Mass Effect 3 ending SPOILERS!

[Ifrit7th]

Indeed, you sir are right again. You should really start a news letter or something so I can subscribe to it.

This is embarrassing. Please, don't feel like you need to stick around for little ol' me. How about you "explain" the endings to everyone again? You know, for old times' sake. I could use a laugh.

Same argument about smugness and sarcasm go for the side arguing against the endings too. Honestly, no matter how they ended this game, they were going to piss a large group of people off. Nothing fits better then what each fan wanted to occur, and there's no way they could have possibly seen to all of it.

 

[chibivash]

after watching that ending, i don't know if i'll be able to play through my other imports. i wasn't expecting shepard to live, being this was the end of shepard's story. i brought along expendable party members, just in case the whole party i took was gonna die. but wow, just wow. it's like they pulled that ending from no where.

 

[flipthepool]

Honestly, no matter how they ended this game, they were going to piss a large group of people off.

I think this is pretty much the worst argument ~for~ the endings, ever. I find even the asinine "The people who think the endings are terrible just don't get it!" reasoning more satisfying than this.

Because, sure, there are people who would probably be upset at whatever ending existed. There always are. But "you can't please everyone!" does NOT, in any way, excuse bad writing. And the endings, as they are, are poorly written. They directly contradict the internal logic of the game, they contradict what you see and play in the game itself, they contradict the character development that the ME games have built up through the series.

I would rather you actually believe that everyone who hates the ending is simple than to be content with what there is just because "*throws hands up* people would be upset anyways!"

Also, saying that just lumps everyone into an "unpleasable fanbase," which allows you to ignore any legitimate complaints that people might have.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

I was annoyed that you didnt get to face and destroy Harbinger at the end of the game being that he was you number one enemy throughout ME2.

 

[Agayek]

I was annoyed that you didnt get to face and destroy Harbinger at the end of the game being that he was you number one enemy throughout ME2.

Harbinger shows up right at the end. He's the Reaper that blasts Shepard right before he reaches the teleporter thing.

Also, after discussing the ending with a friend of mine, we've come to the conclusion that the last 15 minutes of the game didn't actually happen. It was all a near-death delusion Shepard came up with to comfort himself after Harbinger fried and fatally wounded him. The Reapers actually won, killing Shepard and dooming the Crucible project, before proceeding to murder the rest of the galaxy and retreat back into darkspace.

 

[Avatar Roku]

I give up trying to explain the endings to everyone. If you genuinely are interested in considering the endings from a perspective other than the knee jerk 'it didn't end with a slide show about how everyone lived happily ever after' feel free to PM me and we can discuss what possible futures are in store for the mass effect universe.

Please read this post:

I think one of the biggest problem with the endings, and why they are so unsatisfying, is because they seriously break the rule of "show, don't tell." You have this Guardian come out of nowhere, and tell you that organic life is (for some reason) destined to kill synthetic life. The issue with this is that we've seen through the game that organic life and synthetic life don't necessarily be at odds. They can even co-exist peacefully. In fact, Shepard can actively broker a peace between a synthetic species (Geth) and organics (the Quorian). This is also disregarding the fact that EDI, an AI, never had any conflict with organics, and always tried to help them and "her crew." So, we've SEEN through the game that organics can get along with synthetics, so being TOLD that they must ALWAYS end in conflict and that synthetics are destined to end organic life...well, that rings as false.

What's even worse is that the only synthetics we've seen trying to destroy organics...are the Reapers, and the Geth who follow the Reapers. So once more, being told, "No wait, those guys you've been fighting the whole time...THEY'RE ACTUALLY THE GOOD GUYS! They're trying to SAVE organic life!" Well...that's a pretty hard pill to swallow. The series didn't set up synthetics vs. organics. The series set up Reapers vs. ~everyone who isn't a Reaper!~

Also, it makes me a little uncomfortable that the ending of ME3 just seems to take at face value the fact that synthetics vs. organics is always a thing, will always be a thing (as long as they're not all merged into one big magic being), and that synthetics will ALWAYS wipe out organic life form. I find some unfortunate implications with this. Not only is it stupidly Luddite, but the fact is that a big theme in ME2 is, "do synthetic beings 'count' as lifeforms?" And it comes overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that, "yes, yes they DO count." Legion and EDI are shown to be more than just mere machines. They have feelings. They are a part of Shepard's crew. They fight for Shepard. They fight for organic life.

