My journey through the Andromeda galaxy has finally come to an end. After a year and a half plodding along doing side quests and exploring, I finally got around to embarking on the final mission. This involves hunting down the Archon and finding Meridian; the huge Remnant city that can bring life to the entire Heleus cluster.
I’ve had a mixed experience with this game, as you can probably tell from the things I’ve written about it since Christmas before last. There are so many wonderful things about it but from time to time it just feels very cold compared to the original trilogy. I had a hard time connecting with any of the squad. I think, in the end, I really only spent time with three of them: Peebee, Drack and Jaal. I found them reasonably interesting (or at least less irritating than the others) so they remained my squad for the majority of the game.
I liked the exploration element of the game but a lot of the side quests seemed very generic and lacked the narrative quality of the original trilogy. The weapons and powers were great (I love my Assault Turret) and the graphics are awesome. I know there have been many complaints about the facial animation but the drawing of the landscapes are excellent. There were so many times I just wanted to stop and look around. This is a great example of that. When we fly inside Meridian, chasing the Archon in the captured ark, we have this great crash scene in the inside out planet
This drive down to the control centre reminded me of the run to the mass effect relay on Ilos in the first game. I had the sense that there were all these enemies lined up for me to engage but I just drove right past them to get where I was going.
There was another beautiful shot of the Tempest flying over our heads. It’s no Normandy but it’s still a great ship to look at.
Going down the gravity wells opened up a lot more beautiful views of the interior of Meridian. These Remnant vaults and cities have really been the highlight for me. They remind me of the Geth hub or whatever it is in ME:3 but on a massive scale. I would walk to the edge of some of these cliffs and just stare down into the deep.
Then it’s time to meet up with the Archon for a final battle involving lots and lots of enemies. I managed to get through it first time which was a relief. I just think by this point I really wanted to get to the end. It was a nice touch that I didn’t actually have to fight him. I was expecting a final battle with him but that just wouldn’t have made sense given how I had to fight his number one henchman before. It felt correct when he just dropped from the wires and died on the floor. Boom.
And then there are some nice closing shots and a chance to catch up with the crew before the credits. It would have been nice to play as Sara a bit more during the whole game. She felt like an add-on by the end. I remember in the pre-amble to the game’s release it was said that you would get to play as Alec, Sara and Scott (it took me a while to remember my own character’s name there – don’t know what that says about the whole thing) but two of three were really short. I think you got more time playing as Joker. Actually, come to think of it, did I actually play as Alec or was he just there? I’ll have to go back to my first post and check.
Here are some last captures I took from the closing mission. Most of it is just random gunfire but it gives a feel of the end.
Thanks for following along on the journey with me. I don’t doubt we’ll get another Mass Effect game down the road a little bit. For the time being, though, I’m going to move on to another franchise I’ve really enjoyed over the years: Far Cry. I’ve had Far Cry 5 sitting on the shelf for about a year now and I’m going to see how I get on with that.
Cheers everyone,
Richard
Check out the whole Andromeda story by following the links below.
The Ardenna Crossing 
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