The galaxy’s elite are yours to command.
A good RPG, or any good story for that matter, needs great, well-written characters to shine. Dull, flat, unbelievable, or otherwise poorly-written characters will sink a game that is otherwise excellent.
All but one of the squadmates in Mass Effect are potentially available upon the player’s first visit to the Citadel. Liara T’Soni can be recruited immediately after Shepard is inducted into the Spectre program, though, if you wanted to, you could choose to not visit her world until just before the endgame.
So, this article is mainly me geeking out about Mass Effect’s six distinct squadmates, because as I mentioned, without these guys and gals, the game would be a shadow of itself. However, if you are still new to the franchise, and by some chance you are reading this (and watching my videos) as a primer/guide/walkthrough, etc., then what I am about to delve into can also help you build a great squad.
I’m going to talk about each character in the order which they appear on the selection screen:
Ashley Williams
Class: Soldier
Her name is a homage to Evil Dead, and she is just as deadly with a boomstick as the Ash who came before her. Ashley is a tough, no-nonsense, smartassed space marine who is slow to trust aliens, but is still among the most loyal and fiercest fighters on Shepard’s crew. Her voice is supplied by Kimberly Brooks, who has also done work on games such as Batman: Arkham City, BioShock Infinite, Metal Gear Solid 4, and many more.
Her skills are exactly the same as a Shepard who picks the soldier class. Though it can be redundant as far as your power selections, put her with your soldier/infiltrator/vanguard if you want to bring overwhelming firepower and durability to the mix. For the caster and tech classes, Ashley makes for a great frontline tank. Only Urdnot Wrex is more durable than she is for taking point.
If you plan to bring her in with other combat classes, I recommend leveling up her weapon abilities, so that together the two of you can gun down enemies with alarming speed (keeping in mind that in ME1, unlike the sequels, squadmate weapons do as much damage as Shepard’s). You can just as easily dump all of her early points into fitness and combat armor in order to take advantage of the Immunity and Shield Boost powers. For players who like to mix things up, or otherwise don’t use the same squad for every mission, you can strike a balance between her attack and defense powers. I do recommend leveling up assault and sniper rifles over shotguns, as the squad AIs tend to overheat their shotguns too quickly.
In dialogue, Ash is usually the snarkiest of characters, and she butts heads with aliens quite a bit. Shepard can influence her attitude toward aliens and the Council over the course of the game, as well as find out more about her family history, and the events in life that made her the woman she is. A male Commander Shepard can start a romance with Ash, if the player so chooses.
Kaidan Alenko
Class: Sentinel
He is the man with the most interesting hairstyle choice aboard SSV Normandy. All kidding aside, Kaidan Alenko is the most level-headed, easygoing person on the ship. He is very much an introvert, and does seem drab and boring on first impressions, but he has a deep-rooted idealism and a good grasp of intergalactic politics. He is a bit uptight, but still gets along pretty easily with most other characters, whether human or alien. Kaidan is voiced by Raphael Sbarge, who has been a guest star on Star Trek: Voyager, and who portrayed Carth Onasi in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
Kaidan is a sentinel, with the same list of powers as a sentinel Shepard. However, the class’s combination of tech and biotic abilities makes it easier to adapt to different situations, and Kaidan can be customized to fit in with a variety of builds. His first aid and medicine abilities are invaluable for supporting combat-centric Shepards, his biotics neatly complement tech Shepards, and he can take up the slack in tech for biotic Shepards.
If you watched my first video, you will see that I play as a sentinel, and I do use Kaidan’s own biotics in concert with my characters’ for biotic combos. Biotic combos in ME1 are not like those in Mass Effect 3. In the latter, every other combination of biotic powers triggers an explosion, which frankly, to me, makes combat so easy as to be a joke. In ME1, physics are a greater factor, so powers like Lift and Singularity, which mitigate the force of gravity on an enemy, render them extremely vulnerable to the biotic power Throw (the functional equivalent of a Force push). In the video, I show you an example of how a sentinel Shepard can work with Kaidan to launch enemies off the map with Lift and a double Throw. Adepts and vanguards could also pull this off. If you have Wrex or Liara in a party with Kaidan and a biotic Shepard, you can even do a triple Throw. The force behind that combo is just about enough to launch an enemy into orbit.
It’s glorious.
Kaidan can be influenced to be either more or less pro-human throughout the story, and a female Shepard can start a romance with him.
Liara T’Soni
Class: Asari Scientist (Adept)
Liara T’Soni is an asari, an all-female race that is one of the ruling species of the Citadel Council. Liara is the daughter of a prominent asari leader, Matriarch Benezia. Unlike her mother, who is more a diplomat and ambassador, Liara is an archeologist and researcher who is obsessed with the Protheans, the race of beings who disappeared 50,000 years ago. She is shy, awkward around people, and stumbles her way through most conversations. She is voiced by Ali Hillis, who is usually best known as the voice of Lightning in Final Fantasy XIII.
Liara is an Adept through and through, and has access to the most powerful biotic abilities. She does have access to the Electronics skill tree, giving her some versatility over a raw adept, but really you only want to bring Liara in for her biotics. She is ideal for crowd control; with Stasis, Singularity, and Lift, you can shut down all sorts of troublesome enemies. Once fully developed, Singularity is arguably the most powerful ability in the game, almost to the point of being broken. Her Warp ability is also a must have on higher difficulties, especially Insanity, as it becomes necessary to break through armor and abilities such as Immunity.
Dr. T’Soni is lightly armored and has minimal health, so she does need to be protected; she doesn’t fare well in a party of all biotic or tech users.
