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mass effect andromeda?

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What are your thoughts on the game from those that played it? Worth a $20 investment?
 
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I actually liked it a lot. No, it's not as good as the trilogy, but still a good game.

Story - Needs Improvement
Gunplay - Great
Mechanics - Good
Companion Quests - Great
SKill Tree - Okay
Graphics - Great

Think I spent about 30-40 hrs in it. The biggest gripe I had was the story was kind of lame and not enough new species to interact with. It's getting close to the holidays you may be able to find it even cheaper if you're willing to wait longer.
 

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$20, why not? It's not a good game but it's not a terrible game either. It's okay.
 

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I actually liked it a lot. No, it's not as good as the trilogy, but still a good game.

Story - Needs Improvement
Gunplay - Great
Mechanics - Good
Companion Quests - Great
SKill Tree - Okay
Graphics - Great

Think I spent about 30-40 hrs in it. The biggest gripe I had was the story was kind of lame and not enough new species to interact with. It's getting close to the holidays you may be able to find it even cheaper if you're willing to wait longer.

I agree with all of the above. Honestly, lot of games that are mediocre I tend to enjoy anyway. Really it's about getting lost in unique atmospheres and making of it what you want on a personal level. No different than a "good but not great" book.
 

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What are your thoughts on the game from those that played it? Worth a $20 investment?
I enjoyed it very much, and thought it was worth it at full price. I didn’t have any of the animation problems that many did, and I was able to use the in-game character designer to make a different main character than the original design. I played about 80 hours in it IIRC.
 

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What are your thoughts on the game from those that played it? Worth a $20 investment?
If I were you, I'd wait for a Steam Fall Sale. According to rumors and educated guesses on the net it's only 12 days away.

The game itself is not horrible, maybe even worth $20 if you are a fan of the series.
Clocked about 10-12 hours and it feels rather repetitive, boring, and really-really half-assed all the way through. Gunplay is OK, but unlike many reviewers I did not find it enjoyable.
For me ME1 is still the best.
 

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Eh... Instead of buying it maybe pay for 4 months of Origin Access?
It's included with Access with a bunch of other almost great but just good games.


Origin Access is decent I have to admit. The future of gaming is a subscription based model, just like Netflix. Surprised Uplay hasn't started one of their own yet.
 

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i bought it (box, since i have the other in box too i could not bring myself to take a digital DL or a "pay per play" the later is unwelcome for me ) during a sale on one of my etailer (around 25$) well even at launch price i would have liked it just as i did...

quite enjoyable and refreshing (ofc it's not ME 1-2-3 but still the same universe )

it differ from one to another, it's love it or hate it.
 
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Great game. Worth the release price IMO.
 
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For a Mass Effect game it was a let down. In the era of open world cookie cutter games like the current Assassin's Creed and Witcher 3, it was pretty good. I enjoyed it more than both AC Origins and Witcher 3.

The bad:

- Main story was weak. Didn't care for the antagonists and they felt extremely generic. Other parts of the story such as organization of the Andromeda intitative once arrived was not well thought through. Don't recall exactly what but I recall just wondering why they didn't do a number of things as there were clearly easy solutions.

- Open world. Lots of running/driving around. Repeating enemy spawning locations and small set pieces. The sense of exploration was pretty weak and was pointless.

- Lots of low quality side quests.

- Character diolgue took a step back.

- Initially some animation issues. Nothing that bad though and it has been further improved since I played. If you were okay with Witcher 3 you should be okay with this because they're equally buggy.

- Initially some big performance issues. Mostly fixed if not completely.

- Inventory system sucks.

The good:

- Still had a greater sense of purpose than most games. Story was more grounded with a clear objective that the player cares about. Settle new galaxy, set up new outposts to expand civilization. Compared to AC:O or Witcher 3 it was stellar in this regard.

- Combat gameplay was decent enough. More action oriented that previous ME games but still not that bad.

- Graphics could look stunning. Interesting environments.

- Conversations mostly relevant outside of crappy side quests.

- Still had that Mass Effect vibe on some scale. Lots of relevant conversations mixed with lots of combat.

- Some intrigue and mystery that was worth caring about. CD Projekt, take note.

- Still some sense of adventure. I remember the good parts more, although the side quests can get very tedious if I try and remember it. But I still remember the game being more adventure than busy work unlike Witcher 3 / AC:O.


