I’ll just come out and say that I’m not the biggest fan of straight-up remasters, but I have been coming around to remakes.
Square Enix was the first to win me over with its excellent first episode of Final Fantasy VII Remake. Rather than going for simple enhanced textures and audio, FF7R developers instead opted for a complete reimagining of the game. New engine, entirely new gameplay, and even some new character beats. This showed me the true potential of remakes, when the constraints of yesterday’s games can be overcome with the advancements of today’s technology.
On the opposite side of the pond, BioWare just revealed its first trailer for the Mass Effect Legendary Edition, the long-awaited remake of the original trilogy with all DLC included. Initially I was stoked, like, ultra-mega-super-duper stoked, but after watching the trailer my honest first response was “It’s only a remaster?!”
I know right, blasphemy. What kind of gamer…
Don’t get me wrong, I love Mass Effect. I loved the original trilogy so much that my first tattoo was the Paragon symbol (on my left forearm to mirror the interrupts showing up on the left of the screen, obviously). I say this so it’s abundantly clear that once the initial hype of the trailer died down, and the post-cut clarity took effect, all I felt was conflicted.
On the plus side, a simple remaster of the Mass Effect trilogy sounds excellent! I get to revisit worlds and characters I’ve known and loved for years, experiencing their quirks and eccentricities as if old memories of a beloved family. Most importantly, I get to watch Kaidan die after leaving him behind on Virmire once again (YOU WHAT? – Tarryn), only this time in glorious 4K UHD.
It gets complicated when you think back to the flawed masterpiece that Mass Effect was, for many contemporaries and critics of yester-year, something BioWare now has an opportunity to improve on. Notwithstanding some questionable choices in character design, story structure, and camera placement (note from future me – hilariously, I added this line in before the Miranda butt controversy bubbled up), there were also larger production-related issues in play between BioWare and EA.
Game development stuff, basically.
Things like forcing certain story content into DLC, or having to create functional weapons, factions, and gameplay around the need for multiplayer congruency and balance. The kinds of decisions that “business” made, not developers. One of the most tragic omissions from the original trilogy was the dark energy story arc that was delicately set up in Mass Effect 2, and then entirely dropped in Mass Effect 3, presumably for time reasons due to EA’s at-the-time insistence on constant releases and short development cycles. Wanna know why Mass Effect 3’s ending kinda sucked? That’s why. The arguably better ones were left on the cutting room floor because BioWare literally did not have the time.
They do now.
I keep coming back to FF7R and how they delicately interwove new content with the original story, in a respectful way that better fleshed out each character and introduced interesting new story beats without betraying the original artistic vision (and I mean even if it did, arguably the original still exists and can be played as-is).
When I think of a Mass Effect remake (I think you mean a “remako”. Sorry. – Tarryn), that’s what I want.
This is what many consider BioWare’s magnum opus series. To paraphrase a line from Pedro Pascal’s character in the new Wonder Woman movie, “(Mass Effect’s) great, but it could be better!”
Imagine bringing back those dark energy storylines as an entire side arc, or reworking certain characters to better flesh out the original studio vision (Jack’s sexuality immediately comes to mind here), or generally tweaking the experience so it fits better with today’s social zeitgeist. Imagine doing that without fundamentally altering the original trilogy’s storyline, giving something to both returning fans as well as newcomers to the series. A victory lap for a studio that really needs a win right now, and a title fitting of the “Legendary” moniker.
At the risk of sounding cynical, even if BioWare releases a mostly unchanged version of the original trilogy (maybe with the third game’s combat throughout) and we just got more of Garrus being a badass, Mordin being the best-written character ever, and Miranda’s butt (note from future me – oof, never mind), I’ll still be happy and probably buy and play and enjoy the Mass Effect Legendary Edition.
It’s just, I dunno man, I want to see the audacity, the bravery, the cockiness that the BioWare of old would add to proceedings. I want to see what they can really do with today’s technology, the benefit of hindsight, and a chance to cut loose.