FYI - I've left ALOOOOT of things out from my gameplay, both because I don't want to spoil too much of the game for potential newcomers & because that would've made the video more than an hour long. Might make a deep-dive retrospective in the future, so remember to sub if you'd like that Want to support the channel? Become a member! ua-cam.com/channels/dClQOaS0Q75iMK4d1HfCRQ.htmljoin
Looking forward to that hour long deep dive into Andromeda video if you do it. Maybe you'll be able to show off different armors in different colors and maybe play around with the customization more. Also would you do a playthrough of Andromeda here?
I got Andromeda in 2021 for $5 on Black Friday sale. Have played one hour twenty five minutes. Trying to play it gives me headaches. The whole opening ‘tutorial’ was very annoying and confusing. I decided I much prefer watching play through videos.
@MrHulthen I know how much you absolutely love Mass Effect. You are one of the biggest fans out there of the franchise. My only constructive criticism is that even though the actual words you are saying are perfectly fine but it wouldnt hurt for you to come off more enthusiastic to appeal to more viewers and really show you are interested in what you are talking about. I do understand how you feel about Andromeda but im mainly referring to your main ME game videos of 123and4. Keep up the good work on your channel, i support you and wish you a great 2023 year with full success. [EDITED FOR GRAMMER]
I remember back in the day that everybody says that prologue is horrible, and game improves after it. I played demo (ahead of full release) and I thought: "Oh my, I love this game".
I actually liked the intro a lot. It shows they've put a lot more effort into introduction. After crash landing for the first time on habitat 7, I was like wow, what an intro, wasn't expecting it.
100 percent, I was hyped playing the intro mission. It was huge hype and your father not making it was done well. Lots of mystery around the first mission, which is why I think for mass effect I'm glad they're making the new mass effect not open world. These games work better with straight forward missions the story telling just works. Once you get into the full game, the repetitive nature starts to show halfway through the first planet... it doesn't change after that. The story never hits what it did after that first mission
Andromeda was the first ME game I ever played (it was my covid quarantine game), and it was everything I was looking for in an RPG space adventure. The first couple worlds and missions truly felt wide open and I could do whatever I wanted (should I shoot at the kett or not?! I was so nervous) and I was hooked. I discovered the Mass Effect universe and lore as I discovered Andromeda and it truly felt as though I was in a new galaxy. Without the weight of the first 3 games, Andromeda was great. I will say though, that after playing the trilogy, I see how Andromeda fell flat with all the things mentioned here, but it still holds a special place in my heart.
If you played the original back in 2007. You would feel different. But glad you enjoyed it. Iam going to do my first andromeda playthrough soon. Beat the other ones countless times
Kind of off topic, but this is how I feel about halo 4. It was my first halo and i really liked it but after going back and playing the previous halos, i can see why 4 was so unpopular
For me, it's one of those games that take a bit of convincing and patience to really start enjoying it. Especially since Andromeda only gets better after the first half.
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The remnant labyrinths was not my cup of tea. It was fun for the first 2-3 times, but then after it got just too repetitive. I haven't got patience for the puzzles either, and at one point started looking up how to solve them online. But yeah, otherwise I didn't have too much problem with the game.
....It gets better halfway through the 2nd game? Because the game _I_ played had a shit story, and it never got better. It's not as bad as Rings Of Power, but I'm not sure it was worth the $5 I paid for it.
Agree, first two planets are horrible. They are big, lifeless wastelands with nothing interesting to do or see. This is especially painful after having a quite descent prologue part. But later on everything improves. And I would even dare to say that Kadara is good even by ME standards. Still, so much potential was rushed and waisted...
There's one aspect of Andromeda that I feel is a really good concept that doesn't get enough attention. The usage of twin protagonists. If the player chooses Scott, Sarah is still a character in the game. The non-player twin is still an active individual in the setting. MEA only briefly touched on this, when you flip to the non-player twin during certain story events, but there's a lot of potential with that dynamic. Play as Scott during the main story? The DLC could have had Sarah as the protag, with Scott's actions having consequences and influencing Sarah. In the ME Trilogy, as with most RPGs of this type, there's only 1 Cmdr Shepard. If you play as FemShep, there is no BroShep in the game, and vice versa. Obviously, much more has been positively said about the combat and gunplay mechanics, as well the individual story missions are generally better than the '1 and done' format of MET.
Damn the DLC options with twins could be killer. I think so much of this story/character development was lost when the decision to not do DLCs was made.
That's a really good point, though I'm not sure how people would have reacted to being forced to play as their characters twin. Personally, I think the sibling should have been a squadmate.
@@RogerMSanderson yeah buy something to play then get shafted and made to play a different character with different levels. If they just gave you the same level and skills would just feel cheap
@@JimmyThree-Balls Not saying it wouldn't take some capable writing, but a dynamic between two playable protaganists would be interesting, and something relatively different from the Bioware RPG genre. I didn't mean to imply that you'd be forced to play the opposite twin in DLC either, just have the option. It'd also add a significant level of replay value as well, since you'd have some motivation to play different playthroughs; eg Scott/Scott, Scott/Sarah, Sarah/Scott, Sarah/Sarah. Playing a 'Renegade' Ryder at first, then having the other twin be horrified or shocked at what their twin did in the DLC or sequel would make for very interesting character drama, for example.
Yes, makes me wonder if the twin would be a squadmate if Ryder would come back as the protag. Or if the DLCs for Andromeda weren't killed I wonder if there was a plan to make the twin as a mandatory companion in a DLC mission (like Liara in Shadow Broker). Btw. if I recall not only do Sara and Scott have some different lines of dialogue as a protagonists (few but still), but they also have different lines (and possibly a personality) as NPCs. It's also nice that if you play the default character without changing the name, other characters (especially SAM, the twin and love interest) might call you by your name. Which is small, but a nice detail.
I played it straight after a ME3 Legendary playthrough and I have to say I really enjoyed it. I agree with a lot of your points, although I did create a pretty good custom character that I was happy to look at for a few weeks! As others have said, the game for me was more about the character interactions and stories, that was fun. After that it was a lot of 'go here, do this', 'go back here, do that', so yeah, finishing out the story after that was disappointing. The only fun bit was uncovering the ME3 links which I did right at the end after going back when I came to the 'if you go past this point' bit. I have to say, whilst a big game, the ending did seem to suddenly come out of nowhere.
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Same here. I went playing it right after going through the full ME:LE triple set, but with the mindset of: this is a spinoff series in the same universe, and expect nothing. Just like every other Star Trek series can do this completely differently. I would compare it more to the Lost In Space Netflix series. It's much more lightweight regarding story and characters than a traditional sci-fi, the adventure and "friends" part is more pronounced. The villain is totally a placeholder. But as a fan of the world, I just couldn't not play it. And it was actually not that bad as everyone said, I had a good time. But of course it had nothing to do with the complex story of the original 3. And I was playing this years later with all the fixes, which elevated it. (still, I ran into some bugs though).
@ That's a great way of describing it. I agree, it didn't have the 'weight' of the ME series, it was a much more fun expansion of the universe. I guess what surprised me was that there was so much dislike for it - like you, I came to it years after release with most bugs fixed, but also with an expectation that it was an older game so didn't get worked up about animations and the like. The sad thing is, it felt like the setting had great potential for a different ME game, one much more light hearted and exploration focused. I liked the Pathfinder concept. That said, as pointed out in the video, the maps were just too large - I know it's a balance between a rich and expansive universe and the time I spend running from the arrival point to where I wanted to go. But sometimes it was just too much - I'm looking at you Kadara!!
Andromeda was my first ME game, I already knew about the lore. I like the game a lot, but after hunting archon’s ship, I did not expect only 2 missions to follow up. I felt like I was about 40% into the game or something. When the last mission came, I just realised that I finished the game when the end credits came rolling (which I enjoyed because of the song). Anyway, the end is quite sudden. Nonetheless I liked it a lot and definitely down for a second game
@@rozenzoon the end was abrupt because they intended to expand on it with DLC but because the review tanks EA made them cancel it all even though the quarian ark section was either already done or close to being finished when then stopped
ME:A story simply doesn't end. Thanks to poor review bombing in its early days, EA cut the development of the game. There was a Quarian ARK DLC already planned and announced, but was cut down. Now, a part of the DLC story can be read in the ME:A novels books and comics. The Andromeda story itself was thought as new ME trilogy, that probably will never see the light. That thanks of the review bombing of people that maybe doesn't remember how other games like Skyrim were launched. Mass Effect indeed had serious issues that was "quickly" solved by the team. Skyrim, a masterpiece game, cannot be played for months because of bugs that even allowed the game to work correctly, and ME3 gone gold with a corrupted DVD on XBOX italian version that crashed the game when playing the Academy mission. The ME3 bug lasted several weeks before a patch come out. Also ME3 was review-bombed for the first version of the ending. That's the way reviewing is working now, it's on or off.
Funnily enough I'm playing the game again these days and I have to say it's not as bad as I remembered, looking at it from a different perspective I can tell they had great ambitions for this game and they actually put a lot of work in it, despite the results. Of course the facial animations are still horrific and there's quite some bugs left unfixed especially on side quests
I loved the original series and I also really liked Andromeda ( I just replayed it recently ) Not having the Paragon/Renegade option actually made me think about my choices more, so I didn't mind that it was gone at all. To me this game is definitely worth playing if You liked the original series. there were several references to places and things and even people that took place before the jump and codex information abounds if you're into that sort of thing. ( Like me! ) : )
paragon/renegade system fucking sucks, at least so far in ME1. I can't do the choices I want to do because I need to game the paragon system. Glad to hear it's gone in ME:A.
The gameplay fighting stuff they did a great job in my opinion. But many of us play for the story. ME1 originally the gameplay was not so good to put it lightly. But the story the memorable loveable characters kept you going along with a strong protagonist that has earned respect but during paragon can open up themselves to bond with their squad. Ryder isn’t a leader. They try to make him funny and there’s no actual decisions that can really massively change anything in the game. Great video as always love the content.
I mostly agree with your analysis. I do think the story was simply serviceable. Not bad, not great. I like the profile system, but I hadn't considered that it removes a lot of replay value. Because you have every single power and ability unlocked with one character, I could say with confidence that there are only a few sets of powers that are better than all the other ones. Once you find the best combo, there's no reason to do anything different in any future playthroughs. I've played through the game probably four times by now and every time I choose the same combat profile and load out.
I hated the profile system. It felt so artificial to swap around your entire build on the fly. Like an instant respec whenever. When they say make choices matter, I extend that to builds too. My powers and fighting style is as much a part of my character as anything else - maybe more in a combat focused game. Your limits should define you as much as your powers. And when you have no limitations, you lose identity. Who are you at that point? What are you? Everything? Anyone? Really hope that feature is thrown on the scrapyard along with the rest of the game.
@@RansomMemoryAccess I guess you could argue that Skyrim did the same thing by removing classes. I think there are salvageable things from the game tho!
@@totallytubular618 I'd argue that in Skyrim it felt like you worked at getting good at a skill, where as in Andromeda you're a biotic or engineer or soldier at the push of a button.
@@RogerMSanderson the Andromeda profiling system felt very over the top imo, it seemed to me like they just wanted to make Ryder OP asf for absolutely no reason at all. The dude isn't even a properly trained soldier like Shepard right? So it just doesn't make sense, felt like they all just thought "this would be cool" and just started throwing stuff in.
Im a New MASS EFFECT Player. Got into it because of the Legendary edition and played those games alot. Now I am already going through ANDROMEDA. Currently helping the Krogan and just participated in the Spender ARC. Im loving the game. I enjoy how it takes a character who isnt this macho man, just a simple 22 year old guy in a crazy position and showing how he deals with it. Making connections with the crew, seeing the Duality of the Nexus and the Exiles. Its got alot of good things going on here. Im pissed that this all I am gonna have until ME5 drops and that the game didnt get any dlc, but it is what it is. Even with its flaws, liking it alot. I just hope these characters make it into the series going forward. Because if BIOWARE just throws them away altogether, imma be pissed big time. Especially about Vetra.
