Never has a game gotten me so invested in its world surrounding it. Never has any piece of fiction, really. In most games, maybe only bar Horizon Zero Dawn, when you find a random note collectible or listen to an audio log, I almost always ignore them. They're usually just filler and ultimately unimportant. But Mass Effect proved to me that they don't have to be that way, and I read through and listened to just about damn near everything I could, stopping to exhaust all dialogue options whenever available. The worldbuilding is genuinely phenomenal and I can say with certainty that this is the coolest fictional universe I've ever experienced and likely will ever experience. Most of this is just do to the writing, its great. It can be humorous, witty, introspective or just about any other good sounding adjective you can think of and its just about always compelling. Characters like Liara, my love and Garrus, my bestie and Thane, my other love (and basically just about everyone else besides Jacob, fuck you Jacob) are fantastic to be around and really help make the world feel alive and The Normandy feel like a home. The combat is kind of shit, and the driving around in the Mako in the first game left a lot to be desired. The simplification of mechanics over the series was a little upsetting. The animations in dialogue/action sequences can be a bit jarring and mess up the tone of things. The ending had more potential than what was got out of it. All those problems are present here and a lot of it can be very noticeable. But even then? this series was still amazing and every of the honestly many problems mean jack shit in comparison to the sheer quality of everything else. This feels like I'm rambling now so this is the end. One final thing: The romance with Liara is the peak of the lesbian human-alien connection. Getting to tell her that you love her in the third game damn near broke my heart.

It was an honor serving with you Commander Shepard.

Nancyfly certified Top 10 game of all time
- 99/100

Absolutely fantastic collection. I struggle to think of another series so... complete? Everything that happens in each game is directly related to something in another. Every planet, race and character has lore and history. So many major conflicts and key details about things that may be discussed or learned about during a mission are built upon down the line, often tying into the story in ways far more significant than I would've expected. Rarely is something explained without later being shown, it's pretty amazing, and it makes every resolution to a conflict all that more fulfilling.

I could understand the complaint that Shepard serves as this Mary Sue of the universe, somehow becoming involved with just about everything and always at the forefront to correcting anything that can be, but honestly I can't agree with that being a negative. Commander Shepard is a hero, and I finally see now why the character is so beloved by so many.

It's strange to think that games with so much player-input and dialogue options could still have a protagonist that doesn't feel like a self-insert. Despite me choosing everything that she said, I still found myself looking at Shepard and respecting her as a character. I'm not sure how to really explain this but idk, I really love this series.

I've reviewed 1 and 2 already (although my review of 2 is p much just adrenaline-fuelled gushing bc I love it so much), I'm hoping to review 3 on its own page as well but as of right now I'm almost overwhelmed with the simple fact the journey is over. All I know for sure is that I loved it, this franchise has skyrocketed to my favourites of all time and while I understand why 3's ending is divisive I can't understand how anyone could call it bad.

That's all from me, this collection was free on PS+ recently, anyone that has that has no excuse not to experience it for themselves :p

They weren't lying when they said the combat in this game is uh not good. BioWare as a studio was kind of in a weird spot when ME1 came out; the actual company itself was merging with a lot of EA subdivisions, and the contemporary projects around this time (Jade Empire and the Sonic RPG) are still the black sheeps of their catalogues. ME1 carries that 'black sheep' polish on it as well, despite it's post-hoc success. There's a certain...weirdness to the game--the cinematic dialog angles don't always work the best, the skills and talent trees are a mess of progressive scaling, what on earth is this equipment progression, the awkward sex scenes, etc.

What it does do really well though is carry the sense of ambition that is missing from those other projects--there's a lot of thought going into into the world here, and the political and historical tensions are shockingly deep for a new IP. Tolkenism aside (especially with the Krogans/Savage and Volus/Jewish connections) there's some engaging lore that reflect social realities in a surprisingly compassionate way? I mean it would've been very easy to write Wrex as this Brute With a Heart of Gold archetype, but as you move through his character arc you really come to understand how being in the midst of what's essentially genocide fuels his apathy and rage. The feeling of an unamended historical wrong colors a lot of his perception, and the game never condescends or pathologize him for feeling some time of way about it. The Krogans in general are not a bad take on the feelings of Diaspora, which is a big compliment to give a janky Sci-fi RPG from 2008. Teasing out the allegories and meanings behind the lore of Mass Effect was really the big positive of this replay, and honestly getting new Codex entries quickly became my favorite part of the game.

The actual plot itself was okay, nothing startling--there might be a way to read the Reapers as some sort of allegory for the Movement of History or something equally cringeworthy & Hegelian, but considering how the rest of the series threw that interpretation away it's not worth discussing.

