What gets lost in the ending discourse of 3 is how the entire game acts as endings to various character arcs and subplots among the trilogy. Some conclusions are utterly spectacular, while others like the ending of the game - can disappoint. Though I will say the Extended Cut fixed a lot of issues fans had with the original “choose a color” ending, and like I said above I was pretty happy with the ending mods I installed.

Some mods like the Diversification Project are great for a first playthrough, while others like the Risky Suicide Mission definitely aren’t. The vanilla experience is great on its own but mods can help fill out the universe where the dev team was too crunched or forgot to work on.

ME 3 easily has the best normandy, actually seeing squadmates walk over and talk to each other adds so much to the feel of the game. I was getting weirded out by the end of ME2 when I realized some squadmates I brought on missions just wouldn’t say anything at all - they were like silent puppets. 3 did a lot to fix that as well

Not sure how it works natively, I streamed from my PC to play on my Steam Deck

Yeah honestly on a playthrough of 1 I wasn’t engaged in the story missions until Virmire. The pace dragged & all the bland corridors weren’t helping.

Hope you have a blast!! Honestly if I’d go back I’d get the unlimited sprint mod & other gameplay ones for ME2. The combat felt so slow even playing the Vanguard class.

I thought I read somewhere that it was mainly to stop weapon models clipping through armor in the first game, and the animations just stuck around

Some of the weapon types in Monster Hunter (Sword & Shield, Lance) have the hunter be left-handed

Cairn! Not very patient haha, oh well