Review of Mass Effect: Andromeda

Too much to quote so I won't.

About chatty, yea, ME4 followed the horrible route of hiding stuff unless you bug people constantly. Not only that, to see everything, you need to rewatch same cutscenes with different dialogue.

For example grabbing a beer with Liam can be repeated 4-5 times and will show different lines - if you don't do them all when available you may forget about it as it vanishes from dialogue options later (at least did in release version, maybe it's different with patch 1.05 still didn't hit it in the replay). Sorry, but these beer moments were more precious to me than his "Liam has important thing to discuss with you" that's basically whining prior to loyalty mission, in fact that same Liam from disastrous character later became my favorite on the ship. On the other hand, Gil…

NWN is a garbage game on the worst engine ever made. IMO. I'm the minority and won't change my mind ever. No I won't say it's great just because it's d&d.

ME4 and DA3 exploration is not even close to Gothic1/2/3 quality. In both ME4 and DA3 trashmobs respawn endlessly. Gothic knew better.

Gothic series exploration is the combats? For me it's just a part, DAI and MEA terrain design is in spirit of Gothic 1&2, and this is a major aspect of exploration, and this is no way true for the Witcher 3 nor Skyrim. G3 is too flawed to be used as a comparison point.

For MEA, I have explored only 3 planets, two are a bit borderland 2 like, another with jungle is totally different. For this third planet which is walking type, it has respawn combats, if those are trash combats I'd wish Skyrim and The Witcher 3 are full of trash combats like that.

It's more complicated than The Witcher 3 does everything better, and MEA or DAI does everything less well. I know many players do that simplification, in my point of view it's a simplified and wrong point of view, just choosing a side, not analyzing in detail.

Originally Posted by Dasale

It's more complicated than The Witcher 3 does everything better, and MEA or DAI does everything less well. I know many players do that simplification, in my point of view it's a simplified and wrong point of view, just choosing a side, not analyzing in detail.

Hard to make less well than TW3 combat system.

Originally Posted by Dasale
For MEA, I have explored only 3 planets, two are a bit borderland 2 like, another with jungle is totally different. For this third planet which is walking type, it has respawn combats, if those are trash combats I'd wish Skyrim and The Witcher 3 are full of trash combats like that.

Do me a favor then.
You're probably on the 4th explorable planet now.

Go on the spot on this pic and kill every eiroch you see in front of the "cave" entrance:


If you aren't still there, do me another favor. Go on Eos, eliminate kett base boss then return and kill every kett guarding the entrance to this base.
There are more such points, it's just you (deliberately?) don't see them for some reason. That's the elephant in the room, not damned tired faces.

Skyrim, that has more unpatched bugs than all EA games put together, at least has norespawn mod. TW3 knew better so a mod isn't even needed.

Originally Posted by ChienAboyeur
Hard to make less well than TW3 combat system.

Pretty easy, The Witcher 1, the Witcher 2, Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, … Yeah TW3 combats aren't great.

When I'll finish a MEA play I 'll make a comparison with… Skyrim, nowadays too many players are blinded about TW3 and see a perfect game it isn't, I won't bother argue in that context.

Originally Posted by joxer
Do me a favor then.
You're probably on the 4th explorable planet now.
…
If you aren't still there, do me another favor. Go on Eos, eliminate kett base boss then return and kill every kett guarding the entrance to this base.
There are more such points, it's just you (deliberately?) don't see them for some reason. That's the elephant in the room, not damned tired faces.

Skyrim, that has more unpatched bugs than all EA games put together, at least has norespawn mod. TW3 knew better so a mod isn't even needed.

Where are you going with that non sense, go straight to the target, and be clear. English isn't my native language, so write in French if you want attempt use some (pointless) circumvolution.

MEA first two planets are lacking (radiation desert, snow desert), but since 3rd planet (jungle) and 2 more, the game reach another level for me. 8H+ play sessions are big clues for me.

Originally Posted by joxer

Skyrim, that has more unpatched bugs than all EA games put together, at least has norespawn mod. TW3 knew better so a mod isn't even needed.

Respawn is the least of issues, when it comes to exploration/world in BW games.
Outside of how environments look in Frostbite, they really have nothing going for it ( in comparison to OW games).
They should revert to how it was in ME I…land on a variety of planets, but keep it in a localized zone with better designed missions ( similar to ME II Jack's loyalty mission without cutscene transition).
It would be enough to give a sense of scale for space exploration game, while keeping narrative more focused.

My ME:A MiniReview

The long and short of it -- There's a lot of "good" here but little or no "great". Enjoyment of all of the good is hampered by interference from button mashing minigames, trial and error searches for glyphs and consoles; and more trial and error tests to determine what the literally dozens if not hundreds of consoles actually do; long tedious quests that are endemic to the game; jumping onto pillars; climbing pillars and rocks and mountains; going from place to place and planet to planet -- over and over and over -- to complete quests.

The environment is very extensive, diverse and well done -- but the quests make you feel like you're "Run-around Sue" on a forced tour of what would otherwise be an awesome collection of geography, cities, terrains, and planets.

