So I'm a huge fan of Mass 1 (my favourite in the series) and I've put 7+ hours into the trial now. For the most part, I'd say it's capturing that Mass 1 story vibe better than 2 and 3 did so far, but so far for all the same reasons that The Force Awakens recaptured A New Hope's story vibe. It very much feels like "same shit different day", but for all the right reasons.
HOWEVER
And it's a pretty big however. One of the main reasons I loved Mass 1 is because it was trying something completely refreshing. Not only was it a brand new IP, it was one of the first successful RPGs to really integrate action-based shooting mechanics into a role playing combat system. It introduced the dialogue wheel as a brand new method of conversation to video games, and it was insanely impressive by visual standards. The game very much felt like it was trying to move the genre forwards (and absolutely did, of course). Andromeda on the other hand... well it isn't moving anything forwards. If anything it's as though it's striving to stay BEHIND the curve. So while games like The Witcher 3 have redefined expectations when it comes to writing (even for side quests), environment design, and completely seamless open world environments, Andromeda is doing absolutely nothing new, and only relying on rebuilding everything Mass Effect as a series had already done last gen but in a modern engine. And it doesn't even take advantage of an industry-leading engine to push visuals and animation quality - even those aspects make it feel like a PS3.5 game.
Finally, where story is concerned it's impossible to say where that quality will sit overall, but most Bioware fans mean they love character writing when they mention story. Bioware have always struggled with writing plots, whether that's with games that have basic plotlines so short they need to pad 80% of the game with entirely disconnected side plots (DA:O), no real plotline to speak of at all that instead relies purely on character writing and development (Mass Effect 2), or in the case of Mass Effect 1 a plot line that is completely broken right from the very start: Saren is looking for the Conduit so he can get inside the Citadel and flip the switch that calls for the Reapers. He needs this backdoor entrance from the Conduit because his Spectre status has been revoked and he is branded as a criminal for his actions during his... search for the Conduit... hmmm. But what Mass 1 did succeed in was creating this sense of mystery and an ancient evil beyond comprehension, all drip fed at perfect intervals throughout the game. And so far Andromeda seems to be setting up a similar ancient mystery. My only concern here is that the writing team couldn't deliver on Mass 1's Reaper mystery. They set it all up perfectly with Mass 1, completely ignored it in Mass 2 and created the Collectors for you to deal with instead while they worked out what to do about the Reapers in Mass 3, which amounted to... well not much of anything. Most fans will still agree that the Reaper story (especially Harbinger) was left unfinished. We've all had to create headcanon endings.
So to me Andromeda will depend on a quality story, and quality character writing, which at this point is anyone's guess. We'll have to wait on reviews and our own playthroughs to see if it delivers there. But when it comes to the other elements that made Mass 1 so great (brand new industry-leading advancements in gameplay and visuals) Andromeda brings nothing to the table, and if anything disappoints. I'm worried this will be another Fallout 4 - a decent enough game that feels mostly "by the numbers", doesn't really excel at anything in particular, and fails to meet fans' lofty expectations set by previous entries in the series.
