I dunno, I kinda think Shepard was far more the Chosen One. The major difference in my eyes isn't the McGuffin (they both have one), it's the experience. Shepard is a badass from 0600 day one, and the game never lets you forget it. And it's awesome in its own way, but the moments where Ryder can't buy the respect of his/her team (like the times they all bail on the meeting and Ryder's calling helplessly after them), the adorkable moment where Sara tries to chat up Suvi ("Kill. Me. Now."), stuff like that, that's what makes me think this is a person and not a superhero caricature. Shepard gets her own such moments later in the franchise, of course, but you don't see her earn that respect the same way you do with the Ryders.

Mind you, I wouldn't go so far as to say Andromeda is the best game in the franchise, but I still enjoyed it. I was very fortunate to never run into any major bugs, though.

>
>The Ryders not only have a specific equivalent of that in the way
>their special Pathfinder sauce interfaces with Remnant technology in a
>way that nobody else can, but the second they become Pathfinder
>everyone starts treating them like the Space Messiah who can solve all
>problems and wields vast and potent authority over everything. The
>entire reason they're allowed to retain their Pathfinder status as
>opposed to that title and the responsibility that goes with it
>transferring to Sara, who actually trained for the job, is
>because their dad arranged for them to have special gifts and powers
>that are uniquely theirs and are non-transferable.
>
>>And even with almost no one really respecting them as the hero at first,
>
>Right. The Initiative respects them so little that it can't wait to
>hand over massive amounts of its meager remaining resources to them
>and send them out to solve problems.

I have to point out that the Initiative people were way at the end of their rope before the Hyperion arrived. It's not about respect, and several people go out of their way to tell Ryder that. It's about a fatalistic hope, the last lifeline before utter despair.

Since we're on the subject, can I just say how well the Andromeda writers did in conveying the difficulty and effort needed for a colonization on this scale? In the first half of the game, I went in not really thinking about what would be needed for colonization, and every other sentence I said to myself, "OHHHH, that makes sense!"
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Fearless creatures, we all learn to fight the Reaper
Can't defeat Her, so instead I'll have to be Her