Post by AnDromedary on Mar 23, 2017 20:18:14 GMT
Is there really no ME:A review/feeback/thoughts thread? I've looked but either I am blind or there is none on the first bunch of pages. Mods, if this thread is redundant or out of place I apologize and of course, feel free to move this thread or merge it into something else.
With that out of the way, here come a few thoughts about the game. It's not quite a review since I am not that far in (played about 20 hours but going very slow and reading/listening to everything).
This will contain no specific spoilers, just some general thoughts about gameplay mechanics and evironments, should I encounter something that might be considered spoiler territory, I'll of course out it in tags. So here we go.
FYI: I am playing the default Sara Ryder, speced for Infiltrator gameplay (Energy Drain, Incinerate, Tactical Cloak, using sniper rifles and assault rifles).
All in all, I like the game so far. It does have a bunch of issues but it also has a bunch of real positives. But let's start with the issues:
1. The premise of the entire game is completely unbelievable to me. I kinda knew that for a while now but I was hoping they would give this entire thing a spin to make it better. Well, they didn't. They play the "we seek adventure, so we go to Andromeda" card straight, at least for now. This makes no sense whatsoever, given the ME universe background. In the Milky Way of 2185, there is no need to go into cryostasis forover 600 years in order to explore or see new things. Less than 1% of the Milky Way is explored at that point. It makes even less sense that the Initiative was foudned by a human 2172, at that point, humans are basically just starting their colonization efforts. It's as if Columbus landed in North America in 1492 and in the year 1505 he builds a rocket to fly to Mars. That analogy also fits with the insane technology that is suddenly available to the Initiative and that really does not fit into this universe at that time. I feel like ME:A would have been better off being a new IP altogether because its integration into the ME lore is a joke and completely broken.
- This game feels like it didn't have an art director at all. That's not to mean that it looks all bad, the environments are mostly beautiful and space looks awesome (more on that below) but the characters look mostly pretty bad (even before you add the much discussed botched animations). There are exceptions, Alec Ryder for example looks like a high quality char (even his animations are better than the rest) but most others - even the default female protagonist - look like weird disproportioned plastic figures. I am not sure, maybe it's also the lighting (under certain circumstances it looks better) but ti doesn't matter, in most situations they look plain out of place and that really hurts immersion. I think, given the choice, I'd rather have gone with worse graphics overall but with more unity in the design and quality because as it is, the disparity in the visuals keeps reminding me that it's all just polygons and textures. Having just played Witcher 3 again (a game that is 2 years old by now) this looks like a hack job. Sorry BW, the bar has been raised on this front, even for you.
- The writing is not bad overall but there are again the BW typical quests, where you are presented with a complex situation and then you have to choose between 2 completely oversimplified solutions. I hate these moments where my character cannot do the sensible thing just because it's simply not a dialogue options. The wheel has 6 slots, for god's sake, BW writers, use them!
- I feel like my squad doesn't matter anymore: In the trilogy, I could control my squad mates position and power use. I could set their loadout and abilities. It really felt like Shepard was coordinating their team and the three people fought together as a unit. Now, the keys to position my squad are pretty inconvenient (on the keyboard but all better ones are taken already), so I don't do that and I cannot give them any other command anymore, so they just do whatever. Most of the time, I am just doing my thing and I am not even aware they are there during combat.
- Speaking of controls, the M+KB controls mostly work fine, however, the manual shoulder switch really goes on my nerves (again, because the ALT key is somewhat inconvenient). Why doesn't the camera adjust automatically? I mean, when Ryder is on the right side of a cover and I press the aim button, she will pop out of cover on the correct side to aim, so the game does know on what edge of the cover I am. Why can the camera not use the same information to auto adjust and save me that stupid shoulder switch?
- I want a quicksave button again (where is my F5 go?)
- Menus are a disaster. Everything is so nested, I have to click through 5 submenus to get anywhere. Also, I often have to search the screen to find buttons. It's not intuitive and it's a pain to trudge through. Frankly, ME1 had a better inventory UI than this.
