Love the Mass Effect Legendary Edition: it includes great games with an incredible storyline, addicting gameplay and a stunning world in which you want to stay almost forever. Unfortunately, none of these merits are attributable to the remaster. We will try to take a look at the reissue without the veil of nostalgic love and find out if it’s worth the purchase.
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A third of the remaster
First of all, it is worth immediately lowering the expectations of fans: the Legendary Edition is only a remaster, not a remake. Therefore, you will not find any global changes with new storylines, modern animations and other things. This is a refined version of the old game, not its reincarnation.
Strictly speaking, even a remaster of the entire trilogy, the “legendary edition” can only be called formally. Yes, all parts of the action RPG have received some kind of improvement, but compared to the changes in the original, the upgrades of the second and third are almost invisible. Apart from the multiplayer mechanics cut out of the triquela, among the real improvements on the go, it will be possible to name only 4K resolution and 60 FPS on consoles.
1/2 Even despite its age, the second part looks great.
On the one hand, this approach is quite understandable: it was the first part that needed graphic and gameplay improvements most of all, the other two survived pretty well. In addition, the second Mass Effect is generally not accepted to criticize. And the problems of the third are at such a deep level of narrative and game design that it is simply impossible to solve them without a complete restart of the franchise.
On the other hand, it is a little unpleasant that at a very immodest price tag (₽3.5 thousand on a PC and ₽4.9 thousand on consoles) they are trying to sell us one remaster and two old games. In the case of the updated Mafia trilogy, we received a full remake of the first part, a remaster of the second and a re-release of the third with all the additions. At the same time, the last two were free for owners of original titles – this approach seems much more honest.
Can’t be built without breaking
Graphically, the first Mass Effect really changed very noticeably: the developers managed to improve the models of almost everything that is on the screen – from the faces of the central characters to some random cubes or plates on the levels.
In addition, the authors of the remaster did not limit themselves to simply increasing the texture resolution. The developers added new details to them, and some of them were completely redrawn. New objects have also appeared on the map, making the locations richer and more lively.
1/2 Eden Prime looks great, but not a trace of the apocalyptic spirit
For example, the starting location “Eden Prime” in the original was quite frightening – the bloody crimson sky and alien ships in it suggested the impending apocalypse and the upcoming struggle with eternal evil. Now the planet has become a kind of yellowish-pink – rather pushing to shoot here an autumn melodrama with Meg Ryan.
In addition, the original lighting (or rather, its absence) increased the presentability of Mass Effect in another way: shadows often masked imperfections in models and animations, and sometimes added expressiveness to faces. Now the heroes seem to be shining with spotlights that highlight all the flaws.
She’s playable, finally
For me personally, graphical bells and whistles are pleasant, but far from the most key element of the game. After all, the main criticism of Mass Effect was directed precisely at a few broken or simply non-working mechanics. I must admit, the authors of the remaster managed to straighten them out.
First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to the developers for the new shooting. No, this is not the best shooter mechanics in the world and is hardly even included in the top 100, but now it at least works correctly, and it became not painful to shoot in the game, but even interesting in some places.
One of the greatest achievements of the first Mass Effect was the popularization of the fusion of shooter mechanics and RPGs. Strictly speaking, it could even be played as a typical TPS, completely forgetting about role-playing. And with all this, BioWare managed to make absolutely disgusting shooting. Not only was the weapon completely broken and firing crookedly, there were also class restrictions in the game. That is, an attack aircraft could learn to shoot more or less tolerably only with a pistol and a shotgun, and assault and sniper rifles were completely useless in his hands, since the spread when using them was half the screen.
1/2 Previously, sniper rifles were not available to biotics
In the reissue, you can normally use any type of weapon you like. The only thing is that pumping skills to use it is still tied to the class. The basic accuracy was increased, making the firefights much more enjoyable.
In addition, the greatest gameplay changes have affected the Mako all-terrain vehicle: now it does not try to take off on every bump, and its control is remotely reminiscent of driving a car, and not piloting a piece of foam in the middle of a hurricane. Unfortunately, that didn’t make the missions associated with it any more interesting. Basically, these are still trips through lifeless deserts, but now in 4K resolution and with additional visual effects.
Nice little things, annoying little things
Other changes in Mass Effect Legendary Edition are less significant, but still enjoyable. The famous breathtakingly long elevator rides are now shorter. The interface, character editor, some models, and other elements found throughout the trilogy all came to a common denominator.
The equipment management was equipped with the function of marking “trash” in order to quickly get rid of the accumulated loot. Pumping has been made more efficient – the game gives more points for each level, and their total number has been reduced to 30. This allows you to quickly master all skills. And for fans of the “good old”, the developers have provided an opportunity to disable some of the innovations.
There are, of course, and less endearing little things, such as translation. In the first part, players are now met with full dubbing without the ability to switch to English voice acting, while retaining the Russian interface – this is bad news for those who are not fans of localizations. In addition, in the rest of the parts, the voice acting is English, which can interfere with the uniform perception of the characters. The non-skippable cut-scenes and the total volume of 102 GB were also not pleased.
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