Mass Effect: Andromeda could have been a great game. It has fun combat, looks gorgeous, and it thrives on the major missions (such as those in the main story and loyalty missions for your squadmates) where most of the writing keeps you hooked. But with some of the design choices and the plague of bugs, I just can't recommend this game.

First off, this game absolutely did not have to be open world. The 100-ish hour playtime you see? The majority is from the mindless padding introduced in these open world environments, which are pretty monotone and boring to begin with. The side quests get very repetitive very quick and it feels like they're designed to waste your time. Having only a few explorable planets also means having to constantly backtrack between environments you've already visited. Like I said, the game thrives on the linear set-piece main story stuff, just like the Mass Effect trilogy did, but the open world stuff definitely put a sour taste in my mouth.

And second, the bugs and dialogue issues. These frustrated me to no end. Infinite load screens, quest markers that don't disappear, and a ton of other minor things. But the main culprit is how ambient dialogue is handled; there were too many times where some really interesting dialogue just cuts off because I drove or walked two feet, never to be heard again unless I reload a save. Another dialogue issue is one of chronology and pacing; imagine spending time dismantling an enemy base and then hours later hearing "hey, there's a new enemy base" when it's the same one you took down hours ago, or NPCs referencing an event that hasn't happened yet. The game doesn't seem to know how to pace itself, and it really suffers for it.

This game did some cool things, like taking us to a new galaxy and coming up with a pretty interesting story, making combat pretty fun, and doing away with the paragon/renegade system to instead introduce casual/professional/logical/emotional dialogue responses to shape the personality of your character. But at the end of the day, I felt frustrated with how much of my time was wasted with the boring open world design and the frustrating bugs and dialogue issues.

Compared to the original trilogy, it lacks in a lot of very noticeable ways, but that doesn't kill the title conclusively. There are still a few really fun characters to interact with that entices exploring the many social trees the title has along with a story that is interesting enough to keep me going, just not at the same level as the original three. The gameplay is where the game shines however, being incredibly well-balanced and very fun to play, something I can't say the earlier installments could claim. Overall, the game is fine, not too bad and not too good, worth on a sale as long as you lower your narrative expectations a few notches.

I wanted to love Andromeda. I desperately, desperately wanted to love Andromeda. In some ways, I did. The characters, for the most part, are great - or, at least, seem like they could be. The planets are beautiful, even when they're formulaic. The missions, when they're not repetitive, are a blast.

The most frustrating thing about this game is the sheer amount of potential it exudes. You're constantly reminded of what it could have been, and that makes what it is so much harder to enjoy. I wanted to love it, but instead I walked away...not hating it. And that's nowhere near enough.