There is a good story; and there are numerous interesting companions -- but here again there is a massive amount of button mashing amd running from place-to-place and planet-to-planet required to get to that story and to the back stories of those companions. And again, the story and companiions are good but fall well short of excellent. Both story and companions suffer from similarity to prior ME plots and companions.

Combat tends to be repetitive and button-mashing focused IMO. There are many many weapons and armor available to craft and purchase -- too many IMO -- without a road map to what's what -- answers come from trial and error.

ME:A is neither a new beginning nor a sad ending for Bioware. But in my view it's a another step in the direction of console-centric, button mashing gaming.

A score of 70 is probably about right IMO. Buy at half price when available. You will likely find a great deal of enjoyment provided the button-mashing and the forced 'runaround sue' role doesn't drive you nuts.

__

Can't say I agree that combat is "button mashing" at all. In fact, if you play on a challenging difficulty level - button mashing is guarenteed to get you killed.

I agree there's mostly good and not great in the game, but combat is probably the best part of it, and I think you're selling it short.

That said, to each his own and all that.

Originally Posted by Dasale
Where are you going with that non sense…

Originally Posted by BoboTheMighty
Respawn is the least of issues…

Do you (both) have a problem with mathematics? Seems, just like Bioware, you do.

There is a finite number of Miky Way species that came into Helleus Sector. Thanks to Bioware's idiocy on endless respawns, you may, just by killing those stupid trashmmob respawns, basically kill every single person that made to Andromeda.
Such a superb logic.

Not that it's the only Bioware's "we can't count" example. For some reason the data cores task says you need to find 9 of those while there are 11 in the game. Sudoku achievement says go nail 20 of them, however there are 22 in the game.

You may find godlike creatures that revive without any means to stop it fun, I find that the most insulting game design that exists in this century for two reasons: being a filler and lower IQ of the audience.
Even if critics praised this game, it can never be 10/10. Just because of the illogical respawning crap. If it was just remnant bots, I'd maybe accept that (stargate replicators), but 100K Milky way specimens suddenly grew to billions, yea, right.
But no, respawning is peachy and isn't stupid, so let's find some other things to spit on. Gimme a break.

Without getting into millions and billions quantity-specifics; I agree the respawning is annoying. Take the many many small settlements of Kadara for example; or the numerous small settlements on Voeld; kill the bad guys but they'll surely be there when you come back.

It's just the way it is for a button mashing console-centric game IMO. Repetitive combat with the same folks and creatures over and over and over -- but that may actually be the true definition of 'fun' for console players.

It's been said before 'to each their own".

__

What's this math thing? I doubt you killed 100K enemies from a system with a race living on multiple planets. Don't try use logic please, or put a bit of effort to see further than your disgust/irritation.

I'm not fan of respawn either, the difference here unlike for example in Underrail, it's that you don't have to redo any combat.

And the quote on multiple places where kill bad guys, is typical automatic playing, kill them all. Ok but there's no point to do it.

For sure if you play games as MEA (and DAI) in that way, they'll be boring. But this is a boring way of playing, you should try change. Dodge/sneak/avoid/rush through some anonymous place if you don't have a quest or an urge to do some combats, it's that simple, you should try both.

EDIT:
For sure to each their own, and respawn isn't my deal either. But play all games in the same way, typically, kill them all and explore and clean all in first area, then next area and repeat, is just wrong.

For the math arguing, no matter the RPG it is full of wrong math, it's just conventions.

We can agree, disagree or meet in the middle, but one thing remains.
Professional reviewers generally do not see this as an outdated design (on old machines and gadgets with low memory/savespace you couldn't have a huge game where the system will "remember" when each trashmob got killed). Instead of writing "grinding" some plain love it and call it themepark, some can't stand it and call it busywork, some don't care nor mention it as if they aren't critics at all.
Instead they're all talking only about tired faces in ME4. I'm not saying faces in the release version weren't bad for an AAA title, but do we really always have to wait for Maylander's review for whom we know he'll dig deeper? Does every single professional review need to be as shallow as possible?

The respawn system is totally deliberate, ok it seems also the game had/has troubles with saving lol but that's another aspect.

It's not trash respawn of some skyrim, a same combat respawn will generate big variations from various changes, it's Far Cry 3 approach, not even Borderlands 2 do it really but it has a lot more combats design variations.

On details and reflex such FC3/MEA combats are very diversified, in reality a same combat generates general characteristics coming from terrain, enemies, and player play. Some players feel such combats as very diversified, some other don't.

But it's no way the usual trash respawn from most RPG from Skyrim to Underrail.

It's the same junk respawn design as in Skyrim. The only difference is rate, yet both are equally annoying.
Don't get me wrong, there are even worse grinders than ME4 and Skyrim, for example DA:I and Dragon's Dogma.

If you're playing the game currently, do not, under any circumstances, do not continue from autosaves. Autosaves can bug your progress, okay when it's a sidemission, you won't be able to complete it, big deal, but I've seen quite a few reports when autosaves bugged the main story - every single time the player doesn't have a recent manual save.

