History YMMV / MassEffect

* FanPreferredCouple:
** At the end of the trilogy, it seems that the consensus of the most popular pairings that took up the majority of fanfics are: Female Shepard / Garrus (for the straight female players), Male Shepard / Tali (the straight male players), Male Shepard / Kaidan (for the gay males and YaoiFangirls) and Female Shepard / Liara (for the lesbians players and {{Yuri Fan}}s) (all of them are canon, thankfully for the shippers, though only one was available from the start of the series; the other three were added specifically because those characters proved unexpectedly popular in their demographics) and... [[CrackShip Saren / Nihlus]]. And yes, only one of them did not involve [[PlayerCharacter Shepard]]. [[LastMinuteHookUp Tali / Garrus]] and Liara / Javik tend to be popular ShipMates to those who don't romance them.
** [[FoeYayShipping Jack/Miranda]] is both character's most popular pairing for those who didn't romance them.

** The first ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'' has a dialogue option that plays around with the idea of Shepard trying to potentially end up in a threesome with Ashley/Kaidan and Liara if you ended up romancing them both. Ashley/Kaidan wind up refusing to go along with it, which isn't a bad thing due to how crazy the idea sounds. However, the threesome option in general never pops up again at any time in the franchise.

** ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'' has a dialogue option that plays around with the idea of Shepard trying to potentially end up in a threesome with Ashley/Kaidan and Liara if you ended up romancing them both. Ashley/Kaidan wind up refusing to go along with it, which isn't a bad thing due to how crazy the idea sounds. However, the threesome option in general never pops up again at any time in the franchise.

* {{Woolseyism}}: Less of a "clever" translation and more of a tactful one, the French dub calls the Salarians "''Galariens''" (Galarians, not, not [[VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield that kind]]) as the expected translation ("''Salariens''") would be very close phonetically to "sales Aryens" (literally "dirty [[ThoseWackyNazis Aryans]]") and the translators presumably wanted to dodge ''those'' particular UnfortunateImplications.

* FanNickname: Pressly's known as "Hugs and Kisses Pressly" on the ''Franchise/MassEffect'' forums.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: Khalisah al-Jilani is intended to come off as a [[IfItBleedsItLeads tabloid journalist]] who you either make look stupid or just [[TalkToTheFist punch in the face]]. However, a significant number of players don't find her questioning as being that out-of-sorts, as it is true that Saren is corrupt the Council is hiding the truth to save face. This continues into the next two games where her obviously human-centric worldview doesn't look that bad compared to people like Terra Firma or Cerberus, though in the third one you do at least have the option of making amends with her.

* MemeticHandGesture: The [[{{Jerkass}} Turian Councilor's]] air quotes when he dismisses the reports of the Reapers.

* FanDislikedExplanation: The origin and motivation of the Reapers revealed in ''Mass Effect 3''. [[spoiler:An army of synthetics sent to exterminate organic civilizations turns out to be a rogue AI's attempt to ''prevent war'' between organics and synthetics, in the belief that it's InYourNatureToDestroyYourselves. Fans who hate the ending are quick to mock the InsaneTrollLogic involved (which the story ''barely'' allows the player to question), and how the effort to make the Reapers into {{Well Intentioned Extremist}}s contradicts the menacing [[CardCarryingVillain card-carrying villainy]] of Harbinger and Sovereign in the previous games.]]

*** The Indoctrination Theory rejects most of the ending of ''Mass Effect 3'' as a Reaper-induced hallucination.

* DoingItForTheArt: Sure, [=BioWare=] didn't ''need'' to go so in-depth in the Codex, but it helps expand the world a ''lot''. For example, quarians are all vegetarians - but only because animals take up space and resources. When they land in a system with dextro-DNA animals, they pig out and get the equivalent of a hangover. A lot of fans would never bother to read this in the Codex, but [=BioWare=] did it so that if some random Joe wonders about the eating habits of the quarians, they know.

** The fact that [[TheScrappy Ambassador Udina]] becomes humanity's representative on the Council in the third game [[ButThouMust even if the player chooses Anderson]] doesn't sit well with some people. Others were perfectly fine with it and don't see the problem.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: A number of fans think this way of Khalisah bint Sinan al-Jilani. While she is undoubtedly biased against Shepard and a fan of asking loaded questions for the sake of sensationalism, an increasing number of people think that the RunningGag of Shepard being able to punch her out is a massive case of unwarranted DisproportionateRetribution against someone who is just trying to do a honest piece of journalism. Even as a Renegade option, it being PlayedForLaughs comes off as mean-spirited rather than amusing.

