Mass Effect Legendary Edition (2021)

5/5

Played on PS5 - about 83 hours in total.

It took a few years and a couple of attempts but I finally finished off the Mass Effect trilogy. I think the first one is my favourite just for the lore drops and world-building that happens. I really liked the character work in the second but felt the plot of the collectors wasn't that interesting? I think the Illusive Man is a great character however. The structure of the final mission is excellent. I found the third game to be really satisfying - a mix of great character work, a compelling story drive, and improved gameplay. I also really liked the ending and DLCs. I'm really glad I decided to revisit and finish this off - it's undoubtedly the best trilogy in gaming.

Choices matter in this game. From the moment you start your journey through the first game until the last, there will always be consequences for your actions.

Gameplay wise, the series gets better with each iteration. It will be jarring to play Mass Effect 1 even with the updated graphics because of the clunky mechanics but those who choose to brave through the first game would certainly be rewarded with more satisfying gunplay and movement.

This Trilogy is a must-play for those who like shooters, good stories, RPG progression and likeable characters. (The whole trilogy is like 60+ hours with moderate side quests)

Overall: Mass Effect 1 - 3/5 Mass Effect 2 - 4/5 Mass Effect 3 - 4.5/5

This is my first playthrough of any of the Mass Effect games. I'll update the review as I play through the trilogy.

Mass Effect 1 - 5 stars

I just finished the first game of the trilogy and it was a fantastic experience. Having just finished the first KOTOR game last year (KOTOR 2 is still in my backlog), this game felt like a direct successor with Star Wars IP removed and every aspect of gameplay made better. My rating isn't relative to the current generation of games, but in the context of the generation when it was released.

Things I loved:

• The story, characters, and voice acting was all great. Though I just played once and chose a good path, so I don't know how else it may play out.
• Graphics were great, especially for their time, but I'm not sure how legendary edition improved this.
• Galaxy exploration felt fresh to me.
• Side missions were sort of cookie cutter but I enjoyed them for fleshing out the game and universe and incentivizing exploration.
• Real-time combat was a huge step up from KOTOR's more turn-based combat. Controls were tight and straightforward.
• Adult themes were welcome. Strangely there was sex and killing but no swearing, which feels a little inconsistent.
• Main story wasn't too short but also not too long.

Some things I found tedious:

• I like to read the dialog subtitles and then skip ahead. There was no great way to do this reliably and I often found myself accidentally choosing a response I didn't intend to.
• Dialog choices don't match what's actually spoken. Like... at all. Sometimes the spoken dialog didn't even seem to represent what I thought the intention was.
• Weapon/armor upgrading and management felt tedious and the game makes new weapons and add-ons so abundant that the choices don't really have any weight. At one point I had almost too many items so I spent 5 minutes just selling old weapons mindlessly by tapping A about 200 times. Flipping through characters and equipping them with the latest/greatest was also mindless and could have been made automatic or triggered by a single button press.
• Using the Mako to explore worlds got a little repetitive. The Mako controls were awful and painful at times.
• Enemies weren't varied and got repetitive. Combat was way easy (but I don't mind that as I like to finish games more than I like to be challenged by them).

5 hours in and I'm already loving this game! I just played through KOTOR last year after getting my Steam Deck and loved that, this definitely feels like a direct successor without the Star Wars IP attached, but with tons more polish and quality of life improvements.

I actually have KOTOR 2 on my backlog and I'm afraid this game will ruin it for me when I do get around to it given that it'll probably feel like a couple steps back, but I don't want to quit now that I'm getting into the groove of this one.

FemShep / Vanguard / Paragon / Garrus / Synthesis

ME1: Dated combat, great decision making, serious chunks of boring gameplay, hetero nonsense.

ME2: Now that's a spicy meataball. Garrus is bae even if the romances are awkwardly written. Hilarious how much it fits the late 2000s tropes (gritty/dark, everyone says "bitch" all the time, morally grey).

ME3: Fucking incredible until the last 10 minutes. Citadel DLC is essential. Romance writing has levelled up. Garrus 4 life.

