Mass Effect: Andromeda 2021

Mass Effect: Andromeda - Take 2

I decided to revisit MEA when recent discussions among friends rekindled my interest and I remembered, oh yeah, I never beat that for some reason in spite of putting about 65 hours into it. So I slapped on a few quality-of-life mods and hit the road with a brand new Scott who, as usual, came into being by cruising the face presets until I reached a character who appealed to my writerly spidey sense, then made enough tweaks so (hopefully) I wouldn’t come across dopplegangers in YouTube videos(a hazard of relying on presets). Anyway, I love him, and I roleplay him as a friendly, kind dork who adores the natural sciences but is not as ambitious as his sister and never considered himself leadership material until he was forced into the role.

MEA has a really good hook. It draws you in, all my dialogue choices felt meaningful in terms of roleplaying my character. In MEA Ryder’s background and training make it more of a “need to do this whether I feel ready or not, and I have what I need” versus being a fish-out-of-water in DAI where you could legitimately ask, “Why the fuck can’t I run away from these people?” and be annoyed when you can’t.

The first time I played this game I thought planet viability would somehow matter and did a lot of side missions to inch the number up, this time I’m just doing the vaults and the main missions or missions of interest, which seems to bump viability up to about 70-something anyway. It seems like there are less random structures scattered all over the place in 1.10, but either way I’m ignoring them.

I’m paying more attention to Jaal this PT because my plan is to fail the Reyes romance, then romance Jaal. I recently triggered an interesting banter between Jaal and Liam. Being a Dragon Age fan, I sometimes take for granted how much of those games are documented by the community. I couldn’t find Jaal/Liam dialogue transcripts, but the conversation was something like… Jaal has been commenting off and on how he likes Voeld and how beautiful it is. Liam mentions Voeld will soon be a place the Initiative can live, and Jaal suggests they can go live somewhere else.

I’m making a point of having this Scott advance Nexus initiatives whenever possible, so I decided to finish up the Voeld vault before rescuing Moshae Sjefa. After resetting the vault I stopped for a chat with Jaal he gave me a bit of a cold shoulder and I realized this action may have dropped his respect/like/whatever. Then I remembered Jaal saying that the cold did not bother the Angara and in fact, they had greater cold resilience than the Kett. Resetting the vault before rescuing Moshae would have rightly been seen as self-serving, and on top of that, Jaal has already demonstrated some protectiveness regarding Voeld and is wary of aliens settling there. All this may just be my perception/the luck of the trigger but I thought it was a pretty interesting read.

I am 500% here for biJaal obviously, but I did notice he starts flirting with both Cora and PeeBee pretty early on (which is awesome btw haha) meanwhile my Scott is like, “What about me? Am I in excellent physical condition?”

Yeah, Jaal. Is Scott physically excellent? HMMMMM?

Later, PeeBee seems to try to capitalize on that attraction (trying to get Jaal to help find some relic doohickey) and he agrees to help but frames it in scientific/professional way (I’ll help you if I can study it). I mention it only because I’m aware these characters flirt and Ryder can actually shut it down at some point, and I’m wondering if picking Jaal’s “friendship” dialogues is altering this banter.

I ALSO wonder why Ryder’s “friendship” dialogues are even marked as that rather than hearts, since Jaal is already flirting up a storm with half the crew, but whatev.

MEA: Reyes Vidal’s Disaster Bi Energy

I wasn’t going to make a Reyes post, but then something happened I really liked.

And since I’m so goddamn crabby about everything all the time I thought, you know what? Let’s embrace this moment. Let’s fan.

I feel like bisexual male romances are often heteronormified to protect biphobic players from “bicooties.” It seems like whenever male bi characters have a past romantic partner, the partner is female. In the case of Anders in DA2, they actually went so far as omit Anders talking about his past relationship with Karl if Hawke is female.

I love that they updated Jaal’s romance to be bisexual, but Jaal feels v e r y straight to me. Characters in Aya talk about his attraction to a female historian, he mentions a previous girlfriend, and he flirts with two female crew members (Cora and PeeBee). And the flirt banters actually are what get me, because we joke around about Jaal being into aliens but he does seem to prefer women regardless of species. I have long pushed for bisexual romances on principle and I have maintained there should not be straight romances because it gates content, but this is the sort of thing that happens when writers don’t consider the character as bisexual up-front. My plan was for Scott to romance Jaal this playthrough, I’m not feeling it yet. That could change as the relationship progresses (I haven’t gone to Havarl yet), but Reyes certainly isn’t helping.

Reyes Vidal has solid bi energy. The way other people comment on the romance (usually something along the lines of, “Uh, so are you two…?”) reinforces the bi-vibes for me personally because it reminds me of that thing IRL where people forget bisexuals exist, and then when a bi person is Actual Bi they’re like WAIT WHAT HUH OH OK SURE–ARE YOU SURE ABOUT–? OK JUST CHECKING OK STILL BI? OK SURE

The whole scene where they go after the Roekaar is amazing. After Reyes saves everyone Ryder does this unnecessary roll maneuver to pick up an unfamiliar discarded weapon, as opposed to drawing HIS OWN familiar weapon for some reason, and I rationalized this as Ryder showing off his skills (and possibly his sexy Initiative booty) in front of the bad man he has a crush on. Ryder tends to have Big Dick Energy in their flirt conversations and Reyes is smooth as hell, so the disaster bi energy is quite strong and highly recommended.

Soon after a mission involving Reyes’ ex-girlfriend Zia comes up. And I’m like, oh yeah, I forgot this is another biseuxal dude who only dated women before. And I was… honestly a little bummed, because I felt like my Scott would have been a bit thrown off by the whole thing. But after the mission Reyes sends Ryder an email.

