1.09 as the release version

The change on tone probably hurt them, but it was something they were very upfront with from the beginning. (BW overcorrection again?)

The thing is, I do actually like Ryder more than I like Shepard. Frankly, I don't see how many people can relate to a person who is already a hero at the start of the game. By the end of the trilogy, they're space Jesus.

I know what you're getting at, but I don't think most people are actually relating to Shepard. He's so far removed from 'normal' human experiences you wouldn't be able to.

What I think people mean is "an awesome character that I can project myself into and escape my world into theirs". This is something I read a lot on these forums when it came to how people reacted to Ryder - particularly because Ryder starts off as such a pushover.

This didn't bother me so much because I liked seeing Ryder stop being a pushover, plus Shepard is way too serious all the time.

yeah that's what I find most endearing about Ryder really I think in that they start out not too sure of themselves and not sure that Dad made the right decision by having you take over as pathfinder. But I like how they grow in the role as well and get bnehind there squadmates and support each other throughout the story as well and i liked that despite being young they got on like adults and didn't keep fighting one another for control and trusted Ryder's judgement. Ryder's also not afraid to praise her team either when they pull off something good to owhich I liked. I always love it when my Ryder says "Go Team" that always makes me smile.

I really liked that they were, for all intents and purposes, kids. They are completely out of their element, and it shows. Shepard was never really out of their element. The Reapers were just another enemy to defeat, albeit a particularly menacing one. Ryder has much more room for character development than Shepard, because Shepard was already a developed character when we met them.

With 1.09 MEA is in the same territory as Half-Life 2, Diablo 2, etc.

Wasn't Gabe supposedly talking with some Hollywood guy about a HL3 movie instead? I read about that several years ago. 

Version 1.09 as the release date would have saved ME:A from 95% of the heavy critique it got.
The "ME:A face is tired" campaign all over the net to destroy ME:A publicly would not have spawned.
Of course - the piss poor writing would still have been there - but overall we would get a game that would at least get that target 80-85 metacritic score Bioware was aiming at.

If ME:A got 80-85 metacritic score - then that would be satisfactory to secure future of DLCs and ME:A 2, this is basically all that was needed, sadly we got what we got on release...

Right now its still 7/10 for single player, due to often lame writing.
As for multiplayer, on release it was 6/10, now it feels like solid 8/10, although I wish they would add new gamemodes to multiplayer, aside from new maps and characters.
You can only get so far with simple hordemode...

I'll just pop in with a bunch of quotes I've left in mass effect discord about a particular set of side quests, one of which is essential to for building viability on Eos. These are mostly gameplay complaints and not concerning visuals.

"Sometimes saving and reloading gives you different objectives in small camps, and Kett base on Eos doesn't always spawn proper enemies in final room."

Yea I hate randomly generated quest spawns, because sometime they flat our stop until i reload the map, and simply fast travelling doesn't help either you have to get back to Tempest first. It's a complaint on side content, but it was my thrid playthrough that I was enticed to complete, and when you reach that stage, the diminishing returns just overwhelm you.

Here's more about Kett base on Eos

"Yeah the lower floor of base tends to glitch out a lot, first thing that happens is that if you left enemies behind, they don't de-spawn, but also become invisible and attack you from the back, because their models disappear but not their function, or entity or whatever they call it in frostbite. Then there is a spawn point for enemies on lower floor. If you had died before, they might not spawn properly and get stuck in the walls or terrain. One time that area also randomly spawned a fiend on me that wasn't there before, i guess it's designed to scale with level or just doesnt work as intended. if you jump in certain areas world models of base despawn (don't load properly) and you can possibly phase through them too, but the kicker is they make the empty space (for quite a noticable amount of time) underneath visible which is a sore to the eye. Yeah that area is one of the first you might be exploring if you are trying to be a completionist and there's so much wrong with it. I should probably file these bugs for them, everyone is screaming at superficial stuff."
I think there are genuine problems with how frostbite handles saves and enemy spawns (which seem to be inherited right from the bad battlefield campaigns), but i don't get how they got so bad after Inquisition which seemed ok in that regard (Tho i must admit i haven't played a lot of that game).

