ME: Andromeda: A Postmortem

[AD-Stu]

I liked the game a lot - it had a heap of irritating bugs and unpolished edges and everything, but so did all the original games when you look back at them. I know, ME1 was 10 years ago, things are supposed to be better now, but still.

People forget that a lot of the squadmate conversations in ME1 were just exposition and world building dumps, for example - Tali in particular was a massive victim of this. You learn a LOT about the quarian race from talking to her, but not a whole lot about Tali herself. And basically everyone aside from Kaidan is defined by their daddy issues.

We get to look back at ME1 as part of the whole OT though, so a lot of that gets forgotten - instead we remember what we learned about across all three games.

So the problem I have judging Andromeda right now is that it's clearly only meant to be the beginning of another story. If we get to spend further games with these characters, learn more about them and the galaxy they're in, we'll probably look back at them differently. I guess it's very up in the air as to whether we'll ever get that chance now though.

The OT definitely had a tighter story and better pacing, especially 1 and 3 (2 was a fun but largely pointless diversion if you think about it). I kinda didn't mind that Andromeda was a lot more open ended though: "explore and make a home in a new galaxy" is a pretty open-ended mission, after all.

Think about it too, how many people were excited that they were finally going to get to "go to" Sur'kesh and Thessia in ME3, and then felt let down that you only really spent 45 minutes at each, never to return, and all you really saw were a couple of buildings? I know I did. At least with Andromeda I feel like I've actually "been" to the planets in question.

Anywho. Deeply flawed game, but the same could be said about each of the three OT games too.

This was a throw away game, just made to make a quick buck for EA. All I can say is EA never really made a true attempt to make a Mass Effect game. Instead they made something they thought would pass off as "good enough", and hoped the public would buy it like crazy. It did not work, it seems because people are actually smarter then they thought , and noticed the problems.

EA's new game coming out in 2019 better be something good because another flop like this will really hurt them.

You can rightly accuse EA of a lot of things - but I don't know if viewing this as just a "throw away game" was one of them. They funded its development for five years and by all accounts gave it a AAA budget.

No doubt EA caused some of the problems with the project, but this wasn't one of them IMO.

 

[jedisensei]

This context may be unnecessary, but know that I played through the Mass Effect trilogy a full dozen times and then some, and reached the top 1% in the worldwide leaderboards on ME3 multiplayer (after 600+ hrs); it should go without saying that I love me some Mass Effect.

And I did not love this game. That to me may be the most disappointing thing about it; I can't heartily recommend anyone play Andromeda, even Mass Effect fans, and certainly not without a long list of caveats and grievances.

The game is rife with baffling and often frustrating or inexplicable design decisions:
The class restrictions have been removed.
The Paragon/Renegade system has been removed.
The ability to control squad powers has been removed.
The ability to save at any non-combat/dialogue moment has been removed.
The autosave points are maddeningly inconsistent and far between.
The inventory management system of ME1 -- particularly size limit -- has been reinstated.
The GUI was both cumbersome and lacking (on the PC; not sure about consoles).
None of these I find totally damning, and even the whole might at worst have you wondering "why the change/omission?" but some of the poor execution is especially galling considering they've had years to make improvements, yet didn't...or reverted to something worse.

The problems didn't stop there, however. The game was technically plagued also, from well-documented and all too common bugs, crashes and glitches -- sometimes gamebreaking -- to overall strangeness (for obvious eg. the custom character animation jankiness). This is without critiquing the game as narrative, either...

I could go on with my rather lengthy laundry list, but if I could circle, highlight and underline three times my biggest gripe, it is a single word: PACING .

The pacing this game displays in both narrative and gameplay is straight off-kilter. From the frequent flow-breaking intrusions around each corner to the level-scaling, bullet-sponge enemies (on hardcore+), to the overlong stretching of flimsy sidequests to the scores of 'fetch-quests and collect-a-thons" amassing after each thrilling story-related event...the central threat ends up feeling like an afterthought among the assorted tasks in the Pathfinder's inbox. "Make colonies, do their chores, figure out what's up with boneheaded Space-Hitler, maybe."

The 'gravitas' in other words is ...different... than we are used to in a Mass Effect game.

I suppose that comes with the territory ? juxtaposing the things Ryder must do to the things Shapard must do. In this, Andromeda suffers most greatly: with the OT as a baseline, 'finding or making a new home' somehow feels less urgent and imperative than does 'hopelessly facing down the Reaper's barrel of extinction.' ME: Andromeda simply cannot escape the shadow of its predecessors, nor hope to eclipse it.