So, to have the game say, "Yes, these do count as a species," and then have the series say, "And they will ALWAYS take this sort of action NO MATTER WHAT," well...that's just dumb.

Think if the game came to the conclusion that, "Humans will ALWAYS destroy any other species that they come into contact with, because it is part of their nature." I'm pretty sure people would have a problem with it. Because it is a dumb statement. It would be even worse if we still had Shepard (a human) going around trying to save ALL life on the galaxy. Just like we can have EDI and Legion (synthetics) fighting FOR the organics. We see synthetics fighting for organics, so hearing that they will always be in conflict and ALL synthetics will ALWAYS take a certain destructive coarse of action...well, within the constraints of the series it seems a little...racist? Speciesist? Stupidly closed-minded? I don't know, but whatever it is, it rubs me the wrong way.

Plus, doesn't the Guardian invalidate his own logic by...you know...being a synthetic? If synthetics always try to kill organic life, why would he be trying to save ANY organic life? Wouldn't he just try to end it all?

Also, weren't the Reapers setting everyone up to be culled? It seems like, by keeping around the Mass Relays they are ensuring that technology will always evolve the same way (because, you know, that's how technology work), which ends with organics creating synthetics and the Reapers coming in and eating everything. This seems like a rigged deck to me.

Anyways, I don't have any problem with "bittersweet" endings, or even "dark" endings. I kind of figured from the beginning of the third game that Shepard was going to have to sacrifice herself, and I even figured that the Earth was probably doomed. The problem with the endings wasn't that Shepard didn't punch every Reaper in the face to death, then jump into the Normandy hot-tub and pop a bottle of Cristal.

No, the problem with the endings is that they are bad storytelling. They blatantly violate the "show, don't tell," rule to their detriment by consistently showing us one thing, and at the end telling us another (and any time you have to have an "Explainer" character at the end, your writing is suspect. Hitchcock only got away with it because he's freaking Hitchcock."). It violates one of the larger thematic elements of the last game ("Synthetics are people to! People who will ALWAYS KILL YOU."). AND, it violates its own internal logic ("Synthetic life will always destroy ALL organic life! Disregard the fact that I, a synthetic, am telling you this to try to save organic life. And the fact that Reapers, synthetics, were apparently created to save organic life.").

I'm not upset that the endings weren't happy. I wasn't expecting a happy ending. I'm just upset that the endings were stupid.

You can have a satisfying conclusion to a story and still have questions. Not everything needs to tie up into a neat little bow. In fact, frequently, "and everyone lived happily ever after" is more of an asspull than anything else. But endings DO need to fit the rest of the story. And these...don't.

Shepard has always been the patron freaking saint of self-determination. Saren says that Reapers are fated to destroy the galaxy, the only way to save everyone is to join them, Shepard says "FU," and blows Sovereign away. ~Everyone~ in ME2 says, "This is a suicide mission! You're all fated to die!" Shepard says, "FU," and lives through it, even potentially bringing his/her entire squad out the other side with him. This is the character that, against all odds, can bring together every race of the galaxy to fight a unified threat. So, you're telling me that this character, who has always done things the way he/she saw fit...this character is just going to lie down and take it when "The Guardian" says, "The galaxy is fated to end this way...because I say so!"

That just goes completely against the rest of the series! It goes completely against Shepard's character.

Look, I can understand destroying the Mass Relays. That way, the galaxy can finally be free from the Reaper influence and can have self-determination for the first time in...forever. That, thematically, makes sense. But the rest of the endings are based on a premise that I just can't believe within the context of the story. I just can't believe, from what I've seen in the games, that synthetic life will ~always~ rise up against organics. Nobody can say that they ~must~ or ~must not~ do anything, because the game pretty much determines that synthetics do have free will, and saying that any creature with free will is then ~fated~ to act a certain way just...doesn't add up.

This explains every problem I have with the ending, except the pacing issues I outlined earlier.

I was annoyed that you didnt get to face and destroy Harbinger at the end of the game being that he was you number one enemy throughout ME2.