Liara’s generally optimistic and idealist outlook on the universe is hard to shake, as is her reverence for the Protheans, but Shepard can potentially give her a better understanding of humanity. A Shepard of any gender can start a romance with the young asari.
Urdnot Wrex
Isn’t this the prettiest face you ever did see?
Class: Krogan Battlemaster (Vanguard)
Ah, Wrex. The oldest, wisest, toughest, and at times, funniest character traveling aboard SSV Normandy. He is a krogan, a powerful warrior race that is suffering a slow extinction due to an artificially inflicted sterility plague known as the Genophage. Wrex has been around the block a few times, as it were, and he is full of stories and wisdom from his hundreds of years of combat and adventure. His deadpan demeanor and surprisingly intelligent sense of humor give him an undeniable charm. The big guy is voiced by Steve Barr, an actor who has appeared on a wide variety of prominent TV series, and has lent his voice to other games such as Dragon Age: Origins and EverQuest.
Wrex is a vanguard on steroids, and is the ultimate Mass Effect tank. He can equip heavy armor, has access to Immunity and Barrier, and his krogan nature gives him natural health regeneration as well as some resistance to biotics. Like all vanguards, he excels in close combat and with shotguns, but he is also proficient with assault rifles, giving him some mid-range punch too. He is an excellent choice for almost any squad configuration. He is great at protecting squishy characters, and he can join a combative Shepard on the front ranks with ease. Wrex’s biotics also work well in concert with a biotic Shepard, or with Liara/Kaidan. If there is one character who can get away with being in your squad for every single mission, it’s Wrex. Just don’t ask him to hack or decrypt anything, and you’re set.
The big guy is pretty set in his ways, but you can get him to open up a bit more over the course of the story. Eventually, if you talk to him enough, you get a chance to do a personal quest for him to recover his family’s lost armor. Finishing said quest wins Shepard a lot of favor with the krogan, which comes in handy in the latter portion of the game…
You can’t romance him. I know you thought about it.
Garrus Vakarian
Class: Turian Agent (Infiltrator)
It’s him! My favorite character and squadmate in the entire trilogy. If Shepard has a sidekick, it’s Garrus Vakarian. He’s tough, he’s cool, he’s funny, and he’s incredibly useful to have around. Garrus is a turian, a warrior race that fought a brief conflict with humanity known as the First Contact War. Turians are the third race on the Citadel Council along with the asari and salarians. Turians and humans generally don’t get along, but Garrus looks past politics, and sees the bigger picture. He bucks against the system, and is willing to throw the rulebook and political correctness out the airlock in order to aid Commander Shepard in his/her quest. Mr. Vakarian is brought to life by the unmistakable voice of Brandon Keener, who has also appeared in L.A. Noire, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Castle.
What can I say? Garrus is awesome. He has all the tricks of an infiltrator, along with superior weapon skill. Garrus is a bit squishy at lower levels, but once his weapon skills are leveled up, he’ll kill things too quick for them to inflict much damage. He is the best sniper in the game, and is the guy you want to bring for shutting down enemy weapons and powers. The only thing he can’t handle well is crowd control, so it’s best not to put him in a squad that only has combat or tech abilities. Otherwise, he’s super useful. He is especially devastating against geth or other synthetic enemies.
Garrus is a hothead who is notorious for bending or breaking the rules to get the job done. He has a high sense of morality and justice, but he just can’t be bothered to do things by the book. Shepard can influence Garrus further down the path of the Renegade, or can temper his impatience with some Paragon influence.
The turian also, in my book, wins the award for best style in the game. He used Google Glass before it was cool.
Sorry ladies, Mr. Vakarian is not available for romance. At least, not yet…
Tali’Zorah nar Rayya
Class: Quarian Machinist (Engineer)
The hips don’t lie… I mean, ahem! Tali is a cute, spunky addition to the Normandy crew, and is the best tech expert in the game. She is a quarian, a race of nomads who created the synthetic geth race, and lost their homeworld in a war with said geth. They now travel the galaxy as the Migrant Fleet, thousands of starships that serve as the quarians’ homes. The Migrant Fleet is definitely a parallel to the fugitive human fleet in Battlestar Galactica, and the quarian/geth conflict is also closely related to the human/cylon war in BSG. It is through the quarians that Mass Effect’s themes of organics versus synthetics are most thoroughly examined. Tali herself is voiced by Ash Sroka, an actress and producer who has worked on a variety of TV series.
Even more than Kaidan or Garrus, Tali is a master technician. She can hack or decrypt anything in the game, and no one is better against geth and synthetics than her. She can use AI Hacking, which briefly turns synthetic enemies into allies, causing massive disruption in enemy ranks. Though she can also protect herself a bit better than the basic engineer thanks to her shotgun skills, she is still quite vulnerable, and is best paired with a strong character like Ashley, Wrex, or a soldier Shepard.
Tali is energetic, enthusiastic, talkative, and is, for obvious reasons, the most outspoken critic of the geth. The player can talk to Tali and glean an extensive amount of information regarding the geth/quarian war, and about why the geth make such a formidable enemy. She is not as easy to influence as other squadmates, but fulfilling a personal quest for her can entrench Shepard in her good graces, which potentially pays off later.
She is not able to be romanced, not in the first game anyway…
* * *
And those are just the six people who can be on your squad! That’s the tip of the iceberg. Mass Effect is chock full of interesting characters, fascinating aliens, and wonderfully realized personalities. Mass Effect 1 is one of the most immersive experiences I’ve ever been part of, and these characters are a huge factor in making that happen.
In today’s video, Raine Shepard pays her first visit to the Citadel, and the plot thickens…
And, finally, in my next written article, the examination of the story shall begin.
—To Be Continued—
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