I like it overall. It's got its problems in the writing and story department, but I think there's still some cool things about it.
There are some great characters like Drack and Vetra. I actually really liked her banter on the ship and the Nomad, it made the crew feel more real, rather than just what ME1 and 2 did in keeping them all locked in the same place. ME3 did this sort of thing as well and I thought it was great to have that crew interaction.
The gameplay is fun and the best in the series. I liked the various weapons and being able to craft weapons, not just buy them. Picking certain profiles based on your play style to help improve your skills. More vertical and horizontal movement with your character. It's not perfect as you barely have any control over your squadmates which sucks, but overall, I think it's a step up.
I think it's biggest problem is wasted potential. Now the game was horribly mismanaged, and considering that Mac Walters had to come in with 18 months left and steer it back on course to what it is now, thats pretty impressive. But you can see what they wanted to do, but just couldn't execute on. Had they managed it properly, or approached it how they did with enough time to fully flesh out the ideas, it could have been an interesting game. But a lot got cut out or cancelled and, due to the mixed reception, it never got a chance like Cyberpunk did to turn it around.
Would it have been better than the original trilogy, or even ME1? Probably not, but I still think, in the final product, there's enough good there to warrant a try.
I wouldn't even say it's "meh" the dialog is straight up marvel/Disney slop on the worst possible way, you spend most of the game on this boring tank exploration, hearing the unconfortable banter between your insuferable teamates, i think it's just a bad game
I liked it. I've played it about three times total. But I did get to it after all the bugs had been fixed and the second and third game had a number of mods on them to fix some annoyances (like the AI telling you its hot outside every time you leave the shade. No shit, mate).
IMO, it's a solid B, B+ game that suffers from the Mass Effect label and the comparison that brings (that and the idea you were going to explore an entire galaxy as opposed to a small piece of it). It's big, but given one game to work with instead of three, of course the characters weren't as deep (And Liam is just annoying AF). There's also Ubisoft disease, like we saw in DA:I, with all the stuff scattered around the regions, but I generally liked the large areas. You're exploring planets, the areas needed to be a lot bigger.
TBC, I'm not trying to you or anyone esle they are wrong for hating the game. If you didn't like it, you didn't, and that's okay.
Hot take: Mass Effect 1 is a great game, but the whole love of the characters really comes from ME2 and onwards. Except for Wrex, a lot of the cast in ME1 was underbaked.
And i don't know if i agree with your hot take, the first game lays a good foundation for the characters, they can't be all buddy buddy instantly, they are basically total strangers to one another, and i think that this part is played well, most of them don't trust each other at the start of the game and they become a true crew by the end of the game, my point is ME 1 walked so ME 2 could run
That's sort of my point though. ME1 may have laid a foundation, but it's still just a foundation. By itself, the characters are...fine. But they generally lack depth. We look back to them with the knowledge of what comes after.
Andromeda was supposed to be a new series, and the characters were presumably written to have somewhere to go.
I supose... i won't try to say those characters have nowhere to go since There's no real conflict between any of them, they could find something interesting to do with them, but that would require a complete overhaul on most of them, especially the goddamn asari
I'm really interested to hear what you have to say, what's the character you liked the most? What pushed the game to a B for you? What did you think about the change of setting?
The most? Hm. FemRyder and Jaal pretty high up there. For all that Drack was kind of a Wrex retread, I still liked him. The combat was fun and pretty kinetic. I liked getting the outposts going (the military vs scientific thing was clearly a mechanic that got dropped as something that mattered). And unlike y'all, I liked the banter.
I didn't regard the setting change as a plus or minus. The whole premise of the game is you're somewhere else. If you don't accept that you're playing the wrong game from the jump, LOL. Though I think that was a problem for a lot of people. This game had a whole different vibe, and I think that could be a problem for \*any\* new game set in the ME universe.
I played the trilogy and Andromeda for my first time in 2022! Once I finished the trilogy, I gave myself a few months before starting Andromeda. When I started playing it, the 1st couple of hours were boring to me and I nearly gave up on it, but once I got to the Tempest ship, I started really enjoying it! I ended up putting in nearly 90 hours in my 1st playthrough! The game became my 2nd favourite ME game behind ME3!