To: Ryder

From: Reyes Vidal

In case you were wondering…

I have better taste in men than I do in women.

Reyes

And I’m like fuCK, and was of course immediately destroyed. The timing truly could not have been better. Then Reyes invites Scott on a working date, essentially, and I’m like, Scott. No. Do not. Don’t you do it.

And of course he says yes. I actually have no idea if you can decline or how that works, I may test just to see but I can only assume Reyes smooth-talks Ryder into tagging along anyway.

For RPing and my personal sanity I decided Scott realizes he’s about to make terrible life choices and leaves to work at Havarl a while. Normally I like to work on one planet at a time, but Kadara is kinda weird anyway and it feels rushed if you do it all in one go. One of the conditions for establishing a colony is helping Reyes, which makes sense up to a point, but when he starts asking for help with Zia and Ryder wants a cut… that doesn’t make sense to me at all. You have to make too many assumptions about Ryder’s character for it to really work characterization-wise. I think the idea is you’re supposed to build up camaraderie and start to get clues Reyes is a bigger deal that he lets on, but every time SAM says something like, “We should help Mr. Vidal,” and I’m like yeah, ok, WHY? We don’t know Reyes is the Charlatan, so why are we supposed to help Reyes specifically?

I have some other issues with Kadara because it kinda muddles the First Contact timeline. Surely the exiles met the Angara before the Pathfinder did, and even if they’re disconnected from the Nexus, can the Nexus truly be that clueless? (yes, lol) It technically all works out it just feels weird to me as a writer. The Angaran presence at Kadara seems like it would take longer than a few months to build. (Reyes says he’s been working with Evfra a few months, we can infer Evfra decided to work with Milky Way agents after he met and worked with the Pathfinder.)

Anyway, the point is the sexy bad man is bad and we’re going to uhhh go do something else now.

MEA:T2 Pt. 2

Normally these types of posts end up on Tumblr, but I’ve decided to make a concerted effort to post my vibeo game rambles to DW so they don’t get lost in the Great Tumblr Maw and I can actually find things.

I’m starting to wonder what the hell I even did the 65 hours (checked old saves, actually 50 hours/60% completion) I previously played Mass Effect: Andromeda because I keep finding new stuff. (howlongtobeat averages a full PT at 63.5 hours).

I think I must have spent a lot of time on Eos early game (like, taking out EVERY Kett base and Remnant thingy), then did the core missions on Voeld, Kadara, Havarl, Elaaden, finished the companion quests, and put the game down before going to Meridian. A significant portion of that playtime could have been idling. So I guess I went “everywhere” but in a surface way that left out a lot of details. Returning to the game a few years later has been very rewarding because I’m constantly encountering something new, or remembering something I’d forgotten about.

I decided to get the memory triggers after all, and there’s one on Eos in a place you originally can’t go (I think the rad dose is too high). So I go out there and about fell over because THERE’S A HUGE ASS FIELD OF KETT DOOHICKYS just over the ridge from our Settlement, W T F. Seems there’s no way Podromos would survive if this wasn’t taken care of and I think I would have remembered that if I’d seen it the first time.

There’s a whole subplot about a mysterious benefactor for the Initiative which I think I vaguely remember, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t get around to following up on it. I think I explored the apartment but I don’t think I examined the VR holo.

I started some kind of subplot of Voeld about the Kett that I think is tied to sparing one of the Kett generals in order to save more Angara. It’s temporarily on hold but I’m sure it will start back up when I get farther along.

On Kadara I just stumbled across this whole water filter mess and figured out Mallox’s role and ended up wiping out Charybdis Point. I also found this datapad about a person named Semaj and that name SEEMS SO FAMILIAR but I couldn’t find anything online.

Last night I started working on Havarl. Compared to the other planets this map is pretty claustrophobic, which is the point, and I don’t mind running from point to point rather than hopping into the Nomad but it seems like I’m also getting banters far less often, so I still have yet to trigger the infamous Angaran/Asari banter between Jaal and PeeBee.

I am intentionally putting off Scott’s date with Reyes, but after Havarl that’s next. I feel like I need to get another colony going before I go after the next ark, so I can’t put off the romance indefinitely. I’m genuinely not sure how I’m going to play it now.

MEA:T2 Pt. 3

I can’t get over how BIG Mass Effect: Andromeda is starting to feel, especially compared to previous games in the series. howlongtobeat puts a completionist play at 94 hours. I’ve been focusing entirely on story, only complete quests that seem to have significant story content–bog-standard fetch quests are helpfully marked as Tasks, so I have ignored those outright, and I also sometimes skip planetary quests that seem too back-and-forthy or too low-stakes for a Pathfinder. I have ignored research/perks and the entire subsection of the game related to gathering resources and crafting items, and yet there is still so much stuff to read and do. I just figured out forward stations have their own message boards. I’m constantly finding new things to read. There’s so much freaking stuff!

This game is so big and sprawling just about any playthrough that isn’t bare bones is going to be a significant time investment. Look at howlongtobeat comparison for Mass Effect. For the previous games, you finish the core content in 20-25 hours, and if you do main + extras (which to me means things like companion quests, big quests that aren’t necessarily required but significantly enrich the story) you add about 10 hours. In MEA however “main + extras” is 45 hours of additional content. In terms of content volume, MEA is more on par with a Dragon Age game than a Mass Effect game. I have no idea what an 18-hour main PT even looks like in MEA because if planet viability matters at all end game you will be fucked, and if planet viability doesn’t matter then you have 40 hours of “choices that matter” that Actually Kind Of Don’t(tm), which has been a major source of contention for these games in the past.

