My Review of Mass Effect Andromeda-The Tier System-Spoilers tagged

So I am doing this in my own thread for two reasons-
A. While there is a review thread in the BSN I disagree with its options.  To me 'great' should not be the highest option available. And I have my own system of reviews which is too incompatable with it.  
B. despite having an official review thread there are at least 2 other review threads out there that the mods have let coexist with the official one.  This might be an oversight though so I have no problem IF the mods decide to merge my thread with the official one.  

Ground Rules: Little to none.  Just tag all story spoilers for the main game up till March 21 2018, and story spoilers on ANY DLC one year after its release date.  

Without further ado....

Mass Effect Andromeda: A great game hidden behind a poorly presented one.  

Playthrough stats: 
~75 hours
90% completion.  
Female Ryder.  

Opening Thoughts:  Mass Effect Andromeda reminds me a lot of Dragon Age 2 in overall presentation, polish, and some of the things it did.  It just did not have any of that games 'third act problems'.  But overall, some of the things that DA 2 got wrong, in terms of polish and padding, ME A also did wrong, and the development cycles of the two games...from what I have read in hindsight, share a lot of the same problems.  However, Andromeda still managed to be the better game because it did not fall apart at the end and maintained a strong consistant story throughout with BioWare's usual character writing and the strongest side quests in a BioWare game, at least of this type (open regional game), since Dragon Age Origins.

The Good:  

The Main Story:  Over the past couple of days I have read a lot of commentary on this games story.  To the effect that BioWare should 'fire' this staff of writers because they suck or they cannot write well.  I could not more strongly disagree.  The story presented in this game is perhaps the strongest Mass Effect story that has ever been.  Granted this is one area where I tend to notice more flaws and my opinion tends to sour on story elements in games on repeat playthroughs, but as of right now it is certainly as strong as the story in ME 1, and has no major plotholes.  And even manages to fix a lot of the plot hole errors from the MET.  

The Characters:  Perhaps a first in BioWare history, certainly a first in a while, the characters in this game were a realllly slow burn.  It took me a long time to warm up to them, and while none of these characters are my favorite characters in the Mass Effect as an entire series, they still did a good job and this cast for me is closer to Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect 2 then it is to Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age Origins.  You could not just instantly get these characters, and their story...like that of Ryder...evolved and unraveled over the course of the game.  And perhaps for the first time, at least for now, I can say the Mass Effect Andromeda cast is all well written, though the verdict is still kind of out on Peebee, so, from best to worst.  

Drack:  He is the closest character to the cast from the MET overall.  I view him as kind of a Dark Mirror for Wrex.  He has been alive enough long enough to remember the Krogan Rebellions.  He rembers what their culture was like.  And he resigned himself to the fact.  Wheras Wrex was always kind of a reluctant mercenary.  Drack, wallowed in it, and not until he saw he could have hope because of the actions of the Pathfinder did he kind of have a 'Wrex Like' perspective, but he knows he can never truly be a 'leader'...hell more of a pathfinder.  

Jaal:  First of all I love the Angarra.  They are now my favorite species from the MES.  And a large part of it is because of Jaal.  Kind of a listless warrior poet who needs direction in his life.  But its his speech patterns.  That is what I like.  I don't know if its just the way he speaks, or if its the writers attempt to show that the Angarra are still having trouble matching their voice patterns to MW speech, but its really endearing.  His loyalty mission, too, was one of the most powerful quests in the entire game.  

Vetra: Probably my most dissapointing companion in the game in a lot of ways, but still ended up being cute, and kind of interesting being the 'anti Turian'.  An outcast, BioWare seems to have a 'hard on' for characters who live outside of their societal norms and shun their social standings.  But it still works.  

Cora: The classic example of the character who grew on me slowly, I did not truly like her until her loyalty mission.  But it was fascinating watching her open up.  And fascinating watching her become more of a complete person and find her peace again.  I mean the events of her loyalty mission, and why she is in Andromeda, shows just how listless she was, and it actually worked.  

Liam: Again I did not like him until after his loyalty mission.  But I wanna talk about Liam, I really wanna talk about Liam, because he and my Ryder weren't exactly friends, and I can see him and my next Ryder really bumping heads.  He makes mistakes, bad decisions, but then he might actually be the best written squad mate in the entire game.  And I think he was 'us'.  Hopefully we wouldn't make mistakes but of all the characters to join the AI and leave the MW, he had the least reason to.  And yet he did...he left a good life behind...and on the other end he came upon a shit show.  He tried hard to overcompensate, but there you go.  

Peebee: Don't have a lot to say about Peebee, other then...despite the constant complaints of "She is Sera!" from Dragon Age, she really was the anti Sera.  