I agree with this take too. I see Ryder's weakness as a character as the start of his journey before he becomes the larger-than-life hero we're used to seeing in games. Luke Skywalker is whiny in the first part of Star Wars too and he's not a lesser character for it. This is our chance to see Lieutenant Shepard before Akuze made him a legend. But the overarching issue with ME:A is that it's too much of a trilogy's first entry and not enough of a standalone game in its own right. There's too much left to the nonexistent other games - Ryder's growth into a strong character, the development of the Kett, any insights at all about the Remnant, and the weight of our decisions. None of your choices matter because we didn't get the follow-up games that were supposed to bare those consequences. In short, ME:A is a fun experience but it's not a complete one. If you buy into the game's intoxicating initial hook of exploring the unknown, you'll really enjoy what ME:A offers. If you want the immersion and brilliant writing/story-telling of the main ME trilogy, you're going to find it lacking.
Commander shepherd was a woman in the original games lol not a macho man 😂😂 also if All THE PEOPLE IN THE ENTIRE GAME actually had emotions and not been so badly flat then it would have been liked so much more
Mass Effect Andromeda trilogy was axed out for bad reviews bombing. EA cut all the developments to Andromeda series, and canceled the Quarian ARK DLC that was already announced and focal to the main story. You can read the rest of game story from the book novels and comics, but by now the Andromeda series is still canceled. Was meant to be a new ME trilogy. EA nearly shut down Bioware because of ME:A and Mass Effect 5 was a good news for the old ME fans. But I don't think will be anything about the Andromeda galaxy in the upcoming ME:5. Maybe, and I say maybe, if people start to ask for the continuation of ME Andromeda series. But this is all thank to people who review-bombed the game the first weeks. Just remember the state of Skyrim when it first launched, that was unplayable for weeks after the launch. And I can do a list of other AAA games that suffered same fate. Be angry for low quality development is ok, but a fix must be asked, not boycott the game. That made EA nearly close Bioware, that's far more that be pissed off for a troublesome launch. In the aftermath, the offices that developed Andromeda was still closed and Bioware lost a lot of people working for it. So by now, not Bioware, but EA just had thrown away all the Andromeda work altogether, including Bioware studio team that worked on it.
Commander, Andromeda wasn't even worth it in my Cycle. Most of my people willingly let Harbinger turn them into the Collectors after playing it. We threw it out the airlock in the end but it was too late, the empire had fallen.
Theres a lot I enjoyed about MEA and the Vetra romance was amazing, so I say the game is well worth peoples time. I love Vetra almost as much as I love Tali. Almost.
@@tompadfoot3065 I dont claim that MEA is as good as the trilogy, nor do I claim that there isnt a lot wrong about MEA, but what it did get right it absolutely nailed. I cared about the characters.
@@LordFoxxyFoxington lol sorry I was responding to the "Vetra>>>>>>Tali" comment. I've done all the romances in MEA and Vetra's was definitely the most beautiful and vulnerable
Andromeda is a fun game however it didn’t ever feel like I was playing Mass Effect. I’ll be interested to see how they combine the first 3 and this one. The games are just starkly different. In gameplay and just the open world aspect of the game.
Believe it or not, Andromeda was actually my intro to the franchise. A friend got it for me for my birthday after most, if not all, of the patches had rolled out. I went in having never experienced the trilogy or any of the bugs present in the initial release. Maybe I'm just easily impressed, but I got pretty into the game and it's actually what drove me to get into the originals. If it hadn't have been for my exposure to Andromeda, I probably would have never even picked up the trilogy. But I'm glad I did.
I played it for the first time last year. I loved it. It's a great game. Not quite as good as the Original Trilogy, but still really good. I still have several issues with it(one being the character customization, another the power loadout), but it's still a fun, full game to me. I loved some of the writing, and all the Squadmates(aside from liam), were such good characters. Drack is Krogan Great Grandpa, and Vetra & Vidal are bae.
Combat gameplay is super fun no doubt, love using the omni-blade. And Vetra making you overcooked steak is the reason why I continued to finish the game.
I asked once my mom and sister to solve puzzles for me xD. They liked to solve "sudoku" i don't know about how to translate it to english, or that's even translatable but they told me to call for them every time i will have to solve puzzles in game xD
I still remember the line ‘I am the Vanguard of your destruction’ from ME1 and the only thing I remember from ME Andromeda is the dreadful long car rides and how hard it was to figure out where to go. That said one of the side mission had the hardest fight of all the game and it took me some time to conquere on the hardest setting. If MEA would be a game on itself it would be OK but competing against the ME franchise makes it really tough.
I bought it on winter sale, to be honest it's fun as its own game. Great battle mechanics, not much about the story though. Added some mods to make it better, default scott is my go to.
I love playing MEA (mostly b/c I played the og trilogy to death) and yes it's not as deep in it's choice and consequences as the trilogy was. But that's just it, MEA's solo outing can't be fairly compared to a 3 game story ark with the time to resolve their story threads. I like to compare MEA to ME1 as the squad size and races are same (with exception of the angara) and it's the only other game in the trilogy that allowed players to go planet side and explore. Imagine if you will, there was no ME2 & ME3, would you have been satisfied with the story threads unresolved in ME1? Of course not, ME1, even to this day is still a bit jank and buggy, not all that different from MEA at current update. What is a big killer of MEA after multiple playthroughs is twofold: 1, the writing and direction; the voice actors clearly did the best they could with what they had to work with, and I did enjoy the overall story, but clearly the emotional impact wasn't there. And 2, MEA is basicly "The Force Awakens" to ME1's "A New Hope"; your first mission has you and your first human male team-member (Kaiden/Liam) planet side on the first planet (that you don't come back to later in the game), a random npc character you talked to back on the ship is killed by the enemy early on that first mission (Jenkins/Kirkland), next as the mission progresses you'll be joined by your human female team-member (Ashley/Cora). Later on at the central hub (Citadel/Nexus), you'll be granted your player's title (Specter/Pathfinder), and will be given free rein to use your ship (Normandy/Tempest), your squad will grow to include a turian (Garus/Vetra), a krogan (Wrex/Drack), an asari (Leara/Peebee) and a 6th member who's race we know little about (Tali/Jaal). You can explore the planet side of select planets with your vehicle (Maco/Nomad), and you have a clear enemy in the story (Saren/Archon) who plans to use acheint machine to to carry out his mission (Reapers/Remnant). And so on and so on with some deviations to make MEA stand apart from ME1; side missions MEA make you feel like you're sticking your nose into events happening alongside the player's story, instead of of in ME1, here's a random group of enemies, go kill them. Plus the callbacks that have ties to events in the og trilogy give a different perspective on events Ryder didn't have any involvement in (Shepard is known and familiar to some characters but no one is fan gushing over him/her, allowing Ryder's achievements in-story stand on their own.
Yeah, ME1 is definitely the weakest one out of the trilogy, but it has the nice moment such as the Virmire mission. I played the Legendary edition recently and I still hate the reusable assets ME1 used for most of its side quests. Like every building/ caves in every planet that you can enter can be breakdown into 3-4 assets. Mako was buggy/ janky and I remember I hated Mako so much in the original ME1 (the LE fixed it though). Combat in ME1 is also the weakest imho. But the choices that you can make in ME1 are actually really impactful (like Kaidan/ Ashley choices, Wrex confrontation). But definitely without ME2 and ME2 you won't know the impact of some of the choices.
MEA was a shit game with a shit story. This is ignoring the graphic issues and designs. All it was good for was making snapshots of landscapes to use as a desktop background.
if u compared this game to starfield which was released in 2023, u will have a difficult time imagine this was actually the superior game on almost everything. and ME andromeda was released 6 years ago, everything in this game age very well. its actually surprisingly looks better then most AAA game release today. if u never played this game at launch or to compare it to og ME trilogy. its actually one of the best sci fi RPG out there, for 10 bucks its definitely worth it.
The timing of this video...like dayumn. I finished my X:th playthrough of the original trilogy a week ago and the decided to give Andromeda a try....again.... for the 4th or 5th time(never ever I finished the game)....
Mass Effect Andromeda COULD have been the next best (future) trilogy installment that drives the ME universe forward. Its core-themes were there, combat was perfected in its fluidity, the Remnant mystery was intriguing and the dynamics between characters was fine. It's just a shame that nothing, except combat, was implemented right. It was rushed to oblivion due to a complete technical overhaul mid-development, dialogue was often times cringey and outright stupid, the Kett "villains" had this cartoony flair around them that I couldn't really take them seriously and the Angara need a complete graphical overhaul so my eyes can recover. It's a shame that the devs simply abandoned this historical waste of potential. Let's just hope that the next ME gets the care, love and attention it deserves. I truly hope that the devs won't abandon Ryder, MEA lore and happenings in the next game.
That's probably because we don't explore the entire galaxy. We spend all of Andromeda within a very tiny section of space. Mass Effect's FLT tech is extremely slow. The only reason they could explore as much of the Milky Way as they could was because of the Mass Relays. Andromeda has no Mass Relays, so going from system to system with standard FTL drives is EXTREMELY slow.
I am correctly playing it right after legendary edition and i can say that i'm really enjoying it. I am almost at the half of the game and i can say that it's really worth a try.
Yes it is worth it, but I enjoy this game. So it depends who is asking if Andromeda is worth playing, depends if you prefer the older Mass effects 1,2 and 3. As for customization of Ryder, I didn't find the customizations any better in Mass Effect 1,2 and 3 for Shepherd.
Andromeda is really a hit or miss even for me, as someone who likes the game. The CC, like you said is honestly the worst of the BioWare games, I d have to wonder if it amounts to limitations of the frostbite engine and it's struggles. I also hate how all the asari look the same. Ryder also needs some rework but I do hope BioWare can give it the love it needs for a redemption arc!
Mass effect Andromeda had so much potential still got so much potential to be a good game, but the reason why, at least in my opinion, he didn’t go so well was because bioware didn’t really focus the resources I mean like they should’ve focused on Andromeda and then fully focused on anthem afterwards, because anthem required a very long term support and content updates but with Andromeda or they need to do was fix up any post launch bugs along with story dlc and of course routine updating and support of the multiplayer section of Andromeda, but bioware probably better off more than I can. Chew when they try to do two games near the same development time cycles because it seem like they were rushing to leave Andromeda to focus on anthem without completing, it’s normal support cycle in terms of story dlc and fixing bugs and glitches in the main campaign
Just bought this game yesterday for 3 dollar on steam, i must say it's very worth it from start to the end. despite the bad reputation that mass effect andromeda have, i personally think this is by far one of the good game i've ever played after mass effect trilogy.
I think as games get better we become spoiled and demand perfection. I remember it being good I’m downloading it again on ps5 gamers need to stop demanding perfection lol
@@clericknight7304 How do games "get better" ? They have only been getting better in terms of graphics, when it comes to story and characters, very few games are good.
I'm playing Andromeda right after an insanity ME Legendary edition playthrough. There's a lot of great combat features in this game, including a flexibility which I actually prefer over most of the trilogy's classes. I'm playing as a shotgun/melee rogue who regularly dips in and out of invisibility. Backup is a sniper rifle with the infiltrator scanner perk so I can see enemies through cover and pick off isolated targets. I feel like such a boss being able to shape my build this way and I'd love to see more in the next ME.
I started liking the game a lot more when I stopped thinking of it as a Mass Effect game and considered it as more of a mass effect mod running over something like Skyrim. Like it kind of looks and plays like Mass Effect, but when you see the base game it's actually running on (seeing human faces) it breaks the illusion. I also found the character creator seemed to work better after I started the game and used the Face Modifier thing, in the Medical Lab I think, and then actually ended up with a better looking character that didn't just look like the original character model with slightly different hair like what I ended up with originally.
I appreciate what they were trying to do with the new dialogue system. Expand it so it's not just yes or no, paragon or renegade, good or bad but it went too far from that and now it's almost impossible to get a yes or no, serious or professional Ryder. Keep the paragon and renegade system but perhaps expand it, keep things like romance specific options and Ditch the noncommittal 4 way responses.
