Mass Effect 2 Legendary Edition

Release Date: May 14, 2021

Developer: BioWare

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Genres: Action role-playing game, third-person shooter

Platforms: PlayStation, Xbox, PC

My Platform: PlayStation 5

Difficulty Levels: Casual, Normal, Veteran, Hardcore, Insanity

My Level: Normal

Game Difficulty: 3/10

Game Rating: 8/10

Time To Beat: 30hrs

Difficulty Related Trophy: No, game can be played on Casual

Platinum Difficulty: 3/10

Time To Platinum: N/A

And we are back! It was finally time for the next 'Mass Effect' adventure. I didn't want to grind all these games in one go. But instead spread it out a little, so I can enjoy them longer. The time had come, I had to start playing this. And daaaamn, what a game! But first a quick recap on how I left things in the first one. Because I loaded that save file for the second game. Which definitely gave me some benefits. And of course story wise, that is the only way to play this trilogy. If you want to you can start fresh with a new save. But for the story I highly recommend not doing that.

How Did I Leave Things With The First Game?

Of course I wrote a blog about this game as well. It was actually the first one I have ever made and posted. If you want to check it out, you totally can! Just go to my homepage, scroll down and you will find it there. Because I already wrote about this game in full. I will just put down my status from the end of the game. So that you know what I started with in this one.

• Female Shepard
• Rank 55
• Soldier
• Wrex saved
• Saved the Citadel
• Recommended Andersson for Citadel seat
• Maxed out on Paragon

When you load up your save file, you can still make changes to your character. The only thing I did different was picking another class. I went for engineering this time, because it has the AI hacking, incinerate and still had an smg in the arsenal. I rather would have had an assault rifle. But I figured maybe I could still buy one of those in game. I was wrong. You can not buy guns in this game. You are stuck with the guns in the class you pick. And in the beginning I regretted picking engineering for a bit. Because I just had a pistol and the smg and that last one was really bad. I even considered starting over, so I could pick another class. But that felt kind of stupid, so I just kept going with what I had. And in the long run, that was a good decision. Because it all turned around when I picked up the M-12 Locust smg. That weapon is so much better. And at some point in the game you will have a mission where you have to go to the Collector ship. There you will get the opportunity to pick another weapon class. I could choose between, assault rifle, shotgun or sniper rifle. That was a no brainer. I had to go for the assault rifle. 

And Now The Continuation Of Mass Effect

One month after the devastating attack on the Citadel, the galactic community struggles to rebuild.

The Alliance fleet made a tremendous sacrifice to save the Citadel Council and earned humanity membership in their prestigious group. Now the Council is forced to respond to evidence that the Reapers, enormous machines that eradicate all organic civilization every 50000 years, have returned. To quell the rumors, the Council has sent Commander Shepard and the Normandy to wipe out the last pockets of geth resistance. Officially, they blame the invasion on the geth and their leader, a rogue Spectre.

But for those who know the truth, the search for answers is just beginning.

Shepard was asleep for two years. Colonies have gone missing at random. The Illusive Man thinks it's the Reapers. He wakes up Shepard, because she fought them before. If anyone can beat them, it's Shepard. 

How did the Illusive Man end up with Shepard? And what did he do with/to her while she was asleep? I will leave that for you to find out yourself. 

The Illusive Man

The Illusive Man, played by Martin Sheen, is a human nationalist focused on advancing human interests, whatever the cost to other life forms. The Citadel Council regards him as a fanatic posing a serious thread to galactic security. 

He is the head of the Cerberus network. Cerberus is an allegedly untraceable syndicate of private intelligence agencies, biotic laboratories, engineering and scientific research teams, and lucrative front companies. 

Investigators have named them 'The Illusive Empire'. Branded a terrorist and seditionist organization by authorities. 

Cerberus has determined that an alien race called the Collectors is attacking human colonies. They need Shepard to assemble a team and stop them.

Team/Characters

As soon as Shepard learns what she needs to do and needs a team. She asks about her old crew. Over the years they have gone their own ways. So unable to fulfill her request to have them by her side. She needs a new team. And in this game, there are way more characters for you to discover, get them to join you team, earn their trust and loyalty. That last part is very important for the end game! You want every member of your team to be loyal to you.

Just because your old team members have gone their own way. That doesn't mean some of them won't make an appearance in this game. I will not elaborate too much on this, because you really have to find out on your own. That is part of what makes this game better than the first one. 

There are also some new famous voices in this sequel. I already mentioned Martin Sheen, but I also recognized Yvonne Strahovski from the moment she spoke. Although even after finishing the game, I still don't know what kind of accent she is trying to pull off. But it sounded weird to me, which made it funny. Still awesome to hear these familiar voices popping up in video games. Every single time. 

In this game you have a big team to work with. Which means more missions for you to do with them. I already mentioned that gaining your teams loyalty is very important. Almost every loyalty mission is straightforward and can not be messed up. Yes, I said almost. Because with Zaeed's mission, it can go the wrong way. Just listen to the dialog, remember what your goal is, which is getting their loyalty, and then make the right decision. 

