10 Biggest Changes in Mass Effect Legendary Edition
10 Biggest Changes in Mass Effect Legendary Edition
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Welcome to MojoPlays! Today, we’re looking at the biggest changes in “Mass Effect: Legendary Edition”. How much of this remaster do you still recognize?
Camera Angles
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It’s not the most important change in the remake, but it was one of the most widely discussed before release – and it’s definitely going to help the games feel more welcoming to a lot of people. “Mass Effect 2” had some major issues with its camera placements, namely that the camera was often situated behind Miranda. This meant that during conversations and cutscenes the player was staring directly at her rear. Miranda definitely got a raw deal during this game and is an extremely interesting character, so it’s a relief that the camera will now focus on her and Shepard’s faces as they talk to each other instead of objectifying her even further.
No Multiplayer
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Plenty of people did actually enjoy the multiplayer mode BioWare added for “Mass Effect 3” – but what they didn’t enjoy was that the multiplayer was mandatory to increase your galactic readiness score, and therefore to get the best ending of the game. Considering “Mass Effect” is a single-player RPG series, it was bizarre that this was ever a feature. But the remake is cutting the multiplayer entirely because it would have taken far too much work to include it. This means the galactic readiness score has been adjusted so that it’s easier than ever to max it out and get the best ending. The trophy list has been altered too, with multiplayer trophies disappearing and new ones being added.
Load Times
Though the “Legendary Edition” was built with PS4s and Xbox Ones in mind, many people will still be playing it on powerful PCs and ninth gen consoles, meaning they’re going to have SSDs at their disposal. Load times have been cut for the remaster across the board, so it won’t take as long to get to where you want to go and, more importantly, to navigate the Citadel and its many floors. But if you’re worried that this means you won’t get to hear “Mass Effect’s” beloved elevator conversations as the level stealthily loads in, never fear; you’ll still be riding the elevators, but you can skip ahead once loading is finished - or not.
Morality Checks
Your two morality options in “Mass Effect” have always been Paragon and Renegade; do you play by the rules, or do you get things done your own way, no matter the cost? Depending on which way you played you could build up enough of a reputation that additional morality choice options were opened up to you, but they had very high checks that made it difficult to choose the option you wanted for your character. That’s been changed now, and it’s going to be much easier to roleplay exactly the way you desire. This is primarily going to change “Mass Effect 2”, which had the most opaque and broken morality system.
Unified Character Creator
You could port your version of Shepard throughout the entire trilogy, but Shepard would never look exactly the same from one game to the next, and something that looked good in the first game might look terrible in the sequels. “Legendary Edition” has a new, unified character creator that means you’ll have the exact same Shepard across all three games. As well as that, there’s a new game launcher that means you’ll load all three from the same menu screen; no more having to change discs around or launch different software. Going between games is easier than ever before.
Gameplay
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It’s not really a series known for its great gameplay, but that doesn’t mean BioWare just left all the combat intact. The first game required the most overhauls to the combat system, but across all three plenty of things were improved – most importantly, the AI. Both the AI of your squad and the enemies has been improved so it won’t be like pulling teeth trying to get your team to actually do what you want them to. And for all the PC players out there, controllers are finally going to be fully supported on the PC version; the game was designed with a controller in mind, so this is great news. And the autosave system has been improved, too.
Character Models
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The character models have never been that great in “Mass Effect” – a trend that continued as recently as “Mass Effect: Andromeda” and its infamous facial issues. But they’ve all been revamped in the “Legendary Edition”, making them more detailed and realistic than ever before. As well as just general changes to the model textures, the animations have been improved, too. No more of those awkward eyelines that don’t quite make sense; now characters will actually look at each other while they talk, and will in general look a lot less janky. It’s small changes like this that will make all the difference.
DLC
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The “Mass Effect” trilogy had a lot of DLC during its five-year run, with roughly forty DLC packs released. Many of those packs weren’t anything too notable, but a hefty chunk are full-blown story expansions. Every single DLC for all three games is included in the “Legendary Edition” as a matter of course – all except one, “Pinnacle Station”, because its source code was unfortunately so corrupted it couldn’t be salvaged. And yes, the DLCs include the “Extended Cut” ending of the game, viewed by BioWare to be the trilogy’s canon ending. This will hopefully stop a whole new generation of players from getting disappointed by the final encounter with the Catalyst.
“Mass Effect” (2007)
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Of all three games, the 2007 original was the one most in need of updates. Though there were only three years between the first and second games, the difference is night and day, with “Mass Effect 2” boasting an array of modern features “Mass Effect” just doesn’t have. That’s all changing for the remaster. Though your guns will still overheat rather than having an ammo system, many other things have been modernized, including the heads-up display – which is a lot sleeker – the inventory system, and a dedicated melee button. But perhaps the greatest improvement of all is to the Mako, the infamous car you have to use on certain planets; it’s going to be far easier to control this time around.
Graphics & Visuals
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Along with the character models themselves getting a facelift, all the visuals have been totally overhauled. Since this is a remaster and not a full remake, the game hasn’t been ported to a different engine that can support the mind-blowing graphics we’re used to in 2021. But that doesn’t mean BioWare hasn’t made some impressive improvements. AI was actually used to go through and upscale all the textures to a much higher resolution, making every texture in the game look much better – you’ll even get it to run at 4K 60fps on a good enough machine. On top of that, there are way more atmospheric effects, including dynamic reflections and far better lighting in general.
