Is Mass Effect Andromeda as bad as everyone says it is? - A look at the writing and mechanics
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 มิ.ย. 2024
- Join me as I take a look at Mass Effect with guns and pray for BioWare's recovery.
Oh and there was some OBS Studio update that just crushed my encoding towards the end, causing some scenes to lag. So sorry about that.
If you want to check out my merch: thesaltfactory.store/
The audio for this one was done by my talented wife: / cakefan220
Hey I stream on twitch: / thesaltfactory_
Twitter: / saltiestfactory
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Songs:
A lot of the Mass Effect franchise's music
Groose's Theme from the Skyward Sword OST
Groose Beats by BotanicSage [BS] - / groose-beats
Creative Exercise from the Mario Paint OST
Salvation! from the LISA OST
Garbage Day from the LISA OST
Timestamps:
00:00- Intro
05:26- Character creation, introduction, Habitat 7
16:34- The Nexus and the Tempest
36:33- Eos and Aya
55:36- Havarl and Voeld
01:11:12- Kadara
01:22:41- Companion roundup
02:23:20- Getting this over with
02:39:52- Final thoughts
02:52:44- Outro
Thanks for watching! - เกม
Sorry for the wait on this one. My uploads might be a little delayed for awhile because we're expecting a baby towards the end of the year. Without getting too sappy, I just want let you know that I appreciate everyone who takes the time to watch my stuff. It's given me the opportunity to build an amazing life and future for myself and my family. So thank you. I'll probably hit The Witcher 3's DLC next.
Have a good one!
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Someone once described the dialogue and companion interactions of this game as “if the writers played the citadel dlc and nothing else” and I think about that a lot
Damn, that's a good description lol
Yez exactly, I've always thought that too. They forgot that most of the first 3 games are rather serious
That is surprisingly descriptive, the fun part is that I didn't hate this game based on the writing. In fact I was very angry when I heard that they were scrapping the first DLC because all the way through the whole thing I just wanted to know what had happened to the Quarian Ark.
No, what made me hate the game was that it's like the writers and animators had never spoken to each other for the entire project. The facial animations were BAD, and since I went with the default "weaselface" preset, the patch that was supposed to "fix" some of it just made it worse, since his face went from "goofy" to just "dumb".
Upon playing Citadel for the first time, I kinda wished for a mass effect game that got that vibe for the entirety of the game...
And the monkey paw curled
People don't realize Citadel EARNED that tone specifically because it was a big party game at the end of the long adventure.
“We expected life, not an enemy that refused to talk.” Right because humanity’s first ever contact with alien life wasn’t just getting shot up or anything. Have they completely forgotten the first contact war? That is absolutely a possibility!
Thats the thing that really pissed me off. First planet you get the choice between a science lab or a military base and I chose the military base only for all of the hub npcs complained about how it was a terrible choice. I'm sorry did everyone forget that the kett wiped out the last base and killed everyone and that that was a science lab to boot.
They just kinda forgot.
Well, technically that first enemy humanity met didn't refuse to talk, they just treated humanity like they were juggling hand grenades at an arms depot.
You can't really say "Get on the ground with your hands behind your head, move, move, do it or I shoot" in a nice way, they teach you that on the first day of training because you're supposed to shut your brain down so your forget how scared YOU are. =3
@@Reddotzebra well partly the turrians were just doing a brushfire war for kicks they just didn't realize they were kicking the hornets nest and everyoneon the council agreed given there response when they got there was "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU"
'I'm sorry my brain is tired'
The good parts:
- The Nomad is fun to drive (no surprise, Criterion Games were roped into doing that part).
- Complete class customisation (my character was literally Jango Fett).
- Similarly crazy weapon customisation (LMG that shoots sticky grenades will never stop being fun).
- The story premise and some of the threads.
The Bad parts:
- Due to the massive production issue, the overall execution.
- The economy is broken. You can easily become an unkillable god before the mid point if you do everything.
- The fact this has bombed so hard the interesting parts of the story aren't likely going to be resolved in any way.
I agree. With ME1 being my favorite game in the series, the nomad partially felt like a return to form. And the free-form "class" customization meant that I only had abilities that I wanted to have. No longer was I forced into having something like shockwave simply because I wanted to be the shotgunner. In my current vanguard run I've been using the alien "shotgun" that shoots giant orbs of death, and an assault rifle that shoots heatseeking projectiles. In my previous run I did an infiltrator and it was so fun sniping people with that ability that highlights enemies through walls.
Cons list is a bit lacking, there are so many things you could say about the writing and characters 😂
@@bubalfred260 Eh, I found the writing and characters on par with the rest of Mass Effect. I also didn't want to write a thesis so that's why I bundled it all together into the first bad point because ultimately most of the bad stuff is the result of the production problems the game had.
Stop. Just no..
@bubalfred260 What? Is it because it wasn't a corny as 3 with a phoned in color coded power Rangers esq ending? I agree it should have been cornier. Maybe had a phoned in AI story line like the Geth that just cut & pasted aspects from other scify tropes like they did. Or maybe introduced a story line that turned the nursery rhyme about the old lady that ate a fly then a spider to eat the fly then a bird etc.. like the rachni krogan storyline. Only the first game is really good. The second game squeaks by on nostalgia even though your a terrorist that supplied access to half the weird science shit that kills people in the third game. Which is mostly just phoned in trash. Andromida is better than 3 & almost as good as 2.
Liam is the answer to the question nobody ever asked: what if you took Jacob and made him worse.
Liam may be annoying, and stupid, but he's NOT a communist! Sorry, what were you saying he was again?
Couldn't agree more.
I know it…
Liam isn't worse... it's if u took Jacob and made him less boring and actually tell u things
I will never get over your dad's pointless death in the intro of Andromeda. You're telling me that a well trained, elite pathfinder that specializes in dangerous exploration wouldn't know to just...trade the good helmet back and forth with you to take breaths? Real life Scuba divers are trained to do this, why hasn't anyone in Mass Effect figured it out?
