I finally finished the playthrough of BioWare‘s epic space saga Mass Effect: Legendary Edition I started a few weeks back. This is hardly news. I’ve played through the entire saga probably a hundred times over the years, between the original releases and the Legendary Edition release that (sort of) pulled it all together.
The difference being this time I went in loaded with mods.
One of the things I’ve always appreciated about BioWare RPGs is how solid they are as games. I’ve never felt the need to mod a BioWare RPGs to make it playable. Other than Dragon Age: Origins, which requires a large memory fix to even work on modern CPUs. BioWare is great at producing solid code; not so great at providing any sort of long-term support or afterthought. When they are done with a game, they are just … done with it.
I do this thing with games that I really like. Especially with ones where I’m anticipating a sequel. I play through with various versions of the hero, finding just the right one to (hopefully) carry forward into the next chapter of the story. I can’t tell you how many versions of the Inquisitor I steered to victory in Dragon Age: Inquisition, thanks to the promises of all the choices built into the end of Trespasser.
And, as we know, BioWare just took a big old steaming dump on any hope of Dragon Age character continuity (or choices) mattering. But Dragon Age has never gotten the same love from BioWare that Mass Effect has. And, of course, you don’t play through the first three DA games with the same character, so there was never the same level of continuity from game to game.
And Veilguard ended with the typically condescending BioWare lecture on how it knows better than its own fans where the story should go and what it should be. BioWare has always treated its customers like we’re stupid, with the lectures on where to stand and constant interruptions as the characters feel the need to remind us what the fuck we are even doing. “I should access the same feature I normally access to solve this exact problem”, or “Hey. Don’t stand there. You’re being attacked.”
BioWare: easily the most condescending bunch of game developers on the planet. And not smart enough to recognize what was so great about their own games.
OK, so I’m a little bitter. Even though I thought Veilguard was a decent game, I did get sick of the constant lecturing (both on game mechanics and social issues) throughout. And BioWare’s instant “this is it. This is all you get. No DLCs. No updates. Fuck off. It’s all Mass Effect now. Oh, and here’s Rook to tell you why all your expectations weren’t just wrong… but old-timey and stupid. BYEEEE!” attitude at release wasn’t a great marketing plan either.
Back to the matter at hand, I realized I’d started to consider modding Mass Effect away from “cannon” or default behavior because I no longer have any faith whatsoever that BioWare won’t pull the same shit with Mass Effect. When I first saw teasers of the next installment (still *years* away), I took the presence of an older Liara T’Soni to be a great sign. Now, I’m afraid BioWare is going to Varric her shit up, and we’ll get some snooty little Sunny Jim or Jane lecturing us on how stories change – and everyone can just suck it up – as we pan over Liara’s broken corpse.
I played through half to see something new in the ME universe, but also because I’m a little afraid this is also goodbye. I don’t really have good expectations of anything coming out of BioWare’s shop in the future, as they seem totally devoted to following trends rather than setting standards.
Providing it still runs on whatever hardware configuration I have set up in that distant future when Mass Effect 5 is released, ME:LE might well be the universe to which I retreat after a disappointing sequel that turns an epic saga spanning generations and galaxies into an episode of Scooby Doo with reaper tech.
I want it to feel as exciting and fresh as the first time. So I loaded up with mods.
Epic Mods for an Epic Saga
First off, if you haven’t ever modded Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, I highly recommend doing so. Aside from various texture and lighting re-works, there are a lot of content mods that offer some serious quality of life improvements for those of us who have played through the games a billion times and don’t really feel the need to spend 20 hours of game time scanning galaxies for artifacts, or solving elementary-school level pattern-matching puzzles. And some mods for Mass Effect 3, specifically, really brought the world of Mass Effect (and The Citadel in particular) to life.
Before I list the mods I chose (all of which are super-awesome and seem to work very well together), I want to talk about what I was looking for, because my modding needs and yours might not be the same.
One-Shotting Rannoch – I absolutely hate that stupid Reaper battle on Rannoch where you have to run back and forth like you’re playing some Atari 2600 space shooter, aiming this stupid guidance system that apparently transmits LIGHT but requires ages to lock onto a target. It’s annoying AF, and it makes no damn sense in the first place. (I found that capability in the Project Variety mod, though I believe it is disabled by default.)
Texture and Lighting Improvements – All the Mass Effect games are pretty spectacular, visually, but obviously technology has advanced. There are some great texture and lighting re-works that, I found, really refreshed the beauty of BioWare’s original art.
Busy Work – I love NGP-ing games. If it’s good enough to finish once, why not play through again? NGP-ing is like a well-earned retirement. You paid your dues. Now you get to stroll through the same experience with relatively god-like powers and kick some easy ass. And they expect the savior of the galaxy to – what – stop and shuffle through space debris for fuel? How common.
Same-Sex Romance Options – I like BioWare romances. I’ve written this before. I don’t need hardcore sex in a game, and I generally don’t find games that offer more explicit sex scenes do them particularly well anyway. I’ve always liked the “oh… it’s on. Let’s fade to black and give them some privacy.” I’m not a prude. I’ve watched porn. I just don’t need it in a video game. I do like the intimacy and the connection between characters, though. It’s a “something to fight for” sort of thing, along with opening up dialogue options.
And here’s an unpopular opinion: I also liked that Mass Effect 3 allowed Shepard to have same-sex romance options, but not with everyone. I would have preferred different options, but I do like the idea that players have set personalities and orientations. If they accept mine, then I respect and accept theirs as part of who they are as well. I don’t mind the new trend to make all characters available as romance options to any variation of $HERO, but it seems less realistic and tends to result in more generic and less believable romance scenes.