I finally finished Andromeda after 100+ hrs (and only 97% complete, fucking glitches) and about the best analogy I can apply to it is ?it?s the Force Awakens of Mass Effect? ? a game more about Mass Effect than it is a Mass Effect game. A game that pays homage (rather blatantly at times) to its sources moreso than one that carries their torches.

So can Andromeda hold a candle to the Mass Effect trilogy? Sure, but expect a lot of flickering...

 

[Casual Shinji]

And really, the writing being less subtle and effective than that of Mass Effect is hardly a damning statement. Very few games are as well-written as the ME trilogy, and if this one cannot escape being compared to its predecessors, then we can at least try not to write it off completely for being less than the best.

The most damning statement is that it was just going through the motions. This includes the writing.

This may sound silly, but just because it wasn't a terrible game doesn't mean it wasn't terrible. It felt like Bioware not giving a fuck and just churning out a Mass Effect to keep the brand name alive. We have the same characters; your Liara stand-in, your Wrex stand-in, your Garrus stand-in. We have the most generic of villains with just a bunch of bones on their faces, because why be creative in any way. We have another plot about ancient advanced technology and I could go on.

The previous Mass Effect games had problems, but it had its heart and set-up in the right place. Even the pile of slaughterhouse waste that was Mass Effect 3 had some moments of greatness.

And after the shit state that they left the franchise in Bioware had to bring their A-game. And they decided not to, they decided to just make a teppid copy of what we liked about the original trilogy and called it a day, never at any point trying to think outside of the box, or galaxy in this case.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

For me it was just "ok". and to be honest, that's worse than being bad. At least a bad game you will remember.

 

[wulf3n]

The previous Mass Effect games had problems, but it had its heart and set-up in the right place.

The first Mass effect perhaps, I'm still not convinced about the other two.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

What about the game's technical issues, how are they now compared to launch?

 

[votemarvel]

And to be fair a lot of the "criticisms" were exaggerated for comic effect. I mean the animations aren't great but if you tell me that they were worse than ME1 (as quite a few did) then you're either joking or don't understand animation at all.

Mass Effect is far more consistent.

While it may never reach Andromeda's highs of animation, it also never hits its lows. That I think it why Andromeda gets hit worse.

I think an apt post-mortem would be that Mass Effect: Andromeda is a decent to good game that was sunk by the extremely high expectations that were attached to it by its brand name. A lot of rose coloured glasses were worn and people expect that characters which we saw grow through up to three games would be matched by their successors.

I'm currently halfway though a run of the original trilogy and I can't say I agree.

Even after 10 years, in the case of ME1, I still find myself wanting to know more about the characters in these games.

I've played 15 hours of Andromeda and feel no desire to play on. The only character I can honestly say I've enjoyed interacting with has been the engineer, Gil. The conversation where you try to hit on him as female Ryder is honestly hilarious.

The Nomad exploration is no better than the Mako. Sure it drives better but there's no more content in the worlds I've landed on than in the first game. It's Bethesda syndrome, the amount of content doesn't support the size of the worlds. It feels like a chore to get from point A to B.

Oddly though I don't think Andromeda is a bad game, in fact there is something great hidden under the surface, I just don't find what we can actually experience to be compelling.

Usually I only give games five hours to grab and pull me in, that I've stuck with Andromeda for 15 speaks to my love of the franchise.

Bioware need to take a step back now and decide what type of games they want to make. They seem to be trying to make everyone happy and that's just leading them into mediocrity.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

Honestly, after playing through Mass Effect: Andromeda, I just have to say... they really should've just made it a new IP instead. As a game it's not that bad - the writing's a bit piss-poor sometimes and the characters aren't the most endearing, but the combat is pretty fun to mess around with and when the graphics does work it's actually quite well put together.

It's just... not a good Mass Effect game. There's no... connection to anything. No expansion or exploration of the lore. The 'Mass Effect' part of the game is just weakly stapled on, which really hurts the game since it keeps trying to do it's own thing with the Andromeda stuff but has to stop every five minutes to throw an Asari at our face just in case we forgot we were playing a Mass Effect game. It's a shame since if it'd been given it's own room to explore the new stuff could've been pretty interesting, but as it is it all just comes across as shallow and generic, because instead of getting into any of it we needed more scenes of a Krogan being a generic badass, I guess.