My older brother, who only started playing games other than the Total War games, told me he was playing, and enjoying Mass Effect. Fucking great, awesome! I was sure he got the Legendary Edition, with a game series like that then you start with number 1 and go up. Asked him if he went my favorite class, Vanguard. But he wasn't sure what I was talking about... Turns out he was playing Andromeda. Damn him, now the combat from the originals will feel a lot more stale than it would otherwise, making it so that he might not play through them all. I need him to spend a couple of hundred hours on this after all
Am so looking forward to Mass Effect 4 - playing Shepard again, and especially moving the story on from the trauma of ME3's ending. Cant wait! But also really want to see a sequel to Andromeda. It felt like a really interesting concept with lots of potential. For what it was, I actually enjoyed it - besides the gameplay, the worlds were beautiful to explore, and developing Ryder from an awkward newbie was fun and rewarding. The OT is always gonna be a hard act to follow but there was a lot to like about Andromeda, I didnt think it was as bad as it was often made out to be. Sure it had a few problems but a sequel could fix these and I would love the chance to play those characters again and continue the story. Theres gotta be room for both in the Mass Effect universe? Please, BioWare...?
Yeah I waited 5 years for this game and couldn't even play it after I picked it up at midnight. Took a week to get patched to the point it was playable. And I mean literally I could not get into the first planet without the game crashing
Andromeda holds up. The animation and story aren’t as good as the trilogy, but the combat is better and it was fun to dick around in an open world without needing to rush from mission to mission. Sometimes different isn’t always bad. Also, Cora. ❤
Yes. It is. I was playing only online games, when 4 years ago i found ME:A on the Playstore for 2.00€. After watching a trailer, I thought "let's try". I tried. And played it 3 times. My wife too. We never player the original trilogy and didn't understand why this spin-off was so hated. We just had a PS4 and when hearing a Legendary Edition was in project we couldn't wait for playing to it. We took it day one. And i play it again and again. I understood why Andromeda was hated. But month ago, i played again to Andromeda. And it is a good game. Ok, there's the sleepy faces, and Ryder is sometimes weak. Some parts of the story had been let with no answer. They tried to made a Mass Effect but they weren't really BioWare. But it worth it. The story and the new lore are very interesting. The fights are cool. And some cinematic are great. Some characters are cool too. If it was a Mass Effect with Shepard i wouldn't think so kindly. But it isn't. I just hope EA won't make the same mistake with the new Mass Effect.
I just played Andromeda last year and i actually really liked it. I call it an enjoyable 6/10. Definitely not worth full price but when its on sale for less than 10 dollars id call it worth it.
I feel like if Mass Effect 1 is your favorite game in the trilogy like myself then you like Mass effect Andromeda more than other people. I like Mass effect Andromeda despite it's many faults because of it going back to having RPG elements like ME 1 also the combat was good.
i'd say it is, i waited and waited to get it because of all the negative comments about it but honestly i enjoyed it and kinda hope they add more to the storyline.
I played it again a few weeks ago. Been a long time, last save was june 2017. Was fun, not as awful as i remember, could be updates duct taping it together. To me it still doesnt have the charm the trilogy has. I also wanted to see if any tie in to ME5 was possible. Seems there was no plan to return home. They would need a relay to make the trip back in reasonable time. Even if they can get the materials, im not sure the initiative had knowledge or blueprints on how to build one. Hard to say as im not sure we know if a relay can align to another 2.5mil light years away.
I’m interested to see how they will tie it all together between the Original Trilogy and Andromeda. I was thinking they’d do something about the Remnant being tied to the Reapers somehow and apparently they were already planning on a DLC in which a group of Reapers follow the Arks from the Milky Way to Andromeda so maybe there is still something there they can use.
Рік тому+5
Although there's no DLC, you can essentially read what it would have been about in the Mass Effect: Annihilation book.
@@garyballard179 I don't think it will kill it. On the contrary, I think they might alienate part of the fanbase that really liked it (especially people that started their ME adventure with Andromeda). Also, look at the comments, people seem to like Andromeda, so it is very unlikely that tying those 2 stories together (not like they aren't tied already) wouldn't be an issue.
@@dozzy9984 No, most people _don't_ like Andromeda - which is why they _don't_ flock to reviews and critiques of a game they want no part of. They just _ignore it._ When Let's Players ask if they should play Andromeda after the trilogy, the response is "meh." It's a "you can if you want, just lower your expectations."
@@garyballard179 I started with Andromeda. I love it and this is why I’m locked into the Mass Effect franchise. I heared it should’ve been more and after watching it I can see that it could have been even more. Nonetheless pairing Andromeda and the Milky way sounds great to me. I don’t expect much coming into it though, probably some dialogues like in the ‘Ryder family secrets’ mission or references, mostly a background connection.
Before the launch, I thought we were gonna be some space cowboy making a new galaxy our home... After Launch, OH GOD why am I an errand boy constantly being questioned lol
1) It’s definitely not fair to suggest that Andromeda doesn’t have as many consequences as the OT. ME1 had a lot of decisions that don’t pay off until the later games, but Andromeda doesn’t have any other games to see how those decisions would have changed things down the road. 2) Wholeheartedly disagree with the morality system comments. The OT definitely gave you a distinctive path to walk, but you were punished pretty heavily from deviating off of the extreme edges or going with neutral options. Of all the BioWare games I have played, DA:Origins is still the gold standard for how to do it, where you can make a huge number of decisions without ever being fully tied down to a singular path, but all of those decisions are still consequential to your relationships within your team. Andromeda was heading this direction but didn’t really flesh it out like they needed to for it to be as satisfying, but I don’t think we should encourage them to go backwards to a binary morality system. 3) Shepard is different from either Scott or Sara, with Sara being much more scientifically minded than her brother, and with both Ryders growing in to a role they weren’t ready to take on. I like the development of Ryder over the course of Andromeda. Shepard is a legendary character, but they were always the one true hero, the only one who could save the galaxy, the one born to lead and command. That was great for the OT, but I am always disappointed to see how many ME fans seem to dislike Ryder since they’re basically not a Shepard clone. Some of that may be due to some technical issues and a few meme worthy lines of dialogue, but let’s not pretend like the OT was perfect in that regard.
The only things I still have an issue with are the lack of emotion when it comes to character deaths, and establishing settlements/outposts. (I can’t remember what they were called) I found establishing them really boring.
Thanks for your re-review. I'm currently in my 9,732nd run of MEL and still having fun, that trilogy continues to hold. As I watched your re-review I was seriously considering giving Andromeda a try (if the price is right, like under $10) up and until you told me that Bioware ditched the Para/Ren dialogue choices. I mean, WTF, but story and dialogue choices are a huge reason why I still enjoy ME. Hell ME is the only game I ever pre-ordered. Sounds like the writers were either not qualified for the task and/or were kept on a tight lease. Anyway, thanks for the review and hopefully ME4 (refuse to call it 5) does a much better job.
Whats most amusing about all this, is knowing what I know about ME5; will have you scrambling back to this entry, and actually put some effort into, actually playing it. 😆 👍
There are ALWAYS two fan camps when comes to discuss MEA: Those who focus on graphs (at release) and those who prize the combat and the MP...but almost all of them ignore the story/narrative and character's development (just read recently to someone who commented he didn't care about the story, but combat was awesome🤦♂️) Back when I played the OT in my early 30s ( and with all its flaws), it suck me into that world, listening and reading the codex, talking with the NPCs and I was just driven by curiosity of what I will find on the way, and that aplies for 1 and 2 and how things would end by 3 (I even found relaxing driving the Mako on those bare wasted planets, cos that shows a "realistic" way of how exploring desert planets must be😁) With MEA, a game about exploring a new galaxy a la Avatar movie, I had none of that...none...and the characters and all about their dialogs didn't helped much😒👍
I may get a lot of heat from this but I enjoyed playing Andromeda. Hate to admit it but Andromeda actually got me into the Mass Effect series, I played it when I got EA Plus and saw it on there (it was free so why not) I played it for the first time and actually enjoyed it, then I found out about the rest of the Mass Effect games and when I saw the Legendary Edition trailer I knew I had to get it so I could experience the first three games for the first time and I absolutely loved it (no surprises there right) Now in 2023, I am a massive Mass Effect fan, can’t wait for the next game.
Yes. Im playing it right now but I will say to be ready to commit quite a bit of time in it. There are ALOT of things to do but sometimes or most times depending who you ask, the side missions are quite literally a chore. Some are good and some are ridiculous in terms of its fetch/ investigation quests. Im playing stock sara ryder and her face expressions are very much improved since the og launch. The one thing I really like about ME Andromeda is the scale of your importance. You arent some big shot hero with a crazy past that made you into some kind of commander badass, youre just a head scout in charge of finding suitable planets in a new galaxy. Youre playing the fail safe in case things dont go so well in the milky way. As you play as either of the Ryder siblings, you see your character grow into someone who has to earn respect from the other alien races in your quest to bring stability to planets. While the villians (the kett) are not the most interesting in terms of being a threat, I was much more invested in the planets I was exploring. Havarl is gorgeous, Aya is calm, Voeld is nice looking but a chore to navigate, Eladaan is a much more interesting desert then Eos (your starter planet) and Kadara is a literal gangsters paradise. I wish there was some kind of aquatic planet like Manaan from kotor but I can tell that because this game was under crunch that maybe there were tough decisions on the cutting room floor. I personally found the remnant and the kett to just be a tiring bore to tear through both in enemy design and background. The only thing they served to me was to exploit how great the combat feels in this game. I personally love using my trusty Revenant rifle with a clip mod to mow down enemies whilst in mid air. I chose a soldier Ryder class in my playthrough, just like I did for my soldier class Shepard because I find that the most fun. The stakes arent as high as the og trilogy with shepard but I have to commend Bioware for coming up with the story and stakes to differentiate itself from its previous ME trilogy. The vaults were fascinating at first and is really a great concept, but for me personally, it became a chore. Go to planet, activate 3 monoliths by scanning 3 different glyphs to access console. Solve mini games within vault, then run away from bad smoke and escape the vault. Then bam! Planet isnt dying anymore. Its a rinse and repeat that didnt need to be so tedious. I would have much rather preferred some kind of dragon ball style and go to planet to planet to find a certain fragment or object that led to an overall bigger picture like kotor 1 did. The allies in your party are... ok. Drack is my favorite being the old krogan merc with a heart of gold, vetra the overcaring sister drifter, peebee the asari with a penchant of moving on but has a thing for remnant tech, Jaal the cool angaran resistance fighter, Cora your second in command and asari weeaboo and finally liam... yeah. Liam. Walking sandpaper Liam. I like the crew and of course they dont hold a candle to the og ME Shep crew but theyre alright in terms of chemistry. Ryder as a protagonist can feel odd at times in terms of dialogue choices and I do like the removal of paragon/ renegade to give Ryder their own agency. As I mentioned, the story is lower stakes compared to Sheps own but it has its own weight with being charged to find homes for everyone and I do like the dynamic struggle happening in the background with families and friends being prioritized for waking up from stasis due to politics, nepotism and resource priority. Overall the game is really its own thing and I am glad it is part of thr Mass Effect universe. It has its own separate identity and its own stakes with great improvements to the but baffling choices with bloat to the mechanics like how spending/ earning different points work for different systems. Its a good game imo.
When I heard about the patches to "fix" this game, the only thing I thought was "Patches can't fix bad writing". Left the fandom for a while, and actually forgot just how bad the dialogue in Andromeda is. I physically WINCED so many times during this video.
Overall I think the story was fine and parts of it were genuinely compelling and worth revisiting in the next game. It''s just that the open world structure undermines it heavily unless you beeline it which the game does not want you to do. I found myself forgetting what the hell was going on because I spent so much time getting the planet viability up. Activating the vaults was by far my least favorite part of the game, the sadoku and the puzzles were so annoying and repetitive. Exploration was imo the weakest part of ME1 and they managed to replicate that here.
I just picked this game up used at GameStop a few weeks ago for $4 CAD. It's hard to be mad at it for that price. It has some issues, but overall i enjoyed my time with it. The game's biggest sin might be using the Mass Effect name which raised expectations. It could've been a brand new IP featuring only humans aboard the arks and nothing would narratively change.
