How The Witcher 3 succeeds where Mass Effect: Andromeda falls short

Comparing quests from the RPGs reveals remarkable design similarities, so why is one revered and the other divisive?

[ArchangelMike]

The Witcher 3 is in a class of it's own. Saying that though, Mass Effect Andromeda is enjoyable enough.

[Armaggedon]

Nah, it's not that good honestly. I like the game, but its overrated.

[Kurdishcurse]

Agreed. The only things witcher 3 excels at are diologue(although bloated as hell) and art design. Other than that, its as mediocore as mediocore gets.

From combat to enemy design to architecture everything just seems meh worthy. Same goes for most of naughty dogs modern games. Engaging story-diologue(sometimes), good graphics and then every other gamedesign aspect is just medioce at best. Especially enemy variety.

Seems to me naughty dog dont have enough creativity to design and implement anything over 5-7 enemy types, in a freakin 12 hour game. Which is just lazy.

[R6ex]

From Witcher 1 to 3, you can see such obvious great improvements in visuals with each iteration.

With Mass Effect 1 to 4, there's almost none.

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

Mass Effect 2 looks significantly better than Mass Effect 1. The first Witcher game was considered to be very dated graphically when it game out.

[Armaggedon]

Mass Effect 2 was a beast of a game. The devs at the time realized the insane difficulty of trying to have a game with a strong novel and visual presentation, while also maintaining the tedium of creating a world where you go out and explore etc etc.
If I recall, gamers were like " Mass Effect 2 is such a dumbing down, bring back the RPG elements and sense exploration from Mass Effect 1."
Bioware tried to grant that request with Mass Effect Andromeda, but now gamers are like " The facial animations suck, bad writing and terrible voice acting. F*** the exploration stuff that we said we wanted before. Give us visual flare."

Even though the game is quite expansive and they put alot of effort into the exploration aspect, gamers consider it trash now. What in the actual flip? lol

Screw that we are playing a game where there is a crap ton of divergence of play style and choice. Game sucks apparently. Every I play Mass Effect: Andromeda, and I think about the reception its receiving, I just cant help but face palm. Because its a good game, but people are treating it like its two worlds for some reason.
People should learn to commend what was done well, and what wasnt done so well. For all its faults, Andromeda did a lot of things pretty well, as did the Witcher 3. They both messed up and areas too though.

[Patriot4Life]

ME:A was ok but not $60.00 good.

The game clearly needed an extra year for polishing.

[Armaggedon]

Witcher 3 needed the polish as well. No complaints from anyone though.

[yeahright2]

Agreed. I'm sure a healthy amount will disagree but that's mainly due to the fact that when something is on top there'll always be some that need to go against the grain. *sigh* the anti trend has become so trendy.

[Armaggedon]

People can love the Witcher as much as they want, its success does not matter to me. I just want people to be a bit more unbiased when it comes to that game though. I havent seen misplaced game worship of this scale since The Last of Us.

[InTheZoneAC]

I'm sure Witcher 3 devs weren't bargain bin unqualified employees, like some of the people from Bioware...and the audacity to even follow through and sell it despite having probably an unlimited budget, it's just insulting to every fan of the series.

Call me cold but the actions of Bioware wouldn't make me feel bad if they were indeed shut down at some point. Those talented individuals will work for a game company that needs their talent and the unqualified ones can go look to freeload some other position elsewhere.

[yeahright2]

A shame really, back in the kotor days they were my favorite developer by a mile, now their name means so much less to me. ME:A has led me to the point where no matter what they do next, I'm waiting on sale, probably a significant one as I feel I paid more for this game than it was worth.

[dilbig5]

It's not really a fair comparison.

[Patriot4Life]

Why not?

Both are RPGs and both have huge budgets.

