Mass Effect: Legendary Edition

Easily one of the best series I have ever played. I originally played the first two games more than a decade ago (and loved the second one so much), but I never actually finished the third one. The Legendary Edition is definitely the way to experience it. Everything is just so good and beautifully connected. It really feels like you are playing one massive, continuous TV series rather than three separate games. The fact that all of your choices and relationships seamlessly carry over from one game to the next is incredible. The characters are fantastic, the writing is top notch, and the cinematic experience and lore are just on another level. Honestly, I wish more developers made games like this. 10/10.

[h1]Mass Effect: Legendary Edition[/h1] [b]A near perfect 9/10 experience, but an 11/10 value.[/b] Mass Effect: Legendary Edition brings together the Mass Effect trilogy in one neat package - optimized for modern systems. The games run great, they work, and they look and play a bit better compared to what they originally did. Mass Effect 1 (ME1) sees the most improvements, namely in graphical fidelity and gameplay improvements while driving the Mako, and the ability to use weapons unrestricted across classes. The remainder of the trilogy plays much like it did initially post-DLCs and patches. I played through the entire trilogy on the "Insanity" difficulty over the past half year, clocking in at around 130 hours. I'd never finished ME3 when it came out due to all the talk and public disappointment towards the ending(s). I figured it was finally time to pilot the Normandy once more, now with the goal of seeing it through to the end. It was a marvelous experience. ME1 is a textbook example of world building. Honestly, the first 10 minutes before you even jump into combat explain everything so well in terms of what this universe is all about, who the main actors are, and what your role as Commander Shepard is. Through the story and your diverse cast of human and alien companions, the story builds further, and the world and setting just get explored perfectly. By the end of ME1, you've found out a lot, but there are still questions that need answering, teeing up the sequel perfectly. While ME1 is the perfect world-building starting point, it suffers a bit in terms of gameplay. The combat is a bit clunky, and the shooting is dated. All this is improved upon in ME2. The classes play tighter, and the gunplay/shooting immediately feels much better. Though ME2 is often heralded as the best in the series, it does devolve some aspects for an RPG fan like me. There are no longer gear upgrades or an inventory in the traditional sense. Guns are varied, but you can't actually see their stats? I know they have them, but you can't see them, which seemed an odd choice. And the character classes, while playing tighter, don't allow for much variety. You can pretty much max out all skills, leaving little choice in how you want to play your given class, whereas in ME1 you could build a single class a bit differently. Narratively, ME2 also feels a bit more like a side quest, although it manages exceptional world building again, furthering the cast of characters and factions especially. By the end of the Arrival DLC in ME2, though, the culmination was about to pop off - and I was hyped. Now long removed from the drama, I was ready to face the end. ME3 immediately popped for me, looking much better than the previous titles. The detail in the environments is much denser, and the very cinematic intro really did wonders in setting up the exciting journey ahead. The game manages to pay off a lot of the choices you made through ME1 and 2, but some fell a little flat and were immediately retconned. No biggie, since there was a plethora of choices, so some concessions had to be made. Throughout the game, you dig deeper into the threat, finally finding answers to the questions still lurking from ME1, all culminating in an epic ending. I was not disappointed, as people were 14 years ago. The added DLCs managed to expand enough of the lingering questions, and BioWare did improve the endings to be more fulfilling. It wasn't absolutely perfect, but tying up a 100+ hour story with so many variables is a damn near impossible thing to do. I was left with a bit of a void in the following days, contemplating the ending I got and wishing I had more Mass Effect to play. None of the games are perfect; they are, in my opinion, all very solid 9/10 games - but the experience they form together elevates them even further. I don't think there's anything like the Mass Effect trilogy in terms of cohesion and storytelling, not even 14 years later. The Legendary Edition goes on sale quite often; I bought this 130-hour epic experience for less than 10 EUR. An absolute steal and, like I said, an 11/10 value. GET THIS GAME.

I purchased this game by mistake, thinking it was a different game, but it’s one of the best mistakes I’ve ever made. First, I don’t know if I’ll ever play anything else that gets me so emotionally attached to its characters. This series made me laugh a lot, but it also had me ugly cry plenty of times. Because my choices actually mattered, I found myself worrying about the outcomes and wanting the best ending I could get for everyone. Which I feel I did! The voice acting, world-building, character writing, and cinematic scenes made me feel something that rarely very few games do anymore. The trilogy isn’t perfect. Some character designs and story decisions felt a little out of place, and some older gameplay systems, like inconsistent quest tracking and the lack of clear markers in the earlier games, made it easy to miss things without looking up a walkthrough. At the same time, the combat and power usage improved with each game and became more satisfying. I never ran into any bugs that I noticed. I will definitely replay this in the future, but for now I need some time to get over the feeling of experiencing a series like this for the first time. I wholeheartedly recommend it. 100%.