Most Underrated Game: One Year Later

Well, while it's true that you can "customize" Ryder in appearance and name, imo Ryder is pretty much also a set protagonist, the default appearances stands out and with default names you also get mentioned by them, and as far as personality goes more of the same there isn't big differences, so I don't see the point of having a customized one, they could just left the default ones and add more customization in another aspects, but well I guess maybe it's just me.

Agreed. MEA has only slightly more real RP opportunities than HZD, an action game. For me, a dialogue wheel and skill trees alone don’t make a game a deep “roleplaying” game. Every Ryder is nearly the same, separated only by fans’ individual imaginations and “head canons” (how I hate that phrase 😆 ).

Well - as soon as you add a PC voice and cinematics, you've narrowed the limits of character definition - or at least personality.

One RP "tool" (for lack of a better word) that I think is often overlooked is quest choice/prioritization.  Of course, the more on rails a game storyline is, the less play you have with that - but it can be a useful part of character expression where you have some leeway.

For example: is your character laser-focused on a specific goal, or does s/he get sidetracked?  Do you do everything available the first time you visit some place, or come back multiple times?  Would Ryder visit the comatose twin in the cryo bay regularly, or only when summoned there?  Do you stop for a drink when you visit a hub with a bar?  Converse with crew members every time you see them?  Loot everything everywhere or pass some of it?  Would you tour a new settlement and go around talking to people just to see how they're doing, or move on to something you deem more important?  When you have a lot of quests in the journal, how do you decide which ones to do when?

I'm suggesting that all of these decisions are part of the narrative you're creating, and can be part of what differentiates one playthrough's PC from another.

Only if the writers allow for these instances to actually be different. That's hardly the case with MEA. Twin only has something to say if you're summoned, the bars offer little in terms of being different to your last visit and the conversations with the squadmates are exhausted rather quickly.

They may have recorded more lines than in previous games but the gut feeling of DA:I being deeper in many aspects remains. After 900+ hours I still go back to DA:I occasionally while MEA isn't even on my hard drive anymore.

You want to know how many times I've wandered around the Normandy and got these two replies: "Shepard" or "Commander"? I can't even keep count. I think people forget. Also, with the twin awake it's not so far-fetched that they'd interact more in a second game.

I get that you don't like what they did with Andromeda, but completely going back to the way it was done in the first games could be a negative for people.  I know for me I liked the system in Andromeda more then Mass Effect 2 and 3 because I felt I could make different types of responses and never really feel like it was the wrong choice.  Andromeda did make it bland, but I think that was more to do with the implementation then the design.  The best approach that I have encountered in a BioWare game is Dragon Age: Inquisition and I am wondering why Andromeda felt to be lesser not only to that system, but also to Dragon Age 2.

Not only that I always felt the game never properly reacted to Shepard and how extreme they became, which to me was always the problem because of the vastness between the different choices.

That's the thing. I always considered DA2 to be a bad game, based on the demo I played. I only got around to buy it after I played MEA. And I was amazed at how it could feel so much better in terms of roleplaying than MEA did. Same with DAI, although I never considered that to be bad. As I said, I'm still playing it and I'm still trying out different character and companion combos, and it doesn't get old on me.

I fail to see how the range of dialogue options is a "console design choice."  They could have easily written more Renegadish, take charge lines into the current (four-descriptor) dialogue framework, the y just selected four descriptors that were not really conducive to writing those sorts of lines.  That is, nothing about casual, professional, logical, or emotional says "renegade."  They probably would have been better served substituting two more specific descriptors for the "casual" and "emotional" ones... say, "Rebellious" and "Friendly."  Both categories could have then been used for "emotional" sorts of responses, but with more opposite tones. The writers, then, would have been more inclined to include more "renegade-like" lines (even with the "new" vibes) and the "range" of different Ryders that could be developed would have been broadened.

I apologize for my vision issues - I'm having a lot of trouble proofreading my stuff (and even reading other posts is a chore).  I should be enlarging my type every time, but I hate scrolling right and left at every line.  (Most frustrating for me is when I've missed typing in a "not"... leaving some of my points saying exactly the opposite was what I meant to say.)

I think some of it was not all that conscious though.  As I explained, I think their selection of terms in the dialogue framework worked against their achieving a wider range of tones.  "Emotional" is too broad a category, so to prevent the player from being continually surprised by their PC being happy one minute, angry the next, crying in the next, etc., they wound up writing lines towards just one "emotional" state... and it wasn't all that emotional.  The "renegade" and dark humor in the OT was almost universally loved, so I don't think that the problem is that there is too many "joke" lines in this game... There's not enough "renegade" humor to suit the sort of player who was attracted to that in the OT.

As far as really sombre moments on the scale of ME3... we are simply not involved in a war that is on that level of sombreness.  We weren't seeing Angaran cities destroyed before our eyes or mounds of dead bodies lying in the streets.  If you look back at ME2, there are very few sombre moments in that game.  There is some stand-off tension and it's a more "military" environment despite Cerberus being a civilian organization (because of Shepard's background), but the difference is not as great as you're making it out to be.  Imagine now if they wrote ME2's interrupts to just one generic "emotional interrupt" symbol and you really couldn't tell if Shepard was about to shoot someone or prevent someone from shooting someone else.  That's what Bioware did to themselves in ME:A.  They couldn't put emotional range into the "emotional" category because the player needed to know what sort of emotion was going to be conveyed.

Finally, not everyone can get into roleplaying a "teenager"; but I personally don't see anything wrong with it.  I enjoyed it, in fact.  There were lots of moments, I thought, where there was no joking... E.G. After Jaal finds out what it is the kett are doing to his people through to the end of the Mosae's mission.  When talking with Lexi and Jaal about the kett DNA.  When talking with Drack during the "How to Act Tough Quest"  When talking with Cora after her LM about Sarissa.  When talking with SAM after each memory.

Well, 'speedbump" is easy to avoid since you have to run over stuff AND kill it to get the quip.  I would hop out and use a weapon, so I've only gotten it once or twice in 8 playthroughs... hardly an issue.  I rank it right up there with Shepard's "We've been spotted." line in the middle of a fight.

In the cannibal house, Drack can make a joke, but Ryder instantly chastizes him for it.  Other squadmates don't joke at all in that scenario.  No one I've taken on the quest where the Angara is torturing the Kett has made a joke at all about it.

We never had "mako" banter in the OT.  We had a little combat banter in ME3.  I'm just guessing that maybe it's the "nomad" banter you're objecting to.  The game doesn't know whether you're coming from X quest or Y, so the banter can become disjointed with the mood of whatever quest you're doing.  In my mind, that's all just a pitfall of an open-world game... and you know, I'm not really a fan of those.

I still think this is great lead-in to MEA2. A more experienced Ryder has to make some harder choices, might be rougher around the edges but not entirely losing his laid back attitude. Ryder would know when it's appropriate to chill while also know when to get tough. Also, more options to make decisions. For the VERY inexperienced 22-year old Ryder this made some sense. Ryder was thrust into a role with no preparation (it was supposed to be Cora, who is more experienced) and didn't really know how to handle. Ryder also had to earn the respect of others. Now that it's been done, the doors are open for a potentially tougher Ryder.

If they do that, I hope it is not forced on us. I really like Ryder's personality in MEA so don't want to be forced to accept a more hardened personality.