Mass Effect: Andromeda

[Kasey Chang]

Why not just rebind the space key?

Because I don't don't really have another key handy for jumping, and seems you can also shoot from the air which takes away enemy's cover, albeit, leaving you a bit vulnerable. I'm debating if I'll ever do that.

[JCC]

Highly recommend playing this with a controller.

[Daehawk]

I enjoyed Andromeda for what it was. I dont feel it was a ME game.

[Kasey Chang]

Okay, after putting TWO planets to 100% viability, I feel I can talk about the game with some clarity:

Pros:

* there is a bit of open exploration, and the Nomad is a VAST improvement over Mako, except lack of armaments. The AWD mode is great, and the vehicle felt a lot more feasible instead of tweaked Mako's "bounciness".
* Jumping is okay, but felt a bit tacked-on
* Scanner interface is okay, but also felt tacked-on as you get a warning there's something you can scan in the area, THEN you bring up scanner to find it. Meh.
* Story's okay, not very ME'ish, as there's very little of that "long-term consequences". In fact, most decisions you make are pretty superfluous.

Cons:

* strike missions are lame, esp. since it's basically a mobile game concept where you send "teams" off to do "something" to be rewarded with something to be resolved in X hours
* objectives / journal tracker is HORRIBLE. If I am on planet X, I want to see all the missions on this planet, not separated into different tabs (priority, personal/loyalty, heleus, other), a lot of them are spread over multiple planets, but it wasn't explained that "only 4 are on this planet, even though there are 16"
* extra characters or nav points on the map, but has no description because you haven't met those characters yet
* bad activation stage / triggers. A couple missions I can do the first two stages, but can't activate subsequent stages. Another I had to leave the area (fast travel) then come back which seems to help it resolve itself.
* the new convo system (4 directions) just made things more complicated instead of simple paragon/renegade system.
* have way too many fetch quests. Ketts have surveillance, remnants have memory core, so you roam the land hitting random outposts and whatnot.
* probably a lot more I can complain about when I do another planet.

[Daehawk]

Is your face tired yet?

[Kasey Chang]

Got to Kadara, roaming the Badlands, and it's interesting, but at least you're not hunting for warm spots like on Voeld. Way too many copy and paste mission types, like look for resistance bugs (in Kett bases), look for kett surveillance (in kett outposts), look for kett nodes (in Remnant places), but you only need to do like 3 or 4, except those are randomly generated and you never know where will those setup, so you end up going around the map looking for trouble as they don't appear on the map. Only recommended if you're a die-hard completionist, which I did like a couple and decided they're not for me.

EDIT: I think I figured out what made MEA problematic... It doesn't feel ME. It felt like Far Cry clone. All the side missions felt very Far Cry 3 / 4 ish. Plus the vehicle and on foot segments. Even the jumping's a bit reminiscent of climbing those darn towers.

[JCC]

EDIT: I think I figured out what made MEA problematic... It doesn't feel ME. It felt like Far Cry clone. All the side missions felt very Far Cry 3 / 4 ish. Plus the vehicle and on foot segments. Even the jumping's a bit reminiscent of climbing those darn towers.

I agree, but that's what I really liked about MEA. I found much of the action segments to be a lot more fun than those of ME1-3. (Particularly ME1.) I do think ME 2 and 3 had very nice smaller scale level design which was also very fun. The driving/jumpng mechanic in ME:A was excellent. But like nearly all "open world" games it has too much copy/paste/tweak level/mission design. I would like 4 to try to be a hybrid of 2-3 + some of the better Andromeda control mechanics from a gameplay perspective.

The story of Andromeda is a bit underrated as it has some really good moments, but it just pales behind the epic narrative of the original trilogy. But, at least its ending didn't suck!

