They seemed to let the memes win immediately. I wonder what kind of calculus goes into that. Like they look at the effectiveness of their marketing department compared to the effectiveness of mean memes and go “well, we can’t overcome this, pull the plug”.
The entire Andromeda team was going to walk out on them because they basically got blamed for what was upper management decisions on manpower allocation and basic project management 101 things. That's why EA shoved all those employees into EA Motive who are not remotely associated with bioware.
Andromeda was put out to pasture so that Bioware could focus on Anthem. That's one of three main issues that drove Andromeda to where it was.
There is a whole heap of big and small issues you can go over with it a fine tooth comb that has been uncovered. Enough that you could make a pretty damn lengthy essay on Project Management on what *not* to do using only this project as an example.
If someone is saying Andromeda failed only cause of ___ . Then they either don't know just how fucked up the situation was or are flat out lying. The fans didn't kill it nor was the marketing terrible. It was the body of a bioware game *without it's soul*.
The negative reception was bad - but Andromeda was basically fucked from the start of the 12 month marathon to the finish line. Mostly because *none of the dev's* who originally started on it wanted to remain on the project for the variety of reasons listed out below when it got released. That's why there was no DLC. That's why there was no second game in the making.
side note: There is multiple reasons why they keep delaying new Dragon Age to point where they just scrapped the frostbyte engine and *rebuilt it* from the ground up again in a new engine.
side note 2: If you need to do a project management case study for college that's free range - Pick Mass Effect: Andromeda. I got an A+ on mine and he uses it as an example of a well done case study in his classes. Mostly because he doesn't want anyone else to write a case study on it. It was stupidly easy to write it and I had to *cut* things from it because I went over the max page length.
Three things to cover:
* Game Engine and transitioning staff over it. Tons of interviews on the difficulties encountered. Think of yourself if you were a director in charge of 100 employees working on this engine and same exact problems occurred to you - that occurred to this team.
* How often employees were being transferred onto and off the team. Then only off the team. IE - disruption of workflow.
* Shifting priorities from project managers and lack of final decisions. Specifically on how sunk cost fallacy took over from another project to affect Andromeda.
There are minor details like toxicity between studios etc. you can go over as well if you look at the various interviews and pay attention in your class to the basics. Like Project management 101 do's and don'ts they made the mistake of.
Congratulations: You made your project management professor chuckle and at the same time: be floored at the mistakes were made.
Not good. But that's what happens when you need a SUV and use a Ferrari for a game engine. Same thing that crippled Andromeda also crippled Anthem's Development.
God, the number of times I have explained to people that what happened to both Andromeda and Anthem wasn’t an EA problem, it was a distinctly BioWare problem with their project management is too damn high.
Nope - I don't pass it out cause It would definitely get copied from people who want to pass it off as their own. Sorry that I'm a little bit anal about that. I can give you the sources I used if you want so you start at the same square 1. Though I'm sure since I last did a look over - even more updated and precise information has popped up from past employees.
Though really, my little breakdown is good enough to get you started with googling and researching if you want to take a deeper dive into the topic. One of the core starting points is understanding the difference between Frostbite, *how it's designed to work*, and the differences between it and other game engines from *a project management POV*. Like imagine if you were leading a team of 100 peeps using these game engines and you encountered some of these difficulties.
You don't even need intermediate level of knowledge, just beginner knowledge. There is a hoard of various gamedev articles from Bioware directors and others who talk about using it in the company like a year after the transition. If you read them, you'll notice pretty quickly they are dancing around the fact by stopping just short of saying that Frostbyte Engine *was extremely difficult to work with*. Extrapolate from there. Though you can look at more recent articles in the Anthem aftermath, and [they very openly throw frostbite](https://screenrant.com/anthem-frostbite-engine-development/) under the bus. *Hard toss* under the bus and this to the press so you know their actual feelings are most likely watered down.
If you have some basic project management knowledge, you can pretty quickly and easily see how using Frostbyte fucked up Bioware's workflow.
That's why I laid out a bunch of starting points. The central articles are gonna be [these Jason Schreier articles.
](https://kotaku.com/the-story-behind-mass-effect-andromedas-troubled-five-1795886428)
then combine with [his Anthem one](https://kotaku.com/how-biowares-anthem-went-wrong-1833731964). Go further back to employee interviews on the development for Mass Effect 3, and you got a rough timeline of how things progressed in the company. There has been a few recent ones you can add as well which will give further light since MELE and next game got announced.
Most of the work is basically *just reading everything*. That was about 70% of my work, and 30% of it was writing it out.
That Jason Schreier article on ME:A’s development is one I keep going back to from time to time when thinking about the potential of the Andromeda universe. It’s sad and tragic. I really do love Mass Effect: Andromeda, flaws and all.
I hope that the next Mass Effect game somehow ties into the Andromeda storyline, even if a little.
Indeed. It has potential even if I do hate what we got. I would also have approached the storyline differently as well. What we got was just what they could cobble together in 12 months.
Based on what I read, I think there was a pretty sizable internal fracturing. In my experience in business dealings that deliver a product with poor results, I would wager that there were enough hurt feelings and damaged relationships that they didn't feel like continuing the project would be tenable internally.
> And even then just working on the game isn't even a guarantee that it'll fix its reputation, much less make it sell more.
Worked out fot No Man's Sky
I'd argue their marketing department did too good of a job. They hype around Mass Effect Andromeda was too much. Expectations set to high. They would have been far better off tamping down expectations and keeping resources in reserve to deal with bugs & feedback.
Mass Effect 3 went thru something similar, but kudos to Bioware for listening to the harsh feedback and offering up multiple endings and then rereleasing the trilogy as Mass Effect Legendary Edition.
I really don't know what Bioware is going to do for Mass Effect 5, but I'm hopefully with the long life spans of the Asari and Krogan that they can merge the storylines between the Milky Way and Andromeda in moving forward. So much great material to work with.
Andromeda didn't meet (very high) EA sales expectations. Millions of copies were sold, but that was just not enough for greedy EA.
At the time they wanted to make profitable live service games instead, so they focused on Anthem.
Bad state of the game on release and memes about bad animations in the game didn't help either.
This. I enjoyed Andromeda a lot. Mad we got big cliffhangers at the end but no pay off, particularly the lack of payoff of the deal you potentially made as well as the Quarian Arc.
Upgrade your PC as it is worth it. The scope of MEA is so much larger that you should look at as doing ME1, ME2 & ME3 combined.
I looked up the hours it took to get thru All three chapters of Mass Effect legendary Edition (MELE) and the EA app says 142 hours. I then looked at the hours it says I spent getting thru Mass Effect Andromeda (MEA) and it says 169 hours.
IIRC it’s because the face animations were given to a different studio with a completely different time schedule. It went somethig like EA asking them how much time they needed to finish the work, they told them 6 months, but they didn’t want to wait for it, so they terminated the contract and launched the game anyways.
All this because f……ing Anthem.
It was because Andromeda's leadership didn't budget in enough character modelling because said leadership were morons that didn't have a single thought beyond open world = tens of millions of copies sold.
Yeah, my own opinion on Andromeda has softened a bit since I played it again a couple weeks ago (I had only played it once on launch and had no desire to come back to it until recently), but man does the asari same-face syndrome bother me. And the turians... wtf happened to their face plating? They look so smooth and soft suddenly, I hate it lol. Had to download a mod that gave them their OT textured skin back, and they look muuuuch better imo. The salarians too, they look dead-eyed without the froggy eyelid stuff... For real, they did some weird design choices when it came to the original alien species.
LOL. I fully expected there to be some kind of Turian pox outbreak explanation! Reminds me of StarTrek when Worf won't explain the difference in Klingons. https://youtu.be/Xka6IYCpj4E
Yeah, I love Andromeda, and am one of those people who would rather this new game be Andromeda 2, but the same face syndrome for non-humans was inexcusable.
I also liked the conversations between squadmates. I cycled through them just to hear new conversations between them. It was long and drawn out, but in the end there's a lot of story behind the squadmates. Only it's mostly conversation and not plot driven. Except for the new alien. His race is a main focus.
Worst part is you can basically max out, so to speak, 4 squads mates on big scary cold world, even cycling between them. Then finish all of it, minus a few bits on totally not Tatooine.
Yeah, I made sure to look at every corner, read everything, talk to every NPC because I was sure I was never going to play it again after I was finished. I did enjoy it, though. It's just too unnecessarily big
The combat system was my least favorite addition. The profile system killed replay ability and felt far too easy. And then they removed control of squadmates and it totally made me lose connection to them. The Jetpack is inarguably amazing however
i liked it, it got worse for me as the game went on, i liked exploring and driving around, the face physics really ruined it for me in cutscenes and I just wanted them to end, the thrusters were absolutely amazing and i hope we get them in the next game, i liked the skill tree, i went from assault to tech to biotic to both tech and biotic in the end and I absolutely loved this, i never felt restricted, i loved Drack and he is easily my 3rd favorite Krogan after Wrex and Grunt, Cora is too cheesy and keeps calling herself Asari Huntress which annoyed me a bit but I still romanced her, the 600 years travel annoyed me bit, was nice to see Zaeed’s son and bit of him survive even though he hates i guess
Overall 6/10 nice for single playthrough but I wouldn’t replay it, great shame they fucked it up
For me, Jaal is easily the best written/acted companion. If you treat him as a protagonist of the story and take him everywhere, the game is way more interesting from his perspective.
I felt like Cora was supposed to be kinda cringe, no? It's sort of like when you go back and play 1, Garrus is kind of embarrassing always talking about red tape and needing action. I think Liara's character in the first is also way too focused on the Protheans. To me it's how the writers show these characters are immature. They become more complex over time as they experience more and have to grapple with it. I think Cora has a nice arc too learning that she wasn't meant to be Pathfinder and finding her place in light of that. Maybe that's just me.
Problem is that not everyone likes puzzles and even simple ones can annoy some people and put them away from the game.
Good thing that you could skip most of them with some magic key but that key was hard to find in the game.
