nah not javiks shard, am not gonna kill myself lol... all I can say right now, meeting Tali after so long... Totally Worth It 🙂
Well I don't think ME4 is better than the original trilogy. Sorry, but even if there are improvements in some areas, it has a few huge steps back in other areas and it doesn't have stuff previous games had. For example - Garrus. I just don't see any person in ME4 that can reach his status. Okay, Addison could. 😛
Anyhow, I've played through the game twice so I'll take a pause from it (Expeditions 2 will be released in a few days). When I finished the game for the first time, I shared my opinion on RPGwatch, and second playthrough didn't change it (faces got fixed but I never cared about that), so I'll quote myself as a feedback:
https://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1061444010&postcount=2248
superb:
- combat
- crafting possibilities
- ending made easier or harder depending on your choices through the game
- e-mails protagonist receives, sidestories on terminals and logs
- visuals of galaxy and explorable areas
- not possible to fastrun the game in one afternoon (normal dif.)
- sound effects
- references to original trilogy (button pushing on Kadara, Cerberus in a few side missions, Liara's audio logs, etc)
thumb up:
- hidden stuff and puzzles (although easy, and I'm not talking about 20 sudoku)
- space pr0n exploration although rewards should have been better
- flirting
- Apex HQ works on emulators
- The Art Of ME:A does not disappoint
- was afraid jack of all trades system will stink, but no you can't be Skyrim master of everything
stuff improved compared to ME2, ME3 and DA3:
- no cutout story/setting critical content sold as DLC
- DLC (deluxe version) relevant only to MMO audience
- MMO rewards symbolic in campaign and don't guarantee the best outcome
- Mako returned and thank god no N4S carracing idiocy
- no reason to spam sonar constantly
- no instarespawning bears
- no Bioware Points scam!
not bad, but should have been much better:
- inconsistent writing, not as bad as generally suggested though, it's "good, bad and ugly"
- tons of quests and sidequests, not all are a quality over quantity though
- cryo pods system has level cap and some of pods' bonus are crappy
- sidekicks are hardly memorable
- sidekicks banter tainted with breaks on trashmob respawns or Sam's POI-s alert
- too many unfixed annoyances that proper QA would notice (example: tendency of corrupt autosaves)
thumb down:
- facial animations, while there is a logical reason, EA should have funded it with more $
- loadscreens, loadscreens everywhere instead of fasttravel between roamable planets:
----- Kadara loadscreens at big doors, inability to freeroam without landing on it's port
----- just like Kadara, Nexus port area used as a loadscreen to other Nexus areas
- unskippable cutscenes
- no F5 on PC, saving anywhere outside of combat disabled in main story missions
- grinding is toned down, but it still exists
- longterm romances again feel pathetic ("friends with benefits" option is okay)
- sidekicks AI in general, sometimes "frozen" hostiles/friendlies AI
- disproportional (mutated?) human bodies
- music, what music, where is music spectacle?
- default film grain on and subtitles off, no option to disable motion blur, console command needed to make a screenshot
unforgivable catastrophes:
- mining minerals with Mako
- roguelike randomly generated task objectives
- UI (weaponswitching circle stinks, menus are a mess, 3D map rotation not possible, etc)
- hair!
I said that once I started playing this game I just couldn't stop.
8/10
Sorry if I sound too harsh there and if moderator feels some words should be changed on EA answers, please do edit them, I won't object.
The only thing I find superb, for a personal classification, is the amount of potential to explore.
@JoxerTM22 wrote:
Well I don't think ME4 is better than the original trilogy. Sorry, but even if there are improvements in some areas, it has a few huge steps back in other areas and it doesn't have stuff previous games had. For example - Garrus. I just don't see any person in ME4 that can reach his status. Okay, Addison could. 😛
I said that once I started playing this game I just couldn't stop.
8/10
Sorry if I sound too harsh there and if moderator feels some words should be changed on EA answers, please do edit them, I won't object.
Harsh? LOL you gave the game 8/10 that's more than what a lot of people would have given it lol... Nah you were being very kind. Objectively it's not a bad game, I played it 4 times and spent 521 hrs(according to origin's counter) but still I call it MEA rather than ME4, perhaps in my mind, it really doesnt belong in the same league as the trilogy.
I loved the Shepard series and I was fine with the ME3 ending and all that.
So for me to say that this game is better than the previous ones is a tough one. The original series was rather epic and really engaged you.
ME:A is a game I enjoy very much. I play it a lot and it has a lot of stuff to do in it. Exploration and all that is great. The conversations have humour but the conversations can be awkward and a bit too dry as well. So I'm mixed on that. The vehicle is definitely better. I have the model sitting here on my desk...it even looks cool.
But the original series did engage me more into the story and the main character. Also the companions in ME:A are cool but between Cora and Ashley, I still have to go with Ashley. Drack's hilarious though. Liam? I have no idea what's up with that guy but he's an oddball of sorts. But I digress.
