Full Breakdown of Mass Effect: Andromeda
Is it the steaming pile of garbage that emotional gamers insist? Not really. The animations aren’t great, but they’re also not that much worse than Bioware’s other titles. Too much attention is being put on the animations, which distracts everyone from Andromeda’s more serious downfalls — the story and a large number of game mechanics.
Strengths
The combat system in Andromeda is probably the best in the series, blending all the strengths from previous titles. You’ve got the fluidity from ME3, the difficulty and brutality of ME2, and the classic cover system of the very first game. Also returning — at least as an optional mechanic — are the ammo-less guns from the first game. I really liked the thermal cooldown weapons. It helped set the series apart from other macho shooters on the market. To this end, multiplayer is a fairly solid experience. Provided you don’t encounter any connection issues.
The game’s general atmosphere is also really cool at first. It really feels like a spiritual successor to the first game in the series. I was genuinely eager to explore new worlds and get into mischief in the middle of nowhere. The soundtrack is a throwback, too — bringing back the synth-y science fiction vibe instead of the epic symphonic tracks that dominated the previous two games. The eagerness to explore, however, does wear off after a while.
Weaknesses – Game Mechanics
Lessons were not learned from Dragon Age: Inquisition. The maps are huge, but they’re also mostly empty and predictable. The game maintains a lot of structure from Inquisition — from setting up forward camps, to acquiring “Nexus perks,” to collecting minerals, to fighting with mobs that eternally respawn in the same locations. There is a lot of busy work in this game, and it starts to get old fast. Other open-world games and RPGs have been steadily moving away from this, and for good reason. Almost all of the faults that were present in Inquisition are still present here.
It feels like an MMO. Big, sprawling maps. Quests that don’t really impact the story, but change the flavor of your game. Repetitive missions that take you all over the place. Dialogue and story that feels more suited to a lighter online game than a layered single-player adventure. It feels a lot like playing The Old Republic, though to be honest, I found a lot of storylines in that game to be more compelling than Andromeda’s.
Repetitive and tedious missions. Missions usually play out the same way. Go to a location, shoot everyone in the face, scan something with your omni-tool, listen to the game/your AI companion tell you something, and then repeat. A quest chain will usually take you to numerous places, but this doesn’t feel like an adventure — it feels tedious. Travel is the better part of questing. There are couple really good quest chains, but I found most side missions to be very dull. There is a lot of scanning in this game to replace actual action and discovery.
Less freedom to define your character. The removal of the Paragon / Renegade system would have suggested more wiggle room in the moral gray area, but the character is a defined “good guy.” So you can’t really play as a Renegade anymore. Most of the “casual” dialogue options are awkward sarcasm, and that’s as edgy as things usually get. It feels like we have less freedom to define our characters this time around. The story largely progresses along a defined path, and you merely get to choose the tone of your responses rather than alter many outcomes.
Sudoku. Bioware’s been struggling to come up with a “hack” system since the very first game. Here, they largely give up and have you play sudoku to turn on alien devices. It’s really tedious, and it tends to break any tension that had been built up in previous scenes.
Weaknesses — Story / Narrative
Amazing opportunities, but the lightest possible touch. Andromeda had a lot of room to make a layered, complex story. Instead, the story is incredibly straight-forward and seldom explores big ideas. It feels like the writers had the lightest possible touch when creating the script, though I wonder if this may be due to staff shakeups during the game’s development. There are no twists, and any sci-fi fan can easily predict where the story is going.
Heavy-handed statements on the original trilogy. The writers essentially canonize the “Synthesis” ending without overtly saying so, really pushing the idea that organic-synthetic union is the ultimate form of existence, and you don’t get to disagree. Sure, any outcome may have happened in the trilogy, but they really stress that this is the right way. Despite there being some big moral issues with you being merged with an AI who can control all your vitals.
Dull, tame characters. While Jaal, a companion who is part of the new species in the game, is a fantastic squadmate, the others are pretty dull. And come with very tame backstories for being a bunch of exiles. They’re all “outsiders,” but only in the lightest sense. By the time I finished this game, I wasn’t really attached to more than a couple people. In comparison, I really liked the cast of Inquisition, even if the story in that game was a little light.
Does not suitably explore a setting in which the Reapers never existed. This really should have been a major them in the game. It need not spoil new fans, but a lot of emphasis should have been placed on how different a galaxy can be without the Reapers there to intervene — but this theme is never really explored. The Kett and the Remnant could have been good foils in a number of ways.
The game really needed high-level script editing. None of the story issues in Andromeda can be patched away — they’re all structural. With some major facelifts, this game could have had a really cool story, but it feels rushed and undeveloped. Even the dialogue is pretty bland.
Final Verdict
Andromeda is one of Bioware’s worst titles. People were worried that it would be “as bad” as Dragon Age: Inquisition. I recognize that Inquisition had a ton of faults, but I generally enjoyed it for the characters, lore, and humor. It was’t a chore for me to play through.
I did not enjoy Andromeda.
And I like Mass Effect’s setting way more than I like Dragon Age’s. Once the newness wore off and I settled into the rhythm, missions started to feel like a chore and most of the characters left me feeling bored. I don’t really have rose-tinted glasses about the original games, and I was eager to explore a new setting with a new character, so nostalgia has little to do with my objections. If anything, I feel nostalgia is part of the reason why people like the game.
I’d probably rate it a 6 out of 10.
It’s not a total trainwreck, and the combat is enjoyable enough, but I didn’t legitimately enjoy the game and have just stopped playing it due to lack of interest.