I really don't know if it was a lack of skill, lack of time, lack of polish, SJW values, art direction, desire to appeal more to women, or just a bad game engine when dealing with faces, but the sad fact is MOST characters have a mediocre to odd appearance, to ME. Some make sense, others are just head scratchers...changes in Krogan faces and accents, watching the Alpha build of saving the Krogan colony ending, and then seeing the final release....Sara looking so different than her model, compared to Scott's looking close to his, ALL the Asari having same faces, lack of facial markings on Turians, Peebee raccoon swipe(reminded me of a DA2 reference), All these just made me wonder what happened.... We will probably never know as Bioware will not say, and EA closed the doors of the studio....so maybe that WAS explanation....lol.
Personally, Cassandra from DAI, is one of my favorite characters from that game. She is tough, good to have in the party, loved the story behind her, her soft spot for smutty romance, and after seeing her in game for a short while, I really liked the Face and model used. When playing a male Inquisitor, she is my romance character. The thing is, her facial scaring, and personality all match her story and character. You really shouldn't expect a front line character, who has fought dragons, templars, demons, and a whole host of other things to come out without some scars and the shorter hair means it fits under helms and can't be grabbed in a melee.
I think the biggest issue I have is, I can overlook some "marginal design choices" if the story and characters are good enough. I am not a fan of Sera's looks in DAI, but I like her character because she is interesting and different, but in MEA, they couldn't or didn't pull off the it's ok to be mediocre if you are interesting trick, for me at least. Liam, I wanted to air lock him, PeeBee was ok but looked too young I guess, and acted more like her father should have been a Salarian instead of a Elcor. Suvi was one of my favorites of the crew, along with the Dr Lexi, Vetra, Cora, Jaal and Drak....the rest I would have been happy to NOT be there or have radical changes.
Rewrites I would make.......
Liam....you meet him on the Nexus, he is supply officer..aka Vetra's job. You keep his loyalty mission, cause it makes sense that he was working the system and gave out data he shouldn't trying to finesse the system. You keep his actions to try and get you to scan the market and even trade with Jaal naked, these would then all fit his personality better and job description.
Vetra...oddity is she is on the Human vessel, BECAUSE Alec required it. While he wasn't a fan of non-humans, he saw the usefulness of Vetra when she saved him, and her background of Crisis response and security made her too good to pass up. As a favor to her to get her on board, her sister is brought along as part of a special patherfinder liason. After docking with Nexus, Vetra helps set up better security on the Nexus and her sister stays behind as a tech to help. Most of her loyalty mission can remain the same, with some dialog tweeks to make it work.
Swap the models and characters between Peebee and Lexi. Peebee then becomes the Dr. on board the ship...not sure she wants to be there, because she never planned on it, and not sure she wants the danger or upheaval. Lexi then becomes the smart researcher studying the Remenant, calm cool and collected. Lexi then becomes the love interest and takes over the science hall instead of Jaal.
ODD TANGENT----
What is Bioware trying to say about men in the game?? Take on these ideas and say "WHAT??"
1) Liam, straight love interest....basically an idiot and totally doesn't make sense based on his history or jobs.
2) Drak...Man's Man character..raised his grand-daughter, but is a relic of the past and will soon die.
3) Hark...krogan scientist, incredibly smart, but can't fight, isn't tough..aka would be called a wimp...gets the girl in the end, and is called the Future of Krogan.
4) Spender....human weasel...just a low life piece of self serving trash...
5) Number 8.....incompetent and while in charge isn't someone you trust.
6) Jaal...good fighter, smart, tough but always talking about feelings, opposite of Drak in he is fairly young and has a future.
7) Alec....ruthless, caring...DIES...
8) Gil...homosexual romance....smart, not a planner, effective in keeping the ship going.
Now look at the women....
8) Cora....male love interest....effective, trained, good looking, powerful, SHOULD have been pathfinder.
9) Lexi...smart, good looking, trained, educated, effective, doctor who keeps you all alive.
10) Vetra..smart, trained, effective, supplies trip and gets troubles out of your way.
11) Peebee...love interest....young, smartest in the room on Remanent, effective, powerful.
12) Kesh...smart, effective, tough, respected, keeps station alive.
13) Suvi....smart, absent minded but that is because of her extreme intelligence, educated, and effective as science officer.
So what patterns do you see, and what can you take from it???
Me, it seems like someone is trying to say something.....but you decide. HMMMMM???
Yeah I wasn't impressed with the Sara Ryder default especially since she was supposedly based on Jayde Rossi I couldn't quite understand how she ended up looking like she did. The goofiness is not just the animations but also that the face looks more cartoony than a real person.
There are modders who actually created faces that are quite pretty using the settings that exist but it's a lot of work to get it right. As much as I like character creation options, I tend to like to be done in 30 mins and not spend hours tweaking it. All the customizable options look weird or off in some way.
Now I am reminded of the other Frostbite game where characters also look very iffy called Dragon Age Inquisition...so I think it's a valid question to ask if this an engine issue or the result of Social Injustice Warrior influence. (Since they don't seem to look for justice but just swinging the pendulum to another group I cannot call them SJWs), but then I see what some people do that have the patience to play around for hours and I think, well, it's possible in Frostbite after all.
Then again, what we've seen from Anthem, which isn't that much yet, it seems that we won't really get to see our characters unless suited up in full coverage javelin mech suits. So that makes me wonder if that's their way of stepping away from character customization in Frostbite altogether.
I dunno. ME:A is what it is now. Clearly they are no longer going to put any effort into it. I can only hope that they revisit Mass Effect in the not to far future with either a reboot of the originals or something new again. I really am no longer interested in finding out what happens to Ryder next.
