I'm gonna rank the 20 squad-mates and some other random stuff. Some ideas i have had is Classes, Loyalty Missions, and some other stuff. If anyone has a preference let me know.
Note: This will not be a OMG HUMANS SUCK ranking topic. Note 2: There will be spoilers for all 3 games, including possible ending spoilers.
Tiers
Godly 1. 2. 3.
Amazing 4. 5. 6. 7.
Great 8. 9. 10. 11.
Good 12. 13. 14.
Meh 15. 16. 17. 18.
Ew 19. 20.
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Morinth is a really cool concept for a character. A very sexual character who kills using... well... sex, and the daughter of a party member! Lots of stuff we haven't seen before, not really. During Samara's loyalty mission we track her down and get the choice of killing her or saving her and killing Samara. The two problems with that are it is pretty dumb to lose a Justicar for an Ardat-Yakshi, and you need a very high paragon/renegade score to even get the option! But ignoring those flaws it was a cool idea.
So on my second play through I said screw it, I'll save Morinth. I was excited to see what differences there would be.
There were basically none. Some dialogue was different in her cabin but she didn't have a lot. You can sleep with her and it causes a game over, which was fairly amusing and probably the best thing about her character imo.
Mass Effect 3 rolls around and you get an email from her and... nothing. It turns out to be a throwaway, as she is just turned into a Banshee. And not like, a super banshee or something cool. Just a regular one, with a lot of the meaning taken out of that mission.
Morinth could have been a top 10 character if implemented correctly but it seemed like Bioware wasn't sure what to do with her.
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Up, I'm gonna try and do a write-up before I leave for work in 30, It is a pretty universally disliked character so I don't think I'll have to write a ton.
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19. Ashley WIlliams I am going to keep this short because she is at this spot in almost everyone's list. Ashley is offensive in a few ways. Her anti-alien bigotry which really doesn't go away for male-shep unless you romance her is so awful and I wanted to kick her off my ship at times during the first game. And honestly, if you aren't romancing her, pretty much everyone leaves her at Virmire.
Her romance is awful. She goes from tough racist soldier to mushy poet which doesn't really fit her character at all in my opinion. I tried to romance her but it was a chore and I always end up going back to Liara.
In addition she is kinda sexist on the part of Bioware. Her armor is super tight and bright pink. I mean really? And than they decide to give her plastic surgery and pretty her up for ME3. I heard she is snotty in the third one too, but i'll never know.
All the same, she beats Morinth pretty easily by having an actual character outside of her recruitment mission.
Ew Tier 19. Ashley Williams 20. Morinth
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18. Kaidan Alenko Morinth and Ashley are the only two characters I dislike. These next four have their problems and aren't the most exciting but they are all at least decent.
Kaidan's problem is that he is boring. Really, really boring. Especially in the first game. He isn't particularly bad but the squad-mates in ME1 were pretty good aside from him and Ashley. All the conversations with him are fairly boring. He didn't feel like a squad-mate, he felt like he should be just someone on your ship like Adams. I was so bored by him i didn't even youtube his romance scenes.
In ME2 he was just there for a little bit. I was surprised he didn't join the party but kinda glad, the party was already crowded enough.
In ME3 he's... actually improved. He is kind of a badass at parts, especially the part on Mars. It didn't really feel like Kaiden though... It was over the top... CAN YOU FEEL IT SHEPARD... THE QUICKENING..
Nope.
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I find it funny that Bioware realized Kaiden had no personality, so in ME3 they kind gave him all these weird exaggerated qualities that seem to vary wildly from scene to scene.
In one he's a skeptic, in another he's trying to be "hardcore," then he's hitting on Shepard, in another HE CAN'T STOP GRINNING
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17. Zaeed Massani I feel like I should put this here: In my opinion, Mass Effect is one of the best written game series of all time. The plot (I'm not letting 10 minutes overrule 100 hours >>), the dialogue and the wonderful characters. So putting Zaeed here is not an indictment of him. As much as I just complained about Kaiden, if he was in a different game, say Call Of Duty, he would be pretty good. So keep that in mind.
Zaeed is fairly interesting but is biggest flaw was a difficult one to avoid: he was under-utilized due to being a DLC character. Not having a conversation wheel hurt him, although Bioware apparently liked the idea and used it exclusively in ME3. He was the founder of the Blue Suns but i feel like that fact was rarely mentioned outside of his Loyalty mission and the ship on occasion, despite dealing with the Blue Suns a good bit.
Sure he was interesting but he was just... there a lot of the time. I rarely took him with me in ME2 and I don't think most people did either. I don't know what it is exactly. I did really enjoy his war stories though. In ME3 Zaeed seemed like he had changed quite a bit, maybe from his interaction with my Paragon Shep because he didn't seem nearly as badass... risking his life (and dying if you didn't get his loyalty in ME2) for... a Volus ambassador who was working with Cerberus? Really?