He's in this game he probably had a death wish I know I would
I've seen this argument a lot, and I think it's valid conditionally. Both Ryder's still end up dead despite Alec giving the player the good helmet. The difference is that the player is less dead enough to be resuscitated. This can be for two reasons. Reason A. Alec died of lack of oxygen, and the player died because of fall related injuries OR B. The environment was so dangerous that during the time (like 30 seconds) that the player is helmetless, they take enough damage that they die, then Alec gives the player the helmet and SAM knowing they are both required if the player is going to survive. SAM probably told him that was the case.
If option B is correct, then I think it really comes down to toxic air being different then water. I personally imagine habitat 7's air is deadly to touch due to temperature, chemicals, or whatever that stuff is that disperses when you restart a vault.
Anyway, I think that if the player still died even with what Alec did for them, there was no way way for both of them to make it out, and Alec did what was best for his kid.
Not to say the scene isn't still contrived as all hell: why did that vaults mist go outside the tower when all the others stop at the entrance room and why couldn't he use omnigel to fix the player's helmet are two very big plot holes that I still don't really have an answer for. But yeah. I don't think Alec and the player could share a helmet.
It's like arguing that jack and rose could both have fit on the piece of wood. Yes, but that wasn't the point. It comes off more like the opening to Konosuba where a man dives in front of a truck that's already stopped and dies of embarrasment.
@@Motoko_Urashima then they very easily coulda gone around that by saying he was a very careful N7 that always kept a helmet patch on him, but both of their helmets cracked and he decides to use the patch on his kid and at the same time, takes the AI out of his helmet and puts it into theirs knowing he'd die. there are multiple ways of going about this that would have had the effect your talking about but not be as retarded.
He knew how bad the game would be and made the choice to dip early
This sentiment of "even if the game is good, it's not what I want from this series" is a huge part of my problem with modern Assassin's Creed
Except andromeda is a bad game I played before playing the trilogy and quit it like hour 10
They killed Assassin’s Creed like they killed my boy Desmond. Left the 2 annoying comedy relief characters alive though. We got a good ending for Ezio at least.
@@user-ft5dg1eo1l I liked Black Flag but after that I just can't get into any of the newer games.
True... but I at least know a LOT of people that like new AC and didn't like old AC. From a business point of view it might make good sense for them to rework AC... This just... almost sucked? Certainly didn't bring in any new mass effect fans, just disappointed the ones they already had.
@@acev3521 andromeda 100% is a terrible game. I hope his sentiment wasn't that Andromeda was good and he was speaking generally.
2:09:34 What's interesting here is that if you're playing as Sara Ryder, she will actually explain to Jaal how human eyesight works which shuts him up. Scott Ryder doesn't know, which is kinda funny. It's easy to forget that unlike the OT, the "opposite gender" version of yourself is a person who exists regardless of who you play as, and they have a different background to your PC.
Yeah, Sara being the "science geek" of the two siblings open up some cool stuff (and that is why I play Sara as my "canon" Pathfinder, just as I think John is canon Shepard)
2:02:07
New Tuchanka: ❌
Twochanka: ✅
EA's response to this video:
"We're very happy to hear you enjoyed your time with Mass Effect Andromeda."
I don't think EA even remembers Andromeda.
"We have now removed half the games from your account"
We are sorry to hear that you found the game boring. It is important to remember that people who travel to other galaxies certainly wouldnt be bored
"We have heard your feedback, and promise to make a change in the future. We've already laid off 50% of the devs even though it wasn't their fault. We have given ourselves major bonuses for a "successful launch." Go fk yourselves and thanks for all the money - Bioware execs
Your comment about "lack of consequences" is spot on. I picked up Mass Effect 3 in 2012. I had no idea what the series was about, but people were talking about it so I gave it a go. When I got to the "Save the Quarians" or "Save the Geth" bit and it was a no win choice I was so upset & felt that shit for weeks. Then I learned I could get a better outcome if I played the previous games so I went and bought ME1 and ME2, played them, then started ME3 over before finally finishing ME3. It's been 12 years and I still remember that vividly. I played Andromeda and it was aggressively fine... but watching this video I find myself going "I don't remember that character, I don't remember that character... definitely don't remember this guy". The consequences help make these games memorable!
Having been someone that always would meticulously format my me1/me2 saves to get world setting I wanted for me3 to avoid situation(s) that you described. I’ve always wondered what it would have been like to be on the other end of spectrum such as yourself.
I can’t even begin to fathom how it must of been to have the culmination of all the world building and drama of me3 be ones intro into the universe. I always felt that it would have all the same capacity to reel one in and make them want to replay to beginning as it did for me when I started with me2.
But with situations such as that, lack of history with the characters, and lackluster endings, I always thought that the huge amount of people such as yourself that started with me3 would likely have missed out on the allure of the best sci-fi trilogy ever because of a somewhat botched 3rd game, especially when viewed standalone.
Needless to say, it is refreshing after to hear your input and it puts a smile on my face. I would pay ANY amount of money in the world to get to erase my memories and replay the trilogy. So to hear how someone else loves from a completely different angle is eye-opening.
@@BraveDingoYour just spouting the bias of the bandwagon hate on me3, everyone that I know that played the trilogy years after it launched said they loved the 3rd game. Me3 isn't a masterpiece but its definitely an amazing finale for the series and CERTAINLY better then the mass circle jerk likes to say it is. Stop trying to push the "botched 3rd game" hate on new players just because you can't see past your bias
@@bubalfred260 no its not a amazing finale when it first came out, you played it after they updated the ending (and its still mid at best). the Original ending was just 3 colors which the developers promised wouldnt be the case. ME3 as a whole got alot of pushback because it wasnt a finished product either.
go back and look at the background pixels thats supposed to be humans running, they still look worse than the original mario side scrollers.
stop playing the ending right after you make your choice and thats basically the ending we fans got on our first playthrough.
they eventually updated the ending with several new cut scenes and added the ability to shoot the "Star Child" that was never mentioned until the moment you meet it. Its still just a 3 color ending that hurt the franchise so badly that Andromeda was always going to be under a microscope and it failed to survive the scruinity.
i mean ME3 got several updates and DLCs, Andromeda 7 years later is still on 1.1 because it was abandoned to finish Anthem which EA was hoping would be a cash cow and was a bigger failure than Andromeda.
if nothing else Andromeda did sell well enough and kept Mass Effect in the collective thoughts that helped lead to the Legendary edition of the OG trilogy and now a Mass Effect 4.
my opinion is the best Mass Effect was 2
it goes 2, 1, Andromeda, 3.
