Mass Effect Legendary Collection Review (PS5)

Mass Effect is back but does it still hold up today?

Mass Effect has been held up over the years as one of the greatest trilogies to grace the world of gaming but time has made revisiting the original Mass Effect a less than attractive prospect. To add to Mass Effect’s troubles, Andromeda bombed on release, and Anthem is basically being canceled, the future of Mass Effect was being drawn into question but fans could breathe a sigh of relief when the Mass Effect Legendary Edition was announced.

On paper, this sounds like the best deal in gaming, three legendary games, plus all of the DLC with a full remaster of Mass Effect 1 and visual and technical upgrades for the other two games. What’s not to like about that? I’ve been playing Mass Effect for years now so the prospect of playing these games again with updated visuals and tech piqued my interest. However, the question is do they still hold up?

Game Name: Mass Effect Legendary Edition
Platform(s): PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One (Playable on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S via backwards compatibility)
Publisher(s): Electronic Arts
Developer(s): BioWare
Release Date: May 14th 2021
Price: £54.99 (GBP)/ $59.99 (USD)

A quick note before we begin, as this review will be covering three titles in total I will be splitting it up into three sections, as Mass Effect 1 received a remaster and has changed the most it will be the bulk of the review. 

Mass Effect 1 Remaster:

It has been some time since I’ve played Mass Effect 1 but I played it so much back in the days of the Xbox 360 that I can practically recite the script word for word. The main question on everyone’s mind regarding the remaster is “is it better than the original?” The short answer is yes. I’ve seen a lot of criticism going around regarding the remaster and how the original Mass Effect was a flawless masterpiece, and while some of the criticisms are correct, which I will be addressing in this review, it does seem that a lot of people have forgotten how buggy, messy and all-around cluttered the original Mass Effect really was. That doesn’t mean that the remaster is all sunshine and rainbows though. There are plenty of problems with the remade version of Mass Effect 1, most of which existed in the original Mass Effect.

To start off on a positive note the graphical overhaul for Mass Effect 1 is amazing. BioWare has done an amazing job of updating the graphics to make them more presentable to a modern audience while also maintaining the visual style of the original game. Character models look more like people and less like molded plastic and the environments really steal the show. The thing I find most impressive is that BioWare managed to nail that level of nostalgia where the game looks like how I remembered it looking back when I first played it.

While the graphical updates make Mass Effect 1 look much better than it previously did, do not go into the game expecting next-generation character models or visuals. I would say that the visual fidelity of ME1 is on par with how ME2 looks in this collection. A massive improvement and it looks great, yes, but newcomers to the series may be a little put off because even with the improvements in the graphics of Mass Effect 1 Remastered it has still aged relatively poorly over the years in the looks department.

The real star of the show in this remaster is the environmental upgrades, locations now have more natural lighting and feel like real planets. For example, Eden Prime, the first location you visit in ME1, used to have a dark red sky which on one had made the appearance of Sovereign more chilling, but on the other hand, it really didn’t make sense in the context of what Eden Prime is. To put it into perspective, Eden Prime is supposed to be a paradise, and the ideal planet for humankind, but in the original ME1 you land on the planet, and the sky is blood red and it looks like a nightmare scape. I have included a comparison image below so you can see what I mean:

[twenty20 img1=”202877″ img2=”202878″ offset=”0.5″ before=”Mass Effect Original ” after=”Mass Effect Remastered”]

Like I mentioned earlier, on one hand, the original Mass Effect makes the appearance of Sovereign more chilling but the skybox of the remastered version fits the world-building of Eden Prime more. In comparisons like this, it’s not as simple as saying X is better than Y because both versions excel at different things, but that said, seeing Sovereign in motion in the remaster still left my jaw agape in amazement.

On the gameplay side of things, Mass Effect 1 is still a bit…fiddly, for lack of a better word. The camera has been pulled closer to Shepard in the remaster which means that close-quarters combat can be a clusterfuck, while combat at longer distances feels tighter and easier to do. While a lot of the gameplay takes place in open areas, the first hour or two takes place on the Citadel which is entirely indoors and Feros is also quite a claustrophobic planet so while the FOV (Field of view) change works 80% of the time over the course of the game, it is quite easy for newer players to be turned off early on.

To be honest, I never fully found the minute to minute gameplay of Mass Effect 1 to be the best in the series, it’s very much a “for its time” type of argument in this case, and while Mass Effect 1’s gameplay was good for the time it has aged terribly even with the updates to the system. While I am happy about the Remaster, I personally feel that a Remake would have been much better suited in this situation as I find Mass Effect 1 to be a hard sell on the gameplay side of things.

At this time there is no way to adjust the FOV in-game natively. Thankfully, PC players can make use of a mod, that I have linked here, to adjust their FOV. For me personally, I didn’t have much of an issue as I went with the Adept class which is more power-focused, but I imagine that people who chose to play Vanguard or particularity aggressive Soldier players might have some issues.