Just did a 2023 playthrough. Loved it. Some of the criticism is valid and one of the side quests bugged so I couldn't complete it but otherwise it's a highly enjoyable game with good combat and an interesting story. It's just a shame the story remains largely unfinished! I'm hoping ME5 brings some answers/continuation to for the Andromeda story.
I would also add, that since Andromeda shows up in Archives in terms of choices, so that might be worth considering when it will be on discount, since those choices might affect some gameplay in next ME title. Also about customization, again on Archives it seems that there are some really nice made Ryders made by people, so it seems that making a good looking character is somehow possible.
Andromeda, to me, is like playing metal gear solid 5. It was fun while playing, but once you get to the end and realize there was supposed to be more (dlc or story cut out) it makes me not want to go through playing it a 2nd time.
So when Andromeda first came out I was devastated by it and never finished. Hated every minute I spent with it. I just recently finished another trilogy playthrough and wanted to give Andromeda another go. I have to say I have actually fallen in love with the game this time. All of your points are valid and the game still suffers from some pretty serious issues that they honestly never had an excuse for. However there is a lot of charm here and I actually think I like all of the characters that are on the Tempest with you. The writing is pretty rough for sure, but honestly I don't it is far below the origianl trilogy (I say this as a huge fan of the trilogy but it had some pretty low points) however it just never reaches the high points the first 3 did. Really my biggest issue is that there is literally 1 sapient species here? That's crazy to me, but if they had another game we could find out there are several more just over the horizon that just hadn't met the Angara yet. All in all I'm happy I'm giving it another chance and I hope to continue my adventures in Andromeda at some point.
Considering all the crap the team went through with EA to put out a game that wasn't going to live up to the trilogy no matter how good it was, I say Andromeda is a win in my book. I love it. And I'm a mass effect veteran. Was there when the first game came out. Back when it was an Xbox exclusive.
As a day 1 MEA player and a OG ME player, I was shocked that EA stopped working on more stuff for the game, but I'd rather have had them delay the game to put out a better release than what they did do so they could build the universe a little better. Still, I liked the puzzles it gave me a little bit of a break in the action gameplay, and they were very easy to get through if you like doing sudokulike puzzles.
I think my problem with Angara is that for a race that comes from completely different galaxy, they don't seem much different than humans. People complain about Asari that they are just blue skinned women (even though their concept was supposed to be a throwback to old sci-fi), but even then you have differences like facts that they're monogender, can live 1000 years, their three stages of development, way of reproducing and biotic abilities. Meanwhile Angara's main characteristics is that they are open with their feelings and live in communal families. Which to be frank is something that you can find in many human cultures, so it isn't really anything interesting. Probably the most interesting fact about them is that they were created by Jardaan. But we already had stories in the previous trilogy about races that were created by the other race (the Geth) or just steered evolutionary by other powerful race (again the Asari). They even breath the same air (Ryder didn't wear helmet during his first stay on their homeworld), eat the same food and have no problem with speaking English during first contact (still one of my biggest pet peeves). So basically, Angaras are boring.
I can't believe they took away the ability to control squadmates. It makes you feel less like a squad and more like 1 badass with 2 idiots who never seem to do anything.
@@MistahJay7 yeah very annoying for comboing abilities and timing attacks. Or they use the wrong attack or just don't use any abilities. Not to mention they're stuck with one weapon and appearance. you can't even swap someone like drak off his shotgun during a fight where he can never hit anything. It's just a complete downgrade. All because they wanted combat to be real time. No pausing the fight with the ability wheel. Then to make up for this loss of control they give you an ammo type wheel instead, something I rarely even used.
I think the part I REALLY like is the fact that I get missions part of the main storyline and sidequest that are broken and you can't complete. This becomes EXCITING when it is part of the main plot and you simply can't continue the game because of a critical broken mission.
I played it for the first time last year and had tons of fun. I loved it just as much as the Shepard trilogy. I know after launch it had some technical issues but in 2022 it played very well, no significant bugs or problems.
So while I think that the protagonist (Ryder vs Shep) comparison is necessary, I think its important to put it into perspective considering how much more content of Shep we have. I say this as I am currently going through ME1 again and while I do like Shep better as a protagonist even after just ME1, I think that alot of the legend that is Shepard comes from the character development ESPECIALLY in ME2 and later ME3, add the DLCs(which for how little time they give, provide a ton of character development) and its no wonder we all love Shep so much more. The whole no paragon/renegade option doesnt help with the character development either. Long story short, I cant help but wonder how much we would like Ryder vs Shep after another two games plus DLC with the option for paragon/renegade. I know this is 100% wishful thinking and a pipe dream on my part.
I just finished my second playthrough yesterday. I think if this game wasn't the game after me3 I think it would've been rated an 8 or 9 out of 10. Expectations were too high
What if in the lead up to the next ME game, BioWare rereleases Andromeda with the missing DLC? 🤔 It would be a smart play especially if Andromeda ties in to the next game. 🤷♂️
Recently beat ME Tilogy and currently playing ME:A for the first time. Like most people, I absolutely loved the original games. Following the story of Commander Shepard and building the relationships with your teammates has been one of the best gaming experience I’ve had. That being said, ME:A has issues that the originals didn’t. The story lacks substance, choices don’t feel as much weight, and the face animation is absolutely horrible, ugly AF NPCs. But where it does shine is the gameplay. The fight system has never been better in Mass Effect, it’s a lot of fun. Enough to make me wanna play it again with all the awesome gear equipment from the beginning. Anyway, I also like the new squad. Drack, Vetra, Peebee, Jaal, and Cora are all great characters. Now to the character creation. Like Hulthen said, it’s freaking horrendous, for Scott Ryder at least. I played as male Shepard in the Trilogy. And wanted to play as Scott in ME:A…No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t make an attractive Scott that looks like me. So I said f^ck and playing as Sara Ryder. At least I was able to make a beautiful blonde Sara. Character wise Ryder is cool. Not a leader like Shepard, but when you’re not a commander who’s thrust upon a leadership position and you’re learning the ropes as you go, that’s to be expected. I know ME:A gets a lot of flack due to poor development and fans wanting Shepard 2.0 (I don’t get that last one. That’s just repeating what’s already been done before) But I strongly suggest people give Mass Effect Andromeda a shot. It’s not nearly as bad as I thought it would be and it’s a lot of fun
Andromeda Is an ok game with good combat and would have been really successful in a vacuum, but coming off of the Shepard trilogy its bad in comparison so in its current state I would say both sides of the argument are right its both a good game and a bad mass effect game.
I could not care less about the npc faces or customisation, the gameplay is good, great new ideas, awesome graphics, good story and i really enjoy playing it, i would go as far and say it's better than Mass effect 2. I love it. This is a great game and you're missing out if you don't play it.
And drama, they got me into the Mass Effect story. I loved the exploration of it. The planets were beautiful and that’s what drew me in. And the I discovered the trilogy…. Let’s just say I can play Andromeda still, but it’s definitely not my go to. I’ve played it like 20 times and my completion percentage has never been above 96%. WHAT?! I’ve done every side mission! HOW?! That said I will play all 4 games once more when they announce ME5. My friend said it could still be a while after the announcement but…there’s 4 games and andromeda can take a while if trying to get thru it all. It was a missed opportunity at what could have been an amazing game. I love the concept of exploring our closest galaxy. And I replay for the beautiful planets and those vault systems. Would love that explored more somehow. Oh and meridian was beautiful! But way too small
I played 1 2 and 3 dozen times each, and I couldn't even finish 4. I couldn't get over the fact that they would rather make all the guys bi, no choice in being straight, but the girl get to be only gay. Instead of fixing the glitching faces, that is a known problem. Shows their priorities, they destroyed a great series, congratulations you made that 1% happy and pissed the rest of the 99% off.
I remember a comment from the head game designer at the time saying they intentionally made the CC option so u couldn't make a sexy female character because it was demeaning. Yeah it was basically the first wave of the woke games that came out.
Feels like a lot of things learned listening to other gamers. I am glad I played it before hearing all that. While the face animations are indeed a weak point. And the release bugs were real, I have less problems with MEA now, than Witcher 3 or even MELE. There are a couple of known, "need to save and come back" bugs. But I don't crash, and I don't end up falling through Elevator shafts on ice planets or with my foot stuck in table during a strip club fight. "But we don't talk about it because ME 1-3 is perfect right?" Almost everything else talked about as FACT is actually subjective impression. And the problem with the impressions is from the "I would do it better" and from the persons tendency to internalize other opinions. Anyone who considers Vetra "a female Garrus" isn't paying attention or is a member of the Ashely ME1 club. ("I can't tell the Garrus from the Vetra.") The tone is different, close to that of the ME3 Citadel DLC. And it's not a military game first but a discovery game. Which is a no go for some ME fans right away. Which is fine. As to all the driving. Paying attention to the Nomad Upgrades helps. Fact is, this gets 4.2+ stars on Amazon and 80% positive from Steam players especially those that play more than 3 hours. Those are numbers for a good game. Not an ME1-3 level game, which is a level so good, I can count the conders on one hand. I have a couple of playthroughs that I completely enjoyed. I love the Sara Ryder voice acting. In the end, its free on Game Pass and used can be picked up for under $10 and it is well worth that, unless you have a shrine to Shepard and the Reapers.. then ...
FYI - I've left ALOOOOT of things out from my gameplay, both because I don't want to spoil too much of the game for potential newcomers & because that would've made the video more than an hour long. Might make a deep-dive retrospective in the future, so remember to sub if you'd like that
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Looking forward to that hour long deep dive into Andromeda video if you do it. Maybe you'll be able to show off different armors in different colors and maybe play around with the customization more. Also would you do a playthrough of Andromeda here?
Do it! I'd watch
I got Andromeda in 2021 for $5 on Black Friday sale. Have played one hour twenty five minutes. Trying to play it gives me headaches. The whole opening ‘tutorial’ was very annoying and confusing. I decided I much prefer watching play through videos.
Appreciate the shout! Solid video. Agreed with basically all points.
@MrHulthen
I know how much you absolutely love Mass Effect. You are one of the biggest fans out there of the franchise. My only constructive criticism is that even though the actual words you are saying are perfectly fine but it wouldnt hurt for you to come off more enthusiastic to appeal to more viewers and really show you are interested in what you are talking about. I do understand how you feel about Andromeda but im mainly referring to your main ME game videos of 123and4. Keep up the good work on your channel, i support you and wish you a great 2023 year with full success.
[EDITED FOR GRAMMER]
One interesting thing is how the intro and first mission feels like a 100% different game than the rest.
I remember back in the day that everybody says that prologue is horrible, and game improves after it. I played demo (ahead of full release) and I thought: "Oh my, I love this game".
How is that?? They were to find a new home and develop new worlds, isn't that what the whole "game" is about?
I actually liked the intro a lot. It shows they've put a lot more effort into introduction. After crash landing for the first time on habitat 7, I was like wow, what an intro, wasn't expecting it.
YES.
Thank you - nobidy has ever mentioned that and i felt like a retard so i never said it. Id even play it if it were like the beginning
100 percent, I was hyped playing the intro mission. It was huge hype and your father not making it was done well. Lots of mystery around the first mission, which is why I think for mass effect I'm glad they're making the new mass effect not open world. These games work better with straight forward missions the story telling just works. Once you get into the full game, the repetitive nature starts to show halfway through the first planet... it doesn't change after that. The story never hits what it did after that first mission
Andromeda was the first ME game I ever played (it was my covid quarantine game), and it was everything I was looking for in an RPG space adventure. The first couple worlds and missions truly felt wide open and I could do whatever I wanted (should I shoot at the kett or not?! I was so nervous) and I was hooked. I discovered the Mass Effect universe and lore as I discovered Andromeda and it truly felt as though I was in a new galaxy. Without the weight of the first 3 games, Andromeda was great. I will say though, that after playing the trilogy, I see how Andromeda fell flat with all the things mentioned here, but it still holds a special place in my heart.
Good explanation, I feel the same this way. I can see I missed out, but I love Andromeda
Fair enough, you never forget your first...Mass Effect.
