These games stress me the fuck out and i love it.

My first time playing Mass Effect was with the Legendary Edition somewhere at the end of 2021 on Xbox. I never really seen or heard much about ME prior except for a faint memory of seeing Garrus in an Elevator ride, but after looking into it; i wanted to try it. And oh my god did this game stress me out for some reason. After i realised the weight of my actions after unknowingly getting the council killed in ME1, i started to take things more seriously when i started ME2 and ME3; and by the time i finished the trilogy i was unhappy with my outcomes, so i played through ME again, and again, and again. In total i've played each game around 5-6 times trying to get my perfect run which i defined as; Do every piece of side content; and get every outcome I'm happy with; which basically meant save everyone i could except Fist, and really only Fist. My journey to achieve this brought me back and fourth between games; I would finish ME1, get halfway through ME2, then stress out about a single choice i made in ME1 and start again right before i made that choice. Then when i would get into ME3 i would learn about something i didn't know was a thing at the time like saving Cortez, saving Kelly, or giving EDI humanity, then i'd reload a save or even an entire game. I would constantly load saves from either seconds or tens of hours ago because i literally couldn't get an outcome i was unhappy with out of my mind.

When i did get that perfect* run, i had realised i missed a single side activity to my knowledge back in ME2 that i didn't know existed; it was the Batarian bartender in the back of Omega who poisons you. I was so devastated to learn about this but otherwise i did everything, and i was too burnt out to go through ME3 all over again.

But now im trying to go through it all again on PC with mods. I understand that these mods might bug out some activities, so some things might not get flagged correctly, so im tryng to prep myself for if that happens so i don't stress out and think i missed something, because now; i literally can't complete ME without being a perfectionist. This is the only game that does this to me.

For a bit my new run was stress free. Then i ignored Emily Wong because i wanted to get Garrus and Tali on my squad before talking to her; then i realised she leaves after killing Fist, so i had to reload a previous save; and thats when all the beautiful anxiety filled memories came flooding back into my brain.

This game is 100% in my Top 5.