I played the original Mass Effect trilogy on release; one series where I actually had each of three games on pre-order (I don’t pre-order as a rule), loved the series however due to the age and memory of the games I didn’t want to return in case a decade long absence was one of those rose-tinted glasses things. Well, the Legendary Edition was offered up as “free” on PS+ and “free” immediately reduces my barrier of reluctance. I am glad, and surprised, that the games stand up. Yes, Andromeda was like the Phantom Menace black sheep of the series and did nothing but alienate the pre-existing fans of the series and yes, they don’t quite land the finale but the characters, lore and worldbuilding in the original trilogy are head and shoulders above any other mainstream videogame franchises.

To be fair to task that the Andromeda devs had is made that much harder than making a sequel to a beloved series in the way that the previous devs wrote every single one of the endings leave the universe makes it really tricky for a continuation (even if you pick one ending then you are disregarding players choices). But it appears that Bioware have found a way if the Liara cameo in the new game teaser is anything to go by.

I am going to have to go revisit Andromeda, aren’t I? Maybe I shouldn’t judge it until I finish the thing. Suppose it’s on GamePass. “Free” innit…..

In general I really like the game. It’s a good central story, I like the Star Trek Federation-esque makeup of the Council. The remaster has some very beautiful and breathtaking scenes. The music is often beautiful and the worlds feel alive outside of quests. But I’m now 11 hours into 2 and the quests are all exactly the same. Fight through a winding corridor/cargo bay of very similar design facing staggered hordes of a relatively narrow selection of enemies to get to [quest destination]. Rinse and repeat.

One of the many reasons I consider TW3 one of the greatest games ever is that the quests can have a lot of variety to them. I hope the rest of ME2 and 3 give me some more variety and make the world feel real.

I've had a lot of fun replaying this trilogy as a female Shepard, Vanguard, and Paragon. Took me a whopping total of 132 hours. Kinda rushed through ME1 without doing many sidequests and then put it down for some reason. But about a month ago I picked it back up and I played through ME2 and ME3 in completionist mode, completing pretty much every side quest that I could. All of it on Hardcore difficulty, because this game is pretty easy overall, with a few difficult fights here and there, so I wanted a bit of a challenge.

Absolutely love the HDR support, I picked up a great gaming monitor with HDR about 6 months ago so now I could really enjoy that. Especially ME2 and ME3 look great with HDR on. And they did improve the combat in ME1, that certainly was a welcome change though of course it's still a lot better in ME2 and ME3.

Mass Effect se convirtió en la gran ópera espacial de su momento, supliendo un vacío con unos resultados notables. Posee un universo con mucha personalidad y se benefició de la experiencia de Bioware en el RPG, por lo que debe mucho a KOTOR y podemos ver puntos del background que inspiraron a Mass Effect. Su sensación de aventura, gracias a la continuidad a lo largo de tres entregas repitiendo personajes y una trama cohesionada, es una experiencia que no tiene precio. Ha envejecido bastante mal, ya era tosco en su momento, pero ahora los shooters de coberturas de aquella generación se hacen más pesados a los nuevos gustos. A pesar de eso, es una de las sagas más influyentes de su generación y posiblemente la que mejor reflejó la sensación de continuidad y aventura.

Mass Effect: Apuntaba maneras ya en su día. Bebe de lo que Bioware se traía con Kotor. Elementos rpgs muy básicos, karma hipermaniqueo... pero es un universo con mucha personalidad y el principio de algo. Terrible diseño de niveles y mucho bug todavía. 7/10

Mass Effect 2: Un pulido de su predecesor: una space opera con decisiones maniqueas, un combate ligeramente menos plano (tedioso aun así), mucho diálogo con poca alma. A pesar de ello profundiza bastante en las relaciones con los compañeros y eso es un éxito, como lo es el contraste con Cerberus. Conseguida sensación de aventura y una trama estilo "heist" con la Misión Suicida, girando todo en torno a su preparación de forma satisfactoria. 8/10

Mass Effect 3: Coge los dos puntos fuertes del anterior: implicar a todos los compañeros en la historia y dibujar un claro objetivo desde el principio en torno al que gira todo. Es sin duda el que mayor épica tiene, y todo el viaje hasta el final es bastante memorable. A pesar de ello, sigue dejando con ganas de profundizar en el que pasó después. 9/10

This review contains some spoilers. I dont want to use spoiler text so im letting you know right now.