@@johnkeith8619I'm not defending the original ending brother, I understand it was weak, I was around when it came out but played the whole trilogy years later after it was updated and absolutely loved the 3rd game, I originally liked the 2nd game the most but after replaying the trilogy in 2022 I think the 3rd might be my favourite. And I've heard this shared sentiment from many people that played they trilogy years after the ending drama and the all enjoyed the 3rd game. You and the rest of the people that played the 3rd game can choose to continue hating it as much as you see fit, but trying to push your bias on the new players just because you can't move past your hatred is kinda pathetic. Its simply time to move on bro, I'm sure there's lots of people who you can circle jerk about how bad the ending is, go find them. The fact that you have andromeda over me3 1000% speaks for itself 😂 But your entitled to your opinion
@@bubalfred260 im not trying to put any bias on anyone.
ME3 in its current state is a good overall game, just like andromeda is a decent game that didnt meet its potential because of being abandoned.
But you said the ending of 3 was amazing. In which I replied it wasn't when the game first came out.
It was an ending us fans were lied to about. When asked about the real at the time worry by fans asked if the ending would just be a 3 color ending the devs said it wouldn't be. Then what is the ending?
Its simply a 3 color ending.
Maybe EA told them to change the ending once it was leaked.
Also I dont hate ME3. I simply enjoyed Andromeda more. Maybe because I personally always like beginning over endings.
Probably because andromeda has the smoothest combat of the entire series.
I'm firmly in people can like and love anything they want in gaming.
So my personal rankings is 2 is the best in terms of characters and a decent story. 1 is the beginning and a strong story. Andromeda has the potentially good story with best game play crap animations in general. 3 good game play, good characters built thru the previous games the ones shoehorn in like James (who i do like) were weaker because the other had 1-2 full games of development also kinda crappy animations. (The human pixels running in the background on earth, the reporter based on jessica chobot as examples)
There was a moment at the very ending of the game. Yay, you win, you get your little victory celebration, and there's a moment where it pans over all of your companions looking at Ryder like it wants you to remember all of your fond memories with your team. And I distinctly remember having the thought of, "... Wow ... I literally care about none of you."
I know I had 3 games to grow feelings for the ME crew, but I agree with this 100%. I didn't care for the personalities of anyone in this game. Some of the NPC's you do mini side quests for seemed like better people. I wouldn't mind who died in the suicide mission in Andromeda.
@@Kayback No yo didnt have 3 games to grow with the squads of ME. You could have game 1 only and it was plenty of time to get to know everyone.
@@blackknight4152 Mass Effect 1, 2 and 3, some characters were with you the whole way. You could get to know them. I spent one game with the crew in Mass Effect Andromeda and literally didn't care for any of them. PB&J needed spacing in her escape module.
"Liam's a loose cannon who I wouldn't trust to take a food order in a restaurant", that bit fucking killed me, probably the harshest criticism I've seen for a character in a while
Based Baktria.
a bad soldier. in the worst way of that meaning.
@@CarrotConsumer i havent played rome 2 in a long time but i liked the helmet and stayed with it for some reason and i'm the typa guy that changes pfps all the time. I'm always glad when people point it out so thx
@@512TheWolf512 the character is so bad that it kinda poisons the game even more. Like why the fuck would they pick him up for arguably the most complex mission ever devised in history, it makes the andromeda initiative seem like a project devised by toddler trillionaires which it kind of is but whatever
And I almost sure those writers wents to saints row reboot. Similar storytelling, similar loose cannon characters.
I've typically described this game as "I guess it was fun enough to finish it and do most of the side content, but I instantly forgot every event and character the second I was done. I do not care strongly enough about anyone or anything that happened."
This is pretty dead on, most of what I remember is how pretty the landscapes were while driving to and from characters I don't remember for sidequests that weren't more exciting than holding the interact button.
This is exactly what I was thinking while watching/listening to this video. Felt like unearthing buried memories.
I only played it once most of the worst bugs were fixed, but it still wasn't good enough to finish, and it crashed all the damn time cause of some DirectX error. I hated clearing monoliths and most of the side quests were poorly disguised driving quests. Tried to finish it several times, last time I got as far as building a base on Eos before I noped out.
Would much rather have taken a game with the traditional more linear approach and exploration of planets mostly from orbit than this Ubisoft game.
Just like Dishonored
The combat was fun exploring was interesting and the terraforming dungeons were fun. But that’s basically all.
On the topic of them setting up stuff as sequel bait: a primary side mission has you investigating the deaths of the leadership. You end up discovering a whole conspiracy in which a mysterious benefactor funded the Initiative, then snuck along on the trip, was discovered by the head of the Initiative, then killed the head and framed it to be an accident.
Huge mystery that was clearly meant to be explored by in the future games. Kinda like the original plans to explore the Quarian Ark and the (original) hints that said Ark would have encountered the start of the Reaper war.
as someone who has put way too many hours into this game and has actually enjoyed most of it, the best way i can describe the writing is “someone swapped a mid spin-off mass effect fanfiction written by someone who only played 3 and really only liked Citadel with the actual game’s script and the devs just went with it anyway”
One thing I remember liking about Andromeda is that if you stuck with the default name of Scott/Sara, NPCs would occasionally call you by your first name.
That, and I guess the gunplay and mobility was more slick, but that's one minor and two notable positives in a sea of mehs and blechs.
Yeah, combat was awkward in Mass Effect 1, but I wasn't playing Mass Effect for the awesome combat mechanics, even though there were shining moments if you upgraded properly. Explosive rounds in a sniper rifle felt like firing off an artillery gun during the final battle.
@@Edax_RoyeauxI always liked hitting enemies with lift the throw and watching them shoot into space.
Interesting, I remember the jetpack boost mechanic having the same momentum issue as Sonic Frontiers.
Those improved gameplay aspects are what pretty much saved MEA for me. It felt like the bastard child of Mass Effect 1 and Dragon Age Inquisition, which was just barely enough for me to not write it off entirely.
I actually didn't like the combat. Sure it was flashy but it got old quickly. You are basically just spamming combo explosions, the same problem I had with mass effect 3. The classes list their uniqueness.