If you played the original back in 2007. You would feel different. But glad you enjoyed it. Iam going to do my first andromeda playthrough soon. Beat the other ones countless times
Kind of off topic, but this is how I feel about halo 4. It was my first halo and i really liked it but after going back and playing the previous halos, i can see why 4 was so unpopular
Is this your first rpg ever? The story itself was forgettable at best
For me, it's one of those games that take a bit of convincing and patience to really start enjoying it. Especially since Andromeda only gets better after the first half.
The remnant labyrinths was not my cup of tea. It was fun for the first 2-3 times, but then after it got just too repetitive. I haven't got patience for the puzzles either, and at one point started looking up how to solve them online. But yeah, otherwise I didn't have too much problem with the game.
....It gets better halfway through the 2nd game?
Because the game _I_ played had a shit story, and it never got better.
It's not as bad as Rings Of Power, but I'm not sure it was worth the $5 I paid for it.
Thats a good joke. Andromeda only gets so much worse after the first half
@ you can’t solve a simple sudoku that’s tough brother
Agree, first two planets are horrible. They are big, lifeless wastelands with nothing interesting to do or see. This is especially painful after having a quite descent prologue part. But later on everything improves. And I would even dare to say that Kadara is good even by ME standards. Still, so much potential was rushed and waisted...
There's one aspect of Andromeda that I feel is a really good concept that doesn't get enough attention. The usage of twin protagonists. If the player chooses Scott, Sarah is still a character in the game. The non-player twin is still an active individual in the setting. MEA only briefly touched on this, when you flip to the non-player twin during certain story events, but there's a lot of potential with that dynamic. Play as Scott during the main story? The DLC could have had Sarah as the protag, with Scott's actions having consequences and influencing Sarah. In the ME Trilogy, as with most RPGs of this type, there's only 1 Cmdr Shepard. If you play as FemShep, there is no BroShep in the game, and vice versa.
Obviously, much more has been positively said about the combat and gunplay mechanics, as well the individual story missions are generally better than the '1 and done' format of MET.
Damn the DLC options with twins could be killer. I think so much of this story/character development was lost when the decision to not do DLCs was made.
That's a really good point, though I'm not sure how people would have reacted to being forced to play as their characters twin.
Personally, I think the sibling should have been a squadmate.
@@RogerMSanderson yeah buy something to play then get shafted and made to play a different character with different levels. If they just gave you the same level and skills would just feel cheap
@@JimmyThree-Balls Not saying it wouldn't take some capable writing, but a dynamic between two playable protaganists would be interesting, and something relatively different from the Bioware RPG genre.
I didn't mean to imply that you'd be forced to play the opposite twin in DLC either, just have the option. It'd also add a significant level of replay value as well, since you'd have some motivation to play different playthroughs; eg Scott/Scott, Scott/Sarah, Sarah/Scott, Sarah/Sarah. Playing a 'Renegade' Ryder at first, then having the other twin be horrified or shocked at what their twin did in the DLC or sequel would make for very interesting character drama, for example.
Yes, makes me wonder if the twin would be a squadmate if Ryder would come back as the protag. Or if the DLCs for Andromeda weren't killed I wonder if there was a plan to make the twin as a mandatory companion in a DLC mission (like Liara in Shadow Broker). Btw. if I recall not only do Sara and Scott have some different lines of dialogue as a protagonists (few but still), but they also have different lines (and possibly a personality) as NPCs.
It's also nice that if you play the default character without changing the name, other characters (especially SAM, the twin and love interest) might call you by your name. Which is small, but a nice detail.
I played it straight after a ME3 Legendary playthrough and I have to say I really enjoyed it. I agree with a lot of your points, although I did create a pretty good custom character that I was happy to look at for a few weeks! As others have said, the game for me was more about the character interactions and stories, that was fun. After that it was a lot of 'go here, do this', 'go back here, do that', so yeah, finishing out the story after that was disappointing. The only fun bit was uncovering the ME3 links which I did right at the end after going back when I came to the 'if you go past this point' bit. I have to say, whilst a big game, the ending did seem to suddenly come out of nowhere.
Same here. I went playing it right after going through the full ME:LE triple set, but with the mindset of: this is a spinoff series in the same universe, and expect nothing. Just like every other Star Trek series can do this completely differently. I would compare it more to the Lost In Space Netflix series. It's much more lightweight regarding story and characters than a traditional sci-fi, the adventure and "friends" part is more pronounced. The villain is totally a placeholder. But as a fan of the world, I just couldn't not play it. And it was actually not that bad as everyone said, I had a good time. But of course it had nothing to do with the complex story of the original 3. And I was playing this years later with all the fixes, which elevated it. (still, I ran into some bugs though).
@ That's a great way of describing it. I agree, it didn't have the 'weight' of the ME series, it was a much more fun expansion of the universe. I guess what surprised me was that there was so much dislike for it - like you, I came to it years after release with most bugs fixed, but also with an expectation that it was an older game so didn't get worked up about animations and the like. The sad thing is, it felt like the setting had great potential for a different ME game, one much more light hearted and exploration focused. I liked the Pathfinder concept. That said, as pointed out in the video, the maps were just too large - I know it's a balance between a rich and expansive universe and the time I spend running from the arrival point to where I wanted to go. But sometimes it was just too much - I'm looking at you Kadara!!
Andromeda was my first ME game, I already knew about the lore. I like the game a lot, but after hunting archon’s ship, I did not expect only 2 missions to follow up. I felt like I was about 40% into the game or something. When the last mission came, I just realised that I finished the game when the end credits came rolling (which I enjoyed because of the song). Anyway, the end is quite sudden. Nonetheless I liked it a lot and definitely down for a second game
@@rozenzoon the end was abrupt because they intended to expand on it with DLC but because the review tanks EA made them cancel it all even though the quarian ark section was either already done or close to being finished when then stopped
ME:A story simply doesn't end. Thanks to poor review bombing in its early days, EA cut the development of the game. There was a Quarian ARK DLC already planned and announced, but was cut down. Now, a part of the DLC story can be read in the ME:A novels books and comics. The Andromeda story itself was thought as new ME trilogy, that probably will never see the light. That thanks of the review bombing of people that maybe doesn't remember how other games like Skyrim were launched. Mass Effect indeed had serious issues that was "quickly" solved by the team. Skyrim, a masterpiece game, cannot be played for months because of bugs that even allowed the game to work correctly, and ME3 gone gold with a corrupted DVD on XBOX italian version that crashed the game when playing the Academy mission. The ME3 bug lasted several weeks before a patch come out. Also ME3 was review-bombed for the first version of the ending. That's the way reviewing is working now, it's on or off.
Funnily enough I'm playing the game again these days and I have to say it's not as bad as I remembered, looking at it from a different perspective I can tell they had great ambitions for this game and they actually put a lot of work in it, despite the results. Of course the facial animations are still horrific and there's quite some bugs left unfixed especially on side quests
My sound just randomly cuts out in game. I’m playing on PS5 so maybe that it’s since it’s a PS4 game.
I loved the original series and I also really liked Andromeda ( I just replayed it recently ) Not having the Paragon/Renegade option actually made me think about my choices more, so I didn't mind that it was gone at all. To me this game is definitely worth playing if You liked the original series. there were several references to places and things and even people that took place before the jump and codex information abounds if you're into that sort of thing. ( Like me! ) : )
Bro dialogue in everyway was bad in this game. And I enjoyed the game
@@JimmyThree-Ballsabsolutely not
@@javycane whatever man. The world disagreed with you
paragon/renegade system fucking sucks, at least so far in ME1. I can't do the choices I want to do because I need to game the paragon system. Glad to hear it's gone in ME:A.
The choices go nowhere in Andromeda. Basically all of the dialogue choices are the same.
The gameplay fighting stuff they did a great job in my opinion. But many of us play for the story. ME1 originally the gameplay was not so good to put it lightly. But the story the memorable loveable characters kept you going along with a strong protagonist that has earned respect but during paragon can open up themselves to bond with their squad. Ryder isn’t a leader. They try to make him funny and there’s no actual decisions that can really massively change anything in the game. Great video as always love the content.
I mostly agree with your analysis. I do think the story was simply serviceable. Not bad, not great. I like the profile system, but I hadn't considered that it removes a lot of replay value. Because you have every single power and ability unlocked with one character, I could say with confidence that there are only a few sets of powers that are better than all the other ones. Once you find the best combo, there's no reason to do anything different in any future playthroughs. I've played through the game probably four times by now and every time I choose the same combat profile and load out.
I hated the profile system. It felt so artificial to swap around your entire build on the fly. Like an instant respec whenever. When they say make choices matter, I extend that to builds too. My powers and fighting style is as much a part of my character as anything else - maybe more in a combat focused game. Your limits should define you as much as your powers. And when you have no limitations, you lose identity. Who are you at that point? What are you? Everything? Anyone? Really hope that feature is thrown on the scrapyard along with the rest of the game.
@@RansomMemoryAccess I guess you could argue that Skyrim did the same thing by removing classes. I think there are salvageable things from the game tho!
@@totallytubular618 I'd argue that in Skyrim it felt like you worked at getting good at a skill, where as in Andromeda you're a biotic or engineer or soldier at the push of a button.
Statistically speaking most people don't replay the game. And if they add enough different choices it won't take away from replay value
@@RogerMSanderson the Andromeda profiling system felt very over the top imo, it seemed to me like they just wanted to make Ryder OP asf for absolutely no reason at all. The dude isn't even a properly trained soldier like Shepard right? So it just doesn't make sense, felt like they all just thought "this would be cool" and just started throwing stuff in.
Can't believe it's been nearly 6 years since Andromeda!
Damn!
I remember being hyped for the game even though I had no means of playing the game or knowing much about Mass Effect😅 I saw the trailed and was sold
Crazy to think 2017 was 6 years ago, damn.
Time flies … in a blink of an eye it’ll be 2030
Im a New MASS EFFECT Player. Got into it because of the Legendary edition and played those games alot. Now I am already going through ANDROMEDA. Currently helping the Krogan and just participated in the Spender ARC. Im loving the game. I enjoy how it takes a character who isnt this macho man, just a simple 22 year old guy in a crazy position and showing how he deals with it. Making connections with the crew, seeing the Duality of the Nexus and the Exiles. Its got alot of good things going on here. Im pissed that this all I am gonna have until ME5 drops and that the game didnt get any dlc, but it is what it is. Even with its flaws, liking it alot. I just hope these characters make it into the series going forward. Because if BIOWARE just throws them away altogether, imma be pissed big time. Especially about Vetra.
I agree with this take too. I see Ryder's weakness as a character as the start of his journey before he becomes the larger-than-life hero we're used to seeing in games. Luke Skywalker is whiny in the first part of Star Wars too and he's not a lesser character for it. This is our chance to see Lieutenant Shepard before Akuze made him a legend.
But the overarching issue with ME:A is that it's too much of a trilogy's first entry and not enough of a standalone game in its own right. There's too much left to the nonexistent other games - Ryder's growth into a strong character, the development of the Kett, any insights at all about the Remnant, and the weight of our decisions. None of your choices matter because we didn't get the follow-up games that were supposed to bare those consequences.
In short, ME:A is a fun experience but it's not a complete one. If you buy into the game's intoxicating initial hook of exploring the unknown, you'll really enjoy what ME:A offers. If you want the immersion and brilliant writing/story-telling of the main ME trilogy, you're going to find it lacking.
Commander shepherd was a woman in the original games lol not a macho man 😂😂 also if All THE PEOPLE IN THE ENTIRE GAME actually had emotions and not been so badly flat then it would have been liked so much more
@@zachall101 you do realize theirs a male and female shep? Im literally talking about Male Shep...Female Shep had nothing to do with this convo.
