I'm having fun with it, to be honest. The exploration elements are fun, and the squadmates are pretty good. Combat's about what I thought it would be.

The music is quiet, but I don't really mind all that much.

This is coming from someone who hasn't played the game but instead drank in a number of reviews online and has gotten secondhand information from friends who have played it.

Honestly, Andromeda isn't nearly as bad as people claim it to be, but that doesn't make it good either. A lot of people want to just brush off the terrible animation as a staple of BioWare, but at least the trilogy's animation wasn't so horrible that it crippled crucial scenes, and the times it did were few and far between. Plus there's the actual squad animations during combat that glitch out, as well as enemies that end up frozen in place, warping across the area, or floating midair during combat. I could go on but it'd take too long and some of these are even dependent on the person playing because there are people who report no bugs at all AND people who report all of them or at least some.

But despite that, Andromeda does some good things too. I do like that the brought back open world exploration again, and how the opened up all the abilities you can get, which are now not locked depending on the class you pick. I hear the characters are still pretty decent as well. But for every step Andromeda takes forward, it takes 1 or 2 backwards. (I've seen the ability menu and I seriously wonder how people don't get overwhelmed by the sheer amount on the list, and new players especially wont know what half of that even does)

I think, overall, if the BioWare team responsible for this game doesn't make some crucial fixes, Andromeda is either going to just be known as that mediocre Mass Effect spin-off at best, or a horribly animated, buggy game that feels like ME1 with a fresh coat of paint. (and ME1 needs A LOT MORE than a fresh coat of paint)

Also I don't know anything about the music so I have no input there, sorry. And apologies for the length as well.

Having played the game for two days... Its just okay.

Its not the greatest thing in the world but not a massive horrible failure either.

My honest thoughts on ME:A....it's mass effect. It has that feeling from the first game of some grand epic story yet to be unveiled, some mystery to uncover. But it takes things further than ME1...because you're playing a "green" character, not one that has a lifetime of experience under their belt like shepard. Ryder is new to the whole role of making these big heavy choices, and the game itself is...very exploratory.

I felt kinda like kirk from star trek, exploring uncharted and new worlds, encountering new species and mysteries to solve. Despite the...glaring issue of the animation quality, the game itself is very solid. Exploration, combat, and I rather liked the story.

Honestly haven't played it, but I've seen some let's plays and livestreams, and there seems to be a real problem with bugs and animations. Especially facial expressions. This is just from watching people play it, so I can't give a personal gameplay opinion. Also, some of the dialogue and voice acting felt pretty poor to me.

I think a lot of people feel that the entire game is like it is in this video https://youtu.be/7KWkao73HuU?t=88
I wouldn't say its that bad all the way through from what I've seen. They can fix the bugs with patches, but it'll take a lot to make the facial expressions look normal. Gameplay looks good though. If they can just stabilize it the game should at least make for a good gameplay experience

Despite the animations failures and some bugs, the game was good to me. I just miss some advanced features like the task to interact more with your colonies, also romance options were disappointing as they said they would develop more the relationship with with your lover (which, actually, is a lie, it is exactly like the previous games, just a little scene of nothing and then your relationship isn't existing anymore).
But heh, maybe we can hope more in DLCs? (Okay I admit I'm trolling about DLCs..)

As having watched someone else play (because I ended up buying NieR: Automata while buzzed instead of ME:A, which you should really play if you get the chance) I... I'm disappointed at what appears to be a massive loss in quality assessment, a lot of the writing feels very amateur, or out of place, animations are.... yeah, don't get me started on the krogan cat fight.

Gameplay looked more promising, but yet again EA felt compelled to add multiplayer to a game that its peak did not have it or needed it for the sake of microtrans. Overall... I would've liked to have seen better things done to Andromeda.

Oh and as a slight addendum, you know the quality is bad when you have someone play the first mass effect for the first time and hear them say it looks a lot better then Andromeda.

Still working on my first playthrough - doing an Insanity run as an Infiltrator on PC. I'll probably chime in with some commentary after I've finished, but I've only just reached the Aya vault (100% on the first three planets).

Gotta say it's a mixed bag so far, but I'm having fun and enjoying most of it regardless.

I haven't played the game, but I've seen reviews and all I got out of that was really funny faces, animations and an amazingly flamboyant Krogan.

haha.

If you're talking about http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Nakmor_Kesh, she's a female.

The name of the Krogan was Nakmor Morda, I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDit1WO12fs :D I love this krogan

Pretty sure that's a female as well, I haven't gotten that as far as that YouTube video is, but generally, all female Krogan have glossy-looking lips so my assumption is she's a female, but I don't have any facts for that. And wow, that fight was pretty bad. I don't know if that was humorously intentional since Ryder looked like he was about to roll his eyes, though. X3

As far as my research goes, Nakmor Morda is a female.

As someone who's played 60+ hours so far, I love it. Honestly, people around the internet are over-analyzing or just downright blowing things out of proportion. That or they just join the hate train without actually playing it or doing research. Don't get me wrong, there are a few game-breaking bugs that need to absolutely be fixed, but luckily I've not experienced too many at all. Any other bugs can be fixed with a simple save reload which is better than crashing and whatnot. I chose a male Ryder, so I haven't experienced too many weird facial expressions and animations, even if I did, game-breaking bugs are more important to fix than immersion issues, no matter how silly.

It's deserving of the Mass Effect title, in my opinion, but at the same time, I acknowledge that it maybe went down a step or two back in some aspects. Which is fine, every story is different, some aren't as glamorous, sometimes heroes die, sometimes they live happily ever after, etc. My advice to people is to not let a two-second animation, if that, ruin your 70+ hours of gameplay because that'd be silly. In the end, the game is rather mainstreamed, but fun nonetheless.

As for multiplayer, I don't know how I feel about it. Like.. it's really fun and somehow addicting to me, but Mass Effect 3's was cooler. I liked the idea behind locking down an area and defending and you can't really do that in this one because enemies are so ridiculously aggressive it sometimes makes me laugh. I also, really don't like how they removed heavy melees. Perhaps it'll be more fun when the free DLC comes out for it.

This is pretty accurate right here; I only have ~16 hours played due to work restraints, but overall I think it is a LOT better than people are making it out to be. I went in with the reviews I read making me dread if they just butchered one of my favorite game series, but I am happy to say it is actually pretty decent.
There are bugs and, of course, the bad animations, but the story is a Bioware-made one: it's pretty good, explains why things are the way they are, and has some decent characters.
It definitely isn't the best game, but it is definitely not horrible.


If anyone is interested in a thorough, and very fair, review of the game, due go watch TotalBiscuit's videos about the single player storyline (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lptcmV6k_u4) and/or the multiplayer review.

I'll agree on the music side. The game is really quiet without music and really detracts from the atmosphere. Half of mass effects narrative is told through the music and its a shame it takes a back seat.

That aside im really enjoying it. Combats so much smoother than before and the games ran as smooth as butter for me, barely any bugs at all so far apart from a few visual ones. (Is about halfway through) I guess iv been incredibly lucky haha

You playing on PC? Please tell me you are. I cant fathom how it runs smooth otherwise, the console versions are hardly even at 30 most of the time

Im on console XD Come to think of it the frame rate can drop at times when its loading stuff by smooth as butter i meant with little bugs