One year as passed since I first played Mass Effect Andromeda, which for me personally, it wasn't has bad as people try to make it (its a good entertaining sci-fi game), but in all honesty it wasn't a Mass Effect game and that for me was the main reason why the game failed and it's not up to par with it's predecessors. First of all I don't believe the graphical glitches and bugs were as bad as the generalized opinion and a few patches later 95% of them were gone, so why did the game ultimately failed to achieve the standard of the previous trilogy? In my humble opinion the real problem was at it's core, the real problem, it wasn't a Mass Effect game because of the three following reasons.

I. Heroines & Villains

In the previous Mass Effect games in spite of renegade and paragon choices you were always the heroine, the defender of the galaxy, the one trying to prevent and eventually fight an alien invasion to save every advanced sentient being from certain destruction. I know you could hit a reporter, summarily execute a bunch of people, condemn entire races to destruction, work with a terrorist organization and even deceive a race with a false cure making them fight for you. But ultimately as distorted as your methods were your final goal was to save the galaxy. The Heroine.

In Andromeda whether you like it or not, you are the invading force, you go to another galaxy where you by any standard have no right or claim to anything, try to strip planets bare from it's resources and appropriate territories by force, (excluding Meridian you don't actually discover anything, you only invade previously occupied planets), you even try to impose your way of government in galaxy where you shouldn't even be there. Kind of reminds me of the Reapers. The Villain.

II. Choices & Consequences

In the previous Mass Effect titles there was always an emphasis on choice, you were always thinking about the consequences of what you just did, how you acted when confronted with a certain situation, how you acted towards someone, details mattered and sometimes when you most needed the attention to those details and how you handle them was the difference between resounding success, partial victories or total failure.

One of the things that made me fear for Andromeda was the abolition of the Paragon/Renegade system announced prior to it's release. I started scratching the old noodle and arrived to an immediate state of apprehension ; "How are they going to implement choice without that system? Are they going to abolish choices all together?". And that is exactly what they did, no choices to be made during the game only the illusion of choice. In Andromeda you didn't make one single choice until the end and the choice you make really doesn't seem to matter taking into account that it's made after the end of the campaign.

III. Legacy & Spinoffs

The original Mass Effect had a cool ambience very distinctive, unique, different from anything you ever seen until then, even the strange blue hue in Mass Effect seems warm and very much in tune with the atmosphere of the game and the universe in which the action happens. The tapestry of colors, races and creeds so different like the mystical Asari, the warring Krogan, the ever wandering Quarian, the bioluminescent worshping Hanar or the logical Geth, that is the galaxy, the giant mass effect relays floating in space, only adds and enriches such a detailed environment and albeit a little reduction in the blue hue, sets the beat to the remaining two games. Twenty different races appear during the trilogy plus nine races that are only referenced during the games. You visit dozens of different worlds, with different environment and ambience, (even with the limited graphic of ME each world felt different), you actually discover a few inhabited planets in you own galaxy, even the "main" worlds are quite different, allowing you as the player to feel a very immersive experience, as a space explorer/archeologist/soldier in an epic adventure to save the galaxy

In Andromeda there are three native races and a fourth race which you never see in spite of walking around in their structures and vaults, add to that five races from the milky way and you have eight in total with plus one referenced during the game. From that taking into account that you can only interact on friendly terms with one of them, (the poor attempt at a kind of both gender faux Asari), the Angara, Andromeda feels empty right from the start. In Andromeda you visit seven planets, plus Meridian and the asteroid. When I clearly remember a statement by a Bioware producer claiming the game would have hundreds of different planets to discover and visit. Oddly if you recap your experience in Andromeda from the seven planets you visit in Andromeda, one you can never return, four are deserts, with one of them being a tundra and the final two are tropical jungles where you only visit a city and a small area. You don't actually discover any planet except Meridian. After an epic adventure across the galaxy, that you end up saving, you go play mercenary for an invading force, in a not so epic adventure, in another galaxy backyard... nine years later, (since Mass Effect), this is what they gave us! And remember this is a mass effect game so where is the mass effect? Not a single engine drive, relay, construct or apparatus making visible use of a mass effect field apart from biotics. The ambience also feels somewhat off even generical and uninspired at times, even the strange blue hue now seems aggressive and not in tune with the rest of the scenery. In the end feels like I'm playing a bad spinoff and not the deserving sequel that Mass Effect games should have had.

Note: I played the trilogy a lots of times as female Commander Shepard, but never played the all trilogy with male Shepard so my reference to Shepard is always as a female character sorry to all BroSheps but Femshep rules!

Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing to steal.

Ryokan returned and caught him. "You have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler, "and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift."

The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away.

Ryokan sat naked, watching the moon. "Poor fellow," he mused, "I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon."

