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So I finished ME: Legendary Edition and wanted more ME...

itsaziz

itsaziz

Member
Nov 8, 2017
533
...So decided to play ME:Andromeda. I couldn't even get through the first mission. Why is the game so...different? The animation isn't great. The writing seems off, I mean the ME trilogy has its fair share of stiff writing and jank, but the writing has never been bad per se.

The movement feels wrong too. The combat, off. The scanning items ala Metroid Prime is unnecessary. The squadmates feel like they're designed and written by somebody who hasn't written a character before.

Does it get better? I wanted more ME but not like this.
 
Jawmuncher

Jawmuncher

Crisis Dino
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
38,775
Ibis Island
The combat is like the best part of the game.

Overall, just take it as more of a "Mass Effect Direct to DVD" style outing. I won't say Andromeda is some master class in gaming but I think it can be an enjoyable time especially if you just want more ME. I would recommend not doing "side content" though. Would stick with just the Main Campaign and your squad related quests.
 
Kemono

Kemono

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,691
The combat can be nice but yeah the whole game feels kinda off.
 
chandoog

chandoog

Member
Oct 27, 2017
20,104
It's best to stop after ME3 and imagine that's how Bioware ended the franchise.
 
Kill3r7

Kill3r7

Member
Oct 25, 2017
24,655
You kind of have to jump in with the same mindset as watching something like Rogue One. However the story and characters aren't that good. So all that's left carrying the game is gameplay and unfortunately that's not enough. Bioware next to find the magic touch with their writing, storytelling and world building. Without it their games don't stand a chance of success.
 
Vico

Vico

Member
Jan 3, 2018
6,544
I'd say the beginning is the worst part of the game, but that's just my personal thought.
 

Deleted member 11637

Oct 27, 2017
18,204
I couldn't play more than an hour of Andromeda, it was so disappointing. I value the writing in the Mass Effect games over any other piece, and it's obvious that the new team just wasn't up to the task; every character was so lifeless and boring.

Guardians of the Galaxy is as close to Mass Effect as you can get atm.
 
MZZ

MZZ

Member
Nov 2, 2017
4,352
If you want more ME the only suggestion I have is to restart the game using your saved game or restart from scratch and go through the trilogy again. I did that like 5 times already and still enjoyed each time. I avoided andromeda. It didn't look like what I want from ME. I'd rather replay from ME1.
 
Moose

Moose

Prophet of Truth - Hero of Bowerstone
Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,203
You will get used to the movement and the combat is genuinely good but that feeling you have about the writing, animations and characters won't go away.
 
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julia crawford

julia crawford

Took the red AND the blue pills
Member
Oct 27, 2017
35,646
The game had a very harsh development and what they managed to do despite of it is very impressive. I loved the game personally.
 
Herne

Herne

Member
Dec 10, 2017
5,345
I found the gameplay and combat to be fantastic, a genuinely decent modernising of the classic ME gameplay. The ground vehicle is a joy to use, especially after the nightmare that was the Mako.

The problems - and there are so many - lie elsewhere.
 
It's mido

It's mido

One Winged Slayer
Member
Jan 23, 2018
589
Get the OG version of ME3 and play the multiplayer if that's still available.
 
Cam

Cam

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,972
As others have said, the combat and movement during fights is great, you can easily break the game later on with easily crafted weapons. That's about it. Otherwise it's a piss poor story and there's plenty of YouTube essays and articles on various sites to see exactly what went wrong with the whole project and it shows.
 
LazyGradient

LazyGradient

Member
Nov 9, 2020
442
You should have been there for the release. I had a great time scrolling through the gifs.

daubt-think.gif
 
wollywinka

wollywinka

Member
Feb 15, 2018
3,109
I also downloaded Andromeda after completing a Legendary Edition playthrough. The quality drops off a cliff, in my opinion. The atrocious animation really broke the immersion for me. The ridiculous facial expressions and dead-eyed stares were a real distraction. The character models in ME1, a 15-year-old game, look more lifelike. And don't get me started on the way everyone stands and walks, like they just shat themselves in tight pants.

The dialogue is shockingly inane, the acting is questionable, the characters are forgettable, the writing sucks, and the villains are laughable. Within an hour, I was skipping the dialogue whenever I could. The combat felt like an improvement, but I preferred the detonation sounds from ME3; they were more rewarding. I also found enemy visibility to be quite poor. I'm not sure if it is the engine or the enemy unit design, but I had the same problem with Anthem.

When I played Andromeda at launch, I was disappointed by it, but I still found it mildly enjoyable. This time, coming of the back of the superior trilogy, I found the game's mediocrity unbearable. And what the hell happened to the Asari? They look like Shrek. And why, with the exception of Peebee, are they all identical? It beggars belief.
 
