On the surface, it seems as though a lot of time was put into Andromeda's various systems on an individual level, but very little effort is present in the way of making them flow into one another to create something resembling a fun gameplay loop worth spending time in.
The graphical fidelity and audio design is a welcome leap from the trilogy, but lack of interesting presentation or varied combat squanders any goodwill they might instill. Combat is more open ended and expressive on paper, but the chunky nature of navigating menus, managing your loadout, basic AI, and over-long animations prevent it from being as liberating as it ought to be.
Dialogue and performances from the supporting cast are mostly fine, but just about everything that comes out of Ryder's mouth happens at unnatural pacing and feels bizarrely divorced from anything resembling a real conversation. More unforgivable is the lack of any intrigue or memorable characters, with just about every story element being a discounted echo of something from the original trilogy, and even spilling over into feeling like a generic Destiny/Halo type story at times.
Underneath all of Andromeda's flaws, something resembling a good game is almost there, but it's buried under 20 tons of fat and loading screens. One could almost take a look at the horrendously bloated open world hubs filled with repetitive encounters and barebones production value in the story department, and wonder: Why was Mass Effect Andromeda's blank slate stepping-stone for the franchise developed by the team behind Mass Effect 3's multiplayer component not EA's attempt at a Destiny-clone, instead of the ill-fated Anthem?
I'm sympathetic towards many of the game's shortcomings and development issues under EA - But a lot of the problems here seem self-inflicted. At the end of the day, had Mass Effect Andromeda landed every shot it took, it would still be a poster-child for tired and overly long open world bloat that just about every other AAA game at the time was afflicted with. No one aspect of it is so offensively bad it tanks the experience as a whole; It's all just so mind-numbingly boring.
The graphical fidelity and audio design is a welcome leap from the trilogy, but lack of interesting presentation or varied combat squanders any goodwill they might instill. Combat is more open ended and expressive on paper, but the chunky nature of navigating menus, managing your loadout, basic AI, and over-long animations prevent it from being as liberating as it ought to be.
Dialogue and performances from the supporting cast are mostly fine, but just about everything that comes out of Ryder's mouth happens at unnatural pacing and feels bizarrely divorced from anything resembling a real conversation. More unforgivable is the lack of any intrigue or memorable characters, with just about every story element being a discounted echo of something from the original trilogy, and even spilling over into feeling like a generic Destiny/Halo type story at times.
Underneath all of Andromeda's flaws, something resembling a good game is almost there, but it's buried under 20 tons of fat and loading screens. One could almost take a look at the horrendously bloated open world hubs filled with repetitive encounters and barebones production value in the story department, and wonder: Why was Mass Effect Andromeda's blank slate stepping-stone for the franchise developed by the team behind Mass Effect 3's multiplayer component not EA's attempt at a Destiny-clone, instead of the ill-fated Anthem?
I'm sympathetic towards many of the game's shortcomings and development issues under EA - But a lot of the problems here seem self-inflicted. At the end of the day, had Mass Effect Andromeda landed every shot it took, it would still be a poster-child for tired and overly long open world bloat that just about every other AAA game at the time was afflicted with. No one aspect of it is so offensively bad it tanks the experience as a whole; It's all just so mind-numbingly boring.