Mass Effect Andromeda first impressions?

[distortedreality]

I'm about 12 or so hours in, and enjoying it so far.

The animation isn't stellar, and there are some odd VA moments, but on the whole it's been fun. Haven't had any real bugs, and am so far finding the writing serviceable without being brilliant. Haven't started any of the loyalty quests yet, and I'm not too far into the main story, so I have hopes that the writing gets better the further you get into the game.

Really enjoying the updated combat - the jump jets add more than I thought they would, and running around planetside is also more fun that I expected.

My only real criticism is the character creator - despite what seems like a decent amount of options available, it's harder than it should be to get a decent looking person. The saving grace to this is the custom character repository that EA have setup, which allows you to load up other players customisation. I didn't try this out, decided to persevere with my character, but hopefully that functionality will help others.

 

[djl3485]

You can't customize the Default Ryder's AT ALL. You don't even have access to the skin tone that the default's have, or anywhere close. And according to all the stuff I've read, there's no way to change your appearance once you've started the save file.

Sucks about being locked in, but yeah, I should've remembered you couldn't tweak the default Shepard or DAII's Hawke.

I've heard they're apparently looking to improve the character gen as well, so that's another good reason to wait.

The creator needs to be redone entirely. Your options are so limited. The only thing you can actually change is the hair styles for the custom ones. You can't change the shape of your nose, only it's position, you cant change your lips, only it's size, you are basically picking what face you want on your character, instead of actually making the character. And all so that the father character looks related to you for the 5 minutes he's alive.

Except for the default Ryder, you can change everything...lips, nose, eyes and so on. So not sure why you're saying you can't do it.

I went through the presets and found the face shape I like and made some minor adjustments to the eyes, cheeks, and ears.

 

[DeadProxy]

You can't customize the Default Ryder's AT ALL. You don't even have access to the skin tone that the default's have, or anywhere close. And according to all the stuff I've read, there's no way to change your appearance once you've started the save file.

Sucks about being locked in, but yeah, I should've remembered you couldn't tweak the default Shepard or DAII's Hawke.

I've heard they're apparently looking to improve the character gen as well, so that's another good reason to wait.

The creator needs to be redone entirely. Your options are so limited. The only thing you can actually change is the hair styles for the custom ones. You can't change the shape of your nose, only it's position, you cant change your lips, only it's size, you are basically picking what face you want on your character, instead of actually making the character. And all so that the father character looks related to you for the 5 minutes he's alive.

Except for the default Ryder, you can change everything...lips, nose, eyes and so on. So not sure why you're saying you can't do it.

I went through the presets and found the face shape I like and made some minor adjustments to the eyes, cheeks, and ears.

I just reinstalled the game to back up my point, because you're wrong. You can ONLY make adjustments, you don't get a selection of individual features to choose from, only faces. By that I mean, you can't take the features from preset 6 and put them in preset 1. It's possible you can't even make some presets have the features of others. I just went through each preset, and all of their "adjustment" sliders are in the middle for each feature, meaning each feature is crafted for each preset, instead of all being molded out of a basic model.

 

[Frezzato]

I am going to wait for several patches to come out before picking this up. I have done a lot of research and by all accounts it sounds like an imperfect ME game that I could still get some enjoyment out of. The main thing holding me back from a purchase is its unpolished state, so if they can straighten that out I think I can stomach the remaining gameplay/story flaws.

This is the main problem with the game. As generic as it sounds, it's very accurate.

One gripe for me is how the sniper rifles have no range. There's a range indicator when you're looking through the scope. I was aiming at some baddies and it was showing a range of 133 meters--in red--as if it's beyond all hope. I took a few shots and sure enough, no dice. Now, I understand that it's just a game and all, but 133 meters isn't beyond the reach of ANY modern rifle, sniper scope or not. That's less than half the effective range of the real-like M4 without a scope.

Of course, once I switched to my assault rifle, I started scoring hits.

