#mako i love you but why do you have to disapprove my every action?

[a-master-procrastinator]

When Smuggler has sneaked in BH story and written a line for them.

[robotslenderman]

Non-spoilery pre-release thoughts.

OK so I haven’t finished my 10 hours of Andromeda yet, but I’ve gotten as far as the trial allows me for the main story and I’ve got like one hour left of pre-release play anyway.

For those on the tag/those who missed my earlier post, I ended up getting Origin access just for the trial because the “OMG ANDROMEDA IS GOING TO BE AWFUL AND BIOWARE IS RUINED FOREVER” talk was really starting to get to me after I saw the bad face animations. Didn’t want to wait a week because I’ve been excited for Andromeda ever since before ME3′s DLC came out. While I was super hyped and had high hopes, at the same time, I thought I had fairly realistic expectations (”Yeah Bioware’s not perfect this isn’t a bad thing” instead of the “OH GOD I’M NOT GONNA BUY THIS GAME BECAUSE BIOWARE KICKS PUPPIES” bullshit I was seeing around) but… yeah.

It was really getting to me.

So here’s some dot points, no spoilers, under the cut. This covers character creator, face animations, world exploration, and narrative, without any spoilers. Any possible spoilers are referred to so vaguely you’ll have no chance of putting anything together, so don’t worry.

I also have a bit at the bottom covering things I really like about this game.

TL;DR – Guys. It’s fine, it’s okay, it really is. Chill. These issues exist, but they’re tiny ass things you’ll barely notice, like in every other game ever. You’ll love Andromeda, you really will. Yeah, it is DA:I in Space, but it’s also not – it’s DA:I in space, but better.

Honestly, these issues are fucking terrifying when you’re hyped up and can’t see the game for yourself yet and everyone’s nitpicking about these dumbass tiny things like they’re Huge Fucking Issues, but when you do play you won’t run into them nearly as often as people made you think, and when you do see them you’ll shrug and move on and forget about them ten seconds later, like you do about 99% of glitches you run into in other games. 

You’re not gonna hate the game just because Jallo’s legs clip into his seat or Addison stared at you way more blankly than any other character or something, for fuck’s sake.

Character Creator – I had a heart attack with the character creator at first because I thought that all I could do was select premade Sheps Ryders and had heard as such, but it turns out the option to customise those premade Ryders was up the top and not easily spottable. Whew! People are right that it’d be great if we could choose separate eyebrows/etc like in DA:I instead of having to choose a custom Ryder and then fiddle with proportions and so on – you can’t just choose “eye shape 1, eye shape 2″, etc. 

But really? It’s actually no big deal. I was super afraid of this as well, but when actually faced with it in-game I was like “oh, okay, that sucks” and then forgot about it thirty seconds later. It’s okay, guys, really!

Bad face animations – Honestly, I totally forgot the animations were supposed to be bad. Yeah, they’re not great, but nine times out of ten I didn’t notice them until I went, “oh, hang on, aren’t the face animations supposed to be bad?” and actually paid better attention. 

Then it was like, “Oh, yeah, they do seem to have a bit of a vacant stare.”

Then I forgot about them three seconds later and kept playing. No big deal.

The other one time out of ten the bad face animation really shows and… it’s not a big deal either. Like, yeah, it’d be great if they didn’t exist and Bioware please fix them, but when I did run into them, I didn’t become a huge angry beast foaming at the mouth because the whole game was ruined. Actually, I thought they were fucking hilarious. 

And then after the conversation I forgot about it again. No big deal. Seriously. Chill.

There’s a clip I saw of default Sara having a HUGELY blank face but when I ran into that bit in-game Sara didn’t have that expression at all?? It may be because I made a custom Sara, or maybe Bioware sneakily fixed it before I played, I don’t know, but Sara didn’t have that :^) expression I had seen in that exact scene on youtube.

World exploration – “ME:A is DA:I in space!” shrieks the masses, their faces melting from the neurochemical implosion happening inside their skulls. “THIS IS A BAD THING.”

Uh

No it’s not

ME1 had exploration. ME:A’s is way more interesting.

(But I also thought exploration in ME1 was interesting except for the sidequest bits, because I’m the kind of person who loved to drive around on the mako doing nothing but finding spooky shit and then got growly when I wound up in yet another premade husk-infested mine. But I loved just being on Luna and stopping the Mako as I fiddled with something on my desk, and then suddenly hearing those whale-like sounds in space, googling it, finding out those calls were rachni, and running into them again by accident on other planets… I love that. I’m addicted to that. Running into tiny little things like that.)

Yeah the worlds are huge but uh you’re in a Nomad which goes up to 120KMH, it better be fucking huge. You won’t give a shit how big the world is because you’re zooming past it thinking about how cool the Nomad is and laughing your ass off when Ryder goes “~oops~” every time you run over a space desert bug.

(The Nomad is really, really cool.)