I wonder if a game with this volume of content can be satisfying as a main-quests-only PT. I was going to do a “mostly main” run until I realized just how much story detail and content I would miss, and expanded my efforts accordingly. I wonder if some ME fans dislike MEA because they tried to play it like a 20-hour ME game rather than a 60-hour game.

One issue I’m starting to encounter is the game assumes I’m going to do things in an order I’m evidently not following. For instance, on Havarl, Jaal comments that I will now get Evfra’s trust except… I already got that? I helped on Voeld and saved the Moshae. While doing Jaal’s loyalty mission, which I’m POSITIVE I did before but I remember fuck all about, I got a message from Eos. I felt sure this must be related to the Kett thingybobs near Black Rock, but nope, it’s Roekaar stuff. When I drove out there the first time I kept getting comm chatter that assumed I was on a mission, which was why I turned back as soon as I got the memory, I didn’t want to break anything. None of this is game breaking per se the inconsistencies just mess with immersion. Like, there are MASSIVE kett installations just outside Podromos and I’m sitting around waiting for someone to say, hey. MAybe.... we should take care of that? Sooner rather than later? Eos isn’t 100% viable yet so I assume that will be the last mission to solidify our chances on the planet.

Speaking of Evfra, after you meet Reyes you have the option to call Evfra a hypocrite for being unwilling to trust Ryder when he was already working with Reyes. (Evfra counters he didn’t trust Reyes either.) This confirms that the exiles made first contact and bolsters Angara skepticism when Ryder shows up and is like HEEEY just wanna help so got any vaults?

I made a fraps video of Scott “going to steal yo man” on Kadara that exploits MEA’s funny sprint/left-right animations but Tumblr actively despises my video uploads so just picture my large and sexy Scott in his purple jumpsuit going to steal yo man.

After experimenting with different choices on the Reyes date scene, I reached a few conclusions:

• There is only 1 version of rigging for the surprise kiss. I’m certain they used female Ryder based on the way Ryder tilts their hip and gets up on tip-toes on one foot
• When running out of the warehouse, Reyes will grab Ryder’s hand if they’ve flirted before, regardless of whether they’ve kissed, however
• As far as I can tell, after “you are someone” Reyes will not initiate a second kiss if Ryder does not take the surprise kiss action, and talks about their relationship in terms of friendship at the close of the scene even if flirts have been used before
• Favorite line: “I work best one step behind.” Reyes, I know this isn’t what you meant but FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

The romance guides are predictably lame, they always just tell you to mash the flirt option all the time. It seems like this romance is pretty granular in terms of RPing but I think the surprise kiss is the romance confirmation action. I wanted to check one more dialogue sequence to confirm but I messed up my saves so that’s that.

MEA:T2 Pt. 4 REYES THO

Last Reyes post, I swear. I’ve been so fixated on the pacing for this romance. Heart eyes mother fucker.

So it was back to Kadara to finally wrap up the settlement questline. I just unlocked a SAM memory where Scott’s mom tells him to fall in love, and to live his life, and it really clicked for my RP and Scott decides he’s going to accept he’s fallen for Reyes and quit ducking the feels, and he returns to Kadara to take care of outstanding business.

Poor Scott.

I tried very hard to complete this romance, but I couldn’t. It was too OOC for my Scott to stand by and watch Sloane get shot in the back, howevermuch they butted heads, and the dialogue options in the aftermath (breakup OR acceptance) didn’t quite work for me. Even though I think the Charlatan is probably a better choice to run Kadara, and I agree with Reyes’ broader point that Sloane has a high probability of causing serious issues down the road wrt violence and turmoil, the way it goes down was impossible for my Scott to accept.

I think what it boils down to is Reyes’ romance is so incredibly satisfying to fail. A++ would fail again. Scott let him escape (IIRC my previous Sara gave him a parting shot). Immediately after my heartbroken Scott triggered the PeeBee Zero G scene and uh, well, she did say no strings so.

The past few days I have been absolutely fixated on how well the failed Reyes romance works for me–and timing it so you can rebound with PeeBee is an AMAZING bonus, let me tell you–versus how completing romance doesn’t quite click. I like that Ryder says they accept Reyes for who he is, and they understand he’ll keep many secrets. But something about the cave make-out scene (I can’t stop thinking, WHERE IS MY CREW? lol) doesn’t quite work, and I like the dance scene conceptually–and really enjoy the idea of Reyes actually being somewhat old-fashioned in a romantic sense–but it’s so odd to me to see Ryder slow-dancing in full gear. The game assumes a Ryder who completes the romance has a certain hardness, so it all felt too strange coming from my Scott. Maybe the reason the failed romance works is there IS no dialogue. It just happens and it’s over, he’s gone, and you can headcanon whatever you like.

If you refuse Reyes’ offer of friendship, he calls you a dick. As I mentioned before, Scott DOES have a bit of big dick energy to their banters, but this comment feels out of place if you’ve had a flirting relationship up to that point. I believe not-flirting-and-betrayed is the only scenario in which Reyes explains himself in greater depth–in an email no less–and if someone want to dig into this character they could probably crank out a whole meta post on what Reyes says in emails vs. what he says face-to-face. (Cue obligatory aside that Reyes’ one-liners ((“I have better taste in men than I do in women” and “I’ve never known a man like you” and “I’m not a very good [friend], but I’d rather have your friendship than nothing at all.”)) somehow manage to say volumes). They could have written a few more of those, spaced out at regular intervals, or even given the option to chat with him regularly about current events, and his romance would have felt a lot less MIA but I digress.

