Mass Effect: Andromeda

[Shorty]

Huh, The issue with the ending for me was never that anything was unexplained, it was that after all the things you did, all the cause and effect, the sprawling trilogy of decisions you had to make, who would live and who would die... all that really did was lock or unlock missions throughout the bulk of the third game, rather than being directly tied to an ending, which itself was literally just "pick one of three colours".

[Nolan]

I do eventually want to play through 2 and 3 but I didn’t want to do it out of order. 

 

And waiting for a dialogue choice really doesn’t count as pausing a cutscene. Some scenes don’t have dialogue choices. Holding the PS button for the quick menu does seem to work though but it’s a poor way of handling it. 

[Sméagol]

After 3 years (haha, damn), I finally started playing this. Don't know why, because I won't be able to play it for the next 10 days.

Anyway, I'm enjoying it so far. It's too early to tell, there's things I think are imrpoved over the previous ME games, and there are things that are worse, but overall I'm liking it, and it looks like something I would have liked a sequel for, or extra story dlc, but we know how that turned out. Oh and obviously playing this game 3 years after launch helps, as I don't experience the game as it was at launch. 

Anyway, I did Eos, established an outpost there, then went to the ice planet first. Prologue could have been more streamlined, I would have liked a bit more linearity there. Was getting used to the controls and the fact it was open world, and I had a hard time locating a person. But it was better on Eos, and I liked driving the Mako Nomad. I like how you find the "normal " (linear) levels within the open world sections, that's an improvement over ME1 I like. Overall I like the exploration, though sometimes I still want more shooty stuff to do, like more linear but perhaps less elaborate side missions. The balance between ME1 style and ME2/3 is better, though it could still be improved.

I took the default character by the way (though I used the custom character to change the default first ability and obviously changed Shepard to female). I kinda liked how the default looked, and while I played with the custom appearance, I couldn't be arsed to redesign the twin to match.

[Sméagol]

Continued this, with the festival over now (though in the end, I barely went to see any films, I think 10 total).

I had some trouble with a sidequest on Voeld, one you have to do while doing the Kett base there. Didn't figure it out at first, so went ahead and thought I'd do it later, but still couldn't figure it out. Googled it, and the problem was you had to do it before disabling the base.. Last manual save was over an hour ago, so I had some stuff to redo.

In the end, it wasn't that bad, I actually liked doing the base, and I did some other stuff on the planet first, more exploring and finding new side quests. I had to redo the vault, but luckily I had already done the annoying sudoku puzzle to open it, and the vault itself is short (though there was another small sudoku puzzle within it).

After that I thought it wouldn't take long to clera the planet and do "the rest", like building the outpost, but I still spend a lot of time roaming about the planet, as I was finding new sidequests in those little Kett and Remnant hide-outs scattered over the surface. My least favourite things to do, but still wanted to do everything, and "clear" the planet. Though it's also partly because up until then I've refused to do any fast-traveling. In the end I think I did everything that was available except for maybe one sidequest, though I got a few more after leaving the planet.

After that I went back to Aya, got to finally explore it. After the events and developments on Voeld and Aya, I got the feeling I should have gone to Havarl first, after Eos. Googling the best order of planets confirmed this, going to Havarl before Voeld makes much more sense story-wise and regarding pacing, as Eos and Voeld are big planets, and Havarl is apparently a much smaller one. Story-wise the game is urging me to continue the story and go after the Kett, which makes it a bit awkward for me to return to Eos and visit Havarl now.

But that's what I've done. I've returned to Eos to check how things have developed there. Radiation is (mostly?) gone, so I can freely explore the rest of the planet, and do more sidequests there. I wanted to check the first area first, after placing a receiver thing on the new area but close-by, but took a wrong turn, then decided to just go check out the new North area, with a new Kett base. That's where I left the game. I intend to clear the planet, then visit Havarl, then go back to Voeld for the new sidequests and Aya if necessary. Then I'll go check out Kadara.

I'm romancing Peebee. Would have liked to Romance Cora, she's pretty hot, and I've already gone Asari in the previous games.. But the human options in this game are disappointing. Cora is hot, but doesn't swing that way. Suvi sounds great on paper, I love redheads and I love accents, but ehm.. No. Neither come close to goddess Samantha Traynor unfortunately! I don't find the other Aliens attractive. That leaves Peebee, who's pretty fun fortunately, and her voice actress is hot haha. If I went purely for personality and was open to the guy romance options.. Vetra, Jaal, and perhaps Gil would have been options.

