- Game still has some of the same problems it did back on the 360, namely texture pop-in and choppy framerate. My CPU utilization doesn't even reach 10% with this game and my GPU usage is around 50 - 75%, yet it runs like a newly made game that'd be frying my computer.
- The visuals give me whiplash. There are still a lot of scenes and moments that look really good... but there's also a lot of really shitty low-res textures that look horrible.
- Really glad they have seamless switching between controls. I use a Xbox controller for exploring and then switch over to m&k when combat starts.
- Combat is... functional, I guess. It's really not bad, shooting feels fine and messing around with powers can be fun but the AI is still absolutely brain dead. Both enemies and allies constantly will go into cover... and then just sit there and do nothing until combat is over, an explosion jars them loose, or they die. When they're not cowering behind cover uselessly, they're typically just charging forward and spamming their powers. I'm playing as a Vanguard, which doesn't really get fun until the sequels with 'Charge'.
- I still like Mako and planet exploration. Yeah, it's all very janky (though I'm using a mod that tightens up the Mako's controls) and repetitive but some of the planets have great atmosphere (the snow one in particular; there's a heavy blizzard effect and you can see the sun just barely peeking out of the clouds) and I like the sense of exploration & discovery they offer. It's a shame they completely cut this in the trilogy sequels rather than scaling it back a bit, making the planets more unique, and the discoveries more interesting.
- The writing has a succinctness to it that I really like. Not sure if it was intentional or the result of voice acting being expensive. Too many RPGs are filled with purple prose and rambling dialogue that goes on for far too long and sounds unnatural; nobody talks in constant fucking paragraphs.
- Party members strike a decent balance between essentially being an ambassador for their species and a unique character.
- Tali and Wrex are still my favorite party members, as they were back in 2012. Tali because I like the quarians and her connection to the geth gives her a good amount of interesting and unique commentary & interjections. Wrex's VO is terrific and his dialogue tends to be either funny or interesting.
- As for the others: Ashley I like, though I wish they'd play up her xenophobia and being a human soldier more (I remember a lot of handwringing over her being xenophobic, which I always thought was stupid -- it's an interesting character trait and it's pretty realistic, humanity is still pretty new to the whole 'aliens exist' thing); Kaidan's boring; Garrus is a bro but I've always found his commentary and interjections to be bland; Liara's plot involvement gives her some good commentary and insight during story quests but I've never found her interesting.
- I wish party members had more interjections and commentary during missions. They have an okay-ish amount during main story ones but are largely mute for 90% of the game's side quests. While it sucked at pretty much everything else, Obsidan's Outer Worlds did this really well.
