I underestimated to point to which Anthem is in fact a full-on fantasy game that incidentally uses an iron man suit and an assault rifle as your gear. I remember back when we stuck our nose into the Destiny demo, and I came away disappointed at how much the backstory was just a bunch of capitalized words that were supposed to be meaningful... because they were capitalized?Â
In fairness to both games, thereâs nothing inherently wrong with that approach. I played hours and hours of Warframe on pretty loose lore and basically no RP, purely on the sheer thrill of the fast, mixed melee and ranged gameplay, and wickedly unique and cool armor designs.
On some level itâs because a significant factor in my attachment to ME (and preference of it over DA) was the sci-fi backbone. Itâs also what I found so frustrating about Andromeda, among other issues, was the slow abandonment of that backbone in favor of vague and lazy writing cheats (weâre looking for âtechâ! What kind of technology you ask? TECH! Itâll... tech something. Yay!)
More than anything I guess itâs a matter of expectations. The DA games are perfectly enjoyable, because you expect and get a fantasy world with fantasy rules. Andromeda, though, drifted off the strong mean the prior trilogy had set up. Apparently Iâll have to wait for Cyberpunk 2077 to potentially scratch the sci-fi RPG itch.Â
Itâs... not going to set off ravenous fanfic brain, Iâm guessing. But that doesnât mean it couldnât be an entertaining loot ân shoot, especially with the flying mech suit. I guess now Iâm looking for the hook that gets me.
