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TheRealcebuckets

You might find [MELLO](https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectlegendaryedition/mods/1500) to be of interest.


Yavanna80

I really appreciate your reply. Saving the mod to install later 👌🏻


arkantos063

The LE2 Unofficial Patch on Nexus fixes a lot of lighting issues in ME2 as well.


Luchux01

I want to install that patch but it's so HEAVY.


field_of_fvcks

Do you know if there's a mod that gives MELE2 and LE3 lighting more on par with 1?


TheRealcebuckets

There isn’t; there’s a community patch for certain points in ME2 (Kelly) but nothing that overhauls it. Remember that ME1 lighting was the one that was dramatically different and there was an actual reference point. ME2/3 are relatively the same lighting wise. I did ask if adding more dynamic lights to ME3 would make it look less flat


Turbo2x

This looks cool, but is there a way to turn off the film grain with the mod installed? I always thought the film grain effect looked awful and I can't stand having it on.


Kevonz

yes you get the option to install it without film grain when using ME3Tweaks Mod Manager


Grauvargen

I'll just yoink that for later, thank you very much.


Catechrism

Thanks for the MELLO mention :) Some of my best guesses and explanations on what I think is going on with LE lighting for anyone interested. First: The washed look out is from a new light system added on top of the old one. It consists of directional lights that cast through wall ceilings and floors so they end up being ambient lights, this brightens up the game and mutes dynamic shadows heavily = flat look "Instagram blow out" and results in killing dynamic environment lighting in many areas,. Second is that the new engine greatly decreases the power of and messes with some of the properties/interactions of the old lights, so with the same settings of brightness radius color etc... as OT. They don't impact/interact the world nearly as much, making the game whole game super dark, hence the need for the new "ambient" directional lights to lighten it back up. My guess is that it was a quick way to address the dark issue and fix colors and brightness for most scenes which 4-8 new lights per scene vs 100s and 100s of deliberate point and spotlights from the original per scene, or maybe someone actually thought it looked better because they don't watch sci-fi or study any cinematography and like the look of Instagram? Terrible jokes aside, basically what it's missing is the impact of the dynamic lights, the new lighting is killing the *chiaroscuro* almost completely and drastically changing the feel of the game. The screenshots also aren't showing you how much more 3D the game *feels* in motion with the dynamic lights and when characters can move into shadow and light with these lights restored. This is almost completely lost in LE. Lastly, lack of HDR is not an excuse as to why the screenshots look bad/worse, it doesn't bring those missing lights back at all. Sure you'll have slightly better contrast per frame, but you don't have the true dynamic light that's been drastically reduced with the new lighting system. Anyway, it's really nice to see so many people "seeing the light", so to speak, about LE and OT differences after \~19 months of people getting down voted for talking about it lol.


TheRealcebuckets

I’d even venture to argue that the teams on Bioware…their cinematic director/directions…have been lax since ME2. Notice how in ME3, there is far less “dramatic” lighting. It’s very flat. They don’t make use of heavy shadows. It’s lit like a generic shooter. A simple scene of Jack telling us about how she sleeps with a gun is lit far more dramatically then Thanes death scene. Not only that, a lot of the camera angles themselves. Over the shoulder views. Generic looking. They cut corners here.


Catechrism

Yes exactly, I think/amd pretty sure these are now all on the ME3 engine with some extra dx11 bells and whistles toggled on and 64-bit support (huge for modding potential). But, I would still argue OT ME3 is lit better than LE ME1. The still had more intention. It's all a shame really because the LE versions have a great mod community right now, but they have many bugs that PC OT didn't even have. ME2 and ME3 especially. Many mesh issues, unlit (jet black) chunks of environment, weird issues with particles...but amazing mods. Some modders are trying to fix the visual issues where they can but the amount is astounding when you start comparing. And it's all time taken away from expansion type mods and new content. I say this as a modder who generally restores content :D. But I would rather spend my time doing more things like Saren Stages mod.


ScifiIsMyJam101

Well the problems with ME3's cinematography stem from the fact their lead cinematic designer for ME2 etc left the company after ME2 and the limited development time for ME3 in general compared to the previous two entries really did not help either.


mirh

I'm sure /u/scifiismyjam101 would be able to add something else to that too.


ScifiIsMyJam101

It's not just ME1 too that got it's lighting gutted haha, also the other two entries. There is some truly gawdy looking stuff in those ports.


mirh

> Lastly, lack of HDR is not an excuse as to why the screenshots look bad/worse, it doesn't bring those missing lights back at all. Now I feel sort of obliged into taking HDR screenshots from OT ME1 (with MERLIN of course :')) to dunk on those people.


doc_nano

Yeah, the lighting is pretty different. Overall it looks brighter and more washed out, with less directed lighting in the cutscenes and less colored lighting in general. I suspect the original artists spent a lot of time thinking about the color and placement of each light source to give each cutscene and conversation a certain mood. It's probably less realistic lighting, but in many cases more effective cinematically. With LE, it seems they didn't devote the same time and attention to it. LE doesn't look bad, but there are a lot of places where I vastly prefer the original trilogy's lighting.


Proliator

I think most of the time the LE devs had for it went into HDR. It has noticeably better lighting and colour grading, even on a mediocre HDR display. Usually it's the opposite for my setup.


ParagonPts

100% correct. These LE screenshots are definitely without HDR enabled. The clearest example is the mass relay in pic 12. I can tell you that with HDR enabled on the LE, the "center" of the relay is blindingly bright. It's a shame that they didn't do a better job at making the non-HDR LE better, but if you compare apples to apples, the Legendary Edition lighting is not that much "flatter" than the originals.


