A legendary sci-fi saga... slightly overrated.
Mass Effect was my proper introduction to BioWare's titles. I admit, I'm usually not a science fiction fan but I do enjoy compelling stories and lore. I haven't heard anything different than praise for both the trilogy and the studio, outside of their newer products, so I decided to give it a chance. For my first playthrough, I went straight into insanity difficulty and 100% of the whole saga.
First thing first, the legendary edition on PC is not... legendary at all. While the package is a convenient way for new and returning players to experience the whole trilogy, including all DLCs, there is surprisingly little customisation for graphics options, which for a game in 2021 released by a AAA company is unacceptable. No quality-of-life improvements. There is no FOV slider, even tho the third-person camera feels extremely claustrophobic. There is forced mouse acceleration and no option to change it. Support for an ultrawide aspect ratio is not what was advertised. You have to install mods to make it a proper playable experience. Often the framerate drops for no clear reason from solid 140 to 30 FPS (all the Mako sections in ME1 and The Citadel in ME3; ME2 was stable all the time).
Additionally, ME: LE requires the new EA Launcher, which is even worse than Origin for several reasons, including always-online DRM, reports for saves getting nuked and not being able to get achievements. When I launched ME2 for the first time, all the achievements were unlocked in the menu which prevented me from actually getting them on the Steam/EA App. This bothered me because I wanted to 100% and I almost gave up. The only way to fix it is by uninstalling EA App and downloading Origin's exe from a random Redditor.
The story is exceptionally well-written and intriguing. What makes the story great is throughout the sage, the player is presented with many situations that don't just have a straight answer. Instead, it creates a grey area that makes you think about the choice you're about to make and how it will impact the story later. Some choices in ME1 will affect the story in ME3 which adds a lot of replay value. What makes the Mass Effect trilogy special and enhances the story are the squadmates. Each of them is unique with their backstories, flaws, and how they can interact with Shepard. There are some well-written characters like Liara, Tali, Garrus, James etc... and there are characters like Jacob, Ashley or Kaidan who are extremely annoying. And yes, they did indeed make the alien squadmates better than the human ones. BioWare misanthropes - confirmed.
Sadly, everything else about Mass Effect is either mid or straight-up bad.
Common problems in the trilogy are the controls, combat, AI and the OST. The controls are clunky and the spacebar is used for taking cover, sprinting, use and all other actions. Combat is serviceable, nothing special, except for the biotics which are like magic powers. You can very easily become OP even on the hardest difficulty, no matter which class you choose. Enemy and squadmates AI is... terrible. The soundtrack is again, nothing special, it does the job but I expected something more spectacular, more epic to complement the story and cinematography.
Mass Effect 1
My first impressions were very positive - being put quite quickly into the action while also learning about the world and lore at the right pace, without being overwhelmed. A hard task which most RPGs usually fail at. It introduces the player to the fundamentals of the universe and society step by step and has choices that control the future of not only this game but the next two.
The very worst part of Mass Effect 1 is the site content. You're given a Mako, an all-terrain vehicle that controls very poorly, and you're driving to random __cpLocations just to press "accept to get x resource", and then leave. There are plenty of planets to "explore" but they are most of the time reused environments. Side missions are also extremely repetitive. Combat and movement are very clunky. And for some reason, there is way too much inventory management. I would advise new players to just skip everything optional and focus on the main story unless they want to get all the achievements.
Mass Effect 2 - a step forward
Objectively the most polished title in the trilogy. The gameplay reaches its peak (at least when it comes to controlling and managing your allies), and the characters, which are the best part of all of Mass Effect, are so heavily focused that there are more missions related to the companions than the main story. However, almost all of them are basically about daddy issues. Like legit - almost all your squadmates would ask you to help them deal with some kind of problem connected with their fathers. At this point, it's even a meme in the ME fanbase.
The gameplay was okay, nothing too special. There are remnants of the awful side quests, but they've been reduced to mobile game quality, so it's at least a hell of a lot faster to get through. Not enjoyable though. What I hate the most about ME2 is adding what I would call mini-games, additional to the mini-games when hacking/bypassing. Now you don't just select a __cpLocation on the galaxy map and teleport to it. Now you have to move the ship with the mouse, send multiple probes to different planets to get resources and pay for fuel and probes. Completely unnecessary feature, which I skipped with some simple mods.
Mass Effect 3 - two steps back
ME3 feels very rushed and unpolished. While I think it has the best missions and story in the saga, the gameplay itself is way clunkier than the other two. I encountered multiple bugs and glitches, including enemies spawning on top of me. Very often I would not hit enemies because of invisible walls or broken hitboxes. The annoying galaxy map mini-games from ME2 were brought back but changed a bit. Now you will scan different clusters for planets with resources or missions, instead of launching multiple probes on every planet you encounter. A lot of people don't like the endings but I did enjoy them all. I think they conclude the saga pretty well.
The most infuriating thing in ME3 was the new enemies. Almost all of them are bullet sponges, which can destroy you in a few shots/hits on the highest difficulty. A lot of them are like aimbots and they can shoot through objects. Like the previous games, the majority of the fights are not challenging at all but there are a couple of simply unfair fights unless you manage to break the AI.
Conclusion
I enjoyed my time with Mass Effect and doing a 100% playthrough. The story, characters and RPG elements are strong, while everything else is just serviceable at best. It is worth getting the whole package but beware of possible problems and annoyances, most of which can be fixed with mods.
