Thoughts on ME:A

Achievement Unlocked: Masochist

I managed to get everything to 100% once. To some extent it was DAI that "cured" me of completionism. I was usually compelled to do every mission and get every crate / mineral, etc in the ME trilogy but the bugged collections and just flat out time wasting in DAI finally turned me into a "minimum power" player for that game. And that sort of carried me into MEA.



Expectations probably. Some probably thought they would relive the feelings they had with ME1 or ME2 back in the day. Others probably thought if they could turn ME3 MP into a single player, open world game it might be amazing. I had somewhat tempered expectations since I was somewhat disappointed with ME3 SP and also do not believe that "open world" is necessarily a strength for a game that is at its core a shooter.


To each their own. I will concede that it has some strengths, but I don't care for the classless system so much. To an extent I would say some changes made various powers feel a little more generic, especially due to the way the combo system works. There were probably too many powers included in SP as well, but some old standbys that were somehow left out.


Balance is definitely off. But it also depends in part on how you are playing. For instance, the last run I started up I was determined to be a pure combat character. This was somewhat annoying on Habitat 7, but started to pick up when I crafted a decent rifle on Eos. Then through around 30 or so I mostly improved every level. However, at that point I had basically three actives and most of the good passives and so the character began to get weaker every level relative to the enemies.

You don't really have this problem if you start investing in the tech and biotic passives since you get extra buffs, and have a little more variation in powers. It also makes Fusion Mod of Adrenaline a lot more useful since the only Combat power that this really benefits is Turbocharge. The rest are basically power cell based. Concussive Shot doesn't have to be, but it is nowhere near as good as most tech or biotic powers IMO.

I may be in the minority, but I would rather have to press a button to go into cover. I am used to just trying to use soft cover from ME3 and actually prefer that. This is a minor thing though.

What isn't minor is that I think it is strange that cover is emphasized as much in this game given that they attempted to improve mobility with the jetpack and other tweaks. Regen is pretty crap if you aren't in cover, and there really isn't much in the way of a Havoc style aerial passive to make jetpacking very fun. I think this is in part responsible for the meta that pushes most builds to basically charge spammer or sniper. I suppose just a "life support" spam tech CQB guy exists, but isn't as good.

Ah well. It is fun enough, but it wasn't like ME1 or ME2 where I was addicted and just had to do at least one run with every class, or in this case I suppose style.

All of that said, really this isn't why I haven't played it over and over again. That has more to do with the plot and characters, as well as the mission design.

Managed to do that twice only, using different tips as no understanding sometimes what I should do at all. Wasted time killing enemy camps in circles just to get some scan finally. Half a hour to finish crappy useless sidequest.

Even DAI is not near MEA in this.

Did 100 % tasks just for the hell of it, had nothing better to do it seemed. But agree, it is sort of "masochist" path.




Have very close opinion about that with RedCeasar



I actually did not care about "unnatural" eyes before patches (more intrested in combat tbh), but read/heard many complains about that as well.

Some things dissapointed because I could not find any logical explanation such as "where is my warp?!" Timing of the game events is suitable not to take out this power.
Before some patch serious combat was usually screwed as there was some glitch and the only solution at that time was to reload and start again to fight some architect and again I had that combat glitch, the game started to crash or something.

I like MEA combat in general, but it was not a good start for serious encounters where I had to start over and over. It ruins game experince.



Depends, of course.
Many players enjoy such things from what I've heard. I just can't. In MET I can't use ED for Adept. I am an adept, I know nothing of tech-whatevers, the most I can do - fix PC maybe.

In MEA it was the same: Vanguard? I use biotic and combat powers + favorite crusador. Sentinel? Biotic + tech and I am invincible actually (nothing new from ME2 and ME3).

Not long ago was trying to play pure soldier, asked other players some advice, started to play and it was fun, but my PC crashed and now can't continue.




IMO in this case MEA is very close to DAI: in DAI it starts from the very beginning, in MEA after some levels, but in general what you can do just pick some crappy armor and weapon with points in botic/tech/combat and just push the "attack" button over and over.
Very fun...
No balance at all.
Engineer, one of favorite classes: already in the very beginning combination of two powers with explosion and you are invincible using Avenger and armor you found (or your initial armor).

To make PC more grounded: no mods of course, augments, very simpe armor and weapon. It helps, sort of. At least it was something for me.
But crafting systeme, mods, different weapons? It is wasted in that case. And it is a huge part of the game, which is fun.

Another thing off balance and what tried to do: I can use new crafted armor and weapon and my powers when the game is over. But I want to test them in other major quests, LMs etc. What I did: made fast PT and ended the game with lvl 28-29 (used Sentinel as the most powerful class for faster PT). After used NG+ and aready could use crafted things (even of low level) and some powers, but still had not enough points to be overpowered...till got certain level.



Cover is good, only could never understand what's that about. I really like to be mobile in MET, in MEA it is even better, much better, so the point of cover when I can shoot enemies without getting damage myself is strange to say the least.
So the point of including such convenient cover and at the same time add greater mobility which makes combat very fun and entertaining, is a strange thing to do.
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I like this game, but not as ME2 which is my favorite from MET. Combat is really fun. So played from time to time. Now can't install it because of PC problemes, but would like anyway to replay.

Useless sidequests could be ignored.
SAM is vey annoying as tells again and again one and the same thing as if I lost my memory and forgot how can mine or look at device which explains what I can do.
Fixing overpowered PC is a probleme indeed.

MEA is a nice game to play from time to time.