Andromeda: Not As Bad As I Remembered

Yes, I think ME3 had an intentional lack of the silly banter due to the overall desperate tone they wanted to set for that particular game.  I think that's what made its return to ME1 style so noticeable in ME:A.  What toned it down in ME1 was that the player had to physically click on the squadmate to initiate the lines of banter and it was a thing that was only available on the Citadel and on main mission worlds... so most players simply did not initiate the lines.  They never heard lines like Kaidan saying he should have listened to his mother and brought a sweater to Noveria..

With ME:A, there was, I think, simply too much of it and no way to turn it off or to prevent it from being initiated.  They need some sort of player optional trigger/toggle that doesn't cause the same "micormanagement" situation that existed in ME1.  Perhaps an option at the beginning of each of the more major missions to turn banter on or off?  I don't have a pat solution to the problems with it... just pointing out that, in spirit and writing, ME:A is more similar to ME1 than people (particularly people who are focused on dissing ME:A) like to think.

Personally, I like hearing the "guffaw" lines in both ME1 and ME:A.  It can liven up a playthrough that's getting too serious.  I missed them in ME3.

The two lines I quoted on Therum is one of the very rare places where the squad will auto-insert a comment.  To get the "my eyeballs are drying out" comment from Ashley on Therum, you need to click on he by getting out of the mako just after bringing down the first two armatures or I believe she'll stay it if clicked on if you get out of the mako to take out the turrets in front of the base... can't remember though.  The cut-off of the opportunity might be when the squadmate (usually the other one, not Ashley) suggests going around rather than taking on the turrets head on.  Other squadmates will make different comments about the heat on Noveria if you click on them in the same spot.  I discovered this accidentally and mostly because I don't kill anything with the mako.  I get out and do it all on foot.

There are numerous places during the main missions where you can turn around and click on a squadmate to get a quip or a line of dialogue.  They sometimes will say something like "huh" to indicate that there is an opportunity there, but sometimes there is no such indication to cue the player (probably just oversights)..

I tried playing the DA games awhile back and found I just couldn't get into them... not for any other reason that I'm just not into the whole medieval fantasy genre.  At any rate, I can't speak for what they did in those games.  I does seem like a good idea to somehow ensure that the banter sensitive to the personality of the PC.  It should also be more sensitive to the progression that has already occurred in the game (a really difficult thing to accomplish in an open-world game).  In that regard, it shouldn't trigger repeatedly... and ideally, when triggered, it shouldn't just get cut off by other dialogue.  In some respects, I prefered the "click on the NPC" method used in ME1 in that, after playing the game several times, I can choose to jut not trigger any lines of NPC banter that I don't like.  It's just unfortunate that it also becomes tedious to remember to click to get the lines of banter that I do like... and I also don't really want to become responsible for choosing not only my PC's dialogue, but also all the dialogue for all the various NPC's in the game through something like pop-up dialogue wheels.

I'm sure it's one reason why I couldn't get into the Witcher series of games as well.  A lot has to do with sword-based combat.  I gave it a good college try... 2 attempts and got about 1/3 of the way through TW3 each time before I abandoned it.  It didn't help that the game was very buggy for me... lots of graphical color flashes, Geralt getting stuck, floating NPCs, and game crashes... even though I tried reinstalling the whole game more than once.

I can get involved in the occasional movie or book from that genre, but I wasn't into GoT at all from the outset.  I don't think I was ever interested enough to even tune into a single episode.  Just not my thing.