Why Mass Effect Andromeda is Well written.

I didn't needed much. I just wanted a cool af villain and cool enemies to shoot at. Sadly the villain is trash.

I miss Saren.

But he was so cooooooool.

Not really. TIM on the other hand.

Welllll... K yeah, he was pretty effing cool. Flying around on his hoverboard, always cool, calm, and collected...

Saren was boss.

Sucks to be you then.

So did I and it only intensified when I saw his memories.

Same. As the memories are discovered Alex's story definitely becomes more poignant and personal. It was a pretty good plot device.

Preferred how they used the memories in Breath of the Wild.

MEA is also introducing us to the game world... and did so without the huge info dump conversations that people seem to think were actually conversations.  Ryder has a lot more conversations with his crew and a lot more conversations with some of the side characters than Shepard ever got with anyone.  Ryder even has more meaningful conversation with Akksul than Shepard ever had with, say, Dr. Saleon.

Clicking on a button to ask something like tell me about your culture IS NOT an interaction.  Asking those things did not have any effect on shaping Shepard`s personality or have an consequences for decisions.  Clicking the button is a conversation pacifier.  Making the NPCs more dimensional via using ambient dialogue with each other does NOT restrict the protagonist in any way, shape, or form... and there are ample conversations with dialogue choices in ME:A where the player can actually shape their protagonist... many, many more than there are in ME1.

Is that because you played Breath of the Wild and didn't play Andromeda?

Commander Shepard: The last time we talked, you started speaking about a past event as if you were watching it.
Thane Krios: Drell have perfect memories. We can relive any moment in our life with perfect clarity. It's difficult to control at times. Some of us disappear into... well, let's call it "solipsism."
Commander Shepard: What do you mean, solipsism?
Thane Krios: When a memory feels as real as life, it's as valid as life. Thinking about a moment brings back the smell of cut grass, the warmth of another's hand on yours, the taste of another's tongue in your mouth. Wouldn't you rather lose yourself in such a memory then spend the night alone, staring at walls of metal and plastic?
Commander Shepard: Isn't that a rather personal memory to talk about?
Thane Krios: Forgive me. Lately I have spent a great deal of time reviewing my life. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable.
Commander Shepard: Isn't there a risk that you could lose yourself in bad memories as well?
Thane Krios: Of course. Remembering the times I've taken bullets is... unpleasant. But I can look at my knee and see it's not shattered. The memories that are hard to escape are those of despair.
Commander Shepard: You can remember everything that happened in your life?
Thane Krios: Nearly. I expect if we remembered the birth trauma, we'd never recover from it.

*

Mordin: Life is a negotiation. We all want. We all give to get what we want.

*

Legion: We discovered copies of our current patrol routes in this database. This suggests the heretics have runtimes within our networks.
Shepard: We wouldn't be here if the heretics wanted to be friends with the geth. Why wouldn't they spy on us?
Legion: You do not understand. Organics do not know each other's minds. Geth do. We are not suspicious. We accept each other. The heretics desired to leave. We understood their reasons. We allowed it. There was peace between us.
Shepard: It couldn't have lasted forever. You disagreed about what path your race should take. (Paragon response)
Legion: Human history is a litany of blood shed over differing ideals of rulership and afterlife. Geth have no such history. We shared consensus on such things.

*

Legion: (confused) How could we have become so different? Why can we no longer understand each other? What did we do wrong?
(Paragon response)
Shepard: When individuals are separated, they develop in different ways. When they get back together, they don't always get along.
Legion: If this is the individuality you value, we question your judgment.

*
Mordin: (scans corpse with omni-tool) Dead krogan. Female. Tumors indicate experimentation. No restraint marks. Volunteer. Sterile Weyrloc female willing to risk procedures. Hoped for cure. Pointless. Pointless waste of life.
Shepard: I didn't expect you to be disturbed by the sight of a dead krogan.
Mordin: (surprised at Shepard) What? Why? Because of genophage work? Irrelevant. No, causative. Never experimented on live krogan. Never killed with medicine. Her death not my work, only reaction to it. Goal was to stabilize population. Never wanted this. Can see it logically... but still unnecessary. Foolish waste of life. Hate to see it.
Shepard: I didn't think you had much direct contact with things like this. Did you come to Tuchanka after dropping your plague?
Mordin: Yearly recon missions. Water, tissue samples. Ensure no mistakes. Superiors offered to carry it on. Refused. Need to see it in person. Need to look. Need to see. Accept it as necessary. See small picture. Remind myself why I run a clinic on Omega. (gestures to dead krogan) Rest, young mother. Find your gods. Find someplace better.
Shepard: I didn't expect spirituality from you, Mordin.
Mordin: Genophage modification project altered millions of lives. Then saw results. Ego, humility, juxtaposition. Frailty of life. Size of universe. Explored religions after work was completed. Different races. No answers. Many questions.
Shepard: Sounds like you were trying to deal with a guilty conscience. The doctor who killed millions.
Mordin: Modified genophage project great in scope. Scientifically brilliant. But ethically difficult. Krogan reaction visceral, tragic. Not guilty, but responsible. Trained as doctor. Genophage affects fertility. Doesn't kill. Still (hesitates) ...caused this. Hard to see big picture behind pile of corpses.
Shepard: Can you really just rationalize it all away? How do you justify it?
Mordin: Wheel of life. Popular salarian concept. Similar to human Hinduism in focus on reincarnation. Appealing to see life as endless. Fix mistakes in next life. Learn, adapt, improve. Refuse to believe life ends here. Too wasteful. Have more to offer. Mistakes to fix. Cannot end here. Could do so much more.
Shepard: If you need this much soul-searching to get over it, maybe the genophage was wrong.
Mordin: Had to be done. Rachni Wars, Krogan Rebellions all pointed to krogan aggression. So many simulations. Effects of krogan population increase. All pointed to war, extinction. Genophage or genocide. Save galaxy from krogan. Save krogan from galaxy.
Shepard: Look at the dead woman, Mordin. It doesn't look like you saved her.
Mordin: No. It doesn't. Worked with available data. Only option. No other possible... Doesn't matter.

*

This has been an endless masturbatory circle jerk of a discussion with barely any substantial examples. I just went to ME2's imdb to find just a few of many good scenes (not ME3's because I'm still early in a replay, and haven't played since 2012 so don't want to spoil it all). Can anyone present dialogue from MEA that rivals this writing in depth and execution? I can't remember anything that reaches this level. Flannery O'Connor it is not, but for a video game, this is pretty damn amazing dialogue.
I liked the game, I did. Eventually, once I realized that it wasn't going to be at all like the MET and just had fun with it. But MET--despite some bad lines, sure, and many platitudes (which Garrus calls you on, once in ME3)--was a series that at times provided dialogue and complexity of world building outside the league of any video game I have ever played.
I maintain that MEA has strengths (beyond combat), but it is not its writing. I don't know what happened there, but I do know that writers of literary fiction and film struggle to make a living, and could have used work like this for $$...
Prove me wrong? (Maybe something with Jaal I'm not remembering, our new species?)