Despite my personal issues with the combat system, it would be remiss of me to not talk about the improvements that have been made to make it a more playable experience. A notable change would be how snipers no longer have that obnoxious sway that made them virtually unusable on any class not specialized in them in the original game. Among the sniper changes, there were several small tweaks to the UI (User Interface) such as a more responsive and precise aiming reticule, hip firing is also possible now with a more controlled recoil spread, the HUD (Heads Up Display) has been changed to bring it more in line with the later games in the series, weapon restrictions have also been lifted so every weapon is usable on each class and controls have also been adjusted to make the game more responsive which in turn makes combat easier than it was before.

Besides the graphical and gameplay updates, some of the best changes to Mass Effect 1 can be found in the inventory screen, while not as flashy as the graphical updates, finally being able to sort and mark items makes playing the game much less of a hassle. Even during the days of the original Mass Effect, I wasn’t sold on the random loot drops and the focus on equipment stats, mods, and the need to min/ max your stats but these updates do make it more manageable.

I do wish that they adjusted the rate of loot drop though as a single mission can easily fill up your inventory which is always a pain especially when 99.9% of what you pick up will be worse than what you currently have anyway so it lacks any real purpose other than to sell things to a store, but then once you have all those credits you don’t have anything worthwhile to buy (other than the Spectre line of weapons) because the items in the store are also worse than what you have. The only real benefit I found for money in Mass Effect 1 was how your cash carries over to Mass Effect 2.

The menu changes make this system bearable but I’m still not 100% sold on it, I much prefer the streamlined system of Mass Effect 2 and 3 where every item you pick up has a greater effect than a simple number change. Of course, this all comes down to personal preference so you might enjoy this system more than I do and fans of the traditional RPG will likely love this system but for people like me who aren’t the biggest fans of inventory management, just know that the system is much more streamlined now than it was previously.

With regards to how stable Mass Effect Remastered is, I’m happy to report that I didn’t encounter any game-breaking bugs, though it was far from perfect. Most bugs that I did encounter could be fixed by saving and reloading on the spot, but because Mass Effect Remastered is just a remaster rather than a full-on remake, a lot of glitches that the original Mass Effect 1 had carried over to the remaster.

To name a particularly common glitch that I encountered, every now and again if I opened a container or interacted with something that would generate a text box on screen while my weapon was drawn, Shepard would be locked into facing that direction. Turning around wouldn’t have any effect and pulling my weapon out and trying to aim wouldn’t rotate my character. I fixed this every time just by walking my Shepard in the opposite direction for a few seconds and it would right itself. Additionally, the exploit where you can farm infinite Paragon or Renegade points from Lorik Quinn on Noveria still works. So if you’re struggling to get your dialogue points up just go convince him to testify as many times as you want.

Personally, I don’t find any of these bugs to be game-breaking, but they can ruin your immersion at times which is important for a story-based game trying to immerse you into this world. Due to the new Mass Effect being a remaster, I am unsure if these are issues that can even be fixed by BioWare as a lot of them are likely generated by limitations in the software that the game was built on and again I am wondering why Mass Effect 1 was a simple remaster rather than a full-on remake. Of course, it mostly comes down to cost, development time and a whole host of other factors that prevented BioWare from doing a remake but I find it hard to believe that Mass Effect 1 would not have benefited from the remake treatment more.

Pretty much all of the audio in the remaster is carried over from the original game, which means the dialogue hasn’t changed, the weapon sounds are still the same and sadly that also means that the audio mixing is still off. Fans of the original Mass Effect will likely remember how certain characters, such as Kaidan and Garrus, were extremely quiet while other characters, such as Liara and Ashley, would boom out their lines at the top of their lungs.

I was hoping for a more balanced mix this time around as I often had to play with the music and sound effect volume set all the way down so I could hear what certain characters were saying. I understand that BioWare couldn’t pull all of the actors back into the studio to re-record everything, that would simply cost too much and take too long, but I was hoping that the mixing would at least be improved but it feels like the sound design was the only thing that went completely untouched in the remaster.

The final part I want to talk about within the scope of the remaster is the M35 Mako. To be blunt, the Mako in the original Mass Effect was utter crap, it was floaty, the aiming reticule wasn’t accurate at all going over certain terrain was nothing short of a nightmare. Has the remaster improved the Mako? Absolutely. For starters, the Mako now has more weight behind it so driving around actually feels like driving rather than ice skating, the Mako combat has also been improved with the aiming reticule actually working and the new boost system ensures that battles against Thresher Maws aren’t based on guesswork.

The jumping mechanic still sucks though and often gets you into more trouble but that is the only major complaint I have against the Mako. I do wish that the boost was infinite rather than a few seconds long as certain planets can feature a very spaced-out area so a burst of speed just doesn’t cut it most of the time, but at least we can now use the boost to climb some of the mountains.