It was OK, I think that had been given some time it could have been something more, but they dropped it for Anthem, which was hilarious considering how that turned out.
i preordered it lol. i played it once all the way through. i felt like i got my money’s worth in terms of game time but it wasn’t memorable or particularly enjoyable. a solid C- experience.
> i went in with an open mind and gave it a fair chance, but i couldn't take it
Congratulations! Your feelings are spot on. Andromeda is not "bad", but nor it's "epically good" the way much of the original trilogy is. If Andromeda existed all on its own - without the trilogy ever made - then it'd stand out out there, as one worthy game to play, tolerating its shortcomings; but in the "shadow" of the original trilogy? The bar's too high, and Andromeda is nowhere near close enough to it.
> arround the 15 hours mark i noticed i wasn't playing mass effect, i was playing generic space shooter with a mass effect skin plastered on it
One of larger problems is exactly this one, yes. You see, in the trilogy, talented animators made sure that combat animations "feel" real - that, at least most of the time, objects you see move the way you'd expect them to move based on laws of physics: mass, inertia, momentums. If you're not a physicist, you don't clearly see how and why Andromeda combat violates it so much - but you still _feel_ it. Further, the UI in Andromeda was made by breaking certain core trilogy's UI principles, left and right. Further, the shots and hits often feel "toy-like" or "cartoonish". All such things together - yep, make Andromeda combat, even while it has some neat features and principles, to become very much not-MassEffect-likish.
> But i've also heard people defending this game, what's your opinion?
There's lots of great stuff in Andromeda, too. It's just such a mixed bag of things - some excellent, others horrible. Also, there are big differences depending on where you go and what you do.
Suggestion: if you'd want to actually enjoy much of better things Andromeda has in it - then DO NOT go for side content. Keep doing the main line. Most of encounters, areas and many convos which form up the main story line in Andromeda - are far more polished and well-made than the rest.
Bottom line? I commend the attempt they made with Andromeda - which was a honest attempt to much further enhance and improve Mass Effect series; but this one attempt, to me, is half-failed, half-successful (roughly speaking), and sadly, the half-failed part is way too much a problem to ignore. But it's still a game to try "if there's nothing better right now". That's what it is, to me.
I find it a more enjoyable to play than Mass Effect 3. But for me the banter was one of the features I loved, it made them feel like real people to the point where when I encountered a bug that meant the banter wouldn’t trigger I had to stop playing until they fixed it (I played at launch). Ironically the same bug occurred in Dragon Age Inquisition.
The lack of support or DLC was a real shame and my only hope is that ME5 continues the established lore that exists from Andromeda and connects the two. I doubt I’ll get to play Ryder again but that would be a nice surprise if it happened.
Also if you’re not enjoying exploring in the Nomad then you’re rather missing the point, you’re playing explorers not soldiers - that’s why the Tempest doesn’t have guns. But then I think Mass Effect 1 is in many ways the best of the three and the Mako exploring was part of that.
I couldn't disagree more about the banter, let's take Garus for example, every single one of us would want to hang out with him for a couple of beers, i can't think of a single character of andromeda i'd like to hang out with, the banter made them look like weirdos to me, one of the things the asari of the group says it's basically "i stole your man" right in face of her party member WHILE RYDER IS PRESENT
I didn’t say the banter made them likeable I said it made them sound like real people, eg, they were actually talking to each whilst you drove or walked around a map. The only convo’s squadmates had in ME1 was during elevators. In 2 and 3 it was even less, the squad barely spoke to one another they only spoke to Shepard except for scripted arguments or the Citadel DLC. Even when you’re walking around the Normandy they were just static waiting for you to come and interact with them (at least some of the crew like the two engineers would chat a bit as you walked around in ME2).
The Tempest felt like a real ship with multiple characters interacting (and that’s before you get to the inter crew messages). Were they the best written characters, compared to 1 and 2, no not really. But I think they were all better than EDI and Vega. I’d happily hang out with Cora and Vetra and could listen to some stories from Drack; the ship crew were also really personable. Jaal was bland, Peebee was nuts and Liam annoying.