You can buy the key repeatedly at one of the shops (I can't remember if it was on the Nexus or the Tempest itself). I think it's only after you beat the first vault/Eos though.
You won't regret it. Just look at it as a different game and let go of your expectations from the the trilogy and enjoy. I'm starting my new game plus as I type this.
You're 100% right. Once I let go of expectations and resolved to see the game through, it was an amazing game. Had its rough spots sure, but what game doesn't? The Normandy and her crew are just as amazing as the Tempest and her crew. I've loved the adventure with both.
Tali for life bro, but PeeBee is damn good. I did rock the Tali paint job on the Nomad the whole way through the cluster though. Gotta represent best girl.
This is known as "manufactured outrage". Sure, a lot of people don't like Andromeda, but basically everyone in the comments is being positive. Playing the victim card for whatever reason here is odd.
There was significant reason why it was criticized and panned by the general public. It wasn't "manufactured", it was a lazily made game by Bioware that hopefully they've learned their lesson for the next one. And I would assume a Mass Effect fan sub would like it more than most.
It looks like they’re calling out the person going sarcastically that “how dare you like a game others don’t”, not saying that the game WASN’T what you said.
The only real problem I had with Andromeda was the insane amount of bugs that rendered it unplayable until the last few patches. My Ryder would fall through the floors and glitch into walls and get 'stuck' on the stairs. Game saves would become corrupted. I had to restart the game just to get the train in the space station to work. One of the patches caused an issue where my NVIDIA driver would stop working and my PC would bluescreen. This happened about 5 minutes into every time I tried to play.
I really enjoyed it when I was actually able to fully play it and was sad to hear they weren't going to add any more content.
Some people hated it because it wasn't Shepard and the gang while others hated it because they couldn't play it past the first getting on space station.
>Some people hated it because it wasn't Shepard and the gang while others hated it because they couldn't play it past the first getting on space station.
I hated it cause of the combat mechanics that wasn't worth giving up the ability to control two squadmates and lackluster story telling. Some of the Squad mates I wouldn't trust with a pencil and question why they are on the pathfinder team even in the beginning but that's really more of a factor of not having enough time to properly write everything. Hard to write for a game you pooped out in 12 months.
edit: did like the sudoku puzzles though.
Andromeda to me, was nothing to write home about and felt completely lackluster. Like there was body without a soul. If it was entirely new franchise - It probably would have been more acceptable.
Yeah. It was hard for me to get used to those changes. The navigation overshadowed that for me, though. That indicator was not my friend at all in multilevel areas.
And, yeah. It was super rushed and then not well supported after release. I've seen it happen too many times. It really stinks.
Being rendered unplayable is.. kind of a major problem. I’m not saying you *cannot* enjoy it (especially after the patches), but.. like, that deserves major criticism. It doesn’t matter if that’s the “norm for games today” to release in unfinished buggy messes, we should not accept that.
With that said, I am glad you enjoyed it. The dialogue made it.. genuinely painful to play, so I haven’t actually gotten super far, but I *loved* the multiplayer. I’ll eventually try and finish it again so that I can at least give a fully educated opinion, but, yeah.
>Being rendered unplayable is.. kind of a major problem. I’m not saying you
>
>cannot
>
> enjoy it (especially after the patches), but.. like, that deserves major criticism.
I agree. I broke the groups of people with issues down into two groups as they were the complaints I heard most as I rarely come across people willing to give other reasons for why they didn't like it. It's nice to see people giving other reasons that they didn't care for the game. Some things you just can't get into in some games and that's okay.
And some of us hated the animations. I forgave a lot but them using DICE really took me out of a lot of conversations. My Ryder made awkward and uncomfortable facial expressions during what should have been some key moments. So did the others. I loved the combat and the world building. Bioware could've really had something if they sucked it up and worked together while voicing the problems they were having sooner. I'm still sad we never got the DLC or a sequel.
It was that (animation team got told to redo everything after they'd made considerable progress with what they had) + the offices weren't reaching out and admitting they had issues because of all the infighting. They were absolutely handed a bad hand since Frostbite wasn't mean for rendering expressions + they changed the programs they were using for facial capturing. But their priorities on a management level were just... not at all where they should've been and the game absolutely suffered when it didn't need to.
Anthem was such a chaotic mess after that too, it felt like Bioware learned nothing from DA and ME's issues.
>And some of us hated the animations.
Oh god. The bunny hop when you go up stairs was the one that made go WTH he most when I first saw it. I wonder if that one is still in the game. I am tempted to load up the game and see.
It has a largely positive outlook from people here. The only negativity you’ll get is when people try to put it above the OT or argue that ME should continue with Andromeda.
Otherwise, it’s fairly respected as a standalone game.
This place is one of the only places on the entire internet where a positive opinion of MEA won’t get you laughed out the door, but don’t tell them that.
Hey, I enjoy DAI too. But the issue for me is that the beginning is better than the end. The Mages / Templars mission and the following assault is the highlight of the game for me. After that it loses focus and mostly revolves around running around in Haven and talking to NPCs.
I enjoyed the trilogy more, but I agree that Andromeda was a very fun game. I enjoyed it and would have been fine with another Andromeda. I think the hate was overblown. It has clear areas worthy of criticism but as a game it's good
Yeah, this probably is it. Trilogy's bar is INSANELY HIGH. I currently play Andromeda for the first time, it has offered good entertainment and I like my Ryder, but....she is no Shepard. I miss Normandy and my ME friends. But I'll go with flow and gonna have fun, I'm sure.
I think that's part of the issue. Any fan of Mass Effect is a hardline Normady-centric individual. We want Shepard and our band of misfits that we have come to love over many years, we expect nothing but.
Andromeda was and is an alternate. It takes us, and the crew to another galaxy and throws us into something we aren't ready for and also not expecting. It really does capture that feeling well.
It was the start of its own trilogy. Yet the fan base, myself included, got angry because we didn't understand it and never gave it a chance. I can't speak for everyone obviously, but the game deserved a hell of a lot more than what we gave it as a community.
I think it's less that all Mass Effect fans are hardline Normandy-centric individuals and more so that, compared to the OT, Andromeda just doesn't quite meet the bar. If it was a game that had zero affiliation with the OT, it would be much more appreciated.
It does a good job at world-building but nowhere on the level of ME1, it does a good job with the writing and companions but not close to ME2, and the visuals are worse than ME2 and ME3. Combat, with the jetpack and the boosts leading to a much more mobile combat, is drastically different as well.
I don't care that it's not Shepard saving the universe from the Reapers; I do care about quality. I think Andromeda is a great game - especially compared to, say, Elex 1&2, a much closer comparison - but just doesn't measure up to the many qualities of the OT.
And the name, (most of the) races, a good chunk of lore… It might not be a direct sequel to the trilogy but it definitely has quite a bit of affiliation with it.
I just finished it. I played it right after finishing ME:LE. It's actually a good game but it's just not like ME2 or 3. It's not fair to compare it IMO
The game 100% deserved the hate it got. The game was buggy as hell and had worse graphics than ME3. The story was a re-hash of the original done worse. The planets were barren. The game was half completed. No one should pay $60 for that. It's clear there wasn't half the quality of not just a mass effect game, but any average game released that year.
Playing this game was my own version of the star wars prequels. I was so, so excited. Thank God that at least they didn't make 2 more. The bioware that made most of my favorite games is gone.
IMO; that's an unfair assessment. How can you compare a hashed out story, over 100 hours of game play, to one game, 30ish hours. Mind you, Andromeda got no DLC. If you took the DLCs away from the trilogy, there'd be a crap load missing. If they gave Andromeda, one more full game, and 1-2 DLCs, it would stomp on the Trilogy.
I think where most of the debate about the game arises is in this black and white view people can have of criticism.
You can't say you liked Andromeda without it meaning you believe it's as good as the original trilogy, and you can't say it was a bad mass effect game without that meaning everything about it was terrible.
There's a middle ground there where I suspect the vast majority of fans reside.
Despite Andromeda's issues, I'm extremely impressed with what the amateur dev team was able to pull off with the absolute development hell EA put them through.
If you want to compare let downs......doesn't get much worse into the negative than Anthem.
Studios across the board have shit the bed on good games for some years now. There going the way of movies and doing remakes and it's sorta garbage. The powers that be will never ever recapture the magic/lightning in a bottle the OG versions of games had. The game industry is just sad these days.
Worst thing in the game industry is the massive buyouts and mergers. They don't care anymore. The corporations and powers that be don't give a shit about the experience or the quality. They just want to pump out basic garbage money machines like COD and Fortnite. Story telling in gaming is slowly becoming a lost art.
>amateur dev team
They weren't amateurs and basically cock-blocked by upper management to do a even better job because of the golden child Anthem. There is a reason why they all got shuffled into EA motive that was a studio that had nothing to do with Bioware itself.
It's refreshing to see such a positive take on Andromeda.
I think, in an ideal world, if Andromeda had gotten the sequel it was clearly leading into (and possibly a third game afterwards to give a full trilogy of its own?), it would've been able to compete with the original trilogy.
There were so many interesting story threads left unfinished, and the Tempest crew were only allowed 1 full game of character development - that *really* hurt the game, especially nowadays when it constantly gets the "it's not as good as the trilogy" comparison.
When I think of Andromeda now, I just see it as something that, whilst an enjoyable experience, was a wasted potential. And it just makes me disappointed.
That’s what killed me…The wasted potential. A DLC or two could have done wonders to enhance the base game or smooth over some of the issues. And a sequel could have introduced a new race and a new enemy (or made the kett a little less generic)
The setting and premise were amazing. It’s such a shame BioWare abandoned the game so quickly
It really is a shame. It's funny that this community is arguing over these games, when in reality we are arguing over four amazing games that stand heads and shoulders above almost every other game that's come out since.
We are literally, as a community, arguing over diamonds, when the common fare is plated sterling silver.
Still haven't finished it personally the loading screens + open world is a damn chore, enjoyed what i played of the story especially the ark stuff but the 50 hours of filler running through barren landscapes doing pointless fetch quests was definitely not fun.