Also sweet jesus almighty, where there too many sidequests. I thought Dragon Age: Inquisition had a few too many to be comfortable, but fuck me did ME:A put that thought to shame.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

And really, the writing being less subtle and effective than that of Mass Effect is hardly a damning statement. Very few games are as well-written as the ME trilogy, and if this one cannot escape being compared to its predecessors, then we can at least try not to write it off completely for being less than the best.

The most damning statement is that it was just going through the motions. This includes the writing.

This may sound silly, but just because it wasn't a terrible game doesn't mean it wasn't terrible. It felt like Bioware not giving a fuck and just churning out a Mass Effect to keep the brand name alive. We have the same characters; your Liara stand-in, your Wrex stand-in, your Garrus stand-in. We have the most generic of villains with just a bunch of bones on their faces, because why be creative in any way. We have another plot about ancient advanced technology and I could go on.

The previous Mass Effect games had problems, but it had its heart and set-up in the right place. Even the pile of slaughterhouse waste that was Mass Effect 3 had some moments of greatness.

And after the shit state that they left the franchise in Bioware had to bring their A-game. And they decided not to, they decided to just make a teppid copy of what we liked about the original trilogy and called it a day, never at any point trying to think outside of the box, or galaxy in this case.

You know, I can't argue with that. I mean, I could argue that maybe EA wasn't entirely cynical when approaching this game, but there's no way for either of us to know for sure. And I could argue that their intentions don't matter, all that matters is whether the game they delivered is good or not. But that's how I feel, I can't say you're wrong that you feel this game was a cash grab and that this was an overriding flaw in the experience. I'm just glad that doesn't happen to bother me, and didn't hurt my enjoyment.

I liked the game a lot - it had a heap of irritating bugs and unpolished edges and everything, but so did all the original games when you look back at them. I know, ME1 was 10 years ago, things are supposed to be better now, but still.

People forget that a lot of the squadmate conversations in ME1 were just exposition and world building dumps, for example - Tali in particular was a massive victim of this. You learn a LOT about the quarian race from talking to her, but not a whole lot about Tali herself. And basically everyone aside from Kaidan is defined by their daddy issues.

We get to look back at ME1 as part of the whole OT though, so a lot of that gets forgotten - instead we remember what we learned about across all three games.

So the problem I have judging Andromeda right now is that it's clearly only meant to be the beginning of another story. If we get to spend further games with these characters, learn more about them and the galaxy they're in, we'll probably look back at them differently. I guess it's very up in the air as to whether we'll ever get that chance now though.

That's what I've said, that we actually got more companion development in this game than in ME1, and that's partly because ME1 had to set up a whole galaxy, and each squadmate had to represent an entire new species to the player. Andromeda got to lean on the trilogy for that exposition, and also happens to be a much longer game with more room to expand on character.

If we don't ever get a continuation of this story though that will be a damn shame, because there is way too much set up for sequels to leave it hanging. ME1 had a perfectly self-contained story while leaving a big fat sequel hook, but Andromeda has tons of unfinished business. And loose ends make my ass itch.

Honestly, after playing through Mass Effect: Andromeda, I just have to say... they really should've just made it a new IP instead. As a game it's not that bad - the writing's a bit piss-poor sometimes and the characters aren't the most endearing, but the combat is pretty fun to mess around with and when the graphics does work it's actually quite well put together.

It's just... not a good Mass Effect game. There's no... connection to anything. No expansion or exploration of the lore. The 'Mass Effect' part of the game is just weakly stapled on, which really hurts the game since it keeps trying to do it's own thing with the Andromeda stuff but has to stop every five minutes to throw an Asari at our face just in case we forgot we were playing a Mass Effect game. It's a shame since if it'd been given it's own room to explore the new stuff could've been pretty interesting, but as it is it all just comes across as shallow and generic, because instead of getting into any of it we needed more scenes of a Krogan being a generic badass, I guess.

Also sweet jesus almighty, where there too many sidequests. I thought Dragon Age: Inquisition had a few too many to be comfortable, but fuck me did ME:A put that thought to shame.

