Opinions on the characters (Especially squadmates and Ryder) of ME:A, based on their own merits. Gre

With the exception of Drack, the squadmates were meh. It's not necessarily a bad thing. I just think they were denied the privilege of DLC and sequel which was necessary for some of the MET squadmates.

Interesting point about biotics. Now that you bring it up, we always had this dangling idea that biotics are somehow being disadvantaged, but the closest we got to that issue was that one mission in ME1 where group of L2s kidnapped a politician.
But I personally don't mind her struggle being internal, you can't always solve people's issues, sometimes all you can offer is opinions and support. Though I wish we had seen the result of her struggle, seen her become a leader in her own right.

I voted Great.

I think Lexi, Suvi, and Ryder(better than Shepard) are great, Cora and Kallo and really good, and all the others are good.

Liam appears to have some sort of cognitive dissonance. He behaves one way on the Tempest, and another way on the Nomad. Not a very well written character, imo.

As for my opinions on the rest of the crew...
Liam could be annoying and some of his early conversations with Vetra really put me off, but overall I found him likeable and human. And of course, he has probably the most fun loyalty mission

Vetra...I guessed what she was like the first time we've seen her before release, but her relationship with her sister added a nice twist to it. And I don't mind Sid being so prominent throughout Vetra's story since character's relationship with another can also te you a lot about them.

Drack is a krogan Nah, I found him different from both Grunt and Wrex. Unlike both of them, Drack was just an old, grumpy soldier who has seen too much and Kesh was the only thing that stopped him from just giving up. And he is just likeable and eventually he becomes almost like Ryder's grandpa (well, at least for my Ryder)

I didn't really like Jaal until his loyalty mission, he was just being an ass to everyone I tried to pair him up with for banter. Eventually I stopped taking him out with me, but interactions with him were what made me like him later.

Peebee, I love her chaotic personality and commitment issues. If only it wasn't for that unfortunate meeting scene and casual sex offer while I was halfway through another romance. (Seriously, couldn't you have pushed her off while your squad has guns on her, before she starts talking? )

I romanced Suvi. She is adorable, and her views are interesting. The awkwardness of Ryder's flirts with her is awesome And I just love for her insatiable curiosity and love of science.

Kallo is the cutest salarian ever His memories of old friends he can't see anymore struck close, and it being source of conflict between hik and Gil made me feel like Gil was just being an ass about the whole thing...I don't really like Gil. Did I say Kallo was cute and I want to hug him?

Edit: :gasp: I almost didn't talk about Ryder!
I only played as Sara, so I don't really know about differences between her and Scott. Also went for casual with more or less even split of logical and emotional responses.
Sara's goofiness, awkwardness and puns are what made me love her. Deflecting problems with jokes or being hopeful, using logic and actually knowing some science (as oppossed to Shepard who knows nothing ) made me completely fall for her as protagonist. She is so djfferent from your average charismatic, grizzled protagonist and she is just so relatable and lovable because of that

They are the worst group of characters I have ever seen.

Liam: The worst character ever written by Bioware. He's an idiot, and he's supposed to be a "crisis dealer". His lines seem to have been written by a 13 year old, he only tells stupid jokes, and if that wasn't enough, he gives vital information to a random contact because angara and humans weren't immediately trusting each other. If I had the choice, I would have arrested or executed him for treason. And then he acts like it was all a joke and even calls you a jerk. AND YOU DON'T HAVE THE OPTION TO TELL HIM TO FUCK OFF. DAMN, BIOWARE!

Cora: She certainly is the least interesting. I don't even feel hate for her, I just find her boring. She can't say 10 words without 2 being "asari". That's all she EVER talk about. Even when she talks about plants, she put asari in the middle of the sentence someway

Drack: He is just a copy of Wrex, but older. His role in the team is showing how a "badass krogan" he is, and to tell "funny war stories".

Vetra: Trying to be female Garrus, she even got the visor, but it's just a pale copy of the real thing. Just like Cora, she can't say 10 words without mentioning her little sister.

SAM: Poor replacement for EDI. VERY poor. Also, his story with Ryder doesn't make any sense. He isn't a squadmate, but I had to point how boring he is.

Ryder: Ugh, worst main character ever on a Bioware game. Especially because we can't be renegade, so all we have is "four faces of a nice guy/girl".

Peebee: I think she's the only character in the ship to actually have a personality. She's individualistic, has a real reason to go to Andromeda and like to discover new things. Unfortunately, they pretty much dump all her character after her mission, when she suddenly says "she's part of the group" and when she just launches the escape pod without any plan of going back to the ship.

Jaal: He's uninteresting especially because the angara are uninteresting. They're basically humans with big families, it shows how creativity abandoned Bioware on this game.

My rule is generally that squadmates get to make the call on personal stuff. It's not like Kalinda actually came after Ryder; PeeBee dragged us into this. (Hey, how come my iPad autocorrects "Peebee" to "PeeBee"?)

OTOH, since PeeBee did drag us into this, maybe shoot Kalinda just because PeeBee doesn't want her dead. Pity Ryder couldn't have been a real dick about that later.

It took most of my first game for me to warm up to the crew characters. They just didn't jump out at me as interesting right away. However, after spending several PTs with them, I like pretty much all of them. Drack is my favorite though, among the crew, and Reyes from the rest.

You know, I used to think the opposite but I am coming around to this point of view.

Good, would say great, but then Peebee and how they wrote her is a thing-so it averages to good.

I had high hopes for Liam, I thought he was going to be the wide eyed idealist (been a while since we had one of those characters in ME, no?) but unfortunately he became as bland as ME3 base game Cortez and was somehow less mature than James.

Cora was a missed opportunity, I would have liked to have her and Ryder fight over the Pathfinder position because that issue was alluded to but never fully developed.

PeeBee is a maniac pixie girl that tries to be cute but comes of as annoying,
next.

Vetra....ummm..she's there? That's pretty much all I have.

Jaal is an odd duck, but he's likely the second best NPC squadmate and one of the few who has a full character development arc.

Drack is the best and he somehow reminds me of Old Snake from MGS4.

Over all, Jaal and Drack are my favorites.