BSNer MEA Reviews thread (based on completed games)

My vote is on Good. I'm looking away from technical issues here, with them fixed it just will be more deserved.

I guess the main selling point for me was the fact, that I wanted another ME game and MEA got it covered. Despite everything. "Death by a thousand cuts" as someone said, thankfully MEA didn't die for me, but the amount of medigel it needs is impressive. Almost every aspect of the game is plagued with bugs, oversights and sloppiness, which only gets more noticeable with carefully crafted parts around it.

Combat. Apparently the day when it becomes the strongest part of ME has come. Fluid and fun, new abilities were a good addition.

Side quests. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't get this race for gameplay hours instead of focusing on gameplay experience.
Some quests are just lowest tier MMO grind, like that "scan 20 rocks" one. Come on, Bioware.
Some are just as bland, but end with somewhat interesting twist, which still doesn't make "drive around, press G to scan" part any more interesting.
Then there are quests with promising start and proper resolution, but of course I have to visit 5 random systems in between, chasing a headless chicken in a shuttle.
Finally, quests which are devoid of empty time-sinks and sometimes even have optional completion path. I don't know work-hours ratio between first and last tier, but I'd never choose first one regardless.

Story and writing in general. I don't know even where to start, it's quality is inconsistent and all over the place.
I remember words about Kett not being typical evil mobs to shoot at. Well. They are exactly that and main antagonist is the epitome of that.
"Grey choices". I know it's super trendy right now, add these and you instantly get mature game. But. If quest simply doesn't fit for it - don't force it. It just grinds my gears to see that the obvious decision is right there, but is purposefully avoided for the sake of moral dilemma.
Main character. VA did well and it was interesting enough to see their development. If only it didn't fall short with new dialogue system. Most of the time Ryder says same thing with different phrasing, OT suffered from it too, but not to such degree.
Conveniently Adaptive Matrix. For a game about exploration and discovery, way too much of it was delegated to a plot device, which can solve any mystery in a second and then spoon feed the player with it's findings.
Companions. Some are fine, some are annoying and don't seem like they belong to Pathfinder team, but they all seem alive, I give them that.
Setting's tone - lowest point in writing. We are fighting for survival, but that's the least of people's concerns. We are at war with Kett, but most of the time both sides don't bother to fight. #WeComeInPeace and yet Arks are full of soldiers. Arks are full of soldiers, but they have only a couple of fighters and rifles. *sigh* I'll just stop here. At least that merry parody on MW history in Cultural Center was fun to listen. Give whoever wrote it a cookie or something.

Awesome review btw but what is so good about the music in MEA compared to previous games? Are you for real..?

I also have the deluxe but didn't listen to OST yet, however from what I hear in the game there is almost no music, or it's very subtle, nothing like the music in ME2 (just go listen to it!) or super emotional compositions in ME3 that still make me all feely feely today when I hear them.

The only track that I liked a lot in MEA was the one that was played in the Andromeda briefing trailers. That song hyped me sooo much for the game, but actually ingame I hear nothing interesting, musically this was the worst ME of them all, so far.

So in what parts of the game is the music so good that you would give it 10/10?

Let me give some examples where music was 10/10 for the past games:

ME1: mostly cheap and simple music but it had some good themes with my favorites really atmospheric music on Feros (all of it), Therum, and specially Ilos. The rest of the sound design was quite atmospheric as well, if not really that amazing in melodics. The introduction theme, Normandy theme and ending were really great as well. I just loved spending time on the original Normandy just because of that epic background track in the loop. From The Sky DLC had a good track to it too. And the original Galaxy map music. Is there even a background music for Galaxy map in MEA? I don't remember hearing it. If it was, it was really uninspiring.

