Nah it was a story heavy game with a crap story both in how it was written and acted. It was deservedly shunned for that alone. No different from how Bethesda's latest games get the same treatment. Especially with regards to their treatment of fallout.

It wasn't "massively under-rated".....but it a good game plagued by minor problems that blown WAY out of proportion. ME: A was the victim of what I consider the two biggest problems in gaming right now: publishers and hype. The entire development of ME: A was plagued by problems and mismanagement. EA forced Bioware to use the Frostbite engine (Battlefield) which is apparently really difficult to adapt to RPGs. Bioware kept cannibalizing the staff of ME: As studio to work on the (then still unannounced) Anthem. Then there were multiple changes in direction in terms of what kind of game it was going to be. So ---like Destiny 2----Mass Effect: Andromeda didn't get onto final track until about 18 months before its release date. All the work had gone into making the game world, content, and game play....and the story and character animations suffered as a result. EA and Bioware KNEW that the game wasn't ready, and it was flawed....but they pushed it out the door anyway. Then what happened is why we will never see "Half-life 3": It ran into a wall of out-of-control community self-hype. Just like No Man's Sky did. It ran into a community that had had FIVE YEARS to hype itself into the stratosphere about what the next game in the franchise would be. Like the Star Wars community you had this runaway train of self-hype and speculation about what would be next. Which Bioware did nothing to really manage. ...and that Mass Effect: Andromeda (like the Last Jedi) didn't meet. The community wanted Mass Effect 4.....and they got Mass Effect: Andromeda instead. ...and they went -blam!-ing NUTS. Turning ME: A into a target and a whipping boy for all their pent up frustration, anticipation and disappointment. So all the bugs and glitches became this convenient target for all these negative emotions and got blown out of any-and-all-reasonable proportion. When the fact is that the game had fewer bugs and glitches than you'd find in a typical Bethesda game ("Its not a bug, its a features.) But this is what happens when gamers think they can step in the "same river" multiple times....and are chasing after a particular emotional experience, instead of just looking to have fun with a good game.

I liked it, the only ME game I've actually played though, was really disappointed that the Quarian arc would be relegated to the frakking comics rather than as DLC for ME: A or the first bit of the sequel.

Completely disagree with your idea of the kett being interesting or good. They were a very boing enemy, basically a cookie cutter enemy from most any b rated sci-fi movie or game. In fact they ahd already done a similar feeling enemy and had done it better in mass effect 2 with the collectors. The kett being so boring was actually one of my biggest issues with the game. The mass effect trilogy had fairly interesting villains throughout the whole thing, and we were even personally introduced to one of the main bad guy races in the very first game (something andromeda failed to do). Mass effect has also been known for its extremely well crafted and i teresting alien races. But in andromeda we got a measly 2 new races, that were not gery interesting at all. The bad guys were nothing more than another cultist race that tries to assimilate everyone into them. Same thing that has been done a thousand times over. Also lord forbid we coudl actually start the series off in an interesting way with us actually interacting with a few new groups of aliens. But no instead its "hey maybe they are friendly, oh they executed Jim, they are not friendly, time to kill them". The most standard and boring way to possibly start a game. At least mass effect one started with some betrayal and us trying to prove this high ranking government agent is a bad guy. Andromeda is basically like "they shot first so kill them all".

I feel like the hate went a little overboard. But I can see how somebody who was a longtime fan of ME would be disappointed. I played a little bit of 2, and the multiplayer beta of 3, so I had little experience with ME. Coming out, id say it was a solid 6. Nothing spectacular, but if you believed the hype you'd think it was a 2. I enjoyed my time with it, but I probably won't be returning to it.

I mean just [url=https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K35n4rqngZw/maxresdefault.jpg]look at the world of difference this patch made.[/url] I'm sure if they could've continued the story in DLC it could've been a fantastic addition to the series. RIP

Weird, you included Mass Effect in its title. In the short time I played, there wasn’t anything having to do with Mass Effect in Andromeda

Agree with most of what you said. I enjoyed MEA. The problem I think most had with the game was going in prepared to hate it. I love people talking about the lack of impact from player choice. None of the fruits of your decisions in ME1 surfaced until later. Spare Wrex? Save the Council? Good on you, stay tuned next time on ME! I liked the personality system over the paragon/renegade. Specifically how later items conversations were influenced by your personality profile. Paragon/Renegade worked for Shep, but I’m glad the system grew out here. The choices you had to make did not seem to have right answers and were dogged with moral ambiguity, which I like in games. Th ME trilogy didn’t have this. Krogan or Salarian? One is blatantly self serving and the other is doing it’s best to survive- there’s no real choice there. Compared to rescuing an individual who risked her life to save you before or a squad a victims you don’t know. That’s more of a head scratcher, and I left the decision puzzling over whether I made the right choice. Verticality and mobility in combat is always welcome and encouraged you to be more aggressive. Being able to jump between profiles made you more adaptable to different scenarios- which I admit I didn’t like at first. I enjoyed having my class and play style, but my insanity playthrough necessitated my getting good with it and now it’s just ingrained. I love the crew. They were different at first, and they had to grow on me because the personalities are different from the ME trilogy. But in fairness, it took a while for The ME1 crew to grow on me too. I like the fresh faced approach. You aren’t a team of warriors, you’re a team of second and third benchers who are unprepared for this job working for people who weren’t supposed to be doing their jobs due to an insane cluster of misfortune. But by the end- Ryder is a leader and has the confidence of the crew, the Initiative, and the galaxy. Shepard got a free pass to greatness. You start the best of the best and you end the best of the best. It’s a blast to play- but character growth is nonexistent. Shepard didn’t have to learn anything. Ryder got this job by accident, and has to grow into it. It’s a much more interesting journey that took me grudgingly accepting Ryder-like the crew- to giving my full confidence. Some small things I like- no fuel, quick scanning, exploring the galaxy doesn’t feel tedious. I wish your vehicle and ship were armed- though I understand why they weren’t. A lot of the planet space feels empty, but coming out of Inquisition, I didn’t mind. I felt like there was more it could have done, but all in all, I enjoyed the game. Cheers!

If I can’t even bring myself to finish a game in one of my favorite franchises of all damn time [spoiler]you done -blam!-ed up[/spoiler] [spoiler]badly[/spoiler]

You're wasting your time. The game could have been edited to perfection after launch, people would still talk shit about it. No one here is capable of having an original opinion, much less a forgiving attitude. Andromeda may not have been as good as the Trilogy (which was far from perfect, let's not forget how pissed people were regarding the "ending") but it is NOT bad at all.