They managed to send an entire expedition to another galaxy and yet couldn't be bothered to run a basic psychological evaluation or background check on any of the volunteers.
They wanted to get rid of quirky ones
They sent their most incompetent people as far away as possible and told them they were the best just to be rid of them.
Clearly they expected it to fail and saw it as a convenient way to rid the Milky Way of its most annoying denizens.
@@DeadmanNC1 so the B Ark?
Sounds like a government program.
Really surprised you never brought up the fact that the Kett are essentially just the collectors from ME2...
They are more of Borg from Star Trek. Assimilating others to achieve perfection.
@@XxXuzurpatorXxX weren't the collectors also doing that?
@@zagreus8027 The collectors were, well, collecting people to turn them into human-paste to "store memories" in a human reaper. The reapers were to preserve the uniqueness of the component spieces, while the Kett/Borg are into using the best traits of the spieces to better themselves.
50:14 Bro the galaxy doesn’t know that. Shepard had to link his mind into the geth to find that out
Was thinking the same thing.
All anyone had to do was ask the geth to learn this, seeing the geth memory was a side quest shepard got when deleting the reaper code.
@@iliterallycanteven5347 the geth weren’t open to talking until Legion though. Before him and Sovereign the geth were reclusive but openly hostile to ships in their space. Also the geth committed a genocide. Who tf would talk to them after that
"While they prevented any contact by other races with themselves, the geth monitored communications and the extranet." Geth did in fact not commit genocide and were always listening. No other races even tried peaceful talks with them in any serious way. Legion was made to look for Shepard not as a Geth diplomat.
@@iliterallycanteven5347 it seems like you just agreed with me tbh. I guess ethnic cleansing is the more accurate term for what the geth did to the quarians
46:50 jesus why did she get so aggressive. What he said was a light jest and she replied,"fuck you, your own people commited genocide"
Was she saying anything that was untrue though?
I know right? My jaw dropped when she said that. So out of pocket lol
like she names the second worst thing that's ever happened to them a proper retort woulda been "what's the krogan definition of sucess mass bodies or just one man army bullshit?" that woulda been a decent jest back but it'd need good voice acting or you'd sound like an *ss for the same reason
@@assordante2205Something being true doesn’t mean it’s called for.
It's basically a Twitter argument, but out loud. The writers must have been terminally online before it was cool.
Ah Andromeda the game marketed as an adventure with your twin in a new galaxy. The same game that if you do all the side stuff along the way you go 83% of the game before your twin finally wakes up. Only to be kidnapped immediately after.
I can't watch that "Krogan" fight scene without hearing:
"Oh No" x 10
How dare you, sir! I challenge you to a Krogan Slap Fight!
LOL. Was at 18:17, the part where Salt is going on about just how bad the dialogue is post-Ryder Sr.'s "untimely" but plot-driven death. It went into a commercial for allergy medicine at that point, and I swear I didn't even notice it wasn't gameplay until the shilling started. "Oh, god, my allergies are just the worst. Oh, you should try Claritin!" THAT'S how bad the banter is.
My biggest issue was how they went to an entirely new galaxy... and the plot was basically recycled from the ME trilogy. Ancient precursor, enemies that are converted people, etc.
Just seemed pointless.
I know that was one of the things that pissed me off immediately, when I discovered the Kett were converting people I just thought this is the reapers all over again. I wish that it had focused more on the Remnant, but given the quality of writing I’m sure if anymore attention was put on that part of the story it would have turned into a copy paste of Halo
Idk, the remnant were just prothean 2.0. They didn't interest me one bit
Drop everything. New Salt Factory video!
I know, right 😆
I think you mean movie, not video.
I can hear panties hit the floor. Let the panties hit the floor, let the panties hit the floor.
already on it!
Was giting ready for work.. calling off now
I picked this game up on Steam in a bundle with Inquisition for $8 and change with all DLC and everything, was quite the steal. I then proceeded to play the game with years of patches and bug fixes under its belt, and was pleasently surprised. I rather enjoyed it for what it was, and it wasn't that bad.
It is good in terms of gameplay and i really like the armour customisation and ive played through it 2 times but god the story is awful, didnt like any characters except for drack the quests are boring and the kett are some of the most boring looking antagonists ive seen in a game. If they ever made a sequel id rather they create a whole new enemy faction
The Quarian Geth conflict became a special interest of mine during my playthroughs of Mass Effect. Not only did they Quarians react impulsively when the Geth began showing signs of higher intelligence, but the Geth never resented them for it. They understood what it was that they feared. All this time, they never left the Quarian home planet, not out of some kind of offensive display of dominance towards the Quarians, but explicitly to take care of it until their creators came back home. What the Quarian historian *might* be referring to are the Heretics, the Geth that were manipulated into following Harbinger. You *could* make the argument that, since this expedition takes place between Mass Effect 2 and 3, the common consensus at the time was that the Geth were outwardly hostile towards all sentient life, at first simply assumed due to the Quarian's paranoia regarding the whole situation and later further established when encountering the Heretics as it was not known that the Geth and the Heretics were two very distinct factions.
I just realized the Story of Anthem and Andromeda are basically the same. A group of people live on a dangerous planet due to Forerunner-esc devices screwing with the environment.
They have big ambitions but it all goes wrong and lots of people die or turn into pirate gangs.
A overly sarcastic and Marvel-dialogue spewing character who previously had little importance is the protagonist.
The villians are invading dickheads who want to use the Forerunner Terraforming Technology as weapons. They also capture your people and transform them into Monsters.
The main enemies are the imperialists, Pirates and Wildlife.
It ends with a hint that the big bad guys are coming back. (Which is never followed through due to being critical failures)
Bioware has been writing the same story, characters, shitty TV dialogue and with the same structure since the beginning, just in different settings. Don't even get me started on their technical incompetence.
Even Kotor, which is set in a Forerunner period of time to its own namesake, the sw orig trilogy, has its own forerunners in the Rakatan.
Not a complaint there for me though. It and halo were young mes intro to the concept.
The difference is Anthem had superb flying.
No... No they arent 🤦♂
So many of ya'll never even played the games you hate I swear
@@ducky36F I’ve played both start to finish and I hate neither.
Having one hundred percent completed it back when it came out I am completely convinced it's a first draft that got pushed out to meet deadlines.
