much deserved criticisms. the 'they didn't get to finish what they started' is one of those things that bother me about games of late. designed for dlc/expansions to finalize stories instead of expanding on them so much. granted when that sort of design works, it works well somehow.
This was the first Mass Effect I played. I honestly enjoyed it, and didn't really understood all the criticism it got, graphic quality aside. Then I jumped into playing the original trilogy. Then I understood every complain made. But even before that, I must admit I felt really disappointed with the variety of scenarios. We got 6 planets to visit and explore freely... and 3 of them are just a desert. A desert with slight variations, but still. A desert.
Wth is the third one! I mean with Eos and Elaaden i get it! Voeld is not the desert, it's an antarctic-like frozen North Pole, Havarl is an exotic alien Pandora-like jungle, Aya is just a city hub world, Kadara is a toxic planet not the desert, so i don't understand what the heck you are talking about! Oh and there is 7th one you can freely explore, which you can technically count as a "planet", it is the Asteroid one with no atmosphere and low gravity a Moon-like world with craters and stuff...technically while barren wasteland also cannot be really classified as the desert...
I really enjoyed the game. Think I did the full story 2 times, one time as each sibling. Still not happy the "oh this will be covered in the DLC" that never happened.
I loved the Mako in ME1. Once you got good with it, you could bypass most obstacles, potshot targets, and goomba stomp the Geth Colossi, which was hilarious.
I kind of enjoyed it back then, to be honest, but the biggest disappointment for me was/still is that despite visiting a completely new galaxy, there isn't enough strangeness. There's a literal universe of opportunity for weird and creative places and beings, and they only had time/budget for - I'm exxagerating here - two deserts and an ice world and two bipedal species to interact with.
It’s mostly because you’re only in one cluster of the andromeda galaxy. In the other games we were in an entire galaxy. Probably in the later planned games we would’ve seen more of the galaxy and more races. Unfortunately, we will never get to see those games. It really infuriates me that because of rushing this game the franchise was destroyed by EA.
I definitely agree with your point that they didn't give enough set up to this series like they did the original ME. I think it's a general trend with a lot of the bigger studios nowadays that there's too much corporate mandates for profit and a stifling of talent and passion. A lot of the old guard have left the studios we once loved. They're shells of what we once loved and admired. Passionate workers are worked to the bone, forced to crunch and rush and make a messy although enjoyable experience. So often I see games that would have benefited from more time and being able to take risks again instead of being forced into the profit margins. Given more trust to make things right. But on the bright side there's still a lot of games that are coming out and there's passion and fire in those! New favorites are all around. We just need to look around and find them!
Gameplay wise maybe not, but it was aggresively redundant. Instead of pushing the narrative further and building upon the established universe, the decision was made to run around in circles and keep it in a convenient scale what made it just uninteresting.
Funny enough Alec would’ve made a better protagonist. Yeah we would be limited to a make only character, but honestly the setup for a great character was there and would’ve been something different than the usual, “taking control of a dead parents kid” like in fallout 3
They gave him a very interesting backstory that you only find out about if you delve into his sidequest (which is very dull to collect) so at least an intro play section with him would've been a nice addition.
@@ProperBird honestly I would if bioware protagonist writing would be better if they more of a pre determined character like garelt from the Witcher or Lee from the walking dead. Choice is good and all, but that comes at the cost of more variables the developers have to make which can lead to sone bizarre choices of “why didn’t the devs give us this option” results in a “they ran out of time and had to cut choice paths.
I fully get the burnout with multimedia universes. When I was writing my sci-fi pentalogy (shameless plug, I know), I made the deliberate choice to have each entry be a story that can work on its own without needing to know ten movies, three TV series and five comic series to know what someone's talking about. EDIT: As for the game itself... The story's such a drag, but I really like the non-human characters.
I bought this game soon after it was released. (Could have been a year after. I don’t remember.) I didn’t see or notice or was bothered by anything visually. Anyway. First Mass Effect game I played. I LOVED THIS GAME. Have replayed about 10 times. I’m actually, replaying it now.
You mentioned how there are 180 planets to look at and only 7 you can land on and it made me think of a missed opportunity. Imagine that after meeting the Angara you get an Angara codex that adds flavortext to all those planets. Imagine reading about the history of a pilgrimage planet, or of a planet where the Angara fought a bloody battle with the Kett that ended with them throwing an asteroid at it to stop them from taking the planet, or of planets where great historical Angaran figures come from and learning about said figures. It would help make the cluster feel lived in.
According to steam i played this for around one hundred hours, yet i find myself surprised by practically everything in this video. I suspect if anyone ever asked me about this game and I told them that it would be fairly damning.
I played the game more than a year after release. It was much better than I expected. Especially combat was very fun - and with crafting you could build broken overpowered weapons. ^^
It was my first year working... I fell sick and had to recover for a week at home. And the first day Andromeda came out. So I bought it and played it. I had fun... and also had very few bugs. I was lucky it seems. I generally enjoyed the game, even back then. Despite the imperfections
I share many of your views on Andromeda. Too many peek a boo plots that were never followed up on but were intriguing enough that they really needed more detail. Have you read the novels, particularly Annihilation? The detail there gives a lot more to the story and truly should have been in the game. They need to go to the drawing board with this one and incorporate those stories! Catherynne Valente MUST be a writer on this. Her book was the best of the Andromeda trilogy covering the Quarian ark. Also, I need more Jaal cheeks. lol Thank you for the video. I really like your style!
If it was mostly made in 18 months, maybe the plan wasn't only because of sequels. Maybe they only had time for the core story and the rest got binned along the way.
Just like the original Mass Effect series, this one was definitely also planned as a trilogy. The problem is as you said, they binned a lot of work late in the process and the stockholders didn't want to wait any longer. :(
That’s exactly the problem. If they had more time I think it would’ve been an amazing game. Everything is there it just needed a bit more story and a bit more character building (and fixing the bugs early if course). I would’ve loved an Andromeda trilogy. It’s sad that the fans actually killed it.
@@CherryJuli To be fair, it want the fan's fault the game release ias a buggy mess, that massive amounts of story were just not in the game, or that Bioware had set high expectations going into it by delivering consistently quality games. I honestly think it would be more accurate to say, too bad EA and their mandates killed it. because in the end, most of the issues that kept it from being a success came from EA, from putting a smaller, less experienced studio on it, to forcing the use of an unfamiliar engine that was particularly ill equipped to what they were trying to do, to time and DLC requirements, the game was star-crossed from the start. Not to say that the actual development team or the fans had no blame, but ultimately a lot of the things that doomed it were from EA and upper management.
The unfortunate thing about Andromeda is some of its best lore requires the player knowing outside of game lore. Example, Cora. Its heavily pointed that Cora is the Illusive Man's daughter, but a typical player wouldn't notice bc part of knowing even the illusive man's real name is reading mass effect comics. Its also pointed that one of the mystery benefactors is Cerberus, and Illusive Man's daughter being sent on the mission would give Cerberus big reason to fund the mission to andromeda. Tiran Kandros, the head of the militia is the cousin of Nyreen. Which is cool, but a player would only care or noticed if they played the Omega DLC and talked to Tiran enough.
I really liked this game a lot. I totally understand why people don't like it but it had a lot of what I like in a video game. The builds are so good and is an eye candy especially the later parts of the story.
This game could have been great, but it suffered from bein undercooked. The writing, the bugs, the planets, everything needed an extra year in the oven.
Mass Effect's ultimate sin was being cringe. I was patient with the bugs, but the dialogue was terrible and the best story beats were totally abandoned. If we had been given a choice to yeet Liam out of an airlock, it would have done a lot to redeem the game. Similar to nuking the space racist on Virmire, I think it would have given players a chance to feel like they weren't just saddled with losers, but crafted a crew.
I played the game after the patches and everything and i actually really liked it. Sure i would like better villains and some fixes here and there but it was a great start for a new mass effect era. Still sad we didn't get that DLC 😢
Never played anything in the “Mass Effect” universe, but I like listening to you 'cause you're a great storyteller. Fun fact: The captions kept calling “the kett”, the cat. 😆 P.S.: Based on your exposition the game doesn't seem bad so, who knows? Maybe one day this story will get a chance to reach its end. 🙂
Writer 1: "All right! I finally finished this dialog." Writer 2: _Reads over the dialog_ "I think some of these dialog wheel responses don't match up very well to the character's responses." Writer 1: _Shoves Writer 2 aside. Forcefully._
As somebody that pre-ordered it and played it at launch, yes. Everything you’ve heard is true and even though it’s better now its past shouldn’t be forgotten or discounted
Loved this! It’s really interesting looking back at this era of BioWare game design - and by interesting I think I mean disappointing. There were so many Big Game Trends they threw into this and Inquisition that really took away from the overall scope of what series was actually built on. Then again, cut to me in 2023 still holding out hope that the next ones are given the space to actually be their own thing! Eventually! Whenever they happen!
