two options in pretty much every conversation and the "Tone" options are all so bland. In DAI you had up to seven tone options and all fitting of the situations you would need them and all were vastly different from each other, Anger, Fear, Confusion, Surprised, Sad, Stoic and Pleased along with a number of special options that would pop up depending on your class, race or what you bought at the war table. MEA? At most you get four tone choices except after a while you learn that they're all the same tone just spelled differently, Emotional, Logical, Casual and Professional have no real difference during conversations so you're left wondering why BioWare even bothered with the DW if they weren't even going to try to proved the illusion of Free Will. They tried to pass if off as going in a new direction by removing the Paragon/Renegade System and replacing it with a Agree/Disagree system only that you are given no real chance to be a jerk to ANYONE even characters your suppose to hate.

And what's worse is the game is just so lazy in every department except combat and the design of the planets. But even then they come off as lazy when compared to DAI in which the areas were loaded with stuff to find and had some truly beautiful maps that felt like they were real and the side quests weren't all just combat related. In MEA you have, at best, three to four kinds of side quests and they ALL invovle combat in one way or another.

The music is okay but coming off the heels of DAI and the original ME trilogy its just okay, nothing stands out to me except for Ghost Rider in the Sky and that only appeared in the Announcement Trailer. Also the puzzles to open the vaults were just so tedious and felt like they were attempting to copy those amazing astrarium which had amazing music, wonderful sound effects and gave showed you what you are trying to make. The puzzles in MEA? You get ambient noise, annoying sounds that happen EVERY TIME YOU MESS THE PUZZLE UP! And you are not given any clear clue on how to solve these puzzles, at least I didn't get any clues on how to solve these puzzles.

The worst part about the game, however, is that its not really that bad, its just sorta dull. After finishing it I couldn't really remember anything about it and what's worse, is that I didn't care. While I have my issues with ME3 and DAII they are least got me invested, I still wanted to go through everyone's person quests and to see the game through to the end. But with MEA, I had no interest in the characters or the plot and I have no interest in replaying it anytime soon.

Argh, sorry for going on like that I just wanted to get that out of my system. But yeah, those are all the BioWare games I have ever played and the order I like them in. I hope that Anthem is able to get BioWare out of the jam that MEA put it in and I hope that DA4 is every bit as good as DAI while fixing the few issues I had with the game. More stories in the areas like what we got in the Jaws of Hakkon and not selling the ending as DLC. Yeah I may love DAI but even I think that was a bit BS.

Best BioWare game: Knights of the Old Republic.

I love that game. I still occasionally fire it up and play a bit. I like the sequel a lot, too, (especially after the unofficial patch that returns the cut content) but that was Obsidian's baby not BioWare's. The characters were fun and the differing philosophies of the Sith and Jedi were interesting to discuss. It also had the best Bastard Moment when you could order Zaalbar to kill Mission because of his life debt to you. It was so deliciously evil.

Worst BioWare Game: Mass Effect.

I didn't like the story. I didn't like the characters. I found the gameplay to be boring at best and absolutely tedious busywork at worst. I only played a few hours before I didn't bother with it (or the rest of the series) ever again. Can't say I regret it, either, considering what I know about how terrible the ME3 ending was and the hilarious abomination that is Andromeda.

They're all good, in different ways. Different strengths, different weaknesses... but the focus on character is always super strong, and the worlds always immersive.

I've played DA 1 and 2 twice each, Inquisition once, ME 2 and 3 once, and haven't yet started Andromeda because I was busy with Horizon Zero Dawn. But soon!

DA1 probably has the most epic story of the DA games, and a super memorable cast, and your decisions feel like actual decisions that have an effect on the endgame. It was also my first bioware game AND my first PS3 game so it was a pretty big jump from what I was used to, so I may elevate it artificially as a result of that. My first run I played pure heroic good samaritan that happened to be a thief.... and then my second playthrough a complete opposite... a bloodmage obsessed with power that would backstab and kill anyone, including siding against mages so only she would have power. It's a trend I repeated in 2, and its a pretty fun outlet to do both extremes.

