A story about explorers leaving the Reaper threat behind for a whole new galaxy, Mass Effect Andromeda brings improved 3rd person combat, Dragon Age Inquisition-like open world roaming, and shiny new graphics. Unfortunately, the utter mess the characters find themselves in upon awaking from cryosleep is a perfect metaphor of the game itself. One cannot help but feel the newly found was not worth what had to be left behind for this voyage.
Leaving the previous galaxy, all those beloved characters, and most importantly the conflicts and storylines behind, ME:A had the task, both thrilling and daunting, of starting completely anew. However the game fails to present a new world comparably intriguing as ME1, or squadmates as charming as ME2.
The overarching idea itself has potential, of waking to a disastrous operation and being forced to make on-the-fly decisions in a struggle to even survive. But far too often the writing either overlooks potentially interesting threads, or handles points of emphasis too heavyhandedly. In combination with a Dragon Age 2-style conversation wheel, where players only select the "tone" of reply but not the exact dialogue text, at times the main protagonist feels more distant and unlikable than in any other Bioware RPG to date. At one point in the main story, an NPC asks "Don't you want to know why I did that?" I was practically screaming into my screen that I was never presented with the obvious choice to investigate. The decisions being made also surprisingly lack actual impact, considering the situation. In a new world with limited resources, political divides, harsh environments, and hostile fleets, keeping almost everyone alive and happy is easier than ending the game with any major consequences.
The main new alien species introduced also disappoint. For so much talk about first contact in the first couple hours, the discovery of and interactions with these aliens just felt boring. In theory, the new exploratory scanning mechanic in ME:A should be filling in the gaps of knowledge. The protagonist points to an unknown object, and the helper AI tries to gather info. But the aliens worlds and cultures are too similar to standard sci-fi ideas that little of the scanning results actually interested or surprised me. To make matters even worse, later on when the protagonist infiltrates the alien main ship and base, very few new things in those ships and bases could be scanned, as if the characters already learned everything there was to be said about the aliens in such a short amount of time.
Squadmates, from species both old and new, are fine. To expect them to immediately live up to the standard set by multiple games of Tali, Liara, and Garrus was unrealistic. Their characters and banter are good enough to hold the game, and my interest, together when little else did.
The side quests certainly did not. Side quests are sprinkled into the open world like the standard Assassin's Creed game. Some are interesting. Most are glorified fetch quests. A couple had interesting premises that turned out to be painful fetch quests. As an example I will spoil one minor side quest, where you are tasked to chase down a lady carrying a latent disease that could turn into a pandemic. The quest was presented in such an urgent way that I rushed to investigate, only to find the actual quest line only consists of scanning and going from planet to planet. The protagonist is comically just a bit late every damn time, until the lady's crashed ship is found and some aliens pop up to fight. What a disappointment. Individual stories aside, every quest increases a colonizing number for the corresponding planet. As numbers go higher, the colonies expand. To some, this is deeply satisfying, and worth pouring 100 hours into. The protagonist's backstory is also perplexingly gated by collectibles on the open world map, leading into a pretty interesting pay off. I however wanted nothing to do with these chores, and finished the game in about 20 hours, doing mostly main story stuff.
Part of my averse reaction to the collectibles and fetch quests was how painful getting around the galaxy was. Loading screen from planet to planet was pretty to look at for the first couple times, but 20 seconds each is too long (this can now be skipped with recent patches). The Nomad, the Mako-equivalent here, is awful to drive, requiring constant switching between modes, one that travels faster and one that can go up slight hills. Maybe don't go exploring a new galaxy when you don't have the tech to do both of those things at once? When on foot, things are much better. The protagonist has a jet pack and various dash abilities, depending on the class chosen. Finding ways to higher platforms and hidden areas is kind of fun, and a welcome addition to break up the pace. In more than a few spots those skills are required to complete missions. However there are still certain hills that don't look all that steep that cannot be traversed on foot. Add in a buggy map system that doesn't always show the correct location or elevation of the destination, and too often I found myself wandering around before realizing I have to get in that damn Nomad again.
Other added mechanics in the open world, including mining, resource collection, and crafting are mostly not worth the trouble. Mining is done by driving the Nomad around and staring at a ME2-esque scanning curve. Other resources can be collected by going up to things and holding a button, like any MMO on the market. Rare equipment or upgrades that can be acquired through these chores add minimal stats. The N7 armor has 10 levels to upgrade, adding 1 or 2% additional stats each time. As if that wasn't enough, weapon mods and augmentations are also available, the latter of which can change your gun's firing behavior in interesting ways.
This leads us into the final part, the shining spot of the whole game, combat. ME:A is big step up from predecessors, in every way except one. Some fans may be dismayed that squadmate controls have been simplified. Orders of location can still be given, but not of when to use what powers. In a sense, the combat is less tactical. Otherwise, freedom of movement is much improved, rewarding more diverse play styles. Various powers and classes can be switched between at any time, giving the player more options for different scenarios or just simply to switch things up. Abilities and their combinations are very fun to experiment with. This is the first time in the series that combat is considered a strength of the game, and not just passable.
I have not played the multiplayer co-op mode much, which is very similar to the ME3 version. By other accounts the mode is improved in combat and just as fun as before, if that was your jam.
One last thing to address is the gifs going around since launch. ME:A has a lot of bugs, some hilarious, some annoying, a few may require restarting the game. ME:A also has some poor animations, a lot of which are concentrated in the first area after the game opens up. Patches have somewhat improved things, but you should still go in expect things to be uneven at times.
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Overall, I would acknowledge that ME:A tried to do a lot of new things. Unfortunately I would rather had the devs improve the combat and not chase the new hotness in survival mechanics, open world, crafting, etc. Those systems all feel half-baked, if not downright annoying. I can recommend this game to 2 types of players (a 2 star game that can be bumped up to 3 for gamers of certain tastes):
1. if you really like open worlds and pseudo MMOs, if you are compelled to do every side quest, if you like wandering around environments collecting resources, all to watch numbers go higher and higher-- although there might be better options out there, you may enjoy this game.
2. if you just really want to see more Krogans, if you want to know everything remotely related to the ME universe, and if you can accept this essentially serves as the B-tier game of a beloved IP-- you probably will, like me, not regret the price of admission. (I paid $45 on PC, and felt content as the credits rolled. It is by far the weakest ME game, and I would even hold DA2 in much higher regard than this.)