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Mass Effect Legendary Edition

Reverend

Reverend

Admiral
Admiral
For those that might have missed it, Bioware recently announced that they've been remastering the original Mass Effect Trilogy for next gen systems and expect to release early next year, and that they are indeed working on ME5...or MEA2, howevr that shakes out.
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Not surprising given that this news leaked a while back, but still nice to see the franchise still has a pulse....if just barely.
While it's good that the remasters are coming out since it'll introduce the games to a younger generation that never played the original trilogy, and be available to console gamers that no longer have their old systems and games that might want to revisit, I'm not sure if the remaster interests me personally.
I'm mostly a PC gamer and my copies of all three games still work, and going by the description it looks like this is a fairly minimum effort remaster that'll mostly be higher res textures, tweaked shaders and maybe some long overdue bugfixes. All of those things I already have access to thanks to the modding community.

Even less enthused about the sequel since it's clearly VERY early days and knowing modern day Bioware and the history of MEA's janky dev cycles, I'll reserve any judgment until they release something more substantive on the subject.
In broad terms though, despite all the issues, I hope they opt to continue with the Andromeda plot rather than attempting to recapture or resurrect the Shepard/Milky-Way end of things (even if my Shepard totally survived; she's retired and making blue babies, leave her be!)
My preference would be to jump the timeline on a century or two and not try to make it a Ryder trilogy. One of my major bugbears for MEA was how stupidly established and numerous the Milky-way races' "outlaw" faction was. I'm pretty sure that by the end of the game, I'd wiped out at least three quarters of them, so they're going to need a generation or three to rebuild.

Being able to choose the race of the protagonist would be nice too; maybe the way to do it is have you start on the Quarrian Ark which finally limps into the Nexus and whatever character you create is the one that gets awoken and introduced to the new state of affairs. I'd also prefer *not* to have a repeat of "hey there rookie, you're the pathfinder now!" No more saviour stories please. I'd be happy playing a nobody surveyor with a broken down old ship out making a living charting new worlds for the next wave of colonization.

Oh and before I forget, while Bioware was trying to use N7 day mostly to flog even more overpriced tat on their merch story, Commander Shepard hersef went and assembled a wonderful cast & crew reunion!
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Like I said, I'm not against it, it's just that if all they're going to do is give them a fresh coat of paint then it wouldn't be worth it me, or indeed I suspect most PC gamers that already own the originals.
I mean this is EA, so I'm not expecting them to give a free copy to existing customers like other "remasters" have done, and for now that's pretty much the only circumstances where I can see myself giving it a go (and hell, I never did get around to checking out the Bioshok & Skyrim ones!)

In an ideal world I'd like to see a proper remake of ME1 at least since that's far and away the most janky gameplaywise and in need of a top to bottom retooling.
But that would require either digging back into the the old Unreal Engine code (massive pain) or porting the whole thing over to Frostbyte (excruciating migraine). ME2 can get away with just being upgraded with a few of ME3's gameplay improvements; mostly mobility and gunplay, but the GUI for the armoury and upgrades interfaces could benefit from some attention too.

All very unlikely and the only thing that makes any of this even a remote possibility is that right now, Bioware reaaaaaaally needs a win. Two heavily ridiculed flops in a row does not look good on the investor calls or the shareholders meetings, and the next Dragon Age is not likely to be close to ready for another year (even if they do the dumb thing and crunch it, since that'll just be MEA all over again.)
 
I've played the first two games, but never the 3rd. Because by the time the 3rd was released they went ahead and made it exclusive to Origin which meant if you had the others on Steam, it was awkward. From a player's perspective, that was kind of a shitty move, having the first two of a trilogy available on one service and then not having the 3rd be available there as well.
 
Owain Taggart said:
I've played the first two games, but never the 3rd. Because by the time the 3rd was released they went ahead and made it exclusive to Origin which meant if you had the others on Steam, it was awkward. From a player's perspective, that was kind of a shitty move, having the first two of a trilogy available on one service and then not having the 3rd be available there as well.
Click to expand...
It's a minor pain, though to be honest it never really bothered me all that much. You can always add a non-steam game link into your library and with the custom cover art options, you'd hardly tell the difference.

