Mass Effect Andromeda - Part 1
I've been enjoying the game over the last week or so. I think I'm a bit over halfway through the story, though it's hard to tell without looking it up - and I don't want to do that. Hmm. Actually, I think I've managed to not look up and spoil myself on story or puzzles thus far. I've tried with a couple decisions, but failed to find immediate repercussion answers, so just made a call.
The major critiques I've seen (buggy/bad animations and weak writing) have not been so prominent in my experience to bother me. Yes, there are some bad facial animations. Yes, I have seen enemies standing twenty feet in the air. Yes, there are a few cringe-worthy lines. But in my play, those have been infrequent and overlookable. A majority of the lines and animation are just fine. I've only hit one game-stopping bug, where the game got stuck in a transition after a dialog scene, but reloading and going through it again worked.
The one criticism that I can agree fully with is that of UI friendliness, or lack thereof. There are a lot of menus, some of them several layers deep. And accessing certain part of the game require being either on the Nexus or the Tempest - which wouldn't be so bad if getting to either involved fewer loading screens. Mind you, the loading screens for flying to/from planets or between systems are nice visually and atmospherically, but it's still a unfortunate amount of time waiting to go back to the ship if all you want to do is collect some periodic resources. And going through the screen in order to orbit a non-interactive planet just to click the scan button and move on to the next is annoying.
While I think I prefer the cover-based shooting of ME3, Andromeda's more active combat is fine too. And I think it's growing on me. I haven't fully taken advantage of the profile system to swap abilities in combat, but once I got the feel for dodging I started to enjoy moving around a lot more.
Story-wise, I'm satisfied with how things are going.
The Andromeda Initiative sends a base hub, the Nexus, and several racially-sponsored arks on the 600+ year journey to a new galaxy. It sets up a new setting with familiar faces and room to explore. It avoids ME3's ending by having them launch around the time of ME2, so the Reapers aren't even really a widely-acknowledged threat. Things change in that time (naturally), which leads to arriving in a more hostile environment than was expected.
There are bits that feel a little forced here and there, such as the riot and exile in order to establish non-Initiative factions with Milky Way races (not implausible, but feels reverse engineered to reach the result). I miss some ME races, though they left an opening for introducing them later by saying a quarian ark was delayed while outfitting life support to handle other species.
The new races are fine - hostile kett and friendly (relatively) angara. It's a little disappointing there isn't more variety, but there's room for growth.
There are new mysteries with the Remnant and Scourge that I am suspecting won't be fully answered in this game. I think I'm okay with that, though those are some pretty big question.
I'm glad the issue of the team's AI isn't being fully ignored, as that was one of my concerns. Mass Effect games have previously failed to explore certain scifi concepts to my satisfaction before. And while this one is ongoing, at least the moral questions have been raised - as AI research is illegal, Ryder's father was discharged from Alliance service for it and some people are nervous about the team AI, SAM, including a side quest I haven't pursued yet about a group that seems specifically anti-AI.
The characters are generally sound. I'm not quite sure if Vetra is going to live up the legacy of Garrus, and no one has grabbed me quite like Tali did, but I like the six squadmates and other supporting characters.
The Nomad feels like a pretty good ground vehicle, and a solid way to get around larger planet zones. It may not be armed, but I'm pleased enough with how it handles and works.
H-047C. Even avoiding spoilers, since the zone/planet appears a bit later in the game, I looove this place. It's not the largest map. It doesn't have a whole lot to do. But it takes the Nomad and gives shades of the old Mako - in a fun way. You're stuck traversing in the Nomad due to radiation and the world is low-gravity, so you can do some ridiculous jumps and such. The best part, though, is squadmates seem to have a bit of a reaction to this. I haven't tried them all, but jumping over a ravine to hear your krogan party member going, "Shiiiiiiiiiiit!" absolutely cracks me up every time. Thank you to whoever was behind the inclusion of this place in the game!
So, overall, I am enjoying. The ending could fall flat on its face. Or not. We'll have to see, but it's been fun so far.
The major critiques I've seen (buggy/bad animations and weak writing) have not been so prominent in my experience to bother me. Yes, there are some bad facial animations. Yes, I have seen enemies standing twenty feet in the air. Yes, there are a few cringe-worthy lines. But in my play, those have been infrequent and overlookable. A majority of the lines and animation are just fine. I've only hit one game-stopping bug, where the game got stuck in a transition after a dialog scene, but reloading and going through it again worked.
The one criticism that I can agree fully with is that of UI friendliness, or lack thereof. There are a lot of menus, some of them several layers deep. And accessing certain part of the game require being either on the Nexus or the Tempest - which wouldn't be so bad if getting to either involved fewer loading screens. Mind you, the loading screens for flying to/from planets or between systems are nice visually and atmospherically, but it's still a unfortunate amount of time waiting to go back to the ship if all you want to do is collect some periodic resources. And going through the screen in order to orbit a non-interactive planet just to click the scan button and move on to the next is annoying.
While I think I prefer the cover-based shooting of ME3, Andromeda's more active combat is fine too. And I think it's growing on me. I haven't fully taken advantage of the profile system to swap abilities in combat, but once I got the feel for dodging I started to enjoy moving around a lot more.
Story-wise, I'm satisfied with how things are going.
The Andromeda Initiative sends a base hub, the Nexus, and several racially-sponsored arks on the 600+ year journey to a new galaxy. It sets up a new setting with familiar faces and room to explore. It avoids ME3's ending by having them launch around the time of ME2, so the Reapers aren't even really a widely-acknowledged threat. Things change in that time (naturally), which leads to arriving in a more hostile environment than was expected.
There are bits that feel a little forced here and there, such as the riot and exile in order to establish non-Initiative factions with Milky Way races (not implausible, but feels reverse engineered to reach the result). I miss some ME races, though they left an opening for introducing them later by saying a quarian ark was delayed while outfitting life support to handle other species.
The new races are fine - hostile kett and friendly (relatively) angara. It's a little disappointing there isn't more variety, but there's room for growth.
There are new mysteries with the Remnant and Scourge that I am suspecting won't be fully answered in this game. I think I'm okay with that, though those are some pretty big question.
I'm glad the issue of the team's AI isn't being fully ignored, as that was one of my concerns. Mass Effect games have previously failed to explore certain scifi concepts to my satisfaction before. And while this one is ongoing, at least the moral questions have been raised - as AI research is illegal, Ryder's father was discharged from Alliance service for it and some people are nervous about the team AI, SAM, including a side quest I haven't pursued yet about a group that seems specifically anti-AI.
The characters are generally sound. I'm not quite sure if Vetra is going to live up the legacy of Garrus, and no one has grabbed me quite like Tali did, but I like the six squadmates and other supporting characters.
The Nomad feels like a pretty good ground vehicle, and a solid way to get around larger planet zones. It may not be armed, but I'm pleased enough with how it handles and works.
H-047C. Even avoiding spoilers, since the zone/planet appears a bit later in the game, I looove this place. It's not the largest map. It doesn't have a whole lot to do. But it takes the Nomad and gives shades of the old Mako - in a fun way. You're stuck traversing in the Nomad due to radiation and the world is low-gravity, so you can do some ridiculous jumps and such. The best part, though, is squadmates seem to have a bit of a reaction to this. I haven't tried them all, but jumping over a ravine to hear your krogan party member going, "Shiiiiiiiiiiit!" absolutely cracks me up every time. Thank you to whoever was behind the inclusion of this place in the game!
So, overall, I am enjoying. The ending could fall flat on its face. Or not. We'll have to see, but it's been fun so far.