I love this game so very, very much. All of them, actually. I have nothing but love and affection for this series which, at a crucial junction in my life, allowed me to get to know a group of people that quite literally changed my life. Getting to know Garrus, crying over Thane, having an incredibly sneaking suspicion that Kaiden sounded and acted a lot like carth... V I N D I C A T I O N After my play-through of this improved edition, it marks my 15th time ive played through all 3 games in full, but it wasn't as if i was simply trying to hit some achievement of ovsession. The characters and storylines in this game id come to love, cherish, even, just comforted me so deeply that i found myself coming back again and again. Its with that same love and affection i revisited it after so many years, and its with love and affection that i write this review.

This game sucks.

I really do say that affectionately. Even now im smiling at the way that everyones eyes look weirdly out of place as they're talking to each other, or how the story warps in on itself weirdly from time to time. Some of the DLC is criminally hard. Jesus, at least until you get that pistol from the Citadel DLC and trivialize everything even on insanity.

It feels strange to review this game mechanically, because other people can do that, but perhaps also because i have soooo much experience playing them, its like rehashing things youve already done for the umpteenth time to someonebut there is one thing id like to touch on; perhaps you could call it my hot take. I really liked the original renegade ending for mass effect 3. Yes, before the director's cut. Spoilers ahead, but the idea that "winning at any cost" came with the destruction of most advanced civilization in the galaxy was so poignant to me. It was the ultimate pyrrhic victory, and in a game where my choices felt tailored to giving me the perfect Good Girl or Bad Girl ending, the original genuinely felt like a harrowing decision i couldnt take back.

I remember sitting there at the end of the game, looking at the faces of all my friends who would likely be killed by the end of it all, openly weeping at 2 am because i felt as thiugh I had done this. I kept telling myself, i couldnt have known. How could i have? How could anyone? All we wanted was to save the galaxy.

I think changing the ending was, quite honestly, abhorrent.In a game where morality feels arbitrary and your decisions scarcely matter all that much, the original renegade ending felt like THE best ending that a bioware game has EVER HAD, and it was like completely on accident. Its almost insulting that it was mainly due to EA's insistence on online multiplayer that it was a thing, but honestly, i feel my point still stands.

Anyway, if you play this game, i genuinely hope you like it. Its pretty old, theres hardly any gay romances, and all things considered, its a dumb pile of crap. But its my dumb pile of crap, and i hope that maybe it can be yours, too. I hope you get the same thing that i got out of this game, even if only a little.

As someone who typically plays turn based RPGs, I was skeptical when I was recommended this series, but with the Legendary Edition coming out I thought I'd give them a go and boy was I not disappointed.

I absolutely fell in love with the story and even the battle system (I'll admit it took me a few hours to adjust and I didn't figure out the skill system until the second game).

I won't include any story spoilers since that is definitely the main focus of the game, with many fairly significant decisions that carry over between games (some instances better than others).

I highly recommend these games if story driven games are anything you're even remotely interested in. There are a LOT of incredibly interesting characters, the overall plot was exciting, especially during a blind first play though, and there are plenty of emotionally moving scenes.

Mass Effect has been one of my favorite game series since I first discovered it shortly after 3 released. It is the gold standard for what I look for in an RPG, and so naturally when Legendary Edition released I was hyped.

I won't spend a ton of time discussing Mass Effect itself, but rather why the Legendary Edition is worth picking up.

Mass Effect as a series straddled two console generations, and this showed in the ways gameplay changed from ME1-ME3.

All three games had excellent story, and decent characters, but as the game progressed the designers improved on the game play, made the characters more vibrant and active, and the exploration felt more meaningful.

Legendary edition improves on some of the rough spots of ME1. I used to skip it during my play throughs; however, small changes here and there, primarily to the awful Mako controls, help the brilliant story of ME1 shine thru.

Perhaps the biggest reason to play Legendary is the DLC. ME2 has some great DLC, and some not so great DLC. I skipped the Firewalker having done it before and finding it boring. Overlord is fun until you get to the questionable (at best) handling of disability. But Kasumi and Zaeed are amazing additions to the team, and their missions are so much fun.

