Miranda was my Shepard's romantic partner in Mass Effects 2 and 3, which I guess is a fairly safe choice in a series where you have the option to romance various aliens. Jack would have been bad in a mid-'90s THQ game. Subject Zero in the lore, but Subject One in our hearts. She finds a new sense of purpose, and because my Shepherd had yet to sort out his own trauma, helping Jack move past hers was cathartic for him. If she survives Mass Effect 2, she goes on to channel her trauma into activism, training young biotics as the Grissom Academy. But who’s to say there’s no substance to such an archetype? Edginess is an adolescent rejection of the status quo, and having grown up knowing only pain and isolation, Jack has earned the right to be as edgy and emotional as she likes. She gets criticized for filling out the edgy archetype, a would-be villain with a deeply vulnerable side, and it’s true. Jack is a character molded by forces entirely out of her control, rendered a literal psychopath by the powers that be, with little recourse beyond using her potent biotic powers to kill the jerks. She also had a terrible childhood, orphaned at an early age and subjected to torturous experimentation under Cerberus. So when Jack came into the picture, of course I saw a lot of my imaginary space person in her. He had a traumatic childhood, exposed to war and poverty from day one-it’s no surprise he was a huge Korn fan in my headcanon. Having an extremist around makes Mass Effect more interesting. It's a powerful premise in a game that's all about tough decisions, where you have to weigh the benefits of a brutal-but-effective party member against the occasional summary execution their capital-L Lawful alignment might inspire them to perform.
Samara's rigid, implacable adherence to the Justicar Code means that she's the only character in the series with zero moral grey area. Apart from ME2's actual suicide mission, she's one of three companions (Tali and Legion being the others) who can commit suicide in the game-in Samara's case, out of failure to fulfill her oath and execute her only living daughter, who's forbidden from leaving a monastery. On her loyalty mission, you have to make the decision between Samara dying or killing Morinth, her deadly fugitive offspring. However you play Samara across ME2 and ME3, Shakespearean death follows, making her one of Mass Effect's most tragic characters.
She's Judge Dredd with a serial killer daughter. If you left her on Virmire, we cannot be friends. She deserves better than 13th place and the 'space racist' meme. She's more than a sidekick and you get the impression that she could have been the main character had she not been wrenched away from the Prothean beacon at the start of the first game. She's among the few characters to seriously question Shepard's decisions, particularly when it comes to Cerberus, and she's willing to challenge you-at gunpoint, if necessary-when she feels that you're in the wrong. But I'll give you the short version: Ash is one of the most substantially well-rounded characters in the series and one of the few that doesn't need Shepard to step in and fix her life. Earlier in the year I wrote a long defense of Ash Williams for Official Xbox Magazine, which appeared on our sister site GamesRadar+ in November. This isn't the most disappointed I've been by democracy in 2016, but it's in the top five. I voted Ashley for 3rd place, behind Garrus and Mordin. Look, I'm very sorry everybody, but 13th place is a travesty. She's not many people's favourite character, clearly, but I'm just relieved she beat Kaidan and James Vega in this list. I'm aware you can find Kasumi in Mass Effect 3 and its Citadel DLC, although sadly I didn't for some reason, even though I kept her alive in Mass Effect 2.
In battle, Kasumi's Shadow Strike ability means she's one of the game's more visually interesting party members, too, vanishing and then popping up behind an enemy to damage them. You're rewarded with a total gut punch of an ending that perfectly completes her arc. It becomes clear to Shepard how badly she's been wounded by his death, and you get to help her exact revenge on Donovan Hock, his killer. Her back story with Keiji, her former partner in crime, is explored in a powerful, heartfelt way in her Stealing Memory loyalty mission. Kasumi's Stolen Memory is probably my favourite DLC across the Mass Effect trilogy-it lets Shepard play at being James Bond by infiltrating a party at a mansion, and Kasumi's introduction as a slick, invisible thief (as well as something of a loner) makes her seem very different to the rest of the Normandy's crew.