I gotta say, Ryder is a nice contrast to Shepard....

My favorite was telling the guy on Voeld that if he tried that Exaltation crap on me, I would fuck his shit up.

Did you totally miss the part, where the Intiative is failing, and as the sole surviving pathfinder(at the start), it falls on you to save they day for the 20,000+ people on the Human Ark/Nexus?  I mean, I'd say the start of ME:A is far more "holy shit we're all gunna die" than the ME1 was.  ME1 was a mystery story for most of the game.

I like how Ryder is not dead serious all the time and can be downright funny at times. It is a nice change of pace. Shepard would still win in a fight.

I don't like Ryder as a character but the character kinda works with the story.

I think a lot of "I can/can't relate to character" and "he/she is too un/serious" thing has to do in no small part with player age. Back almost 10 years ago when I played ME1 for the first time, I was in my early 20's and, while I cant say that didnt like Shepard, I often found myself too disconnected from him and thinking that he is way too serious and "stiff" in many situations, often wishing he would ease up and be more casual. In other words, I wanted him to be more like Scott Ryder we have today.
Fastfoward 10 years into present. Now I am in my early 30's, and as unbelivable as it would seem 10 years ago, a lot of my views and perspectives had changed over that period of time as well as accumulating some life experience. Prior to Andromeda release I decided to play through whole original trilogy, considering that somewhy I have neither played ME2 and 3 untill now, nor replayed ME1 since that playthrough around 10 years ago. This time I felt VERY strong and deep connection to main character, as if I was in his proverbial hide and saving galaxy myself. Almost never did I felt that Shepard did or said something that made me cringe and think "wtf dude, that's not how I would talk or do this or that" which ultimately led to extremely immersive and satisfying gaming experience. Conversations went smoothly, dialogue choices felt and went naturally, and I was easily able to imprint a lot of my personality into Shepard without game starting to feel awkward. Also I think it is important to note, that OT allowed player to shape Shepard as a character - he could be holier than though, dirty devil, or somewhere in between - game allowed to develop a natural character even with its paragon/renegade mechanic (I htink through entire OT I got locked only out of 2 dialogue choices by paragon/renegade system)
Now to Andromeda. I started my playthrough with Scott, hoping to form similar bond as I did with Shepard, hoping that the game will grab me by the balls the same way OT did. But unfortunately miracle did not happened, and playing as Scott felt completely off not due to things like animations or bad voice acting, no, it was because Scott felt, and in fact is by game lore, too young for me to be able to relate to him like I did to Shepard. His manner of speech and dialogues in general too often feels too cringy and like I am participating some teen drama forced on me. To make thing worse, you cant really roleplay in this game but only choose tone of dialogues, so it doesn't matter whichever options I choose, I still get stuck with a 22 y.o. nice guy Scotty that looks and sounds like he got out from college prior to Andromeda departure, and still keeps looking and sounding like that despite everything happening around him in this game. Ultimately I could not take it anymore, and after over 10 hours into game I decided to restart the game playing as Sara. At least with female protagonist I can distant myself more from main character and sort of observe things from the side, like in a movie, rather than having my brain unconsciously trying to immerse into character only to be hit back by a jolt of dissonance I get from Scott's acting.
Now I am not saying that Scott is a bad as a character, no its just that I might be a little bit too old for such character. The same problem I experienced with Far Cry 3 protagonist, which I never was able to play more than few hours into the story due to immature protagonist and game feeling like teen drama. I almost wish we could play as Ryder senior instead, ofcourse with all dialogues and game story remade to properly fit him in. Despite his very limited screen time, I think he showed more character and personality which I would be able to relate to, than both Scott and Sara combined. Ironically, Andromeda became a sort of revelation to me that now, among everything else, I need to pay more attention not only to games setting and quality in general, but to characters age as well, to make sure I will be able to enjoy a good game, which almost makes me feel old. I hope that next ME installment, if there ever be one, will feature a more mature character cast like it was in original trilogy.

Who is Cassian Andor? I am going through my Sci-fi library now.

That's how I feel about Scott Ryder too, I felt the main mission and the general tone of the story would have benefited from having Dad Scott being the protagonist instead of him. Can't shake the feeling that if I were one of the colonist on Nexus, I would be shitting my pants knowing that my future depended on him.

Of course I have never truly met serious Military personal and leaders? I only sorta of met them. Having never been in the military I have no idea what kinda culture they have, but speaking as a civilian, which was the case in my hypothetical situation, I would probably find someone like Alec Ryder more reassuring if I was facing starvation.

I would find Scott Ryder as a better leader and more reassuring because a lot of them are former military on the colonies.

In the very beginning, that is definitely true but I feel, especially once you have set up one or two outposts, Ryder's mission becomes more of a long term goal, rather then that tense on-the-clock struggle.


This was one of the design decisions that really worked in Andromeda IMO. ME1/2/3 had the opposite layout, that was more akin to the classical story telling you might see in a book or movie, where things get more and more intense and time sensitive as the plot develops. It was one of ME1's bigger story problems that people felt like they shouldn't really waste time on side quests because the main quest was called "a race with time". Here, in ME:A, yes we have a long term mission but it feels like we also have the time to explore and that exploring is equally important for the Initiative's short to mid term survival.
That was well done and it's actually why most of the fetch quests don't bother me that much. They fit into the role you are supposed to play (as opposed to DA:I, where they didn't). When I find another plant sample on a alien planet or a mineral deposit on the GM, I don't think "yea, why do I need this again?" I rather think "Nice, found something my people can use again."

I guess it depends how important the connection between story and game mechanics are to each player (I know many don't care really) but for me, this makes a big difference in how the game feels.

I do tell jokes at funerals though because there is no law stating you can't. I don't believe in the appropriate place and time tradition. I think a lot of what we consider to be normal is actually fucked up and all wrong.