DA2 I actually played all the way through twice in the course of about 6 weeks t get the platinum. I had no work at the time and clearly too much free time. A lot of people complain about it all being in one city and repeated maps, but that actually gave it some intimacy and familiarity. Varric was amazing and never left my party. On either playthrough.

DA3 I reeeeally wanted to love. ANd I liked a lot of it. But it suffered from the usual problem of open world games... it had 120 hours of content on a 40 hour game. So by the end all the quests felt redundant and I was waaaay overleveled. I'll get around to a second run again someday, but I want to upgrade to PS4 and all the DLC that they left out of the PS3 version. And in the meantime, I have a ton of other games... like Mass Effect 4. I really want to do it again though, and this time around have Solas and Blackwall in my party for more of the game. They both kind of bored me the first time around, but their late game reveals changed SO much about them I want to pay closer attention.

ME1-Didn't hit playstation till after the trilogy had ended, so I never played it.

ME2- Great characters, great universe. A shooter game I actually *liked* and got absorbed in, with some great set pieces. Love the Krogans. Love them.

ME3- ANd because I loved the Krogans, I really enjoyed the heavy focus they got in that game, and basically said screw the Salarians with zero hesitation. The game gets a lot of flak for its ending, but after the free DLC patch I think it's fine. And the Mordin story resolution is just so, SO good. Fantastic piece of writing and storytelling. I also played the hell out of the multiplayer, really enjoyed it.

I've actually been less compelled to replay the ME games since the story is SO intertwined, I would have to do them back to back and I just don't have the time for that right now. Especially when I haven't even touched the new one yet!

Sonic the Hedgehog: Dark Brotherhood. Well. It still has some Bioware quality but it wasn't one of their main projects and it kind of shows. Still decent for what it was, a portable game for a franchise that wasn't their oewn.

Good: KOTOR, ME1&2, DA:Origins
OK: SWTOR, DA: Inquisition, ME3
Disappointing: DA2, ME: Andromeda.

KOTOR was damn near perfect and ME1 & 2 were pretty good hard-sf successors to it. One thing I liked about Origins was blending of Tolkien cliches with a kind of alternate late 11th century that is much less prevalent in the later games with the Anglo-Saxon Fereldens having instead successfully rebelled against the Norman Orlesians . Also the characters are too sort of "self-aware" in the later games, they don't seem like they fit into the world. On the other hand the characters in Andromeda were really flat, particularly the Archon. If you're going to use the Emperor Ming archetype at least make him cheesy like Darth Malak.

Dragon Age: Origins is still my favorite, hands down. Good combination of epic quest and personal villain, awesome companions (with a couple of exceptions), and the lore felt like it had so much potential.

Least favorite was Dragon Age: Inquisition. Buggy at launch, even on console. Too much map with too little story to fill it. The shards represented the most annoying fetch quest I've ever attempted, and the oculus actually made me motion sick. I was tired of nearly all of my companions by the halfway point; going out on quests with them was like being on a long car ride with a bunch of people I could barely stand. Weak villain that depended on DLC from a previous game to have any impact. Annoying NPCs that relied on knowledge of outside canon to have any impact. Incomplete story finished in DLC that was only available to PC users and those who bought the base game on next-gen consoles. Unintuitive dialogue wheels with shallow conversation options.
And I could go on!
This game was so bad that I'm probably not going to buy the next one, since this one just doubled-down on all the stuff I disliked from DA2 and it seems to be the way Bioware is headed overall.

Honorable mention for Baldur's Gate. I can't really get into it now, but I loved it in my younger days.

Okay first off I want to thank everyone who has read this post and have posted your thoughts on what you find to be the best and worst of BioWare, it really means the world to me. I will say I am surprised that I am the only one who seems to outright love Dragon Age: Inquisition with some of you just liking it while others find it just as disappointed as I found Mass Effect: Andromeda. I'm not angry or anything, I want to make that clear, I'm completely okay with different opinions and I like hearing what everyone thinks. I do, however, want to add one more reason as to why DAI is my favorite game in the BioWare canon because as I do feel this point is important and why I found MEA to be so disappointing.

