@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. 😛
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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.
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!