Harbinger shows up right at the end. He's the Reaper that blasts Shepard right before he reaches the teleporter thing.

Also, after discussing the ending with a friend of mine, we've come to the conclusion that the last 15 minutes of the game didn't actually happen. It was all a near-death delusion Shepard came up with to comfort himself after Harbinger fried and fatally wounded him. The Reapers actually won, killing Shepard and dooming the Crucible project, before proceeding to murder the rest of the galaxy and retreat back into darkspace.

I prefer to think that, after defeating the Illusive Man, Shepard sat down next to Anderson and slowly drifted off as the Crucible did its job. The whole thing with the Catalyst was, as they say, her brain's final light show.

Or hell, maybe she drifted off as the Crucible didn't do its job and the Reapers won. I'm ok with sad endings (although that still has the problem of your choices not counting, but maybe they could give an epilogue where we see how successful people were against the Reapers without the Crucible, based on how much you gathered) and the Reapers winning, I just also think the confrontation with the Illusive Man was worth keeping.

 

[Jaeke]

I give up trying to explain the endings to everyone. If you genuinely are interested in considering the endings from a perspective other than the knee jerk 'it didn't end with a slide show about how everyone lived happily ever after' feel free to PM me and we can discuss what possible futures are in store for the mass effect universe.

Please read this post:

I think one of the biggest problem with the endings, and why they are so unsatisfying, is because they seriously break the rule of "show, don't tell." You have this Guardian come out of nowhere, and tell you that organic life is (for some reason) destined to kill synthetic life. The issue with this is that we've seen through the game that organic life and synthetic life don't necessarily be at odds. They can even co-exist peacefully. In fact, Shepard can actively broker a peace between a synthetic species (Geth) and organics (the Quorian). This is also disregarding the fact that EDI, an AI, never had any conflict with organics, and always tried to help them and "her crew." So, we've SEEN through the game that organics can get along with synthetics, so being TOLD that they must ALWAYS end in conflict and that synthetics are destined to end organic life...well, that rings as false.

What's even worse is that the only synthetics we've seen trying to destroy organics...are the Reapers, and the Geth who follow the Reapers. So once more, being told, "No wait, those guys you've been fighting the whole time...THEY'RE ACTUALLY THE GOOD GUYS! They're trying to SAVE organic life!" Well...that's a pretty hard pill to swallow. The series didn't set up synthetics vs. organics. The series set up Reapers vs. ~everyone who isn't a Reaper!~

Also, it makes me a little uncomfortable that the ending of ME3 just seems to take at face value the fact that synthetics vs. organics is always a thing, will always be a thing (as long as they're not all merged into one big magic being), and that synthetics will ALWAYS wipe out organic life form. I find some unfortunate implications with this. Not only is it stupidly Luddite, but the fact is that a big theme in ME2 is, "do synthetic beings 'count' as lifeforms?" And it comes overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that, "yes, yes they DO count." Legion and EDI are shown to be more than just mere machines. They have feelings. They are a part of Shepard's crew. They fight for Shepard. They fight for organic life.

So, to have the game say, "Yes, these do count as a species," and then have the series say, "And they will ALWAYS take this sort of action NO MATTER WHAT," well...that's just dumb.

Think if the game came to the conclusion that, "Humans will ALWAYS destroy any other species that they come into contact with, because it is part of their nature." I'm pretty sure people would have a problem with it. Because it is a dumb statement. It would be even worse if we still had Shepard (a human) going around trying to save ALL life on the galaxy. Just like we can have EDI and Legion (synthetics) fighting FOR the organics. We see synthetics fighting for organics, so hearing that they will always be in conflict and ALL synthetics will ALWAYS take a certain destructive coarse of action...well, within the constraints of the series it seems a little...racist? Speciesist? Stupidly closed-minded? I don't know, but whatever it is, it rubs me the wrong way.

Plus, doesn't the Guardian invalidate his own logic by...you know...being a synthetic? If synthetics always try to kill organic life, why would he be trying to save ANY organic life? Wouldn't he just try to end it all?

Also, weren't the Reapers setting everyone up to be culled? It seems like, by keeping around the Mass Relays they are ensuring that technology will always evolve the same way (because, you know, that's how technology work), which ends with organics creating synthetics and the Reapers coming in and eating everything. This seems like a rigged deck to me.

