The good 👍
- ability to mark junk and sell it at once
- still easy to mod (unlimited sprint, changes to exp, credits etc.)
- clear visual improvements
- game automatically starts from the hub launcher, no need to open ME1 menu and then pick to choose a game
- possible to skip news and squad members banter to speed up elevator loading times
- addition of photo mode, previously it was possible to have similar effect through console commands
- there is more light in the scenes, so everything is not so dark
- running in hub areas is fixed and Shepard actually runs instead of having just camera shake
- Enemies in this nearly 20 y/o game can be smarter than in modern games - they hide, use powers effectively and try to flank us

The bad 👎
- not possible to respec character
- planets and dungeons are really repetitive
- remaster introduced some errors, like lack of blinking hints on the galaxy map (solved by community mod patch)
- Shepard can still run for 2s before he's panting (solved by mods)
- game is short without doing side quests

Conclusion:

It was a good revisit of ME1 after a couple of years. Enough to make me forgot some details, but not enough to make me forget the dialogues ;D

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Details

📘 Story ☐ Bare-bone ☐ Average ☑ Good

☑ Interesting lore ☑ Well written NPCs Shepard is sent on a mission to prove that he deserves the status of spectre. Super-special-agent who can go where he wants, and do what he wants. As long as he's on a mission given by the Citadel Council, representatives of the galactic government. Spectres are supposed to do the dirty work behind the scenes, so the Council can pretend all alien races live happily together. Sadly for Shepard turian spectre - Saren - has another idea. He kills a spectre that was supposed to grade Shepard, make a mess and put blame on our hero. The plot revolves around proving to the Council that Saren is a traitor. Can't say much more without spoilers, but story is the main focus of this game. And the whole trilogy in general. "Plot revelation moment" is not cheap and predictable like in many other games, as long as you did not have spoilers. Which may be really hard, as the game was released 15 years ago. The game is full of lore, sci-fi talk and a lot of memorable races. BioWare did create everything from scratch, Quarians, Turians, Krogans, Elcors, Volus etc. don't really have equivalent in different fantasy or sci-fi gaming media.

🔄 Gameplay loop ☐ Boring ☐ Average ☑ Good	The game was released nearly 2 decades ago, so it's not a massive open world game. It is instead a semi-open corridor shooter. We can diverge from the path a bit, but not much. Levels have clear start and finish, and it's impossible to get lost. The game has (rather repetitive) exploration component where we land on some desolate word to scan some junk or kill few bandits. Going to worlds to complete main missions, which are well-written and interesting. Time between missions is spent either on ship chatting with companions, or going to the hub area (Citadel) to sell junk and buy some useful armor or weapons. All side missions can be ignored, and while it will limit our max level, it will cut all the busy work. And is entirely manageable if we want to beat the game only on normal difficulty. If we don't want to go to the hub area to sell junk, it can be transformed into omni-gel. And later used to automatically open locked doors and chests.
🪄 Abilities ☐ Basics (walk, jump etc.) ☐ Magic / powers ☑ Advanced combat	☑ Skill tree ☐ Statistics ☐ Crafting There are three main classes. Soldiers who focus on gun damage. Adept (biotic) which is basically a mage. Engineer, who is a support class focused on healing and debuffing enemies. And three derivative classes. Sentinel (biotic / engineer), vanguard (soldier / biotic) and infiltrator (soldier / engineer). Each main class has unique powers, and mixed classes can access some basic powers from both, but not the more advanced ones. Sentinel can use throw and warp from adept class, but not singularity. There are no strength etc. statistics, leveling up gives ability points to increase power level. Each power has 10 levels, so it does take a bit to unlock most of them. It's not possible to respec in this game, but points are abundant, so it's not possible to mess up the build.
🎮 Controls ☐ Clunky and stiff ☑ Adequate ☐ Fluid and enjoyable	They do feel aged, especially in comparison to ME2/ME3. We don't always stick to cover properly, it's not possible to easily move between covers. Like in rest ME games, it's not possible to jump. We can only walk and run. Many people may not like the mechanic where space bar is used to interact / run / go to cover. But I did get used to it, as a series design choice.
📇 Inventory and menus ☐ Basic ☑ Detailed ☐ Over complicated	☐ Made for gamepads ☐ Hard to navigate Inventory windows are still small, but legendary edition added the ability to mark items as junk and either sell them in bulk or change them into omni-gel. Which is a QoL update. The original version spent too much time just selling junk one by one. Weapon and armor stat comparison is clear and easy to do. Command menu get update to look more like in ME2/ME3, but it's just aesthetic. But there is a bug where game does not register properly, we left the command menu. Pressing the weapon trigger immediately after turning it off leads to us "clicking" on the medi-gel, which basically we waste it when our squad does not need it.
🥊 Combat 🏹 ☐ Boring and generic ☐ Average ☑ Good ☐ Great	☐ Well designed weapons Cover shooter with enemies coming at us in waves. We can either close the distance and finish enemies directly, or stay in the back and pick them slowly with powers and long range weapons. I don't know how well the direct approach would work on insanity level (I was dying after 3s if not covered) but it's surely a playable approach at lower difficulties. There is a big variety in weapons (heavy pistols, SMGs, assault rifles, shotguns and sniper rifles) and they all feel distinct. One big difference between ME 1 and the rest of the trilogy is that here powers all have individual long cool downs. Using all powers on easy enemies can leave us struggling with tougher ones.
🤖 Game AI ☐ Brain dead ☐ Really basic ☐ Average ☑ Smart and responsive	Enemies are responsive, use cover well and try to flank us. The big downside of our companion AI though, is that they can be quite brainless (I keep struggling why when enemies don't have problem with path finding). They will go under enemy fire, or just not be able to follow us around. So we may need to micromanage them in narrow passages.

💸 Microtransactions ☑ None ☐ Skins ☐ "Time-savers" ☐ Direct purchase ☐ Custom currency (gems etc.)	🏆 Achievements ☐ None ☐ Story progression ☑ Few collectibles / easy to get ☐ Grindy collectibles / hard to get ☐ Require multiple playthroughs	💾 Save system ☐ No saves ☐ No saves, progress carries over ☐ One checkpoint, too rare ☐ One checkpoint, frequent ☑ Manual saves
📊 Performance ☐ Can run on potato ☑ Medium requirements ☐ High requirements ☐ Too low for what is visible on screen ☐ Optimization disaster	🌌 Graphic ☐ May look good 10 years ago, but not now ☐ Blurry textures / geometry problems ☐ Average ☑ Good ☐ Beautiful	🔊 Sound ☐ Nothing to remember ☑ Good voice acting ☑ Good weapons & effects ☑ Good OST ☐ Music flows well with the action
🦚 Customization options ☐ Resolution, volume only ☑ Basic graphic settings ☐ Advanced graphic settings ☐ Adjustable HUD ☐ Accessibility options	🧭 Map ☐ No map ☐ Basic ☐ Detailed ☑ Minimap ☐ Fast travel	Details: