Topic: The Presidium - A General Mass Effect Topic

@Th3solution It's about time you stopped being a little bi... I mean good job.

I agree about the environments and such. There's also way too much gear you can pick up as you then have 10 of each different thing that is slightly better than another and so on, I still enjoy it due to the story and the characters. Not that the overall gameplay is bad either. The graphics, environments, and gameplay all improve a lot in the second one.

@Keith_Zissou Yeah, I’ve discovered that the renegade path is tougher because you do have to be agreeable and civil from time to time for recruiting a squadmate or to open a side quest. I told “The Fan” (I think Conrad is his name) to shove off and leave me alone and may have locked myself out of his quest. The journal entry says something like “I told Conrad to leave me alone, but I may want to hear what he has to say if he shows up again,” or some gentle nudging from the game makers to not be such a jerk the next time. It looks like if you just run around and tell people off the whole time then you’ll never get any side quests. The option usually exists to say “Screw you, I don’t have time for this” but if I really want to see the arc open up I have to agree to help the person. So it’s more of a balance than playing paragon and just trying to be kind and helpful in all the responses.

But yeah, it’s starting to get more fun and interesting. One thing I’ve found different about the hame vs other RPGs like this is that the early game vendors are already selling late, high end equipment. I’ve just done one main story mission and a handful of these small Citadel stories and so I have all of about 2000 credits to my name, yet I’m going to all these vendors and they are offering me level 4 weapons and armor that cost 50,000 credits. I can’t afford anything that anyone has for sale right now! Usually games don’t even offer the good stuff until you unlock it as you progress.

@Th3solution While I like the concept of the paragon and renegade it is annoying if it locks you out of certain things. I played it safe and assumed that if I was nice to everyone they I'm likely to get everything in the game, however there was one (or perhaps two) missions which the paragon option sounded like it would lock me out of something so I ended up choosing renegade for a few things. That also feeds into the romance stuff as that got quite amusing choosing the paragon option every time as you end up flirting with anything that moves. While it was great to play it that way it would be nice to choose the renegade option more often without fear of being locked out of something.

One thing that got me about the dialog wheel now that I think about it is this is one of those games where the options you are presented with sometimes sound totally different to what Shepard actually ends up saying. I can't think of any specific examples now but there were a few times when he started speaking and I wondered if I'd picked the right option. I guess it's just trying to sum it up in as fewer words as possible and it doesn't always translate correctly.

@render Haha, yeah I have noticed that too. I’ll select some response like “This is nonsense! You’re a coward!” and Shepard will actually say, “I don’t really agree with you.” or something like that. 😂

@Th3solution did you keep playing Mass Effect in the end?? We are playing it on the Pure Xbox game club and I was just perusing your thoughts here and it sounded rather familiar to me! I hated the first few hours because it was confusing, every other button seems to get out my gun instead of doing something useful like opening the map or the journal and I just couldn't work anything out.

But now.... I am used to it! And I love it. I've done the first story world, a mission on our moon and now I'm just visiting all the other systems before I progress with the second story world!

@ralphdibny I completed the first game but that’s as far as I’ve made it so far. It was a really nice experience, since it was the only one of the trilogy I didn’t play on the prior generation. Definitely glad I experienced it.

Will I go on and play ME2 and ME3? I’m not sure. I played the first game when I subscribed to EA Play for 3 months for $5 promotional, so when that sub expired, I lost access to the games. I might just buy the Legendary Edition (this is how these subscription services get your money!) one day, but I have a lot of other games on the menu for now. It might be different if I hadn’t already played the final two entries before, but despite wanting to see the FemShep renegade arc play out, I’m busy playing games in the backlog that I’ve never played before.

Glad to see it clicked with you. It does get better as you go and the combat actually is decent for a game of that timeframe.

@Th3solution oh nice, im playing as female too but I seem to be going paragon. I definitely will play 2 & 3 & Andromeda after but I'll probably polish off a few other titles before I go down that rabbit hole!

I'm just finishing what must be my like fourteenth playthrough of Mass Effect and once again I did basically all of the things I do every time because that's just how I roll. I can't pull the trigger on being the really mean Shepard and I'm never going to romance Ashley. Or let her be alive.

Anyway, as Mass Effect 3 comes to a close this evening, I'm giving very serious thought to playing Mass Effect Andromeda. I'm here because I want one of you Mass Effect fans to tell me whether this is a terrible idea or not. I can't remember the game very well. I remember it being a bit more like ME1 with exploration on each planet and lots of gameplay between story beats and the story being pretty whatever.

I don't care about the gameplay at all. Not one tiny little bit. Not even nearly. When I play Mass Effect trilogy I play on easy and just blast my way through the levels because I'm literally only there for the conversations, the story, the galaxy-wide conflicts, and the space drama. I say this because I know Andromeda improved the gameplay in some ways but that's not a draw for me.

Anyway, story-wise, can you just mainline it and be done in like ten or fifteen hours or do you have to do the exploring in the big boring open worlds? If you've played it recently would you recommend it or not?

@LtSarge is the person I randomly remember doing a write up of the game where he really enjoyed it. I’ve been tempted by it before but just can’t bring myself to do it.

I’m just into the early stages of my ME3 run and damn, the opener is still brutal.