ME2: best of the series, every character and loyalty mission had their own intense themes - just go listen to Jack, Grunt, Miranda, Samara, Tali, Mordin themes - just to list a few of my favorites.. and Kasumi DLC, Arrival DLC - square root of 906.01 equals 30.1.. make it stop! how can you forget the music there and that moment in the story? Where is something so emotional in MEA? And awesome music in the Shadow Broker DLC? Even Arrival had it's own really good, tense themes. And omg Collector music was so creepy and tense! Almost every planet/mission had their own unique, and really cool soundscape. Seriously they outdid themselves with the music in this game specially with the Collector and endgame stuff that music was from another world. Every part of the game is musically 10/10, MEA is nothing compared to it.  

ME3: Pretty damn good overall, not as explosive as ME2 but I really, really liked all the piano tracks. Every one of them was extremely touching and connected me with the story and characters, it was different, but fitting. And still had some epic themes, Mars is probably my favorite.

So... where in MEA can I hear epic battle themes like Okeer's theme on Tuchanka and Jack's prison escape? And atmospherics on Omega, and all the DLCs? Or just go listen to Ilos battle music from ME1, really good. Or the Krogan theme in ME3. I didn't hear such an immersive and touching music in MEA yet, not even close. It's all very bland, subtle and fogettable.

I don't know about the deluxe OST (I don't want to listen to it yet before I finish the game - Im about 1/2 trough), but so far I didn't hear anythinh memorable (except for the Initiative trailers - music which is not present in the game), I wouldn't give music not even a 5/10 so far.

Graphics: Ive never been a graphics whore and to me the facial animations, i got used to them in a while, but for 2017 this is not up to the standards, sure. That said, it didnt really detract that much of my enjoyment, but then again I havent played any games this lenght since ME3 tbh. The worlds are beautiful, i enjoyed them. Animations are somewhat wonky and there are some glaring animation bugs (one talking scene i had with Vetra, she was stuck in this weird position the whole time). Outside of conversations the animation looked ok. In summary, graphics and animation wise, outside of the world, it seems Bioware stuck into the past, in the worse way. Theres not that much improvement over the last games of the series and in some ways, regression. Whats with the asari clone faces for instance? After the trilogy, thats is beyond lazy. And dont even get me started with the totally gutted character creator, which is easily the most inferior in the series.

Story: I try not to compare this to the OT, and take it in as one of its own. Its quite generic. There the bad guy villain, but hes generic and boring, saturday morning cartoon level of villain, Evil for the sake of evil it seems. The story seem disjointed, some parts are done well but others are not so good. In short, its boring, theyre playing it way too safe. The stakes dont feel like theyre there that much. Many of the revelations of the story seem too similar to what we have already gone trough with in the original trilogy. Theyre ok if you come new to the whole series, but for the veteran its just way too similar and recycled plot points. There are some allusions of the deeper goings on behind the scenes, but nothing much materializes so far. Maybe in the dlc, hopefully. It compares to the collector plot of ME2 imo, which was a bare skeleton, but the suicide mission was cooler. The feeling of hard choices felt gutted compared to the ones we had in previous games. Fortunately there are some consequences of your choices, which do materialize in the last mission, with everyone you chose to save pitching in. In this case, it doesnt drop the ball, like the earth mission of ME3s did.

Music: They went for a really minimalist approach. Theres couple of nice tracks but nothing to write home about. In most of the scenes, theres no music at all, which kinda detracts from the scenes IMO(or its another bug). In all its a dissapointing soundtrack.

Characters: They do their job, it took a bit of warming into them, but I think theyre ok. They can be a very polarizing, but i got that this crew is not that of the Normandys, theyre scouts and more inexperienced bunch, aside from couple of characters, and on that front it works for me. I liked the new guy Jaal, i think hes my favorite. Drack is also decent, tough hes not Wrex. Dialogue can be so and so, sometimes its good, other places its bad or cheesy, makes you think youre watching more comedic sci-fi than serious sci-fi and thats not good, its ME, not Spaceballs or Guardians of the galaxy for gods sake. Voice acting is on point, most of the time, some line deliveries felt wooden. This needs to be improved in the sequels.

Combat: The combat is excellent. Its fast paced, theres so much you can do with the dodging and positioning. Feels great. Its too bad they took out the squad controls tough, now they just feel like these automated battle bots following you and spewing lines. Give us back squad customization and controls, please.