Anyways, I don't have any problem with "bittersweet" endings, or even "dark" endings. I kind of figured from the beginning of the third game that Shepard was going to have to sacrifice herself, and I even figured that the Earth was probably doomed. The problem with the endings wasn't that Shepard didn't punch every Reaper in the face to death, then jump into the Normandy hot-tub and pop a bottle of Cristal.

No, the problem with the endings is that they are bad storytelling. They blatantly violate the "show, don't tell," rule to their detriment by consistently showing us one thing, and at the end telling us another (and any time you have to have an "Explainer" character at the end, your writing is suspect. Hitchcock only got away with it because he's freaking Hitchcock."). It violates one of the larger thematic elements of the last game ("Synthetics are people to! People who will ALWAYS KILL YOU."). AND, it violates its own internal logic ("Synthetic life will always destroy ALL organic life! Disregard the fact that I, a synthetic, am telling you this to try to save organic life. And the fact that Reapers, synthetics, were apparently created to save organic life.").

I'm not upset that the endings weren't happy. I wasn't expecting a happy ending. I'm just upset that the endings were stupid.

You can have a satisfying conclusion to a story and still have questions. Not everything needs to tie up into a neat little bow. In fact, frequently, "and everyone lived happily ever after" is more of an asspull than anything else. But endings DO need to fit the rest of the story. And these...don't.

Shepard has always been the patron freaking saint of self-determination. Saren says that Reapers are fated to destroy the galaxy, the only way to save everyone is to join them, Shepard says "FU," and blows Sovereign away. ~Everyone~ in ME2 says, "This is a suicide mission! You're all fated to die!" Shepard says, "FU," and lives through it, even potentially bringing his/her entire squad out the other side with him. This is the character that, against all odds, can bring together every race of the galaxy to fight a unified threat. So, you're telling me that this character, who has always done things the way he/she saw fit...this character is just going to lie down and take it when "The Guardian" says, "The galaxy is fated to end this way...because I say so!"

That just goes completely against the rest of the series! It goes completely against Shepard's character.

Look, I can understand destroying the Mass Relays. That way, the galaxy can finally be free from the Reaper influence and can have self-determination for the first time in...forever. That, thematically, makes sense. But the rest of the endings are based on a premise that I just can't believe within the context of the story. I just can't believe, from what I've seen in the games, that synthetic life will ~always~ rise up against organics. Nobody can say that they ~must~ or ~must not~ do anything, because the game pretty much determines that synthetics do have free will, and saying that any creature with free will is then ~fated~ to act a certain way just...doesn't add up.

This explains every problem I have with the ending, except the pacing issues I outlined earlier.

I was annoyed that you didnt get to face and destroy Harbinger at the end of the game being that he was you number one enemy throughout ME2.

Harbinger shows up right at the end. He's the Reaper that blasts Shepard right before he reaches the teleporter thing.

Also, after discussing the ending with a friend of mine, we've come to the conclusion that the last 15 minutes of the game didn't actually happen. It was all a near-death delusion Shepard came up with to comfort himself after Harbinger fried and fatally wounded him. The Reapers actually won, killing Shepard and dooming the Crucible project, before proceeding to murder the rest of the galaxy and retreat back into darkspace.

I prefer to think that, after defeating the Illusive Man, Shepard sat down next to Anderson and slowly drifted off as the Crucible did its job. The whole thing with the Catalyst was, as they say, her brain's final light show.

Or hell, maybe she drifted off as the Crucible didn't do its job and the Reapers won. I'm ok with sad endings (although that still has the problem of your choices not counting, but maybe they could give an epilogue where we see how successful people were against the Reapers without the Crucible, based on how much you gathered) and the Reapers winning, I just also think the confrontation with the Illusive Man was worth keeping.

About the part especially in regards to Agayek's post, if you chose Destruction with over 5000 EFM and 100% Galactic Rediness, at the very end it shows a cutscene of a pile of rubble surrounding a crude blackened round shape that is slightly showing, and through the breaks of the rock, a dim but noticable reflection is present, upon closer inspection, it is a pair of dog tags with N7 engraved into them. Off in the distance the sound of several large explosions and Reaper audio is played, just before the scene cuts into black... the figure moves suddenly and you hear Shepard make his first breath.



