Ok, Bioware you're *somewhat* forgiven

[wooty]

Ive onlt just picked up ME2 and I am currently building up to ME3, but the one thing I want to know from this whole ridiculous saga is this:-

Is Mass Effect 3 good to play?

Thats all, to hell with the dlc, I wont use it. To hell with the "bad" ending, I'm very sure Ive seen worse over the years. To hell with the gay choices, I just wont select them.

Just, is the game fun to play and will it take up more than 30+ hours?

*Additional: I got the answers I was after, thanks for clearing things up.

 

[9thRequiem]

5. I thought the ending was so terrible it comes close to retroactively destroying my enjoyment of the entire series.

as in 'and then shepard woke up and realized it was all a dream' bad?

We wish it was only that bad.

Yeah - "It was all a dream" would be a big step up. Even the Penny Arcade "All the Reapers turned into ice cream" would be a step up.
Truth is, if you've not yet played it, wait before you comment. But it's not the "Downer" side that really bugs me.

Ive onlt just picked up ME2 and I am currently building up to ME3, but the one thing I want to know from this whole ridiculous saga is this:-

Is Mass Effect 3 good to play?

Thats all, to hell with the dlc, I wont use it. To hell with the "bad" ending, I'm very sure Ive seen worse over the years. To hell with the gay choices, I just wont select them.

Just, is the game fun to play and will it take up more than 30+ hours?

Yes, it is fun to play - up until the last 10 minutes, it's all kinds of awesome.
It will last around 30 hours ish, depending on how completion-heavy you are, but it's longer than ME2, and well worth playing.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

It ignored any set of conventional writing tropes and basic writing guidelines in order to introduce something that was previously unexplained. Which may sounds like a good thing, but the reason why they are tropes in the first place is because they work.

Mass Effect followed a pretty conventional writing style. Introduction, rising action, climax, descending action, resolution (or something like that, writing class was a while ago for me). And also, it's worth adding that whatever direction they decided to take, the one thing Bioware needed to do was to actually have a epilogue tying up all the character's loose ends, which it neglected.

There's examples of the stories that can go neglect this basic writing style, but generally there's an underlying point to all of it, and it's usually much better done. But you absolutely do not do it to a conventional trilogy like Mass Effect.

What happened in Mass Effect 3, was that it sort of got to descending action, and then followed it up with another out of the blue thing that really just disrupted whatever was suppose to be going on. It made no sense, was extremely complicated, and the whole time that the little shit was explaining how it worked you couldn't help but ask either "why? That makes no sense" or "no, because I just disproved that point throughout the game".

And relying on the stupid little "this is just how it is" without adequately backing it... anyways.

I think what happened was that they wanted to have the ending go out with a bang, and they wanted it to leave an impression on you. But the only impression it left with everyone was "Why did you end it in the worst possible way", and to me personally, "That was fucking stupid", because in all fairness, it was. We expected a conventional ending. We were left with more questions than answers. It wasn't just that it was a sad ending. It was a sad ending for no reason.

It didn't work for the Matrix, it's sure as shit not gonna work for this game.

When people say that it effectively ruined the entire series for them, they aren't lying. When there's something that is that profoundly negative and nonsensical manages to have an outcry from nearly every person who played your game, you should probably take that as a sign that you fucked up.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Ive onlt just picked up ME2 and I am currently building up to ME3, but the one thing I want to know from this whole ridiculous saga is this:-

Is Mass Effect 3 good to play?

Thats all, to hell with the dlc, I wont use it. To hell with the "bad" ending, I'm very sure Ive seen worse over the years. To hell with the gay choices, I just wont select them.

Just, is the game fun to play and will it take up more than 30+ hours?

Until the last 10 minutes, it's the best game I've ever played.

Does that help your decision

 

[Sexy Devil]

I still haven't played ME3 because of that day-1-dlc farce, but judging from the vague descriptions I hear about the game's ending, I *might* be willing to forgive Bioware and actually pay $70 for this.