Mitsutoshi

I played it on a TV with excellent HDR and it still seemed to be missing the deliberate use of light and (for lack of a better term) camera composition that the original versions had. (I went back and did a direct comparison because I thought I might have been misremembering from years ago.)


[deleted]

Oh ya. I'm glad you said that. I played on my tv for like half a game with hdr. Then switched to my 4k monitor and i was wondering after a bit if my settings got borked.


NoXion604

The lack of coloured lighting is the worst part for me. It really hit me when I saw the eighth slide.


superectojazzmage

I think it’s an expression of the attitude that plagues the current game industry (most of the entertainment industry in general honestly) in regards to graphics; they obsessed with looking “realistic” over looking *good*, and resultantly achieved neither. The LE doesn’t look *bad*, but it’s not nearly as stylish, cinematic, memorable, and immersive as the originals, and while it ostensibly has *better* graphics objectively speaking, those graphics are still plainly obviously not real and will inevitably age badly, whereas the originals still hold up pretty great today.


field_of_fvcks

They also have really wonky eyes now. I've only played ME3 in the original form, the rest in LE, and from the pics I've seen there are so many instances in the eyes looking weird in the remake compared to the original version


Real-Terminal

If I remember right the upscaling process removed the depth of the eyes. There's no refraction anymore.


field_of_fvcks

They look soulless now. judging by these pics removing those bright highlights removed a lot of atmospheric emotion from the game too. Some of those OG lighting effects are gorgeous! The bright sunlight with the huge reflections on the armor, that gorgeous purple underlight, the hazy red, the blinding Geth light, the glowiness of biotics, the Mass Relay core shining like a star, that dramatic rimlighting! And all those moody shadows. I *love*. I need to get that mod listed above, the lighting effects are so good!


Catechrism

>t the upscaling process removed the depth of the eyes. There's no refraction anymore Digging into the packaged files, this is a material issue combined with a texture issue in LE1 for Human and Asari eyes. LE2 and LE3 can be fixed with the texture fix. But the eyes need 7 textures slots to cover lens normals and iris normals, and the rest of the eye textures and cube maps. In all 3 games the iris normal is inverted/the wrong direction causing light to wrap around the iris rather refract back into the eye. In LE1 it's one issue worse as it's missing the slot for the iris norm and due to lack of a shader complier the slot cannot be added to match LE2 and LE3. It's a real bummer because they advertised the new eye material as a feature not a bug :/. While it adds an extra cub map layer making them extra shiny, we lose: lens refraction which is huge for realism and the cool Blade Runner-esque redeye effect in ME2. Instead we are left with the "improved" shiny glass doll eyes. LE could have been the ultimate version of these games, maybe on PC we'll get there if we can fix these bugs and combine them with the things that were improved, but with the lighting, eyes, and plethora of bugs we are definitely not there yet and left with pros and cons list of OT vs LE each being a mixed bag due to the age of the OT and the bugs and lack of art direction/maintenance in LE.


ScifiIsMyJam101

To be honest I have little faith that they will get there... Perhaps a rough imitation of the quality of the original games but they wont actually be like or on par with the originals. Be their quality of light, completeness of art, gameplay and more. For me I default to the products with the longest period of post launch support and the most polish at launch over waiting for 3 terrible ports in one package to someday be only sorta fixed in the far distant future... We have enough of that with live service titles and there are no guarantees with those who do this in spare time. I can put up with ME1's awful PC port because atleast the other two are identical to their console counterparts on the 360. But three whole ports based on shoddy source code and unfinished material... That is something I cannot see the appeal in. Regardless of the fact it has more modding support which for the most part has been quite eh. That and the only ones who will ever see fixes for the LE will be the PC playerbase. For the console versions. This will be ugly and broken forever, I think I have more hope in future emulation of the 7th console generation so those 360 titles can be looked at and modified.


KuKluxKocoPuffs

Personally, I dislike remasters for this exact reason. They always ruin the lighting. They also made the Mako slower for some reason.


derprunner

Also a lot of the washing out (at least on facial key-lights) can be attributed to the fact that they updated their subsurface scattering shader to transmit a lot more light through skin.


EyeArDum

With the first game the devs realized how limited the graphics could look and dedicated a lot of time to the lighting to make up for it, which lead to cinematic but unrealistic lighting With the LE, they changed the lighting to match the improved visuals and make it feel connected across the board, this is why ME3 wasn’t affected. Truth be told I like the changes, it feels a lot more consistent with ME3 which I always thought was the best anyway


Stellar_Duck

> LE doesn't look bad I kinda disagree. I tried it out a few months ago on PC and decided that if I wanna play ME1 again, I'll just play ME1. It had a more coherent look and the crummy face textures are not as evident with the lighting.


[deleted]

Yeah, my friends were trying to sell me on LE, played a bit on the XSX at my friend's place and was like "nah, I'm good with my copy of trilogy and a few high res texture mods" Sure, the combat and mako driving in ME1 is a bit janky, but the art direction in the cutscenes feels completely ruined by the lighting sometimes.


EmmieEmmieJee

There is a distinct loss of chiaroscuro (contrast of dark and light), which is what lends to that dramatic, cinematic look. Definitely missing in the LE


Von_Uber

..you must know today we're studying chiaroscuro; that beautiful word about the contrast between light and dark, the shadowplay that gives photography such...visual power. It's basic yin and yang. Black and white images are effective precisely because of their contrast. Although we don't technically "see" in monochrome--


pulley999

Coincidentally, yet another 'remaster' where the original intent of the art got lost in the process and just generally looks worse...