After a few hours ive taken to get over the massive butthurt over the ending, ive now come to one of two conclusions.

One, which i think the most likely:
Harbinger shot Shepard, destroyed the ground Hammer Forces (at least 95% of them at the scene that charged for the portal that took them to the Citadel), the last 15 minutes of the game with Shepard didn't PHYSICALY OCCUR, the bit with Shepard confronting the Illusive Man and the Catalyst, Shepard's conciousness broke down and that's why the Catalyst is showed as the child that Shepard has nightmare's about, but infact the endings of the game are roughly reflective of Shepard's personal decisions and serve as a proxy that is indicative of what happens when Shepard does finally regains conciousness. The reason this secret ending is shown exclusive for the Destruction choice is because you chose that his will to stop the Repears is so great that he will plunge into chaos to stop them in the name of humanity's future.

or Two:
Shepard did get to the Citadel, the Illusive Man died, and Shepard and Anderson, sitting down side-by-side, not as soldiers of a long, depressing, and horrible war, but as old friends as they watch the sacrifice they made, not once, but time and time again finally pay off. Just as Shepard witnesses Anderson passing away after Anderson tells him of how proud he of Shepard, an event similar to the first conclusion I gave occurs where his conciousness collapses under the weight of the loss of his friends, years of arduous fighting, and the relief of it all ending, he hears Hackett through his radio, and in his trance of near death hallucinates Hackett distressing that something has gone wrong and as Shepard struggles to the console, something is indeed activated and he is teleported back to Earth

I just hope that the ending they gave us is not the true shit-stain of an excuse that was given to us.

 

[SajuukKhar]

After a few hours ive taken to get over the massive butthurt over the ending, ive now come to one of two conclusions.

One:
Harbinger shot Shepard, destroyed the ground Hammer Forces (at least 95% of them at the scene that charged for the portal that took them to the Citadel), the last 15 minutes of the game with Shepard didn't PHYSICALY OCCUR, the bit with Shepard confronting, Shepard's conciousness broke down and that's why the Catalyst is showed as the child that Shepard has nightmare's about, but infact the endings of the game are roughly reflective of Shepard's personal and serve as a proxy that is indicative of what happens when Shepard does finally regains conciousness.

or Two:
Shepard did get to the Citadel, the Illusive Man died, and Shepard and Anderson, sitting down side-by-side, not as soldiers of a long, depressing, and horrible war, but as old friends as they watch the sacrifice they made, not once, but time and time again finally pay off. Just as Shepard witnesses Anderson passing away after Anderson tells him of how proud he of Shepard, an event similar to the first conclusion I gave occurs where his conciousness collapses under the weight of the loss of his friends, years of arduous fighting, and the relief of it all ending.

I just hope that the ending they gave us is not the true shit-stain of an excuse that was given to us.

-Says original ending is bad.
-Makes up equally bad endings that make no sense within the story
-Says they are better then the original ending which, while it did strand the Normandy far away, fit within the themes of the game

Contradictions much?

 

[Agayek]

-Says original ending is bad.
-Makes up equally bad endings that make no sense within the story
-Says they are better then the original ending which, while it did strand the Normandy far away, fit within the themes of the game

Contradictions much?

While his suggestions aren't significantly better, the original ending in no way, shape or form fits within the themes of the game. Everything about it was a colossal failure. From the moment the Catalyst appeared, it became utterly and completely retarded.

To start, the general tone of the series has always been relatively optimistic. It routinely goes "We're outmatched, but we can win this!". Mass Effect 3 ends on an incredibly fatalistic and pessimistic approach. The tonal whiplash is more than a bit disconcerting.

Second, nothing the kid says makes any sense whatsoever. You seriously don't see a problem with the logic involved in "In order to stop people from making robots that kill them, I'm going to make robots that kill them"? It's akin to saving someone from being shot by slitting their throat. It's completely illogical, and incredibly inefficient, especially when one takes into account what the Catalyst is apparently capable of.

Third, all of the choices are exactly the fucking same. A proper epilogue would do a great deal to alleviate this particular problem, but they didn't give us that. No matter which choice you make, the only difference in the cutscene is the color of the beam.

