"Trash Effect Blandromeda"? - Were the Haters WRONG About This Game? (2023 Review of ME Andromeda)

In this video, we'll revisit the most hated game in the Mass Effect franchise and get a fresh perspective.

0:00 Introduction
2:02 Character Creation and Combat
4:25 Ryder as a Character
9:44 Companions
12:52 Romance... We'll Bang, Okay?
15:26 Quests
16:55 LIARA!
17:29 Choices and (In)Consequences
22:49 Evaluation of Main Story
26:19 Is Andromeda Worth Playing?

Four years ago, Bioware released the fourth entry to the Mass Effect franchise, which was widely regarded as the fourth best game in the series. In other words, the absolute worst game in the series. Mass Effect Andromeda launched with a plethora of bugs, glitches, and unfortunate facial animations. But more than that it also suffered from lackluster writing, something that had typically been Bioware’s biggest strength.

So naturally fans and critics were disappointed with Andromeda and tore the game apart on review sites, forums and the greatest bastion of intellectual discourse - the YouTube comments section.

Now you might expect me to say that I hate this game, given that the title of this video is Trash Effect Blandromeda. But I just thought this was a hilarious pun and I felt clever for coming up with it. So I couldn’t resist putting it in the title. While it’s definitely not a great game and a lot of the criticism is well deserved, my feelings about Andromeda are more nuanced than simply calling it trash.

After bingeing Mass Effect Legendary Edition, I decided to replay Mass Effect Andromeda for the first time since 2019. I recently finished a 40 hour playthrough and I’ll be sharing my impressions on the game in this video.

We’ll cover gameplay, the main protagonist Ryder and his companions, the main story, as well as major choices and consequences throughout the game. There will be spoilers in the story and choices sections, in case you’re worried about that.

I’ll do my best to give this game a fair shake - praising it for what it does well and lambasting it for what it does poorly. At the end I’ll give my recommendation on whether or not it’s worth your time to play this game. So buckle up and let’s talk about Mass Effect Andromeda.