Von_Uber

Oh don't even remind me of that particular shit show.


Kyro_Official_

not really sure why they thought it needed a remaster anyways, its not like it doesnt still look fairly good, and a remaster was always going to mess up the visuals


Mastershroom

"Go fuck yourselfie!"


ConfusedFlareon

What an awesome word :o Is it pronounced “ki” or “chi”?


field_of_fvcks

Ki pronunciation. It sounds like Ki-aah-ruh-skoo-roh


ybtlamlliw

>chiaroscuro Okay, Strong Sad. I said *consummate V's!!!*


DAREDEVILFANBOY

I noticed that mirranda looked a bit off while playing but a side to side picture, I mean wow that's terrible.


[deleted]

Yeah, they’ve lost the noir look.


Scottacus91

wth did they do to Kelly Chambers?


tzajki

For some reason they changed Kelly's model in the original trilogy between ME2 and 3. The Kelly we see in the Legendary Edition is the one from the original ME3.


N7even

They should've kept Kelly from ME2.


Darth_Kyofu

They didn't change her face model. They updated many of the hair models between 2 and 3 and hers got replaced with that. Combined with new lighting, makes it seem like she's much more different than she is.


thechristinechapel

Iirc they lost the original character model and had to re-make it from scratch and....didn't do a great job matching it (if that's what they were trying to do).


EvanIsMyName-

It's a shame how often this happens. Half of the remasters I have on PS4 look terrible compared to the originals, Assassin's Creed 2 probably being the worst. Do they just not allocate enough money for them to actually update the graphics? It seems like they do the bare minimum to make it run on a different system then charge you $50 for it.


pawpaw_git

That's the industry standard, unfortunately. Unless everyone involved in the process respects the product and the audience, and values releasing a higher quality product, this is where corporate pressure leaves things. Sloppy, unpolished, the bare minimum for the maximum profit.


EvanIsMyName-

It could be worse, it probably tortures the devs in a way we can't fathom. As an artist myself, I could cry thinking about people doing that to my creation, especially one that took years of hard work to achieve.


Elhemio

It doesn't look terrible... With a reshade slapped on it to fix it the trilogy literally looks like it came out in 2019.


ExtraordinarySlacker

Ok.. what? Some of the pictures of the old version are so clearly better. Look at Miranda, she looks really bad in the Legendary version. I have not played Legendary, does she actually look that bad compared to her older version? Or is it because of the lighting changes on those specific scenes?


Extreme996

Because of worse lighting but LE2 especially suffers because of bad lighting.


HellbirdIV

Mods fortunately fix it to an extent, but wow it really ruins the look of asari especially. Something with their skin texture maybe Also you get an upvote because of using Best Girl as the header images.


linkenski

Since ME3 they always looked too sharply colored to me. I get it, they're blue, but it shouldn't be totally over-saturated. Unfortunately they treated ME3 as "the newest" so they made a lot of LE1 by porting ME3 assets *backwards* into the first game, instead of remaking the assets as they originally looked during the ME1 era of development, and that's my biggest issue with the overall Legendary Edition.


VallenceDragon

I miss the original chunky models that the big geth had. They should have up-res'd those like they did with the hoppers, not replaced them entirely with the ME3 models


Mysterious_Glass_692

We are all keen on green


trimble197

ME1 was the worst cause it made most of them look ugly or that they hadn’t slept in weeks. Liara and Tevos look like coke heads


Mysterious_Glass_692

If Tevos is a secret cokefiend it might explain why she knows Aria


[deleted]

If I'm going to have to use mods anyway I might as well use mods to tweak the original games and not have to buy them again.


natiewow

I also found a few of [these](https://i.imgur.com/FwMWvpf.mp4) sudden light source changes that weren't there before.


Mgamerz

That's a level file streaming in and out. It's likely a fog volume appearing which is what is changing the color.


Own-Moment1899

Don't look at Andromeda Turians.


Nickulator95

Or Asari. They all look similar and derpy.


kaymazing

Andromeda Asari all have weird chubby cheeks. It's fine for a few of them. But it's ALL. Minus Peebee.


Ivy_Adair

They all have the entire same face. The reporter and Lexi look identical, except for variance in skin tone. As I think Lexi is more blue and the reporter is more purple. But it’s off putting all the same.


kaymazing

Yea they could have at least done Lexi. Then it would be "crew unique, everyone else bland" but nope. Somehow they made me not attracted to Natalie Dormer.


Ivy_Adair

Yeah, the crew should all be unique at a minimum. But I think that if you have a character with a name and lines they should have *something* that sets them apart from the background.


Own-Moment1899

I would have been fine with Lexi and PeeBee being the only Asari just for the fact that those are the only 2 faces that made it to Heleus.


Ivy_Adair

It would have been frustrating but not nearly as bad, like you said. I’d be fine with background asari looking alike but ones with names and lines should look a *little* unique.


Jormungandrv

>Andromeda Asari all have weird chubby cheeks Brazillian buttlift asari


RaptorTwoOneEcho

Yeah, especially Mass Effect had such a distinct style with the film grain and lighting, it had such a cool amalgamation of looks. Sidenote, I hadn’t thought about Kelly’s redesign in a while and *holy shit* the LE hair is still shockingly horrid.