Also kinda mad I accidentally romanced Ashley, I 'friendzoned' Liara trying to skip through some dialogue and didn't realize the game thought I had a connection with Ashley. Her only two positive traits are that she has a cute nickname for Shepard and she reads Whitman, otherwise she's an openly racist, condescending, and resentful person that kinda gives me the ick to be around. Kaidan is also just a bland character, if it weren't for Captain Anderson the whole human cast woulda been a miss.

I love the Mass Effect trilogy, flaws, gripes, and all. Replaying this felt like the definitive way to experience the entire franchise for curious newcomers and long-time veterans.

It felt pretty clear that the original Mass Effect was given the most attention towards being overhauled and remastered. The other two games are more or less the same, with the addition of the graphical improvements and DLCs being integrated. Playing these as one giant sweeping epic made me appreciate them individually a bit more than I thought. Even the third one, while I still don't think is very good overall, has moments that made it feel more tolerable than my first play-through.

As a complete package I was able to appreciate what I thought were the greatest strengths of the Mass Effect, that being the setting, the engaging characters, and the world-building. The brilliant blend of multiple science fiction genres in one creative melting pot. Most specifically, the blending contrast of Star Trekkian Wonder and Lovercraftian Cosmic Horror. That's what kept me still engaged in replaying throughout the course of the entire three games, even knowing how it as all inevitably going to conclude.

Really, the biggest problem with the trilogy had more to do with the changing tides of BioWare and the development leads being too ambitious for their own good.

Mass Effect 2, while being a very good game on its own, didn't do what was needed to progress the story of the trilogy. To put it bluntly, it broke the franchise. The most it did was set up interesting and engaging characters who are bound to appear in the next. The game ends the same way as it started, with Shepard still finding a way to stop the Reapers who're coming. This felt like BioWare writing themselves into a corner in trying to develop a game that not only concludes what Mass Effect 1 originally set up, but also what Mass Effect 2 tangentially introduces as well. Combine this with the hellish production EA put the company through, the possibility for a satisfying ending to the trilogy became a pure fantasy.

Which is why we got a game that felt rushed, woefully underdeveloped, and an example of developers biting off than they end up chewing. Mass Effect 3's ending wasn't disappointing just because it was pulled out of nowhere and disrupted what was a good game. It was disappointing because it was cumulative of everything BioWare struggles and fails to deliver throughout this trilogy, and as game developers.

But regardless of the ending, and how Mass Effect 3 in general kinda just became as a game, the experience I've had with these characters, the world, and the stories in between those while playing as my own Commander Shepard hasn't been invalidated or made any less meaningless

One of the most gripping, emotional and simultaneously ambitious narratives told in the medium. While there are definitely narrative missteps throughout and a few things that could be better, the world, cast and story of Mass Effect continued to engage me everytime I played, and towards the end of the final game it dawned on me how much everything in the game has grown on me, and man did it make the finale of the trilogy seriously hit hard. By no means perfect, but I’m not only surprised but overjoyed by the quality of the Mass Effect trilogy and it’s been one hell of a ride. A fucking stellar series in every way.

The Mass Effect trilogy is an unforgettable, epic sci-fi roleplaying experience. Imagine playing through the most gripping movie you've ever watched, but one where the poignant characters and masterful worldbuilding are deftly written to cleverly interact with and react to every choice you make. Even seemingly small choices in ME1 affect outcomes in ME2 and ME3, which makes the universe feel real and deeply responsive.

The storytelling and character writing in this series are second to none. Dialogue is tight, real, and frequently hilarious or deeply moving. I've never felt more connected to fictional characters, crying multiple times in ME3 as individual storylines wrapped up and the stakes crept increasingly higher.

ME1 is the least nuanced installment and still shows its age, even with the technical improvements that the Legendary Edition brings. That said, this series is one of the only experiences that I desperately wish I could wipe my brain only to play again — and again, and again, and again.

Şimdi şunu soyleyeyim ki bu Dünya bir mass effecttir.
Canlıların çoğu mutsuz ve %90ı fakirdir. Turianda fakirdir salarianda fakirdir. Hiç birimizin altında normandy yok. Ve şunu soyluyorum yani bu mass effect dunyasında bizim düşmanımız reaperlar ve cerberusdur. Ve bunlara karşı elimizde magnetik tufegine ihtiyaç vardır. Bu magnetik tüfek Sheparddır Veya normal tüfek oda Garrus un kullandığı tüfektir. O tüfeğe level atlatırsan Illusive man' i bile öldürürsün. Illusive man de reaperdır (Fetullah Gülen).

