Mass Effect: Legendary Edition | PS/XB/PC | OUT NOW

I feel like I thought 1 had the best story and world building, and some really good environmental design, but 2 polished some of the rougher edges. It was definitely action-ified no doubt, and I get people criticising the paring away of the heavier RPG elements, but I think it was the more enjoyable experience.

Of course, ME1 had the tough job of winning me over which it did in spades, especially with the story. By the time ME2 came around I was already a novel-reading day-1 buyer so I imagine I was probably blinder to it's shakier elements.

I took a day off work to play ME3 and..... Jesus.

Very much enjoyed 2, and even 3, but they never evoked the sense of wonder that 1 did. I remember reading every single codex entry in 1, marveling over all the details. In 2 and 3 I never bothered as those games were so furious in their pace they constantly demanded my attention be elsewhere.

I’m thinking maybe I’m not in the right mood/headspace to be playing a game like this right now. The way you guys speak about it is completely opposite to what I’m have felt so far but I think that’s more on me than the actual game.

I’ll leave it for now and maybe I’ll give it another go in the future and see if it clicks for me then.

Going by memory alone the 2nd was the one I most enjoyed. Best gameplay of the series and probably the best story (Liar of the Shadow Broker was brilliant too)

i think people forget that they made no secrets in the pre release stuff for me1 that it was very overtly schlocky pulp sci fi space opera

they added a noise filter in the options so it felt like a shitty old tv show

the b-movie elements to it were very much intended and should be viewed with that lens, even the music is like pulpy sci fi space music

also i took time off work for me3 and wanted to kill myself after that too

Oh yea, I forgot they had that filter thing that made it look like an old episode of Star Trek.

It was proper hardcore sci-fi back in the day. And then strawberry floating Hologram Kid ruined everything.

Imagine being that close to a strawberry floating legendary trilogy for the ages and pulling that shite in literally the last 15 minutes.

Tafdolphin wrote:

Fade wrote:

KomandaHeck wrote:Not only is 1 the best but 2 is the worst :^)

1 has the worst gameplay, worst environments, worst cutscenes (the strawberry floating Benezia stuff was like something from a B movie ).

What exactly does it do better than the other games? The Dialogue is well written but the jankiness of the rest of the game tends to undo a lot of the positive world building. It's not a very cohesive game in terms of production values.

twitter.com/iamleyeti/status/1393837931207577609

1 is still the best. It has the most effective world-building, the best narrative arc, crunchy RPG gameplay (which was an acquired taste, and has apparently been toned down now?) and is, not to be contrarian, the most cohesive.

2 and 3 suffer from actionification: everything is louder, more epic, more bluntly expressed. They lack the finesse of 1 and suffer for it.

It doesn't though, every time a character dies it's treated as if a bird has flown into a tree, not this big impactful thing. It's like that Jeremy Clarkson Meme "Oh no... Anyway"

The gameplay is so badly designed, here's how you win: "Spam all of your abilities because they all have individual cooldowns, use the skill that resets your cooldowns, repeat" there's also none of the cool biotic combos from later games or interesting skills like the cloaking or vanguard dash. Not to mention a lot of the skill upgrades are pointless and you don't really benefit from having more than one point in them (lift or singularity for example). Also the shitty level design like Noveria just having you walk up and down different corridors to either press buttons or talk to different people so you can use a garage or a tram line, just really not fun in the slightest.

I'd agree 1 has more nuance but that's about the only thing it does better. If ME1 was a book, sure it'd be the best, but it's not, it's a game, immersion matters and there's a lot of little things that break that immersion for me outside of the conversations.

I started with 2 as I was a PS3 owner and always thought the world building in two was great, the character moments (at least so far) are a ton better than the first game. You learn a lot more about each individual character when you recruit them, they feel more like individuals with their own goals rather than mercenaries to be hired.

