User blog:Teugene/Over 95 hours and not close to finishing (no spoilers).

Sooooo..... I expected the scale of Mass Effect: Andromeda to be a little larger than the first Mass Effect, having read about it before the release.

How wrong I was.

Mass Effect: Andromeda is immense in every sense of the word. As a completionist, I'm almost disheartened when I look at the cluster map, asking myself, "Another 2-3 golden worlds to explore every nook and cranny, with seemingly with no end in sight?". I believe the major contribution to this feeling is the daunting number of tasks the game has to offer. One article recommends focusing on the main story missions first which I did... to some extent. Despite trying to focus on the main missions, I can't shake the feeling that I need to clear out existing assignments and tasks, before moving on to the next big mission.

On top of that, a good portion of the time is spent doing the non-missions; the customisations, research, crafting (development), AVP, Strike Teams, managing inventory, min-maxing stuffs. The UI is simply ill-equipped to manage all of these fast enough, research and development being the worst offender of them all (and the most confusing initially). Unfortunately, the weapons/armour level 1-10 is one of the worse feature from the first Mass Effect that was re-implemented in this latest iteration. The Montreal team should have taken notes from Edmonton when the inventory was simplified to good effect in ME2 and ME3.

I couldn't help thinking Montreal made the mistake of equating more is better, in a way to provide some sort of "value" to the players. ME2 and ME3 disproved that notion though, as they are purposely designed with less in mind and it worked wonders for them. If Montreal had used less time and resources designing those tasks, what areas of the game they could have improved on? (I'm looking at you weird animations)

At the end of the day, I'm still enjoying the game very much despite those minor grouses. There are still a good number of positives in this game - the banter between your squadmates while travelling in the Nomad is hilarious and among my favourite part of the game, the scenery is breathtaking. The sheer number of things to do is overwhelming but I'm pleased to find that they are at least uniquely tailored and not just another monotonous fetch quest of an x variation, even if they don't add very much to the main story. Speaking of which, the story is not as gripping as much as I'd like so far but just enough to keep me playing. It's Montreal's first Mass Effect game, and having accomplished this much with little experience is a feat in itself but I hope they take note of what worked and what didn't when they start the planning for the next sequel.

That's my thoughts so far. Let's get back to the grind!

P/S: Bioware, if you are reading this, I just have one more major gripe: why do you only provide ONE female human romantic to a male Ryder (ME2 had 4, ME3 had 5)? Suvi's Scottish accent is music to my ears but I can't romance her :(