ME:A is a great game for me. I enjoy it. It needs some fixes. The first patch already helped. What I am looking for though is a bit more of that epic feeling that seems a bit lacking as the main story is a little flat in comparison and the companion stories are lengthy and a bit messy. I think a lot of that can be cleared up by doing something about the UI (track more than 1 quest at the same time) and doing something about this annoying "on hold" stuff that really breaks my flow when I want to play through a story arc. They really need to think about how they do the quests.
But I can't say I hate it after playing for over 130 hours...I do enjoy it, but I also hope that the next installment of ME will really take that step up again in story, feels and engagement. I'm just not as attached to Ryder as I was to Shepard. Sadly, it appears that the next ME will not continue the Ryder story. I do hope we'll get some dlc for the Ryder story though.
It's something Dragon Age also suffers from in my view. Switching main characters with each installment just didn't help. I'm not sure if that's just me, but the Original DA is still my favourite and DA:I I only played through once and didn't care to try it again. It was pretty good, but not worth replaying somehow.
In ME:A I do feel there is a disadvantage to what they did with classes. Because you can be everything they had to balance them against each other and that takes a bit of the excitement away for me especially from biotics somehow. As part of the balancing you get only 3 active skills. That's just kinda boring to me and I don't really feel that switching around from one layout to another. So I end up playing a sniper with extra guns each playthrough.
So I have some concerns but they haven't stopped me from playing this game...a lot. 🙂
I love the extra banter that is in this game compaired to the others. All of it.
The in combat dialogue (especially on hab 7 when they did random call in checks - to see everyone was still standing etc, felt real).
I like that Ryder joins the nomad banter, instead of in other games where the protag says nothing at all as if they aren't there or something.
I liked the fact that there was some amount of dialogue for all quests - even the side quests. I never felt as if everyone was too quite when they could / should say something when out exploring. It made me feel more engaged in these quests.
So many times Ryder said exactly what I was thinking - which was awesome, really. Stuff like how many of these guys is there? Or Seriously we can't catch a break. Thats just a small example, there was a lot of moments like that both in and out of combat that made Ryder more relatable.
Some of the romances were the best they have ever done in a single game, others were worse, this needs more balancing.
I am a dialogue junky and this game made my dialogue addicted self very happy overall but for the love of all that is mass effect please fix the lacking romances, that part of my dialogue addiction was very disappointed in Liam's romance and I know from others it wasn't the only lacking one.
@JoxerTM22 wrote:
Well I don't think ME4 is better than the original trilogy. Sorry, but even if there are improvements in some areas, it has a few huge steps back in other areas and it doesn't have stuff previous games had. For example - Garrus. I just don't see any person in ME4 that can reach his status. Okay, Addison could. 😛
_______________________________________
If you think I'm saying ME:A is better than ME1-3 you are misunderstanding me... and I think Vetra is sliding into that role surprisingly fast. 🙂
I don't think one game is better than the original series, particularly when it is using its momentum to be better off what we have already had built up over three games. That said - MEA has a lot going for it. MEA could have been awesome with a few months of solid tweaking prior to launch.
However - I think it is a shame that the Devs decided to up and plonk us down in a new galaxy rather than exploring the original one. I would have loved to see more development in the species that had just been glossed over (elcor; hanar; volus; batarians). I am not sure I like the fresh start approach of MEA - particularly when it seems to be the easy re-set so they can re-explore what we covered in ME1-3.
@asakti wrote:
I don't think one game is better than the original series, particularly when it is using its momentum to be better off what we have already had built up over three games. That said - MEA has a lot going for it. MEA could have been awesome with a few months of solid tweaking prior to launch.
However - I think it is a shame that the Devs decided to up and plonk us down in a new galaxy rather than exploring the original one. I would have loved to see more development in the species that had just been glossed over (elcor; hanar; volus; batarians). I am not sure I like the fresh start approach of MEA - particularly when it seems to be the easy re-set so they can re-explore what we covered in ME1-3.
Sometimes I sit here and I wonder, what actually happened at Bioware, who made the call to move the series away from the milky way... Maybe it was the botched up ending and people at bioware receiving death threats from fans and needed to move away from that pile of negativity. I can also understand if Bioware felt that the shepard story has ran its course, I bought into the story that they needed the space to create a new world and not be chained down by the previous franchise. And I guess this led to me being disappointed in MEA cause in my opinion, the "new world" wasnt as creative as the previous one.
Either decision they would take from a starting point would be risky. Seeing that either ME 1 and 2 had user reviews around 8.6-8.9, and then ME 3 with 5.6, now we have MEA with 4.9. That's definitely an awful start, really difficult to make up with some improvements at short notice. If they want the next game to be a success, they must target a 9.0 user rating. But targetting that, they must ... listen to the fanbase? It's likely that bugs tarnished most of that score, as well as ME3 low score might have come due its vanilla ending. Alas, either games got their share on disappointing. 2 in a row now. It's time for a check up.
Actually, you can be a master of all things. It just requires Level 132 and solving a few puzzles for extra skill points. I've played around a bit with some of the different powers. Kinda wish I could have a fourth slot for something, but oh wells.
