this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
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Mass Effect
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I actually really liked Andromeda. It was very different than the original trilogy, but was super fun.
Combat is 10/10
Characters and writing were “My face is tired”/10
The writing is where the rushed final development really showed. Andromeda really frustrated me because there was a great story trying to break through the mediocrity of the writing of it.
I think the change was best illustrated by the ME trilogy already. You could practically observe the shift from exploring a deep and varied science fiction universe to "player character gets told by everyone how great player character is while being given stuff to do a pew-pew to". In all fairness though, they really delivered some good pew-pew by the end and could still salvage much of the character stuff. Andromeda just continued the previous trend ad extremum.
ME2 was actually my least favorite in the trilogy because of that shift (as well as how it completely failed to progress the Reaper plot line, leaving 3 to do the plot work of two games).
I've never understood this perspective, ME2 doesn't involve the Reapers because of how ME1 concluded the story. Unless you wanted ME 2/3 to both be about the reaper war, there isn't much for them to do during the years they're travelling to the milky way. There has to be some other bad guy to focus on since you can't advance a plot when the main antagonists aren't there. I'd also argue that without the character work of 2, ME3 would fall flat with conflicts that don't gut punch you. You'd never care about the Krogan arc as much if Mordin wasn't around, and Tali/Legion were crucial in making the Rannoch plot feel alive. All of that emotion exists purely because of the excellent character work of the second game.
ME2 fleshed out the galaxy and it's people, made it feel a little more cyberpunk, absolutely blew ME1's art direction and voice work out of the water, and gave the most content out of the three games once you include recruitment/loyalty/N7 side missions/main plot missions/DLC.
Sure the collectors are a bit of a weird side quest, but it's supposed to be Shepard's darkest hour. Not their finest. The enemy needed to be scaled down so that the narrative can focus more on personal relationships and world building. ME2 absolutely delivered on that.
Iirc, it’s only been 3 or so years between the end of ME1 and the start of ME3. For like 2 of those 3 years, Shep was literally being rebuilt - and then between the end of ME2 and the start of ME3, we go from “Collectors are abducting people” to “holy fuck the Reapers are here” in 6 months or so. To me, that’s the weird whiplash - during the 2 years, the Reapers were doing… something, but practically as soon as Shep comes back from the dead, they are now invading??
Granted, this is being incredibly and obnoxiously nitpicky, but I always disliked that timing. Would’ve made more sense that ME2 took maybe a year after ME1 at most, then have ME3’s story start like a year or 2 after ME2 to at least give a little breathing room.
I love ME2 to pieces, but Arrival dropping that bombshell really made it feel weird in hindsight.
They were "doing something" that whole time, though. The moment Sovereign died they began travelling via standard FTL to the galaxy. It just took them that entire two years to do it. Meanwhile they set their errand boys on a mission to take out the most wildcard race that had ever stood against them. Humans.
The point of not having the breathing room was to push Shepard to their limit, they thought they'd have the time to build up resources/armies and then they get killed. Wake up two years later to find out no one's done anything about the Reapers and it's probably too late.
Had they not killed Shepard and just placed the games chronologically equidistant there would be very little tension in the "Can Shepard pull this off?" Department.
Is was very forgettable compared to the trilogy. Story was bland, many characters were uninteresting, some where annoying, not much new in terms of mechanics and a bunch of bugs. It wasn't the worst game in recent years, but it was the worst Mass Effect.
It was better than ME3 for me. It was two short and too conservative with the scenario and characters, but there is a solid ground to it. ME3 just betrayed the saga IMO.