ME:A Ending Thread (EXTREME SPOILERS)

I enjoyed the ending of Mass Effect Andromeda so far. However, it's just the ending of the first part. Many new story threads started and it remains to be seen which will come to which conclusion. In so far Andromeda was pretty nice, the Initiative races gained a foothold in the Helius cluster and driven defeated the Archon's operation and have come to stay... but that's about it: it's a stage victory no more and no less.

As Mass Effect 3 shows: The tricky thing is when you have to let everything come to a conclusion, when you build a story around great mysteries and are in the invonvenient position to resolve them. That happened in a lot of TV shows as well... Heroes, Battlestar Galactica, Lost.

If there is one thing that I didn't find good about the final battle and how the story evolves is that the fight vs. the Archon was always a bit distant. While he does make it very personal by abducting and using Ryder's sibling, you only punch through the trash you have fought billion times over, at no point you get to confront him. Throuhout the game Ryder says no word face to face to the Archon, nor fires a single bullet at him. We don't really know where his obsession with the Remnant is coming from and a bit more details about the internal conflicts between the kett and particularly the power structure behind the conflict between Primus and Archon would have been nice. Some details got lost because I was really fighting to stay ahead of things, figure out what the game wants of me (first they tell me I need to activate the terminals, then I need to fight kett and remnant for minutes before I can interact with it, then I need to fight the architect because it's so horribly important all of a sudden).

A bit of the story that I found a bit hard to swallow were those terraforming devices the Jardeen left behind. Activating one of those felt a bit like pushing the "I Win Button" rather than going through the hard work of making worlds habitable - as Pathfinder I am pretty much a prospector for new worlds, but the Jardeen really already solved all my problems. It's not really an achievement to activate something someone else left behind for different reasons. Being able to interface with the Remnant without the support of an AI felt a bit like the scene in Matrix where Neo was suddenly able to do "magic" even though he wasn't even plugged in to the Matrix.

Finally (alright, that's the third thing by now) the relationship between SAM and Ryder could have gone to more depth. SAM seems to have as much personality as Siri, which makes it a pretty lame symbiont. Having a symbiont is something unusual, reminded me a bit of Dax in Deep Space Nine, even though the roles between host and symbiont are transposed (Ryder, as the host, is dominant, whereas in Deep Space Nine the trill is dominant and the person is referred to primarily by the name of the symbiont). SAM might have had own ideas and getting to a relationship with him might have been interesting. Especially how he "felt" about experiencing sex through Ryder of course.

I don't consider any of this a big issue... there are numerous leads which the game might have exploited better and the opinion of which would have been the best is probably at least as large as the number of players playing it through. It's a sound and most enjoyable game as it is.

Question, since the "Kett" essentially clone other Angara to make more of themselves, does that mean the "Kett" got that technology from the Jardaan? Since the Jardaan made the Angara? I just wish though when it came to the Jardaan that we were able to interact with one of their ancient AI or something to get answers, during The Journey to Meridian quest.

We still don't know anything about the Jardaan (compared to Reapers/Protheans from ME1) all we know is that there was a war of some kind and the The Scourge is essentially the equivalent of an A-bomb from the looks of it. According to the Angara, they had to relearn space flight and all that. A lot of there history and probably technology was lost during the event so maybe before the Scourge they were able to interact with it. Also I can't help but think that the Reapers, Scourge, and Jardann are somehow all connected. Both conveniently happen during the same time during the Reaper War in the Milky Way. 

There's one thing to say about Cora that may be an unconscious turnoff. The recent patch doesn't seem to have taken care of her facial expressions. For most, if not all conversations, she's got that half smirk as if her face was paralized. I didn't play much prepatch, so it's hard to do a comparison, but I get the distinct impression of her not showing any emotions at all.

I don't think so. More likely from the enemy of the Jardaan. I suspect the Kett were designed, just as the Angara, but with a different philosphy in mind - a crude template but with the ability to incorporate genome of all species throughout the galaxy violently. A species of Ardat Yakshi, if you will, but without the backing of a ripe asari culture. If I am not mistaken the archon did mention that there was 600 years of adapting genome from species all across the galaxy within him. Sixhundred years again, about the same time the weapon was used.

I suspect the kett were a counter-design by the enemy of the Jardaan to dominate, incorporate helpful design features and destroy the creation of the Jardaan.

But of course that is wild speculation; that would be about the story if I were the writer, but I am not.

MEA kinda felt like a prequel to something awesome.

I really hope there will be MEA2, and with Ryder as the protagonist.

I've been wondering where is the other twin post ending? They just disappear without saying anything, unless its a bug? I'd assume they just hangout in Ryder's room, because BioWare characters don't like to move at all.

Hey guys! New guy here. Anyways, I just finished Andromeda last night. I brought Drack and Peebee with me to the fight, and I noticed that at one point in the final battle with the Archon including a Remnant Architect, a shuttle comes out of nowhere and Vetra comes and joins the fight. I just wanna know if is it only/always Vetra? I didn't notice any of the other squadmates join the fight so I'm not sure, but I remember Vetra shouting into the comms something like "You didn't really think we'd sit this fight out right?"

It's not just vetra. It is every one. They come at differnt points of the fight on 2 different shuttles.

That was my realisation as well. I started playing SWTOR once again and I can't honestly say that MEA's story is in any way more polished or nuanced. That should never be the case when comparing SP game to MMO.

...and I actually can play as light-hearted and reasonable sith

As for the new DLC- it isn't necessarily better, but it is new. Novelty value is certainly low in Andromeda.

When Jaal went into stupor after the first twist I remember thinking "C'mon, get over it already. You should be used to it by now". Enemies changing your people into themselves are so common in ME. Same shit, different day.

Idk, I feel like it would be a bit of a waste to drop Ryder and co. after this game. Most of this game was about Ryder finding his/her feet as the unlikely hero, I think there's a lot more story to be had with the character as s/he is practically still at the beginning of his/her career as pathfinder. Exploration doesn't stop just because we set up some colonies.

That said, I think you have a point about doing things like planet viability, I expect the next story with Ryder might resemble a Commander Shepard adventure more than the exploration romp we had this time around.

I'm on the fence about the final mission. I really liked how our allies showed up during the approach and the well deserved "Fuck yeah" moments during it, but as far as the final confrontation with baby face the Archon is concerned, I have just two words: Deus Ex.

During the final conflict in the venerable original Deus Ex (2000), we also don't face antagonist Bob Page personally, but instead fight his underlings while trying to stop him from merging with a powerful AI named... wait for it... HELIOS.

That combined with the Archon's coryphywaffles-style babbling about the protagonist being his rival was a bit much "inspiration" taken from other games.

Other than that, I found the ending satisfying enough, bringing the right conbination of closure and story threads to be explored in DLC or sequels.

Overall: 7/10.