Like seriously though, one thing I didn’t like about ME2 and ME3 was that sidequests got narrowed down more and more until you were basically a rat following a preset path in a maze. ME:A breaks away from this. You get to choose what to do next, you don’t go into a special area for one quest and get stuck there until you’ve played it out.

Granted, if you genuinely didn’t exploration in DA:I then I don’t have good news, it is a lot like DA:I so far. It’s too early in-game to be able to tell if it had the same issues DA:I exploration had 

(”everyone put all the sidequests in the Hinterlands!!“ 

“uh. bossman. bosslady. bossperson.”

“yes?”

“other zones exist?”

“they do?? FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.”) 

but I’m gonna trust Bioware and while I might end up being wrong, until I see otherwise, I’m just gonna have faith that they evened out sidequests a bit between worlds. I mean, people were Yelling about it non-stop and Bioware’s actually really good at listening to people. stop giving them shit for this, they do listen.

(But honestly reason #1 and #2 I loved DA:I exploration stuff, is #1, exploration always came with lore even when there weren’t sidequests attached such as at landmarks [sadly, ME:A doesn’t seem to have that with it so far, but I’m hoping that changes later in the game], and #2 I loved stimming by just running around looking at pretty shit and also knocking down collection quests. That’s just me, though, I never got bored doing that and found it soothing just being in the world.)

Narrative – OK, so every review site I’ve seen so far says there’s not enough story and I’m genuinely ???? over this because there is way more narrative/squadmate banter in this than any ME or DA game so far, wtf?? Yes, way more than DA:I! 

Like right up to the first planet exploration, it was almost non-stop story, and the bits in between cutscenes were filled to the brim with Liam chatting in my ear and reacting to the world, reacting to Ryder’s actions, making suggestions or adding his thoughts. Radio silence didn’t dominate like in the previous ME games.

IDK why one of the review sites was complaining about people making big deal out of the floating rocks in one world, that was actually hilarious in context and only got funnier??? I guess that writer didn’t have a sense of humour.

On Eos, the first planet that opens up after the prologue/first chapter of story finishes, cutscenes and so on definitely wind down as the game opens up player freedom more. But that’s a good thing so why are people complaining??? every game has a cutscene-intensive beginning, then that winds down as players stop being funnelled through a preset path and get to do what the hell they want. There’s drama, then there’s a breather, and then the drama ramps up again, it’s a cycle that’s common to every good story and game.  And like I said before, you hear way more from squadmates if you decide to wander around after sidequests instead of the main story.

One thing that’s brilliant about this is in most Bioware games, squadmates and companions almost completely ignore sidequests. There’d be token comments and Solas (Silently) Disapproves or Garrus picking a fight because Do It His Way Dammit Shepard, but that’d be it, it’d almost be like the companions weren’t aware that sidequests exists. ME:A so far seems to have fixed this in that squadmates are obviously engaged and invested in the sidequests. I was following a sidequest that involved scanning things lost underneath sand to solve a mystery, and it felt like the companions had something to say at each step of the way – including verbally cringing when a crucial piece of evidence went and chucked a huge fucking wrench into this small storyline. It was great, it really felt like I was travelling with people, for the first time, and not just walking guns.

Also, Bioware is as good as ever at punching you in the Feels. I am not joking. There’s a crucial scene in the first chapter that literally made me cry, it punched me in the Feels that much, and just remembering it is tearing me up fuck fuck fuuuuuck Bioware whY??? FUCK ME OH MY GOD

Interface – Honestly the interface is the biggest bugbear but, again, not a big deal. It’s annoying that I can’t just open and close the map, I have to close the map then close the “esc” options. I hope they fix it, but if they don’t, don’t care. 

There’s also the loadout screen that tripped me up – in ME1-3, you get the loadout screen, then the squad screen. But much like CC, you might miss the squad selection screen because the “select squad” button is in the loadout screen, at the top of the screen, and not easily spotted the first time around. 

You also might get tripped up because you don’t ever have to change squadmates; you load squadmates, and then you have the option of never seeing the “select squadmates” screen again if you don’t want to. I guess this is Bioware’s solution to “everyone always takes the same two companions everywhere” thing that made choosing squadmates kinda redundant. 

But I got tripped up here ‘cause I recruited Vetra, went onto Eos, and… wait, where’s the squadmate selection screen?? why is Cora and Liam there??? I want Vetra??? Went back onto the ship, came back out, nope??? wasn’t until the third try that I saw the little people icon above my guns in the loadout screen, clicked it, “Oooh, there it is!”

Honestly, all Bioware’d have to do to fix that is make the button ping or glow subtly or something to just grab your attention. Once the game “trains” you to check the top of the screen for extra categories, you won’t even notice this any more.