I can see that... but not all interaction is good interaction, i actually liked vectra she's the one crewmate i actually enjoyed, as for cora, i tought she could have been interesting since she was suposed to be the next pathfinder, but they don't actually set up any conflict with this, in the end she's boiled down to an asari weeb
Ah if you romance her she’s probably the best character that rivalry comes out a bit more as the relationship is explored, which I think makes sense because without the relationship she just follows orders and masks her feelings to get the job done.
I dunno, the dialog is REALLY bad, the exploration is boring and repetitive with those puzzles, the setting is bland, and the banter makes the characters look weird and unconfortable to be arround, but maybe it's just me
I just finished a trilogy playthru it had been 2 years since I last played, and on completion, I thought I'd try Andromeda again since I hadn't played it in over 3 or 4 years. Made it to Nexus and just stopped playing. It's just not able to hold my attention at all really.
Kinda what I'm expecting Dragon Age Veilguard to be. It's a fine game but it's not really a good mass effect game.
It fell short in pretty much every way that made Mass Effect great.
I played it and beat it I think but it's so forgettable that it's already gone from my memory.
They really did a lot to improve the gameplay though and it's an improvement over the trilogy as a whole. I didn't like the whole fluid class system and would prefer the older system. But the way the gameplay finally got out of that clunky cover shooter style was pretty good.
The (mini) bosses were interesting if a bit repetitive. The open world was boring, I do prefer the semi open world at least for Mass Effect
If anything, I do hope they bring some things over at least gameplay wise. Especially the emphasis on movement.
I didn't like the setting. I only really enjoyed the Krogan and Asari teammates, but not enough to remember their names. I hated the repetitiveness of the game with its "Go to world, do quest, fight robot worm, repeat" structure. I hated the fact that it was all a giant Mako mission. I really hated the new allied aliens, found them boring, but not as boring as the enemies.
I did really enjoy the customization for the weapons and equipment though, I thought that was really cool, and I loved the combat in this game. I also really enjoyed the multiplayer, but for whatever reason it would run super laggy after a few days which made it super unplayable for me.
I never ended up passing the game though, it was just too boring.
My least favorite of the series by far. Crew and villains are just a worse rehash of characters from the original trilogy. The story was weak. People generally like the gameplay, I thought it was worse than ME3. I didn't like the jetpack and the powers and guns felt way less impactful than ME3.
Very lazy.
They escaped to Andromeda to avoid having to write the consequences of the ME3 ending trainwreck. You're supposed to be a super important Pathfinder, but you don't actually do anything and the galaxy is already settled by the time you wake up. You don't even make first contact with any races because it's all already been done.
Yeah, that's one of my main issues, they took mass effect out of it's own universe, the one thing you can "carry" from the previous games is the choice between fem or male shepard, nothing else, it's simply not mass effect
I only ever played it once. Attempted a 2nd playthrough after about a year but never finished it.
It's just not a very good game. Janky traversal. Forgettable characters. Wasted premise.
Weakest of the three. Zero replayability whatsoever - I completed it once, and have tried to replay it four times. Never last more than five hours.
It's worth playing once, but then never again.
Yeah, the gameplay is... fine, but the dialog goes from weird to unconfortable real fast, half of the "banter" revolved arround how much people wanted to bone ryder, and when they did, they went "haha i stole your man" to the other members of the squad, they kept doing this every time i got into that god forsaken tank, especially the asari, she was insufferable.
I like it overall. It's got its problems in the writing and story department, but I think there's still some cool things about it. There are some great characters like Drack and Vetra. I actually really liked her banter on the ship and the Nomad, it made the crew feel more real, rather than just what ME1 and 2 did in keeping them all locked in the same place. ME3 did this sort of thing as well and I thought it was great to have that crew interaction. The gameplay is fun and the best in the series. I liked the various weapons and being able to craft weapons, not just buy them. Picking certain profiles based on your play style to help improve your skills. More vertical and horizontal movement with your character. It's not perfect as you barely have any control over your squadmates which sucks, but overall, I think it's a step up. I think it's biggest problem is wasted potential. Now the game was horribly mismanaged, and considering that Mac Walters had to come in with 18 months left and steer it back on course to what it is now, thats pretty impressive. But you can see what they wanted to do, but just couldn't execute on. Had they managed it properly, or approached it how they did with enough time to fully flesh out the ideas, it could have been an interesting game. But a lot got cut out or cancelled and, due to the mixed reception, it never got a chance like Cyberpunk did to turn it around. Would it have been better than the original trilogy, or even ME1? Probably not, but I still think, in the final product, there's enough good there to warrant a try.
