I committed to doing a full playthrough of the Mass Effect Legendary Edition release. I ran through all 3 games at the second highest difficulty (Except for 3 where I bumped it up to the highest) and ran the Vanguard class the whole time. This is going to be a full review of the games in the series with some notes on the differences between the originals and the Legendary versions.
Mass Effect 1
The ME 1 Playthrough Playlist is here:
Mass Effect 1 was a very influential game and took a lot of risks. Not all of those risks entirely paid off. The combat in Mass Effect 1 was a unique mix of shooting and powers that few other games at the time had even attempted. It also heavily used abilities that manipulated the physics engine. Mass Effect 1 did have a lot of esoteric features. It poses the fascinating questions of "what are 300 newtons?" and "Is that enough to lift the Krogan Battlemaster that's about to beat my face in?".
It's weird to see a game where you can lift enemies helplessly in the air like dopey bullet pinatas, but that also is still threatening throughout its runtime. This is mostly due to some unbelievably poor balance. There is a long list of attacks that can one-hit kill Shepard at almost any level unless you're running the Soldier class (rockets, snipers, acid attacks, melee attacks, etc). The game also exists in that weird era right before health regeneration became common, so, unless you have an ability that gives health regeneration, it's just not a thing. It also has individual cooldowns for each power whereas later installments in the series used a combined cooldown, so you can just run through a perpetual cycle of lift, throw, singularity etc to keep enemies disabled indefinitely.
Going back to the whole "esoteric" thing, the game uses a system of newtons to tell you how effective the physics powers are, but when enemies can be anything from a giant walking tank down to a frisbee with a blaster bolted on, this is anything but actually helpful and you just have to kind of guess. You also have powers like AI Hacking that make robot enemies go berserk...which translates to "only makes melee attacks and runs at nearest target" and that nearest target can be you. When you use powers like Sabotage, you get to find out through trial and error whether overheating an enemy's weapon is beneficial or not. Enemies like a Krogan will just charge and beat you to death, and a lot of humanoid enemies can switch to more effective weapons (like going from an assault rifle to a shotgun at close range and one-shotting you). The game is really unclear about all of this and is very unconcerned about making sure you know what will lead to success or certain death.
The Exploration in Mass Effect 1 involves wandering around (possibly with quests or just for the hell of it), finding planets and then driving around a square kilometer or so to see what's up with said planet. This exploration is pretty free-form and, if you do see enemies, you can drive in the front door guns-blazing or sitt a few hundred meters away raining cannon shells from your vehicle, the Mako, on them and everything in between. This is, far and away, the most complete the exploration experience gets in the series and it only goes downhill from here. There are plenty of distress calls that are traps, abandoned facilities that are also traps or pirate bases that are also traps...okay everything is a trap, but it's a space adventure not a space mining game. You can also complete some quests before you actually get them which can create amusing interactions.
Speaking of, Mass Effect 1 has a really good quest mix. The main story involves tracking a rogue agent named Saren and has the right combination of "important, but not urgent". If at any point, you get tired of side questing, you can just go to any of the main quest locations and continue the story. The minor errand side quests are mostly concentrated on the Citadel and the quests that take you into the broader galaxy are typically things like taking down Geth enclaves, finding missing ships or killing space pirates i.e. things that seem worth the time flying out there.
The Mass Effect series really does revolve around its characters and the first installment does have some of the most iconic. Garrus, Liara, Tali, Wrex and Ashley (probably not Kaidan if you're 90% of players) are just classic characters at this point, but Saren also functions as an effective villain and Sovereign is very iconic. The conversation between Shepard and Sovereign ranks as one of the most memorable in gaming history.
Legendary Edition sees a lot of changes to Mass Effect 1 compared to the other 2 games. For starters, you have hit markers that tell you when bullets are hitting enemies...kind of, it doesn't seem to work outside of a certain range. This includes markers to indicate when you're scoring headshots and headshots do appear to do more damage which I don't recall being a thing in the original, but I may have just not noticed. There's also a dedicated melee button now versus automatically using melee instead of shooting if enemies get close enough which helps with consistency at least. Sniper Rifles no longer have any natural sway, just some recoil after shots and some some weapons have gained firing patterns (burst, semi, etc) whereas in the original they were all basically the same with just different stats.