If we can only get 1 of the planned Andromeda DLC's, i want the Quarian Arc. Dont mind me hoping for the possibility of another Geth companion (or even a quarian with some geth in their suit).
About the world you can roam: this is just one cluster of the whole Andromeda galaxy. A cluster just like in the original trilogy where you flew between star systems using fuel (from the second part). If Andromeda would get more parts maybe we could explore the rest of the galaxy.
The Kett are the ultimate joke of a villain. They were defeated by a few people on an unarmed colony ship and an unarmed scout ship. The Hyperion is big enough, they should have strapped some dreadnaughts to the side when they departed the Milky Way. Then we could have played extra galactic invader and wiped the Kett out in a week.
Played the first two Mass Effects back in the day and only recently finished 3 and Andromeda and I had far more fun with these last two than I thought I would after all the internet ripping. Oh boy were there still problems to this day, but imagine the kind of Mass Effect we could get if devs didn't get crunched into oblivion.
I agree with you on being an OK game, and I enjoyed most of it. I played at the same time as you, but I chose to max out guns first and then use the fists, just because you were being the One Punch Ryder and I wanted to see if there were any differences in gameplay. In the end only the animation bugs were different, but it was fun nonetheless. Story wise, forgetting Liam's, I liked how the companions stories evolved, even the really short ones like the tea break with Suvi.
Gamplay was okay but that story was so abysmal and felt very hollow after the last 3 just why not to mention the missing races no quorean or geth was bizarre
They mention the missing quarian ark all the way at the end (it's been found and they want no contact) as a hook for what would've likely been an upcoming DLC. Another victim of the trilogy plans. They resolved their story in a novel afterwards which is a shame.
@@ProperBirdit is this should have bin the plot of andromeda the threat of geth seeking on border an arch so you have to save them only to discover un suited quoreans and fully aware geth says that the ket are just another for of collectors that shouldn't be acting like this ofcourse the true would be a fragment of harbinger is controlling them and though that the biggest twist is revealed sam is actually a re-engineered sovereign so the choices would affect if both the character and Sam become sovereign again and hold on to the past like harbinger or move on with rider to become some more then human and AI like the geth and quorains
Love mass effect 1. Disappointed that they cut the exploration out like that. Maybe that's why I liked Andromeda, exploration although it was very limited
Honestly just being mid, average is worse then being bad. Everything about this video made me think that this game doesn't deserve the mass effect name being attached to it at all.
I actually agree that the game would've been better off not being a Mass Effect game. Letting it stand on its own would remove all the comparisons. I enjoy a lot of "just ok" games though.
The fundamental reason Andromeda didn't work is the same reason the new MCU movies don't work. It's an afterthought mandated by producers after the fundamental psychic contract between creatives and audiences is completed. People were good with the MCU up until Thanos' defeat because that's what all those films had been building towards. Bit by bit, audiences were swept along in an epic narrative that grew with each chapter in complexity even as each chapter told its own story. It culminated in a grand finale that relieved all the tension that underwrote each previous chapter, and whether or not you liked the conclusion, that resolved tension could not be built up again or transferred onto anything that would come later because it was resolved. The Mass Effect trilogy was the same. The first two chapters each told their own story, but each also built up the series villains, The Reapers more and more. The third game delivered on the promise of the first two, and while many didn't like the ending (precisely because the endings at first did nothing to acknowledge prior game decisions as had been promised from the outset), it still ultimately resolved the tension built up over the three full games. The story, as understood by the audience was told. There was no more reason to keep telling it. The smart thing to do, from a creative standpoint, in both cases would have been to let things lie for a while. Let people yearn for more after giving the property some time to breath. But instead it was mandated to exist because producers wanted more money, so it came into existence, but people were just . . .done. There's very little that can be done in cases like these, because unless the creatives can sell audiences on a truly great follow up that makes the prior entries seem like they fit into an even *grander* narrative, unless they can come up with an Odyssey to follow the Trojan War essentially, it just feels like what it is: a cash grab.
Short answer: Not really a bad game Long answer: In comparison to the original trilogy it fell short due to being a standalone title. The trilogy is exactly that, a trilogy. When you think Mass Effect you think of the trilogy, not the individual games of 1-3. The trilogy had the benefit of having three games to hook you in and make you care about the characters, but if you only play Mass Effect 1 and stopped there then characters like Garrus, Wrex, and Tali all fall short of their later potential since it’s the first game of three. Andromeda suffers that exact issue of being a standalone title. There’s no further games to expand upon what was presented, and no DLC ever dropped for the story. The Quarian ark? Completely unresolved. Due to how hard the game bombed.
Combat and visuals/audio were fine. Thats one positive thing you can say about this game. Rest, not so great. "My Mom tragically died when i was kid, my Dad died yesterday, but dont worry, i have plenty of 'jokes' in my sleeve to be amused"
When Mass Effect came out, I always wanted to play it but it was XBOX exclusive at the time, and I don't usually play RPGs. By the time I got around to finally playing it late last year, I played Andromeda first. Other than a few minor bugs (I guess they fixed some of them.) , I didn't really notice any problems with it. I had no point of reference though, I don't usually play those types of games. I did find it annoying I had to travel back and forth to planets (especially f***ing Havarl). I realized the mission structure was really bad. On a related note, I hated that no matter how many times I traveled around planets, the same enemies would re-populate there again. It took me a while to figure out I can ignore most these encounters and there was nothing in it for me. (Another reason I hate Havarl, you can't go anywhere in that god forsaken place.) It took FOREVER for me to understand the crafting, blueprint, and inventory mechanics. As a completionist, I didn't appreciate that after completing one of the main quests, I was locked out of one of the side quests....forever. It was something I had to do at the Kett base on Voeld I think. I dont remember there being any prompt or anything highlighting that mission/objective in the room, I was in the room, none of my squad mates said anything, nothing. I guess that's true of all Mass Effects, and the point is to play multiple times and explore, but I explicitly started out with Andromeda b/c it was one game, and I ME1-3 sounded daunting. So, I got the game 95-99%ish completed instead. Lastly, when I took one second to think about it, the story didn't make a lick of sense. Other than that, I had a lot of fun! Tough going from the gunplay and movement of Andromeda to ME1 but I actually am happy I played that one first, I'm much more knowledgeable going into my first playthrough of ME1-3 than I would've been otherwise.
I really hated (among oh so many details, but whatevers) that in the very end, when you are given to choose who will be the head of union (off all races in the sector- not just those from out galaxy?)- this choice still have the [serious/emotional/joke] icon and choosing krogan counts as a [joke]. and at that the locals are like- eeeh- whatever.
@@ProperBird Krogan where deffo the best choice! and to see the face of the salarian ambassador was a free bonus to me... U know- if it would be possible to kill off "tired face" addison (and other characters we found too annoying) would have made the game better-by venting our stress... all in all- i would say that andromeda was (and is) deemed bad not because it is a trash game, but because almost everything is half baked- every conversation, every mechanic, every tired face- any player could feel- "if only this here was just a bit this", "slightly different there," "better thought here" etc. and in the end these seemingly small annoyances snowballed into one big lump of annoyance :( and how come sudoku is the only puzzle in the galaxy far far away? look how hogwarts made gazilion with almost same mechanic but they felt different! on a side note- why does an inherently fps frostbite game did not have fps game-play option is beyond me..
Now that Starfield have come out, Andromeda seems light years more advanced that game, at least the planets are vast with many locations to explore because they were hand crafted, the aliens races still are lack luster but far better than Starfield, and Andromeda at least not try to pretend that is a space sim.
