This game is a B+ at worst.

My actual playtime was ~50 hours. There's lots to love and a little to hate about MEA. First, the modding scene has fixed a lot of bugs, bad textures, the crummy car mechanics, and infinite inventory size unless inventory management is your idea of fun. It's a very inexpensive game on sale, but you make up for that with the time needed modding to polish up the gameplay and graphics. Fair deal!

The combat presents a reasonable challenge and is entertaining. The game will sometimes punish you for running in guns blazing, which imo is a good thing. The number of weapons/mods and the combination crafting/purchase is dizzying: and here I think they've actually given the player too much choice. There are some hidden gems (sticky grenade bullets!) for those that want to play around with these systems, but it's not required.

I liked about half of my squad mates. They have been described as "discount" versions of the original ME trilogy, and that is mostly fair. Some core squad decisions here are bewildering -- why not swap out a human squad mate like Cora or Liam for a Salarian or ? But you can leave the squad mates you don't care for on the ship, except loyalty missions, with no ill effects.

In the main mission you are up against the organic Borg. There's no other way to put it, your arch enemies for the game are generic, boring, and hold 0 surprises. They certainly don't carry the weight of the reapers.

RPG choices - AFAIK you don't make a single important choice. There is no renegade / paragon system. The weight and consequences of siding with the Krogan over the Salarians, or the Geth vs the Quarians, or the delicate balance required to gain everyone's support (or romance!) are all gone.

Speaking of romance, you lack great options male or female -- and courtship as far as I can tell is overly straightforward.

The loyalty missions are excellent -- as are most "high point value" missions related to planetary effectiveness.

The final mission and epilogue is the lamest in the entire ME franchise by far. People angry with ME3's original ending will be FURIOUS with MEA. Lots of focus on the action set scenes, which were very cool, but no RA RA session prior to the mission, no impactful squad selection in mission, no weighty impact for your final decision.

Now a list of dumb game decision:
1. Underutilizing Radio / Vidcons. Way too many missions are "go here and talk to person". Waste of time.
2. No cool new aliens outside of the Angara
3. No intrigue. Ever. There's just no tension.
4. Unsatisfying explanation for the civil war / rebellion -- seems like half the people that arrived in Andromeda (theoretically the best of the best) just went nuts as soon as they landed.
5. No special post ending scenes for your romance

So, I'll give the short before I give the long, to save some folks the time.

Do I recommend this game? Yes, especially to those who are new to Mass Effect. It's a great way to get your toes wet if you are curious but not sure if you want to face down the whole trilogy that came before. Does this game have flaws? Yes, some glaring ones. In particular, the inventory system is excessively complex and could have been significantly simplified. Did I enjoy the game? Yes, I did! A few years after purchase, I was finally able to play it (due to life circumstances, I didn't have good tech to play it on), and I was pleased.

Okay, so now the long. Spoilers will be present.

This game definitely struggles to hold a candle to what came before it, and that's more than understandable. With a massive trilogy with a solid beginning, climax, and end coming before it which explores themes of politics, military versus civilian priorities, what constitutes life, and whether or not AI is inherently dangerous, all coming before Andromeda, there were some impossibly large shoes to fill.

After three games in the shoes of an experienced military officer navigating a complicated galaxy, suddenly planting your feet in the shoes of someone younger and far less experienced with any sort of command, on top of being squarely in the civilian sector, is going to seem lukewarm at best. So personally, as a writer, I give this game a pass in that regard.

I've seen some reviews criticizing the game's aliens, and I think that is a little bit of a disservice to the writers. In Ryder's position, we're traveling into a galaxy very different than that of the Milky Way, and after six centuries of cryosleep at that. Over the course of the game, we discover that not only are there seemingly only two species in the galaxy, they're inherently related to one another, as the Angara were genetically engineered by an ancient and seemingly long dead civilization. We still have much to learn about that ancient civilization, though it's heavily implied that the Kett are an empire that took up the mantle after its collapse, or otherwise are the descendants of the empire that brought the Remnant to their knees. In theme, this is not unlike the Protheans seeding worlds in an attempt to bring the next cycle against the Reapers a chance of success. I can understand some of the frustration, but this game does hint that there may have, at one point in time, been more than just two species in the galaxy.

There is still much, much more of Andromeda that's left to explore, and I think the decision to limit the storyline to just the Heleus Cluster is a significant part of why the lack of aliens may gall others. Additionally, the lack of other mainstays such as the Quarians, Elcor, Hanar, and Drell leave voids that longtime players of the franchise have come to expect. It's hinted that their arks are still out there, but this is left until after the credits roll. When all is said and done, in a franchise that has such an emphasis on diversity, Andromeda's Achilles heel is its apparent lack of diversity.

Combat I rather enjoyed. It is sufficiently easy for a newcomer to pick up, while having enough freedom to do even more than even Shepard had access to, though at times, this feels almost like a cheat. The ability to have access to a variety of profiles that even give non-biotic Ryders the ability to use biotics with a handwave about the SAM implants can impact the difficulty of combat, making things significantly easier unless the player roleplays a Ryder who sticks to only one or two profiles. This is akin to, say, Skyrim being a classless system in comparison to its predecessors whose challenges included creating a playstyle that can break the constraints of the starting class.

As for the companions, they are written in a manner that I actually found satisfying in the context of this being the start of a new trilogy. Like the original Mass Effect, there is some struggle in the voice acting in that the actors likely didn't know for sure if they'd be able to stick around for more than one game. As a result, there's a little bit of hesitation that can be sensed by the player. The biggest exception to this, from my perspective, is with Peebee, whose actor clearly picked up the script and decided to just really have fun with it. Absolute props to them!