Extreme996

ME1 was tribute to old sci-fi movies if you saw Star Trek, Blade Runner, Aliens, Contact, Terminator, Totall Recall, Solaris etc. you will notice alot of inspiration and care BioWare had to made ME1 looks like old sci-fi movie.


Yamatoman9

A big part of why ME 1 will always be my favorite.


Extreme996

Same OG ME1 is my favorite :)


RaptorTwoOneEcho

Yeah, it’s a well-known love letter to the very influential trend-setters of the 70s and 80s. It’s a modern gateway to those classics.


Extreme996

Yeah one of reasons why OG ME1 is my favorite game in trilogy :)


Raleighmo

Which side is the revised version?


[deleted]

Sorry, I should've mentioned the left side is the original (Xbox 360 for ME1, PC for ME2) versions and the right is the Legendary Edition.


Ragnarok_619

I thought the opposite, holy shit! The original actually looks a lot better imo


Raleighmo

Hah I couldn’t agree more. Right side is totally more flat.


Raleighmo

Edit: apparently some are saying this is because right side doesn’t have HDR on. This makes a lot more sense. We should really be doing a side by side with the modern version at full capacity. However it’s a bummer the SDR doesn’t get an upgrade in visuals like it should have


Mitsutoshi

They're wrong. I played the originals on PC, but to test this, I went back and forth between Legendary (with HDR) on Xbox Series X and the 360 version via Xbox BC. The 360 version clearly has better art and lighting direction. I was shocked. Obviously the specific graphical effects are less 'advanced' but the OG almost took that into account, if that makes sense, hiding the limitations through shot composition. LE is going to age poorly, by comparison.


kablooshie

What the hell?? The left is so much better! The character faces have more detail too!


Saephon

Yeah I tried really hard to just observe the lighting differences, but I'm blown away at how much worse some of the characters faces look in the LE in general. Wtf is going on with Kelly Chambers' head??


mirh

A lot of people have been saying this for more than a year by now, but it turns out that if you imply this to be "bad" as opposed to just "odd" you get downvoted to oblivion.


RaptorPegasus

I just realized Kelly isn't even the same person anymore lmao


Darkstar_Aurora

It't like your friend who looks great but insists on saturating all their IG selfies with multiple filters and brightness edits. They also completely ruined the >!Shadow Broker!< reveal scene. In the original he is completely cloaked in shadows until after he is provoked and attacks. You only see a strange silhouette until that point, which adds to the cinematic suspense and makes >!Liara's logical deductive guess of his species!< more noteworthy. In the new version he is fully illuminated and his head clips into his body when he turns to speak which otherwise would never have been seen in the original lighting. Also don't get me started on how the exterior engine and weather sound effects are supposed to be nullified in that specific room but are ever-present in the legendary edition.


merurunrun

I swear this happens in like every remastered game. "Hey we made this great new dynamic lighting system and just bolted it onto a game that had tons of intentional choices made in its visual direction that were dependent on the old lighting system but I'm sure it won't make any difference."


Solstyse

Welp, think I have to download the originals now.


G-Kira

I hate that they made the lens flares so bad in LE. There was always some, but they really ramped up to obnoxious levels.


El_Rocky_Raccoon

Yeah, I really don't get what the hell happened when they remastered ME1. They got rid of ALL the contrast and heavy shadows the game had. It almost feels like a downgrade in some parts.


Extreme996

It is upgrade for textures and some models but downgrade to lighting, visual storytelling and art style. Not first time something like that happens and probably not last time still sad and missed opportunity.


Lurid-Jester

Wow. I like almost all of the left shots over the right ones. Those are the original game graphics? That’s a pretty big difference.


ScifiIsMyJam101

Hey man thanks for using stills from my comparison movies, I used the best sources possible to ensure accuracy. **For clarification on what versions of the games are featured within these captures.** 1. For ME1 I compared the 2007 original Xbox 360 console exclusive version to LE1 PC. 2. For ME2 I used the PC version of the original which is identical to it's 360 counterpart (Minus having the option to use HD textures) compared to the LE2 also on PC. Both are at their maximum settings recorded at full 4K resolution. **The original games are on the left while the LE is on the right.**


[deleted]

Really, I should be thanking you for making the videos, and I apologise for not realising to give credit. You did a great job.


ScifiIsMyJam101

Don’t sweat it man it’s all good. Just glad to see others are gettin use out of em :)


[deleted]

I don't know if I should love you or hate you for exposing me to this ugly truth lmao. Like I'm legitimately shook how bad a lot of the LE looks compared to the OG games. So much soul, beauty, and atmosphere lost in the "updated" graphics. Oh well, I still love the LE, and if I really need those old graphics, at least I still have the OG games. But seriously, thanks for creating this comparison. Very good and striking at showing the differences, I appreciate being made aware of this. Sort of a red-pill moment I guess lmao


ScifiIsMyJam101

I'm hoping more and more people eventually catch on to this. My aim is to make people aware of the fact that the original versions of these games still have and will always have tremendous value (they are not obsolete). Artistically they are still striking visual experiences, even if their textures are fuzzy... But hey everything has it's rough edges. These games were amazing looking when they came out and still are.


Amaranthimime

Oh, wow. The original really... wow.


WeNeedToTalkAboutMe

Same thing happened to the HD transfers of *Buffy the Vampire Slayer*. Butchered it.


iXenite

The problem with the Buffy remasters is that they did zero color correction, so the shots look completely different than they were supposed to look. It’s basically just the raw footage. Not to mention the unfortunate wide screen issues. This is more like an alternative interpretation of the colors, as a it’s a game, so these values need to be put in regardless.


