Thank you BioWare.

Truth be told, I'm not even sure how BioWare could have done a copy/paste of The Witcher 3. Mass Effect is an entirely different kind of experience, focused on the rise of humanity and its journey through the stars. The Witcher is about Geralt and his friends, as well as the cruel, harsh world that they live in. They are very different kinds of experiences, even if there is some overlap in terms of game design philosophy.

BioWare has always put its own spin on concepts and I didn't expect MEA would be any different. It's not a perfect game, but I do believe that BioWare does improve and perfect their game design with every new installment. I'm looking forward to the DLC, the new IP, the inevitable DA4, and of course MEA2.

Well, good thing they didn't then! 

I also should note another thing that I really appreciate about the game is how it pretty much clearly identifies, by and large, what the 'fetch quests' are. The 'Tasks'. I have been pretty much avoiding them like the plague because I know...while Fetch quests aren't neccessarily 'bad'...they aren't always my cup of tea. And yet I have still managed to put over 40 hours into the game, have the last two quests to finish, and I am still not even close to being ready to start either one of them.

In Witcher 3 the Fetch Quests were kind of out in the open in a russian roulette, lucky if you get good ones, damned if you get bad ones, god forsaken question marks. If I ever do another run through the Witcher I just might ignore the question marks in the base game, some of them were good and fun, like the bandit camps and abandoned sites, but yet some of them were just so mind numbingly tedious. Yet Andromeda, clearly marks, 'here there be fetch quests'.

Agreed. And also from me a big THANK YOU Bioware not to do a Sci Fi Witcher. So refreshing.

BTW and forgive my curiousity - since I read that so oftern, why is Witcher considered a mature game?

The Witcher series has always been known to grapple with very dark and unpleasant social issues most games would never touch. Ranging from rape, to racism, to drug and alcohol abuse, it tackles the ugliness that is the human experience and gives the players control over how they overcome these challenges. No one in The Witcher franchise is truly innocent or evil. There are shades of grey to everyone, and it's up to you to determine how you will ultimately judge them as you move forward. CDPR has largely been successful in dealing with these very sensitive issues in a respectful and appropriate manner. I also give them a lot of credit for having the courage to address these issues in gaming, rather than focus purely on entertainment and what sells.

Witcher developers are a fan of Bioware and specially Mass Effect. Bioware even lend an engine to CDPR for Witcher 1. they are different games however. one is about the journey of a monster slayer, the other is to a party based game about your bonds which is why when it comes to character development Bioware has the advantage.

From a technical point of view however it is hard to copy what Witcher 3 had. it didn't offer anything new but CDPR polished what we had before to a great extent. for example as tech junkies they managed to make the best conversation system in the industry so far so even fodders easily show meaningful facial emotions during a regular conversation. it is just one example though. try jumping in water in Andromeda and do the same in Witcher 3. in former you get a "you are leaving the mission area" instead of at least getting a proper animation for getting out of the water (i am not asking for the ability to swim in Andromeda). CDPR gone all out with Witcher 3.

Also Witcher 3 did separate fetch quests from regular ones if i recall. they even separated expansion quests from the vanilla ones. even the fetch quests in Witcher 3 are detailed though. the build up till you reach each different creature (and there are many) with their own weaknesses is well done but can get repetitive of course. also Witcher 3 feels more mature cause they tackle darker matters more head on even though it may not be that deep.

With all my praises for Witcher 3 one might believe i think it is the best game ever, yet i don't think so despite loving it since i really care about character development. Geralt spent three games to reach the end of his story as a follow up to the books and if you ask about his journey from the trilogy, most are gonna talk about the Baron while not even remembering who for example Vesemir is. if there is a mod that switches Keira's skin,voice and name with Triss, most are probably not gonna even realize the difference cause as characters they are not presented uniquely enough in the game and don't have enough development despite Triss being in all 3 Witcher games. of course this is just my opinion. Ciri and Yennefer finally having their big debut in the trilogy was a great thing honestly cause they are at least more unique.

I liked how they mixed the ME1 atmosphere and sense of 'discovery' with a new generation of game design. I hope they continue with the light tone. We've had enough of these 'dark days are coming' sillyness in the OT.