On that same world I attacked a base from a short distance and ran out of ammo. I resupplied less than 100 meters away and returned to see that everyone I had killed instantly repopulated. Hmm. Anyway, I got inside the base and thoroughly killed everything inside and had exited through a set of doors (to where I started) when I decided to check one more time for containers. I go back through the doors, check one last container, then exit again.

Of course, all enemies initially outside the base had repopulated, heavy turrets and all.

So, yeah, "polish" is what it needs :/

 

[votemarvel]

You know what. Screw the Nomad, give me the Mako back, at least that beast had guns.

I hate the Viability mechanic of the game because it tries to make the player feel obliged to do all the meaningless tat available on that planet.

 

[pookie101]

well ive done the first mission and arrived on the nexus and not bad so far. guns seem weirdly lacking range. its odd shooting things with a weapon where you would hit them in me 2 or 3

 

[Redryhno]

well ive done the first mission and arrived on the nexus and not bad so far. guns seem weirdly lacking range. its odd shooting things with a weapon where you would hit them in me 2 or 3

Not a huge amount that's bad about the first mission beyond the Omni-/Medi-gel plot...I wanna say holes, but they're more like lore overlooks that just look really bad considering what happens later on.

I'm going ot tell you now, if you spent much time in the Codex of ME1-3, then there's going to be some massive overlooks and fuck-ups in regards to how things happened and the general idea of how historical events played out.

As I've watched my flatmates play through it, it's not exactly a "bad" game, but it's a really fucking mediocre Mass Effect game. Though we drink and make fun of the bad bits so I may have a more positive opinion of it than I should.

 

[meiam]

As I feared, the skill system is a mess. The profiles force you down very narrow road, if you want to go biotic/soldier, most of the bonus you get are specifically to boost your melee attack, because the idea of a sniper using biotic is apparently too wild for EA. If you go engineer all bonus focus on summoning. Go infiltrator and bonus clearly focus on sniping. It's like they wanted player to freely makes there own build, but at the last second had a change of heart and just yanked the player back into narrow build. Sure you can build however you want, but you lose huge bonus doing so.

 

[Kingjackl]

I hate all the little changes to things that worked fine in the previous games that only made them worse. The skill system sounded like a good idea, but only having three on hand and not being able to direct your squadmates has sacrificed a lot of what made ME3's combat good. Having access to every skill doesn't mean much when I my three slots have to be filled with a combo primer, detonator and shield-stripper now that my squaddies can't be relied upon to help me with that anymore.

Also, fuck the planet scanning in Andromeda. I'm someone who didn't mind ME2 and ME3s scanning (preferred the latter more than the former of course) because it was a nice relaxing break between missions to do some simple, repetitive tasks and get a bit of lore in the bargain. But now you don't control the navigation directly and instead of simply clicking on a planet, you have to sit through a cinematic every time you jump from one planet to another. Is that where the animation budget went? Worst of all, it lacks the sonar ping you had in ME3, so you can't just go to the one with worthwhile shit on it, you have to go through each planet individually, with a 10 second transition for each one.

ME3 I didn't have to check every planet but did it anyway because it was interesting. MEA, I have to check every planet even though I'd desperately rather not.

 

[Zhukov]

Well, this game is insipid garbage.

The few good things are buried by a veritable fucking avalanche of bad, boring and just plain shoddy.

Between this and Inquisition Bioware have clearly lost the capacity to make quality games. I guess they they just bled too much talent. Fortunately there are a number of developers who have already left them in the dust.

I'm ready for them to be taken out behind the shed and EA'd between the eyes. Citadel was their swan song.

 

[Yarden]

Game is great so far.

I feel like most of the side quests are actually interesting and not just bland fetch quests, like in inquisition.
The vistas in the game just look stunning.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Well, this game is insipid garbage.

The few good things are buried by a veritable fucking avalanche of bad, boring and just plain shoddy.