The basic ideas are there and not terrible but they're not actually connected together into a coherent story.
The basic premise of going to another Galaxy was instantly squandered the moment they decided to populate it with slight variations on Aliens we'd already seen for 3 games and have it serve as the setting for an incredibly generic plot.
The dialog always seemed to me like they wrote like, guidelines, like 'This character says this' 'this character replies sarcastcally' and shit like that, just to block out the mission creation before writing and recording the dialog... But then instead of letting a writer handle it, they sent it off to the editing department and let the guys in charge of punching up good writing just fucking give er.
I stopped playing when I got to one of the first ice planets. The second day after launch I cracked open a box of sangria and turned the temperature warnings into a drinking game... I downed the entire box and was still on the dang ice planet. Haven't played it since.
A huge slap in the face is that the "reward" for 100% planet habitability for all 5 planets is that a planet gets named after you. The planet name doesn't get updated in the UI and you can't land on it or do anything with it. You just get a small cutscene of a voice telling you that it happened.
It probably was. This game had 5 years of development, but the first 4 were spent fucking around with a planet random generation function that was scrapped due to how they weren't going anywhere with it and wasting dev time.
I really enjoyed Andromeda, it was the breath of fresh air I that I wanted. I liked the sense of discovery, I'm a sucker for anything involving space colonization and exploration. I appreciated that it was a chance to tell a whole new story that wasn't related to Shepard. It was a new thing, its own thing and I think that was needed after 3 games that told one long story.
Don't get me wrong, I loved ME 1-3, they were amazing games and I had lots of fun seeing the world through Shepard's eyes, but I was done after 3. I would much rather see a sequel of Andromeda than a continuation of the Shepard story-line which I consider to be basically done and successfully concluded at this point. Shep saved the galaxy in whatever way you chose to based on your decisions. Job done, game over. Its OK for things to end, and it ended in a really good place.
I was trying to figure out who the purple clad fuckboy was and when you get to them in the companion list, and with 30 minutes left in the video I realized that that is the main character
I'm still amazed at how bad those facial animations are, how did they fuck it up that badly 🤣
I know it's a rhetorical question, but the answer is rookie studio, an engine that is notoriously hard to work with and way too little time.
@@jtn81x It's been 10 years since Dragon Age Inquisition and I wouldn't be surprised if BioWare still didn't know how to use Frostbite effectively.
@@BradTheAmerican What is the effective use of Frostbite? Cringe-Quip and character animations like in BF2042? ;)
@@juliomontega2868 Frostbite's big thing was environment destruction, which BioWare implemented in the form of wooden crates and sandbags. I suppose it has good lighting too. It boggles my mind that EA forced BioWare to use Frostbite and build RPG mechanics into an engine not designed for RPGs instead of just adding new flashy and visual features into an engine already designed for RPGs. Just feels backwards and giving them more work. It makes me think of that Armageddon movie by Michael Bay where they decided that it was somehow easier to train oil drillers how to be astronauts instead of training astronauts how to drill.
@@BradTheAmerican Agreed, the engine worked very well in BF4, but a FPS game and RPG are two different things.
I bet on corporate management deciding to "cut costs by unifying the engine usage to frostbite".
Managed to fail.
6:49 best silent joke ever
Andromeda feels like the original trilogy was put through an AI to write a new story and this was the first draft it came up with.
My main complaint about this game was the character writing and dialogue. I felt like instead of the Normandy, we are now flying the Good Ship Lollipop filed with angsty, rebellious, and immature teenagers. When I finished Liam’s personal pirate quest, I have never wanted to blow someone out of the airlock so much in my entire gaming career as I did him! Peebe and he are children. My chief engineer, child.
Who thought that civilians were all children and only military crews could be serious? Who thought this was the way to write these people?
22:00
Fizhy: "Addison's face is STILL tired..."
My face is tired LOL. Who wrote that line lmao.
@@Skumtomten1 If Andromeda was a more recent game, I would suspect that an AI wrote that line.
This video is about twice as long as my total Andromeda playtime
It is math error times as long as my total Andromeda playtime (0).
I got 30mins in to the game and then quit. It was buggy af even in '23 🙄
Same. And I've tried to play it on 3 different occasions
I've tried to play this game like 4 times now. I get about 2 ish hours in and just cannot go on.
@@phillipthompson5937I never had buggy problems when I got around to getting it on discount.
I understand your point on how the cinematic movement to all the planets with the ship is very cool, especially at first. Yet, I felt that by the mid-point of the game I was getting tired of having to wait 15 seconds every time I wanted to look at literally anything in a solar system, from planet to asteroid/wreckage. Though I will say, they did a good job at making the space travel feel like it really fits with the fact that there are no mass relays, even if there are a shit ton of solar systems and planets.
27:49- The "oops, I crapped my pants" running animation resulting trying to change directions mid-run... 🤣
Salt is tackling Andromeda? Welp there goes any chance of having a productive evening, but at least it will be thoroughly entertaining.
Yup now chores will have to get done tomorrow
50:41 Given that the information is from a Quarian, it would make sense to me that the information is just wrong due to the biased source. It certainly puts the Quarians in a better light than what really happened.
Sure but, does the game actually explore that take in any good faith? lol come on man
@@Poosley I'm not saying that's what the writers intended, just that it is a reasonable explanation and that it does make sense when viewed that way.
@@ALLMINDmercenarysupportsystem sure it makes sense when viewed with an exceptionally favorable perspective that is not rooted in any kind of reality based on the actual body of work
@Poosley What are you going on about? It just looks like you're here to argue with people who like Andromeda. In that case, go somewhere else, because I heavily dislike it. The potential idea which I pointed out is more than likely just bad writing seeing as nobody in game disputes it, but even then, it makes sense that nobody would. They went to the quarian because they didn't know what happened, so they couldn't argue. At this point though, the argument is too flimsy to put much weight on.
Imagine aiming for Witcher 3 and creating Mass Effect Andromeda 💀
There was a chain of fetch quests where you found relics on each planet and took them back to a historian on Aya who discussed how young of a race the Angara are and that they don't know their purpose for creation. But as you said, it should have been the focus of a more important sidequest.
I was so surprised they removed the option to hot key companion abilities to the D-Pad on controllers.
