Poll: What's so bad about ME3's ending?
- Thread starter ShermTank7272
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It made no sense within the players understanding of the setting, it was abrupt, it took away the choice which was such a highly praised element of the entire series, and what little choice it did provide was all arbitrary and weak. Meanwhile even with all that aside it just doesn't provide a satisfying conclusion for either the galaxy as a whole nor for your companions. Little to no epilogue was provided, even with the Extended edition, and finally it just wasn't entertaining.
Frankly the entire ending just felt like a big "Hey, want more? Come play our inevitable sequel/mmo spinoff to find out what happens next!"
Frankly the entire ending just felt like a big "Hey, want more? Come play our inevitable sequel/mmo spinoff to find out what happens next!"
At this point, nobody is pissed anymore. Just disappointed. This isn't about "this game sucks", it's about "why this game sucks" and "how it could have been better." It's all about analysis at this point. And, unless I'm mistaken, the Escapist users are all ABOUT analysis.amaranth_dru said:
We're gonna analyse the SHIT outta these games!
WHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! STOP BRINGING THIS BACK UP PEOPLE!!!!! SERIOUSLY!!!
I hated it because it was completely out of place. The Star Child made no sense and the theme is not at all consistent. Also, the Reaper are supposed to be beyond our understanding, yet Bioware gave them a goal we can understand. Why did we need to know why the Reapers did this? All we need to know is the Reapers do this and that we need to stop them. If they just stopped after Anderson and Shepard died it would have been so much better.
I hated it because it was completely out of place. The Star Child made no sense and the theme is not at all consistent. Also, the Reaper are supposed to be beyond our understanding, yet Bioware gave them a goal we can understand. Why did we need to know why the Reapers did this? All we need to know is the Reapers do this and that we need to stop them. If they just stopped after Anderson and Shepard died it would have been so much better.
Do we have to beat the horse that has been resurrected then beat down again just so it's blood stained the very fabric of time. Well time to throw my two cents.
I did like the ending BUT it clearly did not belong in ME. The organic vs synthetic was never a main theme in the series heck it wasn't even a main theme in the third game. I hate that this new character that we did not know anything about comes in and says "Know those 80h that you just spent playing, well throw that out of the window we are playing by my rules now. Here's some flawed logic, change of theme, and tons of confusion. Have fun". It was just a mess of writing that had no direction and felt rushed.
EC show you what happened to the galaxy and your crew but even then the flawed and rushed logic was still there. I just hope that Bioware and future game developers learn from the mistakes from the ending so it won't happen again.
I did like the ending BUT it clearly did not belong in ME. The organic vs synthetic was never a main theme in the series heck it wasn't even a main theme in the third game. I hate that this new character that we did not know anything about comes in and says "Know those 80h that you just spent playing, well throw that out of the window we are playing by my rules now. Here's some flawed logic, change of theme, and tons of confusion. Have fun". It was just a mess of writing that had no direction and felt rushed.
EC show you what happened to the galaxy and your crew but even then the flawed and rushed logic was still there. I just hope that Bioware and future game developers learn from the mistakes from the ending so it won't happen again.
Whole bunch of reasons as to why it was a rather bad ending. Here are a few, these won't be all.
- The stuff before the ending was amazing and epic. The game itself was broken into smaller plots which concluded satisfyingly no matter what you did as far as I've been told (for the other ways of ending it which I haven't gotten around to doing but friends have. This includes replacement characters if the main ones died in ME2). This has you believe that the overall ending will be just as, if not more satisfying.
- Being told there was multiple endings. In truth, there was 3, with slight variation of who showed up in the cutscenes. There was no 16 or so endings they promised. Just 3, and all of them were almost exactly the same. It was a "pick your favourite colour" ending.
- The ending pops up a new character out of no where. He's never mentioned in the game once unless you look really really hard for "People of light" (or possibly star child or something, it's in a planet's record log thingy on the codex on maybe 1 page).
- The universe that ME was built around was so enticing, and not just with the games. I'm talking comics, novels and all that jazz. My friend in Norway, he and his sister read the ME books they had religiously. He really appreciated the story, characters, lore, locations etc. on a whole other level to me. This made it all the more disappointing when the ending hit him.
- The bloody DLC Prompt. I do not want to be told to carry on a story through DLC. Although it's for more pre ending story, when I read it I saw it as, "have a better ending if you pay more" and that threw me into a fit of rage. I paid good money for the game, I damn well wanted my ending there and then. Good or bad, I wanted it, not to be told to shell more out for it.
