So what's the hate on Andromeda all about?

Some of the hate came from people who hadn't even played Andromeda, calling it an SJW game because there were male/male romances in it (funnily enough these types never seem to have a problem with the lesbian romances) and 'bioware made all the women ugly!' (while ignoring that the men weren't that good looking either) and shitting on the facial animation when the OT has its own share of bad facial animation (Jacob seemed affected the worst in my PTs of ME2)

True. The preface of "some" is vague enough to make this statement true. It is incorrect to paint this as the predominant narrative, if that is your intention, though. It got panned even by people who did play it and the entire presentation put a lot of people off from playing it.


Also true. And has been true since Inquisition, for both genders. Everyone in every Bioware game since, the jump to Frostbite looks ugly. But the characters looked ugly in the leaked Andromeda Unreal Engine tech demos as well




A lot of it comes with the technology available at the time and the standards set by the industry, at the time. What was acceptable industry standard once, is no longer, after a certain period of time. While the MET didn't have the best animations of its generation, it was generally on par with most of the industry at the time. They weren't Naughty Dog, but even 2010's Naughty Dog is shit compared to 2020's Naughty Dog. Like, in spite of being made in 1991, "Zelda: Link to the Past" is still a landmark in gaming. ME3 couldn't even had a holster animation. And I, at lest, criticized it for it. I understand the reason, as explained, it is still a terrible justification. ME3, in gereral, made a number of bad decisions, as did ME2, as did ME1. One title may have done more, another may have done less. If Andromeda made some choices that actively put people off from trying it, that is on Andromeda. If it was criticized for not being at a level of quality as expected of it, in comparison to its contemporaries, that is on Andromeda. The MET only had to be a good title that performed close to the standards of its time. Andromeda came out in an entirely new console generation. They're not even in the same ball park. It's a false equivalence.

It does. It looks like they just ported the alien designs that were built for UE4, into Frostbite and that didn't translate that well, while for the human models, it looks like they are repurposed Daz3D models. But they all look terrible. Which makes it look like the change to Frostbite came, perhaps, too late in the production cycle and, well, it takes too long to make any short of model, to be ready on time, in the last 18 months, while also having to make the game, from scratch, on a new engine.

I'd say that it's definitely brighter. I don't think that makes it better. I'd expect, since it's supposed to be raining at that time, that the lighting would be a lot softer and wouldn't look like there was an intense bright like coming from behind the camera. One seems more natural, than the other, but that's just me.

Lighting quality and small details also face shader etc.
But as this was FX preview such things are tuned and the whole lighting tuned later on. If this was done with the early toolset with FB the toolset changed, from what I've read, after some time which brought understandably the problems of getting data across properly, and time restraints closing in...

If I had a choice, I'd rather be overpraised, than overhated.

I disagree. Both are very helpful. Look at what was so highly praised and keep it, if it gets criticized for being more of the same and therefore boring, give it a twist next time. If it was overhated, look at the criticism and either rework it, or scrap it entirely. You don't have to reinvent the wheel with each new title, but sometimes you might have to.

I thought the story was decent but let down by its delivery. Looking back a lot also depends on how you perceive the Angara and whether between them and the other folk you meet - you become invested in them enough to care. The Angara introduction makes a lot of sense but does very little to make me care for them. It felt like another first contact Kett style was one cultural misunderstanding away and not much changes on that front. Before that your treated to the leadership of the AI who for me went from tolerable and mildly likeable to 'can't we fire these people' by the end. ME1 may be a bit blunt by comparison but I did feel better invested in its characters and goals. I thought the Kett and Exaltation were quite well conceived but I didn't really realise the horror of it until later in the game when paying closer attention on the Salarian ark/flagship. Its really quite disturbing both in the end goal and the cold indifference of the process - that moved me and retrospectively invested me much more in the plight of the Angara. But there in lies said issue - I had to go looking - I had to ignore the urgency of the mission and stop look and listen. Its one small problem among many other little things that bring it down for me - not to the point where I'm left thinking its awful but where I think twice about playing again.

I didn't dislike the crew, even Liam but some of the scripting and handling of personal quests could have been better. At times with the crew and the main missions they did a good job of conveying the barely organised chaos of being on the frontier but I never really got the sense of an explorer outside of the introduction. I felt more like a soldier the majority of the time - I would have liked a bit more discovery, not that I have any idea how you implement that!

I agree with what others have mentioned on levelling - feels a bit zero sum. I don't have serious gripes about the gameplay but miss a bit of slow-mo scope action from time to time and the implementation of profiles especially switching them on the fly. I think the intent was to create more flexibility but it does the opposite for me.

Its far from bad overall, whenever I think about scores I usually end up on 6.5/10. I do feel a well executed sequel would do a lot to enhance the first outing, just as the original trilogy reinforces itself by playing out the consequences of earlier decisions.

Simple, the characters were in their core, made to teenager players.
It failed ofcourse.

I still contend that there's a pretty good game within Andromeda surrounded by too much filler content. Yes, the Nomad was more controllable than the Mako from ME1, but all the driving around and fighting cookie-cutter battles with Kett and Outlaws really began to wear out its welcome after a while. The characters weren't as memorable as the ones in the original trilogy, but if they'd made the narrative a little more focused, they probably still could have carried it. After playing both Andromeda and DA:I, I've come to the conclusion that open worlds and "more and bigger" just aren't Bioware's strengths.

I think MEA was a victim of bad timing, bad marketing, and sloppy management but the game itself is fun. When you accept that it isn't the trilogy and realize it doesn't have to be the trilogy it can be fun to play and it can offer a fun alternative that is still mass effect. I don't consider it an equal to the trilogy but it doesn't need to be. I find it's more open ended game play allows for some experimentation. I just hope they don't abandon the andromeda setting completely.