#larkean

When I first look for mods the things I prioritize are bugfixes and texture improvements, then later on I look at stuff like better immersion and content. Prior to Skyrim I never really touched mods myself, but when a classmate showed me how to do it I’ve made it a point to try them out after trying the game for the first time.

ME mods do indeed change a substantial part of the experience. The setback is just that ME is notoriously hard to mod; I have my mods arranged in a particular order for installation purposes, and have notes in the folders explaining how to install the older ones. Thankfully most modders have packaged their mods into executables or copy/paste DLCs, so most of the popular mods are easy to install. 

These are the mods I’m using across my games. ME1 and ME2 are mostly textures/bugfixes, most of the content mods are in ME3.

ME1: 

the Same-Sex Romances mod lets you do as the title says with voiced lines from both VAs, however I’m just using this to work around a bug in my game that locks me in with Kaidan (as fShep) if I engage him in the first conversation. 

I took Graphics tweaks to fix fps issues with my game. It changes the look, it makes the game looks less of a… film, I guess? Kind of cleans up the ‘dreamy’ look. Along with the ALOT for ME1 texture pack, this is how it looks before/after:

ME2:

ME2Recalibrated for bugfixes, the timing of some missions for better flow, and restores some cut content. An example is this part where the guard tells Shepard about what happened to Chellick and Pallin. 

No Minigames as a quality of life mod, if you’re tired of planet scanning (one probe gives you all the resources on the planet) and the bypass games (instant bypass)

ALOT for ME2 for textures

ME3:

EGM for immersion. It adds little things like allowing you to assign Normandy officers, and they send you emails. You can requisition a dog mech / Urz that walks around the cargo bay, plus some vehicles to fill up the bay and some mission-specific cameos from allies. For example, after you play the geth mission with legion, a bunch of geth primes appear in the cargo bay. There are also additional missions and a more informative galaxy map. The extensive list is on the mod page.

ME3Recalibratedis similar to its ME2 counterpart: bugfixes, improvements, etc. Full list on the mod page.

JAMis one of the 3 popular ending mods, if you’re into those. It’s the less-cringey version of MEHEM and closest to the vanilla ending. IIRC, for Destroy the version with the Starchild doesn’t mention EDI and the geth being affected. In the scene where Shep takes a breath, it adds your squadmates calling out their name, and in the memorial scene, Shepard is there to add Anderson’s name to the memorial wall and hugs their LI.

CEM is a transition mod, if you want to play the Citadel DLC as the ending to the series. It states that it works well with one of the 3 ending mods story-wise and it fixes mentions of the war (since it’s been ‘won’ at this point) plus some tweaks to the party.

ALOT for ME3 for textures

The Same Sex Romance from ME1 has ME2 and ME3 counterparts, but it’s not compatible with ME2/3Recalibrated, so you have to pick.

ALOT for ME1, ME2, and ME3 is a single installer window for all 3 games, so you just have to download the files it has listed for each game. 

The other content mods are ones that I’ll be trying out for the first time on my upcoming run. As far as I know: 

BackOff is a romance overhaul/fixes mod; 

Better Dreams replaces Shep’s dreams with events, their teammates, and LI instead of the Starchild; 

Extended Anderson Conversation restores the cut content with him at the end; 

AVPen’s Bonus Power Packs lets you use some multiplayer-specific powers as your bonus power; 

PEOM greatly expands upon Priority: Earth but is currently a work in progress.