But I think one of the reasons the squad suffered, let alone the secondary characters, is because the real star of the show was...


Ryder:  Oh Ryder.  It was kind of funny when I played through Inquisition I thought 'these people are the closest to actual people I have ever seen in a game'. Not caricatures, not characters, but people...even a family.  And the Inquisitor, while they were doing their own thing, was also kind of just there.  Andromeda flips that dynamic.  Ryder feels like the most human protagonist character in a BW game, maybe in a video game ever, in history.  I mean maybe the dynamic in the Last of Us...but it was a joy to play.  And the way they allowed us to Roleplay Ryder, was pretty perfect and I can't wait for my second Ryder to be very different from my first.  Combined with the delivery of Fryda Wolf...and I can't just help but rave about how truly magnificent Ryder was.  

The Side Quests:  It is worth noting out two things: They are massively better then DA I, they really learned their lessons, and they are actual stories.  Not all of them are fully perfectly written, not all of them were literary master pieces.  They were like episodes of classic television, and even new television.  Some of them relate to the themes, some of them don't and are just relatively stand alone.  But the fact they are stories make them better.  Maybe not quite up there with DA O or Witcher 3, because of what I call a 'flow of information problem' in some of the quests,  but if BioWare can continue on this great path, I think they have a solid foundation here with Andromeda to do some truly magnificent story telling in future games.

Viability:  Viability is what makes Andromeda tick.  And work.  It took me a while to figure out, and I think this is a lot of where the criticism about the story comes from, but Andromeda was not about servicing the main story, but everything in the game...from the main story to most of the side content was about making Heleus livable, of course most of these themes came together in the...

The Ending:  The Ending of Mass Effect Andromeda was everything I have been asking for in the last two games.  It had narrative twists, plot twists, most of your decisions and your hard work mattered, it didn't end with a final cheap anti climactic if you've leveled up enough boss battle.  It was just...cool.  Seeing everything come together and finally, you did not have some stupid shoe horned decision put in the end of the game which has the potential of ruining everything.  It was actually quite...beautiful to watch.  

The bad:  

The bugs:  Are there bugs? Yes.  Are they the worst I've experienced in gaming? No.  Are they worth pointing out?  Sure.  BioWare you are on notice.  'Git gud'.  

The Archon and the Kett:  BioWare again came close to making a good villain.  But alas it felt really weak at the end despite numerous opprotunities.  Granted the ending did a lot to make the Archon go from just a 'bad' villain to a 'servicable' one.  Went a long way to redeeming him.  And the Archon and the Kett aren't anywhere near as bad as the Archdemon and the Darkspawn (or Loghain before you make that argument) or the Wild Hunt.  But there aren't as good as some of BioWare's classic villains either.  

Crafting/ mining:  This is probably the only real example I can think of BioWare 'overcompensating to criticism'.  The crafting in Inquisition was perfect.  You could go out in the world, if you so chose, and harvest materials to get your weapons and armor, or you could just wait for loot options to come up.  And despite the relative time you spent collecting materials the results were worth it, and you could really individually your crafting experience.  ANd yet, people complained, so BioWare followed every other god foresaken crafting system out there and made level limits and things of that overall nature.  And you had NO individuality, and they butchered the 'fade touched materials' system by having augments...which did not do a lot.  I know a lot of people complain about the eight power limit in DA I, and the 3 power limit in Andromeda, but fade touched materials was a nice way to kind of get around that.  

The Save system: Yeah it was bad, and it could be dangerous if BioWare goes the wrong way with it, but I have heard there are ways of getting around it so I am not going to be too hard on them.  But it is worth pointing out.  

Final Thoughts/ Verdict:  It is kind of hard not to be hard on people, kind of hard not to be hard on the media.  As everyone just rushes to judgement and follow the trends, probably in an attempt to sell more copies of their magazine they wanna go 'lets be cool and hip, Andromeda is an easy target.'  But...especially after watching the story of Andromeda, all the stories of Andromeda, come together in the ending.  It was hard to see what people were complaining about.  

Is Andromeda a perfect game? Hell no.  No games are, even my favorite game of all time had enough flaws in it to probably sink it if I focused on them.  But Andromeda was immersive, it was fun, it had philosophically deep moments, and it had good focus on character.  And that is all I really want out of a Mass Effect experience.  Out of any experience in any video game or entertainment in general.  

Now I might do a more spoilery post later, may even do a thread or two about it, and yes I will tag said spoilers.  

But for now Mass Effect Andromeda takes its rightful place among my Tier 1 games.  Which now makes the seventh such game.  Not an especially strong Tier 1 game mind you.  But it is very deserving of it and I can't wait to see what they come up with next.