- I am give to understand that we will only be able to land on a handful of planets. Ok, the planets are nice and big but I would have preferred smaller planets but more of them to land on. BW's marketing claim that there would be 100 planets in the new ME and thus it would be the biggest ever was clearly complete BS. If they could scannable planets in the galaxy map, then ME1/2/3 would probably have had about 100 as well. That was a deliberately misleading marketing statement and I resent that kind of messing with people.
But now for some of the good stuff:
- General combat gameplay is really well made and fun (apart from the squad thing I mentioned above). Thanks to the large areas, I can snipe from a distance but often I also have to get in close. The newfound mobility with the jetpack adds nicely to combat and the enemy AI is pretty good most of the time, I think. The difficulty level is refreshingly high. I used to play ME1/2/3 on hardcore or insanity, here I play on Normal to start with. Didn't die yet but I did have some rough situations. I also tried one MP match so far (the first ever in ME, never tried in ME3) and I failed miserably even on bronze level. I kicked the bucket in wave 6
.
- The galaxy map is brilliant!!!! Oh, the galaxy map, how I love it. It is the most beautiful GM ever in Mass Effect. Finally we are back to ME1 where we actually navigate on the map, rather than shoving a little toy ship around. Finally planets look like planets with geographical features and atmospheres with clouds and storms, not like little plastic balls! I also love the new feature that we can actually see where we are out of the windows of the Tempest. Sure, windows may be structural weaknesses and it doesn't really make sense that this ship is basically made out of glass but given this awesome celebration of the beauty of space, I won't complain about that detail. Only the planet descriptions could be a little more detailed but ok, we are new to this galaxy and don't know much yet (and they no longer have Chris L'Etoille to write awesome flavor texts). Other than that, the GM is dream come true, well done BW!!!
- I like that it really fells like we are playing an explorer more than a soldier. On my first planetary expedition, I spent less then 50% of the time with my weapon drawn. Compare that to ME3, where we couldn't even holster our weapons at all and it's a big difference. Instead, I spend a lot of time with my scanner, getting information about things, combat seems more like it is something the characters have to get through when necessary, rather than the centrepiece of the game. Some people may find this boring, I think it's great and it fits the whole pathfinder premise. In Dragon Age: Inquisition, people (rightly) complained that the big bad Inquisitor who should fight evil has to go collect plants and rocks. In ME:A, while the mechanics are similar, the disparity between them and the character is gone. I am the pathfinder, so finding minerals that will help us or scanning a new plant and getting information about a planet that way is exciting because it is my purpose. It also helps that Ryder *together with SAM) is making the impression that she has a scientific mind as she is drawing conclusions from her environment. On the stormy tutorial world, we scan some alien corpses which apparently died from electric shock as they got close to some natural lightning rods. Ryder comments that this indicates that they are visitors here as well since a native species wouldn't have made that mistake. I like that there was more here than a "good riddance" one liner. It's refreshing not to play the badass soldier for once in an RPG.
- I also like the whole line up of characters. I like that they are young and a bit naive (but not stupid) and that they can genuinely wonder about and be amazed by stuff, which a grizzled veteran like sole survivor war hero Shepard would just have shrugged at. I wonder if this will hold up but at least for now, the balance between young adrenaline junkies and serious explorers is well maintained. Also, I like the squad line up. It's got lot's of woman, which I find refreshing as well. Between Sara Ryder, Vetra and Cora, Liam was the only male around for a while there. Overall, I fill the female percentage on important (especially human) NPCs is about 60% or so. Maybe it's because I am just coming out of 200 hours of the very male dominated Witcher 3 but I enjoy all that female energy there.
- I like that it feels like we have impact on the worlds we visit. I don't want to say too much because of spoilers but let's just say that succeeding at exploration here has way more impact on the worlds you visit than did the little Inquisition camps in the latest Dragon Age. That's rewarding and well implemented.