If y'all really can't get past this game not being ME4, or beating ME2/3, I don't know what to tell you besides been there, done that, and decided that wasn't a particularly fair way to measure it. Witcher 2/3 wasn't a resounding disappointment and ME2/3 beat it most ways I can measure both games.
Hopefully you'll find something you like within it. I had to stop being disappointed and look myself - but I found some things when I looked.
@jpcerutti1 wrote:
If y'all really can't get past this game not being ME4, or beating ME2/3, I don't know what to tell you besides been there, done that, and decided that wasn't a particularly fair way to measure it. Witcher 2/3 wasn't a resounding disappointment and ME2/3 beat it most ways I can measure both games.
Hopefully you'll find something you like within it. I had to stop being disappointed and look myself - but I found some things when I looked.
There is some truth in what you say, but I think it's more than the game not being ME4.
Aside from it not continuing the original story of Shepard, the original trilogy built up also in improvements and QoL elements. I personally do not get why they made such a clunky UI. It's not like they've never made one before. Also there are things that would seem like no-brainers to me. Say for example, you press M to go to the map and then you press M again and you're back in the game. Or the quest log for that matter. I mean that seems like such a standard functionality but instead I have to press Escape 3-4 times to get back into the game....so there's no quick check on the map. I mean yeah you can see the direction of the quest you're on in the bar on top, but that doesn't tell you what the best way is to get around the mountain or whether your objective is underground. Also things like teleport points are not visible in that bar until you get close and are aiming in the right direction. Or maybe there's a gathering area to the left of you nearby that you don't see because you're aiming another way. So yeah, quick checks on the map would make sense to me, but I am basically punished for going to the map.
Talking of quest log. I have to go to the quest log a lot because I know for example that I have multiple quests on a given planet...but I can only track 1. Why not 3? I like to add a little bit of logic to the path I take so I don't end up going up and down on the map because I realise that I actually passed by a quest objective but didn't notice it cause I had another quest tracked. Just give them different colours in the top bar and you know which is which. For the colour blind you can also make the icon slightly different. I mean, it's not like it's something they couldn't have thought about. I like doing quests but I actually don't do them because I hate the quest management. It's particularly the combination of the questlog and map not being easy to toggle back and forth.
You see, this game has more quests. That's cool but then it makes sense to facilitate them. I know people from BW Austin did part of the game. They run SWTOR and they have the option there to track multiple quests. Did nobody feel this was worth mentioning?
Now I do agree with you that there is a lot of good stuff to find in this game as well, but unfortunately the game got some massive criticism and the problem is that they're not wrong about some of these points and so this game doesn't sell itself even though it's Mass Effect and now anything that comes out next will have the burden of proof again and we can only hope that EA is willing to accept this and still invest into this game properly. I mean how much more revenue would this game have generated upon release if the animations had not been so creepy and the character faces had not been so ugly? I get this idea of not wanting to focus too much on "hawt babes" but what happened to giving people options instead of forcing them in a certain direction? It's still a fantasy game after all and well, good luck creating fat or old characters in this game...so really, what are we talking about?
So yeah, the game has a lot of good things to offer but it really didn't make a good first impression sadly. That's not good for sales. I just really hope the upcoming patches they promised come through on some of these core items that gave the game such poor reviews. It deserves better but it also needs to be better for people to see that. It's not good if you have to play the game for x amount of hours before you can break through that and see what's actually good about it. I managed that and I do enjoy this game a lot for what it is, but I also understand many people will not.
i wish i could tell if i'm being objective with ME:A, or if i'm just punishing it unfairly for not being the old trilogy... i've said it several times, i think. andromeda isn't a bad game, it's actually an ok game. which is the problem, we're just not used to simply ok. ME1-3 was far more than just ok, same with, BG, DA:O, and DA2 (which i actually liked more than most did). i think that's the issue, MEA is just ok.
@CasperTheLich wrote:
i wish i could tell if i'm being objective with ME:A, or if i'm just punishing it unfairly for not being the old trilogy... i've said it several times, i think. andromeda isn't a bad game, it's actually an ok game. which is the problem, we're just not used to simply ok. ME1-3 was far more than just ok, same with, BG, DA:O, and DA2 (which i actually liked more than most did). i think that's the issue, MEA is just ok.
I totally understand how you feel, as much as I complain about the damn game, I played it 4 times and spent over 500 hrs on it. But on my personal scales, its not at the same league as the ME trilogy. Having said that after ME3 I practically couldnt play much of other games, nothing came close to it in terms of satisfaction.
@CasperTheLich wrote:
i wish i could tell if i'm being objective with ME:A, or if i'm just punishing it unfairly for not being the old trilogy...
It's not unfair. When you have a whole saga of a game of a genre under you belt and you want to sell another one of the same game to your old public (because they sort of targetted old fans, right? If not, why even mention or use references from the trilogy?), people will take their previous experience, what they most liked, the very best assembled and expect things going from there. People were given information about how some things changed in this new setting, but they expect, still, the best features from before to feature again, and not pruned. Unless they were working on a social experimentation on how to irritate and disappoint some people? Alas, lets read their reasons in the ashes! They must hold some answers!
