Mass Effect Andromeda - Is it Worth It in 2024?

Mass Effect Andromeda released roughly 7 years ago in 2017 - And I decided to replay it once again. Question is, is it good now? Was it always good? And is it worth buying as a newcomer to the Mass Effect universe?

Here's my review of it.

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00:00 - What is Mass Effect Andromeda?
01:45 - Character Customization
02:40 - Initial Presentation & Graphics
04:25 - Tired Face Syndrome, Animations & Dialogue
06:30 - The Story, Kett and Angara
07:50 - The Combat
09:18 - The UI & R.I.P Codex
09:57 - Hacking Puzzles, Vaults & NOMAD Exploration
12:21 - Ryder.
13:19 - In Conclusion (Is it Worth It?)

[MrHulthen]

FYI - I've left ALOOOOT of things out from my gameplay, both because I don't want to spoil too much of the game for potential newcomers & because that would've made the video more than an hour long. Might make a deep-dive retrospective in the future, so remember to sub if you'd like that

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[baundiesel]

One interesting thing is how the intro and first mission feels like a 100% different game than the rest.

[Mark-zohs]

For me, it's one of those games that take a bit of convincing and patience to really start enjoying it. Especially since Andromeda only gets better after the first half.

[darrenjamesenns]

Andromeda was the first ME game I ever played (it was my covid quarantine game), and it was everything I was looking for in an RPG space adventure. The first couple worlds and missions truly felt wide open and I could do whatever I wanted (should I shoot at the kett or not?! I was so nervous) and I was hooked. I discovered the Mass Effect universe and lore as I discovered Andromeda and it truly felt as though I was in a new galaxy. Without the weight of the first 3 games, Andromeda was great. I will say though, that after playing the trilogy, I see how Andromeda fell flat with all the things mentioned here, but it still holds a special place in my heart.

[Bateluer]

There's one aspect of Andromeda that I feel is a really good concept that doesn't get enough attention. The usage of twin protagonists. If the player chooses Scott, Sarah is still a character in the game. The non-player twin is still an active individual in the setting. MEA only briefly touched on this, when you flip to the non-player twin during certain story events, but there's a lot of potential with that dynamic. Play as Scott during the main story? The DLC could have had Sarah as the protag, with Scott's actions having consequences and influencing Sarah. In the ME Trilogy, as with most RPGs of this type, there's only 1 Cmdr Shepard. If you play as FemShep, there is no BroShep in the game, and vice versa.

Obviously, much more has been positively said about the combat and gunplay mechanics, as well the individual story missions are generally better than the '1 and done' format of MET.

[georgehouliaras]

Commander, Andromeda wasn't even worth it in my Cycle. Most of my people willingly let Harbinger turn them into the Collectors after playing it. We threw it out the airlock in the end but it was too late, the empire had fallen.

[razoner]

I asked once my mom and sister to solve puzzles for me xD. They liked to solve "sudoku" i don't know about how to translate it to english, or that's even translatable but they told me to call for them every time i will have to solve puzzles in game xD

[HexaSquirrel]

Can't believe it's been nearly 6 years since Andromeda!

[deibu__]

Funnily enough I'm playing the game again these days and I have to say it's not as bad as I remembered, looking at it from a different perspective I can tell they had great ambitions for this game and they actually put a lot of work in it, despite the results. Of course the facial animations are still horrific and there's quite some bugs left unfixed especially on side quests

[matte]

I played it straight after a ME3 Legendary playthrough and I have to say I really enjoyed it. I agree with a lot of your points, although I did create a pretty good custom character that I was happy to look at for a few weeks! As others have said, the game for me was more about the character interactions and stories, that was fun. After that it was a lot of 'go here, do this', 'go back here, do that', so yeah, finishing out the story after that was disappointing. The only fun bit was uncovering the ME3 links which I did right at the end after going back when I came to the 'if you go past this point' bit. I have to say, whilst a big game, the ending did seem to suddenly come out of nowhere.

[ashmomofboys]

Andromeda is a fun game however it didn’t ever feel like I was playing Mass Effect. I’ll be interested to see how they combine the first 3 and this one. The games are just starkly different. In gameplay and just the open world aspect of the game.

[laujack]

if u compared this game to starfield which was released in 2023, u will have a difficult time imagine this was actually the superior game on almost everything. and ME andromeda was released 6 years ago, everything in this game age very well. its actually surprisingly looks better then most AAA game release today. if u never played this game at launch or to compare it to og ME trilogy. its actually one of the best sci fi RPG out there, for 10 bucks its definitely worth it.

