Mass Effect: Andromeda review

Recommended

by Zachary

When most people think of this game they probably think of YouTube compilations of waxy and uncanny character models, glitches, and comically bad voice acting (if you want a side-splitting example of this look up "Mass Effect Jorgal Strux Fight" on youtube). However, when I played through ME:A, I was pleasantly surprised by how little these issues affected my experience with the game. Don't get me wrong, Andromeda is still a pretty bad game, but not for the reasons a lot of people might assume. In my opinion, what really tanks this game is it's lack of compelling characters. So much of fun of the original ME trilogy relied on the players ability to connect with Shepard's crewmates - just look at how massively popular the fan-service-y Citadel DLC for ME3 was. By far my favorite part of the original games was just walking around the Normany or the Citadel, or any of the game's other colorful locales and simply seeing what my crew mates were up to - getting to hear their thoughts on where we were or our current situation or perhaps finding out about a problem they had and then helping them solve that problem. That sort of character bonding and almost slice-of-life style interaction with them absolutely made the first three games. ME:A has absolutely none of that. The characters are serviceable, but it just feels like there wasn't enough effort or creativity put into their writing. Certainly not enough for me to be able to connect to any of them on a personal level. The gameplay, world design, and plot of ME:A is probably a bit worse than the first three games, but honestly not by much. Its the dearth of compelling characters that really killed this game. 

To start with the pros, the game looks gorgeous, specially the lighting; Combat and crafting has more depth than previous games and is quite fun; The companions are fleshed out well enough with party banter; On some occasions you'll be greeted with awe inducing scenes.
Most bugs are fixed by now and facial animations are not as shit anymore, speaks volumes when I list that as a positive. 

With those out of the way, the game falls short in everything, even in the pros I mentioned. The story and lore is painfully unimaginative and takes way too much inspiration from the older games. The antagonist is a cartoony villain who fails to make any impression, ME 2 did it better.
Quest design while not bad, failed to impress me. Most boil down to fighting recycled enemy or scanning items. Some do have interesting sub plots but that made searching for them more disappointing when most end up bland and repetitive. Romance quests range from meh to okay. 
Crafting has too many steps with a very unintuitive menu. I would argue cover shooters doesn't work well in open world games. 
Despite landscapes looking gorgeous, you'll mostly be travelling in various types of bland desserts. Apart from a few locations nothing feels "alien". Facial animations while not comically bad, is still not good. 

For a game about adventure across an uncharted world and taking risks, the developers played it too safe and made a disappointing entry in an once excellent franchise. Play it if you only care about combat and eye candy texture/ lighting.