Then I got to the ME3 DLC.... omg I had no idea what I was in for. Every single bit of ME3 DLC is a gift to the players. There is no dead space, no boring additions. Instead it takes some of the unanswered questions from the series and explores them, gives you in depth and impactful quests and lets you follow them to their conclusion.

I cannot emphasize enough how much I loved the Citadel DLC, it's a chance for every surviving member of the Normandy crew, new and old, to shine and have their moment. And you get to play with Wrex!!!!! Amazing, phenomenal, perfection.

To summarize, if you enjoyed any of the Mass Effect series, pick up Legendary Edition. If you haven't played the DLC, and specifically the ME3 you NEED to play this.

Now if you will forgive me, i'm and going to try to locate my Mass Effect novels and graphic novels, because im not quite ready to leave this series behind.

I love Mass Effect. I always suspected it, but I wasn't really sure until I started playing this remastered versions and found myself spending HOURS reading the codex and using the photo mode. I LOVE how elaborated is this universe and how detailed is every aspect of it. The gameplay in the first game is a little clunky (even after some improvements), but I don't care as long as I can romance Tali again... or Garrus, I'm playing Femshep this time.

Yes, it has a lot of problems. There's still a lot of bugs, some characters are annoyingly sexualized and is really stubborn to see this level of military adoration. But I can get over all of it if I can explore this galaxy.

I really think this is one of the best and most relevant modern sci-fi word (or 'space opera' if you're a purist).

Anyway, here's my review in spanish. Brb, gotta target practice with Garrus. I'm gonna let him win.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition was definitely a surprise no one expected but we're grateful for this one!

The game brings back the original experience of Mass Effect without altering anything other than the cosmetic. A full 4K remaster of space in all its glory and most importantly the Mako handles better lol.

I just finished the first game again and heading towards finishing the next two.

This game is perfect for anyone who has never experienced Mass Effect before. Frankly, I'm jealous you guys will be experiencing it for the first time and get all the feels that I felt back in the day.

With the Legendary Edition version of Mass Effect under my belt, I have a few thoughts before I dig into ME2. Below are my general feelings of the first of the three games in the Legendary Edition.

This new polished ME looks quite nice and overall is probably a good starting point for people on contemporary consoles. I’m less convinced it’s a good deal for PC owners who can patch the original game with graphical updates without compromising the original experience of the game.

Minor tweaks are largely inconsequential for the majority of players but there are a few things that I don’t think are an improvement over the original. On top of that there are a few bugs that haven’t been fixed and even one that is brand new.

