It's Knights of the Old Republic.
Anyways I just replayed Mass Effect 1 for the first time since I was a kid, using that new Legendary collection, and it was a much more interesting experience than I was expecting? Mostly because I've recently played through all of the Bioware RPGs that came before it that I'd missed, like Jade Empire and NWN. So I've got a more complete picture of where they came from and where they were going, I guess. While I was in a lot of ways dissappointed revisiting ME, there were also bits that really shone, and bits that surprised me how much I liked them.
But let's start out talking about that remaster. It's uh. Idk I guess it technically looks better, but often it either doesn't look particularly different or it looks like they turned the power of the lighting engine WAY too high. I swear Captain Anderson's face was shinier than some of the metal surfaces. Also for some reason the women's clothing seemed a lot tighter than in the original, particularly on Liara. Just kinda distracting I guess. Beyond that it just seems like a waste of effort, as a remaster. They would've been better served just doing an anniversary collection with bugfixes and all the DLC.
Moving on, I wanna compare ME directly to KOTOR, because they're really very similar games with very similar goals I think. They're both action-focused space opera RPGs set in the mold of Neverwinter Nights' structure, both in the way the hubs are designed and the way the story plays out, and they both succeed at asking interesting moral questions while failing at providing adequate moral outlets for them (gotta love that bioware binary morality tracker). Moreover, I think both games are good, even if I think KOTOR is miles better.
One interesting point of comparison is actually in that hub structure. See, both games are planet hopping RPGs where, after an introduction, you get to choose what order you do the next few story missions in. Each mission has a location dedicated to it, one with it's own flavor and purpose and sidequests. This concept wasn't new when KOTOR applied it, but I do think KOTOR does an especially good job of fleshing these places out, making them feel like places rather than setpieces. Mass Effect, on the other hand, plays each out in a much more directed, linear way. There's less sidequests on each little hub, to the point where they're not really hubs, since there's really only one or two things to do at each one. The main storyline at each hub is interesting though, and particularly at Feros there's an interesting situation that feels suuper star trek in a great way. It just feels like these places are constructed around you, instead of being places that exist independently of you.
The Citadel is really the only hub that feels fully fleshed out, and as such exploring the Citadel was, is, and will probably always be my favorite part of ME. It's not that it's incredibly dense or anything, it just feels like there's chances for you to get involved in things that don't necessarily involve you. Also, all of the other story hubs are so short and focused that the Citadel's the only place you can really hang out in, which is imo super important for almost all RPGs if not almost all video games.
There's still plenty of side-content here though, it's just mostly accessed through your ship. You get distress calls, orders from your commander, stuff like that, most of which leads to fairly thorough sidequesting. It's all pretty good, it just feels like the galaxy they've created is too big, the content too thinly stretched across it. You can explore probably 10 or 15 planets, but only the main story quest planets feel like unique places, and like I said, even those feel thin.
Beyond that I've got other issues with the game, like the military focus (which is probably related to the really upfront Halo inspiration), but a lot of that feels like personal preference, and not that interesting to write about. I like the story, I like the writing and the universe they've created. The Mako and shooting are both kinda jank, but jank in a charming way. The conversation wheel sucks.
Anyways, I think it's a good game, but I wouldn't shell out for the remaster if you can find the original for cheaper. I also think if you like Mass Effect there's a good chance you'll like KOTOR more, unless you've got something against Star Wars (or the real time with pause combat doesn't jive with you, which is totally fair). But still, ME is one of the better Bioware games, even if it's not one of my personal favorites.