Correct me if I'm wrong but the ending is:
a) a downer
b) negates some of choices you made along the way

I might be in the minority on this, but I consider that a GOOD thing. Not every story needs to have a happy ending with the overpowered stalwart hero saving the universe for the evil supreme beings. Maybe the message is that no matter what you do or how hard you try, you just can't win. That's a perfectly acceptable ending in my opinion.

It helps build atmosphere and suspense if I can't laughably predict how a game/movie's plot will unfold. It makes commander Shepard into a character that I can actually sympathize with. I didn't even like him that much in the first two games because he reminds me of:

a) the popular jock that can get away with stealing my lunch money because he can throw a ball (renegade shepard obviously)
or
b) the virtuous straight A, handsome, nice jock (who can also throw a ball) that everyone points to and asks 'why can't you be more like him?' (paragon shep)

The story is much more interesting to me if the protagonist is struggling against an ACTUAL insurmountable force rather than strolling invincibly through the enemy base or *pretending* to be vulnerable and then pulling a BFG9000 out of his ass to slaughter the bad guy to avenge his family.

I applaud whoever wrote this for putting in some actual thought into his/her work rather than applying the same cookie cutter 'Shepard saves the universe! hip hip hooray!' storyline from the ME1 and 2.
Congratulations Bioware, I hereby pardon you for the heinous crime of trying to sell me $10 day 1 dlc.



Agree? Disagree? or am I just a cynical, overcompensating a-hole?

You're perfectly within your rights to not care that the ending is a downer. Hell, I don't care that it's a downer.

The main issue is that there's an incredibly jarring tonal shift in the last sequence. There's also a whole lot of bits that literally make no sense (not talking about the Reaper plan, that made perfect sense in morbid efficiency-based logic which a machine would use). And they somehow managed to fit an unbelievable amount of plotholes into the last five minutes, when they'd gone the whole game up to then with barely any.

But the main problem, is that the endings are basically exactly the same. Pretty much all that changes is the explosion colour.

It's just bad writing, to put it plainly. But as I've said the rest of the game is really solid so you should probably still get it.

as in 'and then shepard woke up and realized it was all a dream' bad?

As in it's so bad that people are making theories that it was all a dream out of denial.

 

[veloper]

The way I see it there's a big upside to all this, so maybe Bioware should be forgiven, but for entirely different reasons.

This ending may have ended the entire franchise. No more shepard, no more mass relays, no more setting.

That may be for the best. Going out with a bang, instead of a drawn out decline. It's no secret Bioware is going the way of Westwood, Origin and other EA acquisitions. Now ME can die with some dignity. ME was still Bioware's best out of their more recent games.

It almost feels deliberate.

 

[Right Hook]

Correct me if I'm wrong but the ending is:
a) a downer
b) negates some of choices you made along the way

You've not played it, presumably, and are apparently unspoiled, so I don't want to be the guy who wrecks that for you.

You may want to know that A) is not an issue at all, and B) is only the tip of the iceberg.

Here's some general facts for you...

1. I liked the Sopranos ending.
2. I liked the Lost ending.
3. I generally enjoyed DA2 quite a lot.
4. I thought 98% of ME3 was surpassingly excellent.
5. I thought the ending was so terrible it comes close to retroactively destroying my enjoyment of the entire series.

Yes you are mistaking the ending of ME3 as a downer ending, which isn't the problem, the problem is that it is a bad ending and that has nothing to do with it being somber in tone, it has more to do with giant fucking plot holes and so much left up in the air where it just feels like a 'fuck you halo 2' style ending.

 

[wintercoat]

b) It doesn't just negate some. It ignores ALL. No matter the choices you made in all three games, the ending plays out exactly the same way every single time.

That's what I'm wondering about. Is the game is intentionally trying to convey the message that 'choice is an illusion or whatever' (and subtle/ambiguous enough that people just didn't pick up on it) or is it just a blindsided cock slap with no context or reason like the 'it was all a dream' example?

either way, I'm now sufficiently curious enough to find out what could possibly enrage so many loyal fans to buy the game for that reason alone.

You are given two mushroom tattoos. You're smacked across the face with Bioware's meaty appendage when the Catalyst is spouting bullshit at you, and once more when you replay the last bit to see the other endings and learn that they're all the same. One on each cheek my friend. One on each cheek.