I agree with most of your opinions, except for the vaults, they were wicked, it's just a shame that the first one you explore is so huge, and has amazing views, but the rest did not match the scale, or the beauty of that one. The combat was an absolute blast, and the ability to build your character any way that you wished, was fantastic. The new mako was a pleasure to drive, unlike ME1, and the squad mate interactions, while driving around, made me laugh out loud on several occasions, Drack and Cora in particular. Reyes was the most fleshed out npc, by a country mile, and I genuinely regretted betraying him, that one time, never to be repeated. lol Liam was akin to Jacob from ME2, but immature and annoying too. I did not pre-order, or purchase on release day, but waited until it went on sale, and it was well worth the money I paid for it, half price, far more than many of the full price "better" games that I have bought. I only experienced one bug, unable to get 100% completion, despite scouring every planet for every single side quest, but it's a minor gripe really. Like you, I was gutted when EA abandoned it, it had so much potential, it just needed the kind of writing and polish that could only have come about if it had been given the time and support it needed. What is astonishing to me, is that Andromeda accounted for 40% of EA sales revenue in the year it released, but they just gave up on it, criminally so, in my opinion. I rank Andromed highly, just behind ME2 which had the best story and an absolute killer suicide mission, and ahead of ME3 which had a strong start and some good dlc's, but fell apart towards the end. As for the Ice planet, I had the most fun on that planet, it's chock full of missions and side quests, Jaal and Peebee really shine with their interactions there.
I liked it and I got it the first weekend. Most of the gameplay bugs were things I encountered in every Mass Effect games and I don't care about cutscene and character facial issues. And while the story and characters weren't as good as the earlier games I think they could have gotten better in future games. And this has my favorite gameplay in the franchise so far. There were a lot of gameplay changes between Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 that I disliked and while Mass Effect 3 fixed some of these it wasn't until Andromeda that they were all fixed. I played as an Engineer and loved using the jetpack to throw my turret behind enemy positions then either blasting them in the back as they focused on the turret or cutting them down as they charged to get away from the turret. I suspect I will never forgive the jerks who canceled the story DLCs
I hated it at launch cos I had a weak pc and could barely run it but the biggest issue was that the game itself wasn't great. Played it 3 years later and enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Maybe cos I am a mass effect fanboy I would still buy another sequel if they make it.
The story is so bad and I don't understand how NOONE of the writing team thought about the pure stupidity of the daddy death scene. Right at the start after the fall you use your multitool to fix your broken helmet, but now it is not possible?
The Council started becoming pig-headed about the Reapers in ME2, after Shep potentially saved them at the conclusion of ME1. So I’m not sure how that’s a flaw in ME1? Their overall skepticism throughout ME1 is more nuanced than you make it out to be, either way. Especially the much-maligned(rightly so) turian councillor. I do share your frustrations about how Andromeda was treated, though. There was enough in it for me that it could’ve been a worthy, fresh successor to the Shep trilogy. ME1 is my favourite, so Andromeda going back to basics so to speak was a big plus for me. Btw, any plans for a ME trilogy video? 🙂
The first 10-15 hours are great, but the game has the infuriating habit of not letting the player complete the quests. On Hold ! On Hold ! On Hold ! Wait, Wait, Wait. I wasted hours on quests that haven't been resolved.
Nice video. Mass Effect trilogy is a series I go back and play ever two or three years and I've gone through Legendary Edition three times since it's release. Andromeda was just okay. Being just okay after the original trilogy turned it into a bad game for a lot of people. The major problem with Andromeda is the Frostbite Engine. Many devs have had a lot of bad things to say about working with it. If you go back and play Dragon age: Inquisition it was plagued by the same bugs. I think Mass Effect 5 is using Unreal 5 (don't really like Unreal 5 but it's better then Frostbite) so we'll see how that turns out.
I wonder if it would have done better if it was not associated with the Mass Effect series. I don't think any of the loose story ends were supposed to be resolved by DLC. If there were DLC planned to resolve this, I don't think EA would have not have marketed it. Like how the DLC that was produced was heavily marketed. Instead I suspect Bioware planned on making another trilogy. However, it did so poorly, I think the trilogy was canceled. Overall, I really enjoyed this game. The jump pack combat was something I really liked, was glad to see it again in Starfield. Though I was not happy to see plot points being lifted and sanitized of the alien element for Starfield. Though I suppose Starfield is the game Bioware wanted to produce since the majority of their development time was spent on procedural generation...
EA were idiots when they abandoned this game so quickly after launch. Now, anytime EA tries to sell a "game-as-a-service" I can't help thinking, "yeah but you guys instantly gave up on one of the best selling franchises of all time, why would I ever trust you to support anything?" The saddest part is that... In terms of the actual moment-to-moment gameplay this game may be favorite of the series when I was using my Biotics character build with; Charge, Lance and Annihilation field.
I think a big problem is that Bioware didn't have the guts to do a full reboot. Humans Only: They should have only sent humans to Andromeda . . . for two reasons. 1) We had already finished the unique stories related to each of the Milky Way races. We knew who the Asari, Turians, and Salarians were, The Krogan Genophage had been resolved one way or another. Their racial differences and cultural issues no longer meant anything in Andromeda . . . We were all just aliens from the Milky Way. 2) For technical reasons they could only have a limited number of character models. Asari, Turians, Salarians, and Krogan . . . . meant there would be 4 less new alien species for us to meet an interact with. Heck the reason the Quarians weren't there was likely just due to technical limitations. So in stead we get only three new aliens, two of which are hostile and we can't even interact with. And in the end we just have the Angorans. Note they still could have brought a Milky Way alien race or two as a companion if they wanted since those are custom models. Exploration: The other major problem I had with the game is that it was supposed to be about exploration and discovering a new galaxy. Except when we get there everything is already discovered (except the Remnant, and even Pebee is working on that.). There are only 5 explorable planets (not counting the intro). Two are fully populated by the Angoran. And the other three are already populated with colonists. So much for exploration and finding a new world. We meet the Angorans thinking its a first contact situation, only to discover they met the earlier humans and know all about us. Most of the local quests are discovering what the colonists that arrived before us were up to and sorting out issues and messes that they left behind. What Should Have Been: Our single human colony ship should have arrived to a truly new galaxy. Then we as the pathfinder need to explore a larger number of worlds (Mass Effect had 38 planets you could land on). Some could be small and mostly empty. But in the course of exploration we would meet 7 new Alien species. A couple could be friendly, a couple hostile and some friends or foes based on what we do. The first aliens we meet could be friendly or hostile depending on how we handle the first contact. The various races would have some existing conflicts . . . perhaps we have to choose which side to support . . . after learning about them and their situation. There could be an existing war we need to intervene with . . . perhaps two of the races are fighting . . . and we unlock the Remnant and effectively recruit them so we can use their support to end the war. There were so many fresh options they could have gone with . . . if they just had the courage to fully reboot.
What a great video. It isn't the typical, "Andromeda bad," nonsense everywhere. It actually explores the issues of the game and why they are issues. Like the dialogue isn't bad. Listening to it is just what you expect it to be. The real issue is the animations and expression. Andromeda has so much going for it. From its story to its companions and the amount of potential it has. Given the chance Andromeda would have been a successful series. It is so sad to think that Andromeda won't get the chance. Thanks for making the video. As an Andromeda fan it was great to see a video that isn't just pure hatred.
The story of the benefactor is just really bad writing. From a narrative perspective it could only be the council, the old shadow broker or the illusive man but none of them fit at all with what we've got.
The only game that I ever regretted buying. I never finished and can't even look at it in my library. I gave it a shot despite the reviews but ... holy shit what a disgrace. The crew in Andromeda is just as bad as the new characters in the Saints Row Reboot
I was waiting for this video! Andromeda deserved to be expanded on, it deserved to be fixed, like Cyberpunk and No man's sky. Yes, it will never be as good as the main Mass Effect trilogy, but Andromeda is generally okay.
Andromeda might have stood half a chance as a standalone game with no connection with Mass Effect. But as a Mass Effect game it completely failed. The plot and characters fell flat in comparison with the original trilogy, and it didn’t help that it was a buggy incomplete mess that was memed to oblivion. It gutted out what made us love Mass Effect in the first place: the story and the characters, the unique races with their own rich histories and cultures.
I played this a year or so ago. Your video pretty much sums up how I thought of it. Not a great game, but still fun. And I am a completionist so I did everything. More time to fix things would likely have allowed for more games in the series. But that would be thinking long term and corporations don't do that anymore.
It was my first Mass Effect game that i played. Since ive played all three of the originals and am currently replaying all of them on my channel. I think the hate the game gets it pretty excessive. Does the game have issues yes but looking back at mass effect one spending hours on end driving around reskinnned barren planets with virtually nothing on them. Not gonna lie id rather explore the developed landscape of Andromedas planets. Plus Andromeda allows jump gotta say as a gamer i really appreciate that.
Yes, ME:A was that bad. It's not just about the graphics and the space (boring side quests). The companions are boring, the NPC's are boring and the villains are boring (only 1 main baddie). And the worst of all - Ryder is boring.