Not that it matters now since they released all the previously Origin exclusive Bioware games (and a bunch of others from EA) on Steam a few months back....that said the price is WAY too high for such an old title (and it's been about a third of that on Origin for years, hell they were practically giving it away until recently) plus they made the odd choice of 1) selling the DLC in a separate bundle effectively doubling the price, and 2) putting the 'Director's Cut' DLC in said bundle when IIRC it was given out for free back in the day. But then, of course: EA's gonna EA!
 
If they improve the gameplay of the first one as well as fix the annoying bug on AMD processors that turns all the characters into black blobs on Noveria and maybe improve the character creation options in all three then I think that might make it worthwhile.
 
I think it's a safe bet they'll address any major compatibility issues with newer hardware that may have accumulated over the years.

Gameplay improvements seems doubtful at this point, and while making the character creation consistent across all three should be a relatively simple ask, I wouldn't hold my breath for even that,
 
Depending on how major a rework there is, I'd possibly be tempted, though the mod scene has taken care of the HD stuff for me.

I am looking forward to the next one though I'll be keeping more of an eye out than a straight pre-order.
 
From what I've heard, it's likely going to be very minor, and more of a remaster that matters on consoles rather than PC, ie minor texture work and resolution changes.
 
The only reason I'm at all tempted is because I never played the DLC for ME3, and my PS3 copy refuses to load for me now.
I really want to be excited for the new game, but after the reactions to Andromeda, and Anthem, I'm a lot more uncertain about it than I would have been before them. Even though the first three are some of my all time favorite games, I still haven't bothered checking out Andromeda.
 
Anyone else think it's a little odd that despite the fact they they've been at this a while, they didn't have ANY footage to show off? Indeed I'm about 90% sure some of the assets in that "trailer" aren't even in-game. The Thane, Miranda & Morden assets all look like the versions made for the pre-rendered cinematic trailer and "fight for the lost" promos made for ME2.
 
I love Mass Effect 1-3, easily my favourite franchise ever. I've put hundreds of hours into the franchise and I 've been wanting a remake/re-release for ages. I hope Mass Effect 1 has been given some real TLC though 2 & 3 will require a lot less work.
 
If this is just going to make the trilogy look a bit prettier then I won't be interested. If they make some serious enhancements to ME1 by fixing bugs and improving the game mechanics though, that would be a real treat. I loved ME1 but it's unplayable nowadays and I can't see Bioware (or EA for that matter) putting in much effort to bring it up to modern standards.
 
My favorite thing in ME1 that wasn’t in the sequels was the missions being based around setpieces with multiple phases and heavy worldbuilding instead of just being linear corridors. Other aspects could be improved.

My biggest wish for a new edition would be to let you select parameters for 2 and 3 without clear data. And to have major DLC included in the base package.
 
I've never played any of them before, so this remaster is perfectly suited to me. :)
 
I wonder how long they have been working on this project because their has been rumours of a Trilogy Remaster pack for several years now. Mass Effect 1 really needs an overhaul...

* 2 & 3 streamlined the RPG elements so doing the same for 1 (though not quite as much as the sequels).

* Maybe making the MAKO more like the 3rd game + make the worlds feel a little less empty while you're out driving it would be nice

* Sort the Framerate issues out (especially in the Citadel)

* Make the combat more like ME2/3 though saying that ME2 gunplay could do with a nudge towards 3. ME 2 AI essentially have lock on and it felt a little arcadey at times. ME3 gun combat felt way more developed.
 
I'd rather they put more RPG elements back into 2&3 than streamline them in 1. They're the best feature of 1, that the planets you go to feel much more three dimensional than the places you go in 2&3.

3 did the best with the combat. 2 had great gunplay but they made all the missions into tunnels, 3 added back having to worry about enemies from all directions again.

The one biggest fix 1 needs is the mako combat. It always turned into sessions of waiting just out of the enemy's range for the shields to recharge.
 
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