I’m apart of this Mass Effect fan page of Facebook. People like to share thought and ask questions. But you also have the defenders of ME: Andromeda.

They claim is very underrated. Or it’s not as bad as people make it out to be. These people either have never played an ME game or are just people who like the mainstream tropes of today. The open world, do what you want and how you want type game, with the rpg elements and many skill trees. Many of which, are the same ones hyped for Starfield, even though it looks worse than Fallout 4 in every way.

On paper the ME: Andromeda sounds cool. But the execution was bad. Yes it was just as bad as people claim. Without bugs, the game has many other issues. The writing for instance, was the worst in the series. The game got super repetitive and boring quick.

Since they went off the original design document for ME1, it brings up the same issues. You drive a rover over long barren stretches of a big world with nothing in the middle between bases, just like ME1.

People say the combat is the best in the series. In a way yes,I’d hope it would be, but in other ways, no. If you take away the jet pack, I’m not sure people would be saying that. They took away the dedicated cover button and they didn’t properly compensate it. Vanquish did a better job with this, but I don’t want bullet time in an ME game.

Andromeda doesn’t feel like an ME game. If you changed the dialogue to not reference the first 3 games and made new alien races, would you think you were playing an ME game? You’d think you were playing one of those AA games inspired by Mass Effect that missed the mark.

What could’ve been easily changed to make Mass Effect Andromeda a classic? The best place was to start with the story. This one seemed obvious and it was like they changed it.

Make Ryder the main character. I was not a fan of it being the Ryder kids. Their father was so much more interesting, hes the human pathfinder and veteran of the First Contact War. I think it would’ve been cool to have him being spacist against Turians, having flashbacks to the war. These would play out like a more flushed out version of Shepherd’s in ME3, where you’re playing through missions during the war. In that way, the game would also serve as a prequel.

A main character that could be explored was Zaeed’s son, Bain. He was curious when he heard about the Andromeda initiative, and quit his job to join because he was bored. We could‘ve had Bain exploring the unknown, while hearing tales of his father from folks that he came across. Some could hostile and unnerving knowing he’s Zaeed’s son. While others may be excited to join his team. Bain himself doesn’t know what stories are fact or fiction. When someone asks you a question about it things can change depending on how you answer.

Next thing if you are on an accelerated schedule, sacrifices have to be made. Why weren’t the open worlds and Mako scrapped. It’s dumb to spend all that time to make open worlds. Have a similar hub world and mission structure to Mass Effect 2. You can ride in Makos in cutscenes or have those cool ME2 loading screens.

The characters were just bad. They should’ve gotten some old unused characters from the trilogy. The current characters are just there and have no reason to exist. Come to think of it I don’t remember any of their names.

Gameplay wise this is also a simple fix. Mass Effect 3 had the best all around gameplay. There’s parts of Andromeda’s that were better but there were issues. Take ME3’s gameplay and put it in there. I could go either way with the jet pack, though I think it should be an upgrade you get. That cover button needs to comeback, knowing when your were in cover became an issue. I’d bee behind a box or something thinking I was in cover, but would be getting shot in the head.