- I like the design of the Remnant. They have just the right mix of the typical Mass Effect style and alien weirdness to be super intriguing and they want me to turn on my scanner every 2 meters to see if there is some new weird bit I can analyse. They do remind me a bit of the First Civilisation in Assassins Creed but that's ok, they were cool, too.
And finally, a few point I am still neutral, undecided on:
-The characters so far are soso. Not bad (especially Vetra is cool) but I don't quite feel the connection as I did with some of the ME trilogy characters yet, even the late comers like James. We'll see, maybe it'll change but so far, I don't think I'll romance anyone yet. (By the way, speaking of romances: Does anyone else feel it's weird that we basically can start flirting with everyone in their first dialogue? I found it way better in the MET, where dialogue options like that only came later, after we got know people for a bit. This is what kept me, I think, I don't know these people yet, definitely don't want to get into that.)
- The Nomad: It's cool I guess but nothing special/ I feel they should have given it a weapon, at least for a later upgrade option. Now it's just useful, not really exciting. By the way, it still kinda handles like the MAKO (try driving over man made structures in 6 wheel drive, it bumps and bounces something fierce). The main difference to ME1 is that the terrain is made for it now, kinda like it was in Bring Down the Sky).
- Andromeda natives: Apart from the Remnant, the Andromeda aliens are just more rubber forehead aliens. They are kinda cool but I feel it's a bit of a let down and lacks imagination on BioWare's part. Where are the alien aliens? ME1 had at least things like the Thorian or even the Hanar, not just humanoid bipeds with slightly different faces and skin colors.
- The main story: It didn't hook me yet. Right now, I am more in ti for the gameplay, which is weird for an ME game. ME1/2/3 for me were really story first, gameplay was ok and the story just had some problems in the details but a great premise. In ME:A, the main story and premise are kind of BS on a large scale but have some nie details and I get mostly drawn in by the science-y gameplay. In that sense, ME:A is kind of the antithesis to the MET. isn't it?
All righty then, that's it for now, I might update this as I go along if things change or something new comes up. Until then, I'd love to hear people thoughts on other random aspects of the game like these or just your opinion on that giant wall of text above.
Good luck out there pathfinders.
With that out of the way, here come a few thoughts about the game. It's not quite a review since I am not that far in (played about 20 hours but going very slow and reading/listening to everything).
This will contain no specific spoilers, just some general thoughts about gameplay mechanics and evironments, should I encounter something that might be considered spoiler territory, I'll of course out it in tags. So here we go.
FYI: I am playing the default Sara Ryder, speced for Infiltrator gameplay (Energy Drain, Incinerate, Tactical Cloak, using sniper rifles and assault rifles).
All in all, I like the game so far. It does have a bunch of issues but it also has a bunch of real positives. But let's start with the issues:
1. The premise of the entire game is completely unbelievable to me. I kinda knew that for a while now but I was hoping they would give this entire thing a spin to make it better. Well, they didn't. They play the "we seek adventure, so we go to Andromeda" card straight, at least for now. This makes no sense whatsoever, given the ME universe background. In the Milky Way of 2185, there is no need to go into cryostasis forover 600 years in order to explore or see new things. Less than 1% of the Milky Way is explored at that point. It makes even less sense that the Initiative was foudned by a human 2172, at that point, humans are basically just starting their colonization efforts. It's as if Columbus landed in North America in 1492 and in the year 1505 he builds a rocket to fly to Mars. That analogy also fits with the insane technology that is suddenly available to the Initiative and that really does not fit into this universe at that time. I feel like ME:A would have been better off being a new IP altogether because its integration into the ME lore is a joke and completely broken.
