Mass Effect BioWare Montreal's Mass Effect: Andromeda - where element zero meets trisomy 21

[Vorark]

Well, if your characters don't have opinions, desires, tastes, dreams, emotions, well they are as thin as cardboard, they are going to talk about what? Well, they are going to talk of platitudes and awkward attempts at humor that makes you question their mental age. We don't talk explaining ourselves like some psychology therapeutic professional, we just say what the fuck we want with explaining as quick as possible as this is fucking boring. Mass Deffect Prospermeda has alot of dialog, it just forgot how to turn all that text on something that a human being would say. Honestly, sometimes I wondered if the characters had some hidden mobile phones and were just talking with each other reading aloud the messages on their twitter instead of actually talking with each other.

Would you say the dialogue is similar to the recent influx of new cRPGs? Like, verbose for the sake of being verbose or just dumping info on the player.

 

[Immortal]

While I agree with you that most people are distracted by graphix, Prospermeda is the worst written game I played on the last few years

Meh, I wouldn't go that far. MEA writing is terrible for supposedly professional writers. But a lot of indies are even worse because it's usually the programers or designers or some cheap fresh-out-of-school wannabe literati doing the wriiting and it shows. Larian is a glaring example of that and as bad as MEA is for me D:OS is still unbeaten when it comes to clueless dialogues, inane plot and the overall reek of teen fantasy fanfiction.

More is less - indie's don't have the budget usually to really slam the rake on their face at the same level as Bioware. You usually don't see the really bad writing until a Indie gains some success and can afford to write more of their shitty narrative down.

 

[DeepOcean]

Well, if your characters don't have opinions, desires, tastes, dreams, emotions, well they are as thin as cardboard, they are going to talk about what? Well, they are going to talk of platitudes and awkward attempts at humor that makes you question their mental age. We don't talk explaining ourselves like some psychology therapeutic professional, we just say what the fuck we want with explaining as quick as possible as this is fucking boring. Mass Deffect Prospermeda has alot of dialog, it just forgot how to turn all that text on something that a human being would say. Honestly, sometimes I wondered if the characters had some hidden mobile phones and were just talking with each other reading aloud the messages on their twitter instead of actually talking with each other.

Would you say the dialogue is similar to the recent influx of new cRPGs? Like, verbose for the sake of being verbose or just dumping info on the player.

No, it doesn't suffer exactly from being too verbose or info dumpy, it is hard to explain but you have this feeling that something is wrong, the flow of the dialog is all fucked up. You have characters exchanging platitudes about the virtue of friendship or how to be strong or any other BS waste of time like that, whole dialog exchanges dedicated to characters being cute/edgy/cool for cute/edgy/cool sake with vapid content. You have characters talking about exciting stuff like their niece or how they like to grow plants that goes on and on. It is all meaningless static that doesn't go anywhere.

Bioware idea of characterization is to have characters having random weird quirks that mean absolutely nothing on the story. You have a character that bought a really trashy old couch to the ship and alot of the dialog is about this damn couch and how this had something to do with his past. The voice work is crap too, the characters explain things on the most emotionless way possible.

There are whole dialogs where the writers wrote blunt sentences meant to be read that weren't done having a voice actor performance in mind, they convey information directly on the most mechanical of ways, the characters talk like they are robots exchanging information very mechanicaly. Unless you are an autist, you don't talk like that.

 

[Hirato]

If the alien thing wasn't bad enough, they decided it would be cool making first contact with not only one but two races. Well, basically, this is a shooter kinda RPG game right? So you need mooks to shoot and NPCs to be fetch quest dispensers right? Well, the Kett are the mooks to shoot and the Angaran are the NPC quest dispensers. It is kinda sad, you watching the first contact with the Angaran, they meet you speaking on their lenguage that you don't understand and just five minutes later they are all taking with perfect english with north american speech mannerisms included. I never laughed so hard on my life, this shit is even more gold than Fallout 3.

It's heavily implied they have translators that produce a sort of babelfish effect.
And as I mentioned in RK47's LP of the game, I find it more curious that all the lips and gestured (lol) are synced to the english audio when it's also implied that everyone is talking their own language underneath the babelfish effect.

 

[Vorark]

...

Sounds worse than DAI then, which had its fair share of cringy moments. At least I don't remember people complaining about the dialogues or the VA too much.

No idea if this is an achievement or underachievement for Bioware.

 

[Frozen]

Gameplay here is light years away from Inquisition, that game is unplayable.
Everything else was crap even then, so this is up and not worst BioWare game.

 

[Vorark]

DAI x MEA, which is worse and why?

 

[J1M]

Gameplay here is light years away from Inquisition, that game is unplayable.
Everything else was crap even then, so this is up and not worst BioWare game.