You might be right. A new IP would have been able to go to a lot of places a Mass Effect game can't. But if it was a new IP, people would still be piling on it for being unoriginal. "Oh, what do you know, a sci-fi space exploration RPG/shooter by Bioware, they're really flexing their creativity, aren't they? [/sarcasm]." At least as a ME game it didn't have to build another world from scratch and try to do a bunch of new things to try to set itself apart from the Trilogy. And I suppose trying to continue the IP at all is a questionable goal, but I personally didn't feel like it was held back that much by that. Bioware's patented character archetypes may be getting stale, but they still find ways to keep me intrigued by some of them at least.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

To start off, I do want to say Mass Effect: Andromeda, is my least favorite Mass Effect game.

That's not because I think it's a bad game, mind you. I enjoy the combat arguably more than any other Mass Effect game. The feeling of dashing around the battlefield with jets, going from cover to cover, is done pretty dang well. I also like most of the characters. They don't hit the highs of Garrus or Tali, but they are all better than the likes of Jacob, King of the Bland.

I hear a lot of criticism towards the characterization, and I have to say that I disagree. None of the party members felt one-note to me, nor were they direct copies of Mass Effect 1-3 characters.

Spoiler: My Defense of ME:A's Characters

Let's look at Vetra, for example. Sure, Vetra is willing to do dirty things for good reasons, and you can compare her to Garrus in that way. However, Vetra comes off a fair bit gentler than Garrus, as shown by the fact that her email to you after your first conversation basically says "If you don't want me to do something, just tell me, and I won't do it." Contrast with Garrus, who was introduced to us by clashing with his superior officer because Executor Pallin was pulling him off the case with Saren, despite Garrus feeling he was close to something. Even throughout much of ME1 and 2, Garrus is driven by the fact that he believes getting the job done is what matters, not how you do it.

I'm not saying that you can't make comparisons between ME1-3 characters and ME:A characters. My point is that saying, say, Vetra is just a rip-off of Garrus is ignoring some rather important bits of Vetra's character, especially Vetra's devotion to Sid, her sister. That dynamic, especially, is something missing in much of the ME1-3 cast. I mean, you get a little bit of Ashley and her sisters, and pretty much everyone has issues with their father. But beyond that, all the Mass Effect 1-3 characters feel like they are in a vacuum, with all their connections being limited to the Normandy.

With Mass Effect: Andromeda, I really felt like there were characters who had connections outside of the Tempest. Vetra has her sister, which drives a lot of her actions, and Drack has his granddaughter, which also drives a lot of his actions. Gil has Jill (for better of for worse), a good friend who has some influence over him. Jaal has his entire family. Peebee has her ex-girlfriend, even if she wants to deny the impact that she had. Cora has Cerissa, her mentor who influenced a lot of her ways of thinking. Liam's just about the only party member who doesn't seem to have an outside character that shaped them into who they are.

Now, if you want to say you didn't like the characters in Mass Effect: Andromeda, that's an entirely different argument or debate, and one I've had (personally, I couldn't stand Director Tann). But I feel it's overly dismissive to just say the characters are exact copies of ME 1-3 characters, or have no characterization beyond what is needed for a scene or joke.

Now, the problem with ME:A is that it's coming after the Mass Effect Trilogy. It had a lot to live up to, and even after avoiding the hype train for ME:A, I was still super excited about it because of how much I love the original trilogy. That is the biggest problem, for me. It doesn't live up to what it is promising. That, and the facial animations are admittedly quite bad. The story itself is pretty standard. Which would be fine, if it wasn't coming after the epic space opera of the Mass Effect Trilogy.

 

[hermes]

To me, the main issue is that the game is generic and unimaginative, and with a setting like "they go to an entirely different galaxy", being formulaic and restraint is the worst they could be. It had a lot of potential and it used almost none of it.

What do I mean by that? In ME:A, they go to a different galaxy, yet there are almost no new races. The only exceptions are a local race you encounter midway in the game, the evil galactic empire ruled by supremacists and surrounded in mystery for most of the game, and the ancient alien race no one knows much about.

Add to it that you hardly interact with any of them. Humans (and other milky way inhabitants) had been there for maybe 15 years, but they have spread enough that most of the quest givers and antagonists with dialogue options are humans. There are some aliens here and there, and on story relevant quests there are some supremacists, but if you have to deal with some separatists or raiders, chances are there are a lot of humans among them.