Overall, while it does seem like I’ve been very critical in my review, I have detached myself as a fan of the series and tried to see Mass Effect 1 the same way someone new to the series would. Quite simply if you’re a fan of the original game, this is the exact same thing but better. For newcomers Mass Effect 1 remastered is still a wonderful game with an amazing story, excellent characters and a world that feels alive around you in a way that so many RPGs simply fail to succeed at, you will need to put up with some aged game design in the process but the story and world of Mass Effect is well worth the effort.

Mass Effect 2:

To a great many people, myself included, Mass Effect 2 is one of the greatest games to ever grace the human race. Hyperbole maybe, but it is praise that is well earned, even today over 10 years later Mass Effect 2 still feels like the whole package. Amazing story, phenomenal gameplay, characters played and written so well that it’s easy to forget they’re not real and now with the 4k updates Mass Effect 2 looks better than ever.

Unlike Mass Effect 1, the second game is fresher in my brain as I have played it often and quite recently so any changes that have been made would be more noticeable to me. With exception to the infamous cut scene changes, a lot of the updates made to Mass Effect 2 are so minor that you wouldn’t really notice the change. One change I was able to notice is that the weapon sounds have been updated and sound more like they did in Mass Effect 3, this is a change that I like as the weapons in Mass Effect 3 had more of a meaty sound to them. Additionally, scanning for resources now sucks a lot less with the scanner being more reliable and it feels faster than it used to and the DLC has been integrated more naturally into the game as opposed to how it used to be which is also a big bonus.

I only experienced one noteworthy glitch during my time with Mass Effect 2 that I haven’t encountered before and the was the issue where sometimes a line of dialogue won’t be spoken but the scene would continue anyway. It’s not a major issue and it only happened twice during my playthrough but when it did happen it really took me out of the experience.

In essence, if you’ve played Mass Effect 2 before you know what you’re in for, if you’re new to the series and you’re looking for a recommendation then allow me to give you the most honest recommendation I can ever give. Mass Effect 2 is still to this day one of the finest examples of game design and storytelling that I have ever experienced in my life and I intend to keep playing it for years to come.

Mass Effect 3:

Before I go into Mass Effect 3 I’ll save you some time. No, they haven’t changed the ending, all players will get the extended cut of the ending which is better than the original but it’s still not completely satisfying. That said, I feel like Mass Effect 3 is a game that is overshadowed by its ending and yes, it is very dissatisfying when you’ve played what amounts to over 100 hours spread between 3 games only for it to fumble at the last hurdle but Mass Effect is very similar to Lord of the Rings in the respect that the journey is arguably the most important part of the experience and Mass Effect 3 delivers this in spades.

Out of the 3 games Mass Effect 3 changes the least, any changes made are practically invisible to the average person but the most notable thing missing from the game is the multiplayer mode that came with the original. I am quite disappointed in the absence of the multiplayer mode as I personally enjoyed it a lot, I spent a great deal of time playing it when I was younger, and unlike most multiplayer modes tacked onto a single-player game it was not intrusive or poorly implemented, it was just fun. Like the multiplayer mode in games like The Last of Us 1 and Assassin’s Creed, they’re just an extra bit of fun on the side, I would like to see the multiplayer added at a later date if they can but I doubt that will happen any time soon.

With regards to the main game, Mass Effect 3 is arguably the most emotional out of the 3 games with character arcs coming full circle and everything you’ve done over the last 2 games finally coming to a head. I won’t say anything specific because I would like newer players to experience the story themselves but trust me when I say that if you’ve connected with the characters over the trilogy you’ll find Mass Effect 3 hard to play, in a good way. In addition to strong storytelling, Mass Effect 3 also has the tightest combat out of the 3 games, it’s clear that BioWare took the lessons from the last 2 games and really perfected the gameplay formula in ways that only time and hindsight could.

To round it up:

To be blunt, if the Mass Effect Legendary Edition was just the first game remastered I would consider it a hard sell as while I do love the first game it hasn’t aged well, and even though it has updated visuals and the combat has been tweaked as best it could, you will find that Mass Effect has a very old fashioned game design which unfortunately has not aged as well as the other two games. That said, BioWare has done a great job updating the clunkiness of the original game so playing it in 2021 is not as daunting of a task anymore. While Mass Effect 2 and 3 didn’t receive any substantial changes compared to Mass Effect 1, they not only stand the test of time but they still remain some of the best western RPG games I have ever played.

Each game alone is worth a play but the Legendary Edition has given people the chance to play all 3 games plus almost all of the DLC (minus Pinnacle Station from ME1 and the multiplayer DLC from ME3) in one neat little package, I would say that £54.99 for this is a steal and you would be insane to pass this up.

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