Vonocourt

Vonocourt

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,647
itsaziz said:
...So decided to play ME:Andromeda. I couldn't even get through the first mission. Why is the game so...different? The animation isn't great. The writing seems off, I mean the ME trilogy has its fair share of stiff writing and jank, but the writing has never been bad per se.

The movement feels wrong too. The combat, off. The scanning items ala Metroid Prime is unnecessary. The squadmates feel like they're designed and written by somebody who hasn't written a character before.

Does it get better? I wanted more ME but not like this.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Extremely troubled development.
kotaku.com

The Story Behind Mass Effect: Andromeda's Troubled Five-Year Development

In 2012, as work on Mass Effect 3 came to a close, a small group of top BioWare employees huddled to talk about the next entry in their epic sci-fi franchise. Their goal, they decided, was to make a game about exploration—one that would dig into the untapped potential of the first three games...
kotaku.com kotaku.com
 
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Deleted member 13101

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
17,973
chandoog said:
It's best to stop after ME3 and imagine that's how Bioware ended the franchise.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

This used to be reality, and it wasn't necessarily better. Then Bioware put in a few changes to the end and there was a bit of improvement.

Andromeda isn't so bad patched, but you've got 3 games plus DLC vs. one game that didn't end up being so different in the end despite the transplanted setting. Despite the improved game mechanics It's tough to compete with that volume, and now crowned with "legendary" status. The next Mass Effect is going to face a headwind no matter what comes next.
 
disparate

disparate

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,058
Stalker said:
Because EA mandated that all devs use the Frostbite engine and it's SHITE
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Nah, that's wrong. BioWare wanted to use Frostbite, but none of the teams wanted to use the RPG systems the other developed so they spent a stupid amount of time: building systems that weren't fun and were thrown out, and rebuilding systems that already existed in Inquisition but fucked it up even worse.
 
YourFriendLevi

YourFriendLevi

Member
Jan 4, 2018
4,032
I really like Andromeda. I think the cast has some good moments, along with some not great moments which isn't a first for Mass Effect anyways. Drack and Jaal stand toe to toe with some of my favorite squadmates in the trilogy.

I think the combat is the best in the series, biotics are insane and the flexibility of having access to Respec and all skills on a single character let's you play around til you find the best fit.

I like that if you keep the default name it will get used sometimes and add a bit of weight to interactions, and I like that your characterization is between being professional or whimsical rather than a decent person or an asshole.
 
Zephy

Zephy

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,193
Loved it to bits when I played it. While not as good as the trilogy I still found it a great entry, and never understood all the criticism. I'll definitely replay it some time before the next ME game, I'll see if my opinion changes then.

On several aspects I thought it held its own against ME1 as a first entry in a new trilogy. Everyone unfairly compared the characters to the trilogy, but if we're fair and compare them only to what we see in ME1, Andromeda has nothing to be ashamed of. Jaal could have been the next Garrus if they made a sequel and I was very disappointed the IP was shelved. Hopefully the next ME manages to tie Andromeda and the trilogy together neatly.
 
Man Called Aerodynamics

Man Called Aerodynamics

Member
Oct 29, 2017
7,503
Andromeda is worth playing once. I've played it once.

I've played the Shepard trilogy games probably 20 times each, minimum.

If anyone was inclined to forgive Andromeda its faults and love it anyway, it's me. But I still could only get through it once before getting tired of it. So there you go.
 
kafiend

kafiend

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,251
So boring that I honestly got up one day and forgot to continue playing it. I only remembered it much later when I was wondering what was using up all the space on my SSD.
 
BossAttack

BossAttack

Member
Oct 27, 2017
43,208
I stated it before, but ME: Andromeda is one of those games where the character is overly animated in sacrifice to movement speed and thus good gameplay. In the trilogy, Shepard can turn around on a dime. It is totally unrealistic as you can make Shepard spin in place. But guess what, that results in tight gameplay movement. In Andromeda, if you want your character to turn around they have to go through a whole realistic animation of twisting their body around. The result is sluggish gameplay movement.


