Mass Effect Legendary Edition

Mass Effect to be remastered had been requested by fans for quite some time as I recall, although I think the wish was really more for just a re-release so that playing the game on newer consoles would be easier or even possible -- on PC that was never a problem. EA did eventually jump on the remaster bandwagon and BioWare got to put together Mass Effect Legendary Edition.

The whole trilogy in one package

Sharper textures alone weren't going to get me to revisit the first game -- I've played it plenty enough times already -- but the Legendary Edition is more than that: It includes the whole trilogy and all* DLC. Even the previously released Mass Effect Trilogy pack didn't include the paid additional content. I never bought (and now probably never will) Mass Effect 3's DLC, so this was a nice chance to play them myself. (I've watched others play them a few times.)

I'm pretty sure Mass Effect 3 is untouched visually in the Legendary Edition (though did it always snow in the Asari Monastery?) but in Mass Effect 2 I noticed a lot of textures, like armor, that were of higher definition than I remembered them being. The biggest graphical changes are in the first game though.

(*The resources of Mass Effect: Pinnacle Station DLC had been lost, which is why it's excluded. But that's hardly a loss even worth mentioning -- it is really that bad of a DLC. Mass Effect 3 also lacks multiplayer DLC because the whole mode was ripped out. I bet that decision was related to consoles somehow: I don't see any reason why multiplayer couldn't have been in the PC release. Or maybe they just didn't want to extent the lifespan for the multiplayer servers (however long they're going to stay up anyway.))

Mass Effect 1

The visual improvements for the first game go beyond texture quality: Texture pop-in is barely existent now and one particular detail I noticed was added reflections on glass surfaces like the Flux's windows. HUD is more in-line with the later two games as well and as a very nice addition, Femshep's default looks from the third game are now an option from the very start of the trilogy.

Unfortunately, gameplay is still the same old janky Mass Effect. There are some changes but they're mostly just easy .ini level edits. For instance: how Insanity difficulty is no longer insanely difficult at the beginning and kills while embarked on the Mako no longer receive experience penalty (I used to remove that myself before since it was a matter of changing a modifier in a plain text file). Cover interaction still feels shaky and gunplay is unsatisfying. (I think they at least added a headshot damage bonus. And hit indicator too, now that I think of it.)

A change that completely got me off-guard were thresher maws spitting multiple projectiles at once and having two cycling combat phases. Cheesing the maws with sideways backing with the Mako no longer worked. The maws are now akin to the one in Grunt's loyalty mission in the second game.

And speaking of the Mako: The infamous vehicle was supposedly improved -- it now has a boost and I suppose it feels a bit heavier? But like I've mentioned before, it wasn't the Mako rather than the uneven terrain in the open maps that caused me trouble. I don't understand why they had to change the sound effects of the Mako's weaponry for this edition though. That felt weird to me.

Also, surprisingly enough, the infinite loot spawning chest on planet Chasca was still there. (The container respawns its loot at every game load: loot the chest, save, load, and repeat. It's a guaranteed way to get your whole crew in Colossus armor at higher levels.)

Mass Effect 2

In addition to the better quality textures I noticed, Mass Effect 2 also had reflections added. Shepard's bathroom on the Normandy also got a mirror installed like it had in Mass Effect 3 previously.

A nice time saver change is loading screen animations actually finishing when the next area is loaded instead of always playing fully. There was a mod to address that previously and that improvement has thus been incorporated into the Legendary Edition as well.

Shepard's casual wear from the third game are now usable in the second as well. Separate DLC weapons and armor need to be bought or researched now (instead of being just given to you), which made the early game a bit more difficult than I've gotten used to. Their purchase and research costs are nominal; the limiting factor is mostly them just not being available right away.

I hated that they changed Kelly to look like she does in Mass Effect 3. Apparently BioWare changed something with how character heads are done back in the day and that resulted Kelly's looks not being possible in the third game. Why they had to bring her ugly looks into Mass Effect 2 now is beyond me. 

Like the Mako, the Hammerhead had a sound effect changed although unintentionally: the collection-complete sound is most likely glitched due to how jarring it is.

Mass Effect 3

The third game isn't as nice with its weapon DLC packs because the guns were set very expensive to acquire. Even buying merely the first rank of them all to test them out will cost you quite a bit. I didn't need to do that though since I was familiar with them from the multiplayer and knew what I wanted.

There's definitely an excess of choice with the multiplayer weaponry added in. A whole lot of them are redundant, and many don't fit the singleplayer campaign very well. Some have too low ammunition capacity or are too specific in their function. The encounter with Eva Coré on Mars will even be literally impossible to beat if you have the Acolyte pistol equipped (though that won't be a problem on a first playthrough in the Legendary Edition because it's not given to you at the start).