Good thing about ME is that the series has pretty good replay value. Though I think replaying 1 after 3 is such a downgrade gameplay wise lol
Mass Effect Andromeda trilogy was axed out for bad reviews bombing. EA cut all the developments to Andromeda series, and canceled the Quarian ARK DLC that was already announced and focal to the main story. You can read the rest of game story from the book novels and comics, but by now the Andromeda series is still canceled. Was meant to be a new ME trilogy. EA nearly shut down Bioware because of ME:A and Mass Effect 5 was a good news for the old ME fans. But I don't think will be anything about the Andromeda galaxy in the upcoming ME:5. Maybe, and I say maybe, if people start to ask for the continuation of ME Andromeda series. But this is all thank to people who review-bombed the game the first weeks. Just remember the state of Skyrim when it first launched, that was unplayable for weeks after the launch. And I can do a list of other AAA games that suffered same fate. Be angry for low quality development is ok, but a fix must be asked, not boycott the game. That made EA nearly close Bioware, that's far more that be pissed off for a troublesome launch. In the aftermath, the offices that developed Andromeda was still closed and Bioware lost a lot of people working for it. So by now, not Bioware, but EA just had thrown away all the Andromeda work altogether, including Bioware studio team that worked on it.
Commander, Andromeda wasn't even worth it in my Cycle. Most of my people willingly let Harbinger turn them into the Collectors after playing it. We threw it out the airlock in the end but it was too late, the empire had fallen.
Oh Javik
Bro, how you gonna do Outer space like that
I hope those poor reapers didn't accidentally stumble across it 😢
@@AA-sw5pbhope they do the cowards fled while others stood and died
Bruh why’d you do dark space dirty like that 😂
Theres a lot I enjoyed about MEA and the Vetra romance was amazing, so I say the game is well worth peoples time. I love Vetra almost as much as I love Tali. Almost.
Vetra >>>> tali
The hottest of takes. You're entitled to your opinion, that's all I'll say
This take burned out my shields faster that the Haestrom sun
@@tompadfoot3065 I dont claim that MEA is as good as the trilogy, nor do I claim that there isnt a lot wrong about MEA, but what it did get right it absolutely nailed. I cared about the characters.
@@LordFoxxyFoxington lol sorry I was responding to the "Vetra>>>>>>Tali" comment. I've done all the romances in MEA and Vetra's was definitely the most beautiful and vulnerable
Andromeda is a fun game however it didn’t ever feel like I was playing Mass Effect. I’ll be interested to see how they combine the first 3 and this one. The games are just starkly different. In gameplay and just the open world aspect of the game.
They actually can't combine them. They can only make 4 a milky way game, then making a Andromeda 2 later.
The first 3 were an epic space opera, while andromeda felt like a marvel movie.
@@ek9385 YES! Very well described.
@@ek9385You just said what I've been trying to put in to words for years
@@Agent_N7 I want Andromeda 2 more than I want ME4. I want to know wtf The Scourge is and how do we get rid of it.
Starfields character facial animation designers must have learned from these guys
Bethesda regressed back to oblivions facial animation with starfield
Believe it or not, Andromeda was actually my intro to the franchise. A friend got it for me for my birthday after most, if not all, of the patches had rolled out. I went in having never experienced the trilogy or any of the bugs present in the initial release. Maybe I'm just easily impressed, but I got pretty into the game and it's actually what drove me to get into the originals. If it hadn't have been for my exposure to Andromeda, I probably would have never even picked up the trilogy. But I'm glad I did.
I played it for the first time last year.
I loved it. It's a great game. Not quite as good as the Original Trilogy, but still really good. I still have several issues with it(one being the character customization, another the power loadout), but it's still a fun, full game to me. I loved some of the writing, and all the Squadmates(aside from liam), were such good characters. Drack is Krogan Great Grandpa, and Vetra & Vidal are bae.
Combat gameplay is super fun no doubt, love using the omni-blade.
And Vetra making you overcooked steak is the reason why I continued to finish the game.
I asked once my mom and sister to solve puzzles for me xD. They liked to solve "sudoku" i don't know about how to translate it to english, or that's even translatable but they told me to call for them every time i will have to solve puzzles in game xD
I still remember the line ‘I am the Vanguard of your destruction’ from ME1 and the only thing I remember from ME Andromeda is the dreadful long car rides and how hard it was to figure out where to go. That said one of the side mission had the hardest fight of all the game and it took me some time to conquere on the hardest setting. If MEA would be a game on itself it would be OK but competing against the ME franchise makes it really tough.
I bought it on winter sale, to be honest it's fun as its own game. Great battle mechanics, not much about the story though. Added some mods to make it better, default scott is my go to.
I love playing MEA (mostly b/c I played the og trilogy to death) and yes it's not as deep in it's choice and consequences as the trilogy was. But that's just it, MEA's solo outing can't be fairly compared to a 3 game story ark with the time to resolve their story threads. I like to compare MEA to ME1 as the squad size and races are same (with exception of the angara) and it's the only other game in the trilogy that allowed players to go planet side and explore. Imagine if you will, there was no ME2 & ME3, would you have been satisfied with the story threads unresolved in ME1? Of course not, ME1, even to this day is still a bit jank and buggy, not all that different from MEA at current update. What is a big killer of MEA after multiple playthroughs is twofold: 1, the writing and direction; the voice actors clearly did the best they could with what they had to work with, and I did enjoy the overall story, but clearly the emotional impact wasn't there. And 2, MEA is basicly "The Force Awakens" to ME1's "A New Hope"; your first mission has you and your first human male team-member (Kaiden/Liam) planet side on the first planet (that you don't come back to later in the game), a random npc character you talked to back on the ship is killed by the enemy early on that first mission (Jenkins/Kirkland), next as the mission progresses you'll be joined by your human female team-member (Ashley/Cora). Later on at the central hub (Citadel/Nexus), you'll be granted your player's title (Specter/Pathfinder), and will be given free rein to use your ship (Normandy/Tempest), your squad will grow to include a turian (Garus/Vetra), a krogan (Wrex/Drack), an asari (Leara/Peebee) and a 6th member who's race we know little about (Tali/Jaal). You can explore the planet side of select planets with your vehicle (Maco/Nomad), and you have a clear enemy in the story (Saren/Archon) who plans to use acheint machine to to carry out his mission (Reapers/Remnant). And so on and so on with some deviations to make MEA stand apart from ME1; side missions MEA make you feel like you're sticking your nose into events happening alongside the player's story, instead of of in ME1, here's a random group of enemies, go kill them. Plus the callbacks that have ties to events in the og trilogy give a different perspective on events Ryder didn't have any involvement in (Shepard is known and familiar to some characters but no one is fan gushing over him/her, allowing Ryder's achievements in-story stand on their own.
Yeah, ME1 is definitely the weakest one out of the trilogy, but it has the nice moment such as the Virmire mission. I played the Legendary edition recently and I still hate the reusable assets ME1 used for most of its side quests. Like every building/ caves in every planet that you can enter can be breakdown into 3-4 assets. Mako was buggy/ janky and I remember I hated Mako so much in the original ME1 (the LE fixed it though). Combat in ME1 is also the weakest imho. But the choices that you can make in ME1 are actually really impactful (like Kaidan/ Ashley choices, Wrex confrontation). But definitely without ME2 and ME2 you won't know the impact of some of the choices.
MEA was a shit game with a shit story. This is ignoring the graphic issues and designs. All it was good for was making snapshots of landscapes to use as a desktop background.
if u compared this game to starfield which was released in 2023, u will have a difficult time imagine this was actually the superior game on almost everything. and ME andromeda was released 6 years ago, everything in this game age very well. its actually surprisingly looks better then most AAA game release today. if u never played this game at launch or to compare it to og ME trilogy. its actually one of the best sci fi RPG out there, for 10 bucks its definitely worth it.
The timing of this video...like dayumn.
I finished my X:th playthrough of the original trilogy a week ago and the decided to give Andromeda a try....again.... for the 4th or 5th time(never ever I finished the game)....
Mass Effect Andromeda COULD have been the next best (future) trilogy installment that drives the ME universe forward. Its core-themes were there, combat was perfected in its fluidity, the Remnant mystery was intriguing and the dynamics between characters was fine.
It's just a shame that nothing, except combat, was implemented right. It was rushed to oblivion due to a complete technical overhaul mid-development, dialogue was often times cringey and outright stupid, the Kett "villains" had this cartoony flair around them that I couldn't really take them seriously and the Angara need a complete graphical overhaul so my eyes can recover.
It's a shame that the devs simply abandoned this historical waste of potential. Let's just hope that the next ME gets the care, love and attention it deserves. I truly hope that the devs won't abandon Ryder, MEA lore and happenings in the next game.
One thing I recently realized while replaying the Trilogy, Andromeda feels so much smaller.
That's probably because we don't explore the entire galaxy. We spend all of Andromeda within a very tiny section of space. Mass Effect's FLT tech is extremely slow. The only reason they could explore as much of the Milky Way as they could was because of the Mass Relays. Andromeda has no Mass Relays, so going from system to system with standard FTL drives is EXTREMELY slow.
I am correctly playing it right after legendary edition and i can say that i'm really enjoying it. I am almost at the half of the game and i can say that it's really worth a try.
It's far from perfect but it's genuinely not a bad game like everyone claimed.
Yes it is worth it, but I enjoy this game. So it depends who is asking if Andromeda is worth playing, depends if you prefer the older Mass effects 1,2 and 3.
As for customization of Ryder, I didn't find the customizations any better in Mass Effect 1,2 and 3 for Shepherd.
Andromeda is really a hit or miss even for me, as someone who likes the game. The CC, like you said is honestly the worst of the BioWare games, I d have to wonder if it amounts to limitations of the frostbite engine and it's struggles. I also hate how all the asari look the same. Ryder also needs some rework but I do hope BioWare can give it the love it needs for a redemption arc!
Well said, Kala!
Just started doing my first Andromeda playthrough, and it's been a lot of fun!
Mass effect Andromeda had so much potential still got so much potential to be a good game, but the reason why, at least in my opinion, he didn’t go so well was because bioware didn’t really focus the resources I mean like they should’ve focused on Andromeda and then fully focused on anthem afterwards, because anthem required a very long term support and content updates but with Andromeda or they need to do was fix up any post launch bugs along with story dlc and of course routine updating and support of the multiplayer section of Andromeda, but bioware probably better off more than I can. Chew when they try to do two games near the same development time cycles because it seem like they were rushing to leave Andromeda to focus on anthem without completing, it’s normal support cycle in terms of story dlc and fixing bugs and glitches in the main campaign
Yes, I think it is. They should also do some DLC's to make it a more complete game.
I love this game. It’s different but very good. The combat is great and I like the characters
Just bought this game yesterday for 3 dollar on steam, i must say it's very worth it from start to the end. despite the bad reputation that mass effect andromeda have, i personally think this is by far one of the good game i've ever played after mass effect trilogy.
I think as games get better we become spoiled and demand perfection. I remember it being good I’m downloading it again on ps5 gamers need to stop demanding perfection lol
@@clericknight7304 deadass. Most just love to complain about dumb shit
@@clericknight7304 How do games "get better" ? They have only been getting better in terms of graphics, when it comes to story and characters, very few games are good.
I'm playing Andromeda right after an insanity ME Legendary edition playthrough. There's a lot of great combat features in this game, including a flexibility which I actually prefer over most of the trilogy's classes. I'm playing as a shotgun/melee rogue who regularly dips in and out of invisibility. Backup is a sniper rifle with the infiltrator scanner perk so I can see enemies through cover and pick off isolated targets. I feel like such a boss being able to shape my build this way and I'd love to see more in the next ME.
Andromeda was/is a decent game. The combat mechanics were a big upgrade from ME3.
I started liking the game a lot more when I stopped thinking of it as a Mass Effect game and considered it as more of a mass effect mod running over something like Skyrim. Like it kind of looks and plays like Mass Effect, but when you see the base game it's actually running on (seeing human faces) it breaks the illusion.
I also found the character creator seemed to work better after I started the game and used the Face Modifier thing, in the Medical Lab I think, and then actually ended up with a better looking character that didn't just look like the original character model with slightly different hair like what I ended up with originally.
I appreciate what they were trying to do with the new dialogue system. Expand it so it's not just yes or no, paragon or renegade, good or bad but it went too far from that and now it's almost impossible to get a yes or no, serious or professional Ryder. Keep the paragon and renegade system but perhaps expand it, keep things like romance specific options and Ditch the noncommittal 4 way responses.