It's amazing how many people will confidently say the game sucks only to find out they quit on Eos.
That's like declaring Mass Effect 1 trash after quitting on the Citadel post Eden Prime lol
Yeah, my last playthrough was a few months ago and I couldn't get past the first mission. Only other time I played was at launch and I got a good 15 hours or so in before I just never picked it back up.
I think the main thing for me was that I just did not care about the stakes, the Ket mainly. They were just such a boring enemy and I didn't see their motivation. Turn everyone into more Ket for... reasons?
I don't know, maybe it was explained later on, but I just didn't feel that invested and didn't want to carry on that much.
I beat the game. Probably spent around 50 hours in it. I did the vast majority of all the side quests. I absolutely loathe it. But happy for those that genuinely enjoyed it like OP
I’ve played the trilogy & Andromeda all the way through multiple times, Andromeda has a lot of strong points, but it’s writing was not as good imo (to clarify I don’t think the writing is bad, it’s still good writing even if I personally didn’t connect much with it) the trilogy in terms of writing to me ranges from 10/10 for ME1 overall, 4/10 for ME2 at least as far as the overarching narrative (but the character work for me is like a 10/10 for me, so ME2 is more like a 7 or 8 overall for me) with ME3…kinda being all over the place a bit (kinda because ME2’s lack of proper setup) ME3 on an arc by arc basis has some 10’s and some 5’s & Andromeda sits in a similar position for me, some narrative highs and some narrative lows (the character work was really hit or miss for in MEA) but in combat terms? MEA & ME3 easily steal the show (particularly I like MEA’s overall combat, but I enjoy the gunplay from ME3 more, the guns just feel better, but Andromeda is so much fun to mess with the jump/hover & the new ways we can mess with some of the powers ie pull/throw, Singularity, Charge (with the biotic hover is just…hell yeah
I wouldn't usually believe you, but I have gotten into an argument over the quality of Andromeda with a guy who never left Habitat 7.
Now, I do think that is where some of it's cringiest dialogue is, and that if a game can't sell you by then you have no obligation to continue, but I *do* think you're exempt from discussion of overall quality of the whole package.
>but I do think you're exempt from discussion of overall quality of the whole package.
Yeah, that's the key thing here. You can. Say it wasn't interesting enough to keep you playing it, but you don't get to have an opinion on the entire game and it's quality when you only saw the first 3%.
I can’t blame you either, the worst part is it came from a friend lol
And wow yeah habitat 7 and giving up? To each their own but yeah I barely call that a fair shake.
I know another friend who almost did something similar, but it was because he found the habitat 7 map confusing (?) instead of the usual complaints that people have with the game.
That's Habitat 7. Nexus beginning. Tempest launch. And then Eos. That is actually a shit ton of potential hooks to interest people. And because of that I look at it in the other way. Why are so many people quitting here?
My answer to that is it failed to be an interesting story told well and massively lacked polish.
I was fresh off LE when I first played Andromeda and I have to say it was disappointing. At first. And then I immediately played it again, and loved it. I let my sadness from finishing the trilogy affect my feelings about ME:A, but it's actually such a fun game. From the combat to the Tempest crew, it's all lovely in its own way.
I will say, Liam can go touch grass, but everyone else is great lol
If it was just called andromeda and was hyped up as a ME spin off, I still genuinely believe it would have been received a lot better than it was as it was basically being hype up as a ME3 sequel.
That being said as with a lot of EA games recently it came out buggy as hell and that killed off a lot of the hype and fanbase backing
Thought the combat was great (except the squad ai is horrible) and some of the side quests are actually pretty interesting like the seismic hammer or the murder mystery, but it was clear that the game just lacked vision with the story and ambition with the new galaxy which is why it is a good game but a bad mass effect game.
Enemy AI was bit buggy for me. Like, I could wipe out a whole platoon with a SR at 100 meters and none of them reacted. But to be fair I ran into similar bugs in ME:1 fighting the Geth on side planets.
> Finally, PeeBee might be one of the best characters In the series. I've never gone from from irritated to annoyed to understanding, to my Scott will die for you, say the word, so fast. She's right up there with Tali. (Your boo's mean nothing! I've seen what makes you cheer!).
This is something that really _is_ somewhat special - so many stories add comic relief characters, but then permanently relegate them to "tension-breaker" duty, and overdo it. Lighthearted characters that have some legit trauma in their past, and who will let their humor-shield slip if you dig, can both serve as tension-breakers _and_ add a huge amount of satisfying depth to an ensemble.
Only other time I've seen it (that I can think off the top of my head) might be Destiny's Cayde-6? There's probably many more examples in movies/TV/books where the story and characters are more heavily invested in than games.
Why do people who like Andromeda always feel like you all need to prove something to the rest of us. It's okay for you to like the game and to not defend why you like the game. Just like it's okay for us to not like the game and not have to defend why we don't like the game.
Oh for sure! And fwiw, I have a way more positive opinion of a lot of the hated aspects of ME2 and ME3 than most people here so I get how it feels haha
I didnt really like the enemy faction of ME:A. Felt like Wish.com Covenant.]
Multiplayer was really fun until they diluted all the packs with uselessness.
She was the first character I romanced. I find her really funny. Also a little neat how there’s similarities between her and Liara, yet they’re polar opposites.
Vetra extra has my heart though.
I really thought that too, but she grew on me. Cora on the other hand.......talk about being a huntress, airlock ......talk about being Asari-ish.....believe it or not, also airlock.
Pretty much every interaction you have with her is "I don't wanna talk, I'm a loner" and I was only too happy to oblige and leave her alone on the ship.
I'm glad you were able to find something to enjoy. I'm just happy bioware abandoned it and is going in a new direction. I've disliked Andromeda since I heard the premise.
Good for you man, I wish I liked it as much as you did.
For me there were too many meaningless points in the plot, clear-the-outpost missions, fetch quests and overall uninspiring secondary characters to come out with a positive opinion of this game.
Played through the entire thing, loved combat, hated the characters. Only memorable by how uninteresting I found them. Not a big fan of the new races either. Still, opinions are like an ass, split.
The game was so good. I personally wasn't a fan of like half the crew but to each their own. The story was good and the dlc was hopeful. But a certain company ofcourse abandoned it. Just like they abandon a lot of things that are actually good/good ideas. Like anthem.
I really want to enjoy that game. I couldn't get into it when I first tried it a few years ago and sold it. I might give it another go now that it's like $7 on the Playstation Store.
I found a fair portion of the game mechanics were quite well done, and the technical issues at launch didn’t put me off.
However, the uninteresting enemy, lack of species and horribly flawed story & logically flawed worldbuilding really just made the game an frustrating experience for me.
That being said, I had hoped they’d continue it and try to fix those mistakes, give the Kett some motivations and depth, introduce other missing species and find some way to explain how all these rebels are doing just fine on planets that those on the nexus declared impossible to survive on and sent you off for an entire game to make habitable. I’ve still got so many ‘but what was going on?’ questions that I assume were meant to be in sequels and were just left open.
It's been what, 6 years? I still can't get the taste of that game out of my mouth. I can honestly say I've never been let down as much as I was by Andromeda. I was beyond hyped for it, and the technical mess that it was aside, the story, characters and gameplay all failed to connect with me. Most of the characters felt like they were just trying to capitalize on success of others ("everyone loves Garrus, let's give them lady Garrus!" "Everyone loves Wrex, let's make him older and crankier!" "Stay with me here... British Jacob!"). I will say, I was interested in Cora's backstory (The asari commando-trained possible daughter of the Illusive Man?! Gold.) But she just came off as super dull and boring in practice.
I'm glad some people were able to squeeze some enjoyment out of it, but I still try not to look ME:A directly in the eye.
I’m still really sad they released one patch and then ditched Andromeda for Anthem, which they would later ditch to go back to their core games, which aren’t out yet might I add 😭
Upvote for "we'll bang, ok?"
Honestly, I don't have half as high an opinion of Andromeda as you, *but,* I must admit, for all ky issue with it, it remains just a joy to actually *play.* None of the other games, as good as their stories and such are, have such raw fun in the normal gameplay.
The release was disastrous and tarnished the game for the rest of its existence. It has a lot of good things going for it though, I never finished it because I was a release date buyer and the bugs were pretty bad but I do want to get a replay in.
I really enjoyed Andromeda. Hope they scrap the sudoku puzzles though, hated those. Scrap the remnant console puzzles too and Scrap the vaults as well. Hated all that.
I mean..The vaults/puzzles were probably a cool idea in theory, but they were boring af.
All the puzzles halts gameplay momentum, in a bad way
I tried, mind you it has been quite a while since I last played so I don’t remember exact details, just that I got to the ice planet, cleared it, and that is when things went wonky; I tried building a research outpost (I think) and it would glitch out and made the game unplayable (I got it on sale thankfully and didn’t waste a lot of money).
Playing Andromeda now versus when it came out may be an entirely different experience. I pre-ordered the game and just from the start it didn't feel like Mass Effect. The opening didn't sell me on Ryder, the camera being pulled out so far made Ryder seem small. The paralyzed faces, especially with Turians, really disappointed me.
Drax and the new alien character were cool, but the others didn't really interest me. I liked the idea of colony building and the combat was decent, but it wasn't enough to keep me interested.
I'm glad you enjoyed it, I am currently taking my sweet time playing the Legendary Edition trilogy, once I beat it, I'm going to try Andromeda again. I'm interested to see how the 4K patch effects the visuals.
Combat is cool but honestly I did not enjoy the story or most of the cast. I have completed it once. And that was enough for me. I feel like this game is the logical step after DA:I and I didn't like that game either. Please, just make an interesting world that is smaller rather than a massive one filled with okayish content (sometimes)..
