Was Mass Effect: Andromeda really that bad?

[Chewster]

I too played it well after all the hoopla died down and I am also finding it to not be nearly as bad as everyone said. In my humble opinion, the game has gorgeous environments and really decent combat (at least on par with Mass Effect 2, if not a bit better). But, and this is a cardinal sin for a series with such strong stories, the characters were a bit flat and the story, while conceptually full of potential, was not quite up to par with the other three.

It is also slightly glitchier than any of the others, which is to say, it has a few glitches and I can't think of any in the original trilogy. All that, plus the Mass Effect 3 ending nonsense, plus all the moaning from the anti-SJDub crowd that this game was written by every worst caricature of modern liberal society would have one convinced that this game was a complete abomination.

Which it wasn't. It's all right. I enjoyed it quite a bit for what it was.

 

[Trunkage]

Since we are bringing in ME3 ending, I was one who that it was okay. Some people overexaggerated the hate which lead to lots of points not making sense.

ME:A still been okay. It focussed on skirmish and helping out in small ways rather huge battles like the previous. Still on the second planet. There is plenty of randomly finding quests like see a bridge about to be detonated or a audiolog left near some courses

Only using 3 skills is really annoying, coupled with not being able to use sqaudmates powers.

 

[Abomination]

And you'll forgive me if I don't fall for your concern trolling. You care an awful lot about dead names for a dude who defended his use of the word Tranny for an entire thread.

I defended it as almost any other slur from someone originating outside the United States.

But hey, if you think depicting trans people as folk who bring up their trans status unprompted in every conversation is an accurate reflection how they conduct themselves in public - that's on you.

Also, take your ad hominem and shove it.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

So I'm working through my backlog of old/missed games that I promised myself I would do before buying any new games (and there are plenty I want coming this Fall/Winter/Winter 2018). My next game was Andromeda and I gotta say...I'm not seeing why it was considered such an awful game.

It certainly doesn't live up to old Mass Effects, it has some animation issues and delivers a few clunkers in lines for sure. But the game still looks good, the gameplay is actually fairly enjoyable and a somewhat interesting take on the old ME class system and the story itself while generic still manages to be somewhat enjoyable and thus far has delivered a few good scenes that wouldn't have been out of place in the original trilogy.

It was as bad as they say. It isn't as bad now, but it's still not good. I played it at release, pre v1.05 so didn't have the facial animation changes or skip planetary transition cinematics. I did reinstall it recently and thought I'd give the last updated version a go, including with some mods.

I downloaded about 15ish mods on Nexus mods (no relation, boom tisch), including making SAM STFU (It's hot pathfinder, it's normal, it's hot, it's cold, it's normal, you're hot, I'm hot, it's normal, RAAARRRGH), a better looking Cora, some other fixes, power changes (make Nova a detonator, not a primer...whoeverTF made nova a primer was a prick and I hope they got fired). All that said...with the updated Andromeda at 1.10 and all these mods as well, at it's absolute best Andromeda is utterly mediocre.

In the playthru, I've had no bugs, no animation issues, no facial issues. All the annoying parts (planet transition scenes, SAM's incessant jibber jabber, long take off landing animations) are gone. And what's left is bad dialogue, horrible characters, wooden voice acting, a nonsenisical story full of plot holes which retroactively contradicts half of the rules and lore established by the first game/OT. Choices were scarce and had no effect, there was no real role playing (with even the primitive Paragade system gone), there was no replayability since all Ryders could learn every skill and change them on-the-fly. It was SJWd up the kazoo and the cover-based gunplay was simply fine. It was never particularly exciting since Ryder was so powerful.

The worlds were generally barren and involved driving across empty wastes for ages, completing some mind-numbing "content" (always three times) and getting "fuckabout points" (I believe that's how Yahtzee described the concept). Scan three doodads, collect three niknaks, go to three places and kill dudes, stay in one place and kill three waves of dudes, generic filler gameplay.

The only thing it had in common with Mass Effect was flavour. It kept the races and some of the old feuds between them, it made references to Spectres, N7s, STG and whatnot, but it meant nothing in the context of Andromeda. If you want to shoot generic alien dudes in a Mass Effect themed setting, Andromeda is fine. You can shoot them, pull them, push them, burn them, blow them up, freeze them and more. If you want a role-playing experience, to explore a deep, lore filled universe and immerse yourself in an interesting, alien galaxy, play thru a compelling story and interact with a great cast of characters, Andromeda will disappoint.