 

[Right Hook]

One reaper was like the biggest fucking deal ever, and in the 3rd game theres a whole armada of the fuckers and we just happen to be able to hold our own for the entire game. Yea thats credible

I kinda felt the same way but I think part of it was that the combined ships stationed at the citadel weren't nearly the same kind of firepower used to defend entire planets and even if they were, ship to ship battle with a reaper on the citadel would be extremely hard. Sovereign used the citadel as cover and fired from it, while the ships couldn't properly attack without causing massive collateral damage to people on the citadel. Also until the end of ME3 nobody was really holding their own, it was more like this is about as fast as the reapers can kill us and we are just getting in the way to buy a little more time.

 

[Bvenged]

Ive onlt just picked up ME2 and I am currently building up to ME3, but the one thing I want to know from this whole ridiculous saga is this:-

Is Mass Effect 3 good to play?

Thats all, to hell with the dlc, I wont use it. To hell with the "bad" ending, I'm very sure Ive seen worse over the years. To hell with the gay choices, I just wont select them.

Just, is the game fun to play and will it take up more than 30+ hours?

Yes, it is absolutely fantastic. Worth £38.99 of the £39.99 I paid for it. Even after completion I'm still playing the multiplayer with friends... but when they start asking me questions...

"So Bvenged, I'm getting close to the ending!..." (expecting me to sweettalk about it).

"You there, Bvenged?"

"Yeah I'm there, cool...
It was good ending, you'll love it."

 

[Keava]

The problem with ME3 ending was there was no ending. It cut at pretty much nothing, not giving any explanation of WTF is going on. That's not how you end trilogy, that's how you can end part 1 of 2part episode on tv show.
Maybe that's actually the plan, keep Your ME3 saves because in a year (+10 years like Valve) we will see ME:3 Episode:2.

For a game with so many strong moments in final part alone (Tuchanka, Rannoch, Thessia closure) it completely fails to deliver any emotion at the final point of whole series. It's not about this or that character dying, each of the locations I mentioned you have a real tough moment and it's presented in great way, with proper tone to it, but at the very end you feel nothing at all, just void.

Imagine if last scene of LOTR was Gollum jumping with the ring into Mt. Doom, You see a brief moment as the Eye of Sauron goes offline... and cut to credits, nothing else.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

I like the way you completely miss the point of why people are annoyed at the ending.

No one was asking for a smiles and sunshine ending where everything works out perfectly for everyone involved.

Play the game and experience the ending before calling people out on not liking it.

 

[Merrick_HLC]

I can't speak for everyone, but personally the thing with me is.
IT's not that it's a 'downer' ending and I hate those.

I love lots of movies & shows with downer endings.

The problem for me is...it doesn't even feel like an ending.

It's not "The story ends" it's "The story just stops"

Let me put it this way, try to think of a movie, book, or anything that just STOPS and doesn't really feature any sort of monologue.

The first Star Wars doesn't just end when the Death Star blows up.
None of the Marvel comics movies just end when the bad guy is beaten.

They all follow through on it, there's this descending action that cools you off from the epic finish and goes "this is the ending"

(I realize I'm using happy ending examples, but same holds true for downer endings too)

 

[KelsieKatt]

While there are some people complaining about it being depressing, that's not remotely the issue with the ending itself. As it is, I personally love tragedy stories and I was still left scratching my head when the credits rolled on screen.

This is about as vague as I can possibly make it without posting direct spoilers.

1. Continuity. We see people die, only to have them appear completely unharmed moments later for no particular reason. Not to mention, why they're even there makes no logical sense anyway considering it was a giant battle just a moment ago, unless they chickened out and ran away for some unexplained reason.

2. No closure at all. Immediately after the Reapers are defeated, the game just abruptly ends with credits in your face and tons and tons of questions as to what the hell the fate of everyone is. The only epilogue we get is some stupid creepy old grandpa telling a kid about how Shepard is awesome with bad voice acting, followed by a screen that says "Congratulations, you beat the game, now go buy DLC."

