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

I see. ( I also had some difficulty with Jaal the first time I saw him )
Thank you, that was interesting to read. Very refreshing to read a different opinion about Jaal. 

Good, and only because of their potential for continuing storylines, with growth, twists, betrayals, relationships, etc.

Take away the potential and restrict it to MEA, then just Okay or Meh.

Its hard to pick a definite best and worst (at least at the moment), but if I could pick two best and two worst squadmates, the best are Jaal and Cora, and worst are Peebee and Liam.

But I think Drack is best written, its just that krogan have never been my favorites.

I don't think any squadmate in MEA is on the lowest rung of ME series squadmates, but neither are any on the top rung. They may annoy or bore, but not that much. They may be good and show great potential, but there's no content (in-game, DLC, sequel) to act on that potential.

MEA decided to be 'kinda boring' to me.

Liam was most involved in my favorite aspect of the game, the outposts and carving out a new life in a new galaxy, so I ended up liking him quite a bit. I mean, he's a moron and a mess, but pretty sincere and trying. Peebee I didn't like until my second play-through - I feel like taking a few of those flirts helps her character a lot.

Cora I have no strong feelings on except for 'Mom Friend' and I don't like Vetra. They're all pretty preachy but Vetra's brand of it just rubs me the wrong way, plus I get pretty sick of hearing about her sister. And she's boring.

Drack...is a krogan. IMO He's the closest to a 1:1 comparison to his counterpart in the OT, Wrex. He was fine and his conversation about his failing body was one of my favorite in the games. Jaal I go back and forth on. I quite liked his romance, but the character only occasionally lived up to the first impression he gave me. Maintaining his cool in his loyalty mission was pretty damn awesome, though.

They're a good bunch of companions, including all those on board, though Gil is a little ehhhhh. It's difficult to compare them to the OT because I played all three games in a row, so that was a lot of characterization. They're about even, to me, if you compare them strictly to the SR1 crew, who had the misfortune of being walking info-dumps, if slightly better written and more mature (lowkey one of my favorite squad moments ever is Kaidan telling me he's 32 and can sort out his own shit.) Not up to a cast of any given Dragon Age game, but not like actively hateful to be around.

This.

There's certainly some hinky-ness in the writing, but this crew is the most believable. Which is good and bad, but honestly, part of what I love about Andromeda is that I've met people like every squadmate.... And I've been Liam with the "Oh shit, I made a big decision and now I need to bust my ass and do whatever it takes to make this big decision work AND ALSO HIDE MY FEAR THROUGH JOKES" more often than I'd care to admit.

My one major issue with Andromeda's characters is that most of them just flat out tell you how they're crazy instead of letting you infer it. But a lot of real people do that, so I'm okay with that too.

Complete opposite for me. Characters & their motivations were much more believable for me in ME2.

The AI's existence doesn't even make much sense, so the reasons for joining it don't either. In fact, there are only two major reasons everyone in the AI joined it.

It's either "I was bored with my life and wanted to do something exciting" or "I wanted to explore the unknown".

Both of which they could have done in the Milky Way, but w/e, I guess.

Believable? I surely expect that you don't know people that say "haha, that one doesn't like me, maybe because I shot him on the face" or "Look, these rocks are floating!" or "Sorry, I get a little pissed when someone is trying to kill me!" in the middle of a battle for your life against an unknown alien race. 

And seriously, this was supposed to be an elite team to colonize a new galaxy, and not a bunch of idiots. Especially Liam, who is supposed to be a "crisis dealer", but he's actually totally opposite of what a "crisis dealer" should be (not to mention he is COMPLETELY RETARD). Liam should be arrested for treason, not treat it like it was a joke. I really hope next game we get to "shoot him in the face". 

He's supposed to be crisis response, helping out families and whatnot after a, you know, crisis, but he fucks up even more than Peebee did with his loyalty mission. Why didn't we get the option to kick private Gomer Pyle (Liam) off the ship for that fiasco. I also agree that it's dumb that Liam was picked to be part of the pathfinder team, supposed to be an elite team to help the initiative colonize worlds, but Liam is a walking fuck-up.

Yeah, that's the worst, the game OBLIGATES your character to like him. Roleplaying is pretty much dead. 