 

[ebalosus]

First, I'll lay out how I feel about the Mass Effect games leading up to Andromeda:

Mass Effect 1: excellent story, setting, world-building, tone, characters, and clunky-but-refinable gameplay. Overall Kino-tier.

Mass Effect 2: excellent characters (excl. Liara and TIM), a stupid disjointed story that has nothing to do with anything, retcons out the ass ("Hi I just woke up and this gun doesn't have thermal clips despite them being invented when I was ded"), a smaller worse dialogue tree, and servicable but streamlined gameplay that turned the game into Gears of War with dialogue options ("When you press a button, something awesome has to happen!"). Overall pleb-tier.

Mass Effect 3: mediocre characters, as story that's somehow worse than the previous game (excl. Tuchanka and Rannoch), even moar retcons ("Hi I'm the leader of the Reapers, I live on the Citadel!"), an even worse dialogue tree, tolerable gameplay brought over from the second game, and an ending that still sucks (fuck you, you cant change my mind on that). Overall pleb-tier.

As someone from the Smudboy and Shamus Young school of Mass Effect criticism (I.e. first game kino, second two for fuckwitted suppositories), I wasn't expecting Mass Effect Andromeda to set my world on fire. Why would I? AFAIWC the previous two games sucked, so why would the next one be any different?

As it turns out, it was thoroughly mediocre. Disregarding the glitches, wonky animations and line delivery, and the weaksauce feel, it doesn't really stand out in any way. If I close my eyes and imagine the game as something inspired by Mass Effect instead of being another Mass Effect, the game becomes much better...but that's just it: If it was something else, it would have been much better, and not have the millstone of two bad Mass Effects hanging round its neck.

Overall I'm disappointed by Andromeda. It could've and should've been its own thing, and would've done much better if it was. Instead it's the redheaded stepchild of the franchise, and a sign of both how far the franchise and its developer have fallen.

 

[CaitSeith]

I got it at release and my only major regret was the MP didnt recapture the lightning in a bottle which ME3MP was.

Vangard class FTW!

 

[votemarvel]

I played Andromeda for 15 hours and simply couldn't force myself to play any longer. The only character I found in that time that I gave a damn about was Gil the engineer.

Combat was fun, is there anything jetpacks can't make fun? However the automatic cover system irritated the life out of me. Having no classes kind of ruined the point for me as well, I didn't have to think of different approaches to an enemy with my current powerset when I could just switch to a new more effective one.

What the hell did Bioware do to the menu system? It's like they looked at Mass Effect 1 and thought "right lads, let's make Andromeda's worse than this." At least ME1 was just a cluttered list, MEA had cluttered everything.

The Nomad was enjoyable to drive but kind of pointless as it carried no weaponry. Plus if your maps require a fast travel system then they are either too large or there isn't enough to do in them, in Andromeda's case it was both.

I wanted to love Andromeda but what I got was a game that reeked of people just saying "that'll do" about every little thing.

 

[DeadProxy]

I got it at release and my only major regret was the MP didnt recapture the lightning in a bottle which ME3MP was.

Vangard class FTW!

Oh man, Vanguard class was so fun. Especially the Kai Leng alt that could shoot frikken laser beams and warp through walls in the environment. Damn that was the best. Second only to smashing fools with that Krogan hammer.
The ME3mp set up all the races to have a good template, even the Volus for fucks sake, and Andromeda wastes all that potential. I did not enjoy the changes in execution or feel in the Andromeda MP. It was always choppy/laggy when I played and really made it garbage.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

What the hell did Bioware do to the menu system? It's like they looked at Mass Effect 1 and thought "right lads, let's make Andromeda's worse than this." At least ME1 was just a cluttered list, MEA had cluttered everything.

The issue there is that since they're essentially EA (old BW Edmonton were barely involved in MEA at all), they use the Frostbite engine for everything now. Every EA game uses Frostbite. That's not strictly a bad thing in itself, except it was in the case of Andromeda.