It's the hamfisted mocap that jumps out at me. This is the first AAA game I can think of that used the same exaggerated, dickish motions that you see used in multiplayer games for taunts and win/loss screens, etc. for *all* character animation *all* the time. Everyone moves like a dudebro. Then it got dialed up to 11 in Borderlands 3, and you even see it in Cyberpunk 2077, but only in some instances -- there's a talk show where the host and guests do it, but the motion is natural in the game proper. The weird thing is that mocap started out that way in the 90s, with the performers treating it like theater and were "playing to the back row," but then they realized that was dumb and dialed it down.
The funny part is Andromeda gets decked for its story while everyone ignores just how bad the main story is for ME2. Just to list a few issues: First 15 minutes was spent undoing a lot of what ME1 built on. We are somehow detected while stealth systems are active and the only explanation why the Reapers in ME3 can't detect us is that the stealth systems on the SR2 are just better bro. Then act two of the main story actually goes on a pause and we spend our time recruiting squadmates and doing loyalty missions all while nothing actual happens in the main story but we are doing stuff and things and then by the end of Act 3 we are no further in the main trilogies story line than when we finished the first game. How do the reapers make it to the Milky Way? Don't know. Seriously those. 2's main story being so bad was exactly why ME3 had so many issues. By Comparison Andromeda at least attempted to do something. I actually liked the idea of fighting what amounts to cultists. Vs ME2 with the collectors who had no personality or anything that actually made good they just didn't say anything so we were all like, "Wooooo, mysterious."
I played the game, and enjoyed it. It was glitchy as hell, but I play a ton of eastern european janky games for fun so... I think I just have a higher tolerance for that sort of thing. The game had good potential, but instead of trying to fix the problems (aside from a good patch that made it playable) they just completely abandoned it. The jetpack was a great addition to the mass effect formula. Leaving major story points out in order to keep them for DLC was a *huge* mistake.
I never finished the game after two attempts, eventually I just lost interest. By rights I should have enjoyed the game, I enjoy open world experiences, and initially exploring the planets and doing all the terraforming stuff was enjoyable. The alien intrigue and ruin exploration is interesting, at first, but the plot didn't keep my attention well enough, and the villains were pretty boring. The cast of party members are almost enjoyable, nowhere near the levels of any of the previous ME games, and there's no Quarians at all which were my favorite race. Multiplayer was only ok, the enemy factions never felt distinct enough as they did in ME3 multiplayer. I had intended to try a third time to play through the game, but modding it up to make the combat much more interesting, play with some of the textures and perhaps add new armors and weapons, abilities etc, but it has yet to manifest. Regardless though of how many mods I pack into this thing, it'll never be able to fix the bad writing.
@@ProperBird Truly a horrible business practice and a show of overconfident arrogance from higher ups probably. Ship the game that you want people to play now.
Played it, it felt like a different game! If they just named it Andromeda, and didn't link it to mass effect, I'd enjoy it a little bit more! The design of the other intelligent races is very poor!
This is my introduction to you as a content creator (as a human being, really) so first impressions: Did Jack apply your lipstick? That's sharp. Old fashioned looks based compliment out of the way, i agree with your take on MEA. it was my introduction to the Mass Effect world, just this last January, and i thought it was really good. It made me interested enough to try the trilogy, and while i think the triligy as a whole is better than MEA, i thought it was vastly superior to ME1. I also think the lack of dlc is a two-edged sword. While it doesnt get fleshed out, we also dont get the bloat of the trilogy dlc. Lastly, the "my face is tired" is the most relatable line in all video game history, for me as an introvert.
It was very good. it combat was very good the exploration was great but there was only one real new race the angera. It has potential if there was a more sense of brotherhood among your team mates. You might expect the mysterious benefactor to send some frigate ships with the initiative not just arcs on their own.
43:15 - Well, majority of people would disagree with you; because game didn't sell well. Never played it myself and I got bored even watching let's plays of this title, so I didn't experienced ending. Yes, I do agree with you that in a way combat look more dynamic and less monotonous that in previous entries but at the same time it lack any tactical aspect and any feeling that you are field commander ordering your squad - you have no control over your team. Yes, new terrain vehicle is much better than Mako but at the same time whole open world and "exploration" aspect of the game is most monotonous part - especially in case of story driven game such as this. As for story - it also is so-so to me; on the one hand it supposedly give you opportunity to discover completely new galaxy, to be a explorer, but at the same time is so narratively and thematically so far removed from Mass Effect that it could as well be completely new franchise. I cannot say that I like whole soft-reboot approach BioWare had chosen - they wanted to have a cake and eat it to; they didn't wanted to completely reboot the series but they didn't want to continue from controversial ending to ME3 either. Result is so-so; for some people mystery presented by "Andromeda" will work, for me and many others the fact that we completely abandoned plight of humanity in Milky Way - thing we fought for in original trilogy - is frankly disheartening. As is the fact that whole exploration aspect is greatly oversold; for example when when you made "first contact" with Angara you learn... that they already speak English! 😂
I was deployed when this game arrived so I didn’t even get the day one patch. I had a visual glitch where every time my character was talking to Sam’s core her head would start slowly spinning upward. Like the neck was slowly stretched into a slinky as the head rose off screen. Then it would slowly coil back down. This whole time it would still be doing it’s dialog with eyes staring blankly forward while the head starts turning. Spookiest glitch I’ve ever seen.
This game has the same problem as Starfield now had ... Too big , lacking in a great "main campaign " And the wrong kind if empty.... On the other side both games has a great gun play system...its just sad MEA was left too die just like Starfield now its was a great jumping off point for more games/ dlc ...
I like to compare MEA to ME1. A completely new Game build up to tell its whole Story with Sequels. Only that Andromeda won´t have the opportunity atleast as a Standalone Series. The buggy technical state the Game launched in was indeed bad. Other then that it was totally fine imo, you have to Stop a Bad Guy from doing dumb shit similar to ME1. The Gameplay/Combat is very fun/clearly Superior and the Game definetly has its Moments. Is it the best Game? No Is it the worst Game? No After all the Technical Issues were fixed its a solid 7,5 out of 10 Game for me. And thanks to the Mod Community the Series has, you can definetly play it more then once, but that goes to every ME out there.
I liked the whole setup of ME:A but it failed on execution. The galaxy felt empty, so very empty and only two aliens bios and one AI drone. The story dragged on and was very meh. The companions were very boring and didnt fit in at all and they felt very forced... like me! LIKE ME! WHY WONT YOU LIKE ME!! The combat however was very fun and of all the ME games i liked ME:A combat the most.
much deserved criticisms. the 'they didn't get to finish what they started' is one of those things that bother me about games of late. designed for dlc/expansions to finalize stories instead of expanding on them so much. granted when that sort of design works, it works well somehow.
I 100% prefer small, self-contained games by far.
@@ProperBird Agree. those are the ones I keep playing over the years.
To be fair this game was mostly designed to be in a trilogy not for a ton of DLCs.
This was the first Mass Effect I played. I honestly enjoyed it, and didn't really understood all the criticism it got, graphic quality aside. Then I jumped into playing the original trilogy.
Then I understood every complain made.
But even before that, I must admit I felt really disappointed with the variety of scenarios. We got 6 planets to visit and explore freely... and 3 of them are just a desert. A desert with slight variations, but still. A desert.
Interesting perspective - thanks for sharing.
Wth is the third one! I mean with Eos and Elaaden i get it! Voeld is not the desert, it's an antarctic-like frozen North Pole, Havarl is an exotic alien Pandora-like jungle, Aya is just a city hub world, Kadara is a toxic planet not the desert, so i don't understand what the heck you are talking about! Oh and there is 7th one you can freely explore, which you can technically count as a "planet", it is the Asteroid one with no atmosphere and low gravity a Moon-like world with craters and stuff...technically while barren wasteland also cannot be really classified as the desert...
It was my first mass effect then I played the originals and couldn’t go back to it
I feel like Adromeda have the same problem as Dragon Age 3: too much pointless content in an empty universe
I really don't understand that push for open worlds when all of those worlds are empty, for sure.
I really enjoyed the game. Think I did the full story 2 times, one time as each sibling. Still not happy the "oh this will be covered in the DLC" that never happened.
Thank you!
I loved the Mako in ME1. Once you got good with it, you could bypass most obstacles, potshot targets, and goomba stomp the Geth Colossi, which was hilarious.
the mako will forever haunt my nightmares
I kind of enjoyed it back then, to be honest, but the biggest disappointment for me was/still is that despite visiting a completely new galaxy, there isn't enough strangeness. There's a literal universe of opportunity for weird and creative places and beings, and they only had time/budget for - I'm exxagerating here - two deserts and an ice world and two bipedal species to interact with.