Part of the pacing issues may be because the romance was originally a side thing, so the remaining content is one more scene. I understand they’ve since added a bit of end-game content. But ultimately, after seeing all the outcomes, failing the romance and letting him go has been my absolute favorite way to play this. If I ever wanted to make it stick, I’d have to RP a Ryder where the dialogue specifically works for me and I don’t know if MEA even lets me do that TBH.

Two ideas that really interest me and have occupied my thoughts these past few days:

1. Ryder feeling guilty for letting Sloane get shot in the back, and angry at Reyes for being put in the position but really more angry at himself for letting it happen, and that sentiment bleeding into the relationship with Reyes and affecting way Ryder perceives himself. Lots of self doubt, lots of regret, and consequently, avoiding Kadara and even sending envoys to deal with Reyes (which fails, so eventually Ryder has to go themselves)

I’m certain solid fic somewhat along these lines has been written, so I don’t know what I have to add here. Coming to the party years later for a popular ship on AO3 has me like, eeeh. This might just live in my drafts forever.

1. After the fact Reyes comes back around to a Ryder who has come to regret Sloane staying in power. He says, look, I’m killing Sloane. I’ve decided to tell you the truth this time. And Ryder is like, uh, no you aren’t, because (diplomatic/political/logical reasons)– and Reyes is like yes actually I am, I love you, bye. And this. Keeps. Happening. Reyes keeps popping up just to say, “Hey, wanted to keep you in the loop, we’re doing Y and you can’t stop me, also I love you bye,” and it becomes a sort of farce where the good guy is in love with the bad guy, and is chasing him, and falling even more in love, even as he wants to strangle him, and it’s doubly problematic because Reyes keeps angling it so he’s always, in roundabout ways, technically helping the Initiative’s situation, even if he’s still managing to do that in the shadiest ways possible.

I don’t think anything like this has written, and this dynamic is so funny to me, but I would need to at least, oh, I don’t know, beat the game? to even get a handle on how to plot it but it has been very fun to think about.

Mass Effect: Andromeda - The Collective and the Charlatan

A lot of the information about the Collective is hidden on Kadara, which makes sense thematically, but I wish some of this stuff was a easier to find. Reyes mentions a Collective base if you ask about contacting the Collective. Another hint about the base’s location is found in a hidden torture room the SE corner of the Kadara Badlands map.

SPOILERS, btw.

Collective Torture Room

This room isn’t well documented, it’s not on the wiki at all, so I took a few screenshots.

There is an abandoned structure at the SE corner of the map. You know you’re in the right place because when you enter there’s a dark hallway. Inside is a bloody interrogation room that, per the scans, has been used to kill people of every species. The room is creepy as hell and has lots of bloody tools. There is a hidden panel, and when opened you find a dead Outcast and an audio log.

The Outcast’s fingernails have been removed. He was killed by a shot to the chest. The audio log reveals a Collective interrogator was seeking information on a missing Collective agent known as Lacerta. The Outcast refused to divulge the agent’s whereabouts but did remark that Sloane “doesn’t play with her food,” which the interrogator took to mean Lacerta was dead. During the interrogation Outcasts arrive and the victim is killed and left in the hidden room, presumably to be disposed of at a safer time.

We know from the Outcast HQ Terminal that the Outcasts break the fingers of those caught stealing, but removing fingernails is a different level and the Outcast alludes to a Collective tendency to torture. This room is probably not documented in the wikis because it’s not tied to a side quest, it’s only something you find if you’re exploring very thoroughly. I only knew to look for it because it was mentioned a few times on Reddit. This room has a fair bit of dialogue and crew commentary, even though it’s not connected to any quests or easy to find.

Ryder: Doesn’t look like anyone’s home.

Drack: Famous last words.

[Scan blood]

Ryder: Is all this blood from one victim?

SAM: Negative, I detect multiple sources.

[Scan door to hidden room]

Ryder: There’s something here.

[Door opens to reveal a dead outcast]

Vetra: Outcast colors. This is the Collective’s mess.

Ryder: Let’s look around. (Ed note: Ryder, the appropriate response is fear.)

[Scan body]

SAM: Multiple contusions on the face and arms. He was restrained for a lengthy period of time.

Ryder: Cause of death?

SAM: A blast to the heart. He likely died quickly.

Ryder: I guess that’s something.

[Locate datapad]

SAM: Most of the data has been wiped.

Ryder: Can you recover anything?

SAM: The audio from the final log. Shall I play it?

Ryder: Do it.

Collective Interrogator: If you’re thinking, ‘This can’t get worse,’ I assure you it can.

Outcast: Ah! [Painful deep breaths] Fuck you.

CI: Operative Lacerta. Where is he?

O: Unlike you bastards, Sloane doesn’t play with her food.

CI: So he’s dead. That’s unfortun-

Collective Pirate: Caelum! Outcast patrol inbound. Kill the bastard and wipe the logs.

CI: I’ll report Lacerta’s death to the Charlatan. Meet you at the base in Draullir.

Collective Base

The Collective base is interesting and easy to miss, it can be found in the same cave system as the missing surveyor for the Baryte Rush quest given at Tartarus (and a later Allies quest, Truths and Trespass), and it is also very well documented in the wiki. If Ryder arrives before High Noon they learn the Charlatan has informed the Charlatan representatives at the base not to harm the Pathfinder. This order was filtered down through Charlatan representaitve Crux, so the agents have different ideas what it means. One believes they have been told to “be nice” to the Pathfinder, another believes it means to be on good behavior. I noted there are a lot of angaran Collective agents present, a stark contrast to the Outcasts, which have explicitly prohibited angara from joining. There is a prison where prisoners are actively being beaten. If Ryder questions the beating and orders it to stop, the Collective agents comply.