Between this and Inquisition Bioware have clearly lost the capacity to make quality games. I guess they they just bled too much talent. Fortunately there are a number of developers who have already left them in the dust.

I'm ready for them to be taken out behind the shed and EA'd between the eyes. Citadel was their swan song.

I'll fight you on this one, Zhukov. The game is flawed, but it is miles better than Inquisition. I'd go so far as to say it's a fair shot better than a good portion of Bioware's games, including possibly the entire Dragon Age trilogy.

I think the high visibility of many of the problems has been overshadowing some pretty solid/fun core game play.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Well, this game is insipid garbage.

The few good things are buried by a veritable fucking avalanche of bad, boring and just plain shoddy.

Between this and Inquisition Bioware have clearly lost the capacity to make quality games. I guess they they just bled too much talent. Fortunately there are a number of developers who have already left them in the dust.

I'm ready for them to be taken out behind the shed and EA'd between the eyes. Citadel was their swan song.

Pretty much.

It got me just a tad hopeful with the first few hours being paced quite well, but as soon as I got introduced to the Angara it suddenly struck me how utterly bored I was. Bored of not-Shepard aboard the not-Normandy, traveling back and forth to the not-Citadel, and talking to not-Garrus, not-Wrex, not-Liara, and not-Ashley.

I would've been able to put up with the crummy animations and shoddy lighting if a handful of the characters were at least fun and interesting (it's what has me stil coming back to Inquisition every so often). But Christ, are these characters just the biggest non-entities. The only one that made any sort of blip was Vetra, and that was simply because she's a turian which automatically gives her a higher coolness factor.

 

[Kingjackl]

I was complaining just a few posts ago, but I've played a bit more and started to come around. Completing the first big mission on Eos was a highlight, when the story finally established a goal and I got the squad assembled. I liked finally getting the opportunity to do the "conversation lap" of the Tempest, chatting with all my crew. Those interactions had some promise.

Weirdly enough, I think my favourite so far might be Liam because all the others feel like they're trying to emulate better characters from the original trilogy, whereas Liam seems to have a combination of Jacob's backstory (except this time it makes sense) and James' personality (no complaints here, James was awesome). Not a high bar for comparison, granted, but if they have to redo old characters, better to go with ones that weren't as successful last time than just giving us another Miranda/Garrus/Liara/Wrex.

Still hate planet scanning, still frustrated with how choppy and unpolished certain aspects are, but I might be able to see myself carrying on with it. Maybe it'll be like the opposite of Inquisition, which started great but became tedious and trite by the end.

 

[squid5580]

I got a ridiculous bug in my game right now. Drak is on my ship chatting it up with Lexi. The problem is I just met him and well he told me to piss off and exited stage right.

As for the game itself I am very meh on it right now. But I can't blame he game for all of it. I just finished Horizon and am feeling the sandbox fatigue. The voices don't match the characters is a big complaint right now for me. The MP is a blast when it works. It hard crashed on me 3 times last night seconds away from extraction on an apex mission.

And they deserve a special reward for somehow making planet scanning more of a chore than the rest. At least the others had some sort of gameplay not just follow the arrow derp

 

[CritialGaming]

I got a ridiculous bug in my game right now. Drak is on my ship chatting it up with Lexi. The problem is I just met him and well he told me to piss off and exited stage right.

As for the game itself I am very meh on it right now. But I can't blame he game for all of it. I just finished Horizon and am feeling the sandbox fatigue. The voices don't match the characters is a big complaint right now for me. The MP is a blast when it works. It hard crashed on me 3 times last night seconds away from extraction on an apex mission.

And they deserve a special reward for somehow making planet scanning more of a chore than the rest. At least the others had some sort of gameplay not just follow the arrow derp

Man.....I can't tell you how happy I am that a lot of points I brought up in my review are also brought up by others in this thread. Makes me feel good.

Kesh's voices make no fucking sense and I hate it every time she opens her filthy Krogan mouth.

 

[Zhukov]

I'll fight you on this one, Zhukov.