They need a yes, no, options 3 or 4 in this.
The game is currently on sale, the standard recruit Edition is $6.89 on PS4 until 8/17
Ryder: *is actively falling*
Sam: Acceleration increasing.
Me: Thanks Sam, I think he noticed.
My older brother, who only started playing games other than the Total War games, told me he was playing, and enjoying Mass Effect. Fucking great, awesome! I was sure he got the Legendary Edition, with a game series like that then you start with number 1 and go up. Asked him if he went my favorite class, Vanguard. But he wasn't sure what I was talking about... Turns out he was playing Andromeda. Damn him, now the combat from the originals will feel a lot more stale than it would otherwise, making it so that he might not play through them all. I need him to spend a couple of hundred hours on this after all
Am so looking forward to Mass Effect 4 - playing Shepard again, and especially moving the story on from the trauma of ME3's ending. Cant wait!
But also really want to see a sequel to Andromeda. It felt like a really interesting concept with lots of potential. For what it was, I actually enjoyed it - besides the gameplay, the worlds were beautiful to explore, and developing Ryder from an awkward newbie was fun and rewarding. The OT is always gonna be a hard act to follow but there was a lot to like about Andromeda, I didnt think it was as bad as it was often made out to be. Sure it had a few problems but a sequel could fix these and I would love the chance to play those characters again and continue the story.
Theres gotta be room for both in the Mass Effect universe? Please, BioWare...?
Yeah I waited 5 years for this game and couldn't even play it after I picked it up at midnight. Took a week to get patched to the point it was playable. And I mean literally I could not get into the first planet without the game crashing
Andromeda holds up. The animation and story aren’t as good as the trilogy, but the combat is better and it was fun to dick around in an open world without needing to rush from mission to mission. Sometimes different isn’t always bad.
Also, Cora. ❤
I LOVE HOW THIS GUYS ITS THINKING WAY AHEAD HE PUBLISHED THE VIDEO AT THE BEGGINING OF 2023 SO HE DOESNT HAVE TO NOW IN 2024👍
i played andromeda right after i first played OG ME1 and was blown away how much better the nomad was than the mako. a truly redeeming feature of ME:A
Yes. It is.
I was playing only online games, when 4 years ago i found ME:A on the Playstore for 2.00€. After watching a trailer, I thought "let's try".
I tried. And played it 3 times. My wife too.
We never player the original trilogy and didn't understand why this spin-off was so hated. We just had a PS4 and when hearing a Legendary Edition was in project we couldn't wait for playing to it.
We took it day one. And i play it again and again. I understood why Andromeda was hated.
But month ago, i played again to Andromeda. And it is a good game.
Ok, there's the sleepy faces, and Ryder is sometimes weak. Some parts of the story had been let with no answer. They tried to made a Mass Effect but they weren't really BioWare.
But it worth it. The story and the new lore are very interesting. The fights are cool. And some cinematic are great. Some characters are cool too.
If it was a Mass Effect with Shepard i wouldn't think so kindly. But it isn't.
I just hope EA won't make the same mistake with the new Mass Effect.
I just played Andromeda last year and i actually really liked it. I call it an enjoyable 6/10. Definitely not worth full price but when its on sale for less than 10 dollars id call it worth it.
I feel like if Mass Effect 1 is your favorite game in the trilogy like myself then you like Mass effect Andromeda more than other people. I like Mass effect Andromeda despite it's many faults because of it going back to having RPG elements like ME 1 also the combat was good.
i'd say it is, i waited and waited to get it because of all the negative comments about it but honestly i enjoyed it and kinda hope they add more to the storyline.
just imagine if you can choose your race in the next mass effect just like the Dragon Age Games
I played it again a few weeks ago. Been a long time, last save was june 2017. Was fun, not as awful as i remember, could be updates duct taping it together. To me it still doesnt have the charm the trilogy has. I also wanted to see if any tie in to ME5 was possible. Seems there was no plan to return home. They would need a relay to make the trip back in reasonable time. Even if they can get the materials, im not sure the initiative had knowledge or blueprints on how to build one. Hard to say as im not sure we know if a relay can align to another 2.5mil light years away.
ME:As biggest problem was having Mass Effect in the name. If it was just Andromeda, it would have been less harshly judged.
I’m interested to see how they will tie it all together between the Original Trilogy and Andromeda. I was thinking they’d do something about the Remnant being tied to the Reapers somehow and apparently they were already planning on a DLC in which a group of Reapers follow the Arks from the Milky Way to Andromeda so maybe there is still something there they can use.
Although there's no DLC, you can essentially read what it would have been about in the Mass Effect: Annihilation book.
If they try to tie Andromeda to Mass Effect 4, they'll kill the franchise.
@@garyballard179 I don't think it will kill it. On the contrary, I think they might alienate part of the fanbase that really liked it (especially people that started their ME adventure with Andromeda). Also, look at the comments, people seem to like Andromeda, so it is very unlikely that tying those 2 stories together (not like they aren't tied already) wouldn't be an issue.
@@dozzy9984
No, most people _don't_ like Andromeda - which is why they _don't_ flock to reviews and critiques of a game they want no part of. They just _ignore it._
When Let's Players ask if they should play Andromeda after the trilogy, the response is "meh." It's a "you can if you want, just lower your expectations."
@@garyballard179 I started with Andromeda. I love it and this is why I’m locked into the Mass Effect franchise. I heared it should’ve been more and after watching it I can see that it could have been even more. Nonetheless pairing Andromeda and the Milky way sounds great to me. I don’t expect much coming into it though, probably some dialogues like in the ‘Ryder family secrets’ mission or references, mostly a background connection.
Before the launch, I thought we were gonna be some space cowboy making a new galaxy our home... After Launch, OH GOD why am I an errand boy constantly being questioned lol
This game was going for like £5 deal on the uk ps store (probably other regions as well) recently over xmas period. What a bargain.
I bought it, very good decision
1) It’s definitely not fair to suggest that Andromeda doesn’t have as many consequences as the OT. ME1 had a lot of decisions that don’t pay off until the later games, but Andromeda doesn’t have any other games to see how those decisions would have changed things down the road.
2) Wholeheartedly disagree with the morality system comments. The OT definitely gave you a distinctive path to walk, but you were punished pretty heavily from deviating off of the extreme edges or going with neutral options. Of all the BioWare games I have played, DA:Origins is still the gold standard for how to do it, where you can make a huge number of decisions without ever being fully tied down to a singular path, but all of those decisions are still consequential to your relationships within your team. Andromeda was heading this direction but didn’t really flesh it out like they needed to for it to be as satisfying, but I don’t think we should encourage them to go backwards to a binary morality system.
3) Shepard is different from either Scott or Sara, with Sara being much more scientifically minded than her brother, and with both Ryders growing in to a role they weren’t ready to take on. I like the development of Ryder over the course of Andromeda. Shepard is a legendary character, but they were always the one true hero, the only one who could save the galaxy, the one born to lead and command. That was great for the OT, but I am always disappointed to see how many ME fans seem to dislike Ryder since they’re basically not a Shepard clone. Some of that may be due to some technical issues and a few meme worthy lines of dialogue, but let’s not pretend like the OT was perfect in that regard.
The only things I still have an issue with are the lack of emotion when it comes to character deaths, and establishing settlements/outposts. (I can’t remember what they were called) I found establishing them really boring.
Nah, Peebee is not "alright", she risk the life of a person critical to the initiative and colonization just to go on an archaeological fun ride.
Thanks for your re-review. I'm currently in my 9,732nd run of MEL and still having fun, that trilogy continues to hold. As I watched your re-review I was seriously considering giving Andromeda a try (if the price is right, like under $10) up and until you told me that Bioware ditched the Para/Ren dialogue choices. I mean, WTF, but story and dialogue choices are a huge reason why I still enjoy ME. Hell ME is the only game I ever pre-ordered.
Sounds like the writers were either not qualified for the task and/or were kept on a tight lease.
Anyway, thanks for the review and hopefully ME4 (refuse to call it 5) does a much better job.
I think the problem was the guys behind the body movements motion capture, they don't move or react properly to the story. Cold mannequins.
Whats most amusing about all this, is knowing what I know about ME5; will have you scrambling back to this entry, and actually put some effort into, actually playing it. 😆 👍
My son and I really liked MA Andromeda. We bought the Deluxe version after updates. Play it and you be your own judge.
There are ALWAYS two fan camps when comes to discuss MEA: Those who focus on graphs (at release) and those who prize the combat and the MP...but almost all of them ignore the story/narrative and character's development (just read recently to someone who commented he didn't care about the story, but combat was awesome🤦♂️) Back when I played the OT in my early 30s ( and with all its flaws), it suck me into that world, listening and reading the codex, talking with the NPCs and I was just driven by curiosity of what I will find on the way, and that aplies for 1 and 2 and how things would end by 3 (I even found relaxing driving the Mako on those bare wasted planets, cos that shows a "realistic" way of how exploring desert planets must be😁) With MEA, a game about exploring a new galaxy a la Avatar movie, I had none of that...none...and the characters and all about their dialogs didn't helped much😒👍
I just completed the M3 legendery playthrough, the best game I've ever played.
andromeda is so much better than trashfield
I may get a lot of heat from this but I enjoyed playing Andromeda. Hate to admit it but Andromeda actually got me into the Mass Effect series, I played it when I got EA Plus and saw it on there (it was free so why not) I played it for the first time and actually enjoyed it, then I found out about the rest of the Mass Effect games and when I saw the Legendary Edition trailer I knew I had to get it so I could experience the first three games for the first time and I absolutely loved it (no surprises there right) Now in 2023, I am a massive Mass Effect fan, can’t wait for the next game.
Naw man, it's fine to enjoy things others don't 😁 dw about it
Yes. Im playing it right now but I will say to be ready to commit quite a bit of time in it. There are ALOT of things to do but sometimes or most times depending who you ask, the side missions are quite literally a chore. Some are good and some are ridiculous in terms of its fetch/ investigation quests. Im playing stock sara ryder and her face expressions are very much improved since the og launch. The one thing I really like about ME Andromeda is the scale of your importance. You arent some big shot hero with a crazy past that made you into some kind of commander badass, youre just a head scout in charge of finding suitable planets in a new galaxy. Youre playing the fail safe in case things dont go so well in the milky way. As you play as either of the Ryder siblings, you see your character grow into someone who has to earn respect from the other alien races in your quest to bring stability to planets. While the villians (the kett) are not the most interesting in terms of being a threat, I was much more invested in the planets I was exploring. Havarl is gorgeous, Aya is calm, Voeld is nice looking but a chore to navigate, Eladaan is a much more interesting desert then Eos (your starter planet) and Kadara is a literal gangsters paradise. I wish there was some kind of aquatic planet like Manaan from kotor but I can tell that because this game was under crunch that maybe there were tough decisions on the cutting room floor.
I personally found the remnant and the kett to just be a tiring bore to tear through both in enemy design and background. The only thing they served to me was to exploit how great the combat feels in this game. I personally love using my trusty Revenant rifle with a clip mod to mow down enemies whilst in mid air. I chose a soldier Ryder class in my playthrough, just like I did for my soldier class Shepard because I find that the most fun. The stakes arent as high as the og trilogy with shepard but I have to commend Bioware for coming up with the story and stakes to differentiate itself from its previous ME trilogy. The vaults were fascinating at first and is really a great concept, but for me personally, it became a chore. Go to planet, activate 3 monoliths by scanning 3 different glyphs to access console. Solve mini games within vault, then run away from bad smoke and escape the vault. Then bam! Planet isnt dying anymore. Its a rinse and repeat that didnt need to be so tedious. I would have much rather preferred some kind of dragon ball style and go to planet to planet to find a certain fragment or object that led to an overall bigger picture like kotor 1 did.
