A critique on MEA's problems that are NOT about the animations.

Not even in a million years, jacob was an incredibly bad character, boring and forgetable, he is for me the worst companion ever, maybe except for morinth, that backstabing serial killing bitch.

Drack on the other hand is just so cool and full of charisma.

Jacob was the only halfway "normal" person on a ship full of over-the-top bad@sses.

What is your definition of normal?

Jacob is a biotic by the way, and even if he was not. What does it have to do with his personality being boring and that he is an extremly forgetable character? Ahsley in the first mass effect was "normal" and she is way better written, not perfect, not the best character but definetely way ahead of jacob.

Sokka in the last airbender is "normal" and he is a fully fleshed out character and a well written one, since when being "normal" excuses a character being uninteresting? 

Jacob was a good soldier frustrated by bureaucracy and complacency.  He's just a guy trying to do the right thing.  That makes him relatable.  Heck that makes him not much different from Garrus!

Andyeah, Batman is a good example.  Superman foiling some bank robbers is boring, unless they have kryptonite or magic at their disposal.  Because, face it, ordinary bank robbers aren't going to be much challenge to the guy who's bulletproof.

Batman, however, isn't.  He's a great athlete, detective, and has access to all sorts of technical gizmos.  But he's still just a guy in a suit.  He can get hurt, even by ordinary bullets.  There's tension in that fight because a moment of distraction, an error on his part, or just bad luck on his part could prove dangerous for him.

I write this 'review' of sorts having finished the Single Player and now playing Multiplayer almost exclusively (well, what can I say, it IS fun, when it works). However, aside from the animations issues that everyone complained about (which, strangely, I never encountered) there's other problems I find with Mass Effect Andromeda that I would like to hopefully bring up. So, without further ado;

I will start with the most constant one; the companions (bar Vetra and Dreck) are AGGRAVATING. We have Cora, a commando with no grasp of the concept of FUBAR and zero adaptability. We have Liam Costa, a 'crisis specialist' who creates more issues than he solves. Then we have PB, who's romance is shoved on our faces with all the grace of a warhammer -but I can't help but feel like a pedophile every time it comes up because of how childishly she acts. I mean, seriously, she calls herself a 'scientist' but considers it a 'plan' to eject an escape pod from the Tempest at terminal velocity towards a volcano. Jaal is a self-righteous moron who believes the Angara can do no wrong. Of course not Jaal, the Angara are saints, they must all have SOME reason for wanting to shoot the one guy in the cluster who has repeatedly saved them. No, really. The companions feel like caricatures with 'traits' thrown on them by someone who just openened up TVTropes and chose a bunch of random tropes, stuck them on and said 'neeeext!'. Even Ashley (from the original trilogy) had more personality than them.

Next is the weapons/powers balance. Or rather the lack thereof. Weapons VASTLY outshine powers in the game. While, yes, I do agree that Ryder is NOT a hero (like Shepard, he was a proven War Hero by the START of the trilogy and a legend by the end) but that doesn't justify having this much of a difference. Even combos are really not all that useful. Handy, yes, nifty, sure. But when it comes down to it, my PAW is FAR more effective at tearing through opposition than my three powers.

By far the most important problem with the game is the LACK OF IMAGINATION. You mean to tell me, we crossed DarkSpace, went to a COMPLETELY different GALAXY... and both sentient alien species we meet are; bipedal humanoids, with eyes, noses and a mouth, utilize weaponry that is compatible with humans, there's large lizards and mushrooms and trees... Are you KIDDING me? The first trilogy had more of a varietion on the aliens; the Hanar, the Elcor. Those were DIFFERENT. They were UNIQUE. They were IMAGINATIVE. All the Kett and Angara feel like is a damn SKIN SWAP. Seriously? You could have done ANYTHING you thought of with the ability to have 'brand new species' and you want to tell me NONE of those responcible of artistic creation so much as looked at a Spore video? You could have had metallic plants and rocky fungi, aliens that are part gas or work in hive-like states (as inspired for example by the ocean-dwelling organism called a 'Man-o-War'). Colors, textures, everything could have been tweaked and moved about. Heck, you could have at least asked Neil DeGrasse Tyson (or any biologist) for ideas and they would have given you at least the basis of an idea for a more creative, but realistic, species. Honestly, I feel gypped with this.