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Never got Zaeed in my games as when I bought ME2 after borrowing it from a friend I bought it used. And since the Cerberus network is 15 dollars I don't think I'll ever get him.
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16. Miranda Lawson I am sure this will be a somewhat controversial ranking as people seem to have fairly strong opinions on here. I've seen her ranked 20th and top 5 before. I don't really get either argument. Those that hate her call her a ***** and say that she has no likability. Those who like her point to her interesting backstory and character arc.
Both are right which makes ranking her difficult. She is a cold *****, especially at the beginning. And her complaining about how hard life was for her because she was perfect? That annoyed me too.
However I like the rebel within her and the whole backstory of running away to someone her father worked with was fairly ballsy, although i'm not sure why she didn't just take her sister with her. Her loyalty mission is so-so, plot wise one of the weaker ones for sure but fairly fun and it put Miranda in a position of not power which was interesting.
Her appearance in ME3 continued to flesh out her character but i was kinda annoyed by the whole "hey come down to the citadel and we will meet for one line but make sure you visit me every single time i ask to talk to you for one more line and warn me or i die lololol" thing.
I'm having a hard time with this write-up but you get the gist.
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15. Jacob Taylor Jacob isn't the most exciting character. I didn't have him in my party all that often because he wasn't super useful in combat imo. He struck me as a kind of Garrus lite and I probably would have liked him better if Garrus wasn't there. However I felt that his loyalty mission was pretty good. It was fairly emotional and I felt like it explained his character pretty well.
He also has a hilarious romance scene with shepard and Kasumi's love of him makes me laugh anymore. The prizeeeeee. However I read that even if you romance him in ME3 he still gets with Brynn. So Jacob has ****d Miranda, Shepard and Brynn. Good work by him, lets be honest.
As bro shep i thought he improved in ME3. His emotional progress was kinda cool.
Jacob really only ranks above the other few because he isn't really flawed. He's kinda boring but he's fairly likable.
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I need to finish my second run so I can do this myself and slap some superior opinions on you people.
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I'm pretty sure all the other ranking topics were nicer to the humans than this. I myself would at least put Zaeed a little higher. You can't blame the character for Bioware being lazy.
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xfd dude, it's just a popularity contest on the internets. -Vlado
I like Ash, Miranda and Zaeed quite a bit... yeah, I know the former two are unpopular opinions, just voicin' em.
Kaidan's OK... but I agree with your statement on how if he were in another series he'd be good. That's just how things are in Mass Effect. The ballgame's a tough one when damn near everyone is surprisingly well-written.
I was wrong. I have only one human in my top 10. I just like almost all the characters ><
14. Samara This is evidence of how much I love this game. I take Samara with me from time to time and really like her character and she is still 14th. However Samara kinda suffers from Jacob disease in that her character is a little dry. I'm gonna be completely honest and say I don't know how much I would still like wasn't blue and didn't have giant boobs sticking out for all to see. I think that it makes her character more amusing though, being so serene but a killer, so order based but her outfit (and body) would work on a stripper.
I also like that her name is Hebrew for guardian. Maybe a little obvious but kinda neat. I love that you can come so close to romancing her but she won't let you. My Shepard doesn't get turned down by girls he wants very often and it was kinda neat to see it. You even get extra dialogue in ME3 if you almost kiss her.
I do like her in ME3, much more rewarding than Morinth. You having to stop her from killing herself made me restart once cause i wasn't expect to have to paragon interrupt. The renegade play out of that is pretty cruel, no need for Shep to do that.
w00t awful write-up
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GaryOak151 posted... I was wrong. I have only one human in my top 10. I just like almost all the characters ><
14. Samara This is evidence of how much I love this game. I take Samara with me from time to time and really like her character and she is still 14th. However Samara kinda suffers from Jacob disease in that her character is a little dry. I'm gonna be completely honest and say I don't know how much I would still like wasn't blue and didn't have giant boobs sticking out for all to see. I think that it makes her character more amusing though, being so serene but a killer, so order based but her outfit (and body) would work on a stripper.
Isn't she like the equivalent of 50 or 60?
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13. Jack Jack benefited from ME3 a lot. She was "ok" in ME2 but not this high. Her romance was just really weird. You could randomly f her or turn her into a 3 year old girl. And you don't really get to turn her into a normal person unless you romance which is kinda sexist. However her vandalism comment makes me laugh every single playthrough. Her recruitment mission is pretty fun and her loyalty mission is meh. Helps with the backstory but gameplay wise it was very slow and i hate doing it on replays.
In ME3 she grows so much being around Shepard though. First of all she looks so much better with the ponytail and new outfit. She actually looks like someone you would want to romance now. She has matured. Her cursing at Joker was one of my favorite scenes in the whole game. She has some great lines in general and I like her interaction with her students. She gets limited screen time but owns almost every minute of it. I rarely used her in ME2, I would have used her from time to time in 3 even though the squadmate selection was almost as tough, if not tougher.
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