If you arrive after picking Sloane the remaining Collective agents turn hostile. There is a note indicating the base is to be cleaned of loose ends and the prisoners have all been killed in their cells.

Multiple companions remark on how much cargo the Collective has stashed here and there is another reference to the Charlatan’s wealth–a datapad notes he may be collecting scrap from Elaadan and acknowledges the costs of shipping it. In addition to smuggling, the Collective is attempting to train lizards and are growing poisonous mushrooms.

Crux confirms the Charlatan is more interested in results than methods, and states he allows agents handle missions how they see fit so long as the objective is completed.

The base has a meager questline to root out a Charlatan impersonator and a silly mysterious button Easter egg. The size and contents of the base say a lot about how well-established the Collective are, and I think it’s telling that if you return after choosing Sloane the Outcasts still haven’t found it yet.

Additional: Money, Plausible Deniability, Prolonging the Inevitable

By the Way, Reyes is Loaded

There’s an ongoing gag that Reyes never pays for drinks. Reyes never pays for drinks at Kralla’s Song, which is in Outcast territory. Topside, Reyes is a smarmy guy who never picks up the tab.

Down below, in the Slums, Reyes not only pays for a private room and drinks at Tartarus, he pays well according to Kian Dagher. Kian infers he knew Reyes’ identity beforehand, possibly because of how much money he was spending. Zia accuses Reyes of having a monopoly on smuggling on Kadara, which seems to be circumstantially backed up by the cargo stash at the Collective base and comments post High Noon by dockworkers talking about how much of the Charlatan’s cargo they unwittingly shipped. Charlatan representatives guess he’s paying a lot to have salvage shipped from Elaaden to Kadara.

Sloane dismisses Reyes as a third-rate smuggler because she knows him as the asshole who never picks up the tab, not the guy who throws down serious bank in Tartarus.

Plausible Deniability

There is this surface narrative that the Charlatan values results and does not micromanage his representatives and does not dictate their methods. Crux says as much this when telling Ryder about the relationship the Charlatan has with Charlatan representatives. When Lynx says the Charlatan has ordered the Pathfinder not be harmed, and Ryder remarks Collective agents still shoot at him in the Badlands, she says that’s probably because orders haven’t trickled down to the lower ranks. So in game, we have characters suggesting the Charlatan does not necessarily know what his people are up to at any given time, but amongst the Outcasts it is known the Collective tortures prisoners. Reyes, being an information broker, would be aware of these rumors. The result is the player gets to headcanon howevermuch Reyes does or does not know. My personal take is Reyes knows a lot, actually, but it is very convenient for him to be able to say he doesn’t know (or control) exactly what his people are up to. I also think this aspect of his network is something that could have potentially been set up to bite him in the ass in later games.

Prolonging the Inevitable

After digging up as much as I could on the Collective and Reyes, I came to the conclusion that Reyes is correct: if Ryder sides with Sloane they are only prolonging the inevitable. Reyes is going to keep coming and eventually he is going to win. He has a ton of resources and he has a vast network, and his ambitions appear to outstrip Sloane’s.

A lot of people have speculated that Reyes would have a part in future games, possibly even as a crew member. Others have speculated Reyes was being positioned to be Andromeda’s version of the Shadow Broker. MEA’s botched launch will shake up any sequels in ways the original developers could not have anticipated, but my pet theory is Reyes was going to be put in a position where he was either usurped or impersonated, and Ryder gets involved to prevent a region (probably Kadara) from being destabilized. I felt like the Collective base quest about a Charlatan impersonator (the Charlatan’s Charlatan) was intended to be foreshadowing, since otherwise it’s a pretty random single quest tucked somewhat off the beaten path.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. I leave you with a bit of relevant banter I discovered after the fact.

Collective Agent: Scavengers tried to hit the outpost last night. Idiots.

C2: Did you make an example of them?

C1: Sliced their faces.

C2: “The Charlatan’s smile.” Nice.

MEA:T2 Pt. 5: Drack and Jaal and Movie Night

Just dropping this here: The Gamer recently released an dev article, Mass Effect Andromeda Had Designs For Up To Ten New Alien Species, But They Were Cut For Budget, Scope, And… Cosplay that explains some of the design decision. The emphasis on cosplay seems a bit myopic to me, honestly. It’s one thing to make character designs accessible to cosplayers by providing detailed reference images, but designing alien races around cosplayability? Obviously no one asked me.

Anyway, I recently started mainlining Mass Effect: Andromeda with the intent of powering through to the end. Each early morning or late night session I think, “Now I’ll finally beat MEA,” and of course I don’t. I’m not doing all the things, just the most interesting ones–the main questline, ark stuff, companion and loyalty missions, and getting planet viability to 100% (which is incidental if you’re doing the other things)–but it seems every time I sit down to play there’s a new series of quests that warrant exploration.

The amount of planet-hopping I’m having to do can be a little annoying, because one of the best ways to immerse in this game is to focus on one planet at a time, but I think that’s partly my fault because I put off the main quest to build up planet viability and when I finally went after the Archon I triggered a whole bunch of new quests and ended having to run all over the damn place. From a design perspective, I think a solid fix would be to have multiple quest triggers–one tied to the main plotline, and one tied to planet viability or quests planetside, whichever comes first.