Finally; the Multiplayer is FILLED TO THE BRIM WITH ISSUES. Constant crashes, enemies that are absurdly tough (do I really need to empty half my Revenant magazine on a Raider to kill him? -not that I don't enjoy the challenge), there's lag, no ability to converse with teammates without VoIP, no actual Friends List (and don't even START me on the 'Origin In-Game', because it increases my ping by about 400ms every time I turn it on). For crying out loud; at least fix the crashes, I'm sick and tired of losing stuff because of this.

That said the game is NOT bad. It has great combat feel (again, there's the fact that Ryder isn't a 'war veteran', he's an explorer, and a new one at that, so we can't expect him to be a one-man-army). Love the jetpack and individual power cooldown, the crafting's cool, loads of lore and quests to keep us invested, the Nomad's fun to just drive around the sites etc. I'd have loved taking part in a space battle (who wouldn't) but hey, exploration force, having frigates and the like probably wasn't the first thing in their minds. Hoping to see that in the next installment.

Here's my advice; fix the known bugs, add creativity. More importantly; when the second installement comes, make its multiplayer compatible with this one so, even if you can't buy the second game, you can still play and enjoy it.

Thank you for reading. Despite my misgivings, I enjoyed the game and do not regret buying it. I just have a hard time enjoying it to the maximum, as it should be -and I do believe that companies as large as Bioware and EA should provide better content.

Well said!

I am so tired of the "you can't compare three games to 1 game" defense. 
1) If Bioware didn't want us to do that, then they shouldn't have put Mass Effect in the fracking title. 
2) The only reason I played ME2 and ME3 was because I liked the story and characters in ME1. If they sucked so bad, then why did anyone bother with the next two games? I seriously doubt I will play MEA 2 (unless it gets some utterly amazing reviews). Why?  Cause the story and characters in MEA were juvenile and boring.
3) Mordin and Thane and Legion...3 amazing and popular characters, all introduced in ME2. I loved them all then and there.  I did not need anything that happened in ME3 (ie, all three of them dying ) to solidify my like of those 3 characters. My replays of ME2 prior to the release of ME3 can attest to this. 

But, I guess we are all just idiots who don't remember what we actually liked and disliked about the individual games when we played them. I can't argue with the "rose-colored glasses" defense of this shitty game.

And if you try to compare this shitty game to other amazing games,  people freak out about that too and say it is unfair.

All I can say is, for myself (ie, my own dipshit opinion that I am not forcing on anyone else), and without comparing MEA's characters to either the previous ME games OR to other games, I thought they were dull. Utterly charmless and dull.

...expect for Drack...

I wanted to hear more about his time with the Corsairs.  At least he didn't blow me off with "calibrations" 

"Trying to do the right thing" is the basis for a lot of interesting characters.  Good and bad.

Your entire argument against Jacob is "he's boring"  You never said what is boring about him.

Not even in a million years, jacob was an incredibly bad character, boring and forgetable, he is for me the worst companion ever, maybe except for morinth, that backstabing serial killing bitch.

Drack on the other hand is just so cool and full of charisma.

Well said!

I am so tired of the "you can't compare three games to 1 game" defense. 
1) If Bioware didn't want us to do that, then they shouldn't have put Mass Effect in the fracking title. 
2) The only reason I played ME2 and ME3 was because I liked the story and characters in ME1. If they sucked so bad, then why did anyone bother with the next two games? I seriously doubt I will play MEA 2 (unless it gets some utterly amazing reviews). Why?  Cause the story and characters in MEA were juvenile and boring.
3) Mordin and Thane and Legion...3 amazing and popular characters, all introduced in ME2. I loved them all then and there.  I did not need anything that happened in ME3 (ie, all three of them dying ) to solidify my like of those 3 characters. My replays of ME2 prior to the release of ME3 can attest to this. 

But, I guess we are all just idiots who don't remember what we actually liked and disliked about the individual games when we played them. I can't argue with the "rose-colored glasses" defense of this shitty game.

And if you try to compare this shitty game to other amazing games,  people freak out about that too and say it is unfair.

All I can say is, for myself (ie, my own dipshit opinion that I am not forcing on anyone else), and without comparing MEA's characters to either the previous ME games OR to other games, I thought they were dull. Utterly charmless and dull.

...expect for Drack...