I absolutely agree.
It’s mostly because you’re only in one cluster of the andromeda galaxy. In the other games we were in an entire galaxy. Probably in the later planned games we would’ve seen more of the galaxy and more races. Unfortunately, we will never get to see those games. It really infuriates me that because of rushing this game the franchise was destroyed by EA.
I definitely agree with your point that they didn't give enough set up to this series like they did the original ME. I think it's a general trend with a lot of the bigger studios nowadays that there's too much corporate mandates for profit and a stifling of talent and passion. A lot of the old guard have left the studios we once loved. They're shells of what we once loved and admired.
Passionate workers are worked to the bone, forced to crunch and rush and make a messy although enjoyable experience. So often I see games that would have benefited from more time and being able to take risks again instead of being forced into the profit margins. Given more trust to make things right.
But on the bright side there's still a lot of games that are coming out and there's passion and fire in those! New favorites are all around. We just need to look around and find them!
Gameplay wise maybe not, but it was aggresively redundant. Instead of pushing the narrative further and building upon the established universe, the decision was made to run around in circles and keep it in a convenient scale what made it just uninteresting.
I’m sure they’re were going to fix it later or add more story through paid DLC xD
Funny enough Alec would’ve made a better protagonist. Yeah we would be limited to a make only character, but honestly the setup for a great character was there and would’ve been something different than the usual, “taking control of a dead parents kid” like in fallout 3
They gave him a very interesting backstory that you only find out about if you delve into his sidequest (which is very dull to collect) so at least an intro play section with him would've been a nice addition.
@@ProperBird honestly I would if bioware protagonist writing would be better if they more of a pre determined character like garelt from the Witcher or Lee from the walking dead. Choice is good and all, but that comes at the cost of more variables the developers have to make which can lead to sone bizarre choices of “why didn’t the devs give us this option” results in a “they ran out of time and had to cut choice paths.
I fully get the burnout with multimedia universes. When I was writing my sci-fi pentalogy (shameless plug, I know), I made the deliberate choice to have each entry be a story that can work on its own without needing to know ten movies, three TV series and five comic series to know what someone's talking about.
EDIT: As for the game itself... The story's such a drag, but I really like the non-human characters.
I bought this game soon after it was released. (Could have been a year after. I don’t remember.) I didn’t see or notice or was bothered by anything visually.
Anyway. First Mass Effect game I played. I LOVED THIS GAME. Have replayed about 10 times. I’m actually, replaying it now.
You mentioned how there are 180 planets to look at and only 7 you can land on and it made me think of a missed opportunity. Imagine that after meeting the Angara you get an Angara codex that adds flavortext to all those planets. Imagine reading about the history of a pilgrimage planet, or of a planet where the Angara fought a bloody battle with the Kett that ended with them throwing an asteroid at it to stop them from taking the planet, or of planets where great historical Angaran figures come from and learning about said figures. It would help make the cluster feel lived in.
According to steam i played this for around one hundred hours, yet i find myself surprised by practically everything in this video. I suspect if anyone ever asked me about this game and I told them that it would be fairly damning.
Unfortunately the story lines fizzle out somewhat on account of the "planned trilogy" concept. 😬
I always enjoyed the combat, I felt that was a plus in my book plus the multiplayer was fun too
I played the game more than a year after release. It was much better than I expected. Especially combat was very fun - and with crafting you could build broken overpowered weapons. ^^
It was my first year working... I fell sick and had to recover for a week at home. And the first day Andromeda came out. So I bought it and played it. I had fun... and also had very few bugs. I was lucky it seems. I generally enjoyed the game, even back then. Despite the imperfections
I share many of your views on Andromeda. Too many peek a boo plots that were never followed up on but were intriguing enough that they really needed more detail. Have you read the novels, particularly Annihilation? The detail there gives a lot more to the story and truly should have been in the game. They need to go to the drawing board with this one and incorporate those stories! Catherynne Valente MUST be a writer on this. Her book was the best of the Andromeda trilogy covering the Quarian ark.
Also, I need more Jaal cheeks. lol
Thank you for the video. I really like your style!
If it was mostly made in 18 months, maybe the plan wasn't only because of sequels. Maybe they only had time for the core story and the rest got binned along the way.
Just like the original Mass Effect series, this one was definitely also planned as a trilogy. The problem is as you said, they binned a lot of work late in the process and the stockholders didn't want to wait any longer. :(
That’s exactly the problem. If they had more time I think it would’ve been an amazing game. Everything is there it just needed a bit more story and a bit more character building (and fixing the bugs early if course). I would’ve loved an Andromeda trilogy. It’s sad that the fans actually killed it.
@@CherryJuli To be fair, it want the fan's fault the game release ias a buggy mess, that massive amounts of story were just not in the game, or that Bioware had set high expectations going into it by delivering consistently quality games.
I honestly think it would be more accurate to say, too bad EA and their mandates killed it. because in the end, most of the issues that kept it from being a success came from EA, from putting a smaller, less experienced studio on it, to forcing the use of an unfamiliar engine that was particularly ill equipped to what they were trying to do, to time and DLC requirements, the game was star-crossed from the start. Not to say that the actual development team or the fans had no blame, but ultimately a lot of the things that doomed it were from EA and upper management.
The unfortunate thing about Andromeda is some of its best lore requires the player knowing outside of game lore. Example, Cora. Its heavily pointed that Cora is the Illusive Man's daughter, but a typical player wouldn't notice bc part of knowing even the illusive man's real name is reading mass effect comics. Its also pointed that one of the mystery benefactors is Cerberus, and Illusive Man's daughter being sent on the mission would give Cerberus big reason to fund the mission to andromeda.
Tiran Kandros, the head of the militia is the cousin of Nyreen. Which is cool, but a player would only care or noticed if they played the Omega DLC and talked to Tiran enough.
I really liked this game a lot. I totally understand why people don't like it but it had a lot of what I like in a video game. The builds are so good and is an eye candy especially the later parts of the story.
Yep, I had a blast with it. Doesn’t hit the highs of the original trilogy but I never expected it too.
The deus ex games have a dialogue wheel but are also pretty clear about what jensen is gonna say
This game could have been great, but it suffered from bein undercooked. The writing, the bugs, the planets, everything needed an extra year in the oven.
Mass Effect's ultimate sin was being cringe. I was patient with the bugs, but the dialogue was terrible and the best story beats were totally abandoned. If we had been given a choice to yeet Liam out of an airlock, it would have done a lot to redeem the game. Similar to nuking the space racist on Virmire, I think it would have given players a chance to feel like they weren't just saddled with losers, but crafted a crew.
I played the game after the patches and everything and i actually really liked it. Sure i would like better villains and some fixes here and there but it was a great start for a new mass effect era. Still sad we didn't get that DLC 😢
Never played anything in the “Mass Effect” universe, but I like listening to you 'cause you're a great storyteller.
Fun fact: The captions kept calling “the kett”, the cat. 😆
P.S.: Based on your exposition the game doesn't seem bad so, who knows? Maybe one day this story will get a chance to reach its end. 🙂
I'm still working on the proper subtitles, UA-cam auto subtitles just don't ever cut it. ^^;
@@ProperBird No problem. I just found it funny. 😅
Writer 1: "All right! I finally finished this dialog."
Writer 2: _Reads over the dialog_ "I think some of these dialog wheel responses don't match up very well to the character's responses."
Writer 1: _Shoves Writer 2 aside. Forcefully._
As somebody that pre-ordered it and played it at launch, yes. Everything you’ve heard is true and even though it’s better now its past shouldn’t be forgotten or discounted
Loved this! It’s really interesting looking back at this era of BioWare game design - and by interesting I think I mean disappointing. There were so many Big Game Trends they threw into this and Inquisition that really took away from the overall scope of what series was actually built on.
Then again, cut to me in 2023 still holding out hope that the next ones are given the space to actually be their own thing! Eventually! Whenever they happen!
If we can only get 1 of the planned Andromeda DLC's, i want the Quarian Arc. Dont mind me hoping for the possibility of another Geth companion (or even a quarian with some geth in their suit).
Great video 👌🏼 it would be awesome to see this type of analysis for Baldur’s Gate 3
About the world you can roam: this is just one cluster of the whole Andromeda galaxy. A cluster just like in the original trilogy where you flew between star systems using fuel (from the second part). If Andromeda would get more parts maybe we could explore the rest of the galaxy.