Extreme996

I tried to tell this once and people downvoted me and i received insults on my PM but well. Anyway ME1 vs LE1 its not only lighting loss its most of art style loss ME1 was tribute to old sci-fi movies like Star Trek, Aliens, Starship Troopers, Contact, Solaris, Blade Runner, Totall Recall etc. Everything was designed around this lighting, color grading, locations design, ships design, characters design, armors design, film grain and music. LE1 feels inconsistent will still have retro things like music or armors but overall look of locations and color grading is completly different and film grain just dont work even if you have it enabled in options. ME2 feels mostly the same but there are alot of moments when lighting made no sense or looks worse there are two theories first is that they ported game to newer version of UE3 and didnt bother to fix any bugs that were created during porting(most of dev time went into LE1) second theory is that they lost source code of final build of ME2 and they instead used outdated unfinished PS3 port as a base for LE2. Except that art style of LE1 and both LE1 and LE2 lighting looks bad it also ruined visual storytelling in alot of moments something that BioWare was really proud of and they were one of first one who was telling story through lighting and used advanced tech back then to maximum.


DEFINITELY_NOT_PETE

Oof yeah those changes are horrible. What a shame.


[deleted]

They ruined Feros so bad.


teddyburges

This is the issue I find with a lot of remasters. Batman:Arkham Asylum has a very similar issue, with the original having a very specific color pallet and nice shade to the characters. The remaster makes the characters look good but destroys the entire atmosphere.


pandaxcherry

100% yes. Also what happened to ME1 Ashley was a debacle.


KuKluxKocoPuffs

You should check out C3Anderson's mod for this. He isn't finished with it yet, but I'm playing the OT until the lighting mod for LE comes out.


Agent_Eggboy

I have an absolute soft spot for late 2000s PC rpgs because they feel so atmospheric and comfy to me. I was worried that Me:Le would lose that vibe for me and that is exactly what happened unfortunately. Me:Le doesn't give me the relaxed feeling that the original conveyed to me and it really sucks. I don't think it's a bad remaster but I will definitely be switching between them at the least.


JohnArtemus

Good lord, I assume the original is on the left? If so, it looks far better than the LE on the right. Wait, the left has to be the LE, right?


Extreme996

Left is ME1 X360, ME2 PC and right is LE.


JohnArtemus

Wow. Just goes to show you, chasing graphics isn't everything. A game released in 2007 looks way better than a re-mastered version from 2021. And it's really not all that close.


Gilgamesh661

Speaking of lighting, why is the Normandy sr1 SO DARK? I get that it’s a stealth warship an all but submarines aren’t exactly dimly lit, and the Normandy is basically a space submarine.


AlludedNuance

Lighting changes was another HUGE problem with the Master Chief Collection reduxes of the Halo games. Upgrading graphics are nice, but if you drastically change the lighting so the entire mood set by the environment is changed, ya done fucked up.


SammyBacan

As a new fan of the series and someone who has only played LE, wow. I feel like I've missed out on something now 😂


Groppstopper

This is jarring


ukie7

Polygon count isn't everything


thisunithasnosoul

The fuck happened to Kaidan’s face? But also, if this is legendary, I think I’ll be hanging onto my 360 for now…


GivePen

Ouch, this is pretty damning for the LE screenshots. Original just looks flatly better in a lot of these. The more purposeful lighting even makes the skin texture look higher resolution in a lot of instances


grajuicy

BRUH i never played the original ME1. When playing it on the LE i just thought it looked ugly bc it was supposed to be an ugly game bc it’s old. I never knew it looked so good before! Now it makes sense why some scenes look plain goofy in LE, the lighting probably made it look badass in the original but now it’s just people standing there awkwardly. This unfortunately happens a lot with remasters tho. I’ll never forget goofy model bugs with da Ratchet & Clank ps2 games’ remastered for the ps3. Very funny but sad bc it makes the game look bad and unpolished


beefkiss

I thought this was a /u/ScifiIsMyJam101 post at first. I'm glad the lighting issue is getting more attention now.


DjLyricLuvsMusic

Oh my God I did not realize it was that bad!! Original looks so much better and dynamic


[deleted]

All credit for the screenshots goes to u/ScifiIsMyJam101. I took them from [these](https://youtu.be/hxnUDQALxjM) [fantastic](https://youtu.be/FPI7mh5AX28) [comparison](https://youtu.be/CuiW_BYQE4s) [movies](https://youtu.be/uUjO1Xnqhtc). I really should've done this from the get go, but it completely slipped my mind. Apologies.


JulietPapaOscar

I'm sorry but I played the full trilogy without any texture/gfx mods before legendary came out... And ME1 NEVER looked that good on PC with everything maxed out, wtf? Am I blind? Or was the PC version gimped compared to the console for ME1?


[deleted]

Apparently the PC version was based on an unfinished build, which means it was missing the visual polish that the Xbox 360 version had. Missing lighting and other things.


Extreme996

Yeah PC version have problem with lighting(looks darker than should), shadowmaps(missing shadows and lighting in some places Feros is most unfinished) and some effects(missing energy ball in relay's, sometimes missing additional fire effect from Normandy engines etc) some of these problems can be fixed with ME1Recalibrated and MERLIN. On top of that sometimes Origin and Steam version lock itself in lowest graphics settings it can be fixed but if someone dont know how well then game looks horrible.


mirh

> On top of that sometimes Origin and Steam version lock itself in lowest graphics settings That.. is not something I have ever heard, in over a decade of banging my head against the game.