Even though I’m talking about things from a “what’s the big deal” perspective I somehow still make this game look bad, so I’m gonna make it look as good as I actually see it as here:

Overall, things I am loving about this game so far:

The Companions/Characters – 

In summary, every character so far has either hinted or outright shown that they’re multifaceted and that they’re… people. Like human beings IRL, there’s who they are in company, and there’s who they are in private, who they are when shit hits the fan. Every character so far has shown shades of this – except for Drack and Peebee, and that’s only because you’ve only just met them before the trial stops letting you proceed through the story, and I have full confidence they’ll both show to be more than they seem to be, too.

I was fully prepared to be bored by the human companions. I’m not. I love Liam. I love Cora. Liam’s super witty and playful, and as far from boring as you can get. He is no Kaidan 2.0, let me tell you. I had no intentions at all of romancing him but… well, I haven’t decided who I’m going to romance for certain yet, but he’s definitely found a place on the list now. He’s awesome! Even if I don’t romance him, he’ll definitely be my Ryder’s canon best friend.

Cora’s also great. She makes me think of a Mom Friend even though she’s not really Mom-like. She doesn’t fuss or anything. But she is encouraging of Ryder, and is also interesting in that she appears to think a certain way but then the face she puts on cracks a bit and you can see that there’s more to her than there appears to be, and that maybe she isn’t as well put together as she seems to be. She makes me think of Dorian, actually, in that respect – except while Dorian screams “HA HA HA I’M ONLY PRETENDING TO KNOW WHAT I’M DOING I DON’T, ACTUALLY��, Cora’s so subtle that you won’t notice the difference between who she is and who she tries to be until the facade cracks. (I also wanna romance her too, oops, I wanna romance everyone who do I romance shit shit shiiiiit)

Vetra is fucking incredible, holy shit. You know how Garrus liked to pretend to be a smooth motherfucker but it was totally see-through and he was a total dork? Well, Vetra is who Garrus wished he was. I have never seen a character portrayed as this smooth and subversive without being a slimeball, but Vetra’s wonderful, charismatic and so damn smooth that she kind of pulls something and you won’t even notice until she’s like “uh, yeah, so it looks like I totally Did The Thing…” and you’re like, “Oh, yeah, she did do The Thing, didn’t she?” because she pulled it off right in front of you so casually you didn’t think about it twice.

Peebee and Drack have both been met but the trial doesn’t go far enough in the story to let you recruit them. For those who follow me, Peebee is as Space!Liriel-y as I thought she was, minus Liriel’s Fight Me. Peebee does what the fuck she wants and is totally casual, but not at all crude or mean. She’s so cute. Drack, in comparison – only met him in one scene, so far he seems typically krogan, so I don’t know what he’s like beneath that mask.

Jaal I have not even seen a sign of yet. No signs of any angara yet.

Alec Ryder is lovely. He’s a total badass. I was expecting him to be this super tough anal frowny Military Father Who Disapproves but… he’s not. He’s great fun, he’s badass, and yeah, he could’ve been a better father, but it’s not a “RYDER HAD A FUCKED UP CHILDHOOD” kind of way, it’s in a “yeah I should tell my kids I love them” kind of way that… every good parent ever has, really. He’s also shown huge signs of having hidden depths, too, and it looks like exploring these will be a major part of a subplot – if it doesn’t wind up tied into the main plot itself.

SAM has some spoilery things that ping me as there being more to this AI than meets the eye, and I really look forward to getting to know them.

Jallo (Kallo? Fuck), Suvi, Lexi, Gil, etc – They seem awesome so far, looking forward to getting to know them better, too!

Nakmor Kesh – Special shoutout to this lady krogan who’s a fucking engineer! Holy shit.

The Other Stuff – 

I am still upset and emotionally scarred by That One Scene. You’ll know it when you see it. oh god. oh gooooooddd.

The characters being better than in previous games only makes the story more engaging. They have way more to say, way more reactions.

Bioware commented once that ME:A’s cast was way more inexperienced than the trilogy’s cast. Without spoiling, at first, Ryder seems to be the only one self conscious about their inexperience, thinking everyone else knows what they're doing. Then it becomes evident that, no, everyone is making it up as they go along, they’re either better at covering it up or they’re giving up on bothering with that. It’s fantastic, it really reinforces the overall theme and atmosphere of the main story – which is “we tried to settle in Andromeda but oops shit went wrong, what the fuck do we do??”

FAST TRAVEL!!

THE NOMAD.

SAAAAAAAAAAAAM.

The overall atmosphere. The characters, the story, the design stuff – all of it supports that atmosphere of “oh shit what next” when Things Go Wrong. It really reinforces Ryder’s own arc of growing into a leadership role. Because when shit goes wrong, it’s Ryder who steps forward. Even though you have the option (much like every NPC ever) of going “FUCK WHAT NEXT” out of sheer panic. Or you can play it cool and pretend you know what you’re doing, like everyone else before Things Went Wrong.

Overall, I can’t wait to get to know the characters better. I adore Alec especially. I am gonna wind up being a huge Alec fangirl, I just know it.

I’m loving this game. I can’t wait until the full game is released. Zero regrets about preordering, all my fears have been laid to rest.

It’s gonna be awesome.