This has been said before, but the Mass Effect series really does mirror the Star Wars film series to a remarkable degree. Mass Effect 1 is just like A New Hope, it’s the innovator, the one that started it all, and even though it’s a bit dated, it still holds up due to its imagination and vision. Mass Effect 3 is just like Return of the Jedi, it’s overall a hugely satisfying conclusion with the most emotional moments in the franchise, but it also makes a few questionable decisions (the Star Child is to Mass Effect as the Ewoks are to Star Wars). And then of course you have Andromeda, which is just like every other Star Wars movie outside the original trilogy (it sucks).

But then of course, there’s Mass Effect 2, the Empire Strikes Back of BioWare’s space opera. It’s the dark middle chapter, it has the most mature storytelling, and it contains the most shocking twists in the series. And just like Empire, it built on the groundwork laid by its predecessor to make something far greater. It may have stripped away some of the RPG elements that the first game had, but honestly, did anyone miss ME1’s inventory management?

What makes ME2 stand out from the others in the trilogy are the little things. It’s a much more stylish game, for one, with so many of its environments bathed in an ominous red light, giving the whole game this pervasive sense of dread. And because the entire game is based around your relationships with your crew, it allows for so many more small character moments. From Mordin revealing his conflicting feelings about helping to sterilize an entire species, to Garrus telling you to piss off so he can work on some calibrations, each squad mate is given their time to shine.

Of course this all leads up to arguably the most thrilling conclusion in all of gaming. The suicide mission is just as intense the seventh time you’ve played the game as it is the first, because no matter how much you prepared, no matter how many planets you’ve scanned for resources, no matter how loyal your crew is, there’s still that nagging doubt that you screwed something up. Maybe you picked the wrong guy to lead the wounded back to your ship. Maybe you just forgot to get the right upgrades. You won’t know for sure until you see your favorite character blown away unceremoniously in a cutscene. No other game before or since has captured that tension.

We all know now that Mass Effect 3 didn’t live up to the high expectations of 2. This might be a hot take, but I actually love 3, and I even like the ending. And I do not begrudge it failing to match the quality of one of the absolute greatest games of all time. After all, we still like Return of the Jedi, even if it never comes close to touching Empire.