[First things first]
The main reason I am doing this review, is because I want to make sure that Bioware gets the credits they deserve for this game. There are, as we know, very strong opinions how unpolished it was when it came out. Heck, the fallout made Bioware shelve the entire franchise indefinetely. I think this is a shame, as Mass Effect - Andromeda is a wonderful and interesting addition to the series, that everyone who is a fan of the ME universe should play.
I will go into more details below, but if I have to say what makes Andromeda stand out, is that all elements combine to make it feel even more realistic as a story. Some examples:
- The choices you have to make are much more grey instead of good vs evil.
- NPC motivations are no longer good/evil either: there is something to say for either motivation. This makes choices actually difficult!
- The crew you travel with feels even more like people: with motivations, flaws and growth still to do.
- The settings and graphics make the game feel much more like you are *in space* than the earlier games.
Finally, the story is well-thought out and makes use of some clever spaceflight logic to set it as something separate from everything in ME1-3, without sacrificing its history and lore.
Still, let there be no mistake: Andromeda is unpolished and as such has little quircks and blemishes that should not be in a AAA game, especially one from Bioware. I haven't looked into the reasons why it was released before it was ready, and whether this was caused by EA being pushy or Bioware dropping the ball. I don't really care why: to me it only proves 2 things. One: publishers and developers should take their time to make sure a product is truly ready before releasing and not overly hyping the crowd. Two: as a player, be smart and just don't start playing a huge RPG like this until at least 2-8 weeks from its release or you end up as a glorified beta tester. Simply put: RPGs these days are so complex and vast with questlines and choices, that it is very difficult to completely test everything without enough time.
As such, I hope that Andromeda has served as a wake up call to both game makers and players and that we can learn from it. On one hand: to truly polish a product before shipping. On the other: to be realistic with your expectations (regardless of hype) and not let early-life bugs completely affect your entire view of a game.
Bottom line: Play it, it is still pretty awesome!
[Story]
In the year 2185 (1-2 years after the events in ME-1) the races of the Milky Way set out on the Andromeda Initiative. A civilian-funded (so non-military or Council) exploration to the Andromeda Galaxy, 2.5 million light years from home. The journey will take more than 600 years, even when travelling faster than light. You are Ryder, one half (male/female, depending on your choice) of a set of twins and the child of Alec Ryder, the human Pathfinder. The Patchfinders' job: to be the front-line explorer in the Andromeda galaxy to evaluate worlds, make first contact, and help establish bases so the Iniative can settle and flourish. They do this assisted by their quantum-computing AI: SAM.
Obviously, things don't go as planned and are less than ideal upon arriving. The intended worlds are ruined, their environments destroyed by a strange tech-like space cloud known as the Scourge. To make matters worse: you are not the only new arrivals in Andromeda. The Kett is a race set on conquest and will take over all life if left unchecked. It falls to Ryder to become a Pathfinder as well, and not only find new save havens for the Human, Turian, Salarian and Asari people of the Initiative, but also take a stand against the Kett and establish peaceful contact with the other people of Andromeda.
On your quest, you are joined by a crew represented by all races, each with their unique personality, hopes, dreams, fears and reasons for coming to Andromeda. Over the course of the adventure, you will get to learn all of them, including your own family's past. A past which is more closely tied to the Initiative's mysterious origin than you could ever now...
To me, the story and the characters of Andromeda are what makes this game great and fun to play. I would not just place a game for 85 hours if I did not feel a connection to them and involvement in the adventure. It is wonderfully written, building on existing "Milky Way" lore and adding new and creative new ideas. The characters are the highlight in this: now more than ever, these people feel like *people*. They are not all friendly towards each other at the start, have fears and prejudices and only over time will you get to know them. Just like regular people. There is also more humor. In a way: I felt all this was better than ME1-3: there you travel with "Legends", awesome characters in an awesome story. Here: it is real people in a real story. Not all players might like this, being used to 'standard' game heroes. But to me this is Bioware at its best: continually striving to create interesting new worlds populated by realistic people that make you want to get to know them.
