pbteyeofharmony said:
Synthesis. It fits with how my Shepard does things. I already united one group of synthetics and organics. Why not do the same with the Reapers? And whining about the endings is not going to change anything. It's weird, but not bad. I don't see where all the hate is coming from, seriously.
Yes it's bad.
1) It's full of plotholes. In the variant where Shephard survives (yes it's possible to get that one), he or she wakes up in a bunch of rubble on earth. Now last time i saw Shephard, he was on a giant space station several hundred kilometers above earth, without and airtight suit. How does someone survive a fall from space?
2) It brings "supernatural" into a "sci-fi" universe. Mass Effect fields, as the game have established, are energy fields created by running electricity through Element Zero, and they have the properties of creating kinetic (or in the case of biotics, telekinetic) fields, as well as modifying the space-time mass of objects allowing faster than light travel. When Mass Effect jumped from that to "galaxy expanding energy-novas that can rewrite the DNA/structure of synthetics and organics", the game essentially went from being Mass Effect to being
Magic Effect, aka. all-purpose-plot-insulation syndrome.
3) It tries to explain things that are better left unexplained. To quote Yahtzee: "
This isn't rocket science. Mysteries lose all their appeal the instant you explain them."
It is beyond me why BioWare didn't just stick to the Mass Effect 1 explanation of Reapers from Sovereign ("We simply are."), leaving the fantasy of the gamer some mystique to play around with while fighting an enemy they don't entirely understand. The Reapers didn't need to be explained, and giving a bad (or if we go by your definition, 'wierd') explanation certainly isn't an improvement.
4) There is no real "happy" ending.
Now, you might argue that games doesn't need happy endings, which is true. However, Mass Effect 3 sets itself up for a potential happy ending by giving us the "military rating" and "galaxy at war" system, which effectively sets up the expectation that if you, as a player, do everything right, max out your military rating and get help from everywhere you can (by playing the Galaxy at War multiplayer or the iPhone/iPad Mass Effect which can also contribute), then you will be able to get a happy, or at the very least a semi-happy, ending.
Mass Effect 2 did the same thing by actively encouraging you through dialogue to max out your team (loyalty missions) and your ship (upgrades) to make sure as many as possible survived the suicide mission. And unlike ME3, ME2 has a happy ending (everyone survives), rewarding the player if he went all out. In ME3, you are out of luck, no matter how hard you busted your ass to win.
Then there is the love interests. You see, the problem with having romances in a game sets up the expectation that those romances will somehow lead to something, or - in the case of Mass Effect 3 - that Shephard and his or hers love interest are fighting for a future together. Back in Baldur's Gate 2 + Throne of Bhaal, completing the game with a love interest gave you an epilogue explaining how you and your love interest made it to a new life, meaning that your struggles weren't in vain. In Mass Effect 3, why bother? The galaxy will end up isolated from each other and your team will end up stranded no matter what you do. What's the point?
When you then construct an ending in an RPG where the things you do (love interest, military rating etc.) are entirely or mostly irrelevant even though you give the player a close way to track/monitor them, then you are counteracting the expectations you are setting up, and are therefore inevitably gonna disappoint people, and potentially leave them frustrated.
So yes, the ending is unarguably bad. I'm not saying you're not allowed to like it or personally disregard the faults, but it has bad storytelling and plotholes all over it.