I'm not trying to change anyone's mind on the subject I just want to show what I see in it and see what you all think and if at the end you disagree with me then that's okay, these are just my opinions and I actually like hearing what you guys think about DAI.

The thing I love most about DAI is the little moments that occur between the characters when you have down time, helping Sera with her pranks, playing Cullen in chess, having drinks with Iron Bull, talking fashion with Vivienne, having lunch with Cole, helping Cassandra get the next issue of Swords and Shields, and of course playing Wicked Grace with most of the characters. This reminds me a lot about ME3 Citadel DLC which also had a lot of moments like this and it was equally good there. But here's the thing, that was a DLC that you had to pay for while the moments I just described in DAI were already part of the game.

And what I love about these moments is that it helps make the world and the characters more real, more three dimensional which is one of the reasons most of these characters, (if not all of them) are some of my favorite characters ever. And while there are many of these moments they never get in the way of the more serious moments of the game. I think my favorite bit of DAI has to be when you arrive at Skyhold. Not when you are made the Inquisitor for all you have done but when you go around and talk to the other characters and what are they all doing? Coming to terms with what happened in Haven, whether its Sera finally realizing what she's gotten herself involved in, Cullen and Blackwall going over the castle's defenses, Varrick feeling guilty over not telling anyone about Hawke and where s/he was sooner and just the characters acting like people.

Take this in contrast with ME2, my second favorite BioWare game, after the destruction of the Normandy, the Death of Shepard or after your crew is taken by the Collectors no one is really talking about any of this all that much. Which does make sense the former took place two years ago and both are presented in a, no time to talk we have a job to do. But I like that DAI gives you a chance to breath with the characters and take in everything that is happening or just passing the time so you get get invested in said characters and this world.

But more importantly the reason I love moments like this and why I found MEA to be such a let down is that not only do the characters react to what is happening and we see how it is effecting them, but the more lighthearted moments don't over take the plot. In MEA the characters never seem to take what is going on all that seriously, just about everyone is making a joke or making bad puns. Case in point, the human arc arrives at the Nexus and you and your squad get on board. You just lost your father, The Human Pathfinder and the arc has taken damage but once you get on board there is no one there and the lights are out. And all Liam can do is joke about wanting a party and champagne. No really, throughout the first few minutes all Liam does is ask where the champagne is and how this is the worst surprise party ever.

I, just, wha- WHERE ARE THE PEOPLE YOU IDIOT! We know there are hostel aliens and that they attacked us for unknown reasons, our Pathfinder is dead and our only possible safe harbor is dark and there is no one around! And you want to know where the champagne is?!

When Garrus made jokes in ME2 it was clearly a coping mechanisms to deal with the loss of his team as any time they were brought up, along with the one who betrayed him, he became more somber as it clearly hunted him. Sera, after returning from the fade and seeing her worst fears was clearly still terrified to the point that she took a swing at the Inquisitor because they were the ones who got her in that situation. Your whole crew in ME1 taking the death of Kaidan or Ashley hard as they had gotten to know them and now realize just how dangerous the situation really is. Hell, even the death of the Red Shirt at the start of ME1 had more impact on the characters then anything that happens to anyone in MEA.

DAI used the darker moments to help contrast the darker and more serious moments of the games story and once said serious moments were over, even when the there was humor the game made it feel real as most of the time its just the characters trying to lighten the mood to help themselves deal with what's going on. You didn't have Sera trying to clue a wig, made out of Blackwall's beard, to Solas' head cause the developers knew that fans that now was not the time!