Exploration: Id say its definately an improvement over the games, its just that it hits a very hit and miss area. The maps are huge, but theres no mini map which makes finding places annoying. Some of the quests are intresting, but for every one of those theres like 5 fetch quests or uninspired go here, search this kind of things. We really need to get rid of quests like these, they are nothing more than padding and time wasters. This is not an early 2000's MMO. 

Id say overall its still more intresting and an improvement over ME1 boring planets with copypasted warehouses and bases, or ME2s boring N7 missions. Flying from planet to planet is beautiful, but it seriously needs a skip button(provided with 1.05 patch, thank you).

Issues: Theres some issues in this game aside from the animation and glitches. It just has this feeling of general lack of polish and like they didnt have a coherent production. Theres also lazyness(or mismanagement) seen. There are animal life on the planets but theyre all recycled, as are the bosses. The vault system is pretty much the same on every planet, even tough the vaults themselves offer a bit of variety.

Also dissapointing is that we get to a new galaxy and theres so little innovation. The first contact mission feels rushed, it could have had so much more potential . And theres only like 2 new alien races we see in the game. Why not add discovering new civilizations as mission instead of say fixing some electrical issues in the Nexus, or finding rocks or plants on planet... boring.

Overall impressions: Its a decent ME game but definately dissapointing considering it carries the series name. Its worth a buy if youre a fan especially, but some things could have been done so much better with a bit of care and love and more time. To me i felt like if I was playing the first game, with some parts feeling half finished and all that, only that they changed from mediocre gameplay and excellent story to the complete opposite. The game is fine if one is content with more Mass Effect, but theres too little innovation and too much playing safe and familiar. Its a bumpy start to a new galaxy. And after such a long time, it feels like its been left in the past. In words of the Foster Addison, from the game "this is home now. This... mess!"

As it is now im gonna score it at 7.6/10, which may rise if some bug issues and other annoyances are ironed out. Polling wise, Im really having the hardest time to decide, whether this is a good game, or merely a high ok one. Its on the knifes edge. Id say this scoring is quite generous from me, but then again i only encountered like 5 really annoying bugs in the game, the rest were not that bad, and like i said in the beginning the lesser facial animations didnt bother me as much as they do some other guys, im just that type of person. For me, what really saves this game from a score that starts with a 6 is the amazing combat, beautiful planets, decent ending, and those bits of good characters we see in your group and some of their loyalty missions, otherwise this game would have been little above mediocre.

To Bioware: If youre doing a sequel, heres what we need back: A good story, hire or get back some good writers. Be more creative  especially when doing new aliens and story. Make it more serious and intellectually tantalizing, light heartedness is ok in places, but dont swamp your whole story with it, Citadel dlc worked because we had many loved characters and the rest of the game was serious, it doesnt work if youre whole game is like that. Mass Effect is not supposed to be like Guardians of the Galaxy, dont make it like so. Let our squadmates be more than talking automated battlebots. We need more complex villains, simple tyrants looking for power arent going to cut it. And cut down on fetch quests and those meaningless "fixing the lights or antenna" types of missions, were not janitors in space! If you cant do intresting overworld, just dont do it at all. Quality over quantity. Even huge games fall if they are full of boredom.

Handle your management better, a well treated worker is a better worker. And for Gods sake, do a better quality control and polishing, you cant let your games out in this state, its just not acceptable, you are going to get murdered in opinions. Tough u probably cant help this latter one, as its your EA overlords who ultimately decide that, unfortunately for us all, right?

Even if this game didnt quite make it up there, you have laid the foundations to something potentially amazing in the sequel(s), or perhaps even dlcs, if you improve upon it, handle it right and take all the criticism fairly given here. This is your A franchise, treat it like an A, not like a B, or C. Im not saying that youre beyond the point of no return here, but youre treading on very thin ice here, if the next game raises a backlash like this one or ME3s ending, then id say you have truly given up, lost your passion for Mass Effect, and id suggest selling this IP to someone who is competent and cares.