The Kett are the ultimate joke of a villain. They were defeated by a few people on an unarmed colony ship and an unarmed scout ship. The Hyperion is big enough, they should have strapped some dreadnaughts to the side when they departed the Milky Way. Then we could have played extra galactic invader and wiped the Kett out in a week.
I had to force myself to complete this game when it first came out, I’m sure I’m not the only one.
Played the first two Mass Effects back in the day and only recently finished 3 and Andromeda and I had far more fun with these last two than I thought I would after all the internet ripping. Oh boy were there still problems to this day, but imagine the kind of Mass Effect we could get if devs didn't get crunched into oblivion.
I agree with you on being an OK game, and I enjoyed most of it.
I played at the same time as you, but I chose to max out guns first and then use the fists, just because you were being the One Punch Ryder and I wanted to see if there were any differences in gameplay. In the end only the animation bugs were different, but it was fun nonetheless.
Story wise, forgetting Liam's, I liked how the companions stories evolved, even the really short ones like the tea break with Suvi.
Tea with Suvi was a highglight. 😊
I don't appreciate PB stealing my pickup lines for her dialog wheel montage either.
Sorry they were too good to pass up.
For the odd Luo speaker here, I chuckled too hearing the words "Jal" and "Angara" on a 1st playthrough.
Gamplay was okay but that story was so abysmal and felt very hollow after the last 3 just why not to mention the missing races no quorean or geth was bizarre
They mention the missing quarian ark all the way at the end (it's been found and they want no contact) as a hook for what would've likely been an upcoming DLC. Another victim of the trilogy plans. They resolved their story in a novel afterwards which is a shame.
@@ProperBirdit is this should have bin the plot of andromeda the threat of geth seeking on border an arch so you have to save them only to discover un suited quoreans and fully aware geth says that the ket are just another for of collectors that shouldn't be acting like this ofcourse the true would be a fragment of harbinger is controlling them and though that the biggest twist is revealed sam is actually a re-engineered sovereign so the choices would affect if both the character and Sam become sovereign again and hold on to the past like harbinger or move on with rider to become some more then human and AI like the geth and quorains
I really liked Andromeda when I revisited it. ME1 then Andromeda are the faves for me
Love mass effect 1. Disappointed that they cut the exploration out like that. Maybe that's why I liked Andromeda, exploration although it was very limited
28:03 is that the Traverse Town Theme in the background?
Yep!
Yeah, agreed. It could have been so much more if it wasn't smothered in the crib.
Honestly just being mid, average is worse then being bad.
Everything about this video made me think that this game doesn't deserve the mass effect name being attached to it at all.
I actually agree that the game would've been better off not being a Mass Effect game. Letting it stand on its own would remove all the comparisons. I enjoy a lot of "just ok" games though.
The fundamental reason Andromeda didn't work is the same reason the new MCU movies don't work. It's an afterthought mandated by producers after the fundamental psychic contract between creatives and audiences is completed.
People were good with the MCU up until Thanos' defeat because that's what all those films had been building towards. Bit by bit, audiences were swept along in an epic narrative that grew with each chapter in complexity even as each chapter told its own story. It culminated in a grand finale that relieved all the tension that underwrote each previous chapter, and whether or not you liked the conclusion, that resolved tension could not be built up again or transferred onto anything that would come later because it was resolved.
The Mass Effect trilogy was the same. The first two chapters each told their own story, but each also built up the series villains, The Reapers more and more. The third game delivered on the promise of the first two, and while many didn't like the ending (precisely because the endings at first did nothing to acknowledge prior game decisions as had been promised from the outset), it still ultimately resolved the tension built up over the three full games.
The story, as understood by the audience was told. There was no more reason to keep telling it. The smart thing to do, from a creative standpoint, in both cases would have been to let things lie for a while. Let people yearn for more after giving the property some time to breath.
But instead it was mandated to exist because producers wanted more money, so it came into existence, but people were just . . .done.
There's very little that can be done in cases like these, because unless the creatives can sell audiences on a truly great follow up that makes the prior entries seem like they fit into an even *grander* narrative, unless they can come up with an Odyssey to follow the Trojan War essentially, it just feels like what it is: a cash grab.
I honestly had a good time with it. I'm tempted to go for the platinum after seeing this and feeling a little nostalgic for it lol
Short answer: Not really a bad game
Long answer: In comparison to the original trilogy it fell short due to being a standalone title. The trilogy is exactly that, a trilogy. When you think Mass Effect you think of the trilogy, not the individual games of 1-3. The trilogy had the benefit of having three games to hook you in and make you care about the characters, but if you only play Mass Effect 1 and stopped there then characters like Garrus, Wrex, and Tali all fall short of their later potential since it’s the first game of three. Andromeda suffers that exact issue of being a standalone title. There’s no further games to expand upon what was presented, and no DLC ever dropped for the story. The Quarian ark? Completely unresolved. Due to how hard the game bombed.
Combat and visuals/audio were fine. Thats one positive thing you can say about this game. Rest, not so great.
"My Mom tragically died when i was kid, my Dad died yesterday, but dont worry, i have plenty of 'jokes' in my sleeve to be amused"
When Mass Effect came out, I always wanted to play it but it was XBOX exclusive at the time, and I don't usually play RPGs. By the time I got around to finally playing it late last year, I played Andromeda first. Other than a few minor bugs (I guess they fixed some of them.) , I didn't really notice any problems with it. I had no point of reference though, I don't usually play those types of games. I did find it annoying I had to travel back and forth to planets (especially f***ing Havarl). I realized the mission structure was really bad.
On a related note, I hated that no matter how many times I traveled around planets, the same enemies would re-populate there again. It took me a while to figure out I can ignore most these encounters and there was nothing in it for me. (Another reason I hate Havarl, you can't go anywhere in that god forsaken place.)
It took FOREVER for me to understand the crafting, blueprint, and inventory mechanics.
As a completionist, I didn't appreciate that after completing one of the main quests, I was locked out of one of the side quests....forever. It was something I had to do at the Kett base on Voeld I think. I dont remember there being any prompt or anything highlighting that mission/objective in the room, I was in the room, none of my squad mates said anything, nothing. I guess that's true of all Mass Effects, and the point is to play multiple times and explore, but I explicitly started out with Andromeda b/c it was one game, and I ME1-3 sounded daunting. So, I got the game 95-99%ish completed instead.
Lastly, when I took one second to think about it, the story didn't make a lick of sense.
Other than that, I had a lot of fun! Tough going from the gunplay and movement of Andromeda to ME1 but I actually am happy I played that one first, I'm much more knowledgeable going into my first playthrough of ME1-3 than I would've been otherwise.
I really hated (among oh so many details, but whatevers) that in the very end, when you are given to choose who will be the head of union (off all races in the sector- not just those from out galaxy?)- this choice still have the [serious/emotional/joke] icon and choosing krogan counts as a [joke]. and at that the locals are like- eeeh- whatever.
Kesh would be an excellent ambassador :(
@@ProperBird Krogan where deffo the best choice! and to see the face of the salarian ambassador was a free bonus to me...
U know- if it would be possible to kill off "tired face" addison (and other characters we found too annoying) would have made the game better-by venting our stress...
all in all- i would say that andromeda was (and is) deemed bad not because it is a trash game, but because almost everything is half baked- every conversation, every mechanic, every tired face- any player could feel- "if only this here was just a bit this", "slightly different there," "better thought here" etc. and in the end these seemingly small annoyances snowballed into one big lump of annoyance :(
and how come sudoku is the only puzzle in the galaxy far far away? look how hogwarts made gazilion with almost same mechanic but they felt different!
on a side note- why does an inherently fps frostbite game did not have fps game-play option is beyond me..
7:51 obtain the mcmuffin... check
Excellent and delicious.
All I gotta say about this game is that Vetra Nyx is best girl and her goofball of a sister Sid is adorable.
Now that Starfield have come out, Andromeda seems light years more advanced that game, at least the planets are vast with many locations to explore because they were hand crafted, the aliens races still are lack luster but far better than Starfield, and Andromeda at least not try to pretend that is a space sim.
Lol a lot of FF music in the background. I love it
I agree with most of your opinions, except for the vaults, they were wicked, it's just a shame that the first one you explore is so huge, and has amazing views, but the rest did not match the scale, or the beauty of that one.
The combat was an absolute blast, and the ability to build your character any way that you wished, was fantastic.