Whatever, PCG brought up an interesting article:
http://www.pcgamer.com/how-the-witch…a-falls-short/

Don't forget. PCG crowned MGS5 as GOTY. Regardless of it's scamware microtransactions. Not TW3.
So, while reading that article above, borrow couch's grain of salt.

Also, internet's moral police wannabe, Polygon, wrote an open letter to Bioware:
http://www.polygon.com/2017/4/18/153…-world-bioware
Enter at your own risk.

I already wrote there was bugs relative to save and spawning, I also found a task broken, and when searching and finding the explanation, I saw it's not the only task, myself I only had one broken.

Anyway people not saving relatively often on different slots are plain idiots, why bother, such people will never learn and are desperate cases.

But yeah the whole saving system is currently quite a garbage, for sensitive players that can't bear very clean games, it's a valid reason to not buy it and see if this will be cleaned.

Reviewers of RPG? I don't care. Myself I can find good fun from MEA, but for sure I don't play it with the standard routine. Far Cry 3 was rather tedious if you tried follow the main story and do the special tasks (MEA is much better on those both elements but on some tasks types as I already listed) but FC3 was a huge fun to just explore the world (MEA isn't at same level) and definitely had more diversified combats from their dynamics and variations than whole Elder Scroll.

That you are unable to make the difference is your problem, not a fact for a player like me, Im' pretty sure it's not my imagination.

For the comparison with The Witcher 3, pointless, TW3 is like a god nowadays, nothing negative can be wrote about it.

Originally Posted by Dasale
I already wrote there was bugs relative to save and spawning, I also found a task broken, and when searching and finding the explanation, I saw it's not the only task, myself I only had one broken.

After the patch 1.05, only one mission is impossible to complete by any means (Nomad shields task). Some missions can bug and be left in impossible to complete state if not done in correct order (Herbal Enterpreneurs task, dunno what's called turian pods scanning, etc).
Some missions that can bug for various reasons can still be solved with a workaround (example is Peebee remnant scanner mission - you need to exit the minivault, enter back then go right path instead of left).
One mission is not possible to trigger by any means (Running for Fever), it's known because some people bought Prima Guide and brought it up as a mission can't be started issue on EA Answers.

Originally Posted by Dasale
Anyway people not saving relatively often on different slots are plain idiots, why bother, such people will never learn and are desperate cases.

You're forgetting that no manual saves or saving restrictions are still used on inferior hardware (phones, consoles). A part of audience got used on only autosaves, you shouldn't blame them - blame Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, etc instead.

Originally Posted by Dasale
But yeah the whole saving system is currently quite a garbage, for sensitive players that can't bear very clean games, it's a valid reason to not buy it and see if this will be cleaned.

I'll have to disagree partially.

You can't make manual saves in priority and loyalty missions. The problem is not lack of manual saving, the problem is trashmob respawners and this game rubbish respawns in general. The game saves a trigger state if trashmobs spawned or not - but it doesn't save those thrashmobs. If you need to kill a group of trashmobs that spawned on a trigger in order to unlock something, die and continue from an autosave, in some cases the trigger state will remain but trashmobs will not be respawned back and you won't be able to proceed. Bioware noticed this and it's the very reason manual saves are disabled in the main story - as I said before it doesn't matter if a sidequest bugs itself, but Bioware wanted to avoid gamebreakers. Sadly for them, their autosaves don't work flawlessly either.

What I want to say it's not saving that's the major problem, it's the (re)spawning trashmobs design idiocy that causes issues in the game. Additionally, the game has no Quest Failed state which would clear the journal clutter or reinitialize some main story mission that bugged itself upon reloading a corrupted autosave.

Well ok the task bug I got is I didn't get the task, there's obviously a task and believed it was just non registered, but it was a bug no task.

That you can't save during combats isn't that rare, it's not just there isn't manual save, it's the whole save system has many glitches and incoherencies. There's manual saves, the problem is when you can't save, there's bugs and designs errors related to the no manual save parts/triggers. It's quite different than a console game without manual save.

You are making such a big deal about respawning that I don't understand why you played the game, you clearly just can't bear it, I have a simple solution for you, don't buy any game with respawning.

Take a mirror first.

I said there are worse trashmob grinding examples, one of those is DA:I, but they've toned it down in ME4. A positive move of a sort, but not enough - they should have got rid of it so my score probably wouldn't be "only" 8/10.

Why did I play through whole of ME4 including grinding parts aka tasks? Because I don't like to leave things unfinished. It's a bad thing I know - Bethesda would never hire me as leaving a product in unfinished state is something I couldn't accept to do.

Yeah DAI respawn is total trash I agree, I think Skyrim isn't even as worse. It seems they tried setup some dynamic system as Far Cry 3, but awfully failed. In MEA they tuned down the ambition but definitely succeed something. Ok the current repsawn bugs makes the whole picture less cool.

If you can't leave stuff unfinished never ever try play DAI or MEA, or at least make a testament before. I have a lot of pain and sorry for you if despite this problem you played those games, and if you did it's miracle you survived.

Game finished doesn't make any sense, a game can always been improved, so never attempt make any game.