The other thing that I didn't like about ME 2 and 3, is that you have to keep going back and forth between planets/citadel/etc. to keep getting new missions. And, there are story moments where missions don't become playable any more. It pretty much makes a mission guide/walkthrough required. I also got very sick of the mining and universe exploration where you can't go to systems in ME3 just... because.... until later. I got so sick of wandering the Citadel over and over again to grab new missions. And good grief, all the mining in ME2... (shudder)

[Kasey Chang]

The more I play MEA the more it feels like a Far Cry 3/4 clone. Each planet is one "region" and you need to defeat X lieutenants before you can take on the Big Baddie's henchmen. You need to take out X henchmen before taking on the big baddie in the final battle.

But this just brings out the worst problem: horrible "near by tasks"... There aren't any except on the map, where you click on things almost at random. No filter or such. If you have the wrong mission highlighted the crew doesn't respond. I ended up accidentally flirting with Reyes, when I really want to flirt with PB or Cora. And the map jumps scales depending on where you are. If you're out in the wilds you get a huge map, but no scale indicator. If you're in a "city" or a "base" you suddenly get a building-detail level map instead. VERY annoying.

I am playing on easy, which is 1 step above "narrative", and I'm wielding level 5 weapons (with a few L6) and armor, and the good ones, not the common riff-raff. By this time I'm L40, almost unkillable unless I goof up.

Got 3 planets and 1 asteroid fixed, working on the planet with the lead to Turian ark and lots of Krogans, haven't found lead to the Solarian Ark yet. Done 3-4 loyalty missions so far.

[El Guapo]

Mainly I wish there was more variation in terms of the 'alien chambers' or whatever they were called that you explore on each planet. One of the best parts of Andromeda was the feeling of exploring a new alien galaxy. But when those alien chambers were essentially all the same in terms of style it removed some of that immersion.

[Kasey Chang]

Picked up a couple of mods, and I can see why people say Bioware got shafted in a sense. While Frostbite engine does deliver the graphics, it was reputed hard to learn, and IMHO, they could have delivered a better game content than learning a whole new engine in the process.

Mods did address a lot of the issues. Made the cutscenes (takeoff and landing, tramway, etc.) 3 seconds long means you save a few seconds each transition. Hold E to pickup skips the "take all" screen (which is superfluous). Also made mining much easier instead of you driving in circles looking for the vein.

Another maddening thing that could have been improved with more polish is maddening inconsistent naming. Sniper rifle is sometimes abbreviated as "SR", yet you never see pistols or sub-machine guns abbreviated. Assault rifles are sometimes abbreviated AR. And why are SMGs grouped under pistols, which are considered a subvariant of Assault rifles?
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AND the armor naming clearly wasn't designed with character limits in mind, and it's impossible to guess what the armor's worth, even though they are all tier V or tier VI. And just how *do* you judge whether a decent Tier V is better than a good Tier IV? The availability of scopes and good semi-auto assault rifles blurs the line between an assault rifle and a sniper rifle, esp. when some sniper rifle sacrifices damage for higher firing rate.

Some of the gun mods are just ridiculous. Assault rifle firing "seeking plasma bolts"... except those travel so slow you can duck. Or firing a beam that points right back at yourself... In exchange for no recoil (extreme stability).

[NickAragua]

One of my favorite bugs was when you go back to the cryo pods in your starting ship, there's always this one guy who's bent over after having puked while a med-tech or whatever is comforting him. His head always rotates about 180 degrees every time he says something.

I think they needed to maybe not go with the lowest bidder on those cryopods.

[Daehawk]

A silly thing that is a feature that bugged me a lot was nothing had guns on it. Not your station, not your ship, not you car even. It was maddening. Fly all the way to an unknown galaxy and dont mount any guns. So many times I just wanted to fight back.

Oh and the Angara. Such an ugly uninteresting race. And they give you one as a love interest?? Some people. And they made the only hot chick on the ship...the redhead green eyes scottish Dr. Suvi gay so she was totally out for the male uhhh Pathfinder..i cant remember their names even.

And why in cutscenes when talking to an npc does everyone's eyes just look around all over the place instead of who they're talking to?..yeech.

