I originally played Mass Effect 1 back in 2008 on PC. It's obviously been a while, so I don't remember every little detail. I do remember not finishing the game, but overall liking it. I especially liked the atmosphere, voice acting, cinematic cut scenes, and the world building. It was a pretty good looking game for it's time. I remember being very impressed with the lip sync as well, which is nothing special compared to modern games.

I'm not completely sure why I never finished the game, but most likely I just got sidetracked playing other games instead.

I have now finished the Legendary Edition of Mass Effect 1 on my Steam Deck, and have made some good progress on the second one as well.

A few differences stood out to me in the new edition:

• The option to make combat more tactical is gone. I'm pretty sure it was possible to make the game pause automatically at the beginning of every encounter. In practice, it doesn't make much of a difference, since you can always manually pause by bringing up the menu to switch weapon / power.
• The game is now in HD. While it looks much better than originally, it actually looks better on the 1280x800 screen of the Steam Deck than on my ultra-wide 4K monitor. I think it's cool that it can run in ultra-wide 4K, but it's not a great experience. Everything feels blown up in size, and the “field of view” feels wrong.
• The single player DLC is included, but you need to use a guide to figure out what mission is DLC. It is not clearly marked, and doesn't seem to affect the rest of the story. Had I known, I would have saved it for last.

Let me list all the good and bad parts of the game in my experience.

The Good Parts

1. Great characters and story arcs. Mass Effect is all about it's characters. They are fully voice acted, have great story lines, and are joy to interact with. I played it all the way through as an RPG, meaning I picked the options I thought my character would want to pick, and also accepted any outcome of my choices, good or bad. No going back and reloading for me.

2. Great lore and world building. One nice touch is that the in-game “Codex” is fully voice acted like an audio book. Makes for a bit of nice listening when you want to delve into the lore of the game. Areas like “The Citadel” also have plenty of NPCs to interact with and many small touches that adds to the world. You know, like a certain city in the “Forgotten Realms”.

3. Cinematic cut scenes that look really nice, that are never too long, and can be skipped if needed. This is cut scenes done right.

4. Combat is serviceable. It plays well in the legendary edition.

5. The game have several meaningful choices that alters the story in the game or in the sequels.

6. You can carry your save over to the next game in the entry. Neat!

7. The game is not too long. I beat the game and the DLC in just about 25 hours, and also did most of the side-quests. I wish more games were like this. Quality over quantity.

The Bad Parts:

1. Mako missions and exploration. The Mako is a vehicle for planetary exploration. These missions where you just land somewhere, and have to explore the area, did not age well. The planets are generic and boring, and the Mako doesn't handle well. I wish you could just land right at the base you were looking for instead of having to drive all the way. The Mako is a bit more fun in some of the main quest lines, since in those, it's more of an on-rails-shooter, but it's still the weaker part of those missions.

2. Boring mini games. The hacking mini game quickly becomes boring. There is little variation and it stops the flow of the missions when you are exploring the levels.

3. Combat lacks variation. I mean, I found it fairly fun, for the first 10 hours maybe. But at some point, you feel like you have seen all it has to offer. The main villain, while great as a character in the story, doesn't really add much fun either as the main boss. I'm not sure picking a harder difficulty than “normal” would have changed much, since I'm now playing Mass Effect 2 on “veteran”, and it's still a bit too easy and simple. If you are more interested in a tactical shooter with some depth than a RPG, look somewhere else.

Conclusion

Overall, I liked the game. Characters, world building, and atmosphere was great. Main missions and level design was still top notch. The combat was a bit lacking, but luckily the game can be beat in 25 hours or so, even less if you just rush the main story line.

And it plays perfectly on the Steam Deck. Highly recommended.