Frostbite was designed by DICE for the CallofBattleMedalsofHonourDutyFront game, whichever one it is they make. As an FPS engine, it had zero capability for the driving parts (created by the Need for Speed studio), cinematic conversations and custscenes, branching dialogue, "RPG" levelling and of course inventory management. As such, they had to bend, tweak and add to Frostbite (something which may benefit other EA studios down the line) and ended with a Frankmash of stuff. The inventory system shouldn't have have made it off the proposal sheet, it was flawed from the start but the execution was appalling. Maybe it's a canadian thing since Ubisoft games seem to suffer similarly horrendous menus.

 

[votemarvel]

The issue there is that since they're essentially EA (old BW Edmonton were barely involved in MEA at all), they use the Frostbite engine for everything now. Every EA game uses Frostbite. That's not strictly a bad thing in itself, except it was in the case of Andromeda.

I know it was developed by the team which did Mass Effect 3's multiplayer but that's really no excuse for making things worse.

Demiurge when they ported the first game to PC did an excellent job of reworking the menus to make them keyboard & mouse friendly. Then again they also made Pinnacle Station, so not all good on their part.

So it's entirely possible for a team not related to the original developers to make the game better. Then again the Mass Effect 2 PC version was done by Bioware and that had terrible menus.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I know it was developed by the team which did Mass Effect 3's multiplayer but that's really no excuse for making things worse.

They had a B-Team of developers working in constant crunch time in a hurried dev cycle, on an engine they had no experience in and designed for FPS games, on a system that was fundamentally flawed before it ever left the drawing board. Not to mention all the project leads leaving midway thru. TBH honest it would have been a surprise if it wasn't a disaster.

TBH, there's a "workaround" not-really sorta kinda. Just upgrade the absolute barest minimum of stuff and do it infrequently (ie. skip 10-20 levels on found/bought gear). It minimises time spent in the menu and when you do spend it, it's brief and in one hit so you get it over with quickly.

 

[Trunkage]

Okay, finally finished this game. Not going to touch the bugs etc. I don't have any further opinions than what have been already said.

I will say that this game has similar issues that I have with ME2. A lot of filler and not much actual story. ME2 had way better characters but a lot of groups that don't have any further impact to the story. ME:A has groups that continually impact the story right to the end. While I still think that during the suicide mission, choosing what your peeps do while not in your party is great, having the various factions come together to help you out in ME:A finale was cool too. Having all your buds help with the last battle was good. The main story was definitely better than ME2

I'd agree that the writing isn't great but I also think Baulder's Gate's writing isn't great either so it's just par for the course. I think people forget that Liara wasn't a great character til ME2 loyalty mission were generally cool, but then so were ME2. I liked how there were still things you could do with your peeps despite finishing thier loyalty mission. Felt more rounded and complete. I liked how the vaults had different effects, but two same planets? One was defeintly enough. Why didn't we get to explore the remnant ship more? Or Meridian?

I'm not one who gets offended when RPG gives you choice. Being not locked into certain skills like the old trilogy is geese in my opinion, but I heard plenty of people complain against it (see discussions on the Elder Scrolls or Fallout.) I understand that you have so many powers and it could turn the game into a power shooting mess like ME1 but limiting you to 3 skills at a time? Maybe 5 would have been better. Not being able to use companions skills was frustrating to no end, but that also meant that I didn't lock myself into only using 2 characters for the whole game like I did with the trilogy.

I hardly ever used cover, but when I did, it was bad. Nova not ending a combo as frustrating and made it pointless. Jump jets everywhere was fun including being able to dodge (giving a slightly Dark Souls feel). Overall, way better than the pop and shot of the old trilogy. Research and development was a nightmare to navigate. Having different points for different things (AVP, research etc,) wasn't a bad thing. But I like the community building from Fallout 4 and Dragon Age Inquisition. Way too much time spent traversing between region from the ground to the star charts. Gambit pointing out that it didn't let you skip moving between planets would have been infuriating.

So overall 7 to 7.5 out of 10. (ME trilogy earning 7-8) But I also bought it for $15 dollars. Anymore, and I'd say it's not worth it. I could definitely understand people being super angry over spending $60 on it.