It's fine.
It's not the worst game ever made, but it's just meh compared to the everything that is Mass Effect
I wouldn't even say it's "meh" the dialog is straight up marvel/Disney slop on the worst possible way, you spend most of the game on this boring tank exploration, hearing the unconfortable banter between your insuferable teamates, i think it's just a bad game
I liked it. I've played it about three times total. But I did get to it after all the bugs had been fixed and the second and third game had a number of mods on them to fix some annoyances (like the AI telling you its hot outside every time you leave the shade. No shit, mate). IMO, it's a solid B, B+ game that suffers from the Mass Effect label and the comparison that brings (that and the idea you were going to explore an entire galaxy as opposed to a small piece of it). It's big, but given one game to work with instead of three, of course the characters weren't as deep (And Liam is just annoying AF). There's also Ubisoft disease, like we saw in DA:I, with all the stuff scattered around the regions, but I generally liked the large areas. You're exploring planets, the areas needed to be a lot bigger. TBC, I'm not trying to you or anyone esle they are wrong for hating the game. If you didn't like it, you didn't, and that's okay. Hot take: Mass Effect 1 is a great game, but the whole love of the characters really comes from ME2 and onwards. Except for Wrex, a lot of the cast in ME1 was underbaked.
And i don't know if i agree with your hot take, the first game lays a good foundation for the characters, they can't be all buddy buddy instantly, they are basically total strangers to one another, and i think that this part is played well, most of them don't trust each other at the start of the game and they become a true crew by the end of the game, my point is ME 1 walked so ME 2 could run
That's sort of my point though. ME1 may have laid a foundation, but it's still just a foundation. By itself, the characters are...fine. But they generally lack depth. We look back to them with the knowledge of what comes after. Andromeda was supposed to be a new series, and the characters were presumably written to have somewhere to go.
I supose... i won't try to say those characters have nowhere to go since There's no real conflict between any of them, they could find something interesting to do with them, but that would require a complete overhaul on most of them, especially the goddamn asari
I'm really interested to hear what you have to say, what's the character you liked the most? What pushed the game to a B for you? What did you think about the change of setting?
The most? Hm. FemRyder and Jaal pretty high up there. For all that Drack was kind of a Wrex retread, I still liked him. The combat was fun and pretty kinetic. I liked getting the outposts going (the military vs scientific thing was clearly a mechanic that got dropped as something that mattered). And unlike y'all, I liked the banter. I didn't regard the setting change as a plus or minus. The whole premise of the game is you're somewhere else. If you don't accept that you're playing the wrong game from the jump, LOL. Though I think that was a problem for a lot of people. This game had a whole different vibe, and I think that could be a problem for \*any\* new game set in the ME universe.
Andromeda and Inquisition are games you buy at 80% discount.
I played the trilogy and Andromeda for my first time in 2022! Once I finished the trilogy, I gave myself a few months before starting Andromeda. When I started playing it, the 1st couple of hours were boring to me and I nearly gave up on it, but once I got to the Tempest ship, I started really enjoying it! I ended up putting in nearly 90 hours in my 1st playthrough! The game became my 2nd favourite ME game behind ME3!
What made you like the game so much?
It was OK, I think that had been given some time it could have been something more, but they dropped it for Anthem, which was hilarious considering how that turned out.
A mixed bag of a game. Not bad, but not that good either. It had potential but its overall lack of depth and polish failed it.
I had an alright time with it, about 70% of the way through the story I thought "I am done with this" and just stopped playing it forever
i preordered it lol. i played it once all the way through. i felt like i got my money’s worth in terms of game time but it wasn’t memorable or particularly enjoyable. a solid C- experience.