Definitely A+ for effort and creativity overall. Just sad that it wasn't worked out to perfection.

Actually Bioware said they are going to "copy" how the Witcher 3 does its side quests. They never said they were going to copy Witcher 3 entirely. Although I wish they would "copy" the business practices of CDPR more; like proper full size expansion dlc rather than some 2 hours long DLC but that remains to be seen.

There are a lot of complains about the side quests in ME:A; fetch quests, busy work, etc. To some extend that is true but it is a huge improvement over DA2, DA:I and ME2~3. Unfortunately, some of these quest are seriously poorly written and executed. For example, the First Murder quest. Nice twist but poor conclusion - who the hell wrote that?

A lot of quest gives players ambient information about the lives of the colonist, some in the form of datapads and some you can read about in the terminals. In this regard, it is very similar to how Witcher 3 uses small side quests to give player insights into the lives of the common folks, to create atmosphere. Kadara Port for example tries to show how hard life is for the exiles, how innocent folks are caught in the cross fire, the ugly things that people will do when survival is at stake. How well these quest are being presented is another topic but in general, these busy work/fetch quest has context. Context that fits the setting of the story.

Where Bioware fell on their faces this time is that these quest did not show impact, did not have impact. So I choose A over B ... and nothing is different. So I did this instead of that... nothing is different. No matter what I choose, the outcome is always the same, somehow things will always work itself out.

There is a difference between a lighter tone and simply being juvenile. Some of the writings and presentation in ME:A are simply juvenile.

I have not played That Polish Game, and I certainly would like to thank BioWare for daring to release a sci-fi and lighthearted game instead of another Modern Dark Ages spin-off. And for being the only company that still lets the player to customize the protagonist and getting flack for it when all the other games do not, and don't even make their games for PC, and get their games praised with 90+ critic scores.

And now I really want a Space Witcher. Thanks OP.

In my opinion, the "decisions mean nothing" complaint rings a bit hollow.  Let me explain.  ME:A, to me, is VERY MUCH a "journey over destination" type of game.  The "major decisions" of the original trilogy did lead to differences, but those difference didn't really matter in the long run.  And in many ways, trying to herd all of the divergent paths into a manageable direction could lead to some coding nightmares if they DID make huge differences in the game.  Which is why if we let the council die in ME1, we still wind up with the same council, just different names.  I think even the same VA's, so it was a cosmetic difference at best.  The only decision that truly affected your playthrough of the trilogy was the Virmire Survivor, and that didn't affect the whole story itself, just which squadmember was with us during that story.

We don't know yet if any of the smaller decision will have any impact in future sequels (Sloane vs Charlatan on Kadara, for example) but even if they don't, they serve to define how you handled each situation.  Contagion quest:  Did you save the woman and let the angaran go?  Or did you let her die (since she was dying anyway) to prevent the Roekkar from gaining a potentially devastating bioweapon?  Neither outcome made any real difference within the game itself, but they do have different outcomes.

And even if the outcomes aren't fully fleshed out in sequels, I still maintain that in ME:A, the journey is more important than the destination.  How you choose in that moment is more important than the results of the decision.  I really liked that Bioware gave us MANY of these decision points that helped us to define our Ryder a little more.  Pragmatic or altruistic?  You don't see it as much in the conversation options for much of the game, one of the weaker points of ME:A to be honest (although I didn't find most of the conversations bad, per se, but improvements are always welcome) but you saw that dichotomy in many of the choices we're presented with.  I thought it was a fairly fluid, fitting way to bring that kind of thing into the game.  Implementation could definitely improve, no arguments here, but I think some people (not necessarily you) take this point and blow it too far out of proportion.

As far as juvenile writing goes, I will admit some of the dialogue was a bit cringey, but overall I would put the writing on par with the original trilogy.  I wonder why this idea of bad writing and childish/juvenile/teen fanfic levels of writing came from.  I honestly would like specific examples of this, so I can see where people are coming from.

Wait, are you telling me you actually did all those question marks?

Because they were the true stupid MMO fetchquests, and Inquisition actually did better by not having those in.

*spit* but yeah, Witcher has no faults whatsoever, folks. Nope, not a single one.