Bioware can't patch what sucks about ME:A - article

Right off the bat I'm already having serious reservations about this article author just because they seem to display a stunning lack of knowledge about key features of the game and gameplay to be writing a criticism. Nevertheless, I'll address a few points.

One of their complaints is that there are only two new alien races in a new "galaxy" yet they conveniently omit the fact that we are in ONE CLUSTER of the entire galaxy for the entirety of the game and not exploring all of Andromeda. It would have been a bit silly to come in and have five brand new races that all of the races in the Milky Way have to get to know, ally with etc. As it is, the game only establishes SOME of the history and information on the Kett and the Angara, let alone the Jardaan or Remnant. Truly this could be an entire thread of it's own to discuss and debate, but I would have rather started out with a few new races in addition to the old races arriving in the arks as opposed to many, many new races all packed in one cluster for some reason that we don't spend a lot of time getting to know but still have to somehow make first contact over and over again and forge a very swift alliance. What an awful criticism of the game, in my opinion. Consider the fact that many people wanted a game set pre-ME Trilogy during the First Contact War. Would there still be this complaint? There would have to be, considering the only race we would get to actively meet would be the Turians as our enemy.

Also, in the same paragraph they complain about the barriers at the end of the map. What....? This argument is just silly and petty. EVERY open world game has this. What's the difference between the shimmering barrier to let you know you've reached the end of the map in MEA than the pop up letting us know we Can't Go That Direction in Fallout 4? Did they expect the worlds to just continue forever?

The Combat section also shows the authors lack of knowledge on the powers system, or just intentionally left out information. You can set up four different distinct "favorite" lists of different powers and change them in the weapon wheel on the fly. You aren't limited to three powers. You are limited to twelve. That's... a lot of powers and a lot of builds you can set up.

They complain that you have to wait to reselect "sweet new weapons" you find in a container until you go back to the ship or are at a forward station. Okay, part of this complaint I agree with. I don't see any reason why you can't go into your inventory and change weapons on the fly akin to Skyrim, Fallout or many other RPGs. That was a poor design choice, in my opinion. However, you CAN equip a new weapon when you pick it up. I've seen the option where you can scroll down in a container to the new weapon and select "equip." So you find a brand new weapon in a container? Great.. Equip it. That feature is there. Plus on the open worlds the Forward Stations are very plentiful, become fast travel points and allow you to completely change your inventory and squad mates while still on the ground. Best design choice? No. Major inconvenience that ruins the experience? No.

Same paragraph it complains about inventory space. Again, I agree that there should be storage units on the ship to off load your inventory. However, you can gain AVP to select cryo pods that increase your storage space to 200 over the initial 100. If you are smart about what you keep in your inventory and don't absolutely horde gear that is far underleveled and, essentially, useless you really probably won't go over 100 very often. I played 70+ hours and went over 100 in my inventory a handful of times, actively selling things I knew I was never going to use or underleveled.

Later in the article they are comparing graphics of Andromeda to DA:I. I started off thinking, yes I agree the generic NPCs look pretty rough and that has been a main complaint from many (asari clones etc.) Then they showed a picture comparison saying how woeful MEA characters look in comparison to 2014 DA:I. I've never played DA:I so at first I thought that was a significant change and they downgraded heavily. Then I saw the comment "Of course, these are primary characters and not generic NPCs" in regards to DAI's picture........

This author really has no credibility. If you are going to compare graphics and character design... I mean come on... Generic background NPCs in MEA that you are going to glance at in passing vs. major primary characters you see frequently and are handcrafted to look good and unique in DAI? Seriously? What was wrong with comparing say Vetra, Drack and Cora to those three primary characters in DAI? It didn't feed the authors narrative? I didn't have high hopes for this article as I said at the start but this kind of took the cake.



I'm sorry, I had to stop reading. The author is beyond nitpicky, vastly unknowledgable about features they want to see in game that are ALREADY IN GAME and then that last part I posted about? Really? There are some legitimate complaints out there about MEA. As someone who thoroughly enjoys the game, I will freely admit that. This however? No.