[Kaneki-Ken]

Weren't made by the same team. Many of the original Mass Effect left Bioware after ME3. Bioware is the original team while Andromeda is Bioware Montreal. Witcher 3 was made by the same team ever since the first. So is not fair comparison since original dev is no longer involved of Mass Effect series

[dilbig5]

2 completely different games too regardless of how much it cost. Only thing similar is they are both Rpgs

[Takwin]

The Witcher 3 is my favorite game of all time. Death March New Game Plus is one of the most rewarding and epic experiences I've ever had gaming. Mass Effect was a snoozefest that I completed just to be done with and I will never replay it again. Bioware is dead to me.

[Armaggedon]

Strange, thats how my friends feel about the Witcher. I try to get them to play it but they said its too boring.

[yeahright2]

Kinda find that hard to believe. You're downplaying witcher all through these comments but you tried to get your friends to play it? My guess is your favorite game that year got over shadowed by witcher.

[InTheZoneAC]

They must've played for 2 minutes and turned it off, no way anyone could say it's boring

[Armaggedon]

Im "downplaying" the game because people are being unfairly biased towards the game, saying that it is so much better than other games by a long shot. Witcher 3 is a good game through and through, even when people say that it is garbage(yes, there are several people who say its trash). But it is being highly overrated to say that it stomps other games. Someone said its because they put so much care into the game. And other games dont? Fallout 4 and Mass Effect get crapped on, yet people dont acknowledge the care and effort also being put into those titles.

[Armaggedon]

Its actually true that pne of my friends got bored literally the first 3 minutes and never touched it again.lol

The Witcher isnt really that exciting for me either, but I liked it enough to beat it; albeit, I was highly uninterested in the combat, so I had to crank the difficulty down at that annoying botchling quest.

[Takwin]

You cranked the difficulty DOWN? That might be part of the problem, and I don't mean that sarcastically or rudely. The game shines in Death March. The specific quest you mention, all you have to do is follow a very slow NPC and cast a spell every 30 seconds or so.

[Lord_Sloth]

Comparing anything to Witcher 3 is kind of unfair. The game outclasses most everything. Andromeda isn't bad at all, just not as good as ME2 or 3.

[Armaggedon]

I dont know about that. The Witcher is not as almighty as people think. Unfair? How so? The game has areas that are not so good.

[Lord_Sloth]

It's all really just opinions but the Witcher 3 (yeah it does have it's problems) is painstakingly well made in nearly every regard. The developers took so much care with the game and it shows so well. the story is interesting and kept me playing, the characters were so well written, the scenery was gorgeous, the combat was very entertaining, and the music was fantastic! Only a few RPGs stand side by side with the likes of Wild Hunt.

[Armaggedon]

Main problem I saw was that there was no character progression. I had nothing to aim for so I just found muself runnong through the wilds until something came up.

[Lord_Sloth]

At the beginning I can agree it seems a bit directionless but once I reached a certain point I couldn't stop pushing forward. I HAD to find Ciri and progression came easily. I was just plowing through the story (hunting the occasional monster because I was still a Witcher and gold is nice) without stopping for anything. I was hooked!

[Patriot4Life]

You make it seem like Mass Effect is a new IP and Bioware are noobs.

No amount of excuses can justify the POS game that Andromeda was is.

[Kaneki-Ken]

You do know that none of the original dev weren't involved in Andromeda and it was made by team Bioware Montreal but not original team Bioware. So yes they have an excuse

[Lord_Sloth]

^ What he said. The people behind Andromeda aren't the same people behind ME1-3. That team is working on a new IP instead.

[brando008]

Finally got into the Witcher 3 a few weeks ago, so really late on the game. Today I saw that I'm 80 hours in, and I just can't stop thinking about the game, the lore, etc. Definitely a masterclass game, one of my favourites, and one of the all-time greats.

[brando008]

Very well written article, and one that truly details aspects of the Witcher that make it an outstanding experience as a whole.

[smashley]

comparing the witcher to mass effect Andromeda really?

[Armaggedon]

Yeah. Andromeda is cool. Like how everthing outside of your ships window actually reflects your current location. Andromeda nailed the exploration theme, even if the animations are a little freaked at times.