Mass Effect Legendary Edition

Massive Time for minimal payout.

Patrick Symons

June.24.2021

As a gamer, I had for a long time been infatuated with Bioware titles. The first game I ever remember being truly “addicted” to was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. I recall spending hours and hours on my original xbox with my parents yelling at me to go to bed as I persisted deeper into this pre-movie Star Wars universe. This shine that they put on games had me hooked from KOTOR to Jade Empire, Dragon Age, and of course, Mass Effect. When I heard of the remaster and release of the Legendary Edition I was intrigued as there were often some issues transferring saves for the Mass Effect games as they released on separate consoles. And despite the gamer addiction, I had avoided Mass Effect 3 for years because I only heard bad things about the ending. But it had been years and I was eager to dive back into this universe and experience it again.

For the purposes of this review I won't delve into story details or specifics but as each game has different mechanics those will be addressed in their overall fashion.

For those familiar and the uninitiated alike, Mass Effect 1 hits you in the face with two things it does phenomenally: 1) establish a world and 2) create compelling characters. While there is a seemingly unlimited amount of information in the first title, talking to the crewmates you gather early on paint a picture of unique alien races and their own individual societies. You learn the speckled past of humans' introduction and involvement with alien races as well as their ambition. Much as the player is new to the world so to are the humans relative to the age of the other species. While there is not much in the available first title for payout of the different races it sets up plot lines for those with attentive ears. I would also argue that this first game has the most engaging story of all three titles but still can be a bit of a slug that will leave even the most determined gamer groaning at the thought of 100% completion. This groan is warranted, as what holds the game back is the actual gameplay. The shooting feels awkward with a seemingly endless amount of powers and abilities that change from weapon to weapon. It feels as if once in a firefight the only place your crew knows to stand is by your side, unaware that cover exists. Mass Effect 1's other fault is the means by which you carry out many side quests and exploration; being limited to the dreaded Mako. The Mako feels just as clunky and awkward as the original release, with combat in it feeling either impossible or completely unrewarding. But this is just the first title of three; surely by the other games they figure out exploration for side missions, right?

Well, they didn't figure it out in Mass Effect 2, as you stare at a near endless amount of planets that you scan to shoot drones at for resources to try and get your precious upgrades. But Mass Effect 2 still does plenty of other things well. Mass Effect 2 features an expansive crew list, arguably the best and most unique across all three titles, and intriguing loyalty missions for each member. These loyalty missions engage deeply at characters' drive for compassion, vengeance, and fulfillment. The stories of the characters feel engaging and real but sometimes venture into tropes. If Mass Effect 1 is all about the story and setting, Mass Effect 2 is all about the crew. You can engage with everyone from the mess hall manager to your onboard doctor. These deeply developed crew and character stories feel like more of the meat and potatoes of the game than the actual imminent threat. With a less engaging storyline than the first game it seems like it would feel empty but it’s so easy to become quickly invested in your crew as profoundly human stories and struggles to unravel in each crewmate.

The missions are brought to life as never before and Mass effect 2 gets to boast some improved combat systems. With much more refined classes that feel more unique from each other but also much more enjoyable. While the story falls short of the grandiose expectations from the first, it introduces more dynamic decision with the interactive Paragon and Renegade choices. Choosing real time to grab someone and pull them out of the way of a bullet or shove someone at a window, it adds a level of depth to the choices made.

Mass Effect 3 takes those decisions, those successes or failures, your past spanning the depths of three games and gives you... War Assets. I have to be honest, the first time I realized after the initial cameos of being reintroduced to old crew mates that all it afforded me was 20-40 war assets for the hours developed to keep them alive, I was pissed. Nothing made me more upset than knowing those hours for the most part just yielded little more than a war asset boost, not an enlarged crew or other rewards, just war assets.

Mass Effect 3 didn't do everything wrong, it improved on the already refined combat system of Mass Effect 2. It created new and challenging enemies that required thought and precision to take down. But the largest failing of it all is the almost disregard for your decision making in the previous two games. There are drastically different roads that can be taken for Mass Effect 2 that should yield almost two different games in Mass Effect 3, but instead you are shoehorned. The writing was on the walls the whole time for the “red or blue” aspects of Mass Effect, but from a more nuanced approach of an RPG gamer the shortcomings are monumental especially when compared to something like Fallout New Vegas where players can use a variety of skills, from speech to science to stealth in order to yield different outcomes and a variety of results. To spend years developing perfect runs for the impact in the final game to feel minimal and the myriad of choices be reduced to “red or blue” is a disservice to RPG fans.

It sounds odd to heap negativity on top of Mass Effect 3 after having invested so many hours in the franchise and having a lot of love for the other two games in the series. However the fact emerges that when the franchise is touting your decisions making a large impact on the final game, the problem arises that Bioware simply did not plan for in their development of the game. Mass Effect 3 effectively needs to be multiple different games for the breadth of choices and amount of hours to truly feel impactful. Rather than plan this game with a large scope to unlock the variety of divergent gameplay options, tough decisions and striving to keep everyone alive was reduced into brief cameos when visiting planets. You feel no more rewarded for playing through all three titles and keeping perfect runs intact to find that creating a new character in Mass Effect 3 yields largely the same results. Enemies you could turn to allies in Mass Effect 2 somehow deteriorate into enemies again without further explanation.

To individually rate the games I would give Mass Effect 1 an 8.2 out of 10, Mass Effect 2 a solid 8.7 out of 10 and Mass Effect 3 a disappointing payout of 5.8 out of 10.