I only played ME1, so the following is only about that.

I get the point for people who own PS4, but not PS3, so this is the only way for them to play, but from the perspective of a PC player, this is yet another pointless remaster and a terrible port.

Options are hidden behind Extras for some reason, almost like the devs are ashamed of how few options they provide you this time around. Not like the original had a lot of them, but this one is laughable. Regarding graphics, you can only basically change the resolution and enable/disable a few effects, that's it. And of course the graphics now look nothing like the original. I, for one, liked the original's graphics and didn't want them changed beyond recognition without even an option to switch to the old ones. It's funny how most people will say the most vile shit about George Lucas for adding a few CGI effects (mostly for sensible story reasons) in the original Star Wars trilogy, but are perfectly fine with a complete and pointless overhaul when it comes to video games.

The gameplay has been changed too. Seems like it's more like the sequels now, which might be an improvement to some. But as someone who has only properly played the first game, I don't want it to be Mass Effect 2. I want it to be Mass Effect 1. I assume the reason for making Use and Sprint the same action is that ME2 and 3 did that, but it's so counter-intuitive. On PC Shift has been the standard for Sprint, and E or F has been the standard for Use. With this game making them the same action, binding it to either of these buttons feels very inconvenient and kinda affects the whole game.

And it's not like having a slightly alternate version of the game is a bad thing. But not when it's like 3 times the size and has much higher system requirements. I'll stick to the original version, thank you very much.

As flawed as Mass Effect 1 was, at least it had a personality, which is kinda destroyed with this "remaster", which should really be called a remake, because it's not the same game.

What a journey, I knew from the beginning that I was gonna enjoy this series and boy was I right about that.

ME1:
Biggest complaint that I have with this game is that it was made 16 years ago and no amount of lens flare effects can mask that. It has that old school jank and stiffness to movement, dialogue, combat, ametureish male Shepard VA and don't get me started on the Mako controls. I did find the side content a bit dull and repetitive especially so when you start to notice that a bunch of the planets you can land on follow the same structure. Drop down with Mako remind yourself how awkward the controls are, explore a square grid of land that is way too big and mostly empty (it does have beautiful vistas to look at least), for a random resource drops, a new weapon or different ammo type variant for your weapons which continues to clog your inventory and then maybe there is an outpost or research facility with the same layout that you've seen ten times before populated with pleb enemies which contains resources that are abundant in the critical path anyways.

Regardless of that the game drew me in very quickly mostly due to great writing. I was super curious to learn more about the universe, different inhabitants of that universe and of course the greatest mystery of all the Reapers. As mentioned before thanks to the Legendary edition the game does look really beautiful at times mostly in the outdoor areas. The combat is more interesting than your average 3rd person cover shooter thanks to additional powers, powers of your squad, ability to give them basic orders and small customization of weapon attachments and ammo types. Personally I think Mass Effect 1 has the best combat to story ratio, neither overstay it's welcome.

ME2:
If I was rating this game alone I would have given it 5 stars. Mass Effect 2 improves on every aspect of it's predecessor, textbook sequel material. Story is more grandiose, combat is much smoother (although movement could be better), all your squadmates are interesting and have unique backstories, VA is improved for male Shepard and just overall there's more of the game and in better quality.

Honestly anything negative I have to say about the game is just nitpicking. It's a lot more action oriented than previous installment, the story mostly revolves around assembling your avengers team and taking the fight to the new foe. The squad this time around really carry the game hard. Every one of them had something interesting or cool going on that you could help with, I wanted to exhaust all their dialogue options and was sad when they had nothing more to say. Worldbuilding as great as it was in the original but improved here, side content is more interesting, vistas are more beautiful, hell I even enjoyed scanning planets for resources to get million different upgrades. I will say this tho that lens flare effect in some of the scenes was comedically overdone took me right out of the moment.

The finale of the game was also really well done although here I go nitpicking again, I do wish that it would have been more emotional/dramatic, I mean it was called a suicide mission I was expecting to wipe off a few tears but alas it did not happen.

ME3:
This one is a bit odd I do love a good conclusion to a big story so I was hoping that this one will be my favourite however I knew there was no way they can top what they did with Mass Effect 2 and I was right again.