Essentially the game tried to copy Witcher / Assassin's Creed and that is mainly why it was a letdown. Had they made a proper Mass Effect game it would've been leaps and bounds better. Yeah the story was still mediocre and there were still technical issues, but at least the gameplay and cohesion would've been better.

Overall I'd still say it was one of the better action RPG / adventure (they're pretty much blending into the same thing) games over the past few years.
 

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I mostly agree with what Flogger23m said. To add, I think my biggest problem with MEA is that choices really don't matter. Off the top of my head, I can really only think of two situations where it did and both are relatively minor. There's no major genocide decisions like Mass Effect forced you to make. The game is narratively narrow and in areas where I expected more (like colony quests) there simply wasn't much. The main story arc should have been a minor story arc in a bigger game. Think Mass Effect 2 (choices don't matter much and the whole game is filler) with Far Cry 2's brand of repetition (enemies pop up in predetermined choke points to slow you down) and you got MEA.

The previous Mass Effect games, I dove right in to replay it after finishing it the first time. I did no such thing with MEA and even thinking back now, why should I? I don't expect much to change and most of what comes to mind is the planet grind. The game doesn't give me a reason to replay it because it is narratively narrow. And that's why it comes across as Mass Effect in name only.

Overall I'd still say it was one of the better action RPG / adventure (they're pretty much blending into the same thing) games over the past few years.
Maybe but that's not a statement of how good MEA is, more of how terrible the state of the industry is.
 
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@Flogger23m I can’t agree on the basis of you used this opportunity to slam The Witcher 3 for bad side quests/busy work etc, and said CDPR should take note.

I’m completely baffled, stupefied and downright confused at all that nonsense. TW3 had the largest assortment of real side quests that actually were easy to get wrapped up in sometimes play for hours. They seem to have perfected the side quest NOT being just busy work. Really puzzled as to which game you played.
 
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If you are not a hardcore ME fan then the answer is yes.
i am a hardcore ME fan ... and the answer was yes for me either ... :laugh:

@Flogger23m I can’t agree on the basis of you used this opportunity to slam The Witcher 3 for bad side quests/busy work etc, and said CDPR should take note.

I’m completely baffled, stupefied and downright confused at all that nonsense. TW3 had the largest assortment of real side quests that actually were easy to get wrapped up in sometimes play for hours. They seem to have perfected the side quest NOT being just busy work. Really puzzled as to which game you played.
i saw that he answered in this thread and i went "oh boy, bundle of negative incoming..." even before reading the actual post ... but for me it's not the Witcher 3 bashing who baffle me ... :laugh: (ok a bit ...)


who the hell even start with cons... (and some are not even cons ... :laugh: ) ME:A is also mod'able (yeah yeah i know ... you don't buy a game to fix developers mistakes ... you buy it to play it, or complain )


as i did say, hate it or love it ... most of the time those who like it half way, do so only because they expected a ME1-2-3 follow up (well it is ... and not only in name ... hint: same universe different set up ... )
 
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Not your best RPG game of the last couple of years,but definitely a good one.
 
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Yeah its enjoyable, don't go in expecting Shepards' second coming and all is fine really. Its still decent sci-fi, it just lacks any sort of spice that the trilogy had. Think of it as Mass Effect: Season 18251. You've seen all of it before and the content is 'generic' and the story feels recycled, but you get your fix.

Replay value is very low because you can respec at will and classes are essentially gone, or at least, free form. Its fun to experiment with, and the game's combat sorely needs that too to remain interesting. Other than that, its immersive and its no punishment discovering and making planets habitable. It is also repetitive of nature, basically it means scouring every map and getting every marker.
 
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As a obsessed Mass Effect (trilogy) fan I can say this.

Andromeda has some improvements to the interface. Replay value is very low. Planets look really nice. People look really iffy sometimes. Finished MEA 3 times and never finished that 4th run. Just fizzed-out somewhere in the middle. Story begins to be engaging about at the middle point of the game. Don't expect Trilogy or you'll be grossly disappointed. Oh and for FemRyder, AsariRyder mod is mandatory for me. No ifs and buts. ;) Also get mods you like from ME Andromeda Nexus Mods. There are some idiocies like very small storage and you basically have to circle between map and merchants just to dump junk. Without bunch of mods Andromeda is a mediocre experience.