I think I would place it somewhere between "Okay" and "Good" but just ended up voting for "Good".

Good:

-Play-style customization was undoubtedly the best of any ME title. Complete flexibility and customization of game-play was awesome.
-Crafting was also great. Augmentations and mods that were play-style defining. Several types of resources to collect and different ways to collect them.
-Maps/Environment were awesome. Big, free roam, immersive. Very well done.
-A lot to do. There is a good 30 hours of solid game play in this one. Good value.

Acceptable:

-Reverse difficulty curve was pretty steep. Made the game boring by mid-game as your character progression out paced the enemy's stat growth. It made your character build feel strong but the game got boring by late game even on Insanity. My level 30 character zeros bosses in seconds on Insanity. By level 50 I'll barely have to look at them...
-Companions were ok. Pretty standard for a ME title. They added some good banter and made you feel less lonely in the big open world. I never really felt much difference between which ones I took. They all seemed to play out pretty vanilla with the exception of better banter whenever Jaal was around. Also, they were constantly teleporting around as I used charge. Would have been better if they didn't do that.


Bad:
-Story line was really weak an had more plot holes than Swiss cheese. Bad writing.
-Bugs bugs and more bugs. I had save files that wouldn't load. I had the game auto-save when I was already dead putting me into an infinite loop of death menus that automatically ate all my previous auto-saves. Multiple times I had to manually crash the game and restart it because of bugs (fiend scenematic death caused a crash every time). I had one main story line quest (Search for the Remnant Core) bug out making it impossible to complete. I ended up doing a second play-through due to not being able to settle Elaaden and missing out on so much.  When my companions got scenematically killed by fiend. They would glitch out and not come back to life. I'd have to restart the game to get them to act normal again.
-I feel very lied to on the romance clips. Had a hot fem-Ryder (named Dick) and never once got to see her get her do the nasty despite all my many efforts. Edit: Got it on with Jaal on second play through, that was pretty good. Still very upset that I never got to see Suvi in all her glory though.
-Huge lacking in enemy diversity. Very few enemy types to begin with and many of the enemies seemed to be reskinned clones. The boss units got reused over and over and over. Almost no unique boss units in the whole game.
-Too much load screen in traveling. Space exploration was terrible because it would take way too long to hop from location to location.


The redeeming trait of the game was combat mechanics. I loved my build and the way it played. I loved it so much that I decided to play through again and put some challenge back into the game (and take revenge on the parts of the game that gave me trouble the first time due to not having the build refined yet). The combat is the most important part of any ME title. So ultimately it carried the game which gave it the "Good" rating. 

Despite the amazing combat though, the game barely gets a "good" rating due to the massive amount of bugs, and the shoddy story-line which seemingly was written by a middle school kid.

Not to hammer it again, but just seems like it was written for a Power Rangers audience. Not to mention clichéd, after clichéd characters and premises devoid of any originality. It was a shallow, hallow game - that had few sparks attempting to ignite something more than it was. Disappointing for sure.

I've been meaning to mention it, it's minor but I was watching Kallo whenever protag speak to him, it seems to me MEA salarians are not blinking correctly. Their eyelids are supposed to flick upwards, not downwards.

Yeah noticed that aswell, a minor detail, but something that should've been correct from the start. Haven't watched Tann or Pathfinder Raeka closely for this detail though, will do on my new game plus.

I think a lead writer, who is awesome and has some major skill, needs to oversee the other writers to make everything gel better.  I hope they do two things: get Jack Wall/Sam Hulick to come back as composers and get some of the great writers from ME2/ME3 to come back, such as those who wrote Jack, Thane or Legion to help out for better characters and story.

I say poach them back! Or get some writers from Naughty Dog or something.

I've already posted on the first page, but wanted to add a few more things. I have completed the game 4 times. I started a 5th playthrough a short time ago. Still need to get a few trophies to get the platinum trophy.

Anyways. I wanted to mention the mission that takes place on the Archon ship. It was a case of dumb meets dumber. The characters filling those roles is Rookie Ryder and Archie the Archon.