** Corporal Jenkins, the RedShirt who dies at the beginning of the Eden Prime mission to prove the geths' strength, is often jokingly referred to as having [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence]] rather than died, as he's so insanely overpowered that were he to have remained in the party he would have been able to defeat the Reapers with his eyes closed.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: The RPG aspects of the first ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'' consisted of an extensive list of talents and a wide range of weapons and armors, which were largely differentiated by [[PaletteSwap different stats and textures]]. ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' cut back on this, reducing the number of weapons and armor talents, while focusing on making them much more distinct individually, though at the expense of gameplay depth. ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' struck a middle ground between the two in terms of weapons and armor variety and variety of talents.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: A number of fans think this way of Khalisah bint Sinan al-Jilani. While she is undoubtedly biased against Shepard and a fan of asking loaded questions for the sake of sensationalism, a lot of people have noted that the RunningGag of Shepard being able to punch her out is a massive case of unwarranted DisproportionateRetribution against someone who is just trying to do a honest piece of journalism. It's increasingly common for players to take issue with this choice being PlayedForLaughs.
* UnnecessaryMakeover: A rather large portion of Ashley Williams's fans hold this opinion about her [[FanservicePack appearance]] in the third game.

* CompleteMonster: [[YMMV/MassEffect1 Dr. Saleon]]; [[YMMV/MassEffect3 Kai Leng & Henry Lawson]]; and [[YMMV/MassEffectAndromeda The Archon]] from the games. [[YMMV/MassEffectAscension Golo]] from the books. See those pages for details.

* CompleteMonster: [[YMMV/MassEffect1 Dr. Saleon]]; [[YMMV/MassEffect2 Ronald Taylor]]; [[YMMV/MassEffect3 Kai Leng & Henry Lawson]]; and [[YMMV/MassEffectAndromeda The Archon]] from the games. [[YMMV/MassEffectAscension Golo]] from the books. See those pages for details.

* {{Applicability}}: The Quarian-Geth conflict has quite a lot in common with the UsefulNotes/ArabIsraeliConflict.

** The krogan and the genophage is a big one. Did the salarians and turians go too far in resorting to biological warfare to stop the krogan? Mordin insists the genophage is not a sterility plague, but merely drastically reduces viable krogan births to within an acceptable population growth to prevent krogan expansionism. However, the social effects of the genophage were so devastating that krogan population growth fell well below that, and by the time of the game they seem on their way to extinction. On the other hand, does the fault lie with the krogan themselves, who not only started the war in the first place, but afterwards remained belligerent and unapologetic, and still prefer violence rather than piecing their society back together?

** This is a large contributor to the popularity of the [[FanPreferredCouple Male Shepard/Tali, Fem!Shepard/Garrus, and Male Shepard/Kaidan relationships]]. Because all three were added later in the series, earlier interactions give a strong sense of a friendship developing into more over shared experiences and tribulations. The end result is that all three give the feeling of a trilogy-spanning relationship that is every bit as strong as the Male Shepard/Ashley, Fem!Shepard/Kaidan, and Shepard/Liara relationships that began in the first game.

** On the flipside of Renegade!Shepard's MisaimedFandom (who romanticize them as the ultimate badass), the same fans will vilify the Paragon for being overly idealistic and putting too much blind trust in others. There was even something of a meme with them saying "You should've saved the Collector's base." [[spoiler: The irony in all of this being that a Renegade who constantly chooses to ShootTheDog finds themselves with less resources and The Illusive Man stabbing them in the back.]]

** The Thorian was heavily suggested to connected to the Reapers in some form but after its defeat in the first game the plot threads are dropped and the Thorian is barely mentioned for the rest of the trilogy.

** Liara is a commonly used squadmate and adored by most fans, many of whom ship her and Shepard. However, she also gets plenty of vitriol poured over her due in part to the CharacterFocus since the second game: She's mandatory in multiple missions in ''3'' (three in the base game, four if you have ''From Ashes''), has a DLC in ''2'' focused on her, is the most plot-relevant party member, and is treated as Shepard's best friend in the second and third game (assuming she's not romanced) regardless of how you actually treated her in the first, and in the original release of ''3'', she was the only squadmate from the first game who the player never had a chance to kill (in the ''Extended Cut'' DLC, if you bring Liara along for the final mission and have sufficiently low war assets, then she and your other squadmate will be vaporized by Harbinger near the end of the mission). She is also the only character from the original trilogy to "appear" in ''Andromeda'', and apparently was one of the catalysts for the Andromeda Project.
** In addition, Jack, Miranda, Kelly Chambers, Zaeed Massani, and (especially after the second game) Kaidan and Ashley are all extremely polarizing characters. Ashley moved out of this status in the third game, but not in a positive way (see her entry on The Scrappy). Reception to Jack, Miranda, Kaidan, and Zaeed improved in the third game, with the Citadel DLC in particular helping the Zaeed.