On the other hand I finished 2 full runs of the Trilogy since then and finishing 3rd next week (stopped counting totals LOL). Playing single ME3MP (usually solo) game almost every day. Andromeda MP is decent, but it doesn't feel the same as nailing some Cerberus to the wall or vaporize hordes of Husks. And worst part of all, Andromeda doesn't have Over Cover Grab feature introduced as a melee in ME3. Now that's just criminal in my opinion. :D
 

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@ypsylon you might just be the ultimate ME fan! :D
 
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For a Mass Effect game it was a let down. In the era of open world cookie cutter games like the current Assassin's Creed and Witcher 3, it was pretty good. I enjoyed it more than both AC Origins and Witcher 3.

The bad:

- Main story was weak. Didn't care for the antagonists and they felt extremely generic. Other parts of the story such as organization of the Andromeda intitative once arrived was not well thought through. Don't recall exactly what but I recall just wondering why they didn't do a number of things as there were clearly easy solutions.

- Open world. Lots of running/driving around. Repeating enemy spawning locations and small set pieces. The sense of exploration was pretty weak and was pointless.

- Lots of low quality side quests.

- Character diolgue took a step back.

- Initially some animation issues. Nothing that bad though and it has been further improved since I played. If you were okay with Witcher 3 you should be okay with this because they're equally buggy.

- Initially some big performance issues. Mostly fixed if not completely.

- Inventory system sucks.

The good:

- Still had a greater sense of purpose than most games. Story was more grounded with a clear objective that the player cares about. Settle new galaxy, set up new outposts to expand civilization. Compared to AC:O or Witcher 3 it was stellar in this regard.

- Combat gameplay was decent enough. More action oriented that previous ME games but still not that bad.

- Graphics could look stunning. Interesting environments.

- Conversations mostly relevant outside of crappy side quests.

- Still had that Mass Effect vibe on some scale. Lots of relevant conversations mixed with lots of combat.

- Some intrigue and mystery that was worth caring about. CD Projekt, take note.

- Still some sense of adventure. I remember the good parts more, although the side quests can get very tedious if I try and remember it. But I still remember the game being more adventure than busy work unlike Witcher 3 / AC:O.


Essentially the game tried to copy Witcher / Assassin's Creed and that is mainly why it was a letdown. Had they made a proper Mass Effect game it would've been leaps and bounds better. Yeah the story was still mediocre and there were still technical issues, but at least the gameplay and cohesion would've been better.

Overall I'd still say it was one of the better action RPG / adventure (they're pretty much blending into the same thing) games over the past few years.

Seems a bit lacking in logic on several points, and I daresay you didn't think this through all too well.

ME:A was 'stellar' compared to TW3 or AC:O? I think what's truly different here is mostly the setting and not the content itself. Clearly, ME's setting appeals to you more than TW or AC does. Which is understandable, but don't mistake personal taste for quality. They are different things and you can easily distinguish one from the other too. Quality isn't abstract, appeal is.

The basic concept of each game is quite similar, the execution however of both AC:O and TW3 is far more refined.

Sense of adventure... I get what you mean in a sense; the way you discover a map's secrets is map-wide and things are connected in ME:A. But let's face it, its really a gimmick. If you follow the narrative even loosely you just pass by the points of interest, you interact with a pedestal, and move on. Tick all the boxes and map is unlocked. The only thing that can spice that up for you is appeal of the setting and mechanic used. But really... every map contained the EXACT SAME mechanics for its puzzles. Doing one puzzle = knowing them all, they just had some little twists so they weren't carbon copies. And not once, either, but rinse and repeat until you unlock one of the temples. Inside the temples, the mechanics they used to make puzzles were also really quite limited. Some moving platforms, some buttons, some enemy spawns.

Compare that to the setup of TW3: side quests offered through not only message boards, but NPCs that run towards you for help, or NPC's doing something unique or out of the ordinary that you can speak to. The world feels alive because of it, too. ME:A: 'here's a list of things to do, enjoy, see you at 100% completion'. Random events? ME:A has nothing. TW3 has tons of it. In ME:A you can stand around anywhere and nothing will *ever* happen.

I'm wondering if you even played these games or just read some IGN review tbh... You are correct about narrative and dialogue quality... but that was the headline of virtually every reviewer.
 
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Seems a bit lacking in logic on several points, and I daresay you didn't think this through all too well.

ME:A was 'stellar' compared to TW3 or AC:O? I think what's truly different here is mostly the setting and not the content itself. Clearly, ME's setting appeals to you more than TW or AC does. Which is understandable, but don't mistake personal taste for quality. They are different things and you can easily distinguish one from the other too. Quality isn't abstract, appeal is.

