AngryJoe's review on MEA

Honestly if there's one criticism (positive or negative, mind you, for any game) that I disregard for most reviews, it's about the writing. Not only is it way too broad an aspect to tackle (what's good or bad? The characters? world building? The theme? the main plot? that's all ''writing''), they almost never go into any details as to why it's good/bad. At best you get a handful of cherry picked lines that usually aren't very representative. You can say it doesn't grab you, I guess, but that's not really the same thing. As you said, for all the praise it rightfully gets about its character writing, ME2's main plot writing was easily the worst in the series until the endings came along.

No one is downplaying the "failures" of Andromeda. And to be honest it's far from a disgrace.

I'm not guilting people, I'll honestly think they're downplaying the issues whether they acknowledge them or not. A 8 to 10 score is generally reserved for the best games, while 2017 is still pretty early I don't see Andromeda holding up vs the rest of the competition in the score department. Nevertheless I don't go by meta critic as there's always games getting ranked higher than they should (and I've referenced a broken, unplayable mcc being higher than this game sitting at 85) and there's games getting out lower than they should. It's all opinion really, and if people are bothered by my own they have to just deal with it. If I think someone's jaded they'll need to give a really good explantation to support their stance, just like those who are obsessed and support the negativity a game gets (cuz there are people who are enjoying seeing this game get trashed on for whatever reason). 

Im looking at Andromeda all by itself, no comparisons to the original trilogy, and few comparisons to other games in general. It's a technical mess, with great graphics but hampered with animations taking away from the graphics. It then has bad disorganized UI setups, with laughable story and dialogue choices (as evidenced by the internet making fun of various examples), plus the story could've been expanded on in various points which would anwser a lot of unnecessary questions that will only be berated further if a sequel doesn't expand on it itself.  I also ask myself if this game really looks like a game that had a 5 year dev cycle,? I don't see it, as it's so unpolished it's hard to believe it. I do however take into consideration it's a brand new studio with no experience that made it, and for this being their first gamer it really isn't a bad first time experience for them. Generally devs have a mixture of new mixed with the old, but Montreal is completely new and suffered leadership roles changing mid development as well as experimenting with the frostbite engine and the newer gen consoles as this is the first mass effect to use them.

im very tolerant of bugs and glitches, I really rate this game lower to a 7 because of the story+dialogue issues and the UI issues with the inventory, crafting and quest logging. The bugs themselves would be one point as there's so much, and bugs are to be expected, but I don't expect this many bugs nor specific ones this game carries with it. When you have saves getting corrupt, having to reload saves to progress missions or make npcs even show up, as well as having to fix the viability dropping to 0%, it gets to game breaking where it will just make people call it quits. 

My opinions will be mine, just as others will be theirs, I won't actually argue with them to change their minds either but I may dig in to better understand them. If someone deems it a 8-10 fine, but I'll still stick to thinking they downplay the issues to where they're not as big a deal. I have no issues with people liking it, I like the game, I love what it has for a foundation for the future, but I'm highly critical of my favorite franchises, and I'll say what I say to maybe help others understand other people's concerns. I wouldn't be able to stand mass effect turning into the current halo where people call losing millions in sales and player retention a 9 out of 10 game with H4 or H5. 

You really believe that?! You're right you should try to understand them instead of being judgmental like Joe is.

I meant to say they shouldn't be judgmental of others who like the game. I was a bit tired when I posted. 

Judging others for having a favorable opinion? Maybe you should look into why they find the animations or find the story good or why they easily got the crafting system. 

I'd rather kill myself than play a game with ME1's gameplay, ME2's story and ME3's ending.

If I remember right, he gave MGSV high marks..... all you need to know about his opinion.

Great review! Thanks for sharing! And wait for all the patches, don't support faulty product like MEA.

Complaints about "the writing" are usually about what characters say, and here I agree with the review - too much of MEA's writing is anything between generic garbage and hilariously inane. Many main character interaction scenes with your team, meanwhile, are ok in that regard but tend to be a little boring.

Mass Effect's writing was never what I'd call good, but MEA lowers the standards quite a bit. Also, consider the delivery. I really didn't like Jack in ME2, and I often thought she shouldn't have been on the team, but wasn't she so lifelike she almost jumped out of the screen? In ME2 and ME3 both, regardless of whether what she actually said made much sense in context? I'm not seeing any of MEA's characters even coming close to that.

And don't get me started about the worldbuilding and the main plot. Another "alien" species that's just reskinned humans, and even more so than some MET species were. Another "We're turning you into X" plot. Unnecessary reinterpretations of the lore, inconsistencies, comments that make no sense. I may be a little more sensitive to that kind of thing than most people, but the angara and the main plot should be obvious as being utterly uninspired. Can't we expect something *a little* different after travelling to a new galaxy?   

40 hours is a long time to realize that you don't like something. I'm pretty sure a completionist playthrough of either ME2 or 3 clock well under that.