So satisfying in ME3 to have your party members set up or detonate ability combos.
It does feel like a bit like a skill nerf. I don't miss the tactical pause but the commands were nice.
People seem to love to shit on most things in ME3, but I think the controls were pretty good once you got used to them and edited some files to remap sprint, cover and use to separate buttons. Which is a step you should not have to do, but at least you could.
I wish that BioWare would have more faith in the player base, but they have seemingly fully embraced the idea of dumbing down the gameplay because they think players are too intimidated by the prospect of taking 2 seconds to think about things during combat.
I really missed that one in Andromeda and Inquisition, where it would be so much better if I could actually do complex stuff without taking full control of characters just to launch a single attack.
This was the last game I pre-ordered.
Played it once on release, slogged my way through the last half, never touched it again.
My face is still tired 7 years later.
Same here, hadn't pre ordered anything since fable 3 and after this nothing since. And that was only because of the collectors edition only available through pre order
Same. Crazy, the preorder killer
I built a new computer in 2017 for this game and then bought Witcher 3. Enjoyed both. Good investment. But since then the only game I've ever pre-ordered two games I think.
The same for me. And it took me so damn long to play through it. It was a real torture at times to struggle through it and keep playing. Mass Effect Andromeda is in many ways just... wrong. I have no idea what Bioware was thinking.
I preordered watch_dogs 1 and made a vow never again
You know what companions I want in a Mass effect game. A Peaceful scientist Krogen, and a rageful Solairn Soldier. We have not seen either of these types in the game yet and I think it would be fascinating.
Congrats on the baby, salt! I’m super happy with the videos you’ve been putting out as of a late. Have been watching your videos for a while now. Only thing I wish to get your input on whether replying to this comment or making a future video (i hope), would you ever make a video on Deathloop?
I seriously couldn't think of a single character I actually liked in this game. I guess I kinda appreciated Drack being a grizzled old Krogan that doesn't give a shit about anything because it was a character trait in this game other than "quirky".
For me it was drakk and, vetra i think her name was? The female turian. And that's probably in large part because I romanced her than her own honest merits. Not a great feeling, disliking or despising half the party members. Not even jokingly - Liam is an actually terrible person, Cora is annoying... and peebee, ugh, peebee. Jal was fine, but kinda carried as "the new alien guy".
I liked the Salarian ship captain, no idea what his name was, but his dialogue was fun sometimes. I would like Drak if he was a romance and wouldnt 100% remind me of Wrex, Vetra was fine, but I couldnt care much more about the rest of them, no matter how much dialogue I heard from them or how much I took them on missions :/
@@Robolewa the female Turian, Vetra, had cut “sex noises” for the romance scene 🥰
Drack was excellent. Grumpy grampa who still has the strength to make sure you don't give him sh*t.
We finally have the trilogy of Young Wrex (Grunt), Adult Wrex and Grampa Wrex (Drack).
i loved Vetra but i am biased because she's a turian and i love every one of them
Didn't hate andromeda, had fun playing it but I also paid like 5-6 bucks for it including tax so my experience isn't colored by poor optimization and a 60 dollar price tag on release.
Same 😂
Andromeda isn't a terrible game, but when I ask the people who say they like Andromeda whether or not they've played the trilogy, 95% of the time the answer comes back 'no,' and I think that really sums it all up.
I've played the trilogy. I started with Andromeda, then played the trilogy. Obviously the trilogy is better. But I can see the combat progression with each game. In fact, combat in Andromeda is the best, more fluid, you can jump, dash and even fly. Something that I can definitely see happening with biotics or a jetpack. Hell you can even be more biotic than in the whole trilogy by using a proper biotic shield with backlash.
@@jonyjonasI liked me1 combat though cause enemies would actually use real abilities against you not just shoot shoot shoot. Like they could catch you out with a throw and rag doll you into a wall. Made the enemies feel more dangerous. Enemies in andromeda just seem so boring to me . Like yah, I guess you’ll die fast on insanity, fine. But all they do is shoot you and throw grenades? All feels the same
So glad to have your take on this!
I enjoyed Andromeda but it can't be understated enough that they just kept dropping the ball storywise.
I was also tired of the never give up hope angle. Like i get that more than likely the only people outside of criminals with a high head price would want to leave their home galaxy most would be optimistic types hungry for something new to explore, i just hated that even in a very fucked situation to arrive to the galaxy in everyone is still ...orderly more or less. Kadara sucks so i can't even spend brain power on that.
Finally, i dont like how it seemed like they wanted a huge reaction at the end of that game despite it being the 1st game in the galaxy. Like i cry at the end of ME3 in a very different way than i cry at the end of ME1. It felt like they wanted me to cry like ME3 and just...no. Not only does it not have the tenture for that, the game was not fleshed out enough period for you to have tears to invest in it.
I liked Andromeda but it loudly shows that it was a game cooked over less than 2 years. I felt that Bioware should have gone back to the drawing board with it instead of moving back to the Milky Way but they have to make money, i guess.
There was a lot of potential here( even the novels were pretty good with Annihilation being excellent), but they really couldn't capitalize on it to save it, and i think that sucks.
I jumped on this game a number of years after it came out. I went in opened mind, after playing a few levels I realised I felt like the game was filled with busy work and I was having to force myself to play the game. I put it down after that.
I had a similar experience, but then I just... stopped doing the busy work. I really enjoyed it then!
@@onchristieroad I'm happy for you. I found it all a bit too tied together. I knew I'd be giving up the "good" ending by not doing it and I found that because I'd done it to start with I'd lost all care for the story.
Eh thats 99% of rpgs esp around that time and esp from bioware. Its busy work with some story tacked on.
I felt with the Settlement system of Fallout 4, that game was also full of busywork, but because I was upgrading my armor, my power armor, my weapons, my home, it was something I was willing to actively engage in. There needs to be tangible rewards for busywork that the player can notice.
That was my issue with mafia 3. After the intro it just busy work until the game rewards you with a story mission
To your final Bioware statement at the end, there is no recovery for them they are dead. The original Bioware members are all gone.
Just like most of the former good studios, yet people will keep pre-ordering their dogshit like they are afraid the digital copies will run out. And enable them to keep releasing said dogshit.