And that’s it. Improved textures, lighting and models, getting rid of some of the repetitive work that gets grindy, and letting Shepard get down with his preferred partner.
What I found was a whole lot more.
This post, like all my posts, is already far too long. I just don’t have the time or patience to describe what each of the mods below does. Some are self-explanatory. Others are very well-documented on their nexusmods page.
I will tell you that reading mod descriptions expanded my horizons and expectations. The mods I wound up choosing offer a variety of changes, including new locations (most specifically in ME3) to explore in the Citadel, a few text-based missions, a variety of visual improvements that make The Citadel really come to life.
I found mods that instantly solve the stupid (sorry… but they are) code-breaker puzzles in the first two games. Mods that updated the Galaxy Map to make it much more useful. Mods that placed War Room controls on the CIC so Shepard didn’t have to run back to the war room to check that magic number.
It was all excellent. It was all a little too much.
Don’t get me wrong. I *highly* recommend each and every one of the mods listed below. I also recommend NOT accepting default settings, but take the laborious task of going through all the options (at least the ones that you care about) to make sure you get the experience you are expecting.
I found that out the hard way.
I always go for the “perfect ending”: Shepard chooses to defeat the Reaper, but with a War Strength of above 7800, survives the experience… just barely. Somehow, even though I completed every single mission in ME3, I mean every single REAL mission written by BioWare, storming the Cerberus base and defeating Kai Leng actually reduced by War Strength by over 600 points, and I wound up watching Kaidan glue Shepard’s name to the wall of the dead.
Pisses me off to NO END. But I’m pretty sure I can play with the options a bit. I just don’t know how far back in the game I would have to go to make sure the new settings work.
I’ll also say that some of the cosmetic re-works, while very well done, didn’t seem at all realistic to me. On The Citadel, it makes much more sense for Miranda to show up in disguise rather than her butt-clenching Cerberus onesie. But the mod I installed had her looking like a 21st century woman on the go, maybe headed to the mall in her sweater and jeans. I just don’t buy that look in another three or four hundred years. It would be like dressing up as a pilgrim to blend in today.
Still, these modders are amazing and they put a lot of love and dedication into their work. Don’t like something? Chances are there is a way to turn it off. I just think you’ll enjoy their work much more if you take the time to personalize the settings to suit your tastes, rather than accept the recommended defaults.
Here are the mods I used, split up by game. I’ve provided a link to each that is current as of the date of publication.
Mod Management
ME3Tweaks Mod Manager – You will need to install this to manage the mods listed below. PRO TIP: Import mods before installing them. Provided you RTFM, this is one of the best – if not the best – mod manager I’ve ever used.
Mass Effect 1
Same-Gender Romances for LE1 – (fully voiced and everything. EXTREMELY well done, if this is your sort of thing.)
Mass Effect 2
Same-Gender Romances for LE2 – (Your one male option is Thane, but it’s very well done.)
Skip Mini Games – Same name, but this is a different mod than the one for ME1
Mass Effect 3
Citadel Epilogue Mod – (I chose the full version, but I’m sure both work great if the full one does.)
Expanded Galaxy Mod – No more being stuck in a web of light on your own ship! And much more
LE3 Community Patch & Framework – vital
No Reapers and Max Scan Range – Because I’m not playing Pac Man in space.
Project Variety – A whopper of a mod. Tons of settings. GO THROUGH THEM. Brilliantly done. I mean holy crap!
Texture and Lighting (All 3 Games)
ALOT – A Lot Of Textures. There are packages for each game. I also installed the improved static lighting.
Results
Aside from cheating myself (by not doing my homework) of the happy ending, I had a great time! The refreshed textures and lighting reminded me how much I’ve loved the Mass Effect games over the years.
The glitchiest of the games (with mods installed) was ME2, where sometimes loading a game would cause the camera to hang at some random point outside the ship with no apparent controls working at all. And I crashed twice. Both crashes occurred just after autosaves and I lost nothing. The weird loading bug happened only a few times, and each time just quitting and re-starting the game fixed it.
The most changed game was Mass Effect 3, where The Citadel is really brought to life with a variety of refugees crowding the various levels in brightly-colored outfits. There are also new areas of The Citadel to explore, including a re-work of Chora’s Den, Hanar and Volus embassies, and even a port of ME1 Citadel Tower.
Some of the side missions have been moved to these areas, which can be a bit confusing at first. There was a very slight performance hit in the Citadel Tower, and some strange artifacts at one point that went away almost instantly (frozen party members standing where they shouldn’t be.)
There are a lot of fun little short-cuts built into the Normandy SR-2. I think these come from the Expanded Galaxy Mod, but I’m not entirely sure.
Other than the inexplicable reduction in War Strength at the worst possible moment, nothing in any of the mods impeded game play or got in the way of the central story. Everything enhanced my experience and helped recapture a little bit of the new game feel I haven’t had with Mass Effect in a very long time.
And, if BioWare screws the pooch resulting in Space Rook giving TED Talks on the Normandy SR3 (The Toxic Positivity Edition), then there are plenty more mods for Mass Effect: Legendary Edition out there waiting.
If you aren’t that much into modding, or if you’ve just never bothered modding ME:LE, I highly recommend it. The mod manager makes everything easy as pie. Just make sure to batch install texture and lighting mods as the very last step.
The one thing still missing from the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition experience? A true NGP feature. You just can’t import an ME3 character back into ME1 to play through the entire triology as one new game plus. You have to NGP each game individually, which isn’t nearly as fun.
If anyone knows of a mod or save editor that lets that happen, please let me know!
#ShepardLives
Chris Dangerferret's 2nd Childhood 