Started off a bit on the sour note even in the visual novel at the start while recapping events of previous games ME3 didn't account for a choice I made in ME2 which was a slight disappointment, then followed a main menu option before starting where the game asked me to choose "Action" or "Role Playing" style which raised an eyebrow. Then the invasion of Earth starts in the prologue which was unexpected thought they would save it for the finale, this did diminish the lethality of the Reapers that I had in my head from the information we absorbed in previous games. Still I was excited to continue and wrap up this story. The game leans in further into the action side than before and it's weird, it was getting a bit overwhelming at the beginning even early mid game, not because it was hard or anything but it was becoming dull, the amount of bodies you go through in a single encounter was getting absurd. The game does a good job at mixing the enemies you face up towards late mid and late game but the start was a bit rough like trying to ride a mountain bike on the beach just didn't seem to move anywhere meaningfully.

Then there was some other stuff that was beginning to niggle away, first the dream sequences of you running in slow motion after a kid that was killed during the initial invasion in the prologue, that felt so unnecessary and cliché made my eyes roll at first, then there is a security grid on your ship as you're leaving the war room to go to the main deck where you fast travel from, there was a brief 1-2 seconds where they take away control of your character needless to say it was getting annoying fast seemed like an oversight at first I mean you spend majority of your time on the ship in those two rooms.

Now as I stated previously the game does improve in mission design and overall balance of story and action at later stages. The finale was not great but not terrible either which is a bit disappointing maybe is just the case of learning too much about the most intriguing aspect of this universe the Reapers that sort of deflated the final section or maybe is just the case where they blew their load too early with ME2 and couldn't reach that sort of climax again.

To sum it all up it's a great trilogy and it is very obvious why it has so many fans, I suppose I am one of them now, I did see the third game in a more negative light maybe its the reasons I named above or maybe I was just burned out a bit towards the end from playing 3 games in the series in quick succession. There aren't many game franchises that keep up the quality and love for the universe they created across 3 different entries but I'm glad Mass Effect is one of them.

I've played through this series twice in full before now, but never back-to-back-to-back in quick succession. It used to be pretty clunky transferring your character over between discs and managing DLC and whatnot. Having everything in one package makes it feel more like one grand space opera than three separate entries. I love these games dearly.

ME1 is clunky and dated now, but it remains extremely impressive how well it delivers massive amounts of lore and worldbuilding details without ever feeling like an info dump. It prepares you perfectly for ME2, which used to be my favorite of the series. The combat feels great and the backstories of each member of your squad are varied and phenomenal. The whole game is basically one big recruitment mission though, so I found myself enjoying ME3 even more this time around. The stakes feel high and the heavy story beats feel well-earned. ME3 is a damn near perfect game in my opinion outside of the very end, which is an undeniably bland way to wrap up the story. Everything leading up to that final choice is brilliant, but boiling down hours and hours of choices and character building to three very similar options is a bit disappointing. It doesn't bring the game as a whole down in my estimation though. This is an epic story, one of my favorite RPGs, and I am attached to so many of the characters. I will always love these games and I hope Bioware can make something this good again.

Greater than the sum of its parts!

Zooming out, the trilogy tells a great space opera that borrows from genre staples that builds something rare and unique.

Rich world building, great cast of characters (even the human ones!)

Surprisingly delicate romance system! I usually don't really care for player sexual romance in games, I just make a choice and run with it.

But here, It felt real. My Sheppard relationships evolved and reacted in a way that almost feels organic. My favourite bit was finding out that Garrus and Tali got together, it was very refreshing to see a relationship grow independently of the player.

My hot take about choices in these games is that most of them feels forced and only there because its technically a wRPG and some freedom is expected - I'm sorry but I don't see a version of a full renegade Sheppard working with the story. I also don't really know how losing characters prematurely and cutting their arc early only to be replaced with placeholders can help the story.

Blue and Red morality is a leftover from KotOR that doesn't really make sense in Mass Effect and its very prominent throughout the trilogy.

I do think some of the choices are impactful and interesting but moat of them ring hollow even if the games get clever about working around you.

Just a couple thoughts after finishing the games, I really appreciate them in retrospect.

This review is about the collection as a package rather than the individual games. It's been nearly 10 years since I played this trilogy and it's been an absolute joy being able to relive them. I had forgotten many parts of them and not played all the DLC so having it all in one package? Couldn't be happier.

To start, all 3 games have been enhanced though to varying degrees. Each game plays extremely smoothly now with a near solid 60fps, increased resolution and textures for a really high level of performance and image quality all around. Mass Effect 1 especially had a complete overhaul needing it more than the others with completely new visuals in a lot of areas, improved lighting and the integration of later higher quality models from Mass Effect 3 brought into it. The changes here are frankly, huge. Mass Effect 2 and 3 haven't had quite the same attention though your Shepard character model is at least consistent for all three titles now. There have been other more subtle tweaks to user interface, controls etc. to enhance the overall experience and some slight moments of slow down I experienced in Mass Effect 1 in a couple of places aside they look and play better than they ever have.

