Why Can't You Just Talk to Me? Irritation in Andromeda

 It was a bit of a slow gaming news week--I didn't encounter anything that piqued my interest (apparently the PS5 ordering has been a complete and utter clusterfunk, but I'm not part of that crowd), so I thought I would give some thought to my current Mass Effect:  Andromeda re-play.  I've been playing for awhile now and have settled back into the groove of the game...and, it's still mostly the mixed bag that I remember.  I've encountered some small, but nonetheless irritating issues that I vaguely remember from previous playthroughs.

Issue #1

I jog my Ryder (who looks basically identical to another Ryder I created....I'm bad at the character creator, can you be bad at that?) over to an NPC either to strike up a conversation or to turn in a mission.  My squadmates are lingering somewhere in the background when I hit the "e" button to initiate the conversation.  The NPC talks and it's fine.  Ryder talks and it's still fine.  Things get annoying when the NPC/Ryder says something and one of your squadmates responds...but, they're off in the background somewhere and the camera is fixed, so you can't hear anything that they're saying!  I'm stuck looking at the POV of my Ryder and just silently standing there....I had forgotten about this issue but now that I've encountered it multiple times, I'm freshly annoyed by it.

Should you play Andromeda?  Yes, with some warnings.

Issue #2

I've reached the point in my playthrough where I'm fighting the Remnant Architects (I like to think of them as "space dragons" because they operate on very similar principles to the dragon fights in Dragon Age:  Inquisition).  The Remnant Architect fights are designed to be boss fight-like encounters--long, drawn out rumbles with a big baddy.  My main point of irritation has to do with the fact that the encounter doesn't autosave when you take down one of the "leg" conduits.  It would be so nice if you didn't have to completely restart the encounter when you die.  Last night I was fighting the Architect on Voeld--probably my least favorite fight location in the game (you have to deal with environmental hazards and the battleground is spread out in a weird way with cramped locations offering the best cover but being difficult to move in)--and it was a huge pain in the buttocks.  Part of me wishes they had spiced up the Architect fights a bit--there is no variety in the tactics of the fight, once you master the pattern it gets very rote.

Since my current Ryder is a vanguard build, I also get irritated at how useless certain ability sets are for the Architect fights.  You really can't charge/nova at all (I'm not quite at the point where I have enough points to create a swappable ability set for just the Architect fights).  I just want to punch an Architect in the face!

Issue #3

Why, oh why, isn't it possible to swap out gear at any place in the field?  Yes, you can fast travel to a forward station (if you've found a few) but that can be a bit of a pain if you're in a new location.  I just want to be able to equip the hot new piece of loot I found!

I don't want to totally diss on Andromeda though; I've always enjoyed the combat and found it quite challenging and I find that with each new playthrough I enjoy the companions more.  It's still not the OG Mass Effect trilogy, but it's worth playing (especially now that it is available for extremely cheap).  I just wish they had fixed a few of these small, irritating things.  It's really a shame that the DLC was scrapped and that we'll never get a satisfactory end to the story.