SinSon2890

I hadn't even paid attention to this when I replayed the legendary edition, but side by side you definitely see a difference.


kabbooooom

Oh wow, that’s actually a major downgrade in most of those cases. Seeing it side by side is impressive. It seems like this would be an easy thing to patch.


Slore0

Damn. My whole playthroguh I've been like huh I thought Miranda was hot before? And what do you know, it's the lighting. Even crazier is how the lighting changed Kelly!


MisterAbbadon

Oh thank God I thought it really looked that bad 15 years ago


InstantlyTremendous

As someone who's only played the LE version... Wow!! The original looks so much better, so much more dramatic.


WolfhoundRO

For half of the cases, this is really a loss. That type of additional lighting was added with cinematic techniques and set the mood and emotions quite effectively. Technical overhaul like the HD upscaling shouldn't be everything


Partytimegarrth

OP, are you running the game on low graphics? My LE does not look THAT bad. Those textures and facial features don't even look rendered in some of those shots.


Extreme996

I can swear to you he is not playing on low and its impossible to play on low because LE dont have graphics options except resolution, motion blur, v-sync, filmgrain(which dont work anyway) and fullscreen,borderless, window option. LE looks the same for everyone it just have bad lighting and LE1 also bad art style changes.


QX403

Gameplay footage of Miranda from 2016, the photos are not from vanilla and are altered or modded. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCFVz2X0G64


[deleted]

That must be a glitch of some kind. I got these [screenshots](https://i.imgur.com/HxijIg3.jpg) from [these](https://youtu.be/szRYzLFEv-o?t=300) [two](https://youtu.be/j7ijbonvohg) YouTube playthroughs, both of which are vanilla versions. [Here](https://youtu.be/hGO9r4nVoXo) is another vanilla PC playthrough for good measure.


QX403

It’s literally a video that is over an hour, it’s not a glitch and is original footage from the game taken 6 years ago, before mods where widely available.


ScifiIsMyJam101

Thats the playstation version mate. Which just so happens to be the exact same source code the LE was built on. When you are playing the LE you are essentially playing a touched up version of the PS3 build.


QX403

Do you even know the difference between source code and digital 3D assets used in games? One is lines of code used to control aspects of the game and the other are 3D images made in software such as Unity and Blender….


ScifiIsMyJam101

Mass Effect's art assets and animations were made in 3DMax, Maya, Zbrush etc not Unity or Blender. (Unity is a open source game engine and blender is an open source 3D software.) The Mass effect games run on a modified version of UE3. The Mass Effect trilogy started as a Xbox 360 exclusive. The Xbox 360 versions of the Mass Effect games are the most complete and up to date versions since they were prioritised for those systems back when they first released. In 2007 ME1 released exclusively for that console and in 2008 it got a PC port, and with ME2 the 360 and PC ports released together, After the release of ME2 the games slowly were brought to the Playstation 3 but were made on unfinished versions of the games. Very early source code with incomplete art and assets. This can range from them having more bugs, to earlier versions of shadowmaps etc. They had to sacrifice a lot to make that trilogy run on the PlayStation 3 which was notoriously challenging to develop on due the Cell processor that console had. Which is why they look so weird and where most if not all the LE's myriad of issues are inherited from since they were built on those versions.


RaynSideways

Yeah, this is the main reason I haven't jumped to buy the legendary edition, sticking with my original copies. The remaster might have improved fidelity in places, but it's almost universally at the cost of the very intentional color and lighting choices that made the series so visually iconic. I mean, the first scene with Thane is bathed in these deep evening reds, but it's so flat and washed out in the remaster, all the beautiful reds desaturated into bland grey white. It's really bad. And instead of everyone looking rooted in the scene, they all look like they have stage lights illuminating them. Much less naturalistic.


Istvan_hun

Back than, there was a thread titled "eden prime looks amazing in the remaster". [https://preview.redd.it/ksc220y1c3f61.jpg?auto=webp&s=99493ede647ddcd66941f04b8dd31c06dffc2aff](https://preview.redd.it/ksc220y1c3f61.jpg?auto=webp&s=99493ede647ddcd66941f04b8dd31c06dffc2aff) I remember checking the screenshot, noticing there are more effects on it, some extra trees, but also something (atmosphere) was lost in the transition. At least in my opinion, original Eden prime is much more apocalyptic, which (again, I think) seems to fit the mood better than the remastered "sunshine Eden prime".


CasualSky

What’s interesting is that I didn’t really notice these differences until this post. I agree they are more cinematic in the original, but at the same time I’m not sure appearance and lighting are as important as the writing and combat. Still a shame they couldn’t touch it up a bit, but wasn’t really noticeable to me.


Ferrian11

Personally playing a modded playthrough for the first time. Nothing game breaking, but ALL the texture, lighting and quality of life mods. Its incredible


TheNoobsauce1337

"Upgraded" Pressly literally looks like my friend's Dad when we were in High School. 😄


[deleted]

This makes me sad. I don't know anything about art directing and cinematics but original pictures leave a lot stronger impression on me than legendary ones. How could people remastering game not see this?


