Before I picked up this game I had read a few complaints from fans. Mostly it seemed to be about "this game doesn't look as good as I expected so now I have to hate it". Admittedly there were some weird things going on with the animations, but graphics wise I can't complain. I had to play it on low due to my graphics card getting old, but except for the hair textures the game looked a lot (and I mean a lot) better than I expected on low. Especially the skies and the galaxy landscapes were really beautiful.
Story wise the fans seem conflicted. Some loved it, some hated it. My opinions of the Mass Effect games usually differ from the general opinion, though. For example I think Mass Effect 2 is the worst game in the series. That hasn't changed since playing Andromeda. Imo Andromeda was definitely better than 2, as well as 1. Mass Effect 3 had a more epic feel, imo, which Andromeda doesn't really quite capture. So as far as I'm concerned Andromeda is one of the best games in the series, but not the best.
And now there will be story spoilers.
Shit hit the fan almost immediately, which I really liked. Just throw us out there into the action! I liked how nothing at all were like the readings said back in the Milky Way, but wasn't that to be expected? 600 years has passed since those readings! The work to make one of the golden worlds actually liveable felt amazing tbh. Especially on Eos and Elaaden the change was noticeable, would've hoped for more of a change to Voeld though.
The first meeting with the angara was really cool and I immediately fell in love with them. No surprise then that Jaal became my boyfriend :P And I always brought him with me if there was anything to do concerning the Resistance, the Remnant or the kett - so basically all the time xD
Slowly uncovering the secrets of the Remnant was really cool. I had a theory beforehand that the angara came from the Remnant. I was leaning more towards descendants of the Remnant but that the Remnant culture and technology had been lost to the angara in the war against the kett. So it wasn't all that much of a surprise to find out at the end that the angara were created by the Remnant.
The final boss fight was cool, but it didn't feel as epic as the human reaper from Mass Effect 2 (the only really cool part about that game) or the entirety of the fight against the Reapers in Mass Effect 3.
It was also really cool to figure out the timeline of Andromeda. When they left the Milky Way. It was obvious pretty early on that they didn't know about the Reapers coming. But then on Kadara I ran into two ex-Cerberus operatives who talked about the Illusive Man's Lazarus project, which was what brought Shepard back to life, and how they thought he recruited all the wrong people (meaning the crew of the Normandy). Which sounded to me like they left before the end of Mass Effect 2. Maybe even just at the beginning of it.
There are also lots of mentions throughout the game, that makes me wish for about 4 DLCs. They were mentions that didn't really have any bearing on the main story of Andromeda. Like the mention of the quarian ark, that their departure was delayed because they wanted to bring the drell and hanar and other races aboard their ark as well. So I hope for a DLC where the quarian ark actually arrives. There was also the fact that the Ryder twins found out that their mother was still alive but kept in cryo to stop the progress of her disease, which makes me want a DLC where they manage to find a cure and can bring her out of cryo. I also want to find out more about the Remnant and how they disappeared, for all the angara know it seems the Remnant disappeared before the kett arrived. Why? How? And then ofc there's the small cutscene of the Primus at the end that basically promises a DLC where we'll have to fight him,
We need to remember that Andromeda doesn't take place in the whole galaxy. We're just in the Heleus cluster, which means there are other clusters and the whole galaxy is infinitely bigger. I want to take the fight to the kett main base, and I hope that will happen, either in a future game or in a DLC.
Left: I found the Normandy!!!
Right: Leaving Eos
Right: Leaving Eos
Left: Plants vs. Zombies reference!
Right: A krogan wants to make gingerbread cookies :3
Left: The turian ark in space
Right: The Scourge
Right: The Scourge
During cutscene so not a very good picture. But here's the whole gang together! :D
