I feel like the PS4 version of ME:A didn't keep me constantly updated about the number of shaders it is building, but I could just be forgetting. It's time for a male Ryder playthrough (first playthrough was as the sister)

The biggest legitimate critique of this game was that its story bible, if it existed, was lazy and poorly-adhered to leading to massive continuity drift in tone and setup between the two halves of the game. Look forward to me complaining about it again

ME2>ME1=MEA>ME3. ME3 plays better than 1 but leans entirely on "hey, remember how much you loved 1 and 2?" to sell you a plot so tired, paint-by-numbers, and downright insulting they had to do copious DLC work post-release to fix what should have been a slam dunk https://twitter.com/mramato29/status/1247016708528836608

ME1 plays real bad but has fun physics interactions; it suffers from being a Star Wars game with the IP filed off and being very clunky, but has the benefit of coming first. MEA plays the best, but was doomed because you have zero nostalgia for the cast, so bad plotting sinks it