I’ve never let anyone die, aside from Kaiden/Ashley. I think I might have to do a run like that because I’ve never seen any of the replacement characters that show up. It’ll be up to Shepard and Vega to save the galaxy.
It’s actually quite difficult to finish with a huge body count but a transferable game. You almost have to work from a gameplay guide because some of the choices and consequences are non obvious. For example, if you save Zaeed’s loyalty quest until after the suicide mission, and if you’re a solid Paragon, and you have at least two other surviving squadmates, then you can leave Zaeed to burn in the refinery.
Is it just a bunch of newly introduced characters? I would guess you always get Liara since they sat her out of ME2 for that reason.
They introduced two new female characters to me. One is a news reporter that moved into cargo. The other is the new yeoman.
Both look worse than Miranda and Kelly in terms of realistic graphics. The news reporter(Diana Allers) did not look realistic to me in the least.
Yes, if you can’t tell, I’m pissed Miranda is not set to be a squad mate. I didn’t spoil myself, but did see that she is not a permanent crew mate in this game. If I could bring one ME2 character forward, it would be Miranda.
I will end up with Tali & Liara unless someone more interesting than Liara comes along.
You may want to begin to prepare yourself for disappointment: It’s going to be awhile before you see Tali.
I’m not a big fan of Diana Allers, but I like Samantha Traynor a million times more than Kelly from ME 2.
Boo! 
Agree on both: Allers is pretty much a waste of time (she was voiced by a gaming-media personality, in an ill-conceived bit of “synergy”), but Traynor turns out to be a fantastic character as you get to know her.
In a couple cases yes, a new character is introduced to fill the hole. In a couple other cases the plot function is backfilled by an existing character. And in other cases, that space is just… empty. The contrast is most striking if you experience the “full” story first.
Not to mention at least one of the characters is VASTLY different than their familiar counterpart. No spoilers, but it legitimately changes your attitude on a major section of the game
Not that I need to mention it given the amount of conversation this thread has garnered, but I’m thoroughly enjoying your playthough play by play. Thanks for doing this, it’s fun to hear people’s comments who haven’t played the games 1000 times like me
I am about 7 hours into Mass Effect 3.
I like seeing my former squad mates, but I am not totally thrilled with this one as much as Mass Effect 2. It might just be that I am so early in the game(I just rescued the female Krogan), but it isn’t quite hitting the heights of Mass Effect 2. I wish they had mainly just kept my former squad together instead of splitting them up and giving me new people.
I have: Liara, EDI, James, Javik, and Garrus.
Oddly enough, that’s kind of how I felt about Mass Effect 2. Why’d you steal my Liara and Wrex away from me??
How essential is this scanning stuff? I am again finding myself not thrilled that I have to scan for War Assets, etc. I mean…the Reapers show up after a couple scans and I have to run.
I see the “minimal” war asset line when I visit the war room. How necessary is scanning to get to that line? I don’t want to wander the galaxy for a few hours scanning for war assets.
I am picking them up in other ways, obviously. Helping people in the citadel, doing quests. Can I reach an adequate amount of strength without scanning a bunch?
Yes, if you got a good ending in ME 2, you shouldn’t have to scrounge for every possible war asset (although I believe a large amount of war assets can slightly affect the slideshow at the very, very end).
When I barely survived the ending of ME 2, I really had to scrounge for war asset points though.
I’ll keep an eye on it. I was supposed to receive some credit towards war assets for having a stockpile of elements mined in the last game. I guess I got some kind of military strength out of that?
I would say, scan adequately, but not obsessively.
The war readiness meter should give you an indicator so you know about where you compare.
One additional comment about scanning: the vast majority of interesting stuff is found by scanning planets, so if you have scanned every planet in the system then there’s probably only fuel left to be discovered (which you can skip unless you want to pinch every penny).
Well, there are some clusters where the systems are far enough apart that you need the scanned fuel to get from one to the next.
But running out of fuel is harmless; it just sends you to the nearest mass relay and you can go to a fuel depot to fill up again (hence my comment about penny pinching). Heck, if you’re really cheap you can just dock at the Citadel and fill up for free.
I did a mission about the Rachni and I again saved the queen. Does this mission happen at all if you exterminate her in the first game?