- This game feels like it didn't have an art director at all. That's not to mean that it looks all bad, the environments are mostly beautiful and space looks awesome (more on that below) but the characters look mostly pretty bad (even before you add the much discussed botched animations). There are exceptions, Alec Ryder for example looks like a high quality char (even his animations are better than the rest) but most others - even the default female protagonist - look like weird disproportioned plastic figures. I am not sure, maybe it's also the lighting (under certain circumstances it looks better) but ti doesn't matter, in most situations they look plain out of place and that really hurts immersion. I think, given the choice, I'd rather have gone with worse graphics overall but with more unity in the design and quality because as it is, the disparity in the visuals keeps reminding me that it's all just polygons and textures. Having just played Witcher 3 again (a game that is 2 years old by now) this looks like a hack job. Sorry BW, the bar has been raised on this front, even for you.
- The writing is not bad overall but there are again the BW typical quests, where you are presented with a complex situation and then you have to choose between 2 completely oversimplified solutions. I hate these moments where my character cannot do the sensible thing just because it's simply not a dialogue options. The wheel has 6 slots, for god's sake, BW writers, use them!
- I feel like my squad doesn't matter anymore: In the trilogy, I could control my squad mates position and power use. I could set their loadout and abilities. It really felt like Shepard was coordinating their team and the three people fought together as a unit. Now, the keys to position my squad are pretty inconvenient (on the keyboard but all better ones are taken already), so I don't do that and I cannot give them any other command anymore, so they just do whatever. Most of the time, I am just doing my thing and I am not even aware they are there during combat.
- Speaking of controls, the M+KB controls mostly work fine, however, the manual shoulder switch really goes on my nerves (again, because the ALT key is somewhat inconvenient). Why doesn't the camera adjust automatically? I mean, when Ryder is on the right side of a cover and I press the aim button, she will pop out of cover on the correct side to aim, so the game does know on what edge of the cover I am. Why can the camera not use the same information to auto adjust and save me that stupid shoulder switch?
- I want a quicksave button again (where is my F5 go?)
- Menus are a disaster. Everything is so nested, I have to click through 5 submenus to get anywhere. Also, I often have to search the screen to find buttons. It's not intuitive and it's a pain to trudge through. Frankly, ME1 had a better inventory UI than this.
- I am give to understand that we will only be able to land on a handful of planets. Ok, the planets are nice and big but I would have preferred smaller planets but more of them to land on. BW's marketing claim that there would be 100 planets in the new ME and thus it would be the biggest ever was clearly complete BS. If they could scannable planets in the galaxy map, then ME1/2/3 would probably have had about 100 as well. That was a deliberately misleading marketing statement and I resent that kind of messing with people.
But now for some of the good stuff:
- General combat gameplay is really well made and fun (apart from the squad thing I mentioned above). Thanks to the large areas, I can snipe from a distance but often I also have to get in close. The newfound mobility with the jetpack adds nicely to combat and the enemy AI is pretty good most of the time, I think. The difficulty level is refreshingly high. I used to play ME1/2/3 on hardcore or insanity, here I play on Normal to start with. Didn't die yet but I did have some rough situations. I also tried one MP match so far (the first ever in ME, never tried in ME3) and I failed miserably even on bronze level. I kicked the bucket in wave 6
.- The galaxy map is brilliant!!!! Oh, the galaxy map, how I love it. It is the most beautiful GM ever in Mass Effect. Finally we are back to ME1 where we actually navigate on the map, rather than shoving a little toy ship around. Finally planets look like planets with geographical features and atmospheres with clouds and storms, not like little plastic balls! I also love the new feature that we can actually see where we are out of the windows of the Tempest. Sure, windows may be structural weaknesses and it doesn't really make sense that this ship is basically made out of glass but given this awesome celebration of the beauty of space, I won't complain about that detail. Only the planet descriptions could be a little more detailed but ok, we are new to this galaxy and don't know much yet (and they no longer have Chris L'Etoille to write awesome flavor texts). Other than that, the GM is dream come true, well done BW!!!