Yeah it's terminal, will probably get worse
Honestly i feel lile new people should be given a chance to explore new IPs. It's not that they are incapable of producing good ME or DA products but maybe they should be given new venues to explore their own creativity. Don't know, perhaps i'm just huffing copium and the absolute failure of Anthem proves the point wrong. I'm just curious to see what New Bioware would be capable of if they were given enough freedom.
@@uomoafide6539 new Bioware is a bunch of risk capitalists that don't care about games, they just want good return on their investments. There is maybe a 5% chance the next games in these series will be good, but whatever you do DO NOT PRE-ORDER. I repeat, do not pre-order.
Pre-ordering is what enables them to keep releasing dogshit. They won't run out of digital copies, and you can live without this in game pet or this art book. Come on you are an adult.
@@uomoafide6539 Dreadwolf could be good, but I don't have my hopes up. I expect it to be like Inquisition. Which wasn't bad, but wasn't that good either.
27:52 almost made me spit my drink. I've been running down ramps wrong my whole life!
Awesome video and good luck on the baby bro. Always a fan and take as long as you need for these because there worth it
Besides the story and all of the writing, I liked everything about Andromeda. The story and awful writing really killed it for me though. Crappy writing means crappy story and crappy characters, and in Mass Effect, that’s a cardinal sin.
Agreed, the combat was great from what I remember (though I think I preferred the trilogys linear arenas), and let down by the crafting system craze of the time. I didn't mind the dodgy character models (or the glitches), but the story and writing was a big oof
the combat was fine but what I didn't like is it being the same from start to finish. basically same enemies, same battle. only thing that differs is how op you got and how many waves basically.
Wish they reverted to the infinite ammo/cooldown system from ME1. Just better flavour for the universe.
You had that option in game with different types of weapons and weapon mods.
Flavor isn't the only thing that matters. The gameplay (gunplay included) is the reason I only ever finished ME1 once and even then I had to push myself through it.
I replayed all the mass effect games during lockdown cuz i never linked my shepards and also the collection came out. I will never play mass effect 1 again cuz of those shitty guns.
@@rafabuda0 honestly i kinda like ME1's combat over the others? it feels much more military, slower, more tactical shooter. reminds me a bit of 360's rainbow six (though obviously more arcade), taking cover, poking out for a few shots and a grenade, back into cover again. the recharge didn't bother me because it fit very well with my "cover, snipe, cover" playstyle. In general i like that of ME1, that you can actually roleplay as a fucking professional, from then on you're too much "the hero" as opposed to "the trained, competent guy".
Always wished that it had done a hybrid system.
Thermal Clips that you can immediately eject and replace to keep on shooting. But if you're out of thermal clips you'll have to wait for a longer cooldown.
Having a hybrid system like that makes it actually seem like a military improvement over going from unlimited ammo to limited ammo.
I recently replayed the ME games with my wife. The action shooter gameplay had kept her out of playing it, as she’s generally more in the turn based realm, so we went through it with me handling the combat sequences and her making most of the dialogue and character building choices. After finishing 3, she wanted to go into Andromeda, so we gave it a go. My memory of Andromeda was colored by the fact that I paid like $8 for a copy after it had been patched into being a game that was actually playable, so my takeaway was that it was adequate, good in places (particularly the combat) but with characters who were a bit flat.
On this second play through, it was better than I remembered, and I kept having the thought that lifting the premise (yeeting a colony ship to another galaxy in a last ditch effort to make sure that your various species survive the looming extinction event) is begging to be a TTRPG game.
@44:59 lol! i wasn't expecting the "Shia LaBeouf" krogan to make an appearance in the video. i got a great laugh just thinking about that meme. 😆🤣
That conversation around the 54:00 mark was so awkward that i didnt even blink when i got a mint mobile ad. They flowed into each other far too perfectly.
This is an Easter egg (45:00). The Krogan is doing the Shia LaBeouf's speech. JUST DO IT!
the image of someone holding a gun to the back of a krogan as coercion is basically this plot's quality
My face is tired.Is the dialogue quality
It is incredible what happens when you hire people not based on qualifications
1:38:54 This is the face I also make when getting surprise sucked out an airlock.....Its also the same face I have after waiting at the DMV 1 hour longer than expected....
1:41 Honestly that was probably a good idea as we've seen from no man's sky and starfield Procedurally generated planets are in fact very boring.
It's set up to fail, really.
It's not enough for the only point of the game to be exploring randomly generated environments. You need something to do in those environments.
But if those things to do are also procedurally generated, then that means the entire game is basically procedurally generate and if that was possible to do in a fun way then there would be no need for human ingenuity and we just are not at that point yet.
At some point in the creation process, a human needs to creatively and intentionally design the core parts of the game, not a computer.
NMS' planets ended up being boring because they were afraid of players being inconvenienced, and neutered the generation parameters. This resulted in easily traversable planets...which also makes them very boring.
@@kw9849Which would also happen if Andromeda used it as they'd need to accommodate driving the Nomad around.
Counterpoint HD2's planets are procedurally generated
@@aredjayc2858 HD2's planets get dull too especially as most are just barren rocky planets.
Hoping Dreadwolf is at least a slight improvement on Inquisition (which i really liked).
Wait till you see that the whole party are just Trans dudes
We shall see in few weeks.
But I do not think it will, as apparently, the leaked stuff from year or so ago (or was it two years?) was true, and the game is very "action combat focused"
If we can still drop kick people as a knight, it will already be 100 times better
@TheSaltFactory Hey Salt, your videos helped me a lot when my wife and I had our baby back in early 2023 (nice to have a long video while I was up with the baby). Really happy for you and your wife! Welcome to the fatherhood club! Keep on crushing it, man.
Mods can really save this game. I would say the mods I installed brought it from a 5 to a solid 8, maybe 8.5.
Should have stuck with Dick Ryder.
Or at least Richard Ryder.
1:28:59 - The Glitches were genuinely the best part of this game.
2:34:50
I played this definitely after the fact. Waited a few years after it came out to finally play it and was pleasantly surprised at how tight the combat was. I really liked the worlds and the characters. Maybe not as much as the og trilogy but i still liked it quite a lot.