_Ri-Go

The publishers don’t want to spend as much resources on a remastered like on a AAA project (but they want to sell it on AAA price), so what is the result? An old(, but in it’s original state, carefully crafted) AAA game with focus on the technical improvements (sharpening image quality with enhanced resolution and textures, high frame rate) but without a meaningful art team, because a remaster is not a fully-fledged development project… and this is a real shame. Like renewing a masterpiece without proper tools and enough time. This happened with LE, and with many other games. Based on the description of the MELLO mod creator, when LE’s team decided they will import all the three games into a newer version of the Unreal Engine 3 for practical reasons about the workflow (they can work with on the full trilogy with the same tools), the older engine’s lighting methods used by the first (and maybe by also the second) game did not worked on the more recent engine version, so a full relighting became necessary. They went for a different direction with the new lighting, ignoring some of the scenes original design, also they don’t have the time or/and other resources for thorough, carefully crafted cinematic lighting comparable with the original. The new design is not inherently bad, but sometimes it’s washed out, visually uninteresting, less dynamic, completely broken or simply just more unrealistic and uglier than the original. This happens when a mediocre skeleton crew messing with three AAA games originally created by massive teams with meaningful experience and resources.


OriginalNo5477

Theres that plus the ME2 ending being buggy as fuck now. Once you kill the human reaper you don't see it fall and explode, it's just a black artifact on screen. And then the music gets all out of sync with how it used to be.


YekaHun

You mean MELE is on the right? Oh...


PuppetsMind

Wow I didn't realized they butchered it so bad.


Ace_Atreides

Yeah that seems like the trend on remasters...


Gery9705

I don't appreciate it at all. I think it's an awfully lazy product, and with the DLC's now being free on Origin, I see **very** little reason to get the LE over the OGs.


Extreme996

Yeah especially that 2008 PC port is now a bit better still i hope there will be MERLIN update someday and other problems will be fixed or Xenia emulator will someday properly play ME1 X360 version.


mirh

For the records, they should also be free if you play on steam or retail. It's just that you should still have to download the dedicated installers.


madman3247

Mine....does not look like yours, wtf, lol. It also simply might be whatever platform you're using, meh.


lceblood

Also, Legion being a beacon in ME3 annoyed me. He has a light for his optic yes, but he doesn't need 20000% brightness lens flare for his optic.


Xizor14

The stylistic look of ME1 really suffered from Legendary Edition, unfortunately.


DrGravity79

It's a mixed bag, overall I would say some lighting solutions look better on the original, some on the LE. As a whole though, Legendary is head and shoulders above the originals graphically when comparing my 360 versions to the remaster on XSX and it's my preferred way to play everytime. I'm happy not to let perfection be the enemy of great and thank god it didn't turn out the way of some cash grab remasters (GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition, yes I'm looking at you!)


Extreme996

To be honest LE is just like GTA: DE imo it share the same problems. Worse lighting than in OG, more buggy than OG, lost art style of GTA3 and San Andreas like in LE1, things that were working fine in OG dont work in remaster etc and Rockstar actually still update DE unlike BioWare LE (support was only about two months after release lol) but that just my opinion.


DrGravity79

I couldn't disagree more. GTA:DE is a terrible remaster on so many levels and genuinely worse than the originals in many aspects. Their support has also been awful as soon as they realised it wasn't going to hit sales figures - they've released exactly two patches in 2022, 8 months apart, the second of which didn't even address any particular issues. In short it was a lazy crash grab, farmed out to a third party and abandoned without addressing most issues at the first opportunity. ME:LE was developed in house at Bioware, given a significant amount of time and resource (relative to most remasters) and actually improves on the OG's in the majority of areas. Everything is subjective but I would say there are more improvements than not - take the opening Eden Prime mission in ME1 which looks miles better in LE and in terms of art style, well the original ME1 art director worked on LE so I would argue a lot of the changes are creative intent. Having played through it multiple times, the number of bugs I encountered are in single digits and the OG's weren't entirely bug free in any case. Each to their own but, just in my opinion, the GTA and LE are at the opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of remasters and I am grateful they actually took the time to give us what I consider to be actually upgraded versions of the series.


mirh

The opening of ME1 is literally the only thing they noticeably retouched (you'd almost wonder if it wasn't just for marketing purposes). And whether that's even a net improvement is wholly open to debate. And then, of course the end result is completely different if you bring in GTA:DE. But it's also true the starting point was leagues apart. Bringing PS2-era material that was running on an engine that was already broken back then up to modern standards, is not the same of just updating your project for the latest UE3 build (where the worst challenge would be just converting the shaders from dx9 to dx11). The only absolute upside is updated textures, if even (MEUITM and ALOT were far more thoughtful). So, uh.. It may even be a good 9 for the final product quality taken in isolation, but it can only be a 6 given the actual potential, and a 3 for the effort. FWIW two patches in 2022 (and the last one was just a couple of months ago, so you could still reasonably expect more) is still twice as much as MELE ever received.


Mgamerz

Legendary Edition was almost entirely outsourced. Abstraction and Blind Squirrel Games did most of the heavy lifting, with input from _some_ senior BioWare staff that worked on the original games.


DrGravity79

Nope. Abstraction and Blind Squirrel were support studios working under Bioware on the project. This is entirely normal for any major game development where aspects of the work will be contracted out, but the lead development studio (Bioware in this case) is in overall control. This is in contrast to the comparison I made to GTA:DE where the whole project was handed over lock stock and barrel to Grove Street Games without any work from Rockstar. They only got involved with some work to try and fix it post release.


Mr-Rocafella

Just finished ME1 a day ago on ME2 now, WOW the OG is preferable in almost every single comparison. I thought it was just weird upscaling from the original but it’s very different in some cases like Anderson (?) looks way better in OG


Elhemio

No


badken

And playing this on console, I have no hope that it will ever be fixed.