Beyond that, none of your choices up to that point have any impact whatsoever. It doesn't matter what forces you gathered or what choices you made throughout the game (or the previous games). None of it is taken into account at the end of the game. It's just as restrictive and idiotic as Deus Ex Human Revolution's ending was.

 

[SajuukKhar]

While his suggestions aren't significantly better, the original ending in no way, shape or form fits within the themes of the game. Everything about it was a colossal failure. From the moment the Catalyst appeared, it became utterly and completely retarded.

To start, the general tone of the series has always been relatively optimistic. It routinely goes "We're outmatched, but we can win this!". Mass Effect 3 ends on an incredibly fatalistic and pessimistic approach. The tonal whiplash is more than a bit disconcerting.

Second, nothing the kid says makes any sense whatsoever. You seriously don't see a problem with the logic involved in "In order to stop people from making robots that kill them, I'm going to make robots that kill them"? It's akin to saving someone from being shot by slitting their throat. It's completely illogical, and incredibly inefficient, especially when one takes into account what the Catalyst is apparently capable of.

Third, all of the choices are exactly the fucking same. A proper epilogue would do a great deal to alleviate this particular problem, but they didn't give us that. No matter which choice you make, the only difference in the cutscene is the color of the beam.

Beyond that, none of your choices up to that point have any impact whatsoever. It doesn't matter what forces you gathered or what choices you made throughout the game (or the previous games). None of it is taken into account at the end of the game. It's just as restrictive and idiotic as Deus Ex Human Revolution's ending was.

A game about giant machines that control galactic civilizations technological and societal evolution using a system of technology that all lifeforms will base their technology around thus limiting them in their development and giving the evil machines a easier chance at destroying them ending with the a heroes sacrifice to destroy said controlling technology so the races of the future will have a chance to go down their own path instead of the limited one made for them by the badguys isn't a consistent theme?
.
.
The game ends with you freeing the races of the galaxy and giving them a chance to start again, this time down their own technological and societal path instead of the ones the badguys made, that's a pretty hopeful ending.
.
.
thirdly as the Catalyst says at the end of the game, IT CAN ONLY DO THOSE THINGS BECAUSE SHEPARD IS THERE,up until that point it was doing what it only could do. did you listen at all?

 

[Agayek]

A game about giant machines that control galactic civilizations technological and societal evolution using a system of technology that all lifeforms will base their technology around thus limiting them in their development and giving the evil machines a easier chance at destroying them ending with the a heroes sacrifice to destroy said controlling technology so the races of the future will have a chance to go down their own path instead of the limited one made for them by the badguys isn't a consistent theme?

Your confusing plot with theme. The actual events make a modicum of sense (barring the Normandy randomly being in transit along a relay for no reason). The problem is the massive tonal shift when the Catalyst showed up.

As I said, and I can't make it any more explicit than this: The entire series up to that point was highly optimistic.

Again and again, the point is hammered home that while the organics of the galaxy may be outmatched by the Reapers, they will fight as best they can. They may be outmatched, but they're up to the challenge is the base theme of ME1, 2 and most of 3. It'll be hard, but in the end, they'd win.

Then the ending happens, and Shepard suddenly becomes completely passive, fatalistic and accepting. None of those endings were good, yet he sat there with a dumb look on his face and accepted everything the Catalyst said without question. He didn't even try to fight against it.

The endings are all utterly depressing, and it suffers from a massive tonal shift between the Illusive Man dying and the Catalyst showing up.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Your confusing plot with theme. The actual events make a modicum of sense (barring the Normandy randomly being in transit along a relay for no reason). The problem is the massive tonal shift when the Catalyst showed up.

As I said, and I can't make it any more explicit than this: The entire series up to that point was highly optimistic.

Again and again, the point is hammered home that while the organics of the galaxy may be outmatched by the Reapers, they will fight as best they can. They may be outmatched, but they're up to the challenge is the base theme of ME1, 2 and most of 3. It'll be hard, but in the end, they'd win.

Then the ending happens, and Shepard suddenly becomes completely passive, fatalistic and accepting. None of those endings were good, yet he sat there with a dumb look on his face and accepted everything the Catalyst said without question. He didn't even try to fight against it.