3. Every ending is quite literally the same, they actually reused most of the cutscene footage and changed the color of it. No, I'm not joking... There's even comparison videos on youtube that show every ending side-by-side and they're almost entirely copy pasted. There was generally no point in allowing us to pick anything.

4. The final revelation is extremely vague, short and completely contradicts the entire theme of the series. Out of nowhere we're told that some of our friends are apparently evil and will kill us all, so we need to be saved from them and betray many we've worked so hard to build friendships with. No room is given to question it because we don't get any dialogue wheel options, we're just supposed to accept it at face value. It's especially confusing if you managed to make peace as well, not to mention those being 'blamed' by the Reapers have always been the victims since day one. So... we're just supposed to betray innocent victims because some stupid AI I've never met told me in the last 5 minutes that they're evil on a whim?

---

If you're suddenly thinking to yourself that I and everyone else must have misunderstood the ending somehow, congratulations, you've just experienced the Indoctrination Theory. This is the only rational explanation anyone can come up with to explain why BioWare would make something so illogical.

 

[Sylveria]

Don't worry about the ending kids, they're gonna sell you the real ending as DLC later on. $29.95 for a cut scene that fills in all the plot holes and you'll buy it cause you've gleefully bought everything BiowarEA has sold you with this game (bot figuratively and literally) from the Day 1 DLC that was cut from the game to the behind the scenes of ME3 footage that gave incontrovertible evidence that not only did they cut stuff from the game, they lied about not doing it, and they outright hate all their fans and gave you a troll ending just to see how many of the sheep would flock to be their muttony meat-shields.

 

[SpaceBat]

It's not that it's a downer or anything, it's just badly written as it is now.
There is however an alternate theory that improves the ending immensely.

So basically,
Game with regular ending = 99% Brilliance, 1% disappointment and failure.
Game with theorized ending = 100% brilliance.

Don't listen to people saying that the entire game is shit because of the ending, they're just overreacting to an extreme extent. Pick the game up, because the last 5 minutes of the game doesn't nullify the sheer excellence of the other 39 hours and 55 minutes.
It's definitely worth playing and I heavily recommend that you join the alternate theory group. It makes a lot more sense than just looking at it regularly.

There is a rumor going on that they're going to release some extra ending content later for free, but I don't know how much of it is true.

 

[Danial]

Unless I'm mistaken, the last 2 Mass effect had Pick A B or C endings, (Well A or B in Me2) without the anger or pain seen here. You could still play as a good guy for the full game then ignore all that and be evil at the last second.

 

[iseko]

The endings can stay the same. They just have to add a few things to it.

Spoiler

1) I hate that catalyst kid in the end. Let the citadel be the catalyst but don't give it a consciousness. Instead replace the kid with harbinger. Harbinger will try and stop you by explaining the reason for them doing the wipe-out thing.

That part I actually like btw. The reapers wipe out advanced organic life to make sure organic life continues to exist. It's like pruning your garden. Only with giant lasers. They are trying to do a good thing. In a bad way of course.

2) You have three choices. Add a BIT of difference between the ending cut scenes. Not just the colour of the explosion.

3) Shepard can die. After the sh*t my shepard has done he probably deserves it (renegade). Just give us closure. Show us that we conquered the reapers. If 99% of the universe is wiped out that is fine. Just show a few images of palavin etc when they are destroyed and void of life. Then show the few people that did survive. If our companions died, show us the dead body's. The once that did survive, let them have a say.

The general idea behind the endings isn't bad. I mean, they are the reapers. A happy ending isn't an option. They just had the make the endings longer with more closure.

That's what I liked when I was playing the rest of the game. You have to make hard choices. Who lives and who dies. Sometimes, no matter what you do, a person will die. And it sucks but at least you can see the results of you choices afterwards. Like the bit with the geth and the quarians. People who have played the game will know what I mean.

 

[Thraxen]

Yes, it is fun to play - up until the last 10 minutes, it's all kinds of awesome.
It will last around 30 hours ish, depending on how completion-heavy you are, but it's longer than ME2, and well worth playing.

I thought it was a fair bit shorter than ME2. It took me about 50 hours for a full completion run, whereas ME3 was only about 35. But I suppose that's not including the time I've spent playing multiplayer.