And then there is the issue of the protagonist. Remember the issue of the extinct ancient alien race no one seems to know much about? (stop me if you heard this one before but...) They left some highly advanced technology behind that no one in the galaxy knows how to use, except our protagonist, for some reason. That comes as a surprise to everyone around, and makes him/her the most important person in the setting, which is good luck because this galaxy is so full of the same complete lack of agency as the last one. Despite the proliferation of non-Andromeda species exploring systems or being exiled to several corners of the galaxy, it is up to you to make first contact with everything, to investigate every new lifeform or explore the ruins of every ancient race settlement.

Of course, all this is shoehorned between ME games so, even when at the verge of galactic wide extinction, with your characters having bureaucratic superpowers and the support of a powerful secret organization, no one noticed that a lot of resources and some of the most remarkable people not named Shepard were being diverted to building a set of intergalactic Noah's arks (the Bioshock 2 clause). How remarkable? Remarkable enough that most of the project is being supported on your father's reputation alone.

I am describing it from what I talked about with other people that played the game (some liked it, some didn't), so I can't be sure if it improves. But what I heard so far makes me very uninterested in this continuation. Setting the issues with 3's ending aside, it had such finality to almost every thread of the story that I am choosing to see ME as a trilogy in my head's canon.

 

[Morti]

Liam's just about the only party member who doesn't seem to have an outside character that shaped them into who they are.

Which is used as much in his characters as the others have their "outside infuenced" used in theirs. Where others are spending a notable amount of care on the those away from the Tempest, Liam doesn't have that and so turns his attention inward, to those in his immediate vacinity. Movie night, signing every email with relevant movie recomendations, strip... whatever that was... with Jaal, everything is about bonding with those around him.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

Liam's just about the only party member who doesn't seem to have an outside character that shaped them into who they are.

Which is used as much in his characters as the others have their "outside infuenced" used in theirs. Where others are spending a notable amount of care on the those away from the Tempest, Liam doesn't have that and so turns his attention inward, to those in his immediate vacinity. Movie night, signing every email with relevant movie recomendations, strip... whatever that was... with Jaal, everything is about bonding with those around him.

You make a very good point. Of course, Liam's not always the best at bonding with those around him, as seen whenever he interacts with Vetra, but it would be boring if he got along with everyone.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

Liam's just about the only party member who doesn't seem to have an outside character that shaped them into who they are.

Which is used as much in his characters as the others have their "outside infuenced" used in theirs. Where others are spending a notable amount of care on the those away from the Tempest, Liam doesn't have that and so turns his attention inward, to those in his immediate vacinity. Movie night, signing every email with relevant movie recomendations, strip... whatever that was... with Jaal, everything is about bonding with those around him.

You make a very good point. Of course, Liam's not always the best at bonding with those around him, as seen whenever he interacts with Vetra, but it would be boring if he got along with everyone.

Yeah, this kind of thing is one of the aspects I really appreciate about Andromeda. ME3 tried a little bit to show the crew interacting with each other, which is good, but ME:A really does make it clear that Ryder is not the center of everyone's lives. Kallo's conversations with Suvi on the bridge and his continuing problems with Gil, Jaal trying to educate the crew on his language and culture, Peebee sometimes being a nosey sneak and antagonizing Lexi, the huge amount of back and forth between squadmates during trips in the Nomad; this all contributed so much to feeling like I was part of a team of individuals, rather than being every person's best friend and the only important thing on the ship. Andromeda just seems to have, if not better characters, then more complete characters around the PC than the other games.

 

[Lilani]

Re: Companions

I liked Miranda exactly because she was a total ***** with all sorts of character flaws despite her pretense to perfection (like her overconfidence in her abilities leading directly to screwups if you listened to her, i wish there was options to slap her after those for messing up so badly and even getting other companions killed xD). I don't need all my companions to be virtuous paladins, it's nice to have an unpleasant character companion choice.

The real crime in a companion is being utterly boring and bland, and that's where Jacob and Ash/Kaiden tend to come in short.

Otherwise as someone who still ain't played ME:A and in all likelihood won't for a long time, interesting enough read.
It's nice to see impressions from someone who liked the game but a fair few lines just indicates to me we have greatly differing tastes (having conversation choices being one and clearly ME:A drops the ball in that regard) so I'm happpy to wait until it starts going on sale for super cheap, ideally waiting until the full new trilogy is released so I get word on if it's worth bothering with.

