A few questions about the game

[INFJPerson]

I'm curious if this game suffers from some issues a lot of open world games suffer from like having a huge expansive map of nothing so you drive or have to run a lot with little content between.

Also how is the story? Personally I loved the dark and psychological aspect of ME3 and just from what I have seen from brief videos, it seems like this is targeted towards younger audiences.

How stable and buggy is the game at the moment? Should I wait to get it?

[PandaTar]

You may get divergent answers to all your questions.

Planets are usually large, and sometimes you may feel a bit tedious when exploring hither and tither. They usually have a lot of side-quests and supportive content, so it all comes down to the fact you can be motivated by it or not. Some specific tasks sometimes expect you to find some random camps to finish them. These might prove irritating, at least they are the ones most mentioned negatively in feedbacks here, as far as I can recall.

I personally have reservations on the story. I don't like it when they bring me some deja vu feelings, and I don't feel depth in the writing either. Other people may like the way it is. In a sense, it doesn't transpired to me anything like the impending doom brought by the Reapers, even if we consider we are alone and in a situation we need to avoid people starving to death. I think there's potential to it, but potential is not tangible.

Reports may vary. I had some bugs myself, most didn't disturb me. One, though, had me replaying 5h because it bugged na important section, and I wasn't saving the game too often. Multiplayer seems to have its own issues too, but I'm not a MP player.

My personal advice would be wait the next patch, 1.06 to buy. The problem is that we don't have an official position on that: we don't know when it will be released, probably at the end of May (they said 2 months), nor we have a list of priorities. 

You may like the game, or you may be completely disappointed. It's really difficult for us to give you a spot on answer.

[jpcerutti1]

There are plenty of both random and set encounters on the maps and you are channeled with them by terrain limitations (and eventual boundaries). It is not a true open map - but far more open than the single path map/maze they had in the original series.

This isn't Witcher3. If you are looking for a dark psychological story this probably isn't the best choice. It is more a coming of age story with some comedy in there. There's plenty of decisions where the options are bad/worse and you don't get to fix all the problems you find, it does touch on adult themes like cannibalism and drug use, there's the Bioware romances, it is NOT PEGI7. You're not the hardened hero here though. The game doesn't play like you're a heartbeat away from doom.

Has only been out for a short while, and been patched a couple times. A few people still are hitting bugs that stop the game but most can finish it despite the remaining ones.

[iKillOrDieTryN]

---

@INFJPerson wrote:

I'm curious if this game suffers from some issues a lot of open world games suffer from like having a huge expansive map of nothing so you drive or have to run a lot with little content between.

Also how is the story? Personally I loved the dark and psychological aspect of ME3 and just from what I have seen from brief videos, it seems like this is targeted towards younger audiences.

How stable and buggy is the game at the moment? Should I wait to get it?

---

there are a lot of open spaces but you will find a few hidden gems in those empty spaces if you look. every playthrough i find something new but it does feel really empty sometimes when you revisit the planets.

i feel the story is too short. the only reason this game has a long completion time is due to the size of planets and the amount of tasks that have you running from one planet to another or from one side of a planet to the other. the overall story quality is imho 8/10.

the game is more than playable but you will run into a bug here and there but nothing that will keep you from playing the game. the bugs mostly require a leave the area and return or a trip to the main menu to fix them. plus there isn't a game out today that has no bugs. so the people who complain how broken that game is, are just being overly dramatic imo. the multiplayer side of things is hit n miss. i would wait until future patches to multiplayer so it can fix some of the bugs there. but you can play the main game while you wait.

the story does not target younger players imo. for one the romance scenes got a big update which would cause me some concern if it was targeted to young players.... and the game is rated M for 17+ if kids are playing it they need better parents lol.

buying the game now or wait is up to you. just remember all feedback from other people and reviews will not always be accurate as people in this world today get offended and angry over the dumbest sh!yte. if anything i would rent or borrow the game from a friend and try it. a rent fee is a lot better loss than if you pay the full amount for the game and find out you hate it later and waste 60 dollars.

Good luck and i hope you find my opinion helpful.

[Philbe63]

My biggest problem with this game was that I didn't feel driven to do things like I had in ME1 and ME2 (I never played ME3). It might be that I was more open to things back then and was willing to go along for the ride. ME2 was spectacular to me. The story and characters were so compelling that I played through it 3 times. I tried ME3 for about a minute and it felt like a lot of running around with too many things to do all at once, so I stopped. 

This game felt very similar to that. 

I wish the characters in ME:A were as compelling as ME2, but they aren't. The interactions feel so forced and while there's supposed to be this purpose to our actions in this new galaxy, there's no rush to get it all done. 

You could steamroll through the priority missions but so many things won't make sense then (in my opinion). And while you have more choices, the choices aren't really that consequential. Couple that with some really annoying glitches "You have new email Pathfinder.' No I don't SAM and Kallo I do not want to speak to you (to name a couple) just make it bland to me.

I remember in ME:2 just standing next to Joker to hear what funny thing he was going to say. There's nothing like that in ME:A.

So, to go back to the point of your post...If you are expecting a game like the original series....you will be disappointed. Aside from the combat. The combat is pretty good.

[Fred_vdp]

I think the quality of the open world could be better. Uninspired fetch quests, backtracking, and so on. There's one planet with really good mission flow and level design (Havarl) and one that is the pinnacle of bad open world design (Kadara). Opinions are very divided, but a poll on the fan forum shows that most players think it's better than the open world design of Dragon Age Inquisition, but I disagree with that.

The biggest issue in this game requires regular back-and-forth travel between planets, and what's really annoying is that this is often for menial tasks (e.g. fetch quests). You also have to watch a cutscene while the game is loading the area, but this video can't be skipped once loading is finished. You have to watch the whole thing every time. One particular quest line requires you to travel to five different locations for short quest phases, which means the vast majority of that content is watching loading videos and driving to a quest marker.

The game shines in the main story missions, which like Dragon Age Inquisition often take you away from the open worlds. This game has better corridor action than any of the previous Mass Effect games.

I think the story is quite good. There's a lot of mystery, some interesting friendly and hostile factions. While it's not a very original storyline I think it's very effective. I felt motivated to keep on playing to find out what happens next. The payoff is significantly better than Mass Effect 3.

The bugs I encountered are pretty minor with the exception of one. 'Sprint' has two modes (toggle and hold), and neither work as intended. Other than that, I don't think it's too buggy.