Oh God I could go on and on and on about stuff I hated or disliked. In the end I actually enjoyed it enough. Not super....rate it 6 or 7 of 10. But it is NOT a ME game.

[NickAragua]

Oh and the Angara. Such an ugly uninteresting race. And they give you one as a love interest?? Some people.

Lol it took me a little while to figure out that the snek dude was hitting on me, and then I was just like "no, you're going to try to bite or constrict me or something".

[Kasey Chang]

The guns are getting ridonkulous. An assault rifle that fires bouncy mini-grenades in parabolic arcs. Hahaha. Tried it for one mission. It's practically useless as I can't hit anything except when they're in shotgun range. Forget it. Switching back to regular assault rifle that fires bursts of bullets.

Sniper rifle with the beam isn't that bad, may keep that.

Shotgun is great for taking down nasty beasts or mechs, at least at the level I'm playing.

Did all loyalty missions but 2 (Peebee, and Jaal) and all 5 sites are at 100%, as I'm putting off going after the Archon for as long as possible. There are WAY too many side missions and many of them are just ridiculous.

"Pathfinder, we have no staff. So instead of doing your planet hopping, please fetch us 6 drones that crashed all over the place."

"Pathfinder, Suvi wants to make a special snack, please go to Aya's market and buy some of those roots or whatever."

"Pathfinder, I can't get into the Angaran port, please go fetch these 4 items for me? And buy them out of your own pocket too?"

ARGH!!!!!

[Kasey Chang]

Just finished Jaal's loyalty mission, so only Peebee left, and she's half-way, as she's just reclaimed POC. However, now I'm left with no mission to play, unless I want to go after the Archon, and I know there's a long mission chain that way. But I guess there's a few missions where he'll mount a comeback. So I guess I'm going that way.

The mods are a bit annoying, as you had to use the Mod Manager to launch the game... Or you won't get the mod benefits.

[Kasey Chang]

All loyalty missions done, about to hit the endgame sequence. Update soon.

EDIT: Finished.

Overall reaction: it really felt like I was playing Far Cry series than Mass Effect series. Go do this, that, and the other, come back for some rewards, as if I'm the only person alive from the rest. Sure there are shuttles landing troops or pirates and whatnot, but that's lame. It's hilarous how low the shuttles dip when they try to land, as there are a few places where I've almost crashed into one in the nomad.

The ending also made no sense.

Spoiler:

There was a long talk about how the Ark Hyperion was docked and essentially became a part of Nexus for power.

So how did the Archon just managed to undock it and took it sailing, even with a full Kett fleet behind him?

Though some of that worked

Spoiler:

Turns out defeating the architect on each planet was good practice for beating the archon, who'd knew?

[Kasey Chang]

Another thing that made no sense...

Spoiler:

Unlocking bits of older memories by senior Ryder in the last seconds made no sense as there's no way he could have designated the points to unlock them, since he hadn't been there yet!

[Kasey Chang]

Okay, I'm REALLY done with MEA. I tried doing a couple more but it's just busy work.

Generally, you fly to a planet and you get all the active missions at the planetary approach (i.e. just before landing), and I've emptied the list on 2 of the 5-6 different major planets. The rest just feel like busywork that I'm going to uninstall the game. Killed another architect but that's really a big "meh".

[Kasey Chang]

Recommended mods:

* Better Quantity Selection Screen: instead of a clicker that advances 1 at a time, you have multi-digit clicker so you can do larger qty trades

* Fast Mining: instead of you circling the place looking for optimum mining, drop a drone anywhere on the deposit will give you the entire deposit

* Quick Loot: will grab everything instead of seeing that pop-up loot screen

* Smooth Planet Approach: changes animation as you go from system to planet (or planet to planet) so it looks less jarring

* Shorter Landing and Departure Cinematics: cuts the scene to about 3-5 seconds, instead of 15+

Other stuff are not really necessary, IMHO.