I also want to point out that the nerd rage has to some people who have played it later, lessened the blow. I played the ending when it was out. I was as surprised as anyone when it hit. It was shocking. No one really saw it comming. However now it's been a year on. Everyone's heard the stories, everyone knows the reactions. Hell, the EC endings are out as damage control now. My friend said that she didn't find the endings nearly as bad as she had imagined (she finally played and finished the game about a week ago now), not to say she liked them. She raged pretty hard at me still for a good hour.
What I personally hated the most was the distrust that the ending instantly put between Bioware, EA and their customers. Bioware saying that the ending will do this and that, with so many choices etc etc, yet only really getting the same ending every time. Hell, it even drove sections of Bioware apart, with groups of writers saying they didn't even get a say in the ending and that it was all down to Casey Hudson and another writer (not sure). EA mostly for having what felt like a damaging effect on the ending itself and their damned DLC prompt. And to be quite honest, I do still feel angry at the ending. If I'm going to pour a few years of my life looking into and playing the games only to have my last 30 minutes ruined by some rather poor choices made, then damn right I'll still be angry for years. It'd be like sitting down to have a massive 3 course meal. Starter was nice and fresh. Main was good and fleshed out. Desert was a lovely ice cream, but that drizzled chocolate sauce at the bottom of the cup? Oh wait, it's surprise diarrhoea. But don't worry, says the waitress, if you want more of that ice cream on top you can pay extra!
Rant over. Sorry that got rather flamy, but yes, TLDR, it still pisses me off, multiple reasons. Love the game and everything before that ending though.
- The stuff before the ending was amazing and epic. The game itself was broken into smaller plots which concluded satisfyingly no matter what you did as far as I've been told (for the other ways of ending it which I haven't gotten around to doing but friends have. This includes replacement characters if the main ones died in ME2). This has you believe that the overall ending will be just as, if not more satisfying.
- Being told there was multiple endings. In truth, there was 3, with slight variation of who showed up in the cutscenes. There was no 16 or so endings they promised. Just 3, and all of them were almost exactly the same. It was a "pick your favourite colour" ending.
- The ending pops up a new character out of no where. He's never mentioned in the game once unless you look really really hard for "People of light" (or possibly star child or something, it's in a planet's record log thingy on the codex on maybe 1 page).
- The universe that ME was built around was so enticing, and not just with the games. I'm talking comics, novels and all that jazz. My friend in Norway, he and his sister read the ME books they had religiously. He really appreciated the story, characters, lore, locations etc. on a whole other level to me. This made it all the more disappointing when the ending hit him.
- The bloody DLC Prompt. I do not want to be told to carry on a story through DLC. Although it's for more pre ending story, when I read it I saw it as, "have a better ending if you pay more" and that threw me into a fit of rage. I paid good money for the game, I damn well wanted my ending there and then. Good or bad, I wanted it, not to be told to shell more out for it.
I also want to point out that the nerd rage has to some people who have played it later, lessened the blow. I played the ending when it was out. I was as surprised as anyone when it hit. It was shocking. No one really saw it comming. However now it's been a year on. Everyone's heard the stories, everyone knows the reactions. Hell, the EC endings are out as damage control now. My friend said that she didn't find the endings nearly as bad as she had imagined (she finally played and finished the game about a week ago now), not to say she liked them. She raged pretty hard at me still for a good hour.
What I personally hated the most was the distrust that the ending instantly put between Bioware, EA and their customers. Bioware saying that the ending will do this and that, with so many choices etc etc, yet only really getting the same ending every time. Hell, it even drove sections of Bioware apart, with groups of writers saying they didn't even get a say in the ending and that it was all down to Casey Hudson and another writer (not sure). EA mostly for having what felt like a damaging effect on the ending itself and their damned DLC prompt. And to be quite honest, I do still feel angry at the ending. If I'm going to pour a few years of my life looking into and playing the games only to have my last 30 minutes ruined by some rather poor choices made, then damn right I'll still be angry for years. It'd be like sitting down to have a massive 3 course meal. Starter was nice and fresh. Main was good and fleshed out. Desert was a lovely ice cream, but that drizzled chocolate sauce at the bottom of the cup? Oh wait, it's surprise diarrhoea. But don't worry, says the waitress, if you want more of that ice cream on top you can pay extra!
Rant over. Sorry that got rather flamy, but yes, TLDR, it still pisses me off, multiple reasons. Love the game and everything before that ending though.
Oooh boy. This is a complicated question to answer in full detail. The long and short of it is, regardless of whether or not you liked it, the last 10-15 minutes of Mass Effect 3 is a colossal failure in storytelling, narrative cohesion, and conflict resolution. It basically fails every possible check for "good" writing.ShermTank7272 said:
And the vast majority of the problems can be traced to exactly one thing: The Catalyst.
There's some issues beyond that, the most prominent being the Anderson/TIM showdown on the Citadel that's never explained, but they're fairly minor and easy to gloss over.
