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Should I give Mass Effect Andromeda another go?

Horton

Educated
Joined
Feb 22, 2019
Messages
67
Mass Effect was my favorite series back in the last console generation and I was hyped as hell for Andromeda. I picked it up launch night and played it all night and... Well it just never got good for me. Like many people say the animations are bad, the game is generally buggy, and the minute to minute game play is just weird sometimes. I was enjoying the story though but the good moments were surrounded by a wall of buggy crap I had to get through. So I returned the game and got Persona 5 instead. Now that we are a few years removed from the launch and the seeming death of the Mass Effect series I find myself wanting to jump back in. Did the updates really help the game? Is it no longer a buggy mess? What's the game like now Era? Also I've remained pretty spoiler free for these past few years. So no spoilers would be great if you guys don't mind.
 

vortex

Fabulous Optimist
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Mar 25, 2016
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Temple of Alvilmelkedic
Unfortunately, it's broken game on many levels, both in narrative and in gameplay systems. Could use more patches to iron things out.
 

HarveyBirdman

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 5, 2019
Messages
1,044
This is what happens when discussions on what an RPG really is never go anywhere. We haven't even GOTTEN to debating what a codex is, and now we're doomed.
The debate is already over. RPGs have three core components:
(1) a class system where you develop certain gameplay capacities over others
(2) this class system is integrated with the player character itself (i.e. not just picking a class every 2 minutes like an online FPS)
(3) some degree of freedom over interacting with the narrative greater than what you see in non-RPGs

Any game with all three components is an RPG.
Any game that has less than all three components is not an RPG.

The debate is whether a game matches these criteria.
 

Ysaye

Arbiter
Joined
May 27, 2018
Messages
771
Location
Australia
What don't you like about (3)?

As my old lecturer in mathematical logic would say, you have to be careful when you define something by referring to itself. The "set of all things that does not contain itself" must clearly be a member of itself.

Overall all three points suffer from the same problem Humpty Dumpty has in self-defining what the term "Glory" means:



Who, indeed, is to be master?
 

HarveyBirdman

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 5, 2019
Messages
1,044
But the three elements aren't self referential in that way.

(1) stands on its face.
You can only reach (2) by first reaching (1), but that makes (2) conditional, not self-referential.
(3) is a sliding scale, allowing for creativity and debate on what it means to approach a narrative with freedom. We would build a sort of common law list of factors to consider.
 

J1M

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
14,616
Mass Effect was my favorite series back in the last console generation and I was hyped as hell for Andromeda. I picked it up launch night and played it all night and... Well it just never got good for me. Like many people say the animations are bad, the game is generally buggy, and the minute to minute game play is just weird sometimes. I was enjoying the story though but the good moments were surrounded by a wall of buggy crap I had to get through. So I returned the game and got Persona 5 instead. Now that we are a few years removed from the launch and the seeming death of the Mass Effect series I find myself wanting to jump back in. Did the updates really help the game? Is it no longer a buggy mess? What's the game like now Era? Also I've remained pretty spoiler free for these past few years. So no spoilers would be great if you guys don't mind.
It's not much of a Mass Effect game. You'd be better off replaying the trilogy.
 

Ysaye

Arbiter
Joined
May 27, 2018
Messages
771
Location
Australia
But the three elements aren't self referential in that way.

(1) stands on its face.
You can only reach (2) by first reaching (1), but that makes (2) conditional, not self-referential.
(3) is a sliding scale, allowing for creativity and debate on what it means to approach a narrative with freedom.

Apologies if I was not clear but you asked what was wrong with point 3 (which is what I quoted), my reply was that it was self-referential; it refers to the complement of an rpg, whilst being part of the definition of an rpg in itself. It allows me to say that a game may strongly be (on the basis a person only needs two of the three points) an rpg if I feel that (in short) it is not a non-rpg.

I then made a comment around an issue apparent in all three points of your points, which was separate to the original comment, but is the stronger weakness.

With respect to the thread / OP, my vote would be to not give Andromeda another go.
 

SpaceWizardz

Liturgist
Joined
Sep 28, 2018
Messages
1,048
Mass Effect was my favorite series back in the last console generation and I was hyped as hell for Andromeda. I picked it up launch night and played it all night and... Well it just never got good for me. Like many people say the animations are bad, the game is generally buggy, and the minute to minute game play is just weird sometimes. I was enjoying the story though but the good moments were surrounded by a wall of buggy crap I had to get through. So I returned the game and got Persona 5 instead. Now that we are a few years removed from the launch and the seeming death of the Mass Effect series I find myself wanting to jump back in. Did the updates really help the game? Is it no longer a buggy mess? What's the game like now Era? Also I've remained pretty spoiler free for these past few years. So no spoilers would be great if you guys don't mind.
It's simply unremarkable now and you'll get nothing out of it.
Spend your time and money elsewhere.
 

HarveyBirdman

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 5, 2019
Messages
1,044
Apologies if I was not clear but you asked what was wrong with point 3 (which is what I quoted), my reply was that it was self-referential; it refers to the complement of an rpg, whilst being part of the definition of an rpg in itself. It allows me to say that a game may strongly be (on the basis a person only needs two of the three points) an rpg if I feel that (in short) it is not a non-rpg.

I then made a comment around an issue apparent in all three points of your points, which was separate to the original comment, but is the stronger weakness.

With respect to the thread / OP, my vote would be to not give Andromeda another go.
An elements test requires all elements. A factors test test is mushier, and can often help describe elements. So this: "It allows me to say that a game may strongly be (on the basis a person only needs two of the three points) an rpg if I feel that (in short) it is not a non-rpg" isn't right. You have to have all three elements.

Also, "it refers to the complement of an rpg, whilst being part of the definition of an rpg in itself," isn't necessarily a fallacy. What's the definition of darkness? The absence of light. We can only know something by basing it off something else we do know. Imagine that you had no sensory perception whatsoever -- you wouldn't be able to know anything at all. The same concept applies here.

Here's how you're viewing (3): This is the cutoff point for what makes RPG narrative freedom.
Here's what (3) says: This is the basic framework for evaluating whether a game's narrative freedom satisfies this element.

(3) doesn't tell us what kind of freedom makes an RPG, nor does tell us what kind of freedom makes a non-RPG. It's not a hard and fast definition. It's a sliding scale built for community interpretation. We would come up with factors to decide the kinds of things that weigh in favor of satisfying the third element.
 
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Agame

Arcane
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Joined
Mar 29, 2015
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I cum from a land down under
Insert Title Here
This is some funny stuff guys, but I would simply counter (3) with Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord.

And to the OP, I honestly didnt find Andromeda significantly better or worse than other ME games, its pulpy pew-pew sci-fi RPG lite, if thats what you feel like playing just do it. Unfortunately ME:A was the victim of the current trend of media/meme dog-piling, myself I dont give a flying fuck about goofy facial animation or the odd bug, show me an RPG that has released without bugs?
 

Horton

Educated
Joined
Feb 22, 2019
Messages
67
I kinda just want another Mass Effect game instead. Was actually really looking forward to this game because they talked about it being different from the original trilogy in regards to the story. The original trilogy is fun and all but it's all doom and gloom. They marketed this one as an adventure in a unknown world with a ancient history to uncover. As a big one piece fan ancient histories and uncovering secrets while exploring a new world spoke to me alot so I was hyped. But looking at the reactions in this thread I'm guessing they didn't live up to the marketing.
 

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