The Mako gained boosters which actually made exploring planets faster and more fun. The Mako's machinegun got impressively buffed both in terms of damage and an auto-aim for enemies close enough to the aim point. They also removed the XP penalty for being in the Mako, so you don't have to get out to shoot things to get maximum XP. The Thresher Maw fights have changed up a bit, although I had about 3 variations on the fight and I'm not sure if it's based on location, level, how many Thresher Maws you've beaten so far, or if it's just random. The Mako is less painful and has more reason to use although it still got slightly annoying at times.
The visuals are improved, but still working within a suboptimal framework (animations, facial rigs, etc). I really liked how much visual cleanup the random planets got, both improving the terrain to not be sharp enough to put out an eye on and the addition of things like grass and weather. It really gave me that extra incentive to explore especially in conjunction with the Mako's boosters.
Mass Effect 2
The ME2 Playthrough Playlist is here:
Mass Effect 2 changed up the combat system a lot, mostly by simplifying it. It cut down the powers a lot, there's noticeably less enemy variety (a lot of "humanoid with gun" enemies) and the pseudo free-form encounters have been almost completely replaced with pre-built shooting galleries. They've also added a lot of limitations to using powers against enemies with shields/barriers/armor which, in conjunction with a shared cooldown system, makes the physics powers far less useful this time around. The way the game increases difficulty is by adding shields/barriers/armor to every enemy which makes the fights kind of tedious. While enemies in Mass Effect 1 were almost suicidal at times, their lack of self preservation did make for a more active combat system, while most enemies in Mass Effect 2 are happy pew pewing uselessly at your cover like they're getting paid by the bullet.
The exploration in Mass Effect 2 is somewhat less compelling. It involves running a scanner over a planet and sending probes in like it's a dodgy robot prostitute and the quests you find range from vaguely interesting to utterly useless. What really kills it is just the ridiculous amount of resources you have to mine to both get decent upgrades and the best ending (you have to upgrade parts of the ship or you'll lose crew in the last mission). I clocked over 2 hours of tediously running the scanner over planets.
The main story in Mass Effect 2 boils down to "mess around until we drag you into a story mission". It reminds me of Gat out of Hell, a quirky Saints Row 4 derivative, where they didn't have the budget for a full game so you progress by messing around and it makes a point to call out how dumb that is. You really can't force the main story throughout most of the game, it just kind of happens and the rest of the game is just "building your team". It's more of a series of vignettes about the Mass Effect universe than a cohesive narrative.
Mass Effect 2 is more of a character drama than anything else, but it spreads itself across around a dozen squad mates that your average player probably likes and cares about maybe 3-4 of. The Collectors are just useless drones as well, leaving only Harbinger as a villain. Legion and Mordin have really interesting quests with fascinating ethical dilemmas, but the rest of the squad have generally "Correct" decisions. It also pulls a bit of a dick move in that, after you complete both Legion and Tali's loyalty quests or complete both Miranda and Jack's loyalty quests, the two characters have a fight and you have to either choose one or have a high enough paragon/renegade otherwise you lose the loyalty of the one you didn't choose. There's no indication this is really coming, so just hope you didn't do Jack and Miranda's loyalty quests super early I guess?
Mass Effect 2 does get more of a facelift than I thought it would. It's not huge, but it is noticable. The only gameplay move of the Legendary Edition is moving all of the DLC weapons and armor to shops and research projects. I am going to vent a little because Biotic Charge was still unbelievably buggy for the core power of a class and is basically untouched in Legendary despite still being unusably bad in certain fights. Probably half of my deaths are biotic charge bugs in this playthrough.