The new mako was a pleasure to drive, unlike ME1, and the squad mate interactions, while driving around, made me laugh out loud on several occasions, Drack and Cora in particular.
Reyes was the most fleshed out npc, by a country mile, and I genuinely regretted betraying him, that one time, never to be repeated. lol
Liam was akin to Jacob from ME2, but immature and annoying too.
I did not pre-order, or purchase on release day, but waited until it went on sale, and it was well worth the money I paid for it, half price, far more than many of the full price "better" games that I have bought.
I only experienced one bug, unable to get 100% completion, despite scouring every planet for every single side quest, but it's a minor gripe really.
Like you, I was gutted when EA abandoned it, it had so much potential, it just needed the kind of writing and polish that could only have come about if it had been given the time and support it needed. What is astonishing to me, is that Andromeda accounted for 40% of EA sales revenue in the year it released, but they just gave up on it, criminally so, in my opinion.
I rank Andromed highly, just behind ME2 which had the best story and an absolute killer suicide mission, and ahead of ME3 which had a strong start and some good dlc's, but fell apart towards the end.
As for the Ice planet, I had the most fun on that planet, it's chock full of missions and side quests, Jaal and Peebee really shine with their interactions there.
You rate a dromedary better than ME1??
I liked it and I got it the first weekend. Most of the gameplay bugs were things I encountered in every Mass Effect games and I don't care about cutscene and character facial issues. And while the story and characters weren't as good as the earlier games I think they could have gotten better in future games. And this has my favorite gameplay in the franchise so far. There were a lot of gameplay changes between Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 that I disliked and while Mass Effect 3 fixed some of these it wasn't until Andromeda that they were all fixed.
I played as an Engineer and loved using the jetpack to throw my turret behind enemy positions then either blasting them in the back as they focused on the turret or cutting them down as they charged to get away from the turret.
I suspect I will never forgive the jerks who canceled the story DLCs
As for the Dinos mastering space travel. Just think in starship troopers how the bugs just hurl their spores into space lol
I hated it at launch cos I had a weak pc and could barely run it but the biggest issue was that the game itself wasn't great. Played it 3 years later and enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Maybe cos I am a mass effect fanboy I would still buy another sequel if they make it.
The story is so bad and I don't understand how NOONE of the writing team thought about the pure stupidity of the daddy death scene. Right at the start after the fall you use your multitool to fix your broken helmet, but now it is not possible?
The Council started becoming pig-headed about the Reapers in ME2, after Shep potentially saved them at the conclusion of ME1. So I’m not sure how that’s a flaw in ME1?
Their overall skepticism throughout ME1 is more nuanced than you make it out to be, either way. Especially the much-maligned(rightly so) turian councillor.
I do share your frustrations about how Andromeda was treated, though. There was enough in it for me that it could’ve been a worthy, fresh successor to the Shep trilogy.
ME1 is my favourite, so Andromeda going back to basics so to speak was a big plus for me.
Btw, any plans for a ME trilogy video? 🙂
The first 10-15 hours are great, but the game has the infuriating habit of not letting the player complete the quests. On Hold ! On Hold ! On Hold ! Wait, Wait, Wait. I wasted hours on quests that haven't been resolved.
Drack was also my favorite. ♥️
Nice video.
Mass Effect trilogy is a series I go back and play ever two or three years and I've gone through Legendary Edition three times since it's release.
Andromeda was just okay. Being just okay after the original trilogy turned it into a bad game for a lot of people.
The major problem with Andromeda is the Frostbite Engine. Many devs have had a lot of bad things to say about working with it.
If you go back and play Dragon age: Inquisition it was plagued by the same bugs.
I think Mass Effect 5 is using Unreal 5 (don't really like Unreal 5 but it's better then Frostbite) so we'll see how that turns out.
I wonder if it would have done better if it was not associated with the Mass Effect series. I don't think any of the loose story ends were supposed to be resolved by DLC. If there were DLC planned to resolve this, I don't think EA would have not have marketed it. Like how the DLC that was produced was heavily marketed. Instead I suspect Bioware planned on making another trilogy. However, it did so poorly, I think the trilogy was canceled.
Overall, I really enjoyed this game. The jump pack combat was something I really liked, was glad to see it again in Starfield. Though I was not happy to see plot points being lifted and sanitized of the alien element for Starfield. Though I suppose Starfield is the game Bioware wanted to produce since the majority of their development time was spent on procedural generation...
EA were idiots when they abandoned this game so quickly after launch. Now, anytime EA tries to sell a "game-as-a-service" I can't help thinking, "yeah but you guys instantly gave up on one of the best selling franchises of all time, why would I ever trust you to support anything?"
The saddest part is that... In terms of the actual moment-to-moment gameplay this game may be favorite of the series when I was using my Biotics character build with; Charge, Lance and Annihilation field.
I think a big problem is that Bioware didn't have the guts to do a full reboot.
Humans Only: They should have only sent humans to Andromeda . . . for two reasons.
1) We had already finished the unique stories related to each of the Milky Way races. We knew who the Asari, Turians, and Salarians were, The Krogan Genophage had been resolved one way or another. Their racial differences and cultural issues no longer meant anything in Andromeda . . . We were all just aliens from the Milky Way.
2) For technical reasons they could only have a limited number of character models. Asari, Turians, Salarians, and Krogan . . . . meant there would be 4 less new alien species for us to meet an interact with. Heck the reason the Quarians weren't there was likely just due to technical limitations. So in stead we get only three new aliens, two of which are hostile and we can't even interact with. And in the end we just have the Angorans. Note they still could have brought a Milky Way alien race or two as a companion if they wanted since those are custom models.
Exploration: The other major problem I had with the game is that it was supposed to be about exploration and discovering a new galaxy.
Except when we get there everything is already discovered (except the Remnant, and even Pebee is working on that.).
There are only 5 explorable planets (not counting the intro). Two are fully populated by the Angoran. And the other three are already populated with colonists. So much for exploration and finding a new world. We meet the Angorans thinking its a first contact situation, only to discover they met the earlier humans and know all about us.
Most of the local quests are discovering what the colonists that arrived before us were up to and sorting out issues and messes that they left behind.
What Should Have Been: Our single human colony ship should have arrived to a truly new galaxy. Then we as the pathfinder need to explore a larger number of worlds (Mass Effect had 38 planets you could land on). Some could be small and mostly empty. But in the course of exploration we would meet 7 new Alien species. A couple could be friendly, a couple hostile and some friends or foes based on what we do. The first aliens we meet could be friendly or hostile depending on how we handle the first contact. The various races would have some existing conflicts . . . perhaps we have to choose which side to support . . . after learning about them and their situation. There could be an existing war we need to intervene with . . . perhaps two of the races are fighting . . . and we unlock the Remnant and effectively recruit them so we can use their support to end the war.
There were so many fresh options they could have gone with . . . if they just had the courage to fully reboot.
Now that's a game i'd like to play
Loved the video
Thank you! ^^
What a great video. It isn't the typical, "Andromeda bad," nonsense everywhere. It actually explores the issues of the game and why they are issues. Like the dialogue isn't bad. Listening to it is just what you expect it to be. The real issue is the animations and expression.
Andromeda has so much going for it. From its story to its companions and the amount of potential it has. Given the chance Andromeda would have been a successful series. It is so sad to think that Andromeda won't get the chance.
Thanks for making the video. As an Andromeda fan it was great to see a video that isn't just pure hatred.
Isn't the Benefactor pretty thoroughly established to be the Illusive Man? Head of Cerberus guy?
Afraid not, that's just speculation.
The story of the benefactor is just really bad writing. From a narrative perspective it could only be the council, the old shadow broker or the illusive man but none of them fit at all with what we've got.
The only game that I ever regretted buying. I never finished and can't even look at it in my library. I gave it a shot despite the reviews but ... holy shit what a disgrace. The crew in Andromeda is just as bad as the new characters in the Saints Row Reboot
I was waiting for this video! Andromeda deserved to be expanded on, it deserved to be fixed, like Cyberpunk and No man's sky.
Yes, it will never be as good as the main Mass Effect trilogy, but Andromeda is generally okay.
you are awesome and I love your ME sweater
Yes. Yes it was.
Andromeda might have stood half a chance as a standalone game with no connection with Mass Effect. But as a Mass Effect game it completely failed. The plot and characters fell flat in comparison with the original trilogy, and it didn’t help that it was a buggy incomplete mess that was memed to oblivion. It gutted out what made us love Mass Effect in the first place: the story and the characters, the unique races with their own rich histories and cultures.