The honeycomb barrier is a fair criticism of the map design. An impassable rock formation at the edges of the map would be sufficient in limiting travel. I didn't like it in ME1 and it's not really welcome here either. Not that big a deal though since points of interests generally don't bring you anywhere near them.

This just about sums up what I thought of the article.

So your argument is there is a gameplay mechanic in the game you can't be bothered to use so the game loses points because of it?  At least play on a fair battleground, friend.  The game offers you the choice.  You choose not to use it.  I never enchant weapons in Skyrim.  I can't be bothered to learn the enchantments or max up that skill and utilize it in game.  I'd rather find a pre-enchanted weapon or just go pure steel to foe.  The game doesn't lose points because I'm too lazy to use the gameplay mechanic offered to me.  To argue, as the article professes, that you CAN'T use more than three powers is false.  You can.  I set up three distinct favorite wheels that I switched to when the time called for it.  That isn't even considering the Profiles you can switch and gain benefits from on the fly, which I DIDN'T use.

The cluster debate.  The game is already 70-100 hours of gameplay, with a lot of people complaining it feels listless.  So you are telling me introducing even more than just two brand new alien species wouldn't add to the overburden a lot of people feel?  Not withstanding the fact that the Angaran race play a pivotal role in a major story twist in the game that wouldn't make sense if there were many new aliens.  That and we spend significant time forging a brand new alliance with these people, including making first contact when we land on Aya, and then spending significant time learning about their customs, history and politics.  If we had introduced more races, the game would have been forced to also do this for each distinct race or sacrifice learning about them and cut the meeting and allying component very short, which would ultimately draw even more criticism that we didn't get to know these new races well enough.  Personally I would rather have a few new races we learn a lot about with the anticipation of meeting even more as the series continues than have many new races that we are forced to just wave a magic wand and become allies with who are all walking codex entries.  We learn a lot of different perspectives about the Angaran people from the Moshae, Jaal, Evfra, the roekaar and even other various NPCS on Voeld and Aya.  This couldn't have happened this way if we were meeting many new races.

Either way, feel free to address other points I brought up.  I'm happy to continue the debate.

I agree about the lame honeycomb wall. First time I saw it, I thought it was radiation shielding and raced right through -

only to be teleported (ffs) back to starting point. Totally immersion breaking and not what I expect from a title like this. A more integrated approach like they did with DAI would have been better. Why have huge areas mocking me to explore them from the other side of this stupid holographic wall?

Yet another jab at Kaidan aside, I agree with most of the points made in the article.

I really don't buy the whole it's one cluster excuse. Bioware could have come up with numerous different reasons to have more than one new race in the game. They could have had a non humanoid race like the Rachni, living on some world. The Kett aren't from the cluster, and they could have made a story about a race that fled the Kett and arrived in that cluster and had some tenuous alliance with the Angara, anything, it was a blank canvas.

But all that aside, are people actually saying that had there been more than one new non-enemy race players would have complained and raged about the game being unrealistic by having multiple new races in one cluster, I mean, c'mon now. No one would have said anything. It's not like ME has been true science so far anyway.

Well said. That is a brilliant point about Andromeda. 

Yup you cannot patch the core story nor the companion romances. This game can only be saved by an expansion or huge DLC. Which I doubt it is going to happen.

I was very disappointed with the handling of exploration and "first" contact.

It's only near the end of the main story that we actually discover something new. Each of the five planets we have to make viable is a place where someone else has gone before, and the Milky Way people that arrived on time met both the Angara and the Kett before us.

And even if we had been the first to make contact with the Kett, their introduction would still have been lame. They shoot one of our guys in the face, and we all know that the next bunch of ugly baddies has entered the playing field.

I hate the arguments like "There's only two new species" and "It's not even the entire galaxy".

1: Wrong game peeps. This isn't "Player meets the entire universe for the first time" story, this is "Ryder goes along to Andromeda and marks the first moments in history". It fails exceptionally hard here too but that's what the game was supposed to be about as well as the story about managing the starving arks with disparate leaders. It wasn't supposed to be Mass Effect 2.0 where Andromeda is a substitute for the original setting.

2: Duh. We don't have Mass Relays, remember? You cannot be a fan if you don't know the namesake of this series.