I gotta agree with this assessment on companions. I didn't like Miranda too much as a character (though I sympathized with her more after her story missions), but at least she made me feel something. She didn't feel like a placeholder. Jacob, Ashley, and Kaiden all feel utterly lifeless. I sacrificed Ashley on Virmire only because he was a racist *****, but even then I knew she was just the other side of the coin from Kaiden's kiss-ass shtick. Jacob got a little bit of life from his loyalty mission, but I did that mission to ensure the best possible outcome at the end, not because I was actually interested in helping him. Unlike Jack, Mordin, Grunt, Samara, Garrus, Legion and the rest who I was clamoring to help and learn more about.

 

[Dragonbums]

Nobody's crazy for liking anything. (Except maybe some sick shit.)

But acting like you liking something translates to it being of quality and everyone complaining were wrong to do so is obnoxious. Which was the content of your original post in the other thread.

My actual issue I mentioned in the other thread is that the game was buried before it was even finished. I can't count how many posts I saw declaring it the death of Bioware (as if we hadn't heard that before) and that it was an unmitigated garbage fire, without even playing the damn game! It was really aggravating. Maybe I came across condescending but I am legitimately annoyed at how we treated this game.

Not only that but hating on it became a meme in and of itself to the point where it often wasn't even about the games quality.

And to be fair a lot of the "criticisms" were exaggerated for comic effect. I mean the animations aren't great but if you tell me that they were worse than ME1 (as quite a few did) then you're either joking or don't understand animation at all.

Sorry dude but it was. I don't understand why people insist the animation was acceptable. It didn't​ even meet the standards of the previous game, yet alone the standards of the first game.

While obviously the first game had outdated tech such as texture rendering, the minor animation and facial quirks were more refined than ME:A

 

[AD-Stu]

To me, the main issue is that the game is generic and unimaginative, and with a setting like "they go to an entirely different galaxy", being formulaic and restraint is the worst they could be. It had a lot of potential and it used almost none of it.

What do I mean by that? In ME:A, they go to a different galaxy, yet there are almost no new races. The only exceptions are a local race you encounter midway in the game, the evil galactic empire ruled by supremacists and surrounded in mystery for most of the game, and the ancient alien race no one knows much about.

I know exactly what you're getting at there, and I agree to an extent.

I'm a little bit inclined to give them a pass on the lack of alien races thing, for a couple of reasons. One is that we just don't know enough about the universe yet: the Remnant/Jaardan are MIA aside from the machines they left behind, and the presence of the Scourge suggests some kind of war or extinction-level event or something. Or it's possible the kett assimilated the other species.
They might have an in-universe reason is what I'm saying... though who knows what our chances are of actually getting the answers.

The second is that, if I've understood correctly, Andromeda takes place in a much smaller area of space than the OT. The OT spanned the entire Milky Way galaxy, whereas Andromeda only happens in a single cluster (since there's no mass relays facilitating longer distance travel). If we think about the OT and there being maybe a dozen or so sentient species, having a lesser number in just one cluster feels plausible.

But would more species have been cool? Yes, absolutely.

One thing I was disappointed by was that many of the worlds didn't feel particularly "alien" - Havaarl and Habitat 7 did, but everything else felt pretty familiar. Though now that I think about it, that feels about right too. Think about all the worlds we saw in the OT, or in pretty much any other work of science fiction, and they all look pretty familiar. There might even be a valid scientific reason for that (planets that support life need to have certain things in common, etc). Having three of the five worlds you spend the most time on all being variations on brown/beige deserts was definitely disappointing though.

 

[Redryhno]

I gotta agree with this assessment on companions. I didn't like Miranda too much as a character (though I sympathized with her more after her story missions), but at least she made me feel something. She didn't feel like a placeholder. Jacob, Ashley, and Kaiden all feel utterly lifeless. I sacrificed Ashley on Virmire only because he was a racist *****, but even then I knew she was just the other side of the coin from Kaiden's kiss-ass shtick. Jacob got a little bit of life from his loyalty mission, but I did that mission to ensure the best possible outcome at the end, not because I was actually interested in helping him. Unlike Jack, Mordin, Grunt, Samara, Garrus, Legion and the rest who I was clamoring to help and learn more about.

I've never understood how people can boil Ash down to "racist *****". Pretty much everything she talked about with aliens ended up happening. The Council didn't believe anything Shepard told them(understandable to a point), had their own race's interests far above Humans even after they joined the Council, and really had no interest in anything beyond Council space even if it was affecting them. Honestly my only real gripe about her is the pink jumpsuit, but you can get that for Shepard in-game too and swap it out pretty early on. Also her graphical upgrade in 3, I really dislike her giant shiny lips and her hair going from military to model.