[totallytubular]

I mostly agree with your analysis. I do think the story was simply serviceable. Not bad, not great. I like the profile system, but I hadn't considered that it removes a lot of replay value. Because you have every single power and ability unlocked with one character, I could say with confidence that there are only a few sets of powers that are better than all the other ones. Once you find the best combo, there's no reason to do anything different in any future playthroughs. I've played through the game probably four times by now and every time I choose the same combat profile and load out.

[rickh]

I loved the original series and I also really liked Andromeda ( I just replayed it recently ) Not having the Paragon/Renegade option actually made me think about my choices more, so I didn't mind that it was gone at all. To me this game is definitely worth playing if You liked the original series. there were several references to places and things and even people that took place before the jump and codex information abounds if you're into that sort of thing. ( Like me! ) : )

[deeps]

Believe it or not, Andromeda was actually my intro to the franchise. A friend got it for me for my birthday after most, if not all, of the patches had rolled out. I went in having never experienced the trilogy or any of the bugs present in the initial release. Maybe I'm just easily impressed, but I got pretty into the game and it's actually what drove me to get into the originals. If it hadn't have been for my exposure to Andromeda, I probably would have never even picked up the trilogy. But I'm glad I did.

[south_sl]

Im a New MASS EFFECT Player. Got into it because of the Legendary edition and played those games alot. Now I am already going through ANDROMEDA. Currently helping the Krogan and just participated in the Spender ARC. Im loving the game. I enjoy how it takes a character who isnt this macho man, just a simple 22 year old guy in a crazy position and showing how he deals with it. Making connections with the crew, seeing the Duality of the Nexus and the Exiles. Its got alot of good things going on here. Im pissed that this all I am gonna have until ME5 drops and that the game didnt get any dlc, but it is what it is. Even with its flaws, liking it alot. I just hope these characters make it into the series going forward. Because if BIOWARE just throws them away altogether, imma be pissed big time. Especially about Vetra.

[LordFoxxyFoxington]

Theres a lot I enjoyed about MEA and the Vetra romance was amazing, so I say the game is well worth peoples time. I love Vetra almost as much as I love Tali. Almost.

[socratese]

Starfields character facial animation designers must have learned from these guys

[USMCMachine]

The gameplay fighting stuff they did a great job in my opinion. But many of us play for the story. ME1 originally the gameplay was not so good to put it lightly. But the story the memorable loveable characters kept you going along with a strong protagonist that has earned respect but during paragon can open up themselves to bond with their squad. Ryder isn’t a leader. They try to make him funny and there’s no actual decisions that can really massively change anything in the game. Great video as always love the content.

[KyleTaylorDesigns]

I love playing MEA (mostly b/c I played the og trilogy to death) and yes it's not as deep in it's choice and consequences as the trilogy was. But that's just it, MEA's solo outing can't be fairly compared to a 3 game story ark with the time to resolve their story threads. I like to compare MEA to ME1 as the squad size and races are same (with exception of the angara) and it's the only other game in the trilogy that allowed players to go planet side and explore. Imagine if you will, there was no ME2 & ME3, would you have been satisfied with the story threads unresolved in ME1? Of course not, ME1, even to this day is still a bit jank and buggy, not all that different from MEA at current update. What is a big killer of MEA after multiple playthroughs is twofold: 1, the writing and direction; the voice actors clearly did the best they could with what they had to work with, and I did enjoy the overall story, but clearly the emotional impact wasn't there. And 2, MEA is basicly "The Force Awakens" to ME1's "A New Hope"; your first mission has you and your first human male team-member (Kaiden/Liam) planet side on the first planet (that you don't come back to later in the game), a random npc character you talked to back on the ship is killed by the enemy early on that first mission (Jenkins/Kirkland), next as the mission progresses you'll be joined by your human female team-member (Ashley/Cora). Later on at the central hub (Citadel/Nexus), you'll be granted your player's title (Specter/Pathfinder), and will be given free rein to use your ship (Normandy/Tempest), your squad will grow to include a turian (Garus/Vetra), a krogan (Wrex/Drack), an asari (Leara/Peebee) and a 6th member who's race we know little about (Tali/Jaal). You can explore the planet side of select planets with your vehicle (Maco/Nomad), and you have a clear enemy in the story (Saren/Archon) who plans to use acheint machine to to carry out his mission (Reapers/Remnant). And so on and so on with some deviations to make MEA stand apart from ME1; side missions MEA make you feel like you're sticking your nose into events happening alongside the player's story, instead of of in ME1, here's a random group of enemies, go kill them. Plus the callbacks that have ties to events in the og trilogy give a different perspective on events Ryder didn't have any involvement in (Shepard is known and familiar to some characters but no one is fan gushing over him/her, allowing Ryder's achievements in-story stand on their own.