The collection has all previously released DLC, mostly. It's missing one smaller piece of content for Mass Effect 1, Pinnacle Station as the source files for that were corrupted after initial release preventing it though it's not key content fortunately. All other DLC content has been included in the package big or small including armour packs, additional characters, weapons and quests supplying a huge amount of additional game.

My only complaints about this collection are that despite the obvious effort put into remastering the games, (which is the important part I fully acknowledge) the overall package feels threadbare on additional content. I would have liked to have seen more museum type extras like other remasters and collections include like concept and character art, a music gallery, history of or interviews with developers. A little disappointing. Additionally Mass Effect 3's multiplayer has been cut from the collection and whilst in most cases I'd be happy about that I seriously loved the co-op mode and would have loved to play through it with friends again.

Small gripes aside, this is the best way to play these three games now visually, performance wise and content wise (mostly). A celebration of one of the best trilogies in gaming. as a collection it could be better but it's a small complaint in what was clearly a surprising amount of effort and the first Electronic Arts game I've bought in literally years.

+ Games look and play brilliantly.
+ Mass Effect 1 improvements especially notable.
+ Nearly all content for the trilogy included in one package.

- Lack of extras.
- No Mass Effect 3 multiplayer.

Uma das melhores trilogias da história dos videogames.

O maior ponto positivo dessa trilogia é que as escolhas tomadas no primeiro jogo são carregadas para as sequências, afetando TUDO no jogo, abrindo portas para outros relacionamentos ou impedindo a conquista de certas habilidades. Afinal, o protagonista é o mesmo desde o início e cabe ao jogador tomar as decisões "certas".

Mesmo 16 anos após o lançamento do primeiro game da franquia, todos os jogos são atemporais. Embora haja uma limitação da inteligência artificial ainda sim, o diálogo, a profundidade e a narrativa são elementos muito bem construídos. (É surreal como o jogo consegue acertar nos personagens. Todos eles são bem desenvolvidos).

As missões secundárias, atividades de exploração em outros planetas e a própria história principal contam com um roteiro bem trabalhado a ponto de prender o jogador durante toda a experiência.

A jornada espacial do/da comandante Shepard em busca de derrotar os Reapers continua tão boa quanto era no seu lançamento original.

REVIEW PARA CADA JOGO:

Mass Effect:
- Mesmo com uma IA que não envelheceu tão bem o game dá uma aula de narrativa (Soube implementar perfeitamente os personagens e a gameplay pra sequencia). = ★★★ ½

Mass Effect 2:
- O auge da franquia. Narrativa perfeita, jogabilidade e avançar da história viciante e uma missão final memorável. = ★★★★

Mass Effect 3:
- O mais fraco da franquia. Acho que aqui se perderam um pouco na narrativa e nas missões secundárias. Mesmo assim a missão final é forte. = ★★★

Mass Effect entra fácil na lista dos jogos mais clássicos de todos os tempos (E que todo mundo deveria jogar um dia).

Thirteen years after starting Mass Effect, I finally finished Mass Effect 3! To be fair, I did restart in 2020, so this series playthrough was really only 3 years.

KotOR and DA:O were both big, big events in my gaming life, and I always considered myself a Bioware fan. I feel like this trilogy is their most ambitious effort yet and the hard work put in is apparent. There are countless locations to visit, aliens to talk to and aliens to shoot. The voice cast has some serious heavy hitters, and the branching, choice-driven plot lines have an impressive amount of interaction and mostly resolve satisfactorily.

The most obvious influences are Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica (particularly the reboot which came out just a few years before). There's a hint of Star Wars as well, although quite a bit less than I expected. It's all weaved together into a space opera of epic scope that leans heavily into Bioware's strengths.

But... none of it really landed for me. Right out of the gate, the opening moments of the first game are a firehose of worldbuilding minutia. It's what I call "top-down" game writing: they've built a massive, exhaustively detailed universe to set these games in and showing off every bit of that universe seems to be the driving force behind the whole endeavor, at the expense of every other part of storytelling. It's like if the opening text crawl at the beginning of Star Wars was 12 hours long.

Codex entries, expositional dialogue, codex entries, PDAs, codex entries, computer consoles and oh did I mention codex entries? This game is obsessed with its own lore and I was drowning in proper nouns before I even left my ship. There's a reason all the alien races in Star Trek are stereotypes. When you only have 43 minutes to tell a story it's helpful to say "Ferengi are greedy and Klingons are brave; now you know the backstory." Star Wars doesn't even bother to tell you anything about its species at all, for the most part, and still managed to showcase some of the most memorable aliens in all of pop sci fi. When you're blasting me with the entire history of several alien races before I've even, like, made a friend in this game it makes it hard to connect and I basically lost traction on the story immediately.