I’m finally starting to get into aspects of the game I didn’t experience before. Being a four-year-old game, I have been exposed to some spoilers (though not about the main plot–ME fandom has been pretty amazing in that regard!), so I naturally made a point of orchestrating this moment:

Movie Night is such a fun quest. It’s a little annoying to run around collecting all the things after the fact, you’re supposed to start doing it much earlier on. I also found it funny Vetra talked about bringing popcorn from the Milky Way to turn a tidy profit when you can buy it for like 10 credits. I liked the reflections on nostalgia, which is a theme I was recently trying to explore with fic. It’s a genuinely fun bit of fangift (NOT fanbait, it truly is a gift) that works so much better than the comparable scene in DAI (the Wicked Grace game). I love that everyone has something to contribute, though I wasn’t sure how Jaal’s contribution factored in in a practical sense, and it’s one of the best scenes we have of Kallo.

I feel like the two of the best-written characters in this game are Jaal and Drack.

Drack’s entire story and his loyalty quest is so satisfyingly written and interesting. Drack is a 1400 Korgan war vetran who has been injured to the extent much of his body is prosthetic and he is down to his last organs. He lived through an extremely volatile period in Krogan history. He is acutely aware of his importance as a reminder of the past while being receptive to the younger generation leading the species forward. His relationship with his granddaughter, Kesh, is heartwarming, and I felt his loyalty quest to retrieve a seed vault, which allows the Krogan to grow special nutrient-rich food for babies, extremely poignant. The whole loyalty mission is well done–exciting, great lore, lots of characterization and development–and it really tied into Drack as a character. Afterward you go on a not-date with Drack (a date, he explains, would involve much more property damage) where he and Ryder have a massive bar fight. Finally, if you don’t lock in a romance by the time Movie Night occurs, Drack falls asleep on your shoulder. He is, hands down, one of my favorite Bioware characters ever.

Jaal almost feels like a second main character, so much of the main plot directly relates to his experience and life. The voice actor is phenomenal, and I have to say, as far as temperamentally sweet characters go, I don’t think you can really top this guy. From an RP perspective, Jaal’s romance ended up being an excellent fit for my Ryder. The scene where Ryder helps Jaal save his family from the Roekaar, and they touch foreheads, sealed it for me. Reyes who? And Jaal really is an excellent foil for Reyes if you’re coming at it from a trust and openness angle, at one point Ryder basically says, “I love how you’re so open with me,” and that was a great moment in my RP because Scott realized he hadn’t thought about Reyes in a long time, nor did he particularly want to.

I’d been putting off committing to the relationship until the very end of the game and I somehow didn’t realize Jaal would ask Ryder for commitment during the “meet my family” scene. It was such a sweet and surprising moment (in retrospect, DUH, haha, it’s a very organic moment that is telegraphed within the scene itself but for some reason Ryder and I, being dorks, did not see it coming).

But I enjoyed that scene SO MUCH I turned the game off early that session, just to savor the feels a bit. This has been a tremendously satisfying RP.

Last PT I really got into Cora and PeeBee. I’m still interested in rolling a Ryder specifically to romance Cora, but this PT I felt like PeeBee was one of the weaker squadmates from a writing and theme standpoint. I found the amount of running around required for her missions was a little annoying, and I found her rivalries to be… weirdly juvenile, though admittedly PeeBee is still young as an asari. I haven’t quite finished her questline so I might change my mind.

MEA:T2 Pt. 6: Liam! PeeBee! More Jaal Somehow! Vetra! Blast Ohs! Getting High!

Liam’s Loyalty Mission and Eos

I kept putting off Liam’s loyalty quest for some reason, and IDK man I loved it. It’s cinematic, it’s fun, it has good jokes. I took Jaal and he has a very good one-liner, but now I’m curious about bringing Vetra. I didn’t remember ANY of it, except the upsidedown part, so it was essentially a new experience.

I think I was resistant because the whole “scanning at the Angaran market” quest is kind of off-putting. I haven’t taken Liam on as many missions this game, so my opinion of him is still being formulated. From what I can tell he’s a Good Dude™ who takes dumb risks–he’s got a banter with Vetra where she is chiding him for taking hits to shields as a combat strategy. He reads fairly young to me (I couldn’t find a canonical age) and has a strong personal sense of morality that clashes with some of the crew in a superficial way (he butts heads with Vetra, for instance, but it came across as a bit holier-than-thou because Liam doesn’t exactly play by the rules either). I think the Aya quest is supposed to annoy or exasperate the player a bit, and I walked away with the sense Liam was the one crewmember I would have to “keep an eye on”–that one guy who can’t seem to stay out of trouble. The loyalty mission validates this–Liam gets in over his head, but as a result pledges to be more careful down the line.

I like his relationship with August, and this segued nicely into an opportunity to return to Eos to finish up the weird Kett base thing, which was… weirdly anticlimactic? Some of the voice recordings of Invictus that I found were downright creepy (there’s one where he asks a Turian prisoner how much pressure would be required to remove her dermal plates, or something like that) but the confrontation itself happened pretty quickly, without any cut scenes, and the only codex I found was a few messages about Kett having confusing dreams. At first I wondered if I missed something, and went through the base again, but… nope. That’s it.

PeeBee’s Loyalty Mission

I will preface this by saying, if you take Drack on this mission, the safety bars for the escape pod repeatedly hit him on the head during your descent. It’s a funny detail and I think that’s the intended tone. The mission is supposed to be lighthearted and fun, just like Liam’s, but unfortunately I was already annoyed by how much running-around I’d had to do and this entire interaction got on my damn nerves.

I actually do remember this one! Last time I was romancing PeeBee, and I rolled with it and saved Kalinda for PeeBee’s sake, and I don’t think I necessarily had strong feelings about it beyond enjoying PeeBee time. This time I got pissed off about how irresponsible the whole thing was. Scott has always taken the path of life-preservation, but I was so aggravated I stepped outside my RP to have Ryder shoot Kalinda. Kalinda tried too damn hard to kill a Pathfinder and crew, going so far as to offer her people extra pay if they ripped out their implants, and it was over an artifact she didn’t even understand and apparently only wanted so she could score yet another point of toxic one-upmanship on PeeBee. My Ryder also made PeeBee pay for a replacement escape pod, which seems like a truly small cost considering how things went down.

