Mass Effect : Andromeda was on sales and free to play this weekend on Origin so I took the occasion to test the game. I played with a male character and went as far as to clean the atmosphere of Eos and establish a military colony on the planet. Time to share some thought now. For context I did not play the game until last week. I was not really following it except a few trailers and a quick reviews. I had read the Kutaku article before I got my hands on the game so obviously it influenced a bit how I engaged the game from the start.

I am not going to talk about the animations issue. I feel like there is nothing to add on the subject at this point.

First character creation was a bit disappointing. The UI made it a little difficult to adjust the parameters, especially colors. No beards O_o !
Bioware needs to fix the lighting during character creation. As it was in Dragon Age : Inquisition, the lighting during the character creation is different from the game-play lightening. In Andromeda it is especially confusing with Face Complexion. During my first attempt I ended up unintentionally with a character looking 45 years old. It did not help there is no available choice of voice acting so I was stuck with a 20'' year man with a 45 year old face skin and the voice of a teenager. Fortunately it is possible to re-do the character appearance after the start.

Combat gameplay is average. The developers attempted to make combat more dynamic. They succeeded at that but it can quickly become too chaotic. Combat gameplay is limited by multiple factors. Ryder can only equip three capacities. Apparently Bioware was influenced by the idiotic logic according to whom increased limitations on choice necessarily make them more interesting. The player has no control over his companion power. Lastly companion skills trees are very small.

My main problem with the game was the dialogue and the writing style.

While the famous dialogue wheel received an additional slot, the player freedom feels more restricted than ever. As in Mass Effect 3 the character keeps talking without the player input. The four dialogue tones (emotional, logical, casual, professional) do not allow you to actually shape your character behavior and personality. It feels like the writers did not want to work on a video game and wrote a fan fiction instead. No matter how I try I can not be in a hate relation with father Ryder because that's not how the writer imagined the story. I can not be a thuggish, authoritarian and cold commandant/pathfinder as the writers only imagined a friendly well intentionned Ryder. Etc.

I feel like the lack of voice acting choice fit within this issue : there is only one canon Ryder and the dialogue option are there merely to direct the conversation. The writers forgot they were working on a RPG and as such dialogues have two publics : in-game NPCs and the player. I get it : the writers thought they could do more natural dialogue this way. It did not even work. Sometimes the script was bad including when my Ryder spoke without my consent.

This is by far the biggest issue I have with the game. When I play a Bioware game I am mostly looking for a story driven experience where I can role play the character I want and have some influence over the story. During the hours I played Andromeda it felt impossible. This issue made Mass Effect 3 unplayable to me. It was even more frustrating back then as I had craft a solid personality for my own cannon Shepard. At least this time I escape the frustration to see my character erased by Bioware's writer but I have little enjoyment in playing their Ryder. It does not help the writers made Ryder a bland and one-dimensional character.


Mass Effect : Andromeda felt like a deception. After the great Dragon Age : Inquisition I expected more. Too bad. I think I am going to skip this game.