@Thrillho @johncalmc It's been over a year since I played the game so I honestly can't remember if you can just blast through it. What I do remember is that I enjoyed the combat way more in this game than any other game before it and that I liked the smaller, more focused cast of characters. In the ME trilogy, there are so many different characters on the ship, while in Andromeda there's only around ten characters or so in total. That's including party members, the pilot, engineer and so on. Because of that, you become closer to the characters a lot faster.

The story is great as well. Instead of being a spectre, you're a pathfinder. That means you get to make more rewarding decisions. I'd share examples but I can't remember much of this aspect, but I do recall that I liked being a pathfinder more than a spectre.

There's also different improvements such as being able to switch classes at any time. You don't have to choose one and stick with it for the rest of the game like in the trilogy.

If you're an ME fan, I'd say the game is worth playing. I enjoyed it a lot, it's a good game. Although the facial expressions are still a bit janky lol.

I would say the one draw for Andromeda is the combat lol. If you don't care about that and only care about the other components, then I think you'll be extremely disappointed. Although I did quite appreciate the emotion lead conversation choices in Andromeda, maybe it is just smoke and mirrors, but after a few playthroughs of the originals you saw how binary Renegade and Paragon really was (especially in the first game, where every pro human choice is Renegade for some reason). The four emotional choices in Andromeda gave you the illusion you weren't just putting responses in one of two large buckets, even though you probably were.

@johncalmc Andromeda can be blasted through in 12-15 hours if you're only interested in its core story (which you're right, is a simple one, closer to the original game than any of its sequels, but it's pleasant enough if you're willing to go with its flow). Add in the loyalty quests for your favourite crewmates and you're looking at 20-25, but I'd be surprised if you hit the upper limit of that range.

You don't have to explore every inch of every surface; in fact, I mained the story in my first playthrough and missed two planets entirely, if memory serves (one of them is definitely skippable if you're not interested in side missions or loyalty quests). There'll still be moments where you land somewhere and get told to roam over to a speck on the horizon, but they become far less frequent as the story progresses. Only two of the planets are big enough to get really lost on anyway, with a third being sprawling but with terrain which makes it feel smaller than it probably is. Everywhere else is pretty linear.

If you're in the right headspace and determined to keep to a quick pace, then Andromeda makes for one heck of a playable sci-fi movie. Ignore its baggage, enjoy it for what it is, and you'll have a blast.

Quoted for truth. The trilogy's cast are all-time classics, but I love my Andromeda crew.

For closure: I decided against Andromeda. I started looking at pictures of it and I remembered not liking many of the characters and the story being nothing. And then I remembered what my girlfriend said after I'd been playing it for hours. "Why aren't you playing it properly? Why are you just running around in the desert doing nothing?"

I sighed. "That's the game," I said.

Thanks for your input though.

Well, here we go again...

@RogerRoger Oh, hell... going for a back-to-back full trilogy playthrough or just the one for now? Either way, good luck Commander. It's gonna be one hell of a ride.

@Tjuz Thanks! Full trilogy (although I might sprinkle some shorter games in between). I'm pretty stressed at the moment and so needed some gaming comfort food, but I also wanted something that I can make last five minutes or five hours, depending on my day-by-day writer's block and other commitments.

I'm also gonna try and grab the three platinums along the way, which I fell short of before. Had to spend more time with Ashley. Yuck. Roll on Virmire!

@RogerRoger Definitely sprinkle some games inbetween! It'll make the fun last longer. How many times did you play the full trilogy now?

I never even thought about going for any achievements for the games so I have no clue what they entail. I'm not really an achievement hunter in general, but I gotta admit I can also acknowledge that having three Mass Effect platinums is very pretty. I guess with the re-release you don't need the annoying ME3 multiplayer trophies either anymore. Hurray!

I've actually kept Ashley alive every time I played through the trilogy despite her... somewhat racist tendencies. It's one of the choices I couldn't help but keep doing the same with. Every time I speak to Kaidan I just slowly fall asleep... though I've heard he gets better in subsequent games, much like Ashley does with her more problematic character traits I suppose. Maybe worth trying to spend more time with Ashley this time in general?

I was also thinking of doing a fresh playthrough on the back of finishing Resurgence. Spent a couple of days researching and installing mods but I dunno if I am feeling it. Some of the more transformative mods are really complicated to get working, there are a bunch of QOL mods which are very easy to install but I dunno how excited that really makes me.

@RogerRoger The trophies aren’t too bad on the whole but a few heads up;

ME1: The ones for completing missions with squad mates is a little iffy so be sure to change people out. I think I read that missions that end back on the Normandy don’t always count for some reason. And for the “use x skill 25 times” you can use some of them on the Mako; I got the one for Kaiden’s ability that way.

ME2: Fairly straightforward. You’ve played the series enough times to know how to save everyone. Killing the thresher maw isn’t too easy but the M-920 Cain certainly makes it more simple.

ME3: Pyromaniac can lock out for some reason. I had to start a new game with incendiary ammo and kill 100 continually respawning enemies in the prologue. Hijacking an Atlas mech isn’t hard but not too many opportunities to do so. And you have to do a very partial second run to get a level 10 weapon.

Good luck Commander 🫡