And the characters from previous games were much more believable: First, because they were really supposed to be on an elite team. Second, because they had truly believable issues: Garrus was a cop struggling between being a "vengeance is justice or not" (a pretty common struggle, but well-written in his case), Samara had a struggle between her code and her daughters (duty x love), Jack was a result of tortured imposed on her, etc. They are all pretty believable. What is really UNBELIEVABLE is that someone would give vital information (including communication codes) to a random contact because two races that just met aren't IMMEDIATELY getting along (despite angara's recent past with the kett) and then would invade the ship where the contact is with absolutely no plan at all. 

Liam: Right, so, there's a lot of hate for Liam in the fandom, but I got to admit that he was kind of my favorite squadmate, which admittedly isn't that high of a bar for me in MEA. He's totally the by-product of Bioware's attempt to make MEA a more "optimistic and light-hearted" game, which is usually a fine thing to do, but in the context of MEA's super-serious plot he doesn't make a lick of sense as a character, is way to young, and feels like a rando that somehow got put on the most important team in the Andromeda Initiative, which is fucking ridiculous. That said, I like the fact that he's super-emotional, and not in that romanticised Jaal way of showing emotion, but in a the realistic form that can off-putting and annoying, which I think is a lot more authentic. That's something that Liam's writer has historically been good at, giving his characters realistic emotional freakouts that at least leave an impact, for better or for worse. 7/10.

Cora: People have already said it. She's a boring Asari Otaku whose most interesting aspects (facing biotic prejudice) gets totally ignored. Even her dealing with Alec's death and the Asari Pathfinder's crime didn't do anything for me. Honestly, the only remarkable thing I can say about her is that she has a nice ass. Sorry feminists out there. I wish Bioware wrote an interesting female character in this game so I wouldn't have to go there. 5/10.

Drack: I actually kind of like him and was even emotionally moved at times when he talked. His struggles with age, mortality and creating a future for his people just worked as a narrative, and while he does have a couple Krogan tropes that I'm tried of he ultimately managed to still be likable. Chances are, if we get a sequel and he does die in it I'm going to cry. Can't really say the same for any of the other members of the Tempest crew. 7/10.

Vetra: She's cool and actually has an interesting backstory, but her little sister plot completely uninterested me and I feel the overall plot really let her down. A shame. 6/10.

Jaal: I wanted to like Jaal and can be admit that's probably the most fleshed out character in the Tempest crew, but I cannot help but be somewhat bored with him. I don't even really know why. Maybe it's because it felt like his writer was trying to hard to make him romantic and deep? 6/10.

Peebee: She's a watered down version of Sera and to me that's a bad thing. Plenty of people hate Sera, but at least to me she was interesting and tackled issues that I really don't see a lot in video games. Peebee on the other hand just felt so transparent and predictable as a character. Literally the moment she molested my Ryder and did her "I work alone" schtick, I knew she was going to be the emotionally-detached girl that's afraid of getting close to people but secretly wants family and friendship. It just annoyed me how blatant her character arc was and by the time she literally says to the entire Tempest crew that their her family now I just lost it. Also, her hating/not giving a shit about the Asari makes no sense and unlike Sera she doesn't have a tragic backstory or cultural context to explain it, leaving me confused and annoyed. Most importantly though, her dick-riding sex scene with FemRyder is objectively inferior to Sera's sex scene in DAI. Where's the progress Bioware! That all said, I do admit that did feel for her when it was revealed that Kalinda was abusive towards her. Sort of wish they didn't turn into a comedic rivalry thing during her squad mission though. 5/10.

Kallo: I barely remember this guy. He's not bad, just forgettable. 4/10.
Gil: The only remarkable thing about him is his surprisingly offensive baby plot. Good job Bioware! 3/10.
Suvi: Also forgettable and one-note. Well, that's not true. She actually had two-notes which were, I like science and believing in a vaguely defined God. Seriously Bioware you could of just picked a religion. Also, her face reminds me of a Vulcan and the Chucky doll. 4/10.
Lexi: What a waste of Natalie Dormer. Oh well. 4/10.
Reyes: Zevran did the morally-ambiguous-sexy-Spaniard-guy thing better in my opinion. 6/10.

Overall pretty meh. There's no one I hate in this game but no I love either. Just mostly meh all around. 

He seems too incompetent for someone who aims to colonise a galaxy, and the lack of role playing of course.

I know we're talking about ME, but I still shutter when I think back to "I SEE SOME DARKSPAAAAWWWWN."

With the exception of the ones signalling someone's low on health, I've been kinda wishing the battle cries would just go away for a while.