The story choices, because of this, also more difficult. The people you encounter are rarely evil. They all have grey motivations with good and bad sides to them. This makes it more difficult when deciding how to treat certain groups.
Finally, the story of our first steps in Andromeda feels just like that: first steps. When you have played through it all, you have ensured a foothold for humanity in a tiny part of Andromeda. What comes after that is still a mystery, and there are enough open ends and questions left unanswered. Answers, which I hope will be answered in 2 more parts, making this a true new ME trilogy. The basis laid out by Andromeda (altough not perfect) deserves it.
[Gameplay]
The gameplay of Andromeda conceptually builds on Dragon Age Inquisition. As Pathfinder, you have to find worlds and resources so that the Initiative can flourish. You do this by going to planets, establishing outposts, terraforming, defeating enemy strongholds etc. All this earns you Viability Points, which you can then use to establish more outposts, wake up settlers from cryo and earn more resources. All the while, you alternate between Priority Ops (main quest), Allies and Relationships (character quests for your team and friends), Assignments (side quests) and Tasks (fetch-stuff).
You can do all these things in the order you want to and this gives you a great feeling of freedom. To me, this drives the idea behind Andromeda: you are an EXPLORER. This is probably one of the gripes that many people have with the game, because you are no longer the godlike hero-soldier Shepard whom they know. Andromeda is much more relaxed and subdued. The fact that you can do quests in any order (and the game encourages you to) also makes that there is less 'pressure' behind even the main quests. It would not make any sense otherwise ("I need to save everyone from massive doom!....Wait let's first explore this cave").
As such, the quest topics (except from the Main quests) are much more about exploring, political relations, the hopes and fears of your team etc, than about massive warfare. In fact: it feels like playing Stargate Atlantis (if you know the show). And this makes the game distinct and a fresh departure from the original trilogy. But it is also something not everyone will like, and something which may have not been advertised properly. To me, this is no problem as I like questing around and focusing on the character- and science- side of things. But it may not be for everyone.
That said: I feel that many of the quests (and there are A LOT OF THEM) are well thought out and often involve more than just fetching things. The fact that Bioware was able to put all that content in (fully voiced, with multiple stages, occasional choices, and lore entries) is an amazing feat.
[Mechanics]
Andromeda builds upon the battle mechanics pioneered in the earlier ME games and it feels as smooth as ever. There are a number of additions/alterations:
- you no longer need to push a button to cover, just stand close. This works very well and only takes a little getting used to at first.
- you can jump, dash and hover using your jetpack (replaced by biotics if you have them). This is really cool and makes the action and navigation much more supple and fast-paced.
- you can now use *all* class powers, only have to choose a starting class at the beginning of the game. This is a great addition, as it allowed me to pick and choose the powers and passive abilities that suited the style I liked. On the other hand, this no longer forces you to play in ways that are new to you (like doing a tech playthrough instead of a soldier one), so you need to be more disciplined yourself if you want to experience new strategies.
- you have no power wheel anymore, just R1/L1/L1+R1. This forces you to focus more on certain powers 3 at a time, and made it a little less versatile than the earlier games. This is offset by the option to create 'profiles' with different powers, but you can not switch these on the fly or in battle.
- you can no longer command squad mates. The AI does this for you. I can't comment how well this works on higher difficulties; but on the lower setting I played, only Vetra went down *once* in the entire game. A such, I liked it because I could focus more on myself and the game.
Another important point is the Nomad: your exploratory vehicle is only loosely based on the Mako of ME1 and thank God it is waaaay better. No more rubbery handling, nice turns and it can still run up walls. Although you no longer have guns, the fact that it handles so much better really makes you *want* to scoot around barren worlds looking for interesting stuff. You can upgrade its handling like boost, shield and hover, and there is a 'no assist' mode (or something) which I have not tried but appearently makes it more supple, like the Mako, again. So whatever you want, you can get. Finally, the custom decals you can buy look pretty badass as well! Made me feel like this was 'my car'.
