Listening to the reviews was a mistake!

glad you enjoyed that.  

Oh I see - you're one of those people who compare tertiary characters to companions.

1. Secondary characters to companions
2. Actual secondary characters in ME1 are animated at least as well as Addison
3. It's been 10 years...

1. Secondary characters to companions
2. Actual secondary characters in ME1 are animated at least as well as Addison
3. It's been 10 years...

But we are supposed to ignore it for MEA apparently.

I never said ignore them. Point them out & criticise them all you like. As people have been doing. I was just putting some perspective around some of the complaints that seem like people expected them to be Naughty Dog level quality and calling out a poster for misrepresenting the quality of the facial animation in HZD.

For the record, the animations in neither of these games bothered me too much, but I completely understand why they would, within reason. 

Consistency is the key here, not outright rage for one game and ignoring the same issues in another. 

I agree I don't there is a huge difference between the two games, but I also don't think there is a huge difference between the animations in any of the Mass Effect games. ME3 probably had the most polished though.  With the exception of a couple of studios who have made facial animations one of their top priorities, there hasn't been a whole lot of advancement in facial animation in general in the last 10 years.  ME1 animations were revolutionary at the time and BioWare has only made incremental improvements since then.  

I finished, god damn it.  Waste of money, as I should have known it would be, the last time BW released a game I enjoyed without reservation was 2010, so their is that.  I didn't like DA:I, the ME3 ending means that I didn't play any ME game for over a year after.  The bugs weren't game breaking, but any RPG where I find myself skipping dialogue because I just don't CARE has major issues, Ryder's responses and dialogue felt like flavours of agreement, even more so than the Inq's did in DA:I, the lack of agency I felt within the story was infuriating, usually when you are playing a character you can only 'flavour' (for instance Shephard, or Geralt.) they have a strong personality for you to latch onto, a hook to grab your attention, Ryder doesn't she has the worst parts of a blank slate PC (no strong backstory, NPCs react in a 'generic' way so that the character always fits) And a preset PC (limited options in dialogue, railroading) without the upsides of either, look Shep could either be an idealist or a pragmatist (sometimes they messed up and became 'saint or psychopath' but on the main it worked), The Warden on the other hand was defined by the player, an amoral mercenary, social Darwinist, an idealistic patriot, or some combination, and both approaches WORKED.  But with Ryder you just ARE, a bit of a boy scout, shockingly naive at times, and incapable of leading, or showing a spine, you just bumble along allowing people to insult you, belittle you and ignore you, without ever seeming to react, cracking flat jokes to companions that I really couldn't care about (and that looked terrible, which didn't help) and opposing a villain that had the same issues as that guy out of DA:I, a dude with big shoulders and a freaky face who never really feels threatening, Sovereign was terrifying, Logain I despised, the ArchDemon was a force of nature and hate, this walking WMD coming to end the world, Jon Irenicus was such a good villain that 20 years later I still remember his name, but now, now we have 'weird alien nazi opponent number 2762 taken from a b grade Sci Fi movie of the week, and I found nothing to hate or fear.



We also to add insult to injury, had what has historically been a horrific act and ideology, Colonialism, dressed up as a kumbaya tour of happy alien friends..I mean what?  We turn up to steal planets that suit us..with out war ships? The beings that live on those worlds are friends with us because..why? BW dress up a genocidal activity, one that to actually work has to be genocidal, and shatter the resistance of any 'natives' as a good and noble thing, and take out the horror implicit in it.  Seriously what's next, a BW railway simulator taking people to the death camps? THAT is what I disliked about this game, it took a barbaric act and gave it to a boy scout, an act that could, and should, have been an exploration of how far you are willing to go to survive, how much humanity the last (as far as they know) of the Council Races are willing to lose to endure, that took the decisions in the ME series about the life and death of species, a decision you could make in the first freaking game, and asks it again, as the centre of a story, not as a quandary on the side during a greater mission, that puts you face to face with the fate of a desperate band of survivors, and YES DAMMIT this does sound like Battle Star Galatica: The Plan: ME Edition, that is what we could have had here, instead we got Galatica 1980