I mainly used the Reegar Carbine, which is a ridiculous gun, even more so with Incendiary Ammo. It melts faces like nobody's business but the gun's short range becomes a serious issue at times in the singleplayer campaign when you're supposed to fight enemies that can't be engaged in melee distance. I probably should have carried some sidearm even if it would've meant not having +200% power recharge speed. But I made it through the game regardless.

All the additional armors need to be bought as well -- with exception of the Cerberus Ajax one which is given for free for some unknown reason. It's not even the worst of the Cerberus pieces and I like the looks too -- the N7 Engineer wears it in the multiplayer. Shepard running around the galaxy wearing Cerberus colors in Mass Effect 3 is highly suspect but I still used it until I got my hands on the Reckoner-Knight armor which is my favorite one even if stat-wise it's far from the best.

One slightly controversial change is Miranda's scenes no longer placing her butt as prominently in camera view. I probably wouldn't have noticed a thing if it hadn't been in the gaming news headlines. Apparently the developers took inspiration from existing mods and decided that butt camera removal was worthy of inclusion. (And it was probably the developers too who advertised about the change in hopes for some progressiveness points.)

Modding scene for the Mass Effect series grew suddenly at some point; mods weren't as numerous when I still used to play the games regularly. I guess someone created tools for easier modding. The same modder responsible for the butt camera removal also made a mod to restore it in the Legendary Edition -- playing for both teams or being sorry for indirectly being the cause for the change? I considered installing the restorative mod just to spite BioWare but the mod required a bigger modfix pack. That I considered too much trouble for such a small change and thus I shall instead settle on just voicing my disapproval here. It's such an unnecessary change.

A usual, dull Paragon playthrough

Since I was aiming to have the most people possible at the Citadel DLC party, I did a boring save-everyone run. The previous run I did -- now years ago -- was an only-Shepard-survives run, which was immensely enjoyable, having to plan beforehand where everyone gets to die. I didn't get to see how the party plays out with minimal crew because I didn't have the DLC back then however. That would've been interesting.

Despite maxing my Paragon points, I have played the trilogy enough to know that blindly avoiding every Renegade option and interrupt is not the best way. It always hurts me a bit to see streamers do that, even when it's obvious that the Renegade choice would be for better even for a pure Paragon Shepard. 

I switched Shepard's class both times between the games. I started my journey as Adept for the crowd control that biotics provide in the first game. With hindsight, I'm not sure if it was necessary due to Insanity having been toned down. Adept (or at least how I specced it) was somewhat too squishy as well: I got one-shot from full health and shields a few times by a sniper.

For the second game I switched to what is probably my favorite class for it: Sentinel. Insanity surprised me with its challenge but towards the end, things became as smooth as I recalled them being. The third game I did as Vanguard, another favorite. Again Insanity was harder than I remembered and I don't think I managed to quite get comfortable with it: the Reegar Carbine pretty much carried my rusty Vanguard Charge-Nova skills.

I had a recollection of the final proper fight in Mass Effect 3 being anticlimactic: merely two banshees as bosses (albeit infinitely respawning). Thus a harvester appearing surprised me completely. But apparently I had just forgotten it. I didn't remember the reaper's beam (seemingly?) hitting the arena either. Despite having done the same fight many times before, this time was probably the best it has ever been atmosphere-wise.

I feel the Leviathan DLC isn't as significant as some say it to be. Even if it adds a line to the dialogue with the Crucible and all, it doesn't add any actual new information that couldn't have been deducted before.

The Omega DLC is an entertaining side adventure and a way to add more to your war assets. Engineer Shepard would get a unique Paragon interrupt in the DLC -- the class is the least played one and BioWare thought it would be nice to give something for those who choose it. Unlike the usual paragon route in the scene in question, using the Engineer's interrupt doesn't result in Shepard getting scolded by Aria but the opposite. Otherwise you should keep to Renegade choices however, because that's the way Aria will kiss Shepard at the end. I think that is a scene worth witnessing.

And finally, the Citadel DLC is a great, fan-service adventure to say final farewell to the crew. Its mostly lighthearted tone would be better situated at the end of everything but unfortunately not possible with the game's definitive ending. The ambient NPC dialogue in the DLC's Silversun Strip is doubly amusing for people who engaged in the multiplayer discussion on BioWare's forums back in 2012. There are a lot of references. It's neat they commemorated the great community like that.

I played the Legendary Edition on PC game pass and came to the conclusion that I've gone through the games way too many times for it to be worth it to actually buy them "again" even in this form. For someone who hasn't done that, though, it is a great way to get the full package for the price of one game or even less.

Edited 2022-04-01: Corrected a typos.

Edited 2022-04-17: Note about added hit indicator.

Edited 2022-05-01: Fixed another typo.