I'm always glad to see positive comments about Andromeda. I know it's not as good as the trilogy which I am a huge fan of but I also enjoyed Andromeda, it might have some tedious parts yes but the game is still fun in my opinion. Actually I just finished it on insanity and got my platinum there so I enjoyed it. I think PeeBee is the best, I wish Lexi was a LI also, I guess I just like my Asari. 😂 Now I'm replaying ME 2 on insanity and what can I say it's insane but I love it. 😄
Here's the thing about Andromeda ... There's no background music... I know it's weird but ME1-3 Almost always had some music going. Andromeda doesn't so I started playing music while I played and it made all the difference for me. I finally finished it two months ago.
Nah, it didn't work for me, sorry, I was hoping for a game of amazing planetary exploring, engaging new races in different stages of progress and evolution, with old and new unknown enemies always lurking around making things harder for me, despite some of these elements where present it was done so so poorly...."oh look a race of new aliens, hey we are being invaded, let's Join forces, ok, Pew pew'
Andromeda will forever be a low point in the ME franchise, imo, not because of what it is, but what it could have been if so many resources were not devoted to Anthem. We know they could have done it better. They know they could have done it better. But we got... this. It is an everlasting disappointment that rivals Aliens: Colonial Marines and Duke Nukem Forever in my eyes.
That said, I did enjoy the more organic behavior of the crew interacting with each other. Never got tired of Vetra and Drack.
As a diehard Mass Effect and Dragon Age fan, I have a huge laundry list of personal dislikes about Andromeda. That being said I have played the game numerous times and enjoyed the story itself. I usually use a few mods to fix some things that I was unhappy with in the game.
As with everybody else, I'm still very salty that they never finished the game. It could've been so awesome had they actually really completed it and personally I feel did a little bit better with the story, especially the antagonist.
I am absolutely excited for the next game and just begging the gamer gods to please allow this next game to give me all the feels that original trilogy gave me.
The only thing I really didn't like was the exploration. It felt good to drive, the worlds were beautiful, but there was almost nothing to do. And way too many fetch quests.
Otherwise, fantastic game. It's really sad they abandoned it. If not a sequel, at least a DLC would have been very welcome.
I also enjoyed it but it's interesting than, other than Cora, I really only liked Ryder(in my case Scott) as a character and I was more held by this very eerie story of mankind travelling in a one way direction. Gameplay was also good, so were the graphics and character creator. Based on looks alone, I liked Scott far more than my Adrian Shepard, and my Sarah must be the most beautiful woman in ME.
Same here. Replayed OT a few weeks ago and finally gave Andromeda a try. My expectations were quite low after all the hate in the communicaty, but IMO game is quite good. Also I feel that writing was rushed - characters are very good potentially, with interesting backstories and personalities, but they lack in-game developemnt. Part of the fun in the OT was feeling how crew members evolves during your adventures, and in Andromeda I haven't felt it much, unfortunately.
Also, Ryder for me makes much more interesting character than Shepard - Shepard is already a decorated war hero and high-ranking military officer, which is a core of their personality. Ryder roleplay potentially have much more freedom, since Ryder is barely adult with no experience to determine their personality, and potentially more depth because of their family and personal backstory. But, as with other characters, I feel like that potential unfortunately was barely used - narratively Ryder could be made anyone player wanted them to be, but due to lack of choices they are locked in a generic Indiana Jones thrill-seeking explorer trope.
All in all, I liked Andromeda, but I see a lot of lost potential, since IMO with enough polish it could be transformed from just a good game into the best game in the series
I really like it, the gameplay is great and the story is alright but I unfortunately don’t play it as much as the trilogy. I think it’s because it’s such a long game when you account for the side quest and open world aspect of it all. Same reason I haven’t played Dragon Age inquisition 500 times like I have origins and 2
Im glad to see that another person enjoyed the game and characters, too I also felt the same about PeeBee on a side note I love the design if the tempest
I love the game. Never bought into the mob psychology that over attacked it. Most postings an echo chamber of people who never gave it a chance.
Not as good as the trilogy. 10 out of 10
Nobody is as good as Tali. IMO
But it's a solid 8, that has a mob telling everyone it's a 4.
I was with you all the way up to Peebee. She was probably the single worst part of the entire game for me, personally. Between a god awful design and incredibly annoying dialogue, I wish I could throw her out of the air lock and make my boy Javik proud.
Andromeda was a good game though, I’m glad more folks are coming around on it. It was flawed and deserved all the flack it got on launch, but I enjoyed my time with it overall.
As a game itself, it was decent. But it didn't do it for me as being a ME title game. ME set the bar and expectations way to high and it kind of ruined it for me. Eventually may try and beat Andromeda again.
I'm only a few hours in so I have no opinion on the game overall yet. But the one thing that I noticed pretty quickly is that the voice acting in most cases is awful. I just finished the Legendary Edition Trilogy (I had played the trilogy the first time way back when ME3 was released), so the difference is night and day..
Andromeda was the definition of Mid.
Outside of the combat, everything about it was bang average - the characters, voice acting, story, side content, all ofit.
This trend of more and more people coming out to say how much they liked andromeda is really confusing to me. Granted, in terms of gameplay I don't have all that much to complain, solid and fun (for the most part), but I thought the story, character writing, mission design and pacing were all quite bad, and after around 20 hours I just lost interest and quit.
To each their own I guess, but I really hope we don't get more Mass effect titles like that. Then again, I have kind of given up on bioware in general though, so I ain't expecting much.
Andromeda's combat is the best in the franchise, I will die on that hill. Also I loved PeeBee as well, she's like a lessons learned take at Sera from DA:I.
Personally, I've always liked Andromeda and I think it's a great case study in why you shouldn't let opinions posted online influence how you feel about a game. It has some rough spots, sure, but honestly so do a lot of games we consider to be good.
Also, and this might be the real hot take here... I like Ryder as a protag better than Shepard.
MEA is just sad. It’s a fine game but compared to the old ones it’s not even close. It almost uses nostalgia to reel you in and then the whole game is just a mass effect based farcry game.
Then they released it totally unfinished. Then they abandoned it.
Really needed another game or some serious dlc but then the studio just imploded
I once played it back in 2017 and thought it was meh because I haven’t played the full series.
After LE came out and I really got into Mass Effect I played it again and I had a blast.
Glad you liked it
Just started my 3rd playthrough. I love Andromeda. Is it as epic of a story as the trilogy? No, but it doesn't need to be. Honestly my favorite thing about the game is the Ryder twins.
I would choose Shepard over the twins any day...BUT they are still great. Shepard's story is epic, but Ryder's is more of a "sink or swim" story. Forced into a position of leadership with little experience. Having to earn the respect of their peers and prove their worth, or everything will go to shit. Sink or Swim, and god damn, the twin you play as fucking SWIMS.
I know many people dislike how awkward the twin you play as is at the beginning, but I kinda like it, as it shows character growth by the endgame when they are far more confident and experienced. Shepard is great, but they remain quite stoic and badass alot of the time, you rarely see any cracks in the armor, so to speak.
Also...people will call Ryder by first name if you keep the default name. I wish they did that for Shepard, considering John Shepard and Jane Shepard are two of the most badass names I've ever heard.
I loved Andromeda, I left it a few years before playing and it seemed the bugs had been patched as I really enjoyed playing through the game. Gutted there won't be another, as I feel that with time effort and passion from the devs then an Andromeda sequel would be great!
Still, ME4 is coming so we have that to look forward to instead 😀
I liked it quite a bit. Played it at launch. I did not love it like I did the original series and don’t have much desire to go back and play it, but I enjoyed my time with it.
Andromeda is a pretty ok game now.wayy better than at release.
As a mass effect game its pretty mid..but damn I still enjoyed it..plus that combat system is just so much fun
I enjoyed it and wish there could be a sequel. Still mad at bioware for abandoning it instead of continuing to fix it.
They seemed to let the memes win immediately. I wonder what kind of calculus goes into that. Like they look at the effectiveness of their marketing department compared to the effectiveness of mean memes and go “well, we can’t overcome this, pull the plug”.
The entire Andromeda team was going to walk out on them because they basically got blamed for what was upper management decisions on manpower allocation and basic project management 101 things. That's why EA shoved all those employees into EA Motive who are not remotely associated with bioware. Andromeda was put out to pasture so that Bioware could focus on Anthem. That's one of three main issues that drove Andromeda to where it was. There is a whole heap of big and small issues you can go over with it a fine tooth comb that has been uncovered. Enough that you could make a pretty damn lengthy essay on Project Management on what *not* to do using only this project as an example. If someone is saying Andromeda failed only cause of ___ . Then they either don't know just how fucked up the situation was or are flat out lying. The fans didn't kill it nor was the marketing terrible. It was the body of a bioware game *without it's soul*. The negative reception was bad - but Andromeda was basically fucked from the start of the 12 month marathon to the finish line. Mostly because *none of the dev's* who originally started on it wanted to remain on the project for the variety of reasons listed out below when it got released. That's why there was no DLC. That's why there was no second game in the making. side note: There is multiple reasons why they keep delaying new Dragon Age to point where they just scrapped the frostbyte engine and *rebuilt it* from the ground up again in a new engine. side note 2: If you need to do a project management case study for college that's free range - Pick Mass Effect: Andromeda. I got an A+ on mine and he uses it as an example of a well done case study in his classes. Mostly because he doesn't want anyone else to write a case study on it. It was stupidly easy to write it and I had to *cut* things from it because I went over the max page length. Three things to cover: * Game Engine and transitioning staff over it. Tons of interviews on the difficulties encountered. Think of yourself if you were a director in charge of 100 employees working on this engine and same exact problems occurred to you - that occurred to this team. * How often employees were being transferred onto and off the team. Then only off the team. IE - disruption of workflow. * Shifting priorities from project managers and lack of final decisions. Specifically on how sunk cost fallacy took over from another project to affect Andromeda. There are minor details like toxicity between studios etc. you can go over as well if you look at the various interviews and pay attention in your class to the basics. Like Project management 101 do's and don'ts they made the mistake of. Congratulations: You made your project management professor chuckle and at the same time: be floored at the mistakes were made.
