I decided to commit to two things before moving on (which took ~10hrs). First, finish the story - which was more fun and interesting than I expected. The last few missions were similar to the first few - more dramatic, little cut-scenes in between, more action/adventurey... So, all around good. Second, I wanted to get all the planets to 100 viability. Partly this was because there was a trophy attached - but mostly because I enjoyed driving the rover around and I thought it wouldn't take too long (I was wrong about the second part).
Overall, I really enjoyed it and could have easily enjoyed spending more time on/with the game. I decided not to continue mostly because I have a drawer full of other PS4 games (too many) I also want to play and this is the time of the year during which I can make the most progress whittling down that backlog...
Looking back, this game is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination - there's plenty of weird wonky stuff, bugs here and there, inconsistencies in the story and characters, etc. BUT, despite all these little things, the core was fun enough for me to engage with and play. So, I really do feel like it's a good game and I'm glad I played it.
Design-wise I think that what surprised me the most (in a good way) is how much variety and variation there is within an easily understandable goal framework. So, for each planet I knew I had to "activate" 3 towers and then visit a vault. The first planet I did this on was pretty demanding on this - the vault was a whole mission with lots of steps and so-on. It took time! So, I was kind of dreading what would happen with the other planets. Oh no, that's four more vaults at X time each...this will take forever! But, it didn't. Some vaults were pretty short/easy. Some of the tower activations were similarly short/simple. And I really appreciated this! Each planet had it's own flavor/style/innovation/difference within the broader structure. The last planet I did (Kadara?) was the one where things were more political - I had to talk to NPCs, do stuff for them and so on. Other planets were more "complete tasks at certain locations". So, lots of variation and variability within the overall goal structure and - my sense - one that generally favored the player. So, mostly, I felt like "oh, nice - that took less time or effort than I assumed" rather than the opposite.
Fun things from the ending:
a. You can continue playing and doing tasks and so on - but the game forces you into a little "celebration task" that is mostly you talking to your crew about "winning" and them leaving the door open to finishing tasks that are still pending. I thought it was a nice way to combine long cut-scenes with the ending AND the fact that you'll probably do more stuff. Many games sort of ignore the fact that you "beat the game" and you keep on playing as if nothing happened.
b. My in-game inbox filled up with messages from NPCs thanking me for "winning". Nice touch! I read some but not all of the messages and it definitely contributed to making the "win" feel more impactful.
To be fair, I was mostly ignoring story stuff and kind of zipping around completing tasks - so, not playing the game with a role-player story-first attitude. Despite this, the game's story did start to grow on me! And, I think it's pretty cool how it's really set outside the Mass Effect continuity (happens both during ME2 and 3 and long after 3) with a sense of loss. The game takes place 600 years after ME3 (aprox) because that's how long it takes to get to Andromeda. And, while you can get some communications from when ME3 was happening (oh, the reapers are attacking!) you don't really know what happened. As far as you know - the Milky Way galaxy is "over" (reapers won, life set back). Supposedly you could have a ME: Milky Way? (where people from Andromeda head back to the Milky Way to recolonize it? (assuming ME3 ended poorly, of course).
I tried to play online with no luck. (as in, I got bored of waiting to match up - but I only waited a few minutes).
So, I did the tutorial for the online modes, and it was ok - the main mode is a sort of "push objectives" to get to the last objective (destroy the star destroyer if you're rebel) - and things can swing back and forth (5v5 but they also add AI pilots on both sides) since there's a sort of tug-of-war system (morale I think it's called) in which you win points for destroying things (fewer points for AI than other players) and lose points when you get destroyed. I think the enemy gets the points - rather than your side loses points?
Anyways. I played a few rounds of this - started to level up - and then realized...ugh..this wasn't THAT fun, and I can't unlock the "real" mode (ranked play online) until I hit level 5. And I was barely at 3...
So I bailed on the entire game.
This was mostly because I'm looking at my drawer full of games and realizing - I think I got what I wanted from this game and I don't care to learn to fly the other ships and stuff...and I'm also a little bit tired of Star Wars in general?
Played the prologue for this, in PSVR of course, and...it's fun! (and I plan to continue playing). The prologue is the tutorial (very streamlined and easy to follow, and clever in lots of subtle ways), and you play first as a TIE fighter pilot and then as an X-Wing pilot. I think it'll flip back and forth between them over the duration of the campaign?
Interesting things so far:
a. Before you even get in to the game you're shown a huge menu of different accessibility options you can set, toggle, configure, etc. I thought that was pretty neat, though I didn't really understand what the different menu options were supposed to do...but that's maybe just because accessibility options aren't a thing I've usually worried about (other than making the size of text larger on the screen so I can actually read things when I need to, oh, I also like to turn on subtitles because I often find that the sound mix isn't good for me - music too loud compared to voice).
b. In addition to flying and shooting, you can (should) toggle between three power output settings for the ships you fly: more engines, balanced, more lasers. This reminded me of when I played X-Wing WAAAAY back in the day with a friend. We'd take turns flying while one of us handled output - e.g. shifting power to shields on the front. It was a fun experience then (the game was not 2-player, we just played that way for fun), and it's an interesting and nice addition now. I also liked how the X-wind has an R2 unit you can use to repair the ship, but the ability is on a cool down!
c. When you're damaged, you get all kinds of cool diegetic effects, the cockpits have smoke, cracked windows, etc. Since you can look around inside the cockpit, it's definitely a more immersive (and fun) experience.
At 40 hrs in and a little over 50% completion I'm starting to get itchy to finish the game...
I've had some pretty surprising (to me?) game misunderstandings so far that I though I'd document:
a. Every now and then you run into a Remnant (ancient alien) situation that requires you solve a simple sudoku-style puzzle (with symbols not numbers). So, I'm doing these puzzles and - like sudoku - there's a grid and I notice that some of the grids have subdivisions and I wonder about that. I continue making progress and I get to some puzzles I fail! Now, I'm sure I had submitted a valid solution! And then, there are other puzzles for which I can't find a logical (unique) path to a solution (rather, you get to a moment where you can try A or B instead of "it has to be A"). I think this is weird, and poorly designed. And then..I read the text on the puzzle - and it says you need to make sure the symbols don't repeat within the subdivisions (in addition to rows and columns). Doh! I'd been breezing through a bunch of these on pure luck?
b. When I got to the icy planet (Voeld?) I thought huh, this is weird that there isn't a chance to use to rover... The first time you get there it's all on foot and you're raiding a base. So, it wasn't until I went back later that I realized there's a larger planet/area to explore. When you appear - the rover isn't there (as usual) and I didn't see any of the "rover spawn" places on the map either...so, I just started running down the cliffside. It's cold - so your suit starts to lose power but now and then you run into an area with a heater that restores it! I think, oh! This is interesting, on this planet you have to be very careful and deliberate about moving between spots - so, I'm picking points of interest I think I can get to with no real plan and hoping I don't die. And, I make my way across a large part of the map this way! But, it's slow going, and starts to get boring - rather than "ooh, survival can I make it challenge?". Ugh. So, I fast travel back to the start - thankfully that worked - and I'm kind of wondering what to do next, so I head over to what was the enemy base...and THERE I unlock a bunch of stuff including the chance to use the rover, oops! (I headed back to the base also because I saw "rover tracks" in the snow - and went, wait a minute, how come I can't use the rover, this makes no sense!).