Oh ho, buckle up Old Man Canada.

The game is flawed, but it is miles better than Inquisition.

Well yeah. Clipping one's toenails is miles better than Inquisition. It's hardly the highest of bars.

Andromeda feels to me like Inquisition with the bad bits toned down, but still present.

"Feedback indicates that players did not enjoy trekking across large inconsequential maps to perform a hundred checklist tasks while encountering aimless MMO-style clusters of hostiles."
"Very well. We shall have them drive a buggy across larger inconsequential maps to perform only a couple dozen checklist tasks while encountering aimless MMO-style clusters of hostiles!
"Brilliant!"

Yeah, it's technically an improvement. A bowlful of dogshit is preferable to a bucketful. The smaller portions don't improve the taste though.

I think the high visibility of many of the problems has been overshadowing some pretty solid/fun core game play.

Sure.

But I'm not just thinking about the facial animations (which are shit) or the graphical bugs (which are numerous).

The pacing is down the toilet because open worlds are now apparently required by law. (Fuck you Skyrim, fuuuuuuck yoooouuu!)

The characters are an insipid bunch.
Cora feels like a cross between Ashley (no-nonsense military lass) and Kaiden (oh my biotics woe is me).
Liam feels like a cross between James Vega and Jacob. God knows who thought that would be a winning combination. Apparently they couldn't decide which of Bioware's standard issue one-male-one-female-bangable initial companions to imitate so they just mashed them together.
PeeBee the oh-so-uninhibited-and-whacky-nerd-wish-fulfillment-fantasy is one stray fucking onii-chaaaaan away from making me throw up.
Drak is surface-level Wrex without any of the things that actually made Wrex compelling.
Jaal is a poor man's Javik.
Vetra is... umm... actually, Vetra's alright. 1/6. Gold star.

Maybe they get better later on. I'm not holding my breath. Besides, there's a 50/50 chance that any dramatic payoffs will be undermined when somebody turns and walks through a wall in mid conversation while Ryder directs a determined cross-eyed grimace into the middle distance.

The dialogue is often corny as fuck. God knows Bioware is no stranger to corn, ("The priiiize" etc etc) but they'd usually make up for it with charismatic characters with some solid arcs. Andromeda makes up for it by... occasionally being serviceable if I squint really, really hard. Hell, some of the dialogue feels out of place. Literally, as if someone got the lines out of order or the conversation was patched together out of recordings intended for a different purpose. The "My face is tired" exchange being the obvious example. That conversation actually made it through a multi-year development process.

Mining is back and is even more tedious than ME2. Now you get to aim probes while practicing your minibus reverse parking skills. Somewhere, someone thought that was actually a good idea.

The crafting system is simple (yay!) but somehow still requires a great deal of menu navigation (wtf?).

The galaxy map. Dear fucking God the galaxy map. Which fucking prize genius thought that people would enjoy slowly and unskippably panning between planets? Sure, it looks pretty, but I'm having trouble appreciating the space vistas while clawing at my own eyes in frustration.

Speaking of which, the interface is sluggish and the PC version is poorly ported.

Character creator is simultaneously both limited and difficult to wrestle a passable human face out of. I honestly couldn't tell how much of it was the creator itself and how much was the interface.

The weapons are a step down from the previous game. ME3 had nice, snappy guns that were, at least in my eyes, better than those in the vast majority of shooters. Andromeda has some okay guns and a massive pile of unsatisfying pew pew crap. Melee has gone from being decently satisfying to limp and clumsy.

Multiplayer is back and, to be fair, can offer some extremely repetitive fun. Right up until the host's connection lags out and I'm dumped unceremoniously back the the menu sans progress because apparently we've been transported back to fucking 2003. "Well", one might say, "Why not use the game's finely tuned matchmaking tools to find regionally compatible matches with favorable ping times?" To which I would reply, "I FUCKING WISH!"