The basic concept of each game is quite similar, the execution however of both AC:O and TW3 is far more refined.

Sense of adventure... I get what you mean in a sense; the way you discover a map's secrets is map-wide and things are connected in ME:A. But let's face it, its really a gimmick. If you follow the narrative even loosely you just pass by the points of interest, you interact with a pedestal, and move on. Tick all the boxes and map is unlocked. The only thing that can spice that up for you is appeal of the setting and mechanic used. But really... every map contained the EXACT SAME mechanics for its puzzles. Doing one puzzle = knowing them all, they just had some little twists so they weren't carbon copies. And not once, either, but rinse and repeat until you unlock one of the temples. Inside the temples, the mechanics they used to make puzzles were also really quite limited. Some moving platforms, some buttons, some enemy spawns.

Compare that to the setup of TW3: side quests offered through not only message boards, but NPCs that run towards you for help, or NPC's doing something unique or out of the ordinary that you can speak to. The world feels alive because of it, too. ME:A: 'here's a list of things to do, enjoy, see you at 100% completion'. Random events? ME:A has nothing. TW3 has tons of it. In ME:A you can stand around anywhere and nothing will *ever* happen.

I'm wondering if you even played these games or just read some IGN review tbh... You are correct about narrative and dialogue quality... but that was the headline of virtually every reviewer.

You're over praising the Witcher 3 greatly. I recently finished playing it and even about a week back was trudging through the remaining side quests & monster contracts (which are basically all the same). I use Witcher 3 / AC:O as examples because honestly those games share more in common with MEA than they do the original trilogy from a gameplay perspective. AC:O certainly is a very refined game. The same can't be said for Witcher 3. AC:O's problem is a shallow story with dozens upon dozens of distracting side quests that are too similar to each other and add nothing to the story. It gets tedious very quickly. When the story picks up the game is interesting, but the story is so underdeveloped and sparse. Witcher 3 is similar. The game runs off on tangents that add no real substance to the story. Those few moments the story gets back on track it is somewhat interesting. The problem is in an 80 hour play through maybe 20-25 hours actually progress the story in a meaningful way.

This is where MEA is superior to the above two games when it comes to story cohesion. Even with a number of trash side quests, many typically relate to the story in some way. The story ratio is still maybe 60%, with even the crappy side quests relating slightly. AC:O is around 50%. Witcher 3 even worse than that. While pretty crappy overall, the story in MEA actually ended and it felt like something was accomplished at the end. AC:O did a decent job here as well; too bad there was some much filler content. Witcher 3's ending was horrible. Story: Find girl. She finds you. Find another girl. Busy work, fetch quests, press eagle vision and follow tracks in 100+ quests. Some story here and there but not much. Something something super elves, portals. End game. 5 minute ending cut scene. Yeah, for 80 hours of gameplay getting a lackluster ending mission and a 5 minute cut scene was a slap in the face. MEA from the get go at least provided decent issues to care about. Figure out what happened, rid the threat, and gradually establish civilization. Witcher 3 essentially revolved around the story making you find the ashen haired girl. There is no reason to really care about this problem. We don't know who she is or have any reason to care about her other than the game outright telling you "Geralt is like a father figure to her and therefore you must care!". It made for a shallow plot with no real incentives to naturally grab interest for the player. I felt more relation to Roche because at least by the Witcher 3 I have some reason to care about his existence throughout encounters of Witcher 2.

It is a big problem in an age of increasingly drawn out and long winded copy/paste open world games. What made Mass Effect 1-3 great is they cut out the nonsense. MEA decided to add more crap and then botched the release due to quality control issues. Still an okay game, and compared to similar games it is pretty decent. As another poster said, it is more of a reflection of the state of the industry.
 

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Witcher 3 is mostly about being a witcher (witchers slay monsters for an agreed upon reward). All three Witcher games are designed that way. But this thread isn't about Witcher.
 
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You're over praising the Witcher 3 greatly. I recently finished playing it and even about a week back was trudging through the remaining side quests & monster contracts (which are basically all the same). I use Witcher 3 / AC:O as examples because honestly those games share more in common with MEA than they do the original trilogy from a gameplay perspective. AC:O certainly is a very refined game. The same can't be said for Witcher 3. AC:O's problem is a shallow story with dozens upon dozens of distracting side quests that are too similar to each other and add nothing to the story. It gets tedious very quickly. When the story picks up the game is interesting, but the story is so underdeveloped and sparse. Witcher 3 is similar. The game runs off on tangents that add no real substance to the story. Those few moments the story gets back on track it is somewhat interesting. The problem is in an 80 hour play through maybe 20-25 hours actually progress the story in a meaningful way.