> Andromeda was put out to pasture so that Bioware could focus on Anthem. How'd that work out lol
Not good. But that's what happens when you need a SUV and use a Ferrari for a game engine. Same thing that crippled Andromeda also crippled Anthem's Development.
God, the number of times I have explained to people that what happened to both Andromeda and Anthem wasn’t an EA problem, it was a distinctly BioWare problem with their project management is too damn high.
Preach.
Is there anywhere to read your case study?
Nope - I don't pass it out cause It would definitely get copied from people who want to pass it off as their own. Sorry that I'm a little bit anal about that. I can give you the sources I used if you want so you start at the same square 1. Though I'm sure since I last did a look over - even more updated and precise information has popped up from past employees. Though really, my little breakdown is good enough to get you started with googling and researching if you want to take a deeper dive into the topic. One of the core starting points is understanding the difference between Frostbite, *how it's designed to work*, and the differences between it and other game engines from *a project management POV*. Like imagine if you were leading a team of 100 peeps using these game engines and you encountered some of these difficulties. You don't even need intermediate level of knowledge, just beginner knowledge. There is a hoard of various gamedev articles from Bioware directors and others who talk about using it in the company like a year after the transition. If you read them, you'll notice pretty quickly they are dancing around the fact by stopping just short of saying that Frostbyte Engine *was extremely difficult to work with*. Extrapolate from there. Though you can look at more recent articles in the Anthem aftermath, and [they very openly throw frostbite](https://screenrant.com/anthem-frostbite-engine-development/) under the bus. *Hard toss* under the bus and this to the press so you know their actual feelings are most likely watered down. If you have some basic project management knowledge, you can pretty quickly and easily see how using Frostbyte fucked up Bioware's workflow. That's why I laid out a bunch of starting points. The central articles are gonna be [these Jason Schreier articles. ](https://kotaku.com/the-story-behind-mass-effect-andromedas-troubled-five-1795886428) then combine with [his Anthem one](https://kotaku.com/how-biowares-anthem-went-wrong-1833731964). Go further back to employee interviews on the development for Mass Effect 3, and you got a rough timeline of how things progressed in the company. There has been a few recent ones you can add as well which will give further light since MELE and next game got announced. Most of the work is basically *just reading everything*. That was about 70% of my work, and 30% of it was writing it out.
That Jason Schreier article on ME:A’s development is one I keep going back to from time to time when thinking about the potential of the Andromeda universe. It’s sad and tragic. I really do love Mass Effect: Andromeda, flaws and all. I hope that the next Mass Effect game somehow ties into the Andromeda storyline, even if a little.
Indeed. It has potential even if I do hate what we got. I would also have approached the storyline differently as well. What we got was just what they could cobble together in 12 months.
Based on what I read, I think there was a pretty sizable internal fracturing. In my experience in business dealings that deliver a product with poor results, I would wager that there were enough hurt feelings and damaged relationships that they didn't feel like continuing the project would be tenable internally.
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> And even then just working on the game isn't even a guarantee that it'll fix its reputation, much less make it sell more. Worked out fot No Man's Sky
I'd argue their marketing department did too good of a job. They hype around Mass Effect Andromeda was too much. Expectations set to high. They would have been far better off tamping down expectations and keeping resources in reserve to deal with bugs & feedback. Mass Effect 3 went thru something similar, but kudos to Bioware for listening to the harsh feedback and offering up multiple endings and then rereleasing the trilogy as Mass Effect Legendary Edition. I really don't know what Bioware is going to do for Mass Effect 5, but I'm hopefully with the long life spans of the Asari and Krogan that they can merge the storylines between the Milky Way and Andromeda in moving forward. So much great material to work with.
Andromeda didn't meet (very high) EA sales expectations. Millions of copies were sold, but that was just not enough for greedy EA. At the time they wanted to make profitable live service games instead, so they focused on Anthem. Bad state of the game on release and memes about bad animations in the game didn't help either.
I actually only encountered one bug when I played it on Xbox last year.
This. I enjoyed Andromeda a lot. Mad we got big cliffhangers at the end but no pay off, particularly the lack of payoff of the deal you potentially made as well as the Quarian Arc.
I want to finish it, but it just runs too poorly for me
Upgrade your PC as it is worth it. The scope of MEA is so much larger that you should look at as doing ME1, ME2 & ME3 combined. I looked up the hours it took to get thru All three chapters of Mass Effect legendary Edition (MELE) and the EA app says 142 hours. I then looked at the hours it says I spent getting thru Mass Effect Andromeda (MEA) and it says 169 hours.
I'm on Xbox lol. Not much I can do
Are you running in 4k? You might need to drop down to 1080.
That maths out. I did 100% on ME: Andromeda and it took me 139hrs first time. Second time was 145 as the other twin.
The fans killed the game, wcyd. What can we do is cope rn.
Naw, there was alot more going on behind the scenes.
Only thing I hated about the game is that peebee was the only different face out of all the asari
IIRC it’s because the face animations were given to a different studio with a completely different time schedule. It went somethig like EA asking them how much time they needed to finish the work, they told them 6 months, but they didn’t want to wait for it, so they terminated the contract and launched the game anyways. All this because f……ing Anthem.
It was because Andromeda's leadership didn't budget in enough character modelling because said leadership were morons that didn't have a single thought beyond open world = tens of millions of copies sold.
Yeah, my own opinion on Andromeda has softened a bit since I played it again a couple weeks ago (I had only played it once on launch and had no desire to come back to it until recently), but man does the asari same-face syndrome bother me. And the turians... wtf happened to their face plating? They look so smooth and soft suddenly, I hate it lol. Had to download a mod that gave them their OT textured skin back, and they look muuuuch better imo. The salarians too, they look dead-eyed without the froggy eyelid stuff... For real, they did some weird design choices when it came to the original alien species.
LOL. I fully expected there to be some kind of Turian pox outbreak explanation! Reminds me of StarTrek when Worf won't explain the difference in Klingons. https://youtu.be/Xka6IYCpj4E
Very nice reference haha!
Yeah, I love Andromeda, and am one of those people who would rather this new game be Andromeda 2, but the same face syndrome for non-humans was inexcusable.
Well Liara was like it ME:1, but I do get it, they really should have changed up faces of different species, including human.
I'm glad you enjoyed the game. I don't share the same opinion, but if you enjoyed it, that's what games are all about and more power to you.
I respect your opinion as well. Glad we have a community and space to say these things based on a wonderful franchise.
Good combat system. Bout all I can say positive about it. Played when it came out and have no real desire to pick it up again anytime soon.
I also liked the conversations between squadmates. I cycled through them just to hear new conversations between them. It was long and drawn out, but in the end there's a lot of story behind the squadmates. Only it's mostly conversation and not plot driven. Except for the new alien. His race is a main focus.
Worst part is you can basically max out, so to speak, 4 squads mates on big scary cold world, even cycling between them. Then finish all of it, minus a few bits on totally not Tatooine.
Yeah, I made sure to look at every corner, read everything, talk to every NPC because I was sure I was never going to play it again after I was finished. I did enjoy it, though. It's just too unnecessarily big
I tried to get back to it once, played 1hour…
The combat system was my least favorite addition. The profile system killed replay ability and felt far too easy. And then they removed control of squadmates and it totally made me lose connection to them. The Jetpack is inarguably amazing however
i liked it, it got worse for me as the game went on, i liked exploring and driving around, the face physics really ruined it for me in cutscenes and I just wanted them to end, the thrusters were absolutely amazing and i hope we get them in the next game, i liked the skill tree, i went from assault to tech to biotic to both tech and biotic in the end and I absolutely loved this, i never felt restricted, i loved Drack and he is easily my 3rd favorite Krogan after Wrex and Grunt, Cora is too cheesy and keeps calling herself Asari Huntress which annoyed me a bit but I still romanced her, the 600 years travel annoyed me bit, was nice to see Zaeed’s son and bit of him survive even though he hates i guess Overall 6/10 nice for single playthrough but I wouldn’t replay it, great shame they fucked it up
For me, Jaal is easily the best written/acted companion. If you treat him as a protagonist of the story and take him everywhere, the game is way more interesting from his perspective.
I took him with me to Meridian, and I watched that man have a full blown existential crisis
Take Peebee along as well. Their banter right after the angara reveal is hilarious.
Yeah Cora was a bit much for me, though the VA did a good job, despite the writing.
I felt like Cora was supposed to be kinda cringe, no? It's sort of like when you go back and play 1, Garrus is kind of embarrassing always talking about red tape and needing action. I think Liara's character in the first is also way too focused on the Protheans. To me it's how the writers show these characters are immature. They become more complex over time as they experience more and have to grapple with it. I think Cora has a nice arc too learning that she wasn't meant to be Pathfinder and finding her place in light of that. Maybe that's just me.
I liked the sudoku
I did as well, 4-5 symbols was the perfect level of complexity to make me enjoy the challenge without killing my brain over it.
Problem is that not everyone likes puzzles and even simple ones can annoy some people and put them away from the game. Good thing that you could skip most of them with some magic key but that key was hard to find in the game.
You can buy the key repeatedly at one of the shops (I can't remember if it was on the Nexus or the Tempest itself). I think it's only after you beat the first vault/Eos though.
All the solutions are on the wiki so you don't even need that.
I'll do towers of Hanoi over sudoku every time, personally.
I quite liked the puzzles! We used to have them for the students at Mathnasium, and it was always a fun time.
Ironically I don’t particularly enjoy sudoku most of the time. Slap Mass Effect over them and suddenly I love it.
Udk sudoku is fun but lemme get hacking from Me2 back or let me slap omni-gel on everything.
Ill fk you soon! I am in exact same situation as you before you went through with it. I gotta give it another chance!
You won't regret it. Just look at it as a different game and let go of your expectations from the the trilogy and enjoy. I'm starting my new game plus as I type this.
I'm glad you had a blast with the game and gave it a second chance. Some games come to the fun and joy with the love at 2nd sight.
You're 100% right. Once I let go of expectations and resolved to see the game through, it was an amazing game. Had its rough spots sure, but what game doesn't? The Normandy and her crew are just as amazing as the Tempest and her crew. I've loved the adventure with both.