Exploration in this game, I found rather relaxing. That said, I find exploration in a lot of games relaxing where others may find it to be rather grindy or tedious. Because this game has such an emphasis on exploration, I can see how that might drag down the storyline for those who want something a bit more action oriented. In a way, Andromeda takes the exploration styles of the first two Mass Effect games and mashes them together while also trying to give the feeling of an open world. To that end, I think this game bites off more than it can chew. The previous games had a particular strength by leaning on one aspect of exploration at a time. In ME 1, you were checking worlds where your mission sent you, and maybe scanning a few planets and asteroids for collection missions. In ME 2, exploration was tied to the need to gather resources and didn't expect you to land on every planet for it to be worthwhile. In ME 3, the exploration was not a primary goal so much as gathering up what assets have been scattered around the Milky Way as the Reapers go on the attack.

With Andromeda's exploration system, is it trying to be about gathering resources? Is it about discovering ancient ruins? Is it about technological advancement? Is it about discovering strange new species? Is it for... The problem is that it says yes to too many things and gears toward a generalist approach that takes away from what could otherwise be a beautifully nuanced system.

Now, graphics. I'm not a very big techhie to be completely honest. But I did find the game to be genuinely beautiful overall and had no issues with lag or anything like that. As for the art... It has a visual consistency with the trilogy that I do greatly appreciate, especially with regards to the hero ship. The Tempest clearly draws from the same development table as both Normandy's, but with a smaller and more rugged design. This is very neat to see, and hints are dropped everywhere about the ship plans being derived from the designs of the Normandy SR-2. The ships of the Kett and the Remnant are beautifully alien, and are a visual treat. But I found myself yearning for what an Angaran ship looks like. Ultimately, however, the only visual that impacted any immersion for me were the birds around New Tuchanka!

So I've gone on long enough. If I were to wrap up once more, I'd say that this is a great game for those who want a taste of Mass Effect without the baggage of the trilogy to get in the way. It certainly has its drawbacks and tries a little too hard to be something that stands apart from Mass Effect to such a degree that it sort of shoots itself in the foot. I'd love to see how the story of the Andromeda Initiative continues to play out, but with the backlash this game received, I understand why Bioware backtracked and is focusing on a game in the Milky Way once more. 8/10 in my opinion!

I've just finished another full play through of this game but this time i had 80+ mods installed as well. So right from the start a huge shout out to the modding community.... Well done. With these mods the game was so much more pleasurable to play. The MEA fixpack is an essential mod to have.
I have a huge love for the mass effect games and looking forward for the next mass effect game to come out.
Now is this game worth playing, i believe it is. Like all games it has a few fetch missions but just grind through them. If you arn't a fan then you may struggle a bit.
With mods it's very nice to play. So yes i would recommend this game

No amount of fixing facial animations or whatever technical glitches the game may have had at launch is going to fix the core issue: the plot and 99% of characters are just boring.
The game looks mostly good, exploration and combat is quite alright, which for me managed to carry the game for a while. But everything else that made Mass Effect Mass Effect is just gone. There is literally nothing interesting about any of the characters. There is no defined motivation for the villain (at least not that it has been revealed after 30 hours of gameplay). No emotional moments, either sad or humouristic, that really land - not for lack of trying.

Nothing about this is interesting.

For me this was my first Mass Effect game, personally I think its SOOOO much better than the "real" or earlier Mass Effect games, please dont hate me for saying it :)

I love everything about this game and its right up there with Cyberpunk 2077 for me, sure there are still bugs and its far from perfect. But with some mods it can be so incredibly fun!!!

At least thats my opinion :)

9,5/10

Buy on a discount and only if you love the ME series and a love of theroising what this could have been.

The game was rushed out, and its qualities stretched over too much game. Everything is too big and takes too much time, with its connections to EA.
Crafting is good, the armour looks great although the textures all look a bit too plastic. Weapon and ability customisation are good, although wasted of boring enemies.
If EA stuck to this game and gave it more content over time, this could be great, but they rely on immediate sale and ''EA expectations''.
The game also still does not feel optimised, even on my beast of a rig it just doesn't feel quite right.

What should have been; Instead of being one character locked into one back story, they should have done what Dragon Age Origins did, choose your species, background and the determines your origin. Choose a Salarian, you start on the Salarian Ark, same with Asari. Or you can begin on the Nexus at the start of the troubles.

More choices and consequences throughout the game. There is some in the game, especially with colony development but no where near enough. We need to see our choices and action playout and grow within the game consistently and with some impact.

People have spoken of the dialogue and characters and they are not wrong but not entirely correct. The dialogue tries to be whimsical and silly. Everyone is cracking one liners and jokes. This is not unique to Adromeda. This is the entire industry. Every game is trying to be a marvel movie and have Joss Whedon dialogue. For me this become tedious once Firefly ended.
These companies need to stop using whatever is popular algorithm designs and PAY to keep senior writers.

You'll have fun with the game, but coming from the high of the OG trilogy it does not do enough to impress.

It's not ME3, but give it a chance. The graphics are amazing and gameplay is really good.

EA App is horrible and will not launch this game

probably saying things everyone else already knows but.....voice acting terrible, gameplay worse, story even worse....wtf. Just wtf. I only played because It's nagging me I never played it because of how much I loved the original trilogy and I am glad that I ignored this for so long because it is literally making me hate myself for buying it.

This game has some bugs that needed to be patched a long time ago. Since I bought it I am playing it, but it also needs good optimazation.