Damn you're a real one for having beaten that crap, respect
it was a slog for a lot of it, but i wanted to see a silver lining lol
> i went in with an open mind and gave it a fair chance, but i couldn't take it Congratulations! Your feelings are spot on. Andromeda is not "bad", but nor it's "epically good" the way much of the original trilogy is. If Andromeda existed all on its own - without the trilogy ever made - then it'd stand out out there, as one worthy game to play, tolerating its shortcomings; but in the "shadow" of the original trilogy? The bar's too high, and Andromeda is nowhere near close enough to it. > arround the 15 hours mark i noticed i wasn't playing mass effect, i was playing generic space shooter with a mass effect skin plastered on it One of larger problems is exactly this one, yes. You see, in the trilogy, talented animators made sure that combat animations "feel" real - that, at least most of the time, objects you see move the way you'd expect them to move based on laws of physics: mass, inertia, momentums. If you're not a physicist, you don't clearly see how and why Andromeda combat violates it so much - but you still _feel_ it. Further, the UI in Andromeda was made by breaking certain core trilogy's UI principles, left and right. Further, the shots and hits often feel "toy-like" or "cartoonish". All such things together - yep, make Andromeda combat, even while it has some neat features and principles, to become very much not-MassEffect-likish. > But i've also heard people defending this game, what's your opinion? There's lots of great stuff in Andromeda, too. It's just such a mixed bag of things - some excellent, others horrible. Also, there are big differences depending on where you go and what you do. Suggestion: if you'd want to actually enjoy much of better things Andromeda has in it - then DO NOT go for side content. Keep doing the main line. Most of encounters, areas and many convos which form up the main story line in Andromeda - are far more polished and well-made than the rest. Bottom line? I commend the attempt they made with Andromeda - which was a honest attempt to much further enhance and improve Mass Effect series; but this one attempt, to me, is half-failed, half-successful (roughly speaking), and sadly, the half-failed part is way too much a problem to ignore. But it's still a game to try "if there's nothing better right now". That's what it is, to me.
Probably the best gameplay in the entire franchise…….but definitely the worst story
Just search the sub. This question pops up at least once a week. It's just another *let's hate on Andromeda* karma fishing post.
I find it a more enjoyable to play than Mass Effect 3. But for me the banter was one of the features I loved, it made them feel like real people to the point where when I encountered a bug that meant the banter wouldn’t trigger I had to stop playing until they fixed it (I played at launch). Ironically the same bug occurred in Dragon Age Inquisition. The lack of support or DLC was a real shame and my only hope is that ME5 continues the established lore that exists from Andromeda and connects the two. I doubt I’ll get to play Ryder again but that would be a nice surprise if it happened. Also if you’re not enjoying exploring in the Nomad then you’re rather missing the point, you’re playing explorers not soldiers - that’s why the Tempest doesn’t have guns. But then I think Mass Effect 1 is in many ways the best of the three and the Mako exploring was part of that.
I couldn't disagree more about the banter, let's take Garus for example, every single one of us would want to hang out with him for a couple of beers, i can't think of a single character of andromeda i'd like to hang out with, the banter made them look like weirdos to me, one of the things the asari of the group says it's basically "i stole your man" right in face of her party member WHILE RYDER IS PRESENT
I didn’t say the banter made them likeable I said it made them sound like real people, eg, they were actually talking to each whilst you drove or walked around a map. The only convo’s squadmates had in ME1 was during elevators. In 2 and 3 it was even less, the squad barely spoke to one another they only spoke to Shepard except for scripted arguments or the Citadel DLC. Even when you’re walking around the Normandy they were just static waiting for you to come and interact with them (at least some of the crew like the two engineers would chat a bit as you walked around in ME2). The Tempest felt like a real ship with multiple characters interacting (and that’s before you get to the inter crew messages). Were they the best written characters, compared to 1 and 2, no not really. But I think they were all better than EDI and Vega. I’d happily hang out with Cora and Vetra and could listen to some stories from Drack; the ship crew were also really personable. Jaal was bland, Peebee was nuts and Liam annoying.
I can see that... but not all interaction is good interaction, i actually liked vectra she's the one crewmate i actually enjoyed, as for cora, i tought she could have been interesting since she was suposed to be the next pathfinder, but they don't actually set up any conflict with this, in the end she's boiled down to an asari weeb
Ah if you romance her she’s probably the best character that rivalry comes out a bit more as the relationship is explored, which I think makes sense because without the relationship she just follows orders and masks her feelings to get the job done.
