Mass Effect Legendary Edition released to much fanfare recently, and a lot of reviews paint it in a very favorable light. The return to the glorious adventures of Commander Shepard is not only rendered in gloriously high resolutions and frame rates, but it presents more than enough proof about the capabilities of both developers and game modders as a whole. 

As stated in a recent Forbes post, Mass Effect Legendary Edition is one of the best-reviewed releases of the year. It has actually outperformed several of this year's biggest releases on Metacritic, such as Returnal, Disco Elysium, and even the highly touted Resident Evil Village with a metascore of 90. 

Such a performance is really not bad for a remastered game, given the reputation for titles of this classification. History has shown us that remasters (and remakes, by extension) tend to launch to lukewarm receptions, even among a game's most avid fans. But it does seem like Bioware did Mass Effect and Commander Shepard right. 

Let's take a look at what several game reviewers thought about the revisited trilogy. 

Read also: Mass Effect Legendary Edition and This Generation's Preference for Game Remasters: A Closer Look

Game Informer: 9 Out Of 10 

Game Informer calls Mass Effect Legendary Edition "a great way to honor Shepard's legacy." The outlet praised the remaster especially for its massive overhaul of the original game, which among the three games is obviously the one needing more than a fresh coat of paint. 

The gameplay tweaks are what stood out the most for Game Informer, which was badly needed for Mass Effect 1's Mako sections. A lot of gamers will always remember how the Mako handled like a drunk rhino; bouncy, floaty, and overall not a fun thing to drive. But with the revamped controls, it handles better, shoots better, and most importantly, it's more fun to drive now. 

Here's one thing you should know about Mass Effect Legendary Edition, though: the Mako's horrible OG steering is actually an optional toggle. Do you like pain? Then you have the option to turn it back on. 

Lastly, the combat in Mass Effect 1 has also received a lot of upgrades, with Game Informer stating it handles so much more like Mass Effect 2's combat. And that's an amazing thing, considering how clunky the OG combat mechanics were. 

Tom's Guide: Unscored, But Favorable

Tom's Guide didn't provide a number scale to describe their verdict, though they did rule in favor of Legendary Edition in a lot of aspects except one: the launcher's lagging issues. It would minimize on its own sometimes, and even lag behind when firing the game up for the first time. These, however, are minor inconveniences, according to the review. 

For anyone willing to ignore that, then the remastered trilogy is doing a lot of things right. Again, the massively reworked original game takes center stage, with the review praising the slew of upgrades that made ME1 a lot more on-par with ME2 and ME3's gameplay. It still has the same amazing story that made a lot of players slave through its unsatisfying gameplay back in 2007, which to avid fans of the series is more than enough. 

Steam Reviews: Mixed 

It's no secret that Legendary Edition ran a tad bit better on the next gen consoles, as PC players experienced a good amount of performance issues upon launching the game. PCGamer reports that a lot of Steam reviewers found some elements of the new controls wonky, while others point out issues relating Steam and EA's Origin Client. 

Many players seemed to be frazzled with how the mouse handles in ME1, claiming that it feels "wonky" and similar to how mouse acceleration works. It seems like the original game, which underwent the most changes, didn't change the mouse controls much. Aside from that, there are also complaints about a lack of true ultrawide support (it only renders 16:9, so if you have a wide monitor, cutscenes will appear with black side bars).

There's hope that Bioware will be fixing all these issues in a patch within the coming days. 

Final Thoughts

These are just some of the reviews which are already out at the time of this writing, which is why big-name gaming sites such as IGN and Gamespot are still not included. Those reviews will be out likely in the coming days. But all in all, it seems like Bioware did the beloved Mass Effect trilogy solidly. 

Related: Mass Effect Legendary Edition and The Importance of the Game Modding Community

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Written by RJ Pierce