The Catalyst though, is a whole nother can of worms. In essence, what the Catalyst is is both a literal and figurative Deus ex Machina, from the latin for "God from Machine". Deus ex Machina is a storytelling device first used in ancient Greek plays, when the playwright couldn't figure out how to resolve the story's conflict, so he wrote in a god that would be lowered onto the stage with a crane (hence the name) to demand the conflict stop and therefore resolve it.
As you can probably imagine, this is not good storytelling. It doesn't actually resolve anything, it just tells the audience that it's resolved.
Now, how does this relate to the Catalyst? Well, the Catalyst appears, with no foreshadowing, build up, or even prior mention, and informs you that "hey by the way, push one of these three buttons and the conflict is resolved".
It's an amateurish at best method of storytelling that drastically cheapens everything you as the player did to reach that point.
That's not all of its problems though, because it is also tonally inconsistent with both previous games and the entirety of the rest of Mass Effect 3. Mass Effect began as a reconstruction of the Space Opera genre. It embraced the optimism and spirit of those old adventures, such as Star Trek, Star Wars, etc, instead of the cynicism and "realism" more modern takes on the genre have expressed.
And the series kept that sense of wonder and optimism all throughout 2.95 games. All the way until the Catalyst showed up. Then it shifts to a depressingly bleak "everything's equally fucked no matter what" tone. The core spirit of the series vanished as soon as the glowy space kid appeared.
None of that mentions the abrupt thematic shift as well. Up until you ride the magic elevator, the running theme for that section of the game is "fight for survival". Once you reach the Catalyst however, it warps into "organics vs synthetics". That particular thread is a common theme for Mass Effect, but it was particularly jarring to bring it up at the end of ME3 because it was already handled, resolved, and tied up quite neatly with one of the best examples of video game storytelling in years with the Rannoch mission(s).
And depending on the outcome of that mission, the abrupt shift to "organics vs synthetics" feels even more jarring, because one of the possible outcomes is for the geth, a synthetic race, and the quarians, their organic creators, to put aside their differences and work together for a better future. Something the Catalyst explicitly says is impossible.
Plus then there's the gigantic logical fallacy of "In order to stop synthetics to kill their organic creators, I made a bunch of synthetics to kill them first" that somehow slipped past QA.
TL;DR version: If they had just removed the Catalyst and made Destroy the canonical ending, or put the Destroy/Control choice as a result of the TIM/Anderson confrontation, and kept everything else the same, roughly 90% of the standing issues with the ending of ME3 would be completely and totally solved.
This gives a fairly nice overview. Suffice to say though that the worst of the endings issues tend to pop up after the final confrontation with the Illusive Man, and that simply having the Crucible automatically activate after that confrontation (with the Destruction Ending) would have resulted in a superior narrative, especially if it went with the EC's Relay reaction rather than the Original Cut's. It would still have felt weak, make no mistake about that, but it would have better adhered to proper narrative structure, would not have introduced a new character in the last 5 minutes, and would not have had the Reaper control program dictate to you your final choice and which ones were most preferable.
THANK YOU! This is exactly what I was going for when I made this thread/poll. I think we've all burned out most of our hate and are taking the time to look back and analyze the good and the bad in both the ending and the trilogy as a whole.AdamRhodes said:
I liked the control ending of turning Reapers into Shepards. Because reapers destroy and consume whereas shepards guide and nurture. It just seemed appropriate since throughout the series Shepard is always right but those in power take no notice of it. Now that Shepard has become the Reapers (s)he finally has the power to what is best for the galaxy without needing to convince people by punching or shooting about 100 people in the face each time.
I've seen no rage in this thread. Hell the only thing that could be considered close to rage is your post compared to all the rest that have been made so far. Perhaps we're finally at the stage where discussions can be had about it.amaranth_dru said:
Not that they haven't been had before of course but more often that not they ended up heated or volatile in some way or another.
Understandable. The problem is that mass effect's entire story up until that point is built around the idea that your choices DO matter, they DO have an impact and CAN change the universe. While Shepard dieing could have been fine, the ending is fundamentally broken simply because it A) is confusing as all hell, owing in large part to the sudden shift in tone, ideas and even genre, B) comes completely out of left field, and C) analysis of the endings has led many to link Synthesis and Control to, basically, admitting the Reapers were right. Everything about that last decision, from StarKid to the options themselves, is almost surreal in how little sense they make and how hard they contrast with the rest of the games.Silly Hats said:
Part of the outrage comes from the fact that the game ending was absolutely horrendous and jarring before the extended cut (and honestly still not very good WITH it) and that 'leaked ending' (which, if the original writer of said ending is to be believed, was just one idea, not the actual ending) would've been fairly decent, or maybe even brilliant if done well. I've seen people admit that if the extended cut was what had been released with the game, they would've been disappointed but not angry.
