My plan was to begin Andromeda at launch, but life came in-between and caused a rather substantial delay. And when I finally did get started, I didn’t finish. Not sure why, but a long mid-game hiatus followed. Then I continued, and now it’s done; I’ve completed the main story, as well as a great many sidequests — I’ve been in Andromeda for more than 100 hours.

One thing is for sure, those delays didn’t happen out of dislike of the game. On the contrary, I enjoyed the game a great deal.

And maybe the first delay wasn’t such a bad thing, considering all those wonky animations the game shipped with that got everyone riled up. I’ve seen the memes. When I finally embarked, the bad animations had mostly been patched. The game seemed polished overall.

The game, while being a standalone entry, is of course a game in the mighty Mass Effect series. That’s not an easy position to be in, as people (including the developers themselves) might have an expectation or two.

The trilogy holds a special place in my heart; I truly love it, and at some point I want to discuss it at length.

It’s true that Andromeda doesn’t really hold up in comparison, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let that ruin my impression of the game. A game can be pretty damn good while still falling short of the standard set by the trilogy. And I do think Andromeda is pretty damn good.

Apparently that’s still a somewhat unpopular opinion, at least in the loudest crowd. Most who express their opinion either think the game is downright bad, even terrible, or that it’s merely decent, maybe good. *”Actually, it’s not a bad game, it’s just that…”. *

Screw that, I think it deserves better than “it’s not a bad game”.

While the writing in general is good, I did find the main quest to be lackluster, in particular the main antagonist, the Kett. Not terrible, but disappointing. The Kett is boring and shallow, frankly. Other aspects of the main quest are better, but still pretty meh.

Luckily, it’s a sprawling (but not disparate) game with much to offer aside from the main quest, both important missions like finding and preparing planets to live on, and those small but memorable moments like when you just talk with a crew member.

Took a while to realize that the main quest wasn’t going to deliver; it seemed to hold promise in the beginning. Everything started out pretty good, with the vaults, the remnants, the scourge, even the Kett at that point — like multiple big mysteries to be explored and gradually revealed — but then we didn’t really get to learn much of anything. And although the Kett featured prominently, we didn’t really learn much about them either. What is their origin, why is “exalting” other species so important to them, what is their philosophy of life, their social organization and political and military structure, what are their distinguishing characteristics as a species (aside from how they are made) what do they do for fun, do they enjoy coffee. We learned a few things, but not nearly enough.

What if we had had intelligence missions to steal information about them, and learn a lot in the process.

That part about the Archon defying central command did hold some promise, a window into both their psychology and their internal political structure, but all we got was minor hints.

And then there’s the whole deal with what came to be known as the Jardaan, which I thought were going to be the main race of the main quest. Unlike the Kett they felt interesting; they felt like this game’s counterpart to the Reapers (but not as hostile.) The Kett otoh felt like the Collectors of ME2 [1], which is a fine race (storywise) when cast in a minor or maybe medium role as a semi-mindless agent of destruction, but a weak race (storywise) when cast as the main villain. Unless fleshed out a lot more.

Luckily the game did better elsewhere, like the loyalty and ark missions, the internal politics and conflicts, and finding planets to live on. Populated areas, including the Nexus, felt alive and vibrant, conversations with and between crew members were often entertaining and well written, and served to deepen the characters. I’d say that the characters and dialogs are generally well written. Finding and securing planets to live on felt important. Combat-wise, character development and gameplay is great — seriously, it’s great and worth a post on its own.

And you do get some of that *homebase* feeling when on-board the ship.

Despite the flaws, there’s simply a lot to like in this game, and I hope in time it will get a more positive and accurate reputation. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one to really enjoy this game.

Whether I did or not, I do have a desire to stress the positives of the game, to provide a contrast to the more common negative narrative. If the game would have been received as a masterpiece, I might have felt the opposite, a need to stress the flaws and shortcomings. But my final judgement is the same in either case, an… 8/10? Yeah, 8/10. (By contrast the trilogy is a 10/10, an actual masterpiece.)

All in all I definitely recommend this game.

1. Though they operate more like the Borg. But the Borg *feels* like a major villain, and the Kett doesn’t, not as presented.