Over the whole, the mechanics are as crisp as you can expect from a Mass Effect game and the option to use all powers and not force you into a class is an interesting tangent for Bioware to try out.
[Graphics]
Ah, the much-debated topic of this game. To be frank: I found almost nothing wrong here (although I did play the final patched version). Compared to the earlier Mass Effect games, Andromeda is visually the most stunning. It is clear that the game is intended for HDR tv displays, with strong color effects from e.g. your scanner, ship engines, auroras, Remnant tech lighting etc. Even without an HDR display, there were many times I simply had to say "wow". Example: at some point you encounter one of the Ark ships above a ruined world. The world is vast and empty, with rocks floating in zero-G and sand lifted up by your Nomad vehicle. In the distance, you see the blue giant sun with wonderful colours, and then between the rock field: the Ark with all its systems and lights glowing. The lights themselves flicker in some way, ging a semblance of being broken by the thin atmosphere or your camera. It looks majestic and cool. To me those are wonderful graphics at their best!
But what of the wonky character movement then? Those were present, but not too severe. In face, I felt Ryder's walking animation was very natural, especially when going up steps or down steep hills. It was different from 'running', but when have you ever walked up a sandy dune easily?
The only times I did notice, was when there were dorky glitches like your crew suddenly standing on the Nomad's force shield when disembarking, hovering above a rough rocky surface instead of ón it, or one cutscene were Cora and Peebee were literally 'inside each other' in exactly the same pose.
And the facial 'derp' animations? Those were present at times, but not often (like 5-10%) and I hardly found them distracting. Compared to the relatively plastic animations of ME-1, this was (in its own way) no better or worse. Maybe the facial animations also have to do with your character's face values and as such, might be hit or miss. The only moment when I did notice it, was at the very end with the bad guy: in those final scenes his animations were 'overacted'....but funnily enough I found it sort of appropriate, given the maniacal gloating he was doing at the time.
In summary: yes, there are graphical glitches and anomalies which should have been polished better! But these are (at least for me) hardly game-breaking and are vastly offset by the rest of the stunning graphics.
[Replay value]
This one is tough to say as I have only just finished it. On the one hand, this game was more than entertaining enough for me to come back to it, as I do with all Bioware games. There's also enough different choices to make, class-orientations to try, people to romance (hmmm...Cora), and different personality-type Ryder to play as (and gender). In short: there is more than enough to bring you back to Andromeda more than once.
On the other hand, Andromeda (for me) suffers from the same weakness as Dragon Age Inquisition: it is soooooo filled with quests that I will probably not invest another 85 hours in it a second time around. As I always do, I did almost anything there was to do first time, with the final counter topping off at 94% completion. This means that a second time it will be more of "been there done that" and "no you lame NPC, figure it out yourself, I don't have the time". For me that is a problem because I truly want to *invest* my Ryder (and Warden, Shepard, Champion, Inquisitor) in the entire game, not dash passed anything but the main quests the second time because then you do not get the full experience. However, the side quests (except from the loyalty missions) are not *that* interesting for me to do them again. Hopefully Bioware will improve in this in future games, with even more quality over quantity.
In short: it is a tradeoff. There is more than enough to do in this game to afford more than one playthrough, but as with all RPG's, you need to decide how much time you will invest that second time.
[Summary - the good]
- + Much better than you think
- + Interesting new ME story which leaves you wishing for more
- + Wonderful and well-written crew of characters that feel like actual *people*
- + Quests feel relevant, whether they're main or side quest. Also there are many.
- + Choices and their implications are not so black and white and feel more rooted in reality
- + Amazing visuals even without HDR
- + Smooth mechanics
- + Innovative take on the traditional RPG class system
[Summary - the bad]
- - Unpolished
- - Not as epic as the original
- - Vast to the point of not easily replaying