I actually enjoyed Mass Effect: Andromeda. I mean, it was nowhere near as good as the other three, but it had its moments. A few characters were great, and some were terrible, it was a decent mid-tier game. Once they fixed the bugs especially. Probably the weirdest thing about the human facial bug was that the Asari used the same basic face models, but all looked fine. It was only human faces (usually human female) that gave off the weird uncanny valley affect.
Now ME:A has nothing on Eternum, this game is great. A better story and characters just all around, and without all the random side quests and grind. One of the things I like most about Eternum and other AVNs in general is you *can* (though unfortunately don't always) get all the romance, story, and choices that games like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, the Witcher and such RPGs give you. But without all the grind and... well, frankly, without all the gameplay that gets in the way.
For me, the biggest disappointment is actually the lore of Andromeda (that means the background, the settings, rather than the story of that particular game. Like, ME 1,2,3 share the same lore but not the same story, if I'm not using the word "lore" correctly.) In the original trilogy, every race had their own homeworld whose environments drive their physique, behaviour and agenda. In Andromeda, the same races are present, but all of them are basically in the same situation, homeless.
They did kinda try to re-create similar environments for some races, such as a barren planet for the Krogans, but that doesn't make sense. The Krogan in the original trilogy didn't choose to live on a barren planet because it suited them. They did so unwittingly because of a civil war that turned the planet into that. The ones that remained because they weren't willing to leave their homeland. All the races from the original trilogy just feel like bland humanoid races without their home planets. You could argue that they were already established in the original trilogy and so they don't need to do it again, but the thing is, it's not just the background, it's their agenda. You could see how every race in the original trilogy had their own agenda, like Krogans trying to solve their low birth rate, Quarians trying to reclaim their homeworld, while main event, which is the Reapers trying to return, happened. These loose ends were all tied up in Mass Effect 3, which is what made it so good. But the races are not the same without their unique struggles.
There was like 1 new race in Andromeda, Angara, 2 if you count Kett as a separate race. But honestly, it feels just like another humanoid race. Maybe it's just me, but I really expected something much more different if we are going to another galaxy. Like, you could explain why all the races in the original trilogy are humanoid, because they are still in the same galaxy. But even compared to the original races, Angara isn't that interesting. They don't have the same kind of struggles the original races had. They have males and females. They have an enemy. That's all. I mean, they are probably closer to Humans than Asari or Geth.
I guess you could argue that not everything was established right from the beginning in the original trilogy as well, and given time, Andromeda could become just as good, but it's not off to a good start in my view. Every installment in the original trilogy had something unique. The first one was establishing all the alien races and give you an idea of what a single Reaper can do. The second one let you see from the perspectives of Cerberus and a Geth, who were both hostile and considered baddies in the first game. It didn't turn them straight-up good guys either. They just explained to you what their agenda are and so why the mainstream forces don't approve them. The third one was all about fighting the Reapers, the threat that had been building up in the first 2 games. It totally lived up to the expectations.
I'm sorry that I ranted so much but, this is exactly why I like Caribdis' games. His flow is pretty much what the Mass Effect trilogy did, as it seems. Establish what Eternum is, and what the goal is. Then offer hints that it might not be what it was established to be. Then comes the conclusion that everybody had been guessing about based on the previous stories. It doesn't even have to be conclusion that most people expect. In fact it's even better if it manages to tie up all the loose ends while surprising everyone.