The allies in your party are... ok. Drack is my favorite being the old krogan merc with a heart of gold, vetra the overcaring sister drifter, peebee the asari with a penchant of moving on but has a thing for remnant tech, Jaal the cool angaran resistance fighter, Cora your second in command and asari weeaboo and finally liam... yeah. Liam. Walking sandpaper Liam. I like the crew and of course they dont hold a candle to the og ME Shep crew but theyre alright in terms of chemistry. Ryder as a protagonist can feel odd at times in terms of dialogue choices and I do like the removal of paragon/ renegade to give Ryder their own agency. As I mentioned, the story is lower stakes compared to Sheps own but it has its own weight with being charged to find homes for everyone and I do like the dynamic struggle happening in the background with families and friends being prioritized for waking up from stasis due to politics, nepotism and resource priority. Overall the game is really its own thing and I am glad it is part of thr Mass Effect universe. It has its own separate identity and its own stakes with great improvements to the but baffling choices with bloat to the mechanics like how spending/ earning different points work for different systems. Its a good game imo.
When I heard about the patches to "fix" this game, the only thing I thought was "Patches can't fix bad writing". Left the fandom for a while, and actually forgot just how bad the dialogue in Andromeda is. I physically WINCED so many times during this video.
Overall I think the story was fine and parts of it were genuinely compelling and worth revisiting in the next game. It''s just that the open world structure undermines it heavily unless you beeline it which the game does not want you to do.
I found myself forgetting what the hell was going on because I spent so much time getting the planet viability up. Activating the vaults was by far my least favorite part of the game, the sadoku and the puzzles were so annoying and repetitive. Exploration was imo the weakest part of ME1 and they managed to replicate that here.
I just picked this game up used at GameStop a few weeks ago for $4 CAD. It's hard to be mad at it for that price. It has some issues, but overall i enjoyed my time with it.
The game's biggest sin might be using the Mass Effect name which raised expectations. It could've been a brand new IP featuring only humans aboard the arks and nothing would narratively change.
Just did a 2023 playthrough. Loved it. Some of the criticism is valid and one of the side quests bugged so I couldn't complete it but otherwise it's a highly enjoyable game with good combat and an interesting story. It's just a shame the story remains largely unfinished! I'm hoping ME5 brings some answers/continuation to for the Andromeda story.
Bro I didn't even know her name was Addison, I just refer to her as "face"
I would also add, that since Andromeda shows up in Archives in terms of choices, so that might be worth considering when it will be on discount, since those choices might affect some gameplay in next ME title.
Also about customization, again on Archives it seems that there are some really nice made Ryders made by people, so it seems that making a good looking character is somehow possible.
Andromeda, to me, is like playing metal gear solid 5. It was fun while playing, but once you get to the end and realize there was supposed to be more (dlc or story cut out) it makes me not want to go through playing it a 2nd time.
So when Andromeda first came out I was devastated by it and never finished. Hated every minute I spent with it. I just recently finished another trilogy playthrough and wanted to give Andromeda another go. I have to say I have actually fallen in love with the game this time. All of your points are valid and the game still suffers from some pretty serious issues that they honestly never had an excuse for. However there is a lot of charm here and I actually think I like all of the characters that are on the Tempest with you. The writing is pretty rough for sure, but honestly I don't it is far below the origianl trilogy (I say this as a huge fan of the trilogy but it had some pretty low points) however it just never reaches the high points the first 3 did. Really my biggest issue is that there is literally 1 sapient species here? That's crazy to me, but if they had another game we could find out there are several more just over the horizon that just hadn't met the Angara yet. All in all I'm happy I'm giving it another chance and I hope to continue my adventures in Andromeda at some point.
Considering all the crap the team went through with EA to put out a game that wasn't going to live up to the trilogy no matter how good it was, I say Andromeda is a win in my book. I love it. And I'm a mass effect veteran. Was there when the first game came out. Back when it was an Xbox exclusive.
As a day 1 MEA player and a OG ME player, I was shocked that EA stopped working on more stuff for the game, but I'd rather have had them delay the game to put out a better release than what they did do so they could build the universe a little better. Still, I liked the puzzles it gave me a little bit of a break in the action gameplay, and they were very easy to get through if you like doing sudokulike puzzles.
I honestly enjoyed the game. Played it when it was released in Beta and played it again in 2020. Still.enjoyed the game.
I think my problem with Angara is that for a race that comes from completely different galaxy, they don't seem much different than humans. People complain about Asari that they are just blue skinned women (even though their concept was supposed to be a throwback to old sci-fi), but even then you have differences like facts that they're monogender, can live 1000 years, their three stages of development, way of reproducing and biotic abilities.
Meanwhile Angara's main characteristics is that they are open with their feelings and live in communal families. Which to be frank is something that you can find in many human cultures, so it isn't really anything interesting. Probably the most interesting fact about them is that they were created by Jardaan. But we already had stories in the previous trilogy about races that were created by the other race (the Geth) or just steered evolutionary by other powerful race (again the Asari).
They even breath the same air (Ryder didn't wear helmet during his first stay on their homeworld), eat the same food and have no problem with speaking English during first contact (still one of my biggest pet peeves).
So basically, Angaras are boring.
But to be fair you anyone can say that about any of the other species in mass effect. All opinion base.
This is the hardest game to force myself to play. I bought it day one as a massive ME fan, and I've never beaten it do this day.
I can't believe they took away the ability to control squadmates. It makes you feel less like a squad and more like 1 badass with 2 idiots who never seem to do anything.
You can still command them to attack. They just choose what powers to use lol annoying but they aren't useless
@@MistahJay7 yeah very annoying for comboing abilities and timing attacks. Or they use the wrong attack or just don't use any abilities. Not to mention they're stuck with one weapon and appearance. you can't even swap someone like drak off his shotgun during a fight where he can never hit anything.
It's just a complete downgrade. All because they wanted combat to be real time. No pausing the fight with the ability wheel. Then to make up for this loss of control they give you an ammo type wheel instead, something I rarely even used.
I think the part I REALLY like is the fact that I get missions part of the main storyline and sidequest that are broken and you can't complete. This becomes EXCITING when it is part of the main plot and you simply can't continue the game because of a critical broken mission.
I played it for the first time last year and had tons of fun. I loved it just as much as the Shepard trilogy. I know after launch it had some technical issues but in 2022 it played very well, no significant bugs or problems.
Amdromeda will never be worth it until they ADD THAT FKING QUARIAN ARK!!!!!!!!
So while I think that the protagonist (Ryder vs Shep) comparison is necessary, I think its important to put it into perspective considering how much more content of Shep we have. I say this as I am currently going through ME1 again and while I do like Shep better as a protagonist even after just ME1, I think that alot of the legend that is Shepard comes from the character development ESPECIALLY in ME2 and later ME3, add the DLCs(which for how little time they give, provide a ton of character development) and its no wonder we all love Shep so much more. The whole no paragon/renegade option doesnt help with the character development either.
Long story short, I cant help but wonder how much we would like Ryder vs Shep after another two games plus DLC with the option for paragon/renegade.
I know this is 100% wishful thinking and a pipe dream on my part.
In ME4/5 I'd really love the ability to use a camera to create a custom player that looks just like me!
I just finished my second playthrough yesterday.
I think if this game wasn't the game after me3 I think it would've been rated an 8 or 9 out of 10.
Expectations were too high
That aswell!
Wow, uploaded today, I was thinking about buying it this morning and needed some advice
I've repeatedly passed by this game even when it's on sale for $8
What if in the lead up to the next ME game, BioWare rereleases Andromeda with the missing DLC? 🤔 It would be a smart play especially if Andromeda ties in to the next game. 🤷♂️
Recently beat ME Tilogy and currently playing ME:A for the first time. Like most people, I absolutely loved the original games. Following the story of Commander Shepard and building the relationships with your teammates has been one of the best gaming experience I’ve had.
That being said, ME:A has issues that the originals didn’t. The story lacks substance, choices don’t feel as much weight, and the face animation is absolutely horrible, ugly AF NPCs.
But where it does shine is the gameplay. The fight system has never been better in Mass Effect, it’s a lot of fun. Enough to make me wanna play it again with all the awesome gear equipment from the beginning. Anyway, I also like the new squad. Drack, Vetra, Peebee, Jaal, and Cora are all great characters.
Now to the character creation. Like Hulthen said, it’s freaking horrendous, for Scott Ryder at least.
I played as male Shepard in the Trilogy. And wanted to play as Scott in ME:A…No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t make an attractive Scott that looks like me. So I said f^ck and playing as Sara Ryder. At least I was able to make a beautiful blonde Sara. Character wise Ryder is cool.
Not a leader like Shepard, but when you’re not a commander who’s thrust upon a leadership position and you’re learning the ropes as you go, that’s to be expected.
I know ME:A gets a lot of flack due to poor development and fans wanting Shepard 2.0
(I don’t get that last one. That’s just repeating what’s already been done before)
But I strongly suggest people give Mass Effect Andromeda a shot. It’s not nearly as bad as I thought it would be and it’s a lot of fun
Andromeda Is an ok game with good combat and would have been really successful in a vacuum, but coming off of the Shepard trilogy its bad in comparison so in its current state I would say both sides of the argument are right its both a good game and a bad mass effect game.
I could not care less about the npc faces or customisation, the gameplay is good, great new ideas, awesome graphics, good story and i really enjoy playing it, i would go as far and say it's better than Mass effect 2. I love it. This is a great game and you're missing out if you don't play it.
🤔 Is the gameplay good? And how long is it if I just play the Story missions?
And drama, they got me into the Mass Effect story. I loved the exploration of it. The planets were beautiful and that’s what drew me in. And the I discovered the trilogy…. Let’s just say I can play Andromeda still, but it’s definitely not my go to. I’ve played it like 20 times and my completion percentage has never been above 96%. WHAT?! I’ve done every side mission! HOW?! That said I will play all 4 games once more when they announce ME5. My friend said it could still be a while after the announcement but…there’s 4 games and andromeda can take a while if trying to get thru it all. It was a missed opportunity at what could have been an amazing game. I love the concept of exploring our closest galaxy. And I replay for the beautiful planets and those vault systems. Would love that explored more somehow.
Oh and meridian was beautiful! But way too small
I played 1 2 and 3 dozen times each, and I couldn't even finish 4. I couldn't get over the fact that they would rather make all the guys bi, no choice in being straight, but the girl get to be only gay. Instead of fixing the glitching faces, that is a known problem. Shows their priorities, they destroyed a great series, congratulations you made that 1% happy and pissed the rest of the 99% off.
Liam is straight. You can only romance him as female Ryder.
I remember a comment from the head game designer at the time saying they intentionally made the CC option so u couldn't make a sexy female character because it was demeaning. Yeah it was basically the first wave of the woke games that came out.
Yeah, seems like everyone just forgot about certain "controversies" which sorrounded this mess back then🤷♂️
Feels like a lot of things learned listening to other gamers. I am glad I played it before hearing all that.
While the face animations are indeed a weak point. And the release bugs were real, I have less problems with MEA now, than Witcher 3 or even MELE. There are a couple of known, "need to save and come back" bugs. But I don't crash, and I don't end up falling through Elevator shafts on ice planets or with my foot stuck in table during a strip club fight. "But we don't talk about it because ME 1-3 is perfect right?"
Almost everything else talked about as FACT is actually subjective impression. And the problem with the impressions is from the "I would do it better" and from the persons tendency to internalize other opinions. Anyone who considers Vetra "a female Garrus" isn't paying attention or is a member of the Ashely ME1 club. ("I can't tell the Garrus from the Vetra.")
The tone is different, close to that of the ME3 Citadel DLC. And it's not a military game first but a discovery game. Which is a no go for some ME fans right away. Which is fine.
As to all the driving. Paying attention to the Nomad Upgrades helps.
Fact is, this gets 4.2+ stars on Amazon and 80% positive from Steam players especially those that play more than 3 hours.
Those are numbers for a good game. Not an ME1-3 level game, which is a level so good, I can count the conders on one hand.
I have a couple of playthroughs that I completely enjoyed. I love the Sara Ryder voice acting.
In the end, its free on Game Pass and used can be picked up for under $10 and it is well worth that, unless you have a shrine to Shepard and the Reapers.. then ...
Tried playing this last week, couldn’t get past the character customisation. It’s actually impossible to make a good looking character