Improving cinematography and soundtrack in future ME:A games (spoilers)

Hello Bioware/ EA,

First of all I'd like to thank you for another amazing Mass Effect experience. The franchise is my favourite Science Fiction genre (not just gaming franchise, all of scifi) and I've been super happy to finally return to that universe. If I had to rank it Andromeda would be my third-favourite game: Mass Effect - ME Andromeda - Mass Effect 2 - Mass Effect 3.

I'd like to share some ideas for future instalments, based on what the games meant to me and why I consider them to be both my favourite games and favourite scifi genre of all time.

If I had to compare Andromeda to ME 2 or 3 I would probably say that Andromeda is more like a good wine, while ME 2/3 an epic thrill-ride. 

Things I enjoyed about Andromeda most were the setting and the overall theme of exploration, as well as the slow but steady buildup and story development. Though open world, the planets were not boring. I really enjoyed that a lot and the feeling of being the newcomers in an unknown galaxy was captured very well. If I would have done anything differently at the beginning I would have started the tutorial in the Milky Way to establish the Ryder Family and spend around 2-3 hours on the moon base before heading into Andromeda.... that would have captured the incredible distance a lot better, rather than a "whoosh - we're here".

The things that I missed most in the game were some these super-epic moments from the Mass Effect Trilogy, my favourite ones (chronologically based on my play through):

ME1

Spectre Induction

First Speech on the Normandy

Liberating the Rachni Queen on Noveria

Kirrahe: "Hold the Line"!

First encounter with Sovereign

Death of Ashley on Virmire

Battle of the Citadel

Alliance Fleet charging into battle to save the Destiny Ascension (I'm getting the goosebumps just by typing this line right now!)

Normandy taking down Sovereign

ME2

Shepard spaced

Normandy Reborn

Shepard dressing the team before the Suicide Mission

Suicide Mission (all of it!)

Blowing up the Collector's Base

Freeing David Archer from Project Overlord

Liara and Shepard chasing the Spectre in Shadowbroker 

Shepard staring at the starmap in Arrival, witnessing how the system is destroyed in Arrival

The Reaper Armada

ME3

First contact - Admiral Hackett

Arrival of the Reapers

Mordin's end

Curing the Genophage

Fighting the Reaper on Rannoch

Legion uploading the code - Quarian fleet standing down (Peace between Quarians and Geth - I think that was my favourite moment in the entire trilogy)

Grunt getting drunk on the Citadel

Liaras song (Citadel)

Liaras time capsule

Encountering Leviathan

Thane fighting Kai Leng

Fall of Thessia

Destroy/Synthesis extended ending

What all these scenes had in common was an incredible, amazing orchestration. This include dialogue, the whole cinematography and camera of the scene as well as the soundtrack, the scenes were extremely well-crafted with an eye for detail, as well as knowledge of cinematography and how a great scenes works. For instance, in a minor scene in the Shadowbroker DLC, Liara chases the Spectre who set her up. She is being followed by a low angle shaky camera while she punches thugs out of the way with her biotics. That action-camera, combined with a driving soundtrack make this scene just awesome and the cinematic quality beats the one of great movies.

In addition, the soundtrack is particularly important (to me) and can ruin or save an entire scene in a movie or game. The Suicide Mission Theme in ME2 is imho the best score produced for any game ever and beats many movie soundtrack. 

Comparing to ME Andromeda

While I enjoyed Mass Effect Andromeda like a good bottle of wine (it creates a good feeling for me throughout the entire play through), it had a lot of unused potential for creating epic moments that would rival those of the first ME Trilogy. There were a lot of great scenes, but improving the orchestration would have kicked them into overdrive.

It seemed that it was the idea of creating a subtle, non-invasive music for the game. Unfortunately for me, the soundtrack did not always work very well. There were quite a few scenes that would have worked much better with a more epic soundtrack. For instance, Trial of Hope was amazing during the intro scene with Alex Ryders voiceover, as well as the first encounter with the Tempest. In many scenes however, the music did not create or emphasised the emotions that were carried.

There were a few scenes that had the potential to be amazing and pure gold, but they were suffering from a sloppy orchestration. I'm not saying that they are bad, but given my experience with the first game, the following scenes (among others) could have been even better if they were better crafted and designed. And I know that Bioware has the potential to do that:

Arrival in Andromeda (better music during the crash in the Scourge)

Alec Ryder's Death (more emotions)

Sara becomes Pathfinder (more epic music and cinematography)

First Outpost (scene was kind of rushed)

Battle of Meridian (better orchestration and more epic music) 

Generell fighting (some different music, i.e. Overlord theme or Virmire ride)

In addition, most moments were not that high-stakes yet and loaded with consequences compared to the first Mass Effect Trilogy. However, I might be a bit biased here because some of the biggest choice had to be made in ME3 (ie. Genophage, Gets vs Quarians etc.)

In conclusion, I really enjoyed Andromeda. I just hope that you can make some more improvements regarding cinematography, orchestration and soundtrack to give some key scenes the emotional and epic punch they deserve. I know that you guys can do it, you have proven it again and again in the Shepard Trilogy. Thanks for considering my feedback.