The special missions for Zaeed and Kasumi will be available as soon as you meet them. And you get them on your team. All the other loyalty missions, for the rest of your team, will become available after the 'Horizon' mission. Just make sure you keep talking to your crew in-between missions, to gain their trust. So that they actually will ask for your help. 

Before I move on, I just have to mention Jack. Because, well fucking played BioWare! That character was not what I was expecting. Which made it even more brilliant when we first met. Easily one of my favorite characters in this game! 

Improvements From The First Game

With a sequel you can expect things to be different in a good way. And that is also the case with this game. 

Finding objectives on your galaxy map is so much easier. Because now it shows you what you can do and where. Which saved me a lot of time with going back and forth in the journal and on the map. 

Looking for minerals is also upgraded. You can still find your minerals on the planets you find. But this time you need to scan those planets yourself with a radar. And when you find a sweet spot, you launch a probe to extract your findings. 

The minerals are needed to upgrade your armor, weapons and ship. Before the end game, you want everything to be maxed out. So make sure you have more than enough in your inventory. The minerals you can find are:

• Element Zero
• Iridium
• Platinum
• Palladium

You can also find these during your missions. Element Zero was the hardest for me to find. I still had enough to get everything upgraded. But that bar depleted the fastest. I definitely recommend to keep your mineral levels as high as possible. So that you can upgrade everything on your ship, as soon as you find the necessary blueprints.

The probes that you need for extracting the minerals, cost credits. You also need those to buy fuel for your ship. Yes, that is also an upgrade from the first game. You can not just keep flying and flying. Sometimes you need to refuel, to keep going.

I was maxed out on credits in the first game. And because I imported that save file, I had that same amount of credits in this game. Which means I was never short of that currency and I could keep buying fuel and probes with no problems at all. The same goes for the minerals. I started of with quite a bit of them all. Which gave me a great head start. 

As for transportation on the planets. This time you don't have any wheels, but a M-44 Hammerhead. An infantry fighting vehicle flying at high speeds. Controlling this thing is very easy and smooth.

The controls and graphics are also very good in this game. And an upgrade from the first one. It still looks a bit arcady, but a lot smoother. 

Trophies/Platinum

The trophies are pretty straight forward, and ask much less attention than the once in the first game. There are only a couple of miscellaneous trophies, all the rest are story related. With that being said, you can see in my introduction, that I don't have the platinum. And that has mostly to do with the end game. I know I am doing something wrong. I just can not figure out what. Everybody in my team is loyal. I have everything upgraded to the max. And still, in that final mission, I keep losing one person. Every single time, no matter how I play it. I really don't get the missing link here. Maybe I will try it another time. But I didn't want to kill the game by playing that part over and over again. 

There is free roam after you finish the story. At least if you manage to survive...

So you can clean up the trophies you have left. I recon that will not take too much time.

Final Word

The story has a great flow and fits perfectly with your actions and decisions from the first game. Mission wise the focus is on your team. The amount of side missions is reduced massively. Which is not really a bad thing. That just keeps the story going. And since there is no trophy related to the amount of completed missions, you don't even have to play the side stuff. But for the story, I did them anyways. 

Even though I played this game on normal, just like the first one. The difficulty is definitely upped. You have to be more careful in missions and take it a bit slower. But in my opinion that is a good thing. A little challenge keeps you on your toes.

When you look through the trophies that are combined with all three games. It is clear that you can romance a character. So far, I haven't been able to pull that one off yet. And believe me, it is not because of my lack of trying. Since the first game, I have been trying to romance Liara. Since I play with the female Shepard, I don't even know if that is possible. I really hope I get another chance in the last game. Because that romance just has to happen!

The fact that I used my save file from the first game, makes this one even better. Because with some people you meet, you already have a connection, have a past. Which brings more depth to those characters and brings the story to a higher level. It was actually exciting to meet those characters again, and it was interesting to see and hear about what they have been doing for the last two years. 

The end game mission is definitely something special. In my case Shepard survives, and almost everybody on the team as well. Which means, I can import the save from this game into the last one. I recon that if Shepard dies, you don't have that option. And you are forced to start the last one, from scratch. Which is a very cool twist to a game. That gave that final mission extra tension and the feeling of "I need to do this right"!

About the final boss fight. I don't know if it's just me, but again, this felt way too easy. I got it done in one go, and was kind of a let down. Hopefully it will ask more skills in the last game.

Even though this was a bit of a downer, the game overall is freaking amazing! Better than the first one, and that has everything to do with already having a connection with the characters. Which means the bar is set high for the final game in this trilogy. I am expecting big things and can not wait to find out how this series is going to finish. And, will I finally be able to romance Liara? Time will tell.

I am going to wait again, before I start that final ride. Because I still don't want to risk overkilling it. 

But I am absolutely looking forward to it!

That is it folks, thank you again for reading my blog! I hope you enjoyed it and I very much appreciate you taking the time to read this. If you want to read some more. My collection of blogs is growing slowly but steady. So chances are you will find one you will like! Thank you again!

Have a good one, game on, and I'll catch you on the flipside!