My Mass Effect Andromeda experience and its aftermath

  • I've been a fan of the original trilogy for years, I've probably played through it four or five times, maybe more and it made Mass Effect my favorite sci-fi series in all history of gaming, but I never really got into Andromeda until last year for a few reasons (nothing to do with the bad rep it got on release). I finally got to play it 100%, I played on my high end PC with a few mods which obviously helped with the experience.
  • I'm familiar with the technical problems it had on release and it definitely it has various problems narrative and story wise, but I got this to say: As of 2024, Mass Effect: Andromeda is a great game. By no means it is perfect and at the same level of the trilogy, but it's pretty pretty solid. It had shoes that were almost impossible to fill, It took a lot of risks by deviating completely from the trilogy, but honestly I respect that. At times it failed to capture what made the trilogy, Shepard and crew so unique and that's my biggest complaint, but it improved on a lot of things as well. Combat was phenomenal, best in the series by far, graphically it was amazing, the models and facial animations could definitely use work, but exploring the worlds was always an absolute joy. The story lacked in depth and stakes, but it showed a lot of promising subplots. I had a blast and really enjoyed it for what it is.
  • The last thing that confirmed my position on the game was my need to play something like it afterwards. So as a massive fan of Skyrim, I put my doubts aside and finally bought Starfield. I'm just a few hours in, but playing Starfield after finishing Andromeda is... interesting. Andromeda was fluid, smooth, animations are nice, gameplay and combat are dope and that really shows in comparison. To wrap things up, I think we Mass Effect fans are well served as of now and I'm hopeful for the future. We're probably still 4/5 years away from our next entry, but I still have a lot of love to give to these four games. This beloved series has loads of room to grow and expand, but it already gave us some beautiful storytelling and engaging experiences. Let's hope it will give us some more of that! Love to you all ♥️