The endings are all utterly depressing, and it suffers from a massive tonal shift between the Illusive Man dying and the Catalyst showing up.

As I said before

freeing the civilizations of the galactic from The Reapers path and allowing them to rebuild down their own technological and societal path instead of the heavily controlled and limited one of the reapers is a depressing ending?

You must have a really downer view on life then.

 

[m72_ar]

They nailed how to make a proper ending in DA: Origins.

Your choice matters, while it may not have affected anything in game it is reflected in the epilogue.

Here? WTF?
I'm okay with the Star Child and the Ending-Tron 3000.
I'm okay with Normandy suddenly jumping on a Mass Relay

What pisses me off is your in game choice doesn't matter at all, why did I even bother brokering peace between Krogan and Turian? why did i bother reconcile Geth and Quarian?

Why did I bother doing anything for the war effort here?, does it even affect anything?

Apparently they have money to call Buzz Aldrin (I would say Freddie Prinze, but I actually kinda liked Vega) and fancy cutscene. but they don't have the cash to pay a pair of writers a week to write a paragraph about every characters and locations, an intern to take a screenshot on the relevant characters and locations, and have the VA read one more paragraph.

Why Bioware? You did this is in DA:O, you did this in BG2, you even did a proper ending in ME2 (at least your choice means something in ME2)?

My name is Commander Shephard and Stephanie Meyer can write a better ending than this shit

P.S.
EA Marketing: We will be releasing proper mass effect 3 ending as a 30$ DLC

 

[Agayek]

The game ends with you freeing the races of the galaxy and giving them a chance to start again, this time down their own technological and societal path instead of the ones the badguys made, that's a pretty hopeful ending.

No it's not. Billions, if not trillions, of people are going to die. Whole worlds are going to starve due to the relays exploding, and that's only if the relays don't kill them all first. Remember how in ME2 destroying a relay is enough to wipe out an entire solar system? That same will be true of every system with a relay in it.

Easily 60% of the galaxy is going to be utterly destroyed, at minimum.

Not to mention it sets back societal progress by thousands of years. You see using eezo tech as inherently bad. This is not the case. The Reapers wanted people to go down that path because it would make them reliant on the mass relays, which they controlled, and therefore easier to harvest. That's it. Once the Reapers are gone, there are literally no downsides to continuing to use the same technology. If anything, there's incentive to use that tech, because they actually understand parts of it.

thirdly as the Catalyst says at the end of the game, IT CAN ONLY DO THOSE THINGS BECAUSE SHEPARD IS THERE,up until that point it was doing what it only could do. did you listen at all?

While true that the Catalyst cannot explicitly do something like wipe out all synthetics in the galaxy without the Crucible, that doesn't mean he can't do anything. For one, it controls the Reapers and all of their tech. That means it's more than capable of anything the Reapers can accomplish, putting it thousands of years (technologically speaking) ahead of humanity in Mass Effect.

That's not even the real issue though. The real issue is that it's logic is flawed on every level. "I'll make robots to kill everyone before they can make robots that kill them" is inherently invalid. The logic is not sound, it does not solve the problem, and it's incredibly stupid. There is no basis for the Catalyst's logic, and considering the fact that its argument is disproven not three priority missions before, it rings as decidedly pathetic and lazy on Bioware's part.

 

[Agayek]

As I said before

freeing the civilizations of the galactic from The Reapers path and allowing them to rebuild down their own technological and societal path instead of the heavily controlled and limited one of the reapers is a depressing ending?

You must have a really downer view on life then.

Once again, you are confusing the events with the theme. The recurring theme of "we can reach a better future" runs throughout, then at the very end Shepard abandons it completely.

Beyond that, destroying galactic civilization and condemning trillions to death, by fire or starvation, is not a positive ending. It doesn't matter what you use to excuse it, it is not a positive thing.

Furthermore, with the Reapers gone, there's nothing holding back their technology from progressing until it exceeds where the Reapers once were. As mentioned above, there's nothing inherently wrong with eezo tech, it was simply the most convenient way for the Reapers to consume the organics. Without the Reapers, there's no downside to continuing along that path.

 

[m72_ar]

-Says original ending is bad.
-Makes up equally bad endings that make no sense within the story
-Says they are better then the original ending which, while it did strand the Normandy far away, fit within the themes of the game

Contradictions much?