It's different with Dragon Age, because there you've at least got familiar fantasy tropes to lean on. I can walk into a room in any game and pick out the dwarves, elves and halflings. Mass Effect, though, is starting from scratch and needs to do a lot of foundation-setting. Nier: Replicant is in a very similar situation where it's just tripping over itself to tell you about all the nifty ideas it has, but it cleverly gives you a sick little sister at the beginning of the game. I think if Mass Effect had followed suit and offered up something tangible and relatable to care about early on, then sprinkled in the worldbuilding with a little more restraint, it would have given me something to care about, to ground me in the world (or at least something to cling to during those endless lore dumps).

All the actual characters I interacted with felt like plot contrivances who are there just to drive the plot along and throw more high-detail, low-impact information at you. The main cast of each game, your crewmates who can accompany you on missions, get a little bit more development (particularly the ones who show up in all three games), but it's cursory and predictable, rigidly following the formula established in KotOR. Each character has a friendship quest that tells you a little about their backstory and ends with them overcoming whatever misgivings they had about you. That's pretty much it. I think some of them might have romance options; I made a half-hearted attempt at following one of these tracks but nothing came of it. Sometimes the NPCs will interact with each other in inconsequential ways, but it never feels like they have real relationships.

Meanwhile your own character is a complete blank slate with no personality whatsoever. I played as the dark side option which they call "renegade" in this series. It's a weird mishmash of being indecorous in polite company, genocide, sexually harassing your employees, pragmatic murder, and just generally being a dick to your friends. For some reason, doing these things makes your eyes glow orange, which is never remarked upon. Through all of this, though, your character is a total empty suit with no apparent motivation other than "beat the game." There is no character development because your character simply has no personality traits. The avatar emotes occasionally in dialog, but I think because the personality needs to fit with all the disparate narrative branches, they're precluded from making strong choices and my boy ended up with all the depth and charm of a styrofoam wig head.

And then there's the villains. I'm sorry Martin Sheen you really did try your best but the villains of Mass Effect were far and away the weakest element for me. Sheen is just, basically Snidely Whiplash. At the tail end of the third game he has a couple sentences where he tries to justify his cartoonish evilness but it doesn't help. There's a... I want to say cyborg ninja? He's the Darth Maul of this game; he comes out of nowhere, he seems to be designed with edgy tweens in mind and when he's gone it's like "wait, who was that again?" And finally, there's the big bads: an unstoppable force of killer robots who want to wipe out all organic life in the universe. A reason is given for this but I found it unconvincing. Oh yeah and to top it all off they're called... THE REAPERS.

So the entire trilogy of games now has the Fallout 4 problem. Every little side quest and diversion is now distracting you from killer robots trying to destroy all life in the universe. Once you introduce a plot point like that, a few things happen. One is that all the moral choices in the game immediately lose all their weight. Anything, literally anything, is justifiable when the alternative is everything in the universe dies. Another is that I really can't be arsed with all your interminable worldbuilding, I'm sorry. I'm not gonna sit here and read the 50th codex entry about how the Volus feel about the Quarians when you've already established, in the most explicit terms, that none of it matters. I'm not gonna poke through every room in my giant spaceship trying to have feelings time with my crewmates when doing so is delaying me from saving all life in the universe.

There's an entire quest line (I think it's a DLC) where your crew takes a break from their jobs and goes on vacation. Now, this is great for some tonal texture; I think it's awesome that they weren't just throwing us into battle after battle and it was nice to hear some of the characters telling some jokes for a change. But the whole time I'm, like, picking out party music in my fancy apartment at the back of my mind is always "uhhh... universe-ending robots...?"

Besides all of that, I felt like THE REAPERS really hobble the writing. There's only so seriously you can take a story with THE REAPERS. Like, you could have some genuinely touching moments that really tug on the heartstrings (and in spite of everything they do pull out a few of these throughout the trilogy), but whatever nuance or thoughtful mood you managed to evoke evaporates as soon as it's like "Welp, back to THE REAPERS." It's not just a dumb name (but it is a very, very dumb name), it's also just such a flat and childish concept, like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon.

