Before I get into my thoughts on this game, I’d like to preface that I’m new to the series and played this game through the legendary edition. I played ME: Andromeda before this and I’m sure fans of this series would say that is the worst game to start with lmao. That game aside, I do not know anything about the story of the original trilogy. I am starting completely fresh and am unaware of any spoilers.
So I finally gave this game a shot bc of how much praise the series as a whole has. And tbh, I was a bit disappointed by the end of it. The world building is the best part of this game and is what ultimately kept me going. The lore as a whole is very intriguing. I also like how the choices between renegade/paragon actually matter. But everything else is just meh. Gameplay is clunky. The biotics aspect of this game felt more of a gimmick than an actual playstyle. I never once felt my biotic abilities to be consistently useful in fights, despite being the Adept build. This is where Andromeda shined with biotics simply due to having more mobility in gameplay. This game does not cater towards a mobile, fast playstyle which makes the use of biotics mostly useless outside of reviving and shield regeneration. You’re better off with a straight combat build. Most of the side missions felt hollow and unrewarding. Most of the characters were forgettable(except for Wrex and Captain Anderson). Bringing all of the companions into your crew felt extremely tacked on and rushed just for the sake of advancing the plot forward. Also, the voice acting does not do most of the characters any type of justice. The side planets you were able to visit never felt worth it to explore. The mako stuff was easily the worst part of the game. Driving that thing through sections of the game was just not fun. And the story felt very generic. They tried to get you to care about Saren towards the end but he was a generic villain for 90% of the game. Go here, shoot stuff, get this information, talk with the council, rinse and repeat. The story was just too cut and dry and there was never a point where it clicked with me.
Idk maybe I had too high of expectations going in bc of how much praise this series has. I’m sure I’d have a drastically different opinion if I played this back in 2007. It’s clearly a limited game for its time and was probably innovative back then. I can see why it has the fanbase it has but playing this game in 2022 was just not it.
So I finally gave this game a shot bc of how much praise the series as a whole has. And tbh, I was a bit disappointed by the end of it. The world building is the best part of this game and is what ultimately kept me going. The lore as a whole is very intriguing. I also like how the choices between renegade/paragon actually matter. But everything else is just meh. Gameplay is clunky. The biotics aspect of this game felt more of a gimmick than an actual playstyle. I never once felt my biotic abilities to be consistently useful in fights, despite being the Adept build. This is where Andromeda shined with biotics simply due to having more mobility in gameplay. This game does not cater towards a mobile, fast playstyle which makes the use of biotics mostly useless outside of reviving and shield regeneration. You’re better off with a straight combat build. Most of the side missions felt hollow and unrewarding. Most of the characters were forgettable(except for Wrex and Captain Anderson). Bringing all of the companions into your crew felt extremely tacked on and rushed just for the sake of advancing the plot forward. Also, the voice acting does not do most of the characters any type of justice. The side planets you were able to visit never felt worth it to explore. The mako stuff was easily the worst part of the game. Driving that thing through sections of the game was just not fun. And the story felt very generic. They tried to get you to care about Saren towards the end but he was a generic villain for 90% of the game. Go here, shoot stuff, get this information, talk with the council, rinse and repeat. The story was just too cut and dry and there was never a point where it clicked with me.
Idk maybe I had too high of expectations going in bc of how much praise this series has. I’m sure I’d have a drastically different opinion if I played this back in 2007. It’s clearly a limited game for its time and was probably innovative back then. I can see why it has the fanbase it has but playing this game in 2022 was just not it.