How long it would take to beat the ME1?

[Lone WOLF]

Hi folks - I am a newcomer to this series just has spent 10 hours in ME1. I'm playing this because you guys left so many positive reviews that made me irresistible to passing the title (I am a big fan of story-rich shooting games, afterall).

I love so far how the story is going. However, I found that the play-feelings or mechanics of ME1 are somewhat outdated and, I'm afraid, a bit painful playing through. I am believing that the following sequel titles will have more sophisticated game play and I can't wait experiencing through allegedly the masterpiece series. How long would you say it would take to finish ME1 and move onto the sequel title? Thanks!

[Crypto Gamer]

Very hard to know.

It took me around 30-32 hours but I have completed the game on insanity(hardest) and grinded all ME1 achievements and completed all possible side missions+scanned all planets including DLC.


I used 2 quality of life mods so easier to track side mission and scan planet resources.
If you just do primary mission likely 10 hours maybe even less.

But likely game is 10-40 hours long depending on difficulty,how much dialog you skip,how much side content you go for.

Some stuff choice also carries over to ME2.

Even some side charaters might have a cameo.

Yes ME2 and 3 revamped the combat and simplifed the RPG mechanics.

[Zsrai]

If you skip all/most of the side missions and planetary exploration, but not any dialogue, I think you can finish ME1 in about 20-25 hours? Maybe even a little faster. Doing a "full clear" took me about 40-45, but I had also played the original a bunch of times back in the day.

[Sticky Wicket]

You could probably rush through it in about 15 hours if you were familiar with how the quest structure works, but you would miss out on so much good content.

The game deserves to be fully experienced. The side quests are well worth doing as is immersing yourself in the lore-rich aspect.

ME1 is the most story-rich and character RPG-rich of the 3 games.

[ryan.drew]

Don't rush through. I'm sure for anyone who wasn't able to play ME 1 when it first released this game can be a bit painful and a grind, but if you are enjoying the story, a full, complete playthrough of the game will be worth it by the end of the trilogy. It sets everything up and there are a ton of call backs to side missions and random NPCs. I don't understand why anyone would play these games if they are going to skip all of the dialogue, it is just crazy to me. The story is the whole point of this game (IMHO).

A full playthrough is about 30-35 hours, I would say. Like Crypto Gamer said, Galaxy Map Trackers for ME 1 is a big help if you are willing to use a QOL mod. It will make it a bit quicker to find things on the uncharted worlds. Another worth mentioning is Skip Minigames (LE1), though I haven't used it, most people find the minigames annoying.

Also, for the 4 collections in ME1, once you finish them, there is no added bonus for finding more, so once all 4 are complete, you can ignore anomalies on planets and mineral deposits, which can save you a little bit of time. Another note on the collections, you can find the items for them not only on the uncharted worlds but also by looking at each planet in each system and surveying those that are available. (There are also some fun bits of lore in some of the planets' descriptions) One last thing, and this could be a tiny SPOILER, only collections that carry over are UNC: Asari Writings and UNC: Valuable Minerals.

[ULTRA]

If your goal is 100% quest completion only, it can be done in about 15 hours if you know what you're doing, but typically a first time, listen-to-everything, go-everywhere-and-backtrack playthrough is going to be 30-50 hours. If you have brain problems (no judgment) it could balloon up to 60-100 hours but rather unlikely to be longer than that unless you're just walking away from the computer.

I just got the Legendary Edition and played through on normal difficulty after about 10 years of not touching the game and I got every achievement except the insanity difficulty one (and completed every quest possible for a paragon character) in 17.7 hours. If I had let the characters blab on and finish their dialogues in full it probably would have been around 30-35.

As for outdated mechanics, the act of shooting at humanoid soldiers is better in the sequels but the series never really graduates from that kind of feeling of stale linear level and quest design and bizarre UX faux pas. If you're going completionist all in one go, you're going to go cross-eyed from using the same reheated battle strategy for tens of hours even in the sequels, and just you wait until you see how quests are logged in the journal in ME3.

[Apollyon]

17 hours tops for the main story, unless you're one of those people who want to do every side quest available. That'll jump the playtime up to 24 hours.

[Zsrai]

Originally posted by ryan.drew:

Also, for the 4 collections in ME1, once you finish them, there is no added bonus for finding more, so once all 4 are complete, you can ignore anomalies on planets and mineral deposits, which can save you a little bit of time. Another note on the collections, you can find the items for them not only on the uncharted worlds but also by looking at each planet in each system and surveying those that are available. (There are also some fun bits of lore in some of the planets' descriptions) One last thing, and this could be a tiny SPOILER, only collections that carry over are UNC: Asari Writings and UNC: Valuable Minerals.

You do continue to get more XP and money from each find, but the lion's share of it all is from the quest completion, yes.

