Why Mass Effect Andromeda is Well written.

Following rules of good story telling doesn't make for a good story. While in general it's got those elements, there are aspects of it that are incredibly weak. Dialogue in a story where characters speak is always a highly important aspect of good story telling. If the dialogue is weak then the story suffers for it. Here, there are times when the dialogue is painfully weak. Another point is the reuse of 'turning us into them' aspect regarding the kett. We already saw this in ME2 and ME3. Surely they could have come up with something different. That specific reuse of an idea already used within the series as a big revelation in ME2 and then a horrifying aspect in ME3 lowers the whole story dramatically. Yes, they approach it slightly differently where you now see this change happen, but it's still the same tired plot point where all the drama was already taken out of it in previous iterations. The idea was great the first time. The second time it was disturbing. Now, it's old hat and predictable.

Predictability is another aspect that can lower how good a story is. The kett turning angara into them is something that if you pay any attention is very clear to the player what is happening. Dare I say they left too many clues for this. Unless you were half asleep or never played an ME game before, this was pretty obvious making one of the scenes that is meant to be the most powerful far less shocking. MET was great because nothing in it was predictable.

Great characters are also key to great story telling. Overall most of the characters are great. But the kett are weak. Your enemy is a joke. Your enemy faction is boring. They are turning us into them. Big deal. Sure, it's disconcerting but it's been done. Beyond that, who are they? We don't even know and they look like a bunch of rock faces so even that isn't really compelling. Actually, they are boring. Now had we learned more about them, had the villain been far more compelling, that would have elevated the story greatly. Instead, it drags it down and makes what could have been a great story and truly great storytelling into mediocre game crap.

Just because you hit a bunch of great story telling marks within your story telling does not make for a great story. It just means you know how to follow formula to create a well written story. Outside of hitting all those marks you have to bring the other aspects to life and make them great. Even the angara aren't that interesting as they are basically written as opinionated/emotional humans. There really is nothing about them that makes them feel vastly or even very different from what we already have. Contrast that to MET races and let's take a look at what we have. Turians: A race of civil servants. Have a vast military. Duty is central to who they are as a people. Serving comes first. Asari: they seem very human until you throw in two huge differences 1. they live for a thousand years which vastly changes how they approach everything and 2. they are a monogendered species who thinks about procreation in terms of desiring diversity. Krogan: nearly unkillable, can live for 1400 years. Can survive in nearly any environment. Tendency to be warriors and violent due to uplifting and not allowing them to come into their own naturally. Propensity toward violence. But also can be skilled at many other things. In MEA krogran finally are breaking out into more diversified roles with us seeing engineers, botanists, geneticists, etc. In MET this was rare and even stated as being rare by Wrex IIRC. The krogan actually become more interesting now in MEA thanks to this diversity we begin to see. I could continue but you see what I mean. Each race has things that make them stand out as unique within the MEU. The Angara, however, don't really add to this. They're emotional and opinionated. So I guess they were born on the internet. Nothing about that stands out as not particularly human. In fact, it stands out as being extremely human. Oh and they were test tube babies. Engineered. And they have that unique electromagnetic field or whatever SAM calls it. But essentially they are very human. Even their looks aren't wildly unique. Different legs. Flaps on their chests. But rather close to human. Turians look like birds evolved. Salarians look like lizards evolved. Krogans are completely new. As are volus. And Elcor. And drell.

I'm not saying MEA is bad writing, it's just weak in areas, not original or creative in some ways, and not the most compelling story that they could have told given they traveled to a whole new galaxy. The best thing MEA has going for it at this point is the Jaadan. That's the race I want to know. That's the most alien seeming race we have yet, advanced beyond anything we could have fathomed with motives we have no clue about. The kett had potential to be rather interesting but we gained no compelling insights other than they turn us into them and we don't even really know why or how that came to be - how being the more appropriate question because unless they were created by the Jaadan as well, they surely did not start out as genetic stealing freaks and all of this was brushed aside in MEA. I understand there is only so much they can tell within a story but of the three races we learned of, we got the most boring and least unique one as our new main one leaving the more interesting ones to maybe be explored in future installments. If ME1 pulled that kind of crap there's a 80% chance ME1 doesn't become the huge success it did. If we were handed angara (without the interesting history that we learned 3/4 into the game), we would probably not be nearly as compelled by the game if that was the only race we were given. I say without because if, upon learning of the angara, we discover they were created by another race that instantly makes  them far more interesting. However, here we don't learn it until so far into the game that it has no impact upon who they are and actually this comes out in the dialogue, which now brings another element of great writing into the fold. Timing. Timing is everything in writing. Had this discovery come up much earlier in the story, whole conversations that were far more fascinating could have been brought into the discussion. Also, seeing the crew debate about the Jaadan on the ship would have been quite interesting. Seeing how each member approaches the idea of them and what their intentions were and the lens through which they view the Jaadan would have added so much more to each character than anything we have now in the game. This is another example of how the story could have been better and elevated. My comparison for this is ME1. On virmire we learn about Sovereigns  true nature. That's around half way or a bit more than half way through the game. Plenty of time to take it in. Nothing is lost for knowing what the reapers are. Granted we didn't get interesting dialogues out of it, but as a player this was a big moment within the game that we had time to let it sink in while we continue to play for a while longer. 

Again, MEA is not a bad story, but it's surely not a great one. Its greatness lies in the mysteries that remain to be solved. However, that does not make this story great. It just adds some fascination for the next one.