There's so much to say about Mass Effect Andromeda, i wouldn't know where to even begin so i'll try to keep it short and summarized. I've rarely seen such a bland but yet interesting game. First of all; no, it's not "the worst game ever made," far from it. The worst Mass Effect though? I'd agree with that.

I'd say it's more or less the usual M.E. formula in a generic open world game with a bunch of issues. It feels like a 2007 game desperately trying to be a trendy 2015 game. You may have guessed it: yes it's overly repetitive, yes there are many fedex quests. But one my biggest gripes is the AI (for both squadmates and enemies): sometimes it's behaving normally, and sometimes it's criminally malfunctioning. The result is infuriatingly annoying gunfights. For some reason, it happens more in a particular open map, and less in a few others. Speaking of fighting, there's hardly any tactical aspect. Team abilities can synergize with yours and create a "combo" but what's the point when you can't pause the game and give specific orders to your squadmates like before? Most of the time, the combat is more akin to mindless shooting.

Another gripe would be the UX and UI, they're oddly subpar in such a "modern" rpg. I mean you can't compare the stuff you craft/buy with the one you already have in real time.

But the biggest issue imo is... ME:A is an unfortunate series of missed opportunities. There's a good explanation behind all of this: it's a widely unfinished software despite the big amount of content in it. Sure the devs managed to polish it enough and fix the bugs to make it playable, but there's in-depth design work that they would absolutely not be able to do. Whatever i did, wherever i went, i couldn't help but think "would have been great if they did this or that, it needed to have something more, etc..." You more or less do the same thing all the time, talk with NPCs, go there, kill that, interact with this, come back, done. Nothing crazy, nothing memorable in both the story and the gameplay. They really needed to go overboard and write/make more unique situations.

So why in tarnation am i recommending ME:A anyway? I gotta admit, i liked it, i couldn't drop it nor did i ever want to. It just left me wanting for more to be honest.

I dig the exploration. I was bummed when ME2 removed the planet exploration from ME1 and replaced it with a boring minigame instead of improving it. Obviously, it's back in Andromeda, you get to extract ore in free roam. Unfortunately, it's not as exciting as it sounds, there are hardly any secrets to be found.

Another good thing they brought back from ME1 is a much more detailed skill tree and the loot, LOTS of loot. I really missed it. It's not handled in the best way but it's there. Gameplay wise, ME:A feels more RPG than its two predecessors.

The Nomad (new vehicle, replaced the Mako, upgradable but no guns attached) is fun to drive.

You get to use a "scanner" to analyze some npcs, plants, enemies to read some lore about them and earn research points (much needed for your R&D crafting). It was severely underutilized but i enjoyed it. It reminded me of the Metroid Prime trilogy.

The art style is fantastic, there are various picturesque sceneries to be seen. High screenshot potential if you ask me. Protip: there's sadly no implemented photo mode, but i've read that you can use Nvidia Ansel instead if you have a Nvidia GPU.

On the whole, it was surprisingly addictive. If you like Action-RPGs, scifi, and the Mass Effect series, give it a chance. It's not incredible, you might not enjoy it, but it's definitely worth a try during sales.

For reference, i didn't play the multiplayer mode and wasn't interested to. Not sure if it has a lot of active players.

not even close

Not the best ME but its solid, game play is fun, story is OK at best.

Good game, ♥♥♥♥ the haters

So, I've played the trilogy, and despite being dissatisfied with the ending, way back when, I always wanted to give a go to Andromeda.
Recently I've purchased on a sale, and decided to give it a whirl.
Honestly, I'm in it for the story and the team members, so it's a mixed bag.
Frostbite and the game itself did NOT age well, as a game from 2017, you have to match it with things like the original Horizon Zero Dawn, Biohazard (!!!!), the original Hellblade, Zelda Breath of the Wild, AC Origins, Wolfenstein: New Colossus, Uncharted Lost Legacy etc.
Looks bad, combat is wonky, lot of T-pose loading, huge areas with basically NO vegetation, animals and/or enemies, vistas are underwhelming in most cases, this is 7 years after launch, all patched out.
Menu system is terrible (keyboard + mouse: use space, illogical forced steps to navigate the menu, or the planets you play on) So, no...
On the flip side: the party interactions and banters are good! (combat AI is BAD. Companions in combat are rather useles...meatshields)
It is what it is, I'm going to finish it, but this is a disgrace :(

The "I have no idea why they all hated it" feeling evaporates in 2 hours and you start understanding, and then you realize people who played at launch also had bugs to help with their experience.

In short - if you can play mass effect 1 and drive mako for an hour, followed by solving a 5x5 sudoku puzzle you can then experience a very polished earth defense force for about 30 seconds, and hear marvel 2025 level of cringe dialogue for a minute or two. Rinse and repeat for *checks playtime* 22 HOURS?! I've wasted a day on this!?

Broken on SteamDeck: fails to start if offline (travelling,...).

It is ridiculous for a single player game to require being online to start.

I can honestly say this is the worst written dialogue I have ever seen in a video game

1/10

Smooth graphics and game play. Combat and skills are easy to use. A fan of the franchise. Would like to see a new game.

Woke and lame. Don't even bother. Add EA app and you have a ♥♥♥♥ game