Spoiler

 

Tried the "we come in peace" approach with the Kett in the prologue.

The first Initiative outpost on Eos is a scientific one.

I'm usually going for opening up all the pods to reunite families. The last one was a hard decision though, after some protests on the Nexus.

I've taken the ancient Angaran AI with me on the Hyperion.

I didn't destroy the Kett base on Voeld, opting to free more Angaran instead.

 

My issues with the game so far:

• The smaller (mostly) collection sidequests. They're tedious as they're literally all over the place, but all those enemy hide-outs aren't marked on the map. The quests you have to stumble upon by accident, when you decide to check out one of those hide-outs, then if you find the quest, you have to aimlessly drive around the planet, hoping you find more of the correct type of hide-out, and then hope it has one of your objectives (which seem random to me). It's even more annoying since I started to ignore those hide-outs altogether, since they do not have anything for me loot-wise. I'm a big hoarder, but already settled on a load-out, so I frequently max out on my inventory. Not only are the mini sidequests tedious, they're also hard to track. All the smaller sidequests get lost in the journal, as the the journal itself just sucks. There are several catagories, and not all of the sidequests (mostly those smaller "tasks") are logically placed under the planet they're on. There's simply no good overview, and I had trouble trying to find a newly acquired sidequest in the journal.
• Sense of time / progression. If you dump an outpost on a planet, it's instantly ready. You can talk to people immediately, and they talk like they've been on the planet for some time already. People you meet in events and ask you things, or some results of sidequests.. You immediately get an e-mail that thanks you or talks about the consequences of your anwser (though those e-mails were already a thing in the previous games). That's just weird. What I would have liked to see, is outposts slowly building up. maybe not even completely, so in a sequel you could see how those outposts have grown. Of course, those sequels are not going to happen anymore unfortunately. 
• Sudoku puzzles. I'm starting to hate them.  I don't mind one once in a while, but not as a recurring minigame. Probably my biggest issue with the game so far.
• Edit: Oh and apparently I can't equip my teammates. Which means 95% of what I'm hoarding is useless. Damn. I want see my teammates use those exotic weapons.
• Edit: Oh and mining. I'm largely ignoring it (sometimes I just scan and dump a miner while en route to something else), but I seem to be low on graphite for R&D purposes.

What I do like is the combat. I'm really liking the jump and dodge mechanics, and jump / dodge / air melee is becoming a staple in my fights.

That said, I largely play "tradionally". I was and enjoyed being an engineer for the past 3 games, but literally 1000 of hours of ME3 multiplayer had me gravitating to being an infiltrator, so I chose that as my class for this game, and indeed I'm playing the same way with the same weapons (a Crusader shotgun), apart from the new super hero air melee move and the frequent jumps and dodges (and the occasional air hovering, I like the option but don't use it often). I really should try some of the new weapons, though those Remnat weapons seem to operate like Prothean weapons.

Even tried my hands at multiplayer finally. it's a shame, but despite combat being better, it doesn't have the same excitement as ME3 multiplayer. Could use some polish. Of course, it's also in big part because I'm 3 years late and there are few people playing this, I have to start from scratch, and the game being as big flop so it didn't get many updates. It was always exciting getting a new ME3 multiplayer update, especially the bigger ones. Alas, that's never going to happen. I'll keep playing it, though it's a bit of a chore having to grind bronze again, after being used to having a plethora of characters and weapons available in ME3, all maxed out.

Edited February 10, 2020 by Sméagol

[Sméagol]

I'll post a more elaborate post later, but for now..

Cleared EOS as far as possible at that point, then did Havarl, then went back to Voeld & Aya to do some other sidequests (and scan some systems on the way).

I'm currently on Kadara, and wow. Never thought so much about a decision since Witcher 2 probably.

Spoiler

Sloane vs Reyes.

Really couldn't figure it out last night when I was playing, made 2 saves.. But I'm inclined to go Sloane. I, as a player, know that at first glance the consequences for Kadara seem overall better if you go Reyes (googled it). I just really didn't like how this played out. At least Sloane is upfront and doesn't do things behind my back. Reyes whole demeaner changed. Ryder doesn't know at all what Reyes plans are, so in-character it made more sense to me to save Sloane. But as a player.. I'm reminded of a Deep Space 9 quote (seems relevant, as we're in very deep space): "A guilty conscience is a small price to pay". <sigh> I have more to say about this (and the rest of my adventures), but I think I'll commit to saving Sloane.

What's even more aggravating is that this would probably have beeen a big save file import thing for a sequel. So we never really get to know what the long-term consequences will be.