Mass Effect was my proper introduction to BioWare's titles. I admit, I'm usually not a science fiction fan but I do enjoy compelling stories and lore. I haven't heard anything different than praise for both the trilogy and the studio, outside of their newer products, so I decided to give it a chance. For my first playthrough, I went straight into insanity difficulty and 100% of the whole saga.
First thing first, the legendary edition on PC is not... legendary at all. While the package is a convenient way for new and returning players to experience the whole trilogy, including all DLCs, there is surprisingly little customisation for graphics options, which for a game in 2021 released by a AAA company is unacceptable. No quality-of-life improvements. There is no FOV slider, even tho the third-person camera feels extremely claustrophobic. There is forced mouse acceleration and no option to change it. Support for an ultrawide aspect ratio is not what was advertised. You have to install mods to make it a proper playable experience. Often the framerate drops for no clear reason from solid 140 to 30 FPS (all the Mako sections in ME1 and The Citadel in ME3; ME2 was stable all the time).
Additionally, ME: LE requires the new EA Launcher, which is even worse than Origin for several reasons, including always-online DRM, reports for saves getting nuked and not being able to get achievements. When I launched ME2 for the first time, all the achievements were unlocked in the menu which prevented me from actually getting them on the Steam/EA App. This bothered me because I wanted to 100% and I almost gave up. The only way to fix it is by uninstalling EA App and downloading Origin's exe from a random Redditor.
The story is exceptionally well-written and intriguing. What makes the story great is throughout the sage, the player is presented with many situations that don't just have a straight answer. Instead, it creates a grey area that makes you think about the choice you're about to make and how it will impact the story later. Some choices in ME1 will affect the story in ME3 which adds a lot of replay value. What makes the Mass Effect trilogy special and enhances the story are the squadmates. Each of them is unique with their backstories, flaws, and how they can interact with Shepard. There are some well-written characters like Liara, Tali, Garrus, James etc... and there are characters like Jacob, Ashley or Kaidan who are extremely annoying. And yes, they did indeed make the alien squadmates better than the human ones. BioWare misanthropes - confirmed.
Sadly, everything else about Mass Effect is either mid or straight-up bad.
Common problems in the trilogy are the controls, combat, AI and the OST. The controls are clunky and the spacebar is used for taking cover, sprinting, use and all other actions. Combat is serviceable, nothing special, except for the biotics which are like magic powers. You can very easily become OP even on the hardest difficulty, no matter which class you choose. Enemy and squadmates AI is... terrible. The soundtrack is again, nothing special, it does the job but I expected something more spectacular, more epic to complement the story and cinematography.
Mass Effect 1
My first impressions were very positive - being put quite quickly into the action while also learning about the world and lore at the right pace, without being overwhelmed. A hard task which most RPGs usually fail at. It introduces the player to the fundamentals of the universe and society step by step and has choices that control the future of not only this game but the next two.
The very worst part of Mass Effect 1 is the site content. You're given a Mako, an all-terrain vehicle that controls very poorly, and you're driving to random __cpLocations just to press "accept to get x resource", and then leave. There are plenty of planets to "explore" but they are most of the time reused environments. Side missions are also extremely repetitive. Combat and movement are very clunky. And for some reason, there is way too much inventory management. I would advise new players to just skip everything optional and focus on the main story unless they want to get all the achievements.
Mass Effect 2 - a step forward
Objectively the most polished title in the trilogy. The gameplay reaches its peak (at least when it comes to controlling and managing your allies), and the characters, which are the best part of all of Mass Effect, are so heavily focused that there are more missions related to the companions than the main story. However, almost all of them are basically about daddy issues. Like legit - almost all your squadmates would ask you to help them deal with some kind of problem connected with their fathers. At this point, it's even a meme in the ME fanbase.
The gameplay was okay, nothing too special. There are remnants of the awful side quests, but they've been reduced to mobile game quality, so it's at least a hell of a lot faster to get through. Not enjoyable though. What I hate the most about ME2 is adding what I would call mini-games, additional to the mini-games when hacking/bypassing. Now you don't just select a __cpLocation on the galaxy map and teleport to it. Now you have to move the ship with the mouse, send multiple probes to different planets to get resources and pay for fuel and probes. Completely unnecessary feature, which I skipped with some simple mods.
Mass Effect 3 - two steps back
ME3 feels very rushed and unpolished. While I think it has the best missions and story in the saga, the gameplay itself is way clunkier than the other two. I encountered multiple bugs and glitches, including enemies spawning on top of me. Very often I would not hit enemies because of invisible walls or broken hitboxes. The annoying galaxy map mini-games from ME2 were brought back but changed a bit. Now you will scan different clusters for planets with resources or missions, instead of launching multiple probes on every planet you encounter. A lot of people don't like the endings but I did enjoy them all. I think they conclude the saga pretty well.
The most infuriating thing in ME3 was the new enemies. Almost all of them are bullet sponges, which can destroy you in a few shots/hits on the highest difficulty. A lot of them are like aimbots and they can shoot through objects. Like the previous games, the majority of the fights are not challenging at all but there are a couple of simply unfair fights unless you manage to break the AI.
Conclusion
I enjoyed my time with Mass Effect and doing a 100% playthrough. The story, characters and RPG elements are strong, while everything else is just serviceable at best. It is worth getting the whole package but beware of possible problems and annoyances, most of which can be fixed with mods.