The initially obvious questionable design choices (revealed by pre-release footage) such as the removed pausing, reduced squad control, and limiting hotkeys from 7 in the previous games to 3 are not even close to its biggest problems. Even the fact that friendly AI is inferior to many 1990s games I've played is not the worst of this game's issues. The abysmal, highly inefficient UI and general presentation including tutorial prompts and how poorly placed they are, as well as the unnecessary grindy gameplay mechanics that add nothing to the game are also not the worst of its issues, nor is the fact that many named Asari characters (a humanoid race that looks very human) have the same exact face models. The inconsistent graphics that range from excellent to piss poor are the least of its issues. The cover system is more limited and more clunky compared to Mass Effect 3, but this is not the main issue with the game. Synthetic restrictions on exploration, such as the illogical inability to progress into a quest area until you activate the quest is not the worst of its issues. Typical Hollywood lazy plot devices like your advanced space helmet being made of fragile glass so that it cracks easily leaving you with no breathable air is not the worst of its issues either. There is lots of tedious backtracking, but that isn't the worst of its issues, and neither are the exploitable AI which can make combat effortless nor the weapon attachments having illogical properties.
Wait, all of those flaws (many of which are significant, all of which combined is enough to easily pass on the game) are only the smaller issues of Mass Effect: Andromeda? That's right. So now you might be wondering what its primary issues are.
The primary issues are in quest design and writing. Every quest boils down to either: "Go to this marked spot and kill everything" or "Go to this marked spot and hold E to interact with some alien technology that is not at all unique" or a combination of those two elements. And the protagonist, which is too predefined to make a good RPG protagonist, has no military experience. Yet you take out massive enemy fortifications on your own and accomplish things that would make N7 soldiers jealous.
Every new planet starts off with the same basic main quests as well. Dragon Age: Inquisition was the same way only with closing the Rifts, so one quest was the same on every new location until you finished that main quest line. But in Mass Effect: Andromeda, the issue is much more severe and extends to many quests being identical everywhere you go, and the process of completing these identical quests is always the same and always too simple. Every quest is a chore and has no intrinsic reward beyond proposed combat enjoyment, but the AI is too broken and lacking in fundamental intelligence and the mechanics have taken a step back compared to Mass Effect 3 in too many ways such as the cover system (but it has many new kinds of weapons which is nice). The core mechanics themselves are also too laggy, resulting in a clunkier game than Mass Effect 3. Jumping in particular can have a huge delay between pressing the jump key and the jump actually happening.
And for some reason, you cannot save during main quests. It relies on auto saves which can have as much as a 15 minute (maybe even more) gap between them, so you can lose lots of progress easily.
And the writing? One particular quest chain (a main one, not side quests) demonstrates some of the worst writing I have ever come across in any published work. First of all, the emphasis of this story driven game is not on writing at all, it's on facial animations and poor cinematics. Almost every conversation is just a closeup; gamers do like this "cinematic" design when the facial animations are good but this is not how movies are shot. It is terrible simulated cinematography, and the facial animations are so bad that they have become a meme. But I digress.
The incomplete/unrealistic approach to technology in this game is worse than any of the previous Mass Effect games. You cannot even determine the tech level of the newly introduced species due to lack of exposition. Alien design is subpar as usual; take any non-human character, swap their model to a human one, and then they are exactly the same as humans. They are humans in costumes. The game likes to contradict itself, such as how Cora says she can rip an APC in two with her biotics, yet she can do nothing remotely close to that, or how Ryder has no military background yet with just two other people takes out massive enemy fortifications even early in the game.
Let's not forget how unrealistically stupid the game's characters often are (like most mainstream movies and shows and games); for example, Ryder and his/her squad come across a small alien structure and cannot determine what the technology inside does, when the piece they are puzzled about is obviously a generator. When you turn it on, everyone freaks out and thinks they are about to die... when it is obviously just a power generator. Which leads to another issue; much of the game's technology comes from an ancient super advanced species called the "Remnants" yet almost all of it is recognizable to us, and the technology and Remnant ruins which you explore throughout the game are always the same. More repetition. Games do not get more repetitive than Mass Effect: Andromeda.
This game has the worst foreign culture exposition (something BioWare always attempts) of all BioWare games. You visit a new planet belonging to a newly discovered (for you) non-hostile species, and the only few cultural aspects you get introduced to are quickly tossed at you every time, before you get sent on a quest to either kill everything or hold E to interact with something or both.
Of course native creatures on most if not all planets are all hostile, which is highly unrealistic. The game even has the same local wildlife on various planets, even ones belonging to different star systems? Really? Such laziness... or rather the result of the whole game being made in about 18 months.
But none of that is even close to the worst of this game's writing. What is explained above shows the core writing flaws in all areas of the game, but the worst of this game's writing resides in one specific quest chain. Here comes the spoiler mentioned at the top of this page. Out of left field a newly encountered non-hostile species informs you that they believe in reincarnation, because it is relevant to a task at hand; you need to find something that will save a planet from dying, but only one person knew where it is and she is long dead. So you must put that reincarnation theory to the test, since if it proves true you will get the information you need. You must locate a family memento of sorts and give it to someone of their bloodline who is still alive. If provided with the memento, that person instantly receives the memories of the person who owned the memento.
Okay outsider who has yet to be proven trustworthy (that's you), now go put our ancient religious theory to the test. Next thing you know, it turns out to be true, meaning almost as soon as you meet these people you prove their only mentioned religious beliefs (of course there are no religious conflicts in the game) to be true. That is like an alien coming to our planet and in a few days proving that Jesus Christ was indeed God's son.
You prove their religion true by going to a marked location to retrieve an heirloom (that memento I mentioned earlier), then going to another marked location to kill some xenophobes and then giving the object to their leader (descendant of the person who owned the heirloom) and voila, their only religion mentioned is proven right before your eyes. If it was this easy to prove, why wasn't their religion a widely accepted fact? They are a space faring species yet they were unable to prove their own religion, despite proving it being a task simple enough for a child to perform? Someone please let us know in the comments about writing examples you think might be worse than this one. We did not leave out any important details, that's all of it.
And the "role-playing?" You can play as a more goal oriented Ryder or passionate Ryder, either way he is the same jolly fellow with the same sense of humor. Many situations are just non-interactive cutscenes. This is objectively one of the worst RPGs ever, along with The Witcher 2 and The Witcher 3. So this game is deeply flawed in every single aspect, and terrible in some of the most important ones such as writing, quest design, and role-playing.
We should list some positive attributes about the game before moving on. Although it is clunkier than Mass Effect 3, the combat mechanics are good overall but still with blatant flaws like the limitation to three hotkeys which forces you to basically change classes in real-time during combat, which activates the cooldown on all powers, and also the weapon mods having illogical properties is a problem. The sound effects are excellent however, particularly amazing in the space scenes even.