None of this is really helped by the technology limitations. There's a whole shooting part of this game that clearly got a lot of dev attention and as a result the lengthy conversation sections are pretty badly neglected. There are dozens of hours of dialogue that are just the camera cutting between two mannequins moving their jaws up and down. Quality voice acting goes a long way but considering how long you spend in conversation in this game, I really needed a little more stimulation. It made me wonder what this game would be like if they cut out combat entirely and focused completely on the characters and politics, maybe as a visual novel or something.

And yeah, I don't think the combat really added anything to this game. Like the conversation sections, I found it to be pretty half-baked in all three titles. All the pieces are there to make a compelling cover shooter, but they never cohere into a whole that I really enjoyed playing. I mostly played on Hard, adjusting the difficulty down when I'd hit one of the occasional sharp spikes in difficulty. This presented an acceptable level of challenge, with the enemies being much more aggressive, but they also felt really spongey. On Normal difficulty, they were way too squishy and would mostly just sit there. I found myself longing for an in-between option.

It's possible that option was there if I had engaged a little deeper with the customization. The powers, outfits and guns just didn't seem very impactful and nothing drove me to interact with those systems. Long before the end of each game I had maxed out all of my guy's stats. I think at the end of the third game I had like 20 surplus ability points with nothing to spend them on? Every new weapon I tried didn't really seem to change anything about the moment to moment combat, so pretty early on in each game I found a gun I liked and never changed it. Except for the occasional mission where the enemies simply dropped no ammo for some reason? I'm pretty sure this was a bug since it didn't feel like a design choice, but there were a handful of missions where all I could do was deplete my guns one by one until I was stuck running around giving aliens the elbow of death.

It goes without saying that the big brains over at Bioware know a lot more than I do about video game control schemes. But I never could shake the feeling that the button assignments in Mass Effect are a cut and dried mistake. Reload, which I think they could have done without, gets its own face button. Melee attack, which you basically never use, gets a button. Meanwhile, enter cover, exit cover, transfer cover, mantle over cover, dodge roll, pick up an item, interact with an object, open a door and sprint are all assigned to the same button; the game tries to intuit your intention based on contexts like how close you are to cover and what direction you're facing. It could be a skill issue I guess, but I found this overloading of a single button to be a huge problem. I was constantly, constantly diving away from cover when I meant to enter it, or entering cover facing the wrong direction, or entering cover when I meant to be running away.

Even when I was successfully controlling my boy, the combat felt really static and repetitive. There were a few notable exceptions throughout the trilogy, but my memory is that most of the environments were just not very well suited to a cover shooter. Too many of the battlefields were, essentially, hallways, with no real opportunities for flanking or other positional maneuvers.

Cover is also pretty "soft" in these titles as well; usually even when an enemy is fully ducked behind a solid obstruction, you can still manage to shoot them. The enemies' flushing options are also sparse; up until some elite mobs near the end of the game all the rushers are super weak and move in predictable patterns, and I found the grenades to be trivially easy to dodge. My favorite flushers were the invisible guys; they actually got the drop on me a few times and forced some dynamic improvisation that reminded me that cover shooting can really be fun even if it's not as tight as something like Gears or The Division. Most of the time, though, I found myself just dodge-rolling between two safe pieces of cover whenever a grenade came my way, and plinking from a distance until everything was dead.

There were exceptions, of course. A handful of the big, plot-important set pieces were really nicely made, with strategic sightlines, multiple flanking paths and exploitable choke points. Also a lot of really sexy skyboxes in the more epic outdoor battles. It's very apparent that when all the studio's resources were brought to bear, they could really pull together something special.

Unfortunately most of the game takes place in cramped corridors that all kinda look the same. What is it with these games and 45-degree walls? Every planet, every space station, no matter what culture you're in, has these 45 degree ceiling/wall/floor sections. I guess they decided this is what "futuristic" looks like. Another design quirk that threw me off a lot was that everything looks like Star Trek-style far, far future. But the game only takes place like 150 years from now. It felt discordant and given the way the game blasts you with lore, I think it would have been nice to see some more grounded... well anything really. Architecture, clothes, vehicles, music, plot points... anything to help me relate more to this world.

I feel like I'm kind of dumping on these games but I do think they're well made. The ambition on display here is noteworthy and I think it's laudable to take big swings. For me it fell short of that ambition, but they found enough high notes to keep me coming back and I think they basically pulled it off. At the end of the day it's a singular work that, whether boldly or foolishly, tries to tell a story at a scope that few other games will even try to match. I didn't love these games, but I am glad to have experienced them.

Uma das melhores histórias que eu já vivi. Empolgante, emocional, cheios de momentos memoráveis e alguns dos melhores personagens que eu já conheci. Altamente recomendado.