This mission demonstrates how MEA’s combat-centric nature can clash with the stories they’re trying to tell. PeeBee says Kalinda doesn’t deserve to die for the artifact, but what about the 30-something other people Kalinda just used as canon fodder? If the mission design had involved puzzles or even had some sort of race/timed component where you can strategize to get the artifact first the vibe could have been very different and saving Kalinda would have made more sense. But the developers default to the core mechanic–fighting waves of hostiles while Kalinda constantly taunts from the sidelines–and the resulting decision to shoot or spare her feels like a watered down renegade/paragon choice rather than a difficult choice with actual meaning.

Players take issue with PeeBee and Liam’s loyalty missions because both characters make risky or poor decisions that put the Pathfinder in a dangerous spot, but Liam’s mission is very tonally different from PeeBee’s IMO. Liam is trying to help people, whereas PeeBee’s treats extreme risk as a game. Thus, I feel his succeeds where hers fails.

I’m using a multi-romance mod and my Ryder had a casual affair with PeeBee so shortly after that her romance confirmation scene triggers. It’s actually very cute (she’s not able to express her feelings directly, so she uses the remnant bot Poc to deliver the message) but I laughed because when Ryder says he just wants to be friends the scene ends abruptly, almost like a TikTok where the humor of an awkward scene is punctuated by the clip ending. I’m sure that wasn’t the intent, I may have accidentally skipped PeeBee’s dialogue, but it was still funny.

On Jaal’s Romance Scene, Agency, and Writing Player Characters

I’ve seen screenshots of this romance on Tumblr so I had a general idea how this might go down (ahem), but Jaal’s romance scene had more variability than I expected. You have options to initiate a kiss, have sex, and declare your love. At one point, Jaal asks Ryder what his favorite place in the universe is. If you choose the option “So far? Earth” you get a bit of unexpectedly specific backstory:

Scott: On the east cost of Australia, there’s a beach…

Scott: The ocean changes color, like it has a mood. The hours–days–I spent chasing the perfect wave… so addicted. Jaal: Addicted to the ocean. Huh.

This is so different from anything I headcanoned for my Ryder it actually broke my immersion. The voice acting is also a little awkward. I reloaded to check out the second choice (“I haven’t found it yet.”)

Scott: Haven’t found it. It’s out there… somewhere.

Jaal: Yeah. I get that.

This one doesn’t quite work for me either but at least didn’t unexpectedly rope me into a surfer enthusiast background. It turns out the Australia/surfing line is unique to Scott, Sara says her favorite place is a mountain.

Sara: There’s a mountain on Earth. Sunny and warm, but there’s a crisp wind whooshing through trees, tousling your hair…

Jaal: Well… tousling your hair.

(Both laugh, it’s very sweet)

This exchange fits the characters, mood, and moment a lot better, and as it happened I’d formally headcanoned the twins vacationed with their grandparents and did a fair bit of hiking in the Sierra Nevadas. It’s a good example of how to write dialogue for player-driven characters that have canonical backgrounds. Sara doesn’t get too specific, nor should she–Jaal has no frame of reference, he doesn’t know what “Australia” or “California” are–but many people who enjoy the outdoors can appreciate mountain vistas. There’s nothing in Ryder’s background to suggest they’ve ever been to Australia, but Alec spent his youth in the Sierra Nevadas and it’s not a stretch to think members of the Ryder family did a fair bit of hiking, be it training or recreation. I think it’s a good example of the difference between writing a character and writing a character a player will inhabit and make their own.

Anyway, after this Jaal sends an email that confirms he is totally into Scott Ryder’s guns. A+ romance.

Also, Jaal’s true mother, Sahuna, is a treasure. I’ve stumbled across a bug where just-read emails vanish from my inbox and never return. And of course, they’re never emails from random NPCs, the first ones I lost were from Reyes so I think the bug may be related to the romance mod. In any case, I lost her first batch of emails due to this, so when she sent a follow-up quizzing me about the human birth process, among other things, I was naturally quite delighted. Thank goodness for Wikis, though I’m sorry to say, the Wiki does not have them all so I reproduce her last email here:

Communication from Sahuna, True Mother of Jaal

To: Ryder

From: Sahuna

Jaal refuses to send me answers to the questions below. He says that it’s too embarrassing, so I am asking you myself.

• Do you have a favorite weapon that you find particularly effective against the kett?
• What was your homeworld like? Perhaps we can find ways to make you feel more at home here.
• Can you describe the human birth process to me? I’m interested for many obvious reasons.

I’m never embarrassed. That’s something you should know about me.

Sahuna Ama Darav

Vetra and “Medicinal Herbs” and the Blast-Oh’s Mystery That Wasn’t

I feel like I’ve neglected Vetra, except I’m not sure that’s true. Early in the game I explored all of her dialogue options and she was a constant companion on Kadara and came with Ryder to explore the Turian Ark. But Vetra seems to have less stuff overall, especially compared to a companion like PeeBee, who is constantly sending emails and making requests.

