dftm1

I'll update this comment as I play. I play ME1 in this order (after I get the Normandy): Therum, Feros, Virmire, all side missions, Noveria, Ilos, Ending.  

Therum: was super easy and I only used 2 powers to kill the Krogan Battlemaster. This was the first time I have ever killed the battlemaster without a single death. The entire mission was a cakewalk, all you need to do is get headshots. A real shame, this could be a pretty tough mission at times in the original game. Though I would be lying if I said I didn't prefer the boss fight in LE more than the original, mostly because that fight was awkward, rage inducing, and forced you to re-watch the preceding cutscene over and over again.

Feros: I have to admit, Feros was excellent. Still a bit too easy and I prefer the original balancing, but I used a ton of powers here and had to think pretty critically at times. Definitely felt like I was playing the original game again. A complete 180 on the previous missions. Krogans are chonky bois that command respect, and the geth's shields are starting to get pretty strong. It's now more efficient to use overload than to shoot the shields off. I actually died on this mission! An odd thing to be excited about but I'll take it. Boss fight with the Thorian is a good challenge, even if the thorian creepers die faster. Overall, this has been the highlight so far. Let's hope the rest of the game keeps this pace.

Virmire: Very good as well. Virmire is where I usually start to get some decent weapons, and to my surprise it wasn't too much easier than the original game. The majority of the mission played very similar overall. Power usage was needed and guns felt about as powerful as they should. This so far has been the closest that legendary edition has felt to the original. However, 2 fights in particular were disappointingly easy. Both the Krogan doctor and the Geth Prime were complete pushovers. Facing down the Geth Prime on Virmire for the first time is one of my best memories of the original game, so this was a pretty big bummer for me. Still very fun overall. Boss fight at the end felt better imo, but pretty easy. That fight was easy in the original game as well so I'll give them a pass here.

Side Missions: These are roughly the same as the original game in terms of difficulty. I honestly don't really care about the side missions that much. Even as one of the most hardcore ME1 fans, I've always felt the side missions were pretty bad. If anything I prefer them being a bit easier since it makes this part of the game go faster. I'll also throw in bring down the sky here as well, which is my favourite combat encounter in the entire trilogy. Happy to say that the final fight is still a good challenge, even for end game characters. Not too surprising given that the final fight is defined more by countering enemy abilities rather than direct weapon strength. Get that damping ready.

Noveria: I'm starting to notice that the main issues I have are exclusive to the beginning of the game. The further you get into the game, the most it starts to feel like classic ME1. That is to say that Noveria was great. The toxic damage present in Noveria is just as deadly as the original game, and the rachni here can't take bonus headshot damage. Quick tip, get a medical interface armour mod for all your squad members before taking on this mission. Boss fight was pretty easy, but given how strong my character is after completing every side mission, I can't say I'm surprised. I can literally kill Benezia with 1 assassination sniper shot at this point in both LE and classic, and this fight will always be easy if you know how to properly setup your character.

Ilos/Ending: Now its safe to say that classic and LE are nearly identical from a gameplay perspective. At this point in classic, my guns are filthy overpowered and I can breeze through enemies with ease. Powers start to take a back seat until the final boss where they're very helpful. The boss fight introduces geth reinforcements in LE, but none of the heavy hitters come out. Just some shock troopers, which at this point are complete pushovers for me. I would have been more than happy with fighting a prime or 2 down here, but it's fine.

In summary I probably overreacted when making this video, as past the early game, LE is only slightly easier than classic. With that said I still do think that a part of the original game's charm has been lost. I loved feeling helpless at the beginning, and then slowly getting better and better until I was a walking tank with handheld cannons. In LE, it feels more like Skyrim's levelling where you start overpowered, get weaker, and then become overpowered again. It's more like you hit waves of difficult, rather than feeling that satisfying and steady increase to your strength. Still, after completing the game 100% I can say that LE is enough of a visual improvement to make up for the gameplay differences, and after the initial missions I was having a blast playing it. I still want a classic gameplay setting though, cmon Bioware.