When I first started playing this game, it was about a year ago; just yet another game attempted to coop with my friend, and I think we only made it like 3 missions past the introduction before he called it quits because of "lag" (he uses a crappy Xbox One) and I was left with yet again another game we started together and him just bailing partial/midway through, so me being a completionist, I decided I'd continue playing the game by myself.
So, the first impression about this game is that it really is hella fun. The flying mechanics is probably the best part of the game, being able to fly around this jungle-infested world with ease. Now, it definitely isn't flawless though, as you can only fly a certain height before getting pushed back down, which makes certain areas of the map kinda annoying. I also wish you were able to fly longer; I mean you can get a heat sink augment that gives you more fly time, but it just seemed limiting. Now, the map was cool enough; I did like the free play open world aspect... at first. It was cool exploring at your own pace, finding documents, runes, but only in increments as there isn't any story missions to do in free play, only things called Events that usually have you do a rinse and repeat mission. Now, the story. Well, I will say when I first started the game, the story seemed so barebones and frankly generic. The plot revolving around a planet littered with relics that give off a phenomenon called the Anthem of Creation, you play as a Freelancer, who are people who use exosuits to help stop and contain these relics/factions that would use these to their advantages. Now, while I did enjoy that BioWare decided to mix fantasy with science fiction, I don't think this was the best way to do it. The amount of lore they decide to dump on you in this game in insane, but to someone that thinks the story is already mediocre, it almost becomes pointless learning about yet again another battle or fun fact. But I'd say around the halfway mark of the game, it actually gets really intresting. Now, with this game, I was never truly invested with the faction stories, nor the relic lore or anything like that, but I really did enjoy the somewhat character development they have with some of these characters, even having a twist I didn't expect coming. During the campaign, I first used the Colossus javelin, and man was this javelin so much fun. I usually love playing as a heavy so that's why this was my first choice, and man was it. After getting the achievements relating to this javelin, I decided to use the storm javelin, which is a build that has low armor but can be airborne for longer periods of time and uses elemental damage. I'm not gonna lie, I was hesitant on using this javelin as I definitely figured it would be lame compared to the heavy exo I was more used to using. But I found that the storm was actually really fun, being able to fly and attack from high above with elemental damage actually proves useful to situations, especially dealing with hordes. And also, imo, he had by far the coolest looking armor in the entire game (and by time I was finishing up the game, this was the javelin I used the most). Now, after getting those javelin-specific achievements for the storm, I decided to then move into using the Interceptor which was a javelin designed for speed, agility, and to be honest, melee combat in general. Honestly, didn't know this was going to be this fun. I also found a really cool color scheme for this suit that was similar to Mark Grayson's Invincible, and a Baja blast-inspired twist. Now, by time I used this exo, I was so far into the game, so using a exo that had no common gear proved to be a struggle at times. This is when I started grinding out the free play collectibles (which tbh didn't get as far as I wanted to get) but it was enough to collect enough decent loot to at least continue the campaign. Toward the end is where the story gets somewhat good too, especially a plot point revolving around a character named Owen who ends up betraying you (which to me was unexpected) but other than this and I guess some of the character interactions I had, the story just still seemed bland and not up-to-code with other BioWare games. And this is frankly sad, as Mass Effect is one of my favorite sci-fi games ever, and not because of the gameplay, but because of the rich lore they present in a mystery setting. This game doesn't have that; instead it gives you way too much info on battles, people/legends you're not familiar with, just a lot of filler that doesn't bring anything to the story. The ending with the return of the Ursix could have been an even cooler twist to the game in the end, but from there, the story just... ends... presumably because there was going to be more story updates added to the game before EA decided to shut down development. I guess there's a couple other side missions you can do but there's really not much to them except give you a little more time with certain characters. But after this, the game becomes the endgame, with very little to no plot at all. Basically, to prove you're a legend of tarsis, you have to complete a bunch of boring, grindy missions that only have so much replayability before it just becomes insufferable. Now, if the game didn't boast amazing and addicting gameplay, I would of ended my playthrough here. But because it was, and I genuinely enjoyed helping other players out with my badass javelins, I stuck with it. The first one I ended up finishing was beating 25 contracts, which in this game, is basically a "side mission" that's really just some repeatable mission with no lore and just a way to get loot. They were fun at first, since some of them had cool moments like me having to kill a Ursix, but because you have to complete 25, and there's like 3-4 variations, you're gonna be doing the same thing multiple times. The next thing I ended up finishing was both quick play and strongholds at the same time, as all I did was quick play strongholds instead of quick playing missions. This way, I was able to only have to do 25 of them, getting 2 birds in one stone but also having to do the same 3 strongholds 25 different times was annoying to say the least. But also, no one did any strongholds other than the first one so I was seriously stuck joining the same stronghold one after another after another. Definitely got old, but I definitely got my fair share of masterwork/legendary gear and weapons. Actually, because of this, I ended up getting my Storm and Colossus javelins upgraded to Masterworks class, so at least it wasn't a huge waste of time. Now, after that, the only thing I had to do was finish 100 events in freeplay, and god this was seriously insufferable. During this time, I tried my best to collect as many collectibles as possible, but it was at a certain point, I gave up. Why you ask? Well, there was no way I was gonna grind out collectibles that are literally rng based, (after dealing with that in Marvels Avengers, I decided never again) so finding certain ones (arcanist and sentinel collectibles) were next to impossible, especially since there were more rare to find. I was able to find mostly all the other collectibles, but since I've grinded this game out to it's bone, been to every square inch of the map thrice, and truthfully, didn't care that much to get more lore, nor did I care about the last achievement, I just focused on finishing the events rather than look at every question make that popped up on my compass. I mean, there is no respect for players time with that kind of gameplay, so I wasn't going to give it the time. Now, after finally grinding out these dumb events, and thinking I finally beat the endgame, yet another quest is given to you where you have to kill literal thousands of different enemies (and on top of that, I looked it up and apparently THEE final endgame mission is after that one and you have to complete daily and weekly missions) and honestly, I put my hands up. The game had robbed me enough of my time, and with this endgame just being downright pointless, I ended my play through with 118 hours logged. While I do recommend the game for people who enjoy action sci-fi games, I still think this was a huge shame coming from BioWare. I truly do think that if EA would of let Anthem 2.0 became a thing, Anthems endgame and the game as a whole would of worked so much better, but because it was left in this empty state, I wouldn't recommend playing past the games serviceable campaign.
