The Legendary Question

I'm about 85-90% of the way through my complete playthrough of Mass Effect's brand, spankin' new Legendary Edition.  My Shep has a few story missions and the highly enjoyable "Citadel" DLC left before I wrap things up.  Since I am mostly done I thought I would weigh in on the $59.99 question--should you buy the Legendary Edition?  Especially, should you buy it if you already own the original trilogy?

Pros:

+ The first game has received a sizeable makeover.  This was my main point of interest as I have traditionally found the first game to be one of the most difficult to re-play.  The graphics have been updated and overhauled to give it a more modern look--it definitely looks better than the 2007 version.  For me, one of the major strengths of the first game was always the space themed exploration and getting to visit beautiful worlds.  The legendary edition makes those worlds even better.  The graphical upgrades in all three games look great.

ME1 looks great!  Photo mode is great for snapping pics.

+The obnoxious Peak 15 graphical bug for AMD CPU's has been fixed.  No more having to play through the entire sequence as a giant, block of black cubes.

+ ME1 combat has been improved.  The enemy AI is somewhat better and you don't spend the majority of your time getting rushed by every enemy in an area.  Weapons seem to have a longer period of firing before they overheat and need a cooldown period.  It's still not as good as it is in the third game, but it's not as excruciatingly horrible as it used to be.

+ The character creator has been updated to include more options to make your Commander Shepard unique.  This includes more consistency when importing your custom Shep into the other games in the series.  I only had one weird issue with my Shep's eyebrows being the wrong color in the second game, but for the most part it is much improved over the original games.

+ Comes with ALL content, even pre-order and special promotional items (like the Dragon Age themed armor set).  Before EA consolidated all the content for the trilogy together on Origin it could be a pain to download and install all the DLC.  You don't have to worry about finding and installing the DLC's or trying to manage importing your character from game to game.  It's really nice to everything in one place.

+ The new photo mode is a great way to capture epic screenshots of all of the Commander's adventures.  I've spent more time than I care to admit snapping pics of nice looking environments or my favorite squadmates.

+ There are a few minor bugs, but for the most part, it has run well.

Garrus just can't stop calibrating.

Cons:

- Even with the upgrades, the first game is still a bit of a slog.  You're still going to experience most of the issues that plague the original game--enemy AI is improved, but many combat areas are designed in a way that naturally funnels enemies toward you, so there's still some level of rushing.  The first game re-used many of the same zones/maps over and over.  Driving the Mako is still a bit of a chore (even with the option to toggle the new controls--which I turned off because it makes you fire and drive in the same direction...which I don't like).  It's important to remember that it's a REMASTER and not a REMAKE.  In a magical, perfect world they would redesign the first game with combat like the third game (I think that would be amazing...but is totally unrealistic).

-Graphics settings are lacking.  I'm not a graphics expert of someone who understand many of the high falutin' graphics terms but, according to the people who are more into that sort of thing, there just aren't many settings that you can tweak.  There was a bit of agonizing over the fact that there isn't an FOV slider in the legendary edition (but something that apparently has been modded).

- Some bugs.  I had one weird launching issue and a few gameplay bugs.  There have been several large patches to fix issues, so it seems like issues are being addressed.  If you're hoping for a PERFECT experience, it's not quite there (but getting closer).

+- Gameplay difficulty seems to be easier than in the OT.  I always struggled to finish ME1 on insanity and decided to give it a try in the LE.  I had no problems and have found insanity difficulty to be easier than in the OT (**not bragging.  I will always stand by the fact that ME is not a series about leet combat skills, so I don't think playing it on insanity is really anything worth bragging about--I just like combat to be challenging, but I know that some people just want to experience the story).  There have been a few sequences that are slightly different and maybe a bit more challenging.

-Pinnacle Station (ME1) and the multiplayer from ME3 are not included.  As someone who has never been a big fan of either, this wasn't particularly heartbreaking to me.  It's looking like they might bring back the multiplayer in ME3 (hopefully not the same way that it was tied into the original game with having it impact the singleplayer story).

Recommendation:

If you are someone new to Mass Effect, the $59.99 price tag is definitely worth it--you're getting three awesome games that include a boatload of DLC that add hours of gameplay and numerous fun items.  It's a bargain compared to the cost of purchasing the base games and all DLC.

If you're someone who already owns the trilogy (and all the DLC's)...that's a bit of a tougher call.  I'm a huge ME fan, but generally not a fan of remasters, so I broke my own rule about buying remasters.  The improvements to the first game are nice and the graphics in all the games do look good, but it's largely the same.  If you can grab it on sale, I would try to do that.