While his suggestions aren't significantly better, the original ending in no way, shape or form fits within the themes of the game. Everything about it was a colossal failure. From the moment the Catalyst appeared, it became utterly and completely retarded.

To start, the general tone of the series has always been relatively optimistic. It routinely goes "We're outmatched, but we can win this!". Mass Effect 3 ends on an incredibly fatalistic and pessimistic approach. The tonal whiplash is more than a bit disconcerting.

Second, nothing the kid says makes any sense whatsoever. You seriously don't see a problem with the logic involved in "In order to stop people from making robots that kill them, I'm going to make robots that kill them"? It's akin to saving someone from being shot by slitting their throat. It's completely illogical, and incredibly inefficient, especially when one takes into account what the Catalyst is apparently capable of.

Third, all of the choices are exactly the fucking same. A proper epilogue would do a great deal to alleviate this particular problem, but they didn't give us that. No matter which choice you make, the only difference in the cutscene is the color of the beam.

Beyond that, none of your choices up to that point have any impact whatsoever. It doesn't matter what forces you gathered or what choices you made throughout the game (or the previous games). None of it is taken into account at the end of the game. It's just as restrictive and idiotic as Deus Ex Human Revolution's ending was.

Difference is DX: HR never claims that your decision will effect the ending.

ME3 on the other hand has been hyping that since day one "Your choice in the game and the previous game will shape the ending!!" what we got instead is a Fallout 3 style claim where they say they have 100 different ending when what they mean is they got 2 but there is a slight variation in the end cutscene which doesn't really say anthing.

Secondly, the Original DX did the same thing with the ending (EndingTron 3000 style ending selection) so they're at least consistent

Lastly, it is a prequel so they're restricted to what they can have as an ending.

While I agree Human Revolution ending can be done better, it's an okay ending to a great game. Nothing to talk about but it is not too damaging to the game as a whole.

ME 3 ending on the other hand, managed to ruin a 30 hour game within 10 minutes

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

Are you purposefully ignoring the fact that there is a major difference between the arrival Relay and the ME3 relays in that
1. The Arrival relay was putting out far more power then a normal relay because of its Alpha relay status
2. The relays at the end of ME3 used ALL of their power in their pulse waves that enacted whatever choice Shepard picked and thus would have had no energy left to create a supernova system destroying energy wave.

So no 60% of the galaxy's destruction there
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Actually all it did was remove the relays, the civilizations of the galaxy never built, or even fully understood, the relays. Thus in a post-relay world they would still be exactly where they were technologically they just have to get to a point were they can build relays, which they already were ages away from doing anyways. the big difference now is that they can do it on their own time, using their own methods, and their own designed, and make a BETTER future for themselves because they are not constrained by the Reapers path.
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Except the big thing you are forgetting is that the peace with The Geth was ONLY possible because of The Reaper War.

Had The Reaper's never attacked the Geth would have stayed behind the Perseus Viel and suffered from centuries more attacks by the quarrians and other organics who fear/distrust Synthetic life, the situation that allowed for Shepard to make peace will have never even come up, which EASILY sets up for the Geth attacking and starting a war.

How people can think "If the situations for what caused the peace never existed the peace would have still been made" s beyond me, its such flawed and illogical thinking.

 

[Uszi]

Penalties called:

1. Forcing players to destroy the Geth if they want to destroy the reapers is a violation.

2. Using the played out Organic/Synthetic Synthesis idea, which in ME3 involves too much goofy plot magic to be believable.

3. Forcing the players to destroy the relays. What makes the games great is the sense of exploration and freedom one gets, the hopeful feeling being able to zip from one side of the galaxy to another to fix a really serious problem or do something awesome/bad ass. Destroying the relays kills the spirit of Mass Effect.

4. Forcing the player to die, not allowing any ending where the player meets back up with his squad or survives in some capacity.

5. Not giving any explanation for what happens to the other races or your squad mates.

6. A meaningless, nonsense cinematic wherein the Normandy crash lands on some deserted planet, guaranteeing the deaths of all the squad mates. No explanation given for why the Normandy is trying to navigate the relays when they're detonating.

I mean, seriously. I want at the very least to understand how the game ends if I've played the same save file for 90 hours.