Not to mention she talks quite a bit about the actual racist human political party in less than flattering terms(like, she says they might've been founded with good intentions, but they have nothing to do with the current iteration of it all), and even has her own dialogue if you have her in your team when you run into them on the Citadel...I mean, if she's a racist, she's pretty damn bad at it. I mean, Miranda, Jacob, Kaiden, they all say similar things in that Humanity is going at it alone, even if they've got a handful of alien allies here and there, and nobody's ever called them racist.

Just never got that accusation is all.

I know exactly what you're getting at there, and I agree to an extent.

I'm a little bit inclined to give them a pass on the lack of alien races thing, for a couple of reasons. One is that we just don't know enough about the universe yet: the Remnant/Jaardan are MIA aside from the machines they left behind, and the presence of the Scourge suggests some kind of war or extinction-level event or something. Or it's possible the kett assimilated the other species.
They might have an in-universe reason is what I'm saying... though who knows what our chances are of actually getting the answers.

The second is that, if I've understood correctly, Andromeda takes place in a much smaller area of space than the OT. The OT spanned the entire Milky Way galaxy, whereas Andromeda only happens in a single cluster (since there's no mass relays facilitating longer distance travel). If we think about the OT and there being maybe a dozen or so sentient species, having a lesser number in just one cluster feels plausible.

But would more species have been cool? Yes, absolutely.

One thing I was disappointed by was that many of the worlds didn't feel particularly "alien" - Havaarl and Habitat 7 did, but everything else felt pretty familiar. Though now that I think about it, that feels about right too. Think about all the worlds we saw in the OT, or in pretty much any other work of science fiction, and they all look pretty familiar. There might even be a valid scientific reason for that (planets that support life need to have certain things in common, etc). Having three of the five worlds you spend the most time on all being variations on brown/beige deserts was definitely disappointing though.

The problem I have with giving them a pass is that, sure, it's a small cluster and they're just starting a new story, but there's no real interesting things that the Angaran and Kett have biologically or culturally. The Angaran may as well dress up in ripped fishnets and bikinis and the Kett are just the Turians and Krogan smashed together. Not to say that the OT was completely original in terms of alien design and evolution, but it at least spent alot of time introducing you to multiple members of the species as side characers.

It's like the new Star Wars, Rey may indeed be some kind of amnesiac prodigy, but the only indications before her amazing feats are that she's a scavenger on NOT!Tattooine. Which accounts for some things to a point, but doesn't explain in-movie why she can just pick up a lightsaber, something that's been confirmed and implied in-universe as something that requires training from an early age to even be moderately proficient in, or how she goes from flight sims to actual piloting, I mean, even in real life, the Air Force has quite a bit of extra training after flight training. It's not like they just go from Flight 101 to trying out for the Blue Angels. If they'd had it be something that was constantly be questioned, either the audience themselves or even through looks on the character's faces, I would've accepted it as something that is acknowledged and wait for the next movie, but it was just sorta plopped in there and turned into a "we're gonna answer it as we go" kind of thing.

There may well be more species involved in this anti-Kett revolution, but there's not even a hint of them in pretty much any of the various notepads and fluff scattered around. For me to accept that there's actually more, they need to tease these things before they show up, even if it's only through names and "but you aren't Angaran" type comments.

But I'm sorta there with you on the life support planets, it's just that even when compared to ME2, you had Illium, which is basically just a big city, Tuchanka which is a post-apocalyptic bag of ruins, and various ships that all had their own personality, from the Normandy to the Quarian fleet, to the various space stations, which even then, had distinct layouts and props scattered around them to differentiate the places inside from one another.

Also not locking classes, that's sorta one of those things I have a personal pet peeve about when it comes to class systems. It's one thing if everyone can just equip different stuff and get different abilities, but Ryder can just swap and everyone else is stuck with what they are. It's not interesting if you can just change your abilities on the fly. Really takes out alot of the "punishment" of choosing classes at certain points.

 

[AD-Stu]

I've never understood how people can boil Ash down to "racist *****". Pretty much everything she talked about with aliens ended up happening. The Council didn't believe anything Shepard told them(understandable to a point), had their own race's interests far above Humans even after they joined the Council, and really had no interest in anything beyond Council space even if it was affecting them. Honestly my only real gripe about her is the pink jumpsuit, but you can get that for Shepard in-game too and swap it out pretty early on. Also her graphical upgrade in 3, I really dislike her giant shiny lips and her hair going from military to model.