You need the more lighthearted moments to make sure the dark and more serious moments don't overwhelm the viewer, yes. But you need to treat the dark and serious moments seriously or you're just going to end up annoying the viewer. Even the Citadel DLC, which had tones of silly moments, had its far share of somber and quite moments like Thane's funeral or the tail end of the DLC where Shepard and, insert love interest or Joker here, where Shepard come to realize that this could very well be the end and at the very least this is the last time the last living characters will be together. It was a well done moment that let the series end on a high note while MEA decided to do away with that in exchange for a bunch of jokes.

(sigh) Okay rant over, sorry about that. But yeah, that's what I love most about DAI. It had it funny moments while still treating the more serious situations with all the seriousness they deserved. It never turned to the camera and winked at the players and only started to joke when it was actually needed. After the battle of Haven when everyone who survived started singing as they find hope again as they see you as the Herald of Andraste, finding Skyhold and becoming the Inquisitor is, in my opinion, one of the great moments of any game, up there with Shepard becoming the first human specter, the conversation with Sovereign and the final battle of DAO and then it gives you time to take it all in and get to know the characters better and only after everything has settled does the game start making jokes again.

But if you don't think that is enough and you still find the game to be disappointing then that's fine, I just hope you see why I love it

My problems with DAI come from a bad experience with the game. I was trying to play it on a PS3, and my several year old console was not up to the task of running the game properly. Excessively long loading screens, buggy as all hell graphic issues, constant frame rate drops when too much stuff is going on, and so on. After getting to Redcliffe the game would start crashing altogether, the console would lock up, and I would have to manually shut it off and restart. I finally got sick if it when the game crashed during the Cassandra romance scene, decided this game just wasn't playable on my old console, and would give it another go on PS4.

Of course, when I did try the PS4 version a few years later, the bad experience stuck with me. I was constantly looking out for issues that made the other version crash, which made it hard for me to actually enjoy the game. Got a lot farther in than before, but still haven't actually finished. I think i left my save right before the final mission, but I have no desire to thwart the lackluster big bad. I might go back to it again, in between playing other games.

I haven't picked up Andromeda yet. Going to wait for a price drop on that one.

If I had to pick a favorite, it would be either Origins or ME2. I'd have to play through both again to choose between them.

My issue with DA3, like I said, was mostly that it was an open world game and they just didn't have enough material to fill that space. You could spend 30 hours running around the hinterlands doing mindless fetch quests, closing portals and fetching swords and hunting down shards and taking out minor bandits... things that were really boring and repetitive... meanwhile all the *interesting* stuff that was going on that was truly world building and political and worthy of your station happened in the war council, was off camera and text only, and you got basically the same results having anyone handle it.

The shard quest was the epitome of a waste of time. You spend dozens of extra hours hopping around the map trying to cheat your way up mountainsides in order to collect them all... (there was generally an *intended* path to get to them... and once you were AT the location you could see what that was, but good like finding the path to get there with a casual walk when the starting point was often a mile away from the dot on the map) and at the end of it after getting a million shards over the course of the game across every single map, it leads to... fighting a single pride demon and some lackluster loot.

Even something as cool as fighting dragons, something the franchise has always fallen short of, got dull before the end because there were like 14 of them, including 2 story forced ones... and they only really had a couple play mechanics and weren't super varied. Fighting a *dragon* was just tedium by the end of the game. The *first* one you fight is scary and exciting as it runs around the map and calls its children and snipes you from a distance, but the others were generally in a much more enclosed space and just sort of used the same tactics. Minor variance in elemental damage. Had it been just 4 dragons plus 2 story based ones, its might have stayed fresh. (Of course it's nowhere near as bad as in Skyrim where you wipe one out every five minutes.)

The actual main character stuff and story was all really good. That's where Bioware excels. The resolution for Hawke or Loghain was great, as was the overall story and combat system.... but the game was just too big for its own good. I loved it, but it was just stretched a bit too thin. If the maps had been half the size, and there'd been less fetch quests, and just a little shorter overall... a 60 or 70 hour game rather than 100, it'd be great. I imagine I'll like it better whenever I get around to a second play through and don't bother with most of that stuff. (It might have been better if they'd held the hinterlands for later, and you started in a smaller location and got the main story moving faster.)