Well ME1 even judging on its own, was full of world building, it had new everything and discovering the relationships between all the factions and how they worked (and they were involved), Saren was a traitor, but you find out even that wasn’t black and white, he saw an impossible future that he felt we couldn’t survive, and made the call to try to preserve us to some degree against the reapers. It also had a few absolutely chilling cinematic moments like Shepard walking out of the wreckage of the citadel somehow miraculously surviving, having to make difficult choices on who to sacrifice, and confronting Saren and trying to make him see the errors of his ways. it hinted at the deep stories behind the reapers and the geth, and made you wait to discover those answers in the sequel. All of this in maybe 30 hours of gaming. I considered this masterful storytelling!
As opposed to 80 hours of gaming with a shadow of that depth in MEA, and didn’t do as much world building as it should have, and none of the pure cinematic moments or intense choices of its predecessor. Don’t get me wrong MEA is a fine scifi action rpg, its just not on the same caliber of its source. I did hate the facial animations though, that drove me nuts and had nothing to do with gameplay or story, just a personal peeve.
Edit: Another moment from the original, sure the bureaucratic council makes you a specter, but they don’t really believe you, ignore you when you warn them about Saren, you have to disobey them and steal the Normandy and possibly cost your mentor, Anderson, his career. You come back and have to make a choice, do you destroy earth ships to protect the bureaucratic council, will you be petty? Will you value the lives of your own race over others, or will you protect the galaxy institutions as flawed as they are. I seriously morally paused when I was faced with that the first time!
Damn, I really am going to play this again now