When arriving, the player sees the salarian ship is attached to archie's ship. This should have changed everything. If anything, this should be like a suicide mission without the suicide, but it wasn't. Since Ryder was able to get on the ship and talk with the salarian pathfinder without being detected, I would would have called in a couple of strike teams. A couple of shuttles show up. Tann would not hesitate sending them since its his people that are in jepoardy. I would also include all squadmates for the mission. A couple of teams would help find any missing salarians while Ryder heads to archies room. I would also have on the strike teams engineers. I want to commandeer archies ship. It would very useful to study to get a better understanding of the kett.

Long story short, they're able to take the ship, but archie is able to escape. But before doing so, he was able to trap Rookie Ryder and squad so he could do his giant needle in the neck thing.

Now to archie. As soon as the alarms went off on the ship, I would have fired at the salarian ship destroying it. If you want to make the guy a villian/bad guy, then make him one. Personally I found him to be a joke. The fiend would make a better villian than archie.

The other thing is the decision to save krogan or the salarian pathfinder. What a lame thing to put in the mission. Before reaching archies room, you see a krogan in a tank. At that point the sam voice never mentions any other krogan onboard, but when RR leaves the room, the thing now detects krogan. Sure.  Rookie Ryder should not have to make a decision. Had the other squadmates participated in the mission, this would be easy. Its put in for the feels.

Remember the Ashley/Kaidan thing. If you have all squadmates recruited before Virmire, why couldn't Shepard have a them go get A/K while she/he gets A/K? If all aren't recruited, get the 2 guys standing at the doors get A/K.


Now the asari. On the asari ship, an asari, with the help of Cora, is able to create a barrier to repel a number of missiles. Sure. Was it done because it looked cool? The same with that asari on Meridian destroying a few kett fighters. Why wasn't that seen on Thessia in ME3? What changed Bioware?

How about the asari launching the escape pod to the planet? Was that done because it looked cool? It was stupid. My Ryder can't drop kick the asari to the next planet. Not even kick her off the squad. Lame. Very lame. How hard would it have been for Kallo to put the tempest as close as possible to ground and let rookie ryder jump out like he/she did when looking for Meridian? Wait a minute. Does that make sense? Hmmm. Maybe a thread needs to be created about things that don't make sense in MEA.

Back to archie. A real villian would have taken over the Nexus and the arks, if present. While he heads to Meridian, a kett force stays behind. So ends the Andromeda Initiative. At least the player is there controlling the other rookie seeing what's going on. Too bad the same couldn't be said about the Citadel going to Earth. It just happened.

I mentioned that the most interesting part of the game is the remnants. I'm also curious to know the details about the benefactor, Jien Garson's death and what Primus will do now that archie is dead. If there is to be a sequel, I like for the game to answer those questions. I also like to continue rookie Ryder's story

Ok. Back to playing the game

I just completed the game for the first time and if I had to put a number on it I'd probably give it a 7.5 which is really low for me and a Bioware game (with the exception of ME3 which as a standalone I'd give an 8 but as the final part of the trilogy can't even rate it). But I still really really enjoyed playing Andromeda and will be starting a NG+ later today...

Story: I'm not really bothered about the plot not being earth shattering, but there is something up with the flow of the story which I think detracts a bit from the the overall experience, and it is really immersion breaking when comments banter and conversations which have become irrelevant due to the story developments trigger. I don't know that it might work better for me in my second PT with some serious metagaming.

Characters: I found them to be likable and I know that I am just as attached to them as I was to the ME1 crew after my first PT. I actually probably prefer them overall (love Drack and Reyes). I also really liked Ryder and the fact that she's a bit of a rookie.

Gameplay: Great, although challenging for me at the start as I've not been doing a lot of gaming in the last year - rusty as fuck!

Some strong DLC and extensive bug fixing, and more autosaves and the ability to save during priority missions could elevate this game to at least 8.5 for me. I do hope that Bioware persevere with the overall direction going forward because I think there is a lot of potential for Andromeda if given the chance.