I remember playing the app game that builds up resources in-game so when it would release, you had an abundance of crafting items. I got into the game, was having an ok time with it, then suddenly my game crashed on load. From then on, no matter what save I loaded, the floor never loaded back in. Andromeda was unplayable to me.
I knew you finally get to see this one its face is tired.
I love these videos, they're so interesting and relaxing. It's really funny how you're clearly skipping a bunch of uninteresting content and yet the video is still nearly 3 hours long. It's excellent.
Your point on lack of impact is well made. I beat this game and yet the entire time I was watching this I couldn’t remember character traits, plot points, or even the major cutscenes. I did remember loathing Peebee though, that one’s a given.
Awesome video as always. Since we are on the topic of odd story lines, I would like to see you make a video about Wing Commander 5: Prophecy. To me, it was one of those stories that it was so bad, it was good. After every mission of Prophecy, it was like a frat party. It was so over the top. I'm still not sure how the pilots actually flew missions after that much drinking, but wow, was it silly. I also wanted to say thanks for the video for Andromeda. I never have to play the game. Double thanks for that.
They admitted they went for ‘a CW feel’ for the writing of Andromeda. So, in a word, the answer is yes 😂
I’m so glad the next game is returning to its mature roots with Mary DeMarle as lead narrative director.
CW?
Just don't pre-order that thing. It will most likely be bad, and they won't run out of digital copies.
@@tadferd4340 The CW is a tv network known for sappy and melodramatic teen drama, or at least that's the stereotype.
CW like doesn't sound so bad, when did this game came out? Like 2013?
Holy sh1t it's from 2017, that's peak cringe CW
ME5 has confirmed andromeda elements I think it’s cooked
27:30 I wonder how many takes it took to say that sentence without laughing :D
Companion roundup and the tierlist had me rolling and clown music during Liam and Peebee evaluation is perfect.
This was a game where the gameplay itself was fun enough that I wished they actually gave me a good enough reason to want to play it, but the reason never really came. Also congratulations! Best of luck with the family, I’ll still be here taking the whole day to watch your videos :P
Praise the Lord, another Salt Factory video. I was just looking the other night to see if you had released a new one. Thank you so much!
Andromeda running into all the issues it did, like the lead devs leaving Bioware and other things, it definitely needed to be pushed back and reviewed over from the start. But instead it got pushed harder to put out what was there, which isn't even a cohesive story. It's like, they had ideas and the barebones of a plot and then that got pushed as the final product without any passes to the segments to smooth them over, or even try to make them all fit well.
nice try but no. esg killed it.
I played me1 and 2 like 10 times each, and me3 3 times and still have never felt even remotely compelled to try this game even when its been on my gamepass for like 2 years now
Took me long enough to watch this, but I'm so glad that you're so up on Krograndad. He & Vetra were my ride-or-die squad.
This game is like if Berserk decided to go all in on Puck's persona and everyone was just acting all silly and goofy. Idk if that analogy makes sense but the first 3 mass effect games just seemed so full of emotions and down to earth for the most, then this came along 💀
I did enjoy Andromeda.
I think it was a better game play experience than any other mass effect, but the story left a lot to be desired...
Whit some more polish, it could have been way better then it was.
It's a shame we never got the DLC for the missing ships...
I think I commented pretty much your exact thoughts on your ME3 video. That this game would have been a semi decent first entry to a new game series if it wasn’t Mass Effect (bugs/jank aside)
And, this gameplay is what made me hopeful for Anthem. It had bones and was fun, but then they just shit the bed
The phrase "like you couldn't mash pissers right now" genuinely pulled me out of what I was doing and made me cackle.
You sir are hilarious.
All good for the wait, and congrats on the kid. Hope you can achieve your wishes while also creating these great videos
1:25:36 it indeed does. my dad was a irish specia lforces but trained in various countries and you become a honoury rank for that.
I'm sure there's a limit to how Irish he can claim to be. Gerald Strickland is the CO of the Royal Gurkha Rifles, but it'd be pretty odd if he referred to himself as a Gorkha.
Yoooooo He Covered It been waiting all this time after all the Mass Effect Videos!!!
I pre-ordered this game and took 3 day off to dedicate to it. Then I spent time to learn how to play sudoku ... ? Then I returned to work after completing this game on day 1 after 12 hours. Haven't touched it since. Now I might update it and give it another look. Thanks for the review. Amazing as usual.
All I have to say is thank you for playing this game, I've enjoyed the other mass effects to varying degrees, and wasn't sure if I wanted to connect to my EA account to play it... I can say while I still have a desire to check it out for myself, I don't think it'll be worth it to boot back up my EA Origin account to do so. I was definitely curious as it was still a Mass Effect game, but I definitely enjoyed the 'continuing on the story' of the first 3... and while the exploration does sound appealing, the story, definitely sounds like something that I would be let down with... maybe when it goes on sale I'll check it out.
Anyways, thanks for the deep dive into the game! always like your views on games!
46:50 Whoa…okay, so…I’m calling HR…
Oh fuck, that Pillarmen moment caught me off guard. I thought that my alarm was going off randomly until you did the dramatic zoom-in with the song coming in fully.
"The saddest thing in life is wasted talent, and the choices that you make will shape your life forever. But you can ask anybody from my neighborhood and they'll just tell you: This is just another Bioware tale."
At 2:09:36 if you you play as the sister she'll actually tell Jaal how eyeballs work. Both Ryders have different backgrounds so some dialogue will actually change depending on which gender you play as
The tie-in book Nexus Uprising almost made me go back and give this game another shot.
I'm surprised no one else has mentioned Nexus Uprising. I started with the game and didn't like it much, aside from the combat, which, in my opinion, is a major step-up from even Mass Effect 3.
Since I'm a bookworm who's read all the tie-in novels of the original trilogy, I decided to give Nexus Uprising a shot. Frankly, I wasn't expecting much, but it didn't take me long to realize how well-written it was.
Personally, I found Nexus Uprising to be almost as good as Halo: The Fall of Reach, the prequel to the original Halo that not only sets the lore for the Halo universe but also serves as an origin story for Master Chief.
Why does Salt sound like Zapp Branigan? Did he have a cold or something
Is the audio at the beginning really messed up generally? Just me?
Does it improve later in the video?
Andromeda with Naughty Dog character animation would have kicked ass. I enjoyed it. Fanperson