I'll further add that while Andromeda introduces a ton of combat improvements, like the jetpack and boosting. The actual combat encounters fail to capitalize on this increased movement. A large amount of fights take place in open-spaces where your increased movement and abilities do not really need to be utilized. They make for very boring encounters. The OG trilogy, on the other hand, is about careful shooting arenas which is perfected in ME3. Navigating cover in these tight environments to get the drop on the enemy is where the true beauty of the combat shines. Similarly, Andromeda's combat is at its peak when you are confined in tighter, controlled areas which goes against its more open-world design.
 
hydruxo

hydruxo

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 25, 2017
20,533
It doesn't get better. If you want more ME maybe just do a renegade run of the original trilogy. I know a lot of people got the itch for more ME after playing the Legendary Edition and then hopped into Andromeda, but nothing has changed with that game. It's still as disappointing as it was when it came out.
 
Barnak

Barnak

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,075
Canada
I'm sorry, but you'll have to wait like the rest of us until they release Mass Effect Will Continue sometimes before 2030. And hope it's at least as good as the trilogy.

Andromeda was made by an entirely different team, a team that at most did a DLC or two for the trilogy in the past(and the worst ones at that), so it half explain why it's just not as good. Its development had a lot of trouble and it shows. I think this specific team got dissolved into another EA team after Andromeda released, if I'm not wrong? Poor developers...I'm sure they did what they could with Frostbite and their less experienced team, but this game was just not meant to be.
 
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Typographenia

Typographenia

Member
Oct 27, 2017
557
Los Angeles
itsaziz said:
The writing seems off, I mean the ME trilogy has its fair share of stiff writing and jank, but the writing has never been bad per se.
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Click to shrink...
This was something that never worked for me in Andromeda. The general writing for missions and NPCs was okay, but the dialogue between squadmates felt like they were trying to keep things light and playful too often before it felt earned.

Purely speculation, but it almost seemed like a response to how much people liked the Citadel DLC. The writing is more informal and fun, but that comes at the end of 3 games worth of character time. It just seemed weird to me having two squadmates shirtless and joking around etc. I'm sure those kinds of moments really worked for some, but it just never clicked for me.


Andromeda has a lot of problems, and I would say I generally didn't care for it. That said, if you really liked Mass Effect there might be enough there to pull you through. I would highly recommend not spending too much time on a lot of side quests. The main missions are mostly fine, but I didn't get much satisfaction from much of the sidequests.
 
AllMight1

AllMight1

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,744
I saw the title and I thought you'd mention another game, keep forgetting that Andromeda is the sequel and I played it.
 
b0uncyfr0

b0uncyfr0

Member
Apr 2, 2018
952
I played Andromeda before I even played the Original remastered trilogy and I knew immediately Andromeda was just a shitty attempt. Even factoring out the engine issues, the writing and story aren't really worthwhile.

They did a barebones ME game and expected it to work, nope. I still tell most to skip it, play the first 3 instead.
 
Jmdajr

Jmdajr

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,542
Wasn't sure where to post. I want to get into this series but man..I find the gameplay of the first game Mass Effect 1 to be well...terrible. And so far I keep running into glitches that make me reload the game. It's pissing me off. Should I tough it out until I get to part 2?

Maybe jumping in after a month of Halo and all the campaigns and into this is too drastic a change.

I liked the gameplay in Anthem though.
 
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astro

astro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
57,235
Not sure why people need to shit on it all the time, or get so defensive about it either.

Weird responses all round.

I played it for a few hours and just lost interest, didn't have the spark that the OG trilogy had for me.

Really hope I like the new game.
 
affeinvasion

affeinvasion

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,964
You should play Guardians of the Galaxy if you haven't already. It's the closest thing to a mass effect game that we've gotten in a long time.
 
PerfectFlaw

PerfectFlaw

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,135
Andromeda is a decent game that has some pretty good points, and some very, very bad points. God, the cast in this game is terrible. Vetra and Drax were about the only highlights while everyone else just sucked so bad. Please, someone mod the game to remove Peebee from it. Every interaction with her made me question why I continued to play.

The combat, on the other hand, is pretty good. Someone above was talking about open spaces being bad for it, and I completely disagree. Playing as a biotic that mained charge and shotguns was very fun, and you just feel strong and mobile in a good way.

The story itself isn't terrible either, if not forgettable. There were some good interactions with the Nexus leaders that were interesting, but never reached the highs of ME trilogy. Honestly, one of the biggest problems is that Ryder was just not that likable. Way too many times it felt like Ryder was just getting steamrolled and told what to do and how to do it. The pathfinder is supposed to be this important person, and yet had what felt like very little power and felt like a glorified peon. You constantly had Nexus leaders being like, "Thanks for making a planet inhabitable with space magic that only you have access to. Now I've got even more power and jurisdiction LOL. Now get out of here and build up our government, minion." Like, without her you literally can't inhabit most planets. What are you going to do to her if she doesn't listen to you? Just idiotic.

tldr version: Good game play, bad most everything else.
 
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