Comment by ToucanLoucan
5 hours ago
Andromeda had a lot of good in it, tbf. Their big mistake there IMO was hard-resetting the universe the way they did. Like I was excited for more mass effect but I fell off that game so hard. Mechanically it was solid but I just… didn’t care.
Anthem frankly killed them. A live service looter shooter which were already out of vogue by the time it was released. Obviously made by marketing entirely, no soul whatsoever. They never recovered from it.
I will always defend Andromeda as not being as bad as everyone said. I enjoy going back and playing it, and they were a few better writers away from having a really good game. I cared more about the Irish redhead copilot than about any one of the actual companions.
Yeah, Andromeda has some cool ideas (the whole Remnant thing felt like a very classic Scifi mistery) but it was stuck in classing BioWare cliches with companions loyalty quests and romances, the main character being weird chosen one, the main plot was dumb and it was barely a Mass Effect because of the disconnect from the main universe and missing some of the favorite Mass Effect things (like the Geth).
It might have been successful if it weren't a Mass Effect. Or maybe not, who knows.
I think a large part of the issue is that the sum total of ME trilogy is a hard act to follow, without aiming to sound hyperbolic it's a very bright light that outshines a lot. Anything trying to be a sequel has a difficult balancing act of being familiar versus being different and bringing new ideas in.
> I cared more about the Irish redhead copilot than about any one of the actual companions
This squares with Joker being a fan-favourite character in the main trilogy
> Mechanically it was solid but I just… didn’t care.
This is a great summary of the entire issue with the game.
I really tried to like it but it didn't inspire any enthusiasm. I didn't really care for the plot, the stakes seemed so low compared to the previous title and none of the races/planets really scratched that explore itch.
They where by than "owing the don" as in there existence was company internally subsidized and you do not recover creative control from that. And those external management initiated "next shiny thing" chases kill you.