Disciple: "How about if I aim to be Buddha?"

Master: "What an immense waste of energy!"

Disciple: "How about if I am not wasting my energy?"

Master: "In that case, you are Buddha!"

The emperor Goyozei was studying Zen under Gudo. He inquired: "In Zen this very mind is Buddha. Is this correct?"

Gudo answered: "If I say yes, you will think that you understand without understanding. If I say no, I would be contradicting a fact which many understand quite well."

On another day the emperor asked Gudo: "Where does the enlightened man go when he dies?"

Gudo answered: "I know not."

"Why don't you know?" asked the emperor.

"Because I have not died yet," replied Gudo.

The emperor hesitated to inquire further about these things his mind would not grasp. So Gudo beat the floor with his hand as if to awaken him, and the emperor was enlightened!

The emperor respected Zen and old Gudo more than ever after his enlightenment, and he even permitted Gudo to wear his hat in the palace in winter. When Gudo was over eighty he used to fall asleep in the midst of his lecture, and the emperor would quietly retire to another room so his beloved teacher might enjoy the rest his aging body required.

Zen teachers train their young pupils to express themselves. Two Zen temples each had a child protege. One child, going to obtain vegetables each morning, would meet the other on the way.

"Where are you going?" asked the one.

"I am going wherever my feet go," the other responded.

This reply puzzled the first child who went to his teacher for help. "Tomorrow morning," the teacher told him, "when you meet that little fellow, ask him the same question. He will give you the same answer, and then you ask him: 'Suppose you have no feet, then where are you going?' That will fix him."

The children met again the following morning.

"Where are you going?" asked the first child.

"I am going wherever the wind blows," answered the other.

This again nonplussed the youngster, who took his defeat to the teacher.

Ask him where he is going if there is no wind," suggested the teacher.

The next day the children met a third time.

"Where are you going?" asked the first child.

"I am going to the market to buy vegetables," the other replied.

A beautiful girl in the village was pregnant. Her angry parents demanded to know who was the father. At first resistant to confess, the anxious and embarrassed girl finally pointed to Hakuin, the Zen master whom everyone previously revered for living such a pure life. When the outraged parents confronted Hakuin with their daughter's accusation, he simply replied "Is that so?"

When the child was born, the parents brought it to the Hakuin, who now was viewed as a pariah by the whole village. They demanded that he take care of the child since it was his responsibility. "Is that so?" Hakuin said calmly as he accepted the child.

For many months he took very good care of the child until the daughter could no longer withstand the lie she had told. She confessed that the real father was a young man in the village whom she had tried to protect. The parents immediately went to Hakuin to see if he would return the baby. With profuse apologies they explained what had happened. "Is that so?" Hakuin said as he handed them the child.

Keichu, the great Zen teacher of the Meiji era, was the head of Tofuku, a cathedral in Kyoto. One day the governor of Kyoto called upon him for the first time.

His attendant presented the card of the governor, which read: Kitagaki, Governor of Kyoto.

"I have no business with such a fellow," said Keichu to his attendant. "Tell him to get out of here."The attendant carried the card back with apologies. "That was my error," said the governor, and with a pencil he scratched out the words Governor of Kyoto. "Ask your teacher again."

"Oh, is that Kitagaki?" exclaimed the teacher when he saw the card. "I want to see that fellow."

A rich man asked a Zen master to write something down that could encourage the prosperity of his family for years to come. It would be something that the family could cherish for generations. On a large piece of paper, the master wrote, "Father dies, son dies, grandson dies."

The rich man became angry when he saw the master's work. "I asked you to write something down that could bring happiness and prosperity to my family. Why do you give me something depressing like this?"

"If your son should die before you," the master answered, "this would bring unbearable grief to your family. If your grandson should die before your son, this also would bring great sorrow. If your family, generation after generation, disappears in the order I have described, it will be the natural course of life. This is true happiness and prosperity."

Two traveling monks reached a river where they met a young woman. Wary of the current, she asked if they could carry her across. One of the monks hesitated, but the other quickly picked her up onto his shoulders, transported her across the water, and put her down on the other bank. She thanked him and departed. As the monks continued on their way, the one was brooding and preoccupied. Unable to hold his silence, he spoke out. "Brother, our spiritual training teaches us to avoid any contact with women, but you picked that one up on your shoulders and carried her!" "Brother," the second monk replied, "I set her down on the other side, while you are still carrying her."

One day Chuang Tzu and a friend were walking by a river. "Look at the fish swimming about," said Chuang Tzu, "They are really enjoying themselves."

"You are not a fish," replied the friend, "So you can't truly know that they are enjoying themselves."

"You are not me," said Chuang Tzu. "So how do you know that I do not know that the fish are enjoying themselves?"