Curious which class you played as. I generally agree with you, but found after restarting a few times and playing as an archer that lining up long shots and explosive shots had sparse moments of charm.

 

[Jick Magger]

Ryder is probably one of the worst RPG protagonists I've played as in recent memory, right next to Corrin from Fire Emblem Fates and Hawke from Dragon Age 2. You're basically forced to play him as an unassertive loser who'll let anyone and everyone walk all over him without consequence, and will only take action on something if someone else does the hard work for him.

 

[salaciousbcrumb]

Bioware idea of characterization is to have characters having random weird quirks that mean absolutely nothing on the story. You have a character that bought a really trashy old couch to the ship and alot of the dialog is about this damn couch and how this had something to do with his past. The voice work is crap too, the characters explain things on the most emotionless way possible.

See here they are actually onto something which is a good trick to give a writer character quirks and motivations, but they fuck it up by being over the top and lolsrandumz, cutsey or twee. They do the same thing with alot of their characters, I think the most glaring early example I can remember was Anders rattling on about a cat in Awakenings. It's tone deaf as well as if your fighting for your life you don't give a fuck about a cat or a couch. You do however give a fuck about getting drunk/ drugged/ smoking a cigarette/ or a small lucky charm. Those four things there I just used as examples cause a character to behave in a certain way if they are an addict or superstitious and can help you build a character and give them quirks, ticks (DT's, chewing gum, smoking, a toothpick) etc, and motivations (desire for a drink/drugs/lost lucky charm) there's a good reason you see so many scenes in films using these small props.

But Bioware just goes full retard and introduces a couch as a quirk. There would be a much better quirk if you got one of the characters to carry a cushin or an inflatable ring around the Not Normandy with them because they got shot in the ass. You could even make it an easter egg, take not Jacob black dude on a mission with you to a certain planet, he's shot in the ass and can't go on the next mission and has to limp around the Not Normanday for a bit carrying an inflatable rubber duck pool ring. It'd make his character far more likeable and relatable, add more dialogue options for all the crew and give you further team banter during missions.

You could even make the guy a whipping boy, who picks up an injury on every mission, while he carries around a lucky charm and you need to get him to drop the lucky charm to stop being shot, or you could make him carry on with it and suffer. That would make him an interesting companion to take on the missions, just to watch what accident befalls him next. And beats out cringeworthy quirky dialogue and stupid movie night scenes.

 

[Jick Magger]

Bioware are just doing what a lot of sci-fi/fantasy writers do these days: picking up all of their tricks from the Joss Whedon school of character writing. Make all of the dialogue between your cast consist of nothing but snark and 'quirky' humor, and give each character one defining trait to ensure they don't all become indistinguishable from one another.

 

[Reinhardt]

There should be an option to create your own silent party. I don't need stupid kids, i need soldiers.

 

[Tick Tock Crocodile]

Corrin from Fire Emblem Fates

 

[Idiott]

There should be an option to create your own silent party. I don't need stupid kids, i need soldiers.

There should be an option to bring Shepard and co. to Andromeda to grab collars and get shit done.

 

[gestalt11]

Ryder is probably one of the worst RPG protagonists I've played as in recent memory, right next to Corrin from Fire Emblem Fates and Hawke from Dragon Age 2. You're basically forced to play him as an unassertive loser who'll let anyone and everyone walk all over him without consequence, and will only take action on something if someone else does the hard work for him.

They are saving the galaxy through the power of passive-agressiveness!

 

[Deleted member 7219]

There should be an option to create your own silent party. I don't need stupid kids, i need soldiers.

There should be an option to bring Shepard and co. to Andromeda to grab collars and get shit done.

That sounds too extreme for new Bioware.

 

[DeepOcean]

Decided to watch a stream to see the ending of the game, laughed hard when they get rid of the first Disney EVIL cartoon villain and can't wait to show off the yet another EVIL looking cartoon villain that will replace him, Mass Effect is officialy now a cartoon from the Cartoon Network... nah.. cartoons are better written than this crap...

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/132104413

Got to 43:34 to witness the wonderful Mass Effect Andromeda combat with the most broken build of the game on insanity. Please, count the number of shots that Krogan bullet sponge absorb.

Go to 1:11:50 to witness passive agressive nuMale Ryder exchanging politicaly correct insults with Disney Villain Archon as they decide who is the biggest bully of the Andromeda High School. Right afterwards see the glorious torture... I mean... ending... of this glorious game.

Go to 1:33:52 to witness the "new" villain of the next Mass Deffect, if you thought the Angarans and Kett look ugly as sin... Prosper is proud.

 

[Padzi]

Overall when waiting for the game I was content with the idea of going to Andromeda, but I also foolishly hoped that maybe the game will be able to match the atmosphere of the original. I was wrong. Besides Shepard was a thug, but he/she was a professional, you were able to take him seriously because he/she took events unfolding around him seriously.