This is where MEA is superior to the above two games when it comes to story cohesion. Even with a number of trash side quests, many typically relate to the story in some way. The story ratio is still maybe 60%, with even the crappy side quests relating slightly. AC:O is around 50%. Witcher 3 even worse than that. While pretty crappy overall, the story in MEA actually ended and it felt like something was accomplished at the end. AC:O did a decent job here as well; too bad there was some much filler content. Witcher 3's ending was horrible. Story: Find girl. She finds you. Find another girl. Busy work, fetch quests, press eagle vision and follow tracks in 100+ quests. Some story here and there but not much. Something something super elves, portals. End game. 5 minute ending cut scene. Yeah, for 80 hours of gameplay getting a lackluster ending mission and a 5 minute cut scene was a slap in the face. MEA from the get go at least provided decent issues to care about. Figure out what happened, rid the threat, and gradually establish civilization. Witcher 3 essentially revolved around the story making you find the ashen haired girl. There is no reason to really care about this problem. We don't know who she is or have any reason to care about her other than the game outright telling you "Geralt is like a father figure to her and therefore you must care!". It made for a shallow plot with no real incentives to naturally grab interest for the player. I felt more relation to Roche because at least by the Witcher 3 I have some reason to care about his existence throughout encounters of Witcher 2.

It is a big problem in an age of increasingly drawn out and long winded copy/paste open world games. What made Mass Effect 1-3 great is they cut out the nonsense. MEA decided to add more crap and then botched the release due to quality control issues. Still an okay game, and compared to similar games it is pretty decent. As another poster said, it is more of a reflection of the state of the industry.

Alright! I can see where you're coming from in that sense. You are looking for a more 'focused' story/game progression.

But I'll disagree on for example what you've said about ME1-3. Those games offered TONS of non-related side quests. The only constant was doing them with your team of characters, and how well those characters were designed, each and every one had a very unique background and purpose. Did you forget spending hours on the galaxy map and in a Mako? Did you forget about all those DLC? ME2's entire system of side quests were essentially unrelated to the main story. Very few of that content had any business with Collectors, it was about the team members themselves. You could defend it is 'related' because building the team is what you do in this game, but the team is only a tool to achieve a goal; hell you can even have random members die every playthrough!

ME:A and cohesion though? 'You've ended up in Andromeda' 'Now find some crashed ships'. That is the story. It doesn't get deeper than that. And about halfway through the game 'You have a nemesis'... wow.. Just wow. I've viewed literally every story progression in MEA as an actual 'side quest' in terms of how it told a story. It wasn't interesting. You knew from day one you'd once again gather up a team, get some levels, and destroy some ancient or dormant alien race. And that's all she wrote... Supported by badly written dialogue. So yes, 'more focused'.... but horribly executed. One could also say it just lacks content, because really, there isn't much to do if you don't want to walk past all the markers on a map.

My approach to these games is very different from yours. Yes, storyline matters. But immersion is where its really at. That is also how I can still enjoy a shit narrative as ME:A had on offer and still play it through. Immersion in the setting, 'being' that protagonist, making choices that somehow support that idea. Unfortunately, even in the immersion bit ME:A doesn't shine. You do some very silly way of capturing planets by 'making them habitable'... which does not really compute in any logical sense whatsoever. You call that 'related to story'? I say its a weak excuse to put five or six maps in a game.

But the premise of both TW3 and ME:A is actually the same: find (back) important people to progress the story. And its (side) quests serve to paint a canvas upon which that story happens, really. In TW3, terms of immersion, every single side quest adds to it, either in exploring playstyles or getting deeper into Witcher lore. Thát is the value of them. In ME:A, its just a bunch of events that get fed to quest logs and markers on your map.

I think you're also missing that TW3 is an open-world game in its purest form while ME:A is a much more condensed, much smaller game with more linearity. Even on the maps themselves: if you follow a route past all the markers, you won't miss a thing. In TW3, that just isn't happening, you run into high level enemies and impossible challenges. ME1-3 are even móre linear, in fact they are completely different concepts. I don't see this as a 'big' problem, actually, and I think many do prefer an open, non-linear approach to how games are made. So the focus of the story does suffer a bit, but to me that is an easy trade off. My problem with ME:A is that it doesn't do either one well, actually, its mediocre on all counts; lacking the freedom and depth of TW3, and lacking the focus of ME1-3...
 
