Mass Effect Legendary Edition - Review

When Bioware first announced that they were remastering the Mass Effect games from the Xbox 360 generation, I was happy and worried, happy that it would give me a chance to play through the amazing games again, but worried that they wouldn’t get things right in the process. Now that the collection has arrived, the question is, did they achieve their goals or did the end result not satisfy?

Heading back into the Mass Effect games, I knew the story I was to experience, but only within the concept of a high-level approach, it had been a number of years since I played the games, even longer for the first. Within a few hours of playing Mass Effect 1, I started to recall characters, story beats and missions, with surprising clarity, even booting into Mass Effect 2 and 3, the same thing happened. Which for me highlights just how much I enjoyed those games, the stories and characters still resonated with me over a decade later for two of the games and almost one for the remaining. While I was able to pick up the major story beats in all three games, without too much hassle, the countless side quests and characters that you can interact with, kept me on my toes, it was delightful to reminisce about characters and the paths they are on. The nicest element was the extra DLC that I didn’t play the first time around, having that included meant there were characters and story beats that were all new to me. The inclusion of a photo mode is welcome, especially given how beautiful the game looks, but it is not going to be something that many people care about.

On the gameplay side, things have been tightened up across the board, but none more so than the first game, where things have improved quite a bit. It is important to note though that there are no major changes, it is still a squad shooter, with RPG elements, but it now feels like a shooter first, rather than the core attacking mechanics, being added on later. This is now the opposite to how it was originally, where the guns would recoil so much, you would think they were scared of being used, combined with biotic powers that could never quite hit their targets, thanks to some wonky targeting, getting into combat before was a nightmare. Now though, combat, whilst still a bore at times, is a fun experience, improved by the tighter and more refined controls, those coming in from something like Call of Duty will feel out of place, but once you spend time with the game, it makes sense. The other big improvement to the first title is that of the Mako, it still feels like a block of ice to control at times, but it is far more controllable than it was previously. Getting in it and driving around the various planets and occasional asteroid is fun, but while tighter controls and more impact weapons, still can’t cover up the hollow feeling that the locations provide.

While Mass Effect 1 saw a significant number of changes for gameplay, there were less touches applied to the sequel games and for a valid reason, they really didn’t need them. The gunplay was already improved when Mass Effect 2 was released, and on top of that it streamlined the RPG mechanics, to allow for players to somewhat ignore them if they wanted to play the game as a shooter. Mass Effect 3 did that even more, making the game feel more like a shooter, with whiffs of RPG lingering around it and here that is still the case, which is not a bad thing. The reason why I think it’s a good thing is that your choices, which carry across all the games, feel like they are less important as time goes on, of course the Paragon and Renegade systems are still in full effect, pun intended, across all three games, but even in the final chapter, they feel less important. Something that is important though, the load times, across the board they are wonderfully faster and in no place is it more evident than in elevators, now the game will let you skip the ride once things have loaded in, such a welcome addition.

While there were refinements to the gameplay, there is perhaps no denying that the bulk of the work went into the visuals, taking games that started out as early Xbox 360 generation and bringing them up to late Xbox One. It is important to note though, that while everything looks nicer and is cleaner, that is only on the surface, beneath it, there are still quite a number of issues around and while they are not game breaking, they can be annoying. The first moments that I started to walk around on the Citadel, was when I realised how different things were going to be, sure the Normandy was cool, as was Eden Prime, but the Citadel was unique, even now almost two decades later. There are glowing signs, white walls, trees and water abound, plus flying cars and plenty of alien species talking and while none of that sounds unique on its own, the shapes of the Citadel itself elevate it beyond that. The enhanced visuals made me feel like I was walking into the Citadel for the first time, not the 1,000, it all just felt more alive, but it was not just limited to that location.

Across all three games, from the various versions of the Normandy to planets, moons and space stations, everything looks incredible. While a lot of that is driven by the art created when the games were first made, equal praise must be given to the teams at Bioware and Blind Squirrel Games, for their amazing work. While the characters now look more fleshed out, so to speak, it is the worlds themselves that are the stars, and yes those too, from snow covered peaks, to desert valleys, grassy plains and everything else in between, there are more details to be found, that bring everything to life. The biggest change of course can be attributed to the skyboxes, the large images that surround the playing space, each is filled with so much detail now that it makes the skies above each location, feel like they are part of another planet.

There is a downside to all this though, while it is true that the games look amazing now, none of that considers the shortcuts that the developers used when first creating the games. By shortcuts, I don’t mean it in a bad way, for example in Mass Effect one, most of the stairs are just flat textures that are designed to look like actual stairs and back in 2007, it was a very smart choice; now though, the higher quality of the textures highlights the lack of geometry on them. This is not the only time where the new visuals are at odds with what came before, the animations from facial to body are a product of their time, while characters now look better, have armour on that could be real armour and carry guns that look like guns, they move in very clunky ways. Animation for the bodies could be forgiven, given how you generally don’t pay attention to that, but the facial side of things is harder to let pass by. This is because you are making choices in conversations, and seeing peoples’ reactions to what decisions you make, is one of the tenants of the series and now have stiff and lifeless looks to deal with.

On the audio side, things are just as amazing as they were back in the day, the amazing soundtrack is here again and well worth listening to on its own, I still love the track Suicide Mission, which plays out at the end of Mass Effect 2. The vocal work is great as well, with the various actors bringing each character to life and sounding just as human, even if they are alien, as you would want them too.

Mass Effect has always been a series that draws people in, the first game offered a glimpse of what the series would become, offering up a by the book’s military story, just told within the realm of science fantasy. The second game added more drama and character growth, with the third game offering more action and war than anything else and playing each game through, you can see the changes as they come about. While the gameplay has been improved across the board, the first game got a lot of attention, which helps it shine, what it is missing though is consistency across each of the games. While the pause menu is the same, none of the games have a consistent user interface and while it makes sense for the games to evolve, I just wish sometime was given to this during the remastering process. If you haven’t played any of these games before or are revisiting for the first time in over a decade, you will find a tale that is epic, characters that are rich and worlds that beg to be explore.

The Score

9.0

Review code provided by Electronic Arts

The Pros

+Stunning visuals take the sci-fi setting to new heights

+Being able to play Mass Effect 1, with modern touches makes it palatable now

The Cons

-Inconsistent hud elements seem weird, given how it is marketed as a trilogy

-New visuals highlight the shortcuts the developers used initially