- I like that it really fells like we are playing an explorer more than a soldier. On my first planetary expedition, I spent less then 50% of the time with my weapon drawn. Compare that to ME3, where we couldn't even holster our weapons at all and it's a big difference. Instead, I spend a lot of time with my scanner, getting information about things, combat seems more like it is something the characters have to get through when necessary, rather than the centrepiece of the game. Some people may find this boring, I think it's great and it fits the whole pathfinder premise. In Dragon Age: Inquisition, people (rightly) complained that the big bad Inquisitor who should fight evil has to go collect plants and rocks. In ME:A, while the mechanics are similar, the disparity between them and the character is gone. I am the pathfinder, so finding minerals that will help us or scanning a new plant and getting information about a planet that way is exciting because it is my purpose. It also helps that Ryder *together with SAM) is making the impression that she has a scientific mind as she is drawing conclusions from her environment. On the stormy tutorial world, we scan some alien corpses which apparently died from electric shock as they got close to some natural lightning rods. Ryder comments that this indicates that they are visitors here as well since a native species wouldn't have made that mistake. I like that there was more here than a "good riddance" one liner. It's refreshing not to play the badass soldier for once in an RPG.
- I also like the whole line up of characters. I like that they are young and a bit naive (but not stupid) and that they can genuinely wonder about and be amazed by stuff, which a grizzled veteran like sole survivor war hero Shepard would just have shrugged at. I wonder if this will hold up but at least for now, the balance between young adrenaline junkies and serious explorers is well maintained. Also, I like the squad line up. It's got lot's of woman, which I find refreshing as well. Between Sara Ryder, Vetra and Cora, Liam was the only male around for a while there. Overall, I fill the female percentage on important (especially human) NPCs is about 60% or so. Maybe it's because I am just coming out of 200 hours of the very male dominated Witcher 3 but I enjoy all that female energy there.
- I like that it feels like we have impact on the worlds we visit. I don't want to say too much because of spoilers but let's just say that succeeding at exploration here has way more impact on the worlds you visit than did the little Inquisition camps in the latest Dragon Age. That's rewarding and well implemented.
- I like the design of the Remnant. They have just the right mix of the typical Mass Effect style and alien weirdness to be super intriguing and they want me to turn on my scanner every 2 meters to see if there is some new weird bit I can analyse. They do remind me a bit of the First Civilisation in Assassins Creed but that's ok, they were cool, too.
And finally, a few point I am still neutral, undecided on:
-The characters so far are soso. Not bad (especially Vetra is cool) but I don't quite feel the connection as I did with some of the ME trilogy characters yet, even the late comers like James. We'll see, maybe it'll change but so far, I don't think I'll romance anyone yet. (By the way, speaking of romances: Does anyone else feel it's weird that we basically can start flirting with everyone in their first dialogue? I found it way better in the MET, where dialogue options like that only came later, after we got know people for a bit. This is what kept me, I think, I don't know these people yet, definitely don't want to get into that.)
- The Nomad: It's cool I guess but nothing special/ I feel they should have given it a weapon, at least for a later upgrade option. Now it's just useful, not really exciting. By the way, it still kinda handles like the MAKO (try driving over man made structures in 6 wheel drive, it bumps and bounces something fierce). The main difference to ME1 is that the terrain is made for it now, kinda like it was in Bring Down the Sky).
- Andromeda natives: Apart from the Remnant, the Andromeda aliens are just more rubber forehead aliens. They are kinda cool but I feel it's a bit of a let down and lacks imagination on BioWare's part. Where are the alien aliens? ME1 had at least things like the Thorian or even the Hanar, not just humanoid bipeds with slightly different faces and skin colors.
- The main story: It didn't hook me yet. Right now, I am more in ti for the gameplay, which is weird for an ME game. ME1/2/3 for me were really story first, gameplay was ok and the story just had some problems in the details but a great premise. In ME:A, the main story and premise are kind of BS on a large scale but have some nie details and I get mostly drawn in by the science-y gameplay. In that sense, ME:A is kind of the antithesis to the MET. isn't it?
All righty then, that's it for now, I might update this as I go along if things change or something new comes up. Until then, I'd love to hear people thoughts on other random aspects of the game like these or just your opinion on that giant wall of text above.
Good luck out there pathfinders.