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Alright! I can see where you're coming from in that sense. You are looking for a more 'focused' story/game progression.

But I'll disagree on for example what you've said about ME1-3. Those games offered TONS of non-related side quests. The only constant was doing them with your team of characters, and how well those characters were designed, each and every one had a very unique background and purpose. Did you forget spending hours on the galaxy map and in a Mako? Did you forget about all those DLC? ME2's entire system of side quests were essentially unrelated to the main story. Very few of that content had any business with Collectors, it was about the team members themselves. You could defend it is 'related' because building the team is what you do in this game, but the team is only a tool to achieve a goal; hell you can even have random members die every playthrough!

ME:A and cohesion though? 'You've ended up in Andromeda' 'Now find some crashed ships'. That is the story. It doesn't get deeper than that. And about halfway through the game 'You have a nemesis'... wow.. Just wow. I've viewed literally every story progression in MEA as an actual 'side quest' in terms of how it told a story. It wasn't interesting. You knew from day one you'd once again gather up a team, get some levels, and destroy some ancient or dormant alien race. And that's all she wrote... Supported by badly written dialogue. So yes, 'more focused'.... but horribly executed. One could also say it just lacks content, because really, there isn't much to do if you don't want to walk past all the markers on a map.

My approach to these games is very different from yours. Yes, storyline matters. But immersion is where its really at. That is also how I can still enjoy a shit narrative as ME:A had on offer and still play it through. Immersion in the setting, 'being' that protagonist, making choices that somehow support that idea. Unfortunately, even in the immersion bit ME:A doesn't shine. You do some very silly way of capturing planets by 'making them habitable'... which does not really compute in any logical sense whatsoever. You call that 'related to story'? I say its a weak excuse to put five or six maps in a game.

But the premise of both TW3 and ME:A is actually the same: find (back) important people to progress the story. And its (side) quests serve to paint a canvas upon which that story happens, really. In TW3, terms of immersion, every single side quest adds to it, either in exploring playstyles or getting deeper into Witcher lore. Thát is the value of them. In ME:A, its just a bunch of events that get fed to quest logs and markers on your map.

I think you're also missing that TW3 is an open-world game in its purest form while ME:A is a much more condensed, much smaller game with more linearity. Even on the maps themselves: if you follow a route past all the markers, you won't miss a thing. In TW3, that just isn't happening, you run into high level enemies and impossible challenges. ME1-3 are even móre linear, in fact they are completely different concepts. I don't see this as a 'big' problem, actually, and I think many do prefer an open, non-linear approach to how games are made. So the focus of the story does suffer a bit, but to me that is an easy trade off. My problem with ME:A is that it doesn't do either one well, actually, its mediocre on all counts; lacking the freedom and depth of TW3, and lacking the focus of ME1-3...

All three of the original ME games are fairly different. ME1 had little side content, which was a good thing. There was enough of it there. You'd maybe spend 25% of the game doing side content. ME2 differed in that side content took up more of the time (around 40-50%). Although this content was more or less woven into the story in such a way that it didn't feel like side content. But yeah this hurt ME2 story wise which was very short and shallow compared to ME1. I've said it many times, but ME2 is the most over rated of the three. Still, the side content is of such high quality and not entirely irrelevant unlike a game like AC:O.

MEA had a lackluster story. As I mentioned, I thought the antagonists were shallow and I had little reason to care for them. They seemed like generic video game "bad guys". Was it better than most games? Sure. But nowhere near ME1's level. But it certainly did have strong cohesion. Even if a quest was mundane it still related slightly to the overarching story. In AC:O for example there are dozens of quests about kids, or some poor guy in some random city/village. They were voiced quests but still, what happens is entirely unrelated in most of these quests. Some kids point strangers in the wrong direction. Some random bread maker wants to propose to this woman. Ends up feeling like busy work. Witcher 3 is similar. Dozens of little villages and quests to take that add nothing meaningful to the game. MEA was also littered with crappy fetch quests ("Tasks") but most of the side quests ("Assignments" if I recall) would revolve around the settlement, or something on the command ship. So there'd typically be that connection.

Overall I'd certainly say MEA is worth playing. But it isn't superb.
 
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