Also why are some of the dialogue choices so random? I just had a choice that said "Too bad" when I selected it Shepherd said "Not all Spectres are like Saren" what

ok

EDIT: I mean, sure. I completely disagree but horses for courses.

Saint of Killers wrote:

Hexx wrote:

Saint of Killers wrote:Crazy how you blink and all of a sudden your team is filled out with all but 2 members remaining

I got all but one very quickly. The Wrex/Garrus/Tali stuff is insane. "I just met you, but..."

Kaiden and Ashley must be raging

Well Ashley especially....

Mass Effect’s story is absolutely great. The gameplay has improved a lot, maybe a bit too easy. I’ve only died twice due to the rushing biotics in a side quest and a Korgon charging out of nowhere from behind.

Nearly finished it as well. Magnificent. Can’t wait to jump into ME2 once this is finished.

Skarjo wrote:Oh yea, I forgot they had that filter thing that made it look like an old episode of Star Trek.

It was proper hardcore sci-fi back in the day. And then strawberry floating Hologram Kid ruined everything.

Imagine being that close to a strawberry floating legendary trilogy for the ages and pulling that shite in literally the last 15 minutes.

Yeah ME3 was absolutely fantastic all the way up to the very end, then it just completely and utterly gooseberry fool the bed at the last minute. Even worse than the fact that the end was just "Pick a colour" was that absolutely none of them were remotely satisfying endings narratively either.


Edit - PC version is downloading a 9GB patch now as well.
Here's the patch notes. Looks like the patch dropped in the last 30 minutes

The following are fixes and improvements we’ve made across all platforms in this update.



General
Fixed the main issue where the launcher would crash or become unresponsive on Xbox Series X when using a wireless headset
Known issue: This can still happen if you enable/disable a headset in the launcher. A future fix will resolve this issue.
Improved iris shaders for better interaction with light and ambient occlusion
Minor calibrations, fixes, and stability improvements

Mass Effect
Improved terrain textures
Fixed an issue where kills for achievements/trophies weren’t tracking correctly

Mass Effect & Mass Effect 2
Resolved an issue where the character code would sometimes not display in the squad menu
Improvements to pre-rendered cutscenes to reduce occasional artifacts

Mass Effect 2
Improved lighting and shadows in some cinematics
Minor visual, rendering, and VFX improvements on some levels
Resolved minor text issues with achievements

Mass Effect 3
Fixed an issue where kills for achievements/trophies weren’t tracking correctly

Seems a big update for not very much.

If you are stuck behind a door or can’t get into the mako cos the interact prompt isn’t displayed.

Save the game. Reload that and it should work.

Had this happening a few times during ME.

Didn't realise the first game has no new game plus, or even the ability to take your acquired items from the last mission to before the point of no return.

Guess I won't be doing any of the side missions then. Are any of them really worth doing?

me1 did have ng+ originally

thats how you unlocked insane difficulty

Fade wrote:Didn't realise the first game has no new game plus, or even the ability to take your acquired items from the last mission to before the point of no return.

Guess I won't be doing any of the side missions then. Are any of them really worth doing?

The original did

IIRC it didn’t call it new game plus though

Start a new game and when going through the character creator you could select an existing profile

Hexx wrote:

Fade wrote:Didn't realise the first game has no new game plus, or even the ability to take your acquired items from the last mission to before the point of no return.

Guess I won't be doing any of the side missions then. Are any of them really worth doing?

The original did

IIRC it didn’t call it new game plus though

Start a new game and when going through the character creator you could select an existing profile

Okay I'll see if that works.

Are there any side missions worth doing or are they all a bit forgettable?

Fade wrote:

Hexx wrote:

Fade wrote:Didn't realise the first game has no new game plus, or even the ability to take your acquired items from the last mission to before the point of no return.

Guess I won't be doing any of the side missions then. Are any of them really worth doing?

The original did

IIRC it didn’t call it new game plus though

Start a new game and when going through the character creator you could select an existing profile

Okay I'll see if that works.