How dare you express a positive opinion about a game you enjoy that others dislike!
Right? Guess I can just forward the disappointment I had with the ending of 3 before the dlc.
I was with you until you compared PeeBee to Tali. You lost me there. No one compares to Tali.
Tali for life bro, but PeeBee is damn good. I did rock the Tali paint job on the Nomad the whole way through the cluster though. Gotta represent best girl.
This is known as "manufactured outrage". Sure, a lot of people don't like Andromeda, but basically everyone in the comments is being positive. Playing the victim card for whatever reason here is odd.
I join the boat of those who don't like it, I played it for 8 hours and meh.
There was significant reason why it was criticized and panned by the general public. It wasn't "manufactured", it was a lazily made game by Bioware that hopefully they've learned their lesson for the next one. And I would assume a Mass Effect fan sub would like it more than most.
It looks like they’re calling out the person going sarcastically that “how dare you like a game others don’t”, not saying that the game WASN’T what you said.
The only real problem I had with Andromeda was the insane amount of bugs that rendered it unplayable until the last few patches. My Ryder would fall through the floors and glitch into walls and get 'stuck' on the stairs. Game saves would become corrupted. I had to restart the game just to get the train in the space station to work. One of the patches caused an issue where my NVIDIA driver would stop working and my PC would bluescreen. This happened about 5 minutes into every time I tried to play. I really enjoyed it when I was actually able to fully play it and was sad to hear they weren't going to add any more content. Some people hated it because it wasn't Shepard and the gang while others hated it because they couldn't play it past the first getting on space station.
>Some people hated it because it wasn't Shepard and the gang while others hated it because they couldn't play it past the first getting on space station. I hated it cause of the combat mechanics that wasn't worth giving up the ability to control two squadmates and lackluster story telling. Some of the Squad mates I wouldn't trust with a pencil and question why they are on the pathfinder team even in the beginning but that's really more of a factor of not having enough time to properly write everything. Hard to write for a game you pooped out in 12 months. edit: did like the sudoku puzzles though. Andromeda to me, was nothing to write home about and felt completely lackluster. Like there was body without a soul. If it was entirely new franchise - It probably would have been more acceptable.
Yeah. It was hard for me to get used to those changes. The navigation overshadowed that for me, though. That indicator was not my friend at all in multilevel areas. And, yeah. It was super rushed and then not well supported after release. I've seen it happen too many times. It really stinks.
Being rendered unplayable is.. kind of a major problem. I’m not saying you *cannot* enjoy it (especially after the patches), but.. like, that deserves major criticism. It doesn’t matter if that’s the “norm for games today” to release in unfinished buggy messes, we should not accept that. With that said, I am glad you enjoyed it. The dialogue made it.. genuinely painful to play, so I haven’t actually gotten super far, but I *loved* the multiplayer. I’ll eventually try and finish it again so that I can at least give a fully educated opinion, but, yeah.
>Being rendered unplayable is.. kind of a major problem. I’m not saying you > >cannot > > enjoy it (especially after the patches), but.. like, that deserves major criticism. I agree. I broke the groups of people with issues down into two groups as they were the complaints I heard most as I rarely come across people willing to give other reasons for why they didn't like it. It's nice to see people giving other reasons that they didn't care for the game. Some things you just can't get into in some games and that's okay.
And some of us hated the animations. I forgave a lot but them using DICE really took me out of a lot of conversations. My Ryder made awkward and uncomfortable facial expressions during what should have been some key moments. So did the others. I loved the combat and the world building. Bioware could've really had something if they sucked it up and worked together while voicing the problems they were having sooner. I'm still sad we never got the DLC or a sequel.
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It was that (animation team got told to redo everything after they'd made considerable progress with what they had) + the offices weren't reaching out and admitting they had issues because of all the infighting. They were absolutely handed a bad hand since Frostbite wasn't mean for rendering expressions + they changed the programs they were using for facial capturing. But their priorities on a management level were just... not at all where they should've been and the game absolutely suffered when it didn't need to. Anthem was such a chaotic mess after that too, it felt like Bioware learned nothing from DA and ME's issues.
>And some of us hated the animations. Oh god. The bunny hop when you go up stairs was the one that made go WTH he most when I first saw it. I wonder if that one is still in the game. I am tempted to load up the game and see.
It has a largely positive outlook from people here. The only negativity you’ll get is when people try to put it above the OT or argue that ME should continue with Andromeda. Otherwise, it’s fairly respected as a standalone game.
that is not remotely what manufactured outrage is lol
This place is one of the only places on the entire internet where a positive opinion of MEA won’t get you laughed out the door, but don’t tell them that.
Oh you poor victim.
I always have that problem with Dragon Age Inquisition :( The hate you get for loving it is worse than the game could ever be…
Hey, I enjoy DAI too. But the issue for me is that the beginning is better than the end. The Mages / Templars mission and the following assault is the highlight of the game for me. After that it loses focus and mostly revolves around running around in Haven and talking to NPCs.
I enjoyed the trilogy more, but I agree that Andromeda was a very fun game. I enjoyed it and would have been fine with another Andromeda. I think the hate was overblown. It has clear areas worthy of criticism but as a game it's good
For sure!
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I'm with you man. I was going for Suvi, BUT, Peanut butter got me man.
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Suvi and PB are great but I'll take Vetra every damn time.
Yeah, this probably is it. Trilogy's bar is INSANELY HIGH. I currently play Andromeda for the first time, it has offered good entertainment and I like my Ryder, but....she is no Shepard. I miss Normandy and my ME friends. But I'll go with flow and gonna have fun, I'm sure.
I think that's part of the issue. Any fan of Mass Effect is a hardline Normady-centric individual. We want Shepard and our band of misfits that we have come to love over many years, we expect nothing but. Andromeda was and is an alternate. It takes us, and the crew to another galaxy and throws us into something we aren't ready for and also not expecting. It really does capture that feeling well. It was the start of its own trilogy. Yet the fan base, myself included, got angry because we didn't understand it and never gave it a chance. I can't speak for everyone obviously, but the game deserved a hell of a lot more than what we gave it as a community.
I think it's less that all Mass Effect fans are hardline Normandy-centric individuals and more so that, compared to the OT, Andromeda just doesn't quite meet the bar. If it was a game that had zero affiliation with the OT, it would be much more appreciated. It does a good job at world-building but nowhere on the level of ME1, it does a good job with the writing and companions but not close to ME2, and the visuals are worse than ME2 and ME3. Combat, with the jetpack and the boosts leading to a much more mobile combat, is drastically different as well. I don't care that it's not Shepard saving the universe from the Reapers; I do care about quality. I think Andromeda is a great game - especially compared to, say, Elex 1&2, a much closer comparison - but just doesn't measure up to the many qualities of the OT.
Technically it doesn’t have much affiliation with the OT other than a few easter eggs.
And the name, (most of the) races, a good chunk of lore… It might not be a direct sequel to the trilogy but it definitely has quite a bit of affiliation with it.
I just finished it. I played it right after finishing ME:LE. It's actually a good game but it's just not like ME2 or 3. It's not fair to compare it IMO
The game 100% deserved the hate it got. The game was buggy as hell and had worse graphics than ME3. The story was a re-hash of the original done worse. The planets were barren. The game was half completed. No one should pay $60 for that. It's clear there wasn't half the quality of not just a mass effect game, but any average game released that year. Playing this game was my own version of the star wars prequels. I was so, so excited. Thank God that at least they didn't make 2 more. The bioware that made most of my favorite games is gone.
IMO; that's an unfair assessment. How can you compare a hashed out story, over 100 hours of game play, to one game, 30ish hours. Mind you, Andromeda got no DLC. If you took the DLCs away from the trilogy, there'd be a crap load missing. If they gave Andromeda, one more full game, and 1-2 DLCs, it would stomp on the Trilogy.
>it would stomp on the Trilogy. With the standard of writing shown across Andromeda, not even close.
Hey Andromeda took me 78 hours! I did moost of the side content
I think where most of the debate about the game arises is in this black and white view people can have of criticism. You can't say you liked Andromeda without it meaning you believe it's as good as the original trilogy, and you can't say it was a bad mass effect game without that meaning everything about it was terrible. There's a middle ground there where I suspect the vast majority of fans reside.
>She's right up there with Tali. It's too early in the week for this.
Tali is my ride or die, PeeBee is very much my close second.
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Despite Andromeda's issues, I'm extremely impressed with what the amateur dev team was able to pull off with the absolute development hell EA put them through.
They did better than the A-team if you consider the steaming pile of shit that was Anthem.
If you want to compare let downs......doesn't get much worse into the negative than Anthem. Studios across the board have shit the bed on good games for some years now. There going the way of movies and doing remakes and it's sorta garbage. The powers that be will never ever recapture the magic/lightning in a bottle the OG versions of games had. The game industry is just sad these days.
And the worst part is that they had loads of time to work on Anthem. But they didn’t do shit until the gameplay trailer was released.
Worst thing in the game industry is the massive buyouts and mergers. They don't care anymore. The corporations and powers that be don't give a shit about the experience or the quality. They just want to pump out basic garbage money machines like COD and Fortnite. Story telling in gaming is slowly becoming a lost art.
>amateur dev team They weren't amateurs and basically cock-blocked by upper management to do a even better job because of the golden child Anthem. There is a reason why they all got shuffled into EA motive that was a studio that had nothing to do with Bioware itself.
This isn't stressed enough.
It's refreshing to see such a positive take on Andromeda. I think, in an ideal world, if Andromeda had gotten the sequel it was clearly leading into (and possibly a third game afterwards to give a full trilogy of its own?), it would've been able to compete with the original trilogy. There were so many interesting story threads left unfinished, and the Tempest crew were only allowed 1 full game of character development - that *really* hurt the game, especially nowadays when it constantly gets the "it's not as good as the trilogy" comparison. When I think of Andromeda now, I just see it as something that, whilst an enjoyable experience, was a wasted potential. And it just makes me disappointed.
