After leaving the Mass Effect universe behind us with the third chapter, criticized by many and appreciated by few, EA and the newly acquired Bioware they finally gave us a gift of Mass Effect: Andromeda, not a real sequel to the saga, but a new and fresh visit within a landscape that was beginning to be associated with the word melancholy. Often, however, precisely because of similar feelings, works of art are desecrated by small black spots, the result of wrong or badly applied ideas. Fortunately, the adventure towards Andromeda del Pioneere does not fall within these, even if it could be misunderstood if read with a non-watchful eye.
Space, last frontier
The story of Mass Effect: Andromeda, in a very clever way, deviates almost completely from the main trilogy. The Andromeda Initiative is a program developed by various races, ready to explore a new galaxy in search of a suitable environment to colonize: the plot starts more or less during the events of Mass Effect 2, and all the things that happen and will happen thereafter, will be almost completely unrelated, being in fact in a completely different galaxy. The Ryder brothers (you will choose whether to control the male or the female, but you will modify both), and their father Alec Ryder (who will be automatically generated based on the twins, The Sims docet), will be the center of the story, although many supporting actors will color the story with interesting nuances. The role of the explorer, of the Pioneer, is precisely that of bringing the colony (made up of over 20.000 living beings in cryostasis) on a new planet to be colonized, for pure exploration purposes.
Here then is that races like the Krogan, the Asari, the Turian come back to keep us company, this time approached by terrible enemies like the Kett or by advanced civilizations like that of the Angara. But above all, the famous gray shades return, symbol of a title that places the player in front of frighteningly simple choices in the beginning, and extremely complicated to manage later: building a military camp could have different implications from the scientific one, going down first in a tunnel could save your ally or make him die a few seconds later. Of course, Shepard and his team were something pleasantly familiar, also thanks to the novelty. Accompany yourself with new characters, more or less heroic, can always leave a bad taste in the mouth to the true fan: this will be the only sore point that could separate the vision of the classic trilogy with this chapter, which takes the best from all three episodes and creates a new and more modern one.
The voyages of the spaceship Tempest
With much more force, this time the exploration will become something fundamental: in addition to finding useful deposits for various upgrades, you can explore various maps within certain planets, either on foot or with your Nomad, a very useful land vehicle. Without spoiling you much, the planets you will find at the beginning will present impervious climatic situations, capable of lowering your shields depending on the areas explored. This gimmick will create a really clever replayability and exploration motivation at a later time, capable of making you waste hours looking for the needle in the haystack. To season the various phases of exploration there will be the famous fights: thanks to the rear jetpack, this time the shootings will not be reduced to simple cover and shoot, but will allow you to take advantage of the verticality of the map. The enemies, not equipped with such an intelligent AI, will however manage to put you in difficulty at the slightest mistake. Before the battle, a complex customization system, much closer to the first chapter than the other two, will ask you how to approach the battles. The skills will be divided into biotic, technological and combat, and you can choose how to customize them (complete with separate branch skills, like the old editions): depending on how many points you will spend in one of the three sections, you will unlock the "profiles", settings of your fighter which will grant additional bonuses and unique abilities.
The weapons, armor and objects will be both purchasable from merchants and producible from the Research and Development department: you can therefore, thanks to the exploration of the galaxy (feasible with recognition and scanning systems), accumulate points to discover Milky Way artifacts, of the Andromeda galaxy and never-before-seen races. If this is feasible from one terminal, with another you can send special troops to carry out timed missions: their success will guarantee you information, materials and experience. To conclude the secondary functions of this chapter, each advancement in your mission will allow you to thaw groups of settlers, each with certain skills, which will change the progress of your exploration.
Luckily the trips will not be reduced to a simple exploration, but thanks to well-elaborated and perfectly placed cutscenes, each planet will show different shades, both thanks to the dangers you will find, and to the well-crafted story. To embellish the whole, alternative missions based above all on secondary storylines will often distract you from the main mission, launching you to the discovery of crimes, kidnappings, lost loads and much more. The famous reports, the fulcrum of the title, cannot be missing, which as usual will allow Ryder to choose who to talk to and how, which approach to use, and shamelessly try to create real love stories.
The fact that Mass Effect: Andromeda places itself as a new chapter erases the beauty that was in Mass Effect 3 when choices made years ago affected the game. The dialogues, this time, will have more classic settings, allowing you to choose whether to use a more rational or heartfelt approach, more clenched teeth or loose rein. These dialogues, together with the choices you make in bringing certain companions on missions, will create different relationships from game to game, developing interesting implications in the plot.
Don't make that face
Yes, they've talked about it everywhere, and there's no point in hiding. Mass Effect: Andromeda has obvious technical issues. Empty and badly managed expressions, wrong animations and coordination bugs create paradoxical situations that ruin the pathos that the developers have tried to give, and many players suffer severely from this imperfection. On the other hand, the Mass Effect saga is mainly based on a screaming plot, and seeing important confessions made by a practically unnatural face does not create the desired empathy. This problem will surely be fixed over time, but to date it affects the whole enough, but does not ruin the experience as a whole.
There is no dubbing in other languages, and the English one is not the best (especially in the secondary), but the protagonists and all the supporting actors still manage to make the dialogues clean and interesting (slightly affected by subtitles a bit small in some cases).
Different isn't always worse
Basic Mass Effect: Andromeda is not the fourth installment of the Shepard saga, but a new story, defined according to the canons as a Spin-Off: as such, some substantial differences are present, but the ones that could weigh more are the rhythm and soul of the story. We are not in a galaxy attacked by the Reapers, the purposes are purely exploratory: certainly there are battles, and speaking for 20.000 settlers waiting for a new home is certainly not feasible lightly.. The character of the character, the light-hearted tones in some cases and above all a slightly less serious death threat manage to create a lighter atmosphere, usable by all but with the right premises.
Finally, to flavor this little melancholy package, there is a multiplayer component based on that of Mass Effect 3, but with dozens of improvements, additional settings and elaborate maps. There will be events, the heart of this mode, which began immediately in the form of Apex missions.