Not to mention she talks quite a bit about the actual racist human political party in less than flattering terms(like, she says they might've been founded with good intentions, but they have nothing to do with the current iteration of it all), and even has her own dialogue if you have her in your team when you run into them on the Citadel...I mean, if she's a racist, she's pretty damn bad at it. I mean, Miranda, Jacob, Kaiden, they all say similar things in that Humanity is going at it alone, even if they've got a handful of alien allies here and there, and nobody's ever called them racist.

Just never got that accusation is all.

I've always thought it was unfair to just label Ashley as the "space racist" and leave it at that, there's definitely more to her character. But she is kind of a space-racist when it boils down to it. Not as bad as Cerberus, but still kind of a space racist.

Actually as far as ME1 goes, I think it's the Council that gets shafted the most, both by the script and the fandom. If you think about it, and think in particular about what the Council knows and has had proven to them, not just stuff that we know because we saw it happen on screen while we were playing the game, pretty much everything the Council does in ME1 is sensible and logical.

Udina asking them to send a fleet to find Saren? That was patently stupid, they were right to turn him down. Not taking immediate action based on Shepard's visions? Also 100% defensible - Saren was right, they can't allow dreams into evidence

The problem I have with giving them a pass is that, sure, it's a small cluster and they're just starting a new story, but there's no real interesting things that the Angaran and Kett have biologically or culturally. The Angaran may as well dress up in ripped fishnets and bikinis and the Kett are just the Turians and Krogan smashed together. Not to say that the OT was completely original in terms of alien design and evolution, but it at least spent alot of time introducing you to multiple members of the species as side characers.

It's like the new Star Wars, Rey may indeed be some kind of amnesiac prodigy, but the only indications before her amazing feats are that she's a scavenger on NOT!Tattooine. Which accounts for some things to a point, but doesn't explain in-movie why she can just pick up a lightsaber, something that's been confirmed and implied in-universe as something that requires training from an early age to even be moderately proficient in, or how she goes from flight sims to actual piloting, I mean, even in real life, the Air Force has quite a bit of extra training after flight training. It's not like they just go from Flight 101 to trying out for the Blue Angels. If they'd had it be something that was constantly be questioned, either the audience themselves or even through looks on the character's faces, I would've accepted it as something that is acknowledged and wait for the next movie, but it was just sorta plopped in there and turned into a "we're gonna answer it as we go" kind of thing.

There may well be more species involved in this anti-Kett revolution, but there's not even a hint of them in pretty much any of the various notepads and fluff scattered around. For me to accept that there's actually more, they need to tease these things before they show up, even if it's only through names and "but you aren't Angaran" type comments.

But I'm sorta there with you on the life support planets, it's just that even when compared to ME2, you had Illium, which is basically just a big city, Tuchanka which is a post-apocalyptic bag of ruins, and various ships that all had their own personality, from the Normandy to the Quarian fleet, to the various space stations, which even then, had distinct layouts and props scattered around them to differentiate the places inside from one another.

As far as the Star Wars stuff goes, they can just hand-wave that away with "the Force did it" because while Star Wars has always been set in space, it's also the prototypical space opera: it's never been hard sci-fi, where that kind of stuff matters.

What I find interesting in relation to Mass Effect is that it started out as hard sci-fi in ME1 (the existence of eezo and the way everything from FTL travel to space magic is built around it). But then ME2 and 3 blurred the lines much more towards space opera. I got the impression that with Andromeda they were trying very hard to get back to the hard sci-fi roots of the first game. Andromeda felt more like Star Trek: Voyager (or even Battlestar Galactica) than Star Wars to me.

Anywho, as far as there being nothing interesting about the angara or the kett I guess mileage varies greatly. The angara having being created by the jardaan, and somehow having biological control over electricity seemed pretty interesting to me. And the kett seemed sufficiently strange and alien and threatening and mysterious, even if they disappeared for chunks of the game (depending on what order you did the missions) and they seem to conceptually be borrowing heavily from both the Borg and the Reapers.

There were other species mentioned that have already been assimilated by the kett, by the way: the Eealen, Sirinde and Thusali. They're never seen though, only mentioned in passing as "kett vassal races". Basic suggestion was they WERE involved in the resistance against the kett, and the lost.