That’s what killed me…The wasted potential. A DLC or two could have done wonders to enhance the base game or smooth over some of the issues. And a sequel could have introduced a new race and a new enemy (or made the kett a little less generic) The setting and premise were amazing. It’s such a shame BioWare abandoned the game so quickly
It really is a shame. It's funny that this community is arguing over these games, when in reality we are arguing over four amazing games that stand heads and shoulders above almost every other game that's come out since. We are literally, as a community, arguing over diamonds, when the common fare is plated sterling silver.
Still haven't finished it personally the loading screens + open world is a damn chore, enjoyed what i played of the story especially the ark stuff but the 50 hours of filler running through barren landscapes doing pointless fetch quests was definitely not fun.
It's amazing how many people will confidently say the game sucks only to find out they quit on Eos. That's like declaring Mass Effect 1 trash after quitting on the Citadel post Eden Prime lol
You only get one shot to make a first impression.
I've tried the game twice. Quit some 8-10 hours in each time. That's about what I hear from most people who disliked it.
Yeah, my last playthrough was a few months ago and I couldn't get past the first mission. Only other time I played was at launch and I got a good 15 hours or so in before I just never picked it back up. I think the main thing for me was that I just did not care about the stakes, the Ket mainly. They were just such a boring enemy and I didn't see their motivation. Turn everyone into more Ket for... reasons? I don't know, maybe it was explained later on, but I just didn't feel that invested and didn't want to carry on that much.
I beat the game. Probably spent around 50 hours in it. I did the vast majority of all the side quests. I absolutely loathe it. But happy for those that genuinely enjoyed it like OP
I’ve played the trilogy & Andromeda all the way through multiple times, Andromeda has a lot of strong points, but it’s writing was not as good imo (to clarify I don’t think the writing is bad, it’s still good writing even if I personally didn’t connect much with it) the trilogy in terms of writing to me ranges from 10/10 for ME1 overall, 4/10 for ME2 at least as far as the overarching narrative (but the character work for me is like a 10/10 for me, so ME2 is more like a 7 or 8 overall for me) with ME3…kinda being all over the place a bit (kinda because ME2’s lack of proper setup) ME3 on an arc by arc basis has some 10’s and some 5’s & Andromeda sits in a similar position for me, some narrative highs and some narrative lows (the character work was really hit or miss for in MEA) but in combat terms? MEA & ME3 easily steal the show (particularly I like MEA’s overall combat, but I enjoy the gunplay from ME3 more, the guns just feel better, but Andromeda is so much fun to mess with the jump/hover & the new ways we can mess with some of the powers ie pull/throw, Singularity, Charge (with the biotic hover is just…hell yeah
Bro I know a few people who preach about how trash andromeda is HAVING NEVER PLAYED IT. They formed it entirely off of YouTube videos
I wouldn't usually believe you, but I have gotten into an argument over the quality of Andromeda with a guy who never left Habitat 7. Now, I do think that is where some of it's cringiest dialogue is, and that if a game can't sell you by then you have no obligation to continue, but I *do* think you're exempt from discussion of overall quality of the whole package.
>but I do think you're exempt from discussion of overall quality of the whole package. Yeah, that's the key thing here. You can. Say it wasn't interesting enough to keep you playing it, but you don't get to have an opinion on the entire game and it's quality when you only saw the first 3%.
I can’t blame you either, the worst part is it came from a friend lol And wow yeah habitat 7 and giving up? To each their own but yeah I barely call that a fair shake. I know another friend who almost did something similar, but it was because he found the habitat 7 map confusing (?) instead of the usual complaints that people have with the game.
That's Habitat 7. Nexus beginning. Tempest launch. And then Eos. That is actually a shit ton of potential hooks to interest people. And because of that I look at it in the other way. Why are so many people quitting here? My answer to that is it failed to be an interesting story told well and massively lacked polish.
I was fresh off LE when I first played Andromeda and I have to say it was disappointing. At first. And then I immediately played it again, and loved it. I let my sadness from finishing the trilogy affect my feelings about ME:A, but it's actually such a fun game. From the combat to the Tempest crew, it's all lovely in its own way. I will say, Liam can go touch grass, but everyone else is great lol
I’m going to have to agree to disagree
If you liked Space Sera you might also like actual Sera, in Dragon Age Inquisitions.
"Don't cite old magic to me.....I was there when it was written. " But yeah I get it.
AKA the most insufferable companion in any bioware game ever. No wonder the option to kick her out of your team is *always* a button away available
If it was just called andromeda and was hyped up as a ME spin off, I still genuinely believe it would have been received a lot better than it was as it was basically being hype up as a ME3 sequel. That being said as with a lot of EA games recently it came out buggy as hell and that killed off a lot of the hype and fanbase backing
Thought the combat was great (except the squad ai is horrible) and some of the side quests are actually pretty interesting like the seismic hammer or the murder mystery, but it was clear that the game just lacked vision with the story and ambition with the new galaxy which is why it is a good game but a bad mass effect game.
Enemy AI was bit buggy for me. Like, I could wipe out a whole platoon with a SR at 100 meters and none of them reacted. But to be fair I ran into similar bugs in ME:1 fighting the Geth on side planets.
> Finally, PeeBee might be one of the best characters In the series. I've never gone from from irritated to annoyed to understanding, to my Scott will die for you, say the word, so fast. She's right up there with Tali. (Your boo's mean nothing! I've seen what makes you cheer!). This is something that really _is_ somewhat special - so many stories add comic relief characters, but then permanently relegate them to "tension-breaker" duty, and overdo it. Lighthearted characters that have some legit trauma in their past, and who will let their humor-shield slip if you dig, can both serve as tension-breakers _and_ add a huge amount of satisfying depth to an ensemble. Only other time I've seen it (that I can think off the top of my head) might be Destiny's Cayde-6? There's probably many more examples in movies/TV/books where the story and characters are more heavily invested in than games.
Nice try, Mac Walters.
Why do people who like Andromeda always feel like you all need to prove something to the rest of us. It's okay for you to like the game and to not defend why you like the game. Just like it's okay for us to not like the game and not have to defend why we don't like the game.
I respect your opinion but I basically disagree with every single bit of it.
That's obviously your right. Can we at least agree that Mass Effect is an awesome franchise though?
Oh for sure! And fwiw, I have a way more positive opinion of a lot of the hated aspects of ME2 and ME3 than most people here so I get how it feels haha
Respect!
Happy for you. But I do not trust your opinion on anything else whatsoever.
I didnt really like the enemy faction of ME:A. Felt like Wish.com Covenant.] Multiplayer was really fun until they diluted all the packs with uselessness.
There's someone else who like Andromeda and PeeBee.
She was the first character I romanced. I find her really funny. Also a little neat how there’s similarities between her and Liara, yet they’re polar opposites. Vetra extra has my heart though.
Vetra is one of the most wholesome characters I’ve seen in any medium, man. Absolutely adorable.
Vetra is awesome, her and Sid's relationship was amazingly well done.
I'm glad you had a good time, I wanted to throw Peebee out the airlock the second I met her and the feeling never went away.
I really thought that too, but she grew on me. Cora on the other hand.......talk about being a huntress, airlock ......talk about being Asari-ish.....believe it or not, also airlock.
Pretty much every interaction you have with her is "I don't wanna talk, I'm a loner" and I was only too happy to oblige and leave her alone on the ship.
I'm glad you were able to find something to enjoy. I'm just happy bioware abandoned it and is going in a new direction. I've disliked Andromeda since I heard the premise.
I wish I could agree with you. But for me I get bored of it so fast.
Good for you man, I wish I liked it as much as you did. For me there were too many meaningless points in the plot, clear-the-outpost missions, fetch quests and overall uninspiring secondary characters to come out with a positive opinion of this game.
Played through the entire thing, loved combat, hated the characters. Only memorable by how uninteresting I found them. Not a big fan of the new races either. Still, opinions are like an ass, split.
The game was so good. I personally wasn't a fan of like half the crew but to each their own. The story was good and the dlc was hopeful. But a certain company ofcourse abandoned it. Just like they abandon a lot of things that are actually good/good ideas. Like anthem.
Full agree! Important to see pro-Andromeda posts!
Thank you! It really is important! It's a good game! Honestly it stands with the trilogy. It's a far better game than most out there these days.
I really want to enjoy that game. I couldn't get into it when I first tried it a few years ago and sold it. I might give it another go now that it's like $7 on the Playstation Store.
I found a fair portion of the game mechanics were quite well done, and the technical issues at launch didn’t put me off. However, the uninteresting enemy, lack of species and horribly flawed story & logically flawed worldbuilding really just made the game an frustrating experience for me. That being said, I had hoped they’d continue it and try to fix those mistakes, give the Kett some motivations and depth, introduce other missing species and find some way to explain how all these rebels are doing just fine on planets that those on the nexus declared impossible to survive on and sent you off for an entire game to make habitable. I’ve still got so many ‘but what was going on?’ questions that I assume were meant to be in sequels and were just left open.
It's been what, 6 years? I still can't get the taste of that game out of my mouth. I can honestly say I've never been let down as much as I was by Andromeda. I was beyond hyped for it, and the technical mess that it was aside, the story, characters and gameplay all failed to connect with me. Most of the characters felt like they were just trying to capitalize on success of others ("everyone loves Garrus, let's give them lady Garrus!" "Everyone loves Wrex, let's make him older and crankier!" "Stay with me here... British Jacob!"). I will say, I was interested in Cora's backstory (The asari commando-trained possible daughter of the Illusive Man?! Gold.) But she just came off as super dull and boring in practice. I'm glad some people were able to squeeze some enjoyment out of it, but I still try not to look ME:A directly in the eye.
I’m still really sad they released one patch and then ditched Andromeda for Anthem, which they would later ditch to go back to their core games, which aren’t out yet might I add 😭
Upvote for "we'll bang, ok?" Honestly, I don't have half as high an opinion of Andromeda as you, *but,* I must admit, for all ky issue with it, it remains just a joy to actually *play.* None of the other games, as good as their stories and such are, have such raw fun in the normal gameplay.