Mass Effect 3
The ME2 Playthrough Playlist is here:
Mass Effect 3 took Mass Effect 2's combat system and ran with it. Many enemies can still be affected by powers even when they have defenses. You also have more powers and the powers are better fleshed out. It adds combo detonations with some powers being primers and some being detonators. It also adds a combat roll. Combined with a much stronger enemy variety and generally better enemy AI and this creates a far more active combat system. Mass Effect 3 has easily the best combat in the series.
The exploration aspect of the game gets very truncated, but it feels appropriate with the reaper invasion to not be dicking around on random planets. The scanning aspect is thankfully pretty short and it never gets to the point of overstaying it's welcome.
Fittingly, the quest system is also kind of truncated with many of the side quests directly or indirectly feeding into the war effort. Basically, everything is building in the same direction even if you're not directly fighting the reapers. The side quests are pretty light on the ground, but have individually more substance than Mass Effect 2, so whether that's good or bad is probably just down to preference.
The character moments in Mass Effect 3 are really at their best. Most of the characters feel well rounded and have a fun air of self awareness in their interactions. While Mass Effect 1 and 2 mostly just have members of the Normandy crew taking their turns monopolizing Shepard's time, in Mass Effect 3, the interactions between the crew themselves are a lot more prevalent.
The changes to Mass Effect 3 in Legendary Edition were very minor. Much like Mass Effect 2, the DLC weapons and armor were shuffled around to various locations and shops. Graphical changes are very minor.
DLC Ranking Bonus Round
I started pondering this during the playthrough and I've think I've figured out where I'd place the 8 main pieces of DLC content in ratings:
8- Pinnacle Station: Otherwise known as "sir not appearing in this game" as the source code was corrupted. You're not missing much. It just recycles existing assets in a mediocre combat simulator. There aren't any interesting characters or story beats either.
7- Overlord: More recycled enemies and missions that drag a little too long and end up being boring despite some occasional fun creepiness. The main new character is a stereotypical "ends justify means" scientist. It also has weird tonal shifts between piles of dead bodies and slapstick humor.
6- Leviathan: An interesting attempt at a process of elimination system and some relevant story reveals, but none of the added characters are interesting and the combat is pretty skippable outside of using some of the multiplayer secondary objectives.
5- The Arrival: It overstays it's welcome a little, but is generally well done and actually a very relevant story DLC mission...in fact one of the most relevant as it's why you start Mass Effect 3 in Alliance custody.
4- Bringing Down the Sky: This was supposed to be something else in the main game and it shows given how much work is on display. The final moral choice is pretty interesting, the mission rewards are the best in the game and most of the combat encounters are good.
3- Lair of the Shadow Broker: While the enemies are mostly recycled, I like the two boss fights, the locations are interesting and this is probably the best Liara content in the series. With a little more variety in the combat encounters or more characters other than just Liara, I'd put this higher.
2- Omega: Far and away the most underrated DLC. Even though it was on the long side, I was never disinterested. I like the new enemies, I like the characters, and I like the "running" moral choice (the DLC actually checks all of your choices and will call you out for being inconsistent).
1- The Citadel: Easily the best. Lots of new enemies that present new challenges, brings back your old friends and even has a ton of bonus content including a combat Sena and some really good armor and weapons. Considering that this was the last Mass Effect single player DLC released, it could reaonably be called the real ending to the series.
Closing Thoughts
Even for all of the issues and the somewhat meh ending to Mass Effect 3, I still love the series as a whole. Mass Effect 1 is a fun little trainwreck and is almost endearing for it's weirdness. For all the crap that I'll give Mass Effect 2 especially with how dull the middle section is, I still ponder the ethical problem presented by things things like Legion's sidequest and absolutely love some of the characters like Mordin and Grunt. Mass Effect 3 is just such a labor of love by the design team and voice acting cast that it's pretty contagious at points.
If you haven't played the series, now is a great time to check it out. If you have and enjoyed it, updating it so you don't have to break out old beater platforms might be worth the modest price that's only about as much as 1 AAA game with no DLC.