[ryan.drew]

Originally posted by Zsrai:

Originally posted by ryan.drew:

Also, for the 4 collections in ME1, once you finish them, there is no added bonus for finding more, so once all 4 are complete, you can ignore anomalies on planets and mineral deposits, which can save you a little bit of time. Another note on the collections, you can find the items for them not only on the uncharted worlds but also by looking at each planet in each system and surveying those that are available. (There are also some fun bits of lore in some of the planets' descriptions) One last thing, and this could be a tiny SPOILER, only collections that carry over are UNC: Asari Writings and UNC: Valuable Minerals.

You do continue to get more XP and money from each find, but the lion's share of it all is from the quest completion, yes.

Sure, but money isn't ever an issue in ME1 and XP was fixed in the Legendary Edition so that you can max out a character in a single playthrough. So, again, no need to spend the extra time on uncharted worlds once the collections are complete.

[N7_Shadow]

Originally posted by Lone WOLF:

I love so far how the story is going. However, I found that the play-feelings or mechanics of ME1 are somewhat outdated and, I'm afraid, a bit painful playing through. I am believing that the following sequel titles will have more sophisticated game play and I can't wait experiencing through allegedly the masterpiece series.

I doubt anyone has suggested this to you, but I will. Set the difficulty to the easiest setting.

You note that the story is good, but the game play isn't to your liking. Cool. The story, and the characters, and the dialogue, and the choices, are what made this a cult classic.

So, go to the difficulty setting and set it to the easiest mode. There is no shame in that at all. Your gaming time is about your enjoyment, not impressing others. This will allow you to get through the game a good bit faster. Enemies will die from the first bullet, or single use of Biotics/Tech. So it will shorten the battles for you, but allow you to experience the story, and characters, and that will make ME2 and ME3 much more impactful.

ME2 and ME3 do have better game mechanics. You can set these to higher difficulty settings, if you want.

[Zsrai]

Originally posted by ryan.drew:

Originally posted by Zsrai:

You do continue to get more XP and money from each find, but the lion's share of it all is from the quest completion, yes.

Sure, but money isn't ever an issue in ME1 and XP was fixed in the Legendary Edition so that you can max out a character in a single playthrough. So, again, no need to spend the extra time on uncharted worlds once the collections are complete.

Yeah, I hit 59 but only after doing absolutely everything. Including getting all of the extra collections. I don't remember how far past 59 I was, but I wasn't close to 60 (and no one will be without NG+)

Originally posted by N7_Shadow:

I doubt anyone has suggested this to you, but I will. Set the difficulty to the easiest setting.

This is good advice for everyone, honestly. Unless you're going for the triple Insanity achievement, the game play of ME1 isn't good enough to grind it out when you're playing it for the 5th time or whatever.

[diemore83]

Well ME1 is from 2007 so it is not like Fallout 4, Red dead Redemptions 2 etc...
..but if your plan is to at least "once" to see what Mass Effect has to offer. I would recommend to play fully as possible each ME game. After that... throw it to trash bin, or not looking back etc..
... some people advise to use easiest setting, but i wont...put it to hardest that you can manage to get most out of it and not numb it down.

Also its mentioned.. if plan to use only one character to play all of them. Many things will effect and carry on to next onces. Choices, collections etc...


Enjoy of your journey...

[N7_Shadow]

Originally posted by Zsrai:

Originally posted by N7_Shadow:

I doubt anyone has suggested this to you, but I will. Set the difficulty to the easiest setting.

This is good advice for everyone, honestly. Unless you're going for the triple Insanity achievement, the game play of ME1 isn't good enough to grind it out when you're playing it for the 5th time or whatever.

I have played the game on every single difficulty setting, even the Casual setting. I did so just to see what it was like. Honestly, it was kind of fun to, in less than a second, wipe out the whole squad waiting to ambush you near the beginning of the recruitment mission for Samara.

[max]

If you find the game mechanics in ME1 outdated (I agree with this), then you should moderate what secondary missions you're planning to do. They're significantly lower quality than that of the main story, and you might feel mid game that you're just wasting your time.

Main story is definitely worth to see through, so just skip side content except for: Garrus's assignment, Wrex's assignment, moon base (purely for power level). Also, some of the citadel assignment are fine as they're a change of pace, I particularly recommend returning for The Fan assignment (intimidate him).

[ULTRA]

Or don't intimidate the fan, because ME2 and 3 fail to track whether you did or didn't anyway, before checking whether you bought an Elkoss Combine license of all things

[barzai]

Originally posted by ULTRA:

Or don't intimidate the fan, because ME2 and 3 fail to track whether you did or didn't anyway, before checking whether you bought an Elkoss Combine license of all things

There's a mod that fixes that, BTW.