Ryder on the other hand is nepotism fueled goofball. The longer I think about the more I am conviced the game was written for teens and pre-teems. Because everything has this swashbuckling feel without any actual danger, where everything has to be cool, where ur a special snowflake and everybody adores you. So when the writers try to convey something more serious for a change it just falls flat. Because everything has to be cool, witty, sarcastic and snarky.

It's like they tried writing a Marvel movie. Or more precise like they tried to write a Joss Wheedon Marvel movie. But just weren't able to imitate his style (which isn't very good to begin with). Every character has to be quirky, odd and be full of snark. And because of that every event feels fake like they are just going through the motions with the smile on their faces cause they know they can't get hurt.

Let's for example go back to ME1 to the mission where Shepard has to save Liara and the mine is falling apart around him/her. Shepard is nervous, he/she is barking orders at Joker and there is that sense of danger, that this is a serious predicament. Now let's add Andromeda writing style to it. Shepard instead of being serious just happily spews some puns like "Liara our relationship just got a little bit rocky" or some other stupid shit. And everyone in his group is groaning in fake pain how bad that was totally ignoring the fact that they can die. It would totally destroy the scene.

And it destroyed the entire plot and character development in Andromeda.

 

[gestalt11]

Decided to watch a stream to see the ending of the game, laughed hard when they get rid of the first Disney EVIL cartoon villain and can't wait to show off the yet another EVIL looking cartoon villain that will replace him, Mass Effect is officialy now a cartoon from the Cartoon Network... nah.. cartoons are better written than this crap...

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/132104413

Got to 43:34 to witness the wonderful Mass Effect Andromeda combat with the most broken build of the game on insanity. Please, count the number of shots that Krogan bullet sponge absorb.

Go to 1:11:50 to witness passive agressive nuMale Ryder exchanging politicaly correct insults with Disney Villain Archon as they decide who is the biggest bully of the Andromeda High School. Right afterwards see the glorious torture... I mean... ending... of this glorious game.

Go to 1:33:52 to witness the "new" villain of the next Mass Deffect, if you thought the Angarans and Kett look ugly as sin... Prosper is proud.

Someone should just grab that second clip and overlay R Lee Ermey shouting "I will gouge out your eyes and skull fuck you!" just for the juxtaposition to really slap people in the face for how one-dimensional, delusional, and labotmized things have become.

 

[Max Stats]

There should be an option to create your own silent party. I don't need stupid kids, i need soldiers.

There should be an option to bring Shepard and co. to Andromeda to grab collars and get shit done.

That sounds too extreme for new Bioware.

It sounds like DLC they'd put out with the dumb Adoromedans only that way to push sales for the season pass this is exclusive to.

Only this would assume such a DLC would be made by a different, somewhat competent team, lest all the same idiocy be in full force again.

 

[Frozen]

Gameplay here is light years away from Inquisition, that game is unplayable.
Everything else was crap even then, so this is up and not worst BioWare game.

Curious which class you played as. I generally agree with you, but found after restarting a few times and playing as an archer that lining up long shots and explosive shots had sparse moments of charm.

I played as a mage.
Had to turn my brain off it was just click, click, click forever.
Kiling a dragon was like going to work.

 

[Average Manatee]

RPG Watch has reviewed: https://www.rpgwatch.com/articles/mass-effect--andromeda-review-408.html

Don't worry, I soldiered on and got this gem:

For some reason, Mass Effect: Andromeda is scoring significantly below both Mass Effect 2 and 3 on most major gaming sites. Even Dragon Age 2 got higher scores. I honestly don't understsand that. Perhaps the animation memes and what not leading up to the release made it more acceptable to bash it, despite it being an AAA title. It's certainly not because the animations in question are bad enough to warrant a huge drop in ratings.

It's an AAAAAAAA title, of course it should never have low scores or be bashed! This is an outrage!!

It's entirely true though. Reviewers are herd animals who generally only score games unexpectedly low when there is a socially acceptable reason for it. Memes are what killed ME:A's score, merely being a bad game would have gotten it 8.5/10 "it's OK" reviews.

 

[J1M]

Gameplay here is light years away from Inquisition, that game is unplayable.
Everything else was crap even then, so this is up and not worst BioWare game.

Curious which class you played as. I generally agree with you, but found after restarting a few times and playing as an archer that lining up long shots and explosive shots had sparse moments of charm.

I played as a mage.
Had to turn my brain off it was just click, click, click forever.
Kiling a dragon was like going to work.

Yeah AOE targeting like that for a dozen hours sounds awful.

 

[RPGMasterLvl2]

 

[oldmanpaco]

Fulfilling the promise of Hawk...

Well played @colfoley, well played.