H-047c provides an opportunity to hear various companions scream, “Shit!” when Ryder drives the Nomad into a gaping chasm. I took Drack, because of course I did, and he actually fucking loves it. Vetra was mostly just horrified. Drack seemed like a good choice for Vetra’s loyalty mission on the basis of their friendship, and I like that he told Vetra he would make sure Sid was okay, and they have a nice sort of “guardians of foolish youngsters” banter afterwards. The mission is fine (it’s actually a nice change of pace to have the crew member in question NOT be responsible for a sticky situation) but at one point after clearing out a room of outlaws Sid asks, “Did you have to kill them all?” and I got confused and thought I’d somehow missed something. So I reloaded, and it turns out there’s actually no pacifist way to clear the room, whatever you do you end up killing EVERYONE and Sid comments on it. The point is that Sid doesn’t truly understand how dangerous Vetra’s work is, but it feels like another example of a combat-centric game’s mechanics butting heads with storytelling a bit.

I went back to Kadara for Vetra’s friendship scene and took PeeBee along because I’d never had them both in my squad before. The Vetra/PeeBee banter is actually kind of great so I ended up driving around Kadara polishing off the last few quests just so I could hear it all. Their friendship is nice and I love PeeBee again.

There is an entire drug trip sequence, documented in the screenshot gallery.

Ditaeon is supposedly Down In the Ass End of Nowhere but IN FACT, Kurinth’s Valley in the far northwestern corner better meets the description. There’s an Architect out there and the Emergency SOS Mission ended up being well worth the trouble. Apparently when the game launched this questline was broken, but it has since been patched and Ryder can now have herb. Very enjoyable for everyone involved and I’m surprised I haven’t seen any sort of gifset for this on Tumblr.

Okay, so the Blast-Ohs. Very early on I saw Vetra was hoarding cereal. I became intensely curious as to WHAT exactly Vetra was doing with this stuff. Scanning identified the cereal as being used for bartering. I kept waiting for a callback on this, but… nope. It’s just cereal Vetra is using as leverage, and it is never given another moment of thought. Very anticlimactic, I know, but search engines reveal I’m not the only player to wonder about it.

I’m around 70% completion. Originally I didn’t plan to finish all the planetary quests, but I’ve found a lot of them to be more enjoyable than I expected (just think how easily I could have missed Ryder getting stoned) so I may go ahead and finish the rest to make sure I don’t miss anything interesting that’s tucked away.

MEA:T2 Pt. 7: the End

Mass Effect: Andromeda, like Dragon Age: Inquisition before it, MEA is playable after the endgame and the player is able to continue other questlines after the main storyline is wrapped. DAI ended up having several story DLC, including a true ending DLC. MEA’s DLC was canceled to divert resources to Anthem, so the game functionally ends where it ends–with the main villain is defeated, a few hints of what might have been to come, and a number of questions unanswered.

The trope “Everyone you helped joins the fight against the Big Bad!” has been done a million times and I love it every time. I felt like they did a great job of raising the stakes and bringing Ryder’s twin into the fray. The final boss battle itself was not particularly interesting, it comprised waves of remnant enemies until bridges could be built, sort of like the “hacking” mechanic but without the radius, and the architect was less impressive after I’d already taken down a few planetside. I was ready for this battle to be over about halfway through.

I did make a deal with Primus and I’m curious to know where that leads. Likewise, I’m curious about the angaran AI (which I destroyed this playthrough but would preserve on a future PT). I was tempted to make Morda the ambassador but I went with August, which seemed like a reasonable compromise. My pathfinder option was Hayjer, which seemed a bit random.

I’m generally not a fan of games remaining open after the main quest is finished. When I get to the end of a 40+ hour journey, I’m ready for a definitive ending, and as a gamer I’ve been trained to expect ending slides and that sort of thing. The open ending of MEA kind of works, though, and I might actually go back and finish up a few more quests. There are some really interesting messages on the Harbringer terminal about the implications of Meridian and the Jardaan, as well as a teaser for the Quarian Ark, and a bunch of easter egg emails from Dragon Age characters. I liked the return to Habitat 7. I think it’s reasonable to assume DLC for the Quarian Ark was probably in the works. If I could have any DLC for this game I think finding the Quarian Ark, exploring the surface of Meridian, and activating the vault at Ryder-I would be awesome.

Given the length of time between MEA and the next game–probably at least 7 years–I think this game is always going to feel a bit adrift from the rest of the series. Some of the questions are handled in the Mass Effect: Andromeda book franchise (the Quarian ark, for example, is covered in Mass Effect Andromeda: Annihilation by Catherynne M. Valente). It’s worth noting the MEA tie-in books were all released in 2017 and 2018 and work on MEA officially ended with version 1.10 on 07/31/17. Additionally, there has been massive staff movement since 2017 and BioWare has weathered another game crisis: the failure and abandonment of Anthem. I can only assume any MEA sequel will have new writers, new ideas, and new design parameters, so any plans the original developers had might not necessarily be borne out.

A lot of reviewers say things like, “MEA is not a perfect game but…” I’m not even going there, man. There is no perfect game. MEA is great and I liked it a lot. This PT clocked in at just under 50 hours, 80% completion, and nabbed about half of the achievements. The combat and jump-jets are fun, the story and characters are interesting, and the lore was enjoyable to dig into. I can definitely see myself playing through a NG+ before the next Mass Effect game drops, assuming that game ties into Andromeda. The deluxe version of this game has a regular price of $20 and constantly goes on sale for $9.99, which is a ridiculous deal if you like single-player BioWare RPGs at all.

My brain kinda wants to live here a while, but knowing the timeline for a sequel is so far away tempers my enthusiasm a little bit. I don’t want to get “too” into MEA and become overly-invested in the franchise like I was with Dragon Age. I’m interested in the tie-in books with caveats (Nexus Uprising supposedly has a lot of tedious bureaucratic incompetence stuff [shitshow indeed], but I had no problem with Jeff Vandermeer’s bureaucratic Authority and, also–Sloane fucking Kelly) so there’s still plenty of lore to dig into.