Are there any side missions worth doing or are they all a bit forgettable?

Yeah just start a new game and use an existing profile will carry over your stats. I don’t think any thing else carry over including weapons and side quests.

Really they are all forgettable, apart from levelling your party up plus you’ll need to complete majority of the game for an achievement/trophy if you give a toss about them. I think I missed a few, but still got the trophy. All you get is a pop up text saying how the mission ends, no cutscenes in some. Some are good for boosting your paragon/renegade level.

Got the platinum just now. ME2 side quests are far a lot better.

Mass Effect 3, and the trilogy, has major problems well beyond them shitting the bed during the finale. The ending to ME3 will always be crap (and no, not because it didn't factor in every last decision you made, anyone reasonable knows that was never a realistic possibility) but I really don't care about that at this point. I've always felt Mass Effect's biggest problems can be traced back to the opening of Mass Effect 2, where they decided to ignore the first game's perfect conclusion and hit a big fat reset button. Look at any old preview or interview for ME2/3 and I guarantee there's a line in there about each game being a "great entry point for newcomers"; I get why you have to say that sort of thing for marketability but it pretty clearly informed a lot of how they designed those games as well, and the cohesiveness of the trilogy as a whole suffered for it.

ME2's main plot is a retread of the first game done worse. It still has value in that the strong characters it introduces lead to some of the more emotionally resonant moments of the third game though - the Tuchanka arc in ME3 is genuinely very well executed because the writers for it understood that your primary reason for caring about it at all was giving Wrex hope for a future and Mordin a chance at redemption - Because of how little ME2 propelled the central conflict with the reapers forward, ME3 has to bear the brunt of the asspull that is the Crucible in the first hour. Kai Leng is also a total dogshit villain, just unbelievably bad.

1 > 3 > 2

ME3 has the lowest lows by far but its highs spike higher than anything in ME2 as well. Its combat is excellent (there's a reason people really want the multiplayer revived) and personally, I thought it successfully captured its own distinct vibe with the oppressive wartime atmosphere, similar to ME1 achieving a sense of wonder and mystery. Mass Effect 2 is mostly consistent right the way through but I'm not sure there's anything I can say it truly excels at, and don't say the combat because it's competent at best. People think it's better than it is because at least it's functional coming off ME1, I don't understand Fade's comment about the first game's missions seeming more "videogamey" because ME2 just funnels you down corridors then literally splashes a LEVEL COMPLETE screen in your face at the end of all of them.

Mass Effect is the Lost (the TV show) of games. Huge potential squandered but still absolutely worth experiencing because it's just such a fun space to be in with memorable characters, ideas and moments sprinkled from beginning to end.

tl;dr - All three games are good and bad in enough ways unique to each that there's no single one of them that completely dunks on the others, but ME1 still unironically wins because of the unquantifiable "muh SOUL"

Mass Effect 2's ending as well

ME1's levels seem more video gamey to me partly because of how horrible and bland a lot of the indoor environments look, combined with the boring ass objectives.

Noveria is just a prime example of everything I think is bad with the game. You walk around some warehouse that's trying to be passed off as this fancy important place and I didn't for one second ever believe it. The whole time I was there I was just super aware of how the game was just getting me to walk back and forth to trigger progress while giving me what felt like filler objectives to pad the game out.

Virmire on the other hand is an example of everything I think the first game does right. The environments are really good (apart from some of the indoor labs) and combined with the optional objectives really help you to feel more immersed. I didn't once think "I'm just walking back and forth to trigger this next thing" it felt cohesive and engaging.

The second two games (at least for me) never had any of those plain lifeless levels the first game had. Sure they're often more linear than Virmire but they're also really engaging and a lot of the progression is really well written character based stuff that directly effects you rather than "Get this keycard, open this garage, fix this tram line". It's a lot more immersive and way less transparently "here's a video game objective"