• The UI was updated to match ME2 and ME3. I find this to be a downgrade. Information is harder to glean from the updated UI. For example, I no longer know the strength of my squad mate’s shields at a glance, and have to dig into the menu to find that information out. The old UI had discernible levels for things like shields while the new UI just has a vague uninformative line. Additionally the HUD takes up more space on the screen. It’s not easier to read and it simply clutters the screen when the previous UI was neatly tucked away at the corners of the screen.
• The Legendary Edition version of the game has a narrower field-of-view. This was something I suspected at first and quickly confirmed online. I believe it’s to create a tighter framing on Shepard that mimics the over-the-shoulder camera of the sequels. This feels a bit claustrophobic and I wish the game had a FOV slider to compensate.
• You can no longer run indefinitely out of combat. The original game had a stamina bar that depletes when you run while in combat. Outside of combat, in spaces like the Citadel, the Normandy or even when you are at random locations outside of combat, you could run without getting tired. BioWare decided to apply stamina to Shepard out of combat, so now you get tired while running. True, you run faster out of combat now, but you run out of steam. To add insult to injury they added a camera shake to the run that wasn’t there in the original game, not at least while out of combat. Sadly there’s no way to turn this camera shake off.
• The difficulty was lowered. I’ve seen a few forum threads that share this sentiment with me. The game definitely feels easier and I don’t think it’s due to the combat or weapon changes. I blazed through this without even blinking. I just played the original on Hardcore about two months ago and having replayed the Legendary Edition, Hardcore in ME:LE was considerably easier.
• The game’s AI seems dumber. This might be why the game is easier. Enemies regularly fail to pop out of cover, frequently getting stuck in cover. I found I often had to flank them, and even then they paid me little mind. At other times the AI simply ignores me. I’ve encountered enemies out in the open that don’t seem to notice I’m there.
• The default level scaling is particularly bad for new players. It prevents you from levelling up as frequently which means you can’t make crucial incremental increases to abilities like Charm, which can then lock you out of early dialogue choices.
• Thresher Maw fights are now more tedious with additional mechanics that are not enjoyable and can prolong the fight if you’re not careful. Instead of making these fights more enjoyable they purposefully made them more cumbersome to compensate for the fact that you can now see the Thresher Maw’s location at all times. So they fixed what is largely a non-issue in the original game but then made the fight worse because they felt that fix renders the fight too easy. The reality is that the fight is easy regardless but now it’s slightly more annoying.
• I think they increased the loot. ME always had an inventory problem. BioWare did some things to fix this but I feel like I scored way more loot in the form of gear and weapons than I ever have before. While I’m used to converting gear to omni-gel or selling it, I hit the currency limit about half way through the game. After that point selling gear netted me nothing yet I still kept raking in more that I think I’ve ever seen before. I usually don’t hit the currency cap this early on in the game. This strikes me as a bit of a balance issue.
• While the graphical updates do make everything look sharper with increased details, a lot of the atmosphere of the game is gone. The dark tone that is present throughout the game is largely missing and replaced by brightly lit interiors as well as new eye popping vistas. That shift in atmosphere and tone leads to a far less menacing game. A lot of what makes Mass Effect compelling is the tone. The first game has the weakest character building and development but it always made up for that in world building, setting, atmosphere and tone. The new graphical sheen erodes two of the game’s best qualities. It’s still very enjoyable but I do think people who have never played the original are losing out if they skip right to the Legendary Edition.
• BioWare didn’t fix the squad member’s power wheel. You can still overspec squad members despite the fact that not every slot in their power wheel is full. Also the last power you spec into can still randomly disappear. I over-specced Wrex just to test if they fixed this in the Legendary Edition, and the game still behaves as it always had. Love the fact that because I over-specced him, he had access to concussive shot right up to the final battle when it up and disappeared again.
• The final fight is bugged. This is a conditional one, but until BioWare patches the game to fix this, it stands. Currently you cannot use biotic powers during the last fight. Using them can cause enemies to float outside the combat area and crash the game. This info is currently circulating forums and I have confirmed it during my own play-through. Avoid the Adept roll until this is fixed.

The Legendary Edition also contains a few changes that I don’t really feel have a significant impact on the game:

• Combat is supposedly improved, yet I couldn’t really detect a change. Aiming feels the same to me and I didn’t find that combat was enhanced in any way. I quite enjoy the combat in the original and I can’t detect what they altered here.
• You can now equip any weapon. This is largely useless given you can’t specialize in those weapons. It’s also an odd choice when ME2 locks you to specific weapons per class again. I suppose it’s to mirror ME3, but I tend to stick with the weapons best suited to the class I roll so I seldom ever chose weapons that were not available to me in the previous games.
• Loading times are improved. True, but if you play the original Mass Effect on a Series X|S or a PC with an SSD, the loading times were already non-existent. In fact, I detected a few areas where the original loads faster on the Series S than the Legendary Edition does, funny enough. Mind you, the Legendary Edition allows you to press a button to skip elevator rides. But since that’s one of the few times your squad mates talk to each other, I never once skipped one of those rides.

And now for some elements I really quite liked:

• Sharper resolutions, no more jaggies!
• Button to mark gear as junk so you can sell all or convert all to omni-gel
• Mako forward boost. Best improvement to the whole game and something that rightly should have been in the original game from the start.

For the most part the games are pretty similar and the average player can jump right to the Legendary Edition for new play-throughs. I would still recommend that most people new to the franchise play the original, either updated on PC or on newer consoles to benefit from instant loading times, so that they can compare, but I won’t blame anyone who doesn’t.

I on the other hand might go back to the original. I wish the save game files from the original were compatible with the console version of the Legendary Edition (they are on PC) because my ideal might be to play the original and then move to the Legendary Edition of ME2. My experience of the new Legendary Edition of the first Mass Effect was perfectly adequate but very little of it felt improved. From my perspective it doesn’t feel like the superior version, even if it has better graphics. My play-through didn’t feel enhanced, not nearly enough for this version to supplant the original as my favourite.