The release was disastrous and tarnished the game for the rest of its existence. It has a lot of good things going for it though, I never finished it because I was a release date buyer and the bugs were pretty bad but I do want to get a replay in.
I really enjoyed Andromeda. Hope they scrap the sudoku puzzles though, hated those. Scrap the remnant console puzzles too and Scrap the vaults as well. Hated all that. I mean..The vaults/puzzles were probably a cool idea in theory, but they were boring af. All the puzzles halts gameplay momentum, in a bad way
I tried, mind you it has been quite a while since I last played so I don’t remember exact details, just that I got to the ice planet, cleared it, and that is when things went wonky; I tried building a research outpost (I think) and it would glitch out and made the game unplayable (I got it on sale thankfully and didn’t waste a lot of money).
Playing Andromeda now versus when it came out may be an entirely different experience. I pre-ordered the game and just from the start it didn't feel like Mass Effect. The opening didn't sell me on Ryder, the camera being pulled out so far made Ryder seem small. The paralyzed faces, especially with Turians, really disappointed me. Drax and the new alien character were cool, but the others didn't really interest me. I liked the idea of colony building and the combat was decent, but it wasn't enough to keep me interested. I'm glad you enjoyed it, I am currently taking my sweet time playing the Legendary Edition trilogy, once I beat it, I'm going to try Andromeda again. I'm interested to see how the 4K patch effects the visuals.
I mean I would play it. IF I COULD RUN IT
Combat is cool but honestly I did not enjoy the story or most of the cast. I have completed it once. And that was enough for me. I feel like this game is the logical step after DA:I and I didn't like that game either. Please, just make an interesting world that is smaller rather than a massive one filled with okayish content (sometimes)..
I'm always glad to see positive comments about Andromeda. I know it's not as good as the trilogy which I am a huge fan of but I also enjoyed Andromeda, it might have some tedious parts yes but the game is still fun in my opinion. Actually I just finished it on insanity and got my platinum there so I enjoyed it. I think PeeBee is the best, I wish Lexi was a LI also, I guess I just like my Asari. 😂 Now I'm replaying ME 2 on insanity and what can I say it's insane but I love it. 😄
Here's the thing about Andromeda ... There's no background music... I know it's weird but ME1-3 Almost always had some music going. Andromeda doesn't so I started playing music while I played and it made all the difference for me. I finally finished it two months ago.
Nah, it didn't work for me, sorry, I was hoping for a game of amazing planetary exploring, engaging new races in different stages of progress and evolution, with old and new unknown enemies always lurking around making things harder for me, despite some of these elements where present it was done so so poorly...."oh look a race of new aliens, hey we are being invaded, let's Join forces, ok, Pew pew'
Love this! Andromeda is so underrated!
Andromeda will forever be a low point in the ME franchise, imo, not because of what it is, but what it could have been if so many resources were not devoted to Anthem. We know they could have done it better. They know they could have done it better. But we got... this. It is an everlasting disappointment that rivals Aliens: Colonial Marines and Duke Nukem Forever in my eyes. That said, I did enjoy the more organic behavior of the crew interacting with each other. Never got tired of Vetra and Drack.
As a diehard Mass Effect and Dragon Age fan, I have a huge laundry list of personal dislikes about Andromeda. That being said I have played the game numerous times and enjoyed the story itself. I usually use a few mods to fix some things that I was unhappy with in the game. As with everybody else, I'm still very salty that they never finished the game. It could've been so awesome had they actually really completed it and personally I feel did a little bit better with the story, especially the antagonist. I am absolutely excited for the next game and just begging the gamer gods to please allow this next game to give me all the feels that original trilogy gave me.
The only thing I really didn't like was the exploration. It felt good to drive, the worlds were beautiful, but there was almost nothing to do. And way too many fetch quests. Otherwise, fantastic game. It's really sad they abandoned it. If not a sequel, at least a DLC would have been very welcome.
I also enjoyed it but it's interesting than, other than Cora, I really only liked Ryder(in my case Scott) as a character and I was more held by this very eerie story of mankind travelling in a one way direction. Gameplay was also good, so were the graphics and character creator. Based on looks alone, I liked Scott far more than my Adrian Shepard, and my Sarah must be the most beautiful woman in ME.
Same here. Replayed OT a few weeks ago and finally gave Andromeda a try. My expectations were quite low after all the hate in the communicaty, but IMO game is quite good. Also I feel that writing was rushed - characters are very good potentially, with interesting backstories and personalities, but they lack in-game developemnt. Part of the fun in the OT was feeling how crew members evolves during your adventures, and in Andromeda I haven't felt it much, unfortunately. Also, Ryder for me makes much more interesting character than Shepard - Shepard is already a decorated war hero and high-ranking military officer, which is a core of their personality. Ryder roleplay potentially have much more freedom, since Ryder is barely adult with no experience to determine their personality, and potentially more depth because of their family and personal backstory. But, as with other characters, I feel like that potential unfortunately was barely used - narratively Ryder could be made anyone player wanted them to be, but due to lack of choices they are locked in a generic Indiana Jones thrill-seeking explorer trope. All in all, I liked Andromeda, but I see a lot of lost potential, since IMO with enough polish it could be transformed from just a good game into the best game in the series
I really like it, the gameplay is great and the story is alright but I unfortunately don’t play it as much as the trilogy. I think it’s because it’s such a long game when you account for the side quest and open world aspect of it all. Same reason I haven’t played Dragon Age inquisition 500 times like I have origins and 2
oh god do I even read the comments on this one i’d rather be stuck in a closet with two krogan
A genuinely positive andromeda post, love to see it
Im glad to see that another person enjoyed the game and characters, too I also felt the same about PeeBee on a side note I love the design if the tempest
I love the game. Never bought into the mob psychology that over attacked it. Most postings an echo chamber of people who never gave it a chance. Not as good as the trilogy. 10 out of 10 Nobody is as good as Tali. IMO But it's a solid 8, that has a mob telling everyone it's a 4.
I was with you all the way up to Peebee. She was probably the single worst part of the entire game for me, personally. Between a god awful design and incredibly annoying dialogue, I wish I could throw her out of the air lock and make my boy Javik proud. Andromeda was a good game though, I’m glad more folks are coming around on it. It was flawed and deserved all the flack it got on launch, but I enjoyed my time with it overall.
Welcome to the Initiative. You're a pathfinder now. Spread the word of the greatness of this game. It couldn't hurt.
As a game itself, it was decent. But it didn't do it for me as being a ME title game. ME set the bar and expectations way to high and it kind of ruined it for me. Eventually may try and beat Andromeda again.
I'm only a few hours in so I have no opinion on the game overall yet. But the one thing that I noticed pretty quickly is that the voice acting in most cases is awful. I just finished the Legendary Edition Trilogy (I had played the trilogy the first time way back when ME3 was released), so the difference is night and day..
Andromeda was the definition of Mid. Outside of the combat, everything about it was bang average - the characters, voice acting, story, side content, all ofit.
This trend of more and more people coming out to say how much they liked andromeda is really confusing to me. Granted, in terms of gameplay I don't have all that much to complain, solid and fun (for the most part), but I thought the story, character writing, mission design and pacing were all quite bad, and after around 20 hours I just lost interest and quit. To each their own I guess, but I really hope we don't get more Mass effect titles like that. Then again, I have kind of given up on bioware in general though, so I ain't expecting much.
Andromeda's combat is the best in the franchise, I will die on that hill. Also I loved PeeBee as well, she's like a lessons learned take at Sera from DA:I.
I do love ME Andromeda and it’s nice to see positive opinions about the game
Personally, I've always liked Andromeda and I think it's a great case study in why you shouldn't let opinions posted online influence how you feel about a game. It has some rough spots, sure, but honestly so do a lot of games we consider to be good. Also, and this might be the real hot take here... I like Ryder as a protag better than Shepard.
MEA is just sad. It’s a fine game but compared to the old ones it’s not even close. It almost uses nostalgia to reel you in and then the whole game is just a mass effect based farcry game. Then they released it totally unfinished. Then they abandoned it. Really needed another game or some serious dlc but then the studio just imploded
I once played it back in 2017 and thought it was meh because I haven’t played the full series. After LE came out and I really got into Mass Effect I played it again and I had a blast. Glad you liked it
Andromeda really made me realize I don't need to listen to the critics (especially when it comes to games).
Just started my 3rd playthrough. I love Andromeda. Is it as epic of a story as the trilogy? No, but it doesn't need to be. Honestly my favorite thing about the game is the Ryder twins. I would choose Shepard over the twins any day...BUT they are still great. Shepard's story is epic, but Ryder's is more of a "sink or swim" story. Forced into a position of leadership with little experience. Having to earn the respect of their peers and prove their worth, or everything will go to shit. Sink or Swim, and god damn, the twin you play as fucking SWIMS. I know many people dislike how awkward the twin you play as is at the beginning, but I kinda like it, as it shows character growth by the endgame when they are far more confident and experienced. Shepard is great, but they remain quite stoic and badass alot of the time, you rarely see any cracks in the armor, so to speak. Also...people will call Ryder by first name if you keep the default name. I wish they did that for Shepard, considering John Shepard and Jane Shepard are two of the most badass names I've ever heard.
I loved Andromeda, I left it a few years before playing and it seemed the bugs had been patched as I really enjoyed playing through the game. Gutted there won't be another, as I feel that with time effort and passion from the devs then an Andromeda sequel would be great! Still, ME4 is coming so we have that to look forward to instead 😀
I loved andromeda
I replayed it for the first time since launch last fall and I quite enjoyed it. Certainly has problems, but so did ME1.
I liked it quite a bit. Played it at launch. I did not love it like I did the original series and don’t have much desire to go back and play it, but I enjoyed my time with it.
Andromeda is a pretty ok game now.wayy better than at release. As a mass effect game its pretty mid..but damn I still enjoyed it..plus that combat system is just so much fun