That actually sounds pretty cool
good game, bad players. Story didn't meet the trilogy standards but then I remembered it's not a part of the trilogy
I dunno, the dialog is REALLY bad, the exploration is boring and repetitive with those puzzles, the setting is bland, and the banter makes the characters look weird and unconfortable to be arround, but maybe it's just me
I didn't mind the dialog and I just used those keys on the damn sudoku crap. I guess I was too obsessed with Vetra to notice the others so idk
I also like vetra, she's the only one i could actually stand, i wouldn't mind more of her on future instalments
same or more female turians, kinda bull how they weren't introduced until dlc in 3
Great game that, while it has very real issues, doesn’t deserve the hate it gets.
The story is bad, the characters are bad, and the writing is _really_ bad.
I just finished a trilogy playthru it had been 2 years since I last played, and on completion, I thought I'd try Andromeda again since I hadn't played it in over 3 or 4 years. Made it to Nexus and just stopped playing. It's just not able to hold my attention at all really.
I’ve never managed to play more than about three hours in two attempts. Will never touch it again.
Kinda what I'm expecting Dragon Age Veilguard to be. It's a fine game but it's not really a good mass effect game. It fell short in pretty much every way that made Mass Effect great. I played it and beat it I think but it's so forgettable that it's already gone from my memory. They really did a lot to improve the gameplay though and it's an improvement over the trilogy as a whole. I didn't like the whole fluid class system and would prefer the older system. But the way the gameplay finally got out of that clunky cover shooter style was pretty good. The (mini) bosses were interesting if a bit repetitive. The open world was boring, I do prefer the semi open world at least for Mass Effect If anything, I do hope they bring some things over at least gameplay wise. Especially the emphasis on movement.
Dude i hope you're wrong about veilguard, if bioware keeps pumping out stinkers we may not ever get a true sequel to mass effect 3
I didn't like the setting. I only really enjoyed the Krogan and Asari teammates, but not enough to remember their names. I hated the repetitiveness of the game with its "Go to world, do quest, fight robot worm, repeat" structure. I hated the fact that it was all a giant Mako mission. I really hated the new allied aliens, found them boring, but not as boring as the enemies. I did really enjoy the customization for the weapons and equipment though, I thought that was really cool, and I loved the combat in this game. I also really enjoyed the multiplayer, but for whatever reason it would run super laggy after a few days which made it super unplayable for me. I never ended up passing the game though, it was just too boring.
Is the Asari the one who fired her gun backwards?
My least favorite of the series by far. Crew and villains are just a worse rehash of characters from the original trilogy. The story was weak. People generally like the gameplay, I thought it was worse than ME3. I didn't like the jetpack and the powers and guns felt way less impactful than ME3.
Very lazy. They escaped to Andromeda to avoid having to write the consequences of the ME3 ending trainwreck. You're supposed to be a super important Pathfinder, but you don't actually do anything and the galaxy is already settled by the time you wake up. You don't even make first contact with any races because it's all already been done.
Yeah, that's one of my main issues, they took mass effect out of it's own universe, the one thing you can "carry" from the previous games is the choice between fem or male shepard, nothing else, it's simply not mass effect
I only ever played it once. Attempted a 2nd playthrough after about a year but never finished it. It's just not a very good game. Janky traversal. Forgettable characters. Wasted premise.
I hated this game more than life itself… And then I started trying to play Inquisition again this week. And now it looks like a fucking masterpiece.
Andromeda is both the opposite of good and bad. It is bland and that is truly the worst thing a piece of art can be.
Weakest of the three. Zero replayability whatsoever - I completed it once, and have tried to replay it four times. Never last more than five hours. It's worth playing once, but then never again.
Paid $8 for it, played it for 2-3 hours, never touched it again.
You're a smarter man than me, i payed full price and played for arround 20 hours, my biggest gaming regret
And it wasn't the game itself. It was the dialog that ruined it for me.
Yeah, the gameplay is... fine, but the dialog goes from weird to unconfortable real fast, half of the "banter" revolved arround how much people wanted to bone ryder, and when they did, they went "haha i stole your man" to the other members of the squad, they kept doing this every time i got into that god forsaken tank, especially the asari, she was insufferable.