Mass Effect 1. 2 and 3 are still not bad, but I can't quite say with a straight face they rise to that level. They coast on the writing in Mass Effect 1 in a lot of ways, and one way of reading the famously controversial ending of Mass Effect 3 is that's when the fumes they were coasting on ran out. The franchise after that sunk into mediocrity as the writers were just imitating what they didn't really understand.