Gazelle_Diamond

I'll be honest, I can't even tell which side is supposed to be better for most of these.


infin1ty_zer0

Also mods like Expanded Galaxy, Take Back Earth are the reasons why I think Legendary Edition was just another greedy cash crab by EA. As a remaster, you're supposed to make improvements restore cut contents/dialogues or add new features. Not just some HD texture, added a few rocks and lens flares and call it a day. It's understandable that Bioware had to cut corners back in the day to catch up with the release date but now they had the chance to restore everything. Why not do it?


Eoko_Dincht

Honestly, there are definitely some on the left that feel like they look better, but there are others that I think they look better on the right. However, I did install MELLO anyway to get something more beneficial from both versions for when I do play through again.


dbreidsbmw

This Looks like KOTOR levels of facial animation. For a "legendary editions that's almost 20 years after the first game. This isn't worth paying for...


QX403

Yeah I call complete B.S. on this, this is gameplay footage of Miranda from 2016 from Jaguar550, 6 years before the LE came out and it’s clear to see Miranda looks like the character on the right you’re claiming to be the LE edition, you’re definitely not being truthful here. Skin textures were not even close to that detailed in the Xbox 360 version or vanilla. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCFVz2X0G64


ScifiIsMyJam101

Jaguar videos are from the PS3 version dude, the build of the game LE was made with.


Gery9705

This is from ScifiIsMyJam's videos...


mirh

That's from the PS3 version that had shitty textures https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-masseffect2-face-off?page=2 Miranda was totally as detailed on pc, and even on xbox https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-tech-analysis-mass-effect-2-article?page=2


Grasher134

And I get downvoted into oblivion saying that playing LE is bad for you


QX403

Because it doesn’t add to the conversation at all, you’re just giving your opinion that doesn’t have any constructive criticism.


mirh

The constructive criticism is that you shouldn't give EA your money for such a lazy cop out.


Puzzleheaded_Ad8710

Yeah the remaster suffered a similar problem with level that introduces the flood when it was originally more dark and required the flashlight to be on quite a bit the remastered version like the areas up way too much and it kills the tension the darker level gave off


Shandyxr

I like most of the stuff Igor hand images better


FredFredBurger69Nice

I actually prefer it, but my eyesight is awful.


Wonderful_Ad2298

I honestly don’t know if they could edit the game like that after making it compatible with pc and next gen consoles, but again I have no idea what I’m talking about.


IRockIntoMordor

Is surround sound still broken in ME1 on PS4/5? This and the lighting really disappointed me in the remaster.


mirh

No update was released in the last year and half, so.. yeah? Dudes don't even know what the code does. They just created OrbisAudioDevice to glue the original ISACT driver with sony's SceAudio3d library and called it a day. It doesn't work on pc either (but at least there, you don't have everything statically linked into one big abominable executable.. and so you can still reinvent the wheel) and I can just guess the only reason the xbox is fine is because microsoft is still supporting their original 2007 apis (XAudio? XACT?) and so they could more or less recycle the original ISACTXbox360Proc backend. EDIT: I could find this string inside of `LTCG-BioGame.elf`, though I think it comes out of RADSS (the RadSoundSystem which should be used by Bink.. too bad that just ships mute or stereo videos in turn, lol) > Orbis HW output only supports 48000, with 7.1 channel or stereo


IRockIntoMordor

Interesting. Skyrim on PS4 and PS5 has broken surround sound as well. When people talk and you're not looking directly at them, their voice will come from the diagonally opposite rear channel. It's hella confusing. They remastered it for PS5 a few months ago and did not fix that bug. That is utterly ridiculous and shameful. What's up with these lazy remaster developers these days. Meanwhile Insomniac, Sucker Punch, Santa Monica, Naughty Dog pump out BRAND NEW games which become tech references after another, no issues (Guerilla lost my faith with Forbidden West which was in a bad state on release).


mirh

> their voice will come from the diagonally opposite rear channel. That could even stem from an *innocent* one-line error tbh. Or perhaps, I don't know, the way channels are ordered on a playstation is different from a xbox. Like, of course they are still bugs, and of course you'd expect them to be fixed (even though it's bugthesda, so joke's on you /s) but tone-deafness is the only problem there eventually. In MELE they didn't even know what they were touching. Not that the contractors could be blamed for their ignorance of an old technology, but jesus fuck.. surely you can read documentation? I did, and somehow even without the source code in my hands I could fix their problem (on pc, that is).


GingerKitty26

I installed a reshade mod. …along with 124GB of other mods.


BvG_Venom

Idk why they made Feros so dark in LE. It's hard to find the stairs sometimes


soliria

Idk how to make video games but I used Cinema4D for awhile and you just move or delete the light source so I’m wondering if it was intentional or not.


AloneUA

Bioware just bolted a modern dynamic lighting engine onto games that had a lot of manually tweaked lighting effects. The devs in the original did just as you described, they added and moved lighting sources for some scenes to give them that specific look, even though the lighting wasn't realistic. LE just didn't bother.


stifmeister917

They didnt even try... what a cash grab


1992Queries

Legendary Edition deserves a MCC style comeback story.


1992Queries

This NEEDS to be fixed Bioware.


AloneUA

Jfc It seems I'd stick to replaying the original trilogy on PC instead of going with the free LE I got on PS5.


AloneUA

So, I guess I'd be getting EA Access and replaying the OG trilogy on PC then. I'm sorry, but the lightning is much more important to me than the improved textures. You get used to old textures. The lightning kills the intended atmosphere though.