I played this a year or so ago. Your video pretty much sums up how I thought of it. Not a great game, but still fun. And I am a completionist so I did everything. More time to fix things would likely have allowed for more games in the series. But that would be thinking long term and corporations don't do that anymore.
Question: Do you put white makeup on, or have you literally never seen the sun?
The mass effect 5 trailer lines in the background do hint to the possibility of Andromeda being a part of it. Only time will tell.
I really hope it gets some sort of second chance eventually.
The combat in this game is amazing. Currently going for the platinum trophy. Those facial animations though 😂😂
Regarding your opinions on space travel and exploration in this game, I'd be VERY curious to hear your thoughts on Starfield!
Honestly it hasn't pulled my interest but I'm generally open to try any game at least for a while.
It was my first Mass Effect game that i played. Since ive played all three of the originals and am currently replaying all of them on my channel. I think the hate the game gets it pretty excessive. Does the game have issues yes but looking back at mass effect one spending hours on end driving around reskinnned barren planets with virtually nothing on them. Not gonna lie id rather explore the developed landscape of Andromedas planets. Plus Andromeda allows jump gotta say as a gamer i really appreciate that.
Yes, ME:A was that bad. It's not just about the graphics and the space (boring side quests). The companions are boring, the NPC's are boring and the villains are boring (only 1 main baddie). And the worst of all - Ryder is boring.
It's the hamfisted mocap that jumps out at me. This is the first AAA game I can think of that used the same exaggerated, dickish motions that you see used in multiplayer games for taunts and win/loss screens, etc. for *all* character animation *all* the time. Everyone moves like a dudebro. Then it got dialed up to 11 in Borderlands 3, and you even see it in Cyberpunk 2077, but only in some instances -- there's a talk show where the host and guests do it, but the motion is natural in the game proper. The weird thing is that mocap started out that way in the 90s, with the performers treating it like theater and were "playing to the back row," but then they realized that was dumb and dialed it down.
The engine definitely had a lot to do with how janky the movements were everywhere.
I missed you Proper Bird.
The game is awesome. Finally played it and I loved it.
The funny part is Andromeda gets decked for its story while everyone ignores just how bad the main story is for ME2. Just to list a few issues:
First 15 minutes was spent undoing a lot of what ME1 built on. We are somehow detected while stealth systems are active and the only explanation why the Reapers in ME3 can't detect us is that the stealth systems on the SR2 are just better bro. Then act two of the main story actually goes on a pause and we spend our time recruiting squadmates and doing loyalty missions all while nothing actual happens in the main story but we are doing stuff and things and then by the end of Act 3 we are no further in the main trilogies story line than when we finished the first game. How do the reapers make it to the Milky Way? Don't know. Seriously those. 2's main story being so bad was exactly why ME3 had so many issues. By Comparison Andromeda at least attempted to do something. I actually liked the idea of fighting what amounts to cultists. Vs ME2 with the collectors who had no personality or anything that actually made good they just didn't say anything so we were all like, "Wooooo, mysterious."
I played the game, and enjoyed it. It was glitchy as hell, but I play a ton of eastern european janky games for fun so... I think I just have a higher tolerance for that sort of thing. The game had good potential, but instead of trying to fix the problems (aside from a good patch that made it playable) they just completely abandoned it. The jetpack was a great addition to the mass effect formula. Leaving major story points out in order to keep them for DLC was a *huge* mistake.
Yes, it was.
That opening joke made me cringe, but only because it reminded me of the loading screens in the galaxy
Very spacious loading screens.
I never finished the game after two attempts, eventually I just lost interest.
By rights I should have enjoyed the game, I enjoy open world experiences, and initially exploring the planets and doing all the terraforming stuff was enjoyable. The alien intrigue and ruin exploration is interesting, at first, but the plot didn't keep my attention well enough, and the villains were pretty boring. The cast of party members are almost enjoyable, nowhere near the levels of any of the previous ME games, and there's no Quarians at all which were my favorite race. Multiplayer was only ok, the enemy factions never felt distinct enough as they did in ME3 multiplayer.
I had intended to try a third time to play through the game, but modding it up to make the combat much more interesting, play with some of the textures and perhaps add new armors and weapons, abilities etc, but it has yet to manifest. Regardless though of how many mods I pack into this thing, it'll never be able to fix the bad writing.
The Quarian ark was supposed to be DLC, I was disappointed not to see any in the base game too. :(
@@ProperBird Truly a horrible business practice and a show of overconfident arrogance from higher ups probably. Ship the game that you want people to play now.
Is kinda funny, because Starfield's problem is too much space.
Played it, it felt like a different game! If they just named it Andromeda, and didn't link it to mass effect, I'd enjoy it a little bit more! The design of the other intelligent races is very poor!
This is my introduction to you as a content creator (as a human being, really) so first impressions:
Did Jack apply your lipstick? That's sharp.
Old fashioned looks based compliment out of the way, i agree with your take on MEA. it was my introduction to the Mass Effect world, just this last January, and i thought it was really good. It made me interested enough to try the trilogy, and while i think the triligy as a whole is better than MEA, i thought it was vastly superior to ME1.
I also think the lack of dlc is a two-edged sword. While it doesnt get fleshed out, we also dont get the bloat of the trilogy dlc.
Lastly, the "my face is tired" is the most relatable line in all video game history, for me as an introvert.
Was enjoying/enjoyed the narration then I heard FF7 music. Insta subbed 😌
I just did a full run replay of all ME games and I can confirm that Andromeda wasn't really "that bad".
It was *MUCH WORSE.*
It was very good. it combat was very good the exploration was great but there was only one real new race the angera. It has potential if there was a more sense of brotherhood among your team mates. You might expect the mysterious benefactor to send some frigate ships with the initiative not just arcs on their own.
43:15 - Well, majority of people would disagree with you; because game didn't sell well. Never played it myself and I got bored even watching let's plays of this title, so I didn't experienced ending. Yes, I do agree with you that in a way combat look more dynamic and less monotonous that in previous entries but at the same time it lack any tactical aspect and any feeling that you are field commander ordering your squad - you have no control over your team. Yes, new terrain vehicle is much better than Mako but at the same time whole open world and "exploration" aspect of the game is most monotonous part - especially in case of story driven game such as this. As for story - it also is so-so to me; on the one hand it supposedly give you opportunity to discover completely new galaxy, to be a explorer, but at the same time is so narratively and thematically so far removed from Mass Effect that it could as well be completely new franchise. I cannot say that I like whole soft-reboot approach BioWare had chosen - they wanted to have a cake and eat it to; they didn't wanted to completely reboot the series but they didn't want to continue from controversial ending to ME3 either. Result is so-so; for some people mystery presented by "Andromeda" will work, for me and many others the fact that we completely abandoned plight of humanity in Milky Way - thing we fought for in original trilogy - is frankly disheartening. As is the fact that whole exploration aspect is greatly oversold; for example when when you made "first contact" with Angara you learn... that they already speak English! 😂
well put
I was deployed when this game arrived so I didn’t even get the day one patch.
I had a visual glitch where every time my character was talking to Sam’s core her head would start slowly spinning upward. Like the neck was slowly stretched into a slinky as the head rose off screen. Then it would slowly coil back down.
This whole time it would still be doing it’s dialog with eyes staring blankly forward while the head starts turning.
Spookiest glitch I’ve ever seen.
This game has the same problem as Starfield now had ... Too big , lacking in a great "main campaign "
And the wrong kind if empty.... On the other side both games has a great gun play system...its just sad MEA was left too die just like Starfield now its was a great jumping off point for more games/ dlc ...
I like to compare MEA to ME1. A completely new Game build up to tell its whole Story with Sequels. Only that Andromeda won´t have the opportunity atleast as a Standalone Series. The buggy technical state the Game launched in was indeed bad. Other then that it was totally fine imo, you have to Stop a Bad Guy from doing dumb shit similar to ME1.
The Gameplay/Combat is very fun/clearly Superior and the Game definetly has its Moments.
Is it the best Game? No
Is it the worst Game? No
After all the Technical Issues were fixed its a solid 7,5 out of 10 Game for me.
And thanks to the Mod Community the Series has, you can definetly play it more then once, but that goes to every ME out there.
I liked the whole setup of ME:A but it failed on execution. The galaxy felt empty, so very empty and only two aliens bios and one AI drone. The story dragged on and was very meh. The companions were very boring and didnt fit in at all and they felt very forced... like me! LIKE ME! WHY WONT YOU LIKE ME!!
The combat however was very fun and of all the ME games i liked ME:A combat the most.
yes