Some Familiar Faces....and Kelly

It should come as no surprised that I'm still playing through the Legendary Edition of Mass Effect.  I managed to finish my ME1 adventure and have moved onto my series favorite second game.  It's always interesting to go back and re-experience games that you haven't played in awhile and to realize that there are things that you didn't appreciate enough and other things that now make you cringe.

One of the nice added features to the Legendary Edition is the fact that you can carry over more of your funds from the first game (although sadly, not your entire fortune).  My Shepard started off the second game with a padded account and it was a nice feeling to have enough credits to buy up all the items on Omega.  Unfortunately, something that wasn't so nice was the fact that my Shep didn't transfer over looking exactly the same from the first game.  It was immediately noticeable that her eyebrows were a different color and that her scars were missing.  If I had been adamant about fixing this, I could've tried to re-create my Shep with the customizer, but I knew it would be difficult to re-create it.  It's not a big deal, but I do think it makes my Shep look a little weird.

The very model of a scientist Salarian!

Mass Effect 2 is a game that's all about the diverse characters who make up the crew of the Normandy SR2.  I don't even know how many times I've played through the series, but it's always enjoyable to re-experience all the different personalities.  I've realized that I actually like Mordin as a character a lot more than I thought--sure, he's unapologetic about his role in spreading the improved genophage onto the Krogans, but he's someone whose motives do seem mostly for the greater good.  I love his high energy and how he is the embodiment of a Salarian (dare I say...a scientist Salarian?).

Funnily enough, I've seen quite a bit of discussion around how femShep and Jacob interact.  Playing through the dialogue with Jacob is actually quite cringey.  Let's just say Shep comes off as a little...thirsty.  Okay, A LOT thirsty for a big glass of Jacob.  It's something I noticed in the past, but now that everyone is talking about it, it's that much more noticeable.  As a character Jacob seems to get a lot of hate (for being too boring), but I actually think he's another that I like.  With a bit more backstory and some more options for interaction I think Jacob could be more interesting.

Jack...unraveling those Cerberus secrets.

Another interesting reaction I've seen mentioned is to something that originally people complained about...scanning planets for minerals.  I've seen numerous people posting about how much they enjoy it, which is a complete reversal.  What changed?  I still find it to be a bit of a chore and try to knock out a bunch of scanning at the beginning and then only if I need minerals for upgrades.

An unfortunate victim of the facial upgrades in the Legendary Edition is poor Kelly Chambers.  Original Kelly had a perky haircut to match her upbeat personality.  New Kelly (who my Shep is shamelessly flirting with in an effort to obtain free fish care) just isn't the same.  I want old Kelly back!

I've also encountered a few bugs and glitches.  The first happened on Illium upon going to Liara's office--the cutscene didn't trigger and instead Liara was stuck and it was almost like the game had locked up (but it hadn't because my Shep was still going through her idle motions).  I had to re-load (but fortunately had just had an autosave) and then it worked.  While doing Miranda's loyalty mission I also had an odd bug during the final part of the mission--the health bars and targeting reticule for Enyala and a random Eclipse Operative wouldn't show up.  This made using abilities on them difficult, but it was still possible to kill them.  A minor annoyance.

I wish Kasumi Goto was a main NPC and not just one with limited interactions.  Kasumi's loyalty mission is one of my favorites and I find her personality and backstory to be one of my favorites.  More Kasumi, please.

Old Kelly and New Kelly.

Playing through Mass Effect 2 has always been an enjoyable experience for me and I'm looking forward to spending much more time fighting the Collectors and hanging out with the crew.  Even Kelly...with her weird face, which I am willing to accept in exchange for her professional fish feeding services.