Eu diria também que a soma do que os 3 jogos fazem é maior do que eles individualmente. Apesar da diferença de jogabilidade, a experiência contínua funciona extremamente bem e eu sai com a sensação de viver uma história do começo ao fim, onde tudo foi resolvido. Algo que eu acho bem único nessa indústria.

Escrevi minhas opiniões sobre cada jogo:
ME1: https://backloggd.com/u/cloudycloud/review/1333582/
ME2: https://backloggd.com/u/cloudycloud/review/1335445/
ME3: https://backloggd.com/u/cloudycloud/review/1391449/

I went into this because a friend kinda forced me to by buying it for me at full price.

I knew next to nothing about Mass Effect, and I honestly wasn't giving the game my full attention at first. I think ME1 is the weakest of the series mostly for gameplay reasons. But as I went on I started really enjoying the writing, the characters, the story, the gameplay got better. Granted the ending does suck and I do have a lot of problems with ME1, but overall I just can't get enough of these characters and this world.

I loved Mass Effect.

I'm not rating this remaster cause it doesn't overhaul the game to such a degree that it warrants it, but I will list my summary on each game's remaster, as well as general stuff

Mass Effect 1)

Without a doubt, the best way to play this game now. I was weary when the lighting reveal hit (and granted, some of it still looks pretty bad, ESPECIALLY the lens flare use), but the QOL, a plethora of bugfixes, and a majority of the visual upgrade are more than satisfactory enough to carry it. I was already a defender of ME1's combat, but now I can safely say most people can play this game without too much issue.

Mass Effect 2)

More or less the same, though the game's yellow color tone is a little subdued cause of the lighting change, the lens flare is a little more obnoxious here, and I actually ran into two or three crashes (though they were far between each other and didn't impact too much). Still, this also has some QOL and new updated textures, plus I'm pretty sure the morality dialog mechanic here has been patched up so that some stuff doesn't require going all-in w/ Paragon or Renegade, or just holding them out til later. Plus every DLC for this (as well as 1 and 3) are baked in, so I don't have to deal with stupid ass installers like I had to for the Steam version of OG!ME2

Mass Effect 3)

I, and gonna assume every PC owner, went into this with the conclusion already in mind: Play the LE version cause of convenience and some new tweaks, play the original for mods. It's still gonna take time for popular ones like Expanded Galaxy to reach their full potential in LE, but what's available is at least enough for a vanilla+ playthrough. All that said, it's weirdly more janky than the original, even WITH the Community Patch mod installed, so heads up on that. Finally just.. OK I get removing the multiplayer, even if that's such a weird decision, but keeping the 50% TMS point instead of making it a full 100%, as well as altering the amount of War Assets needed to get the endings (you now need ≥7400 to get every ending unlocked, as well as the Perfect Destroy variation), meaning I'm now basically required to do fetch quest BS and other Citadel shenanigans is really egregious. Thank god for the DLC WAs, at least.

Finally, why is there no FOV option for the remaster on PC? I can see how they accidentally skipped some of the legacy bugs and such, but not including this in the launcher for a rerelease at launch just, confuses me, but at least there's a mod for that to hold over until they (hopefully) patch it in. Speaking of, there MIGHT be some achievement bugs for Paramour and Insanity II, and while I didn't have such issue, make some back up saves just in case

Honestly, it's kinda hard to review this game. Instead of being just a straightforward review of a game, this is more of a collection/remaster, and I must be honest it's a damn good one.

Mass Effect is a franchise that completely defined the seventh generation of consoles and gaming as a whole. The series was created with the same love and passion that many of our modern-day Pop-Culture classics possessed when they first released. It created a new world to explore set in a future that could soon be our own, and created one of the best Sci-Fi pieces ever conceived. Mass Effect is more than just a game series, it's a worldwide phenomenon.

Recently, the series and its creator Bioware have seen some rough places recently with their newest games, and many have lost their faith entirely with them as a whole. This collection was Bioware rediscovering what made them special, and they put a lot of love and care into revamping these modern classics. I just hope in the future, Bioware does the same for Mass Effects' newest sequel and utulizes the elements that made the franchise great in the first place.

If your thinking about buying ME: Legendary Editon and haven't played the series yet, this is the perfect chance to do so. If you were a long-time fan like I was, it's the perfect way to re-experience some old memories with some old friends, especially with the newly revamped Mass Effect 1.

I love Mass Effect, and replaying the trilogy once again has reminded me of why I do. It's the perfect Sci-Fi epic, and whether good or bad, I'm excited to see what Bioware brings to the table for the continuation of Commander Shepherd's story.