I could also talk about internal problems of the gameplay design, that you simply can't fix that were pretty much embedded in DNA. Like the amount of running you have to do around the ship or how inventory works.

And this was just a rant, I'll try to format this a little.

"Inventory system has a problem mostly with the fact, that when you got for a harder difficulty you pretty much want to build a stronger thing and stick to that, problems arise exactly when players want to experiment. Because eqiuptment system is just not flexible enough. You gotta run around terminals, buy and gather resources and even then you can't switch weapons on the flight to account for a profile switch
so what i do i just make most overpowered thing of the things i already have and keep em throughout the game
and important passives still work on all classes so you're pretty much designing your own class when you play this game rather than switch around to suit situation

and then there's NG+ which just make everything work
and then i realise i ran out of profiles space and how small it feels
it either should have more profiles or more slots per profile
and lower cooldowns"

And I also have a little to say about writing

However while pushing the envelope with those minor sidequests to get the 100%, I noticed quite a few interactive npcs that spawn in your settlements, and remind you of your deeds in those quests, they actually went and gave closure to those people, the hidden depth was still there... But then I felt like if they had avoided some of them, and spent time on building more focused plots the game would've been better. Like the quest with ancient AI could've had more closure, or atleast longer cinematic material attached to it. It was just kinda "touch, go and toss away" type of experience, while the thing could unveil major plot point or foreshadow future events. And thats where the biggest gripe with story came from for me, everything is left for later, rather than bein resolved, but when you break down the game to simple variable and how mass effect used to handle choices, there's a ton of opportunities that crop up for some really great sequel writing. The issue is that the plot hooks that were in major focus get tossed away and a sidequest takes importance by making references to previous game and unveiling twists at the end, but then it also fades. This game struggles to conclude its points. But you know what? I'd still give it a 7/10 at least, just because I feel deep connection to the series, and enjoy the combat and world and enviroment design, hell, even some moments in dialogue writing. I couldnt really stop after two playthroughs too, some feelings did pull me back in, and dedication of the devs helped, too. But i don't see recommending this game without recommending to play OT first, it just won't give an impact to a random passer-by.

I hope they keep supporting the game further, there are probably at least a few minor updates planned and complementaries like the Discovery comic coming along. But yeah if it was released in the state of 1.09... My own complaints still stand to this day.

Sure. A game with less bugs will always receive a higher score than a game with a lot of bugs.

Maybe if 1.09 were the release version, the focus would have been on the issues that actually have substance. How the quality of the writing was all over the place, the main quest was predictable and recycled a lot of the beats from the original trilogy, the general setting and explorable worlds felt fairly uninspired, and the amount of meaningless filler in the sidequest department.

Yes, exactly. However, those are points that are subjective (but accurate) and at least, the game would be judged as finished product with DLC inbound (I know... I'm optimistic). I guarantee March would've been pretty boring for YouTube if Andromeda was released as 1.09. The amount of game-breaking bugs, broken quests, broken saves and throw in the animation issues... I'm not even looking at the story or the weak CC. I'm looking at a PS4 console (not a PC either!) and just thinking how ARROGANT.. how much HUBRIS... do you have to say this is BioWare? Is this even BioWare? 1.05, reminded me this was a BioWare product. 1.09, stated this is BioWare. In personal opinion, this game WAS a GOTY contender. Now there is a strong chance it will end up on someone's top 10 disappointing games or worst. It sucks because the developers that hung on churned out a gem (not quite a perfect one, but worthy of praise) and made use of what they had in the last 20 months. Did it have a lot of potential unfulfilled? Yes and I'm hoping that DLC will see that potential turned into kinetic action on the canvas.

Indeed but that is pretty much all games these days at release.  As of patch 1.09 (or rather 1.08 to me) the game is in the state it should have launched in.  There may still be glitches and bugs, but it is pretty stable. 

There's a lot of political bias and propaganda in the media, so I guess a game studio engaging in it shouldn't be surprising to anyone.