Mics are set to open by default so I get to listen to every drooling dumbfuck on the planet yelling at their family while I fumble through the lousy interface trying to mute them.

Oh, and in five years they weren't able to come up with a single new game mode.

...

Phew.

On the plus side, the classless skills system is a boon. The planetside scenery is occasionally pretty enough to distract me from the fact that I'm going to have to slowly drive up every one of those mountains. Being able to look out the windows of your ship is really nice. The freedom of movement is nice. Combat is pretty good when enemies aren't getting frozen or phasing into the fucking grou... ahem.

Should have been a new IP. I hope it fails horribly.

 

[AD-Stu]

I'm an unabashed fanboy of the original trilogy so take this with a grain of salt, but I'm about 40-odd hours / two post-Habitat 7 worlds completed and on the whole I'm loving the game. Among other things, I like that they've really managed to make the galaxy and the worlds feel BIG. And so far it feels like there's a lot to do inside all that bigness. My biggest non-ending gripe with ME3 was probably that we finally got to visit places like Thessia or Sur'kesh but we never feel like we really WENT there outside of the one building we got to visit. Get very much the opposite feeling here.

The combat is pretty decent, the whole thing is goregous to look at, no complaints about the story so far... so far so good (with a few wait-and-see caveats, see below). Plus jetpacks. They're awesome. How were they not a thing before.

There are a HEAP of minor irritations though:

- Inverting Y-axis for vehicles for some reason ALSO inverts Y-axis for map screens and scanning. Why?!?
- Codex showing the "new entry" icon when it's added new info to an existing entry... but it doesn't mark which one it's updated
- Having to manually change shoulder camera. I guess it's nice to have the option, and it doesn't come up often, but was it really necessary to MAKE us do it? It's worked fine automated in every other game in the series, and in every other cover-based shooter I've ever played
- The way enemies just stand there stupidly and ignore you until you get super close or fire at them. I get it for random wildlife but if I pull up close enough to fire at a group of kett, and they're close enough to fire at me, why were they just standing there with their thumbs up their butts?
- I quite like the Nomad, but why couldn't it have had guns? I get it might have made the combat too easy but still
- There was a human exchange program in the asari commandos?!? Why was this never mentioned before?
- You're going 600+ years across dark space, likely having to live in the spaceships you travelled in for quite some time... and you didn't bring a single quarian with you?!? I know, they're not a council race and I know, there's some story somewhere that a quarian ark will follow at a later stage, but come on. Keeping spaceships you live on running with limited resources is WHAT THEY DO, you'd think at least a few of them would have come in handy.

Jury is still out for me on the overall story elements cause I'm not finished yet and don't know where they're going with it all. Nexus = Citadel I'm broadly speaking OK with, it makes sense in universe. Tempest = Normandy is fine, you were always gonna have a spaceship. The Scourge? Interesting idea so far, wondering where they'll go with it. Alien tech lying around that nobody understands though... that one worries me as a retread of the previous games that maybe didn't need to happen. Again, interested to see where they go with it.

 

[meiam]

Maybe they get better later on. I'm not holding my breath. Besides, there's a 50/50 chance that any dramatic payoffs will be undermined when somebody turns and walks through a wall in mid conversation while Ryder directs a determined cross-eyed grimace into the middle distance.

At the start of the game, Ryder Sr. is making a big speech about how he choose everyone "cause there dreamer" and Cora is actually standing facing away from him, I'm thinking "oh cool, that's going to come up later, maybe some sort of animosity between the two, or she didn't like his selection method" and then a random NPC walk trough her, and everyone get on the shuttle and leave while she's still standing there, immobile... yeah, it'll happen.

Oh and I'll double down on the galaxy map, having the constant animation between planet is just... and blowing, really can't believe no one pointed out how it would get old exactly after 1 time, yet you have to do hundreds of times... One of those "I hope someone lost there job for that" moment.

 

[pookie101]

played it a bit more and its missing something.. like it doesnt feel like a mass effect game with so much removed