(also, blaming the rushed ending on EA gives us ammunition against EA. And nobody likes EA.)
It's still the first page. I think it's a tad naive to be writing off potential flame wars already.anthony87 said:
OT: I didn't mind the ending. I was satisfied with it, even before the Extended Cut additions. I've seen better endings in games, sure, but even taking how "objectively terrible" it is or however it "utterly fails" or whatever else people describe it as, it wasn't even the most disappointing ending of 2012 for me. Transformers: Fall of Cybertron and Assassin's Creed III were both magnitudes worse.
I tend to give most writing in games a free pass though, so long as it entertains me. Honestly, there are very few games I would laud as actually having good writing, and much as I love the Mass Effect trilogy they're not really in that bracket. There are parts of all three games I'd consider to be fairly well-written, but as a whole none of them really hold up to intense scrutiny.
EDIT: Of course, how one defines "good" writing can easily be completely different from how I view it. Perhaps "is entertaining" should be the only qualification? Where lies the line between something entertaining for all the wrong reasons and becoming authentically engrossing? Where should the distinction be made, and who is to determine the final decision?
It's not my place to call the writing of anything "good" or "bad", if countless threads around here are anything to go by. So I'll just reiterate that I tend not to dwell on the writing in most games.
Before the EC i thought the ending was satisfactory, but my gripe with it (which i didn't publically whine about) was the fact that the characters fates were left pretty much totally unkown, with the EC however, it resolved enough to leave me happy with the ending totally (I've only done the Refusal and the high EMS Destroy, as they seemed to be the only ones that felt right for me... even though i do feel bad for EDI and the Geth, that being said i have watched the others on youtube)
haha oh god, the one person who would be raging the hardest is suspended right now, i can only imagine the replies they would be giving to this thread 
OT: as mentioned by plenty of people already, the ending was complete horseshit that retroactively destroyed the games for me, because of the "reaper logic" rather than just having them be arrogant in their calculations, they tried to explain them with the WORST logic possible. it was a horrible train wreck that started off MUCH earlier than the ending, but the ending was definitely the icing on the turd.
OT: as mentioned by plenty of people already, the ending was complete horseshit that retroactively destroyed the games for me, because of the "reaper logic" rather than just having them be arrogant in their calculations, they tried to explain them with the WORST logic possible. it was a horrible train wreck that started off MUCH earlier than the ending, but the ending was definitely the icing on the turd.
Well, for one, the tone and attitude of the catalyst had nothing to do with the awesome "talks" we had with Sovereign and Harbinger. It was clearly a last second ass pull of an ending. I've seen almost all of my complaints mentioned already in this thread, and god knows I've ragged on the ending in enough threads, so I'll just have a brief little tirade, then mention my personal head cannon that allows me to replay the games in spite of the ending.
I'll keep this tirade contained to the three ending choices (Refusal supposedly isn't cannon, and just felt like a middle finder, so we'll ignore that one). Control and Synthesis were utter bullshit. I don't care how the catalyst tries to explain it, they are weapon grade nonsensium. In addition to the fact that they are essentially saying, "Oh yeah by the way the Illusive Man and Saren were right, despite all the evidence to the contrary," neither of them made any goddamn sense. The entire game (and in parts of the first and second) every single character we have any respect for was adamant that the only way to end this war was to destroy the Reapers. Javik even states explicitly that the splinter group of Protheans in his cycle that wanted to control the reapers were not only delusional, they were indoctrinated. But yeah, we're going to say now at the end that it's actually an option, and is apparently preferable to our original goal. That's not so much a thematic departure as a dive off the deep end of a pool with no water.
Synthesis... is silly. Reading through the codex entries about it, and emails about it, and conversations about it, the Crucible seems to be - basically - a giant battery. Which means that the implication is that the Citadel had the power to convert all organics in the galaxy simultaneously into cyborgs, and "give perspective to synthetics" whatever the bloody fuck that means, and all it needed was more power? If this is seriously the technological level the reapers are at, we should have lost the war in minutes. But fine, let's ignore that nonsense for a moment... you're saying this is preferable to your current solution now because one organic managed to stumble half dead to the center of the citadel during a pitched battle (although why that would indicate anything other than Shepard is stubborn as fuck is beyond me), so why didn't you do it before? Don't tell me that the reapers wouldn't have been capable of producing something like or even better than the Crucible in the several million years they've been doing this whole cycle thing. If you really think this is the best option, why didn't you do it? "Organics weren't ready" Well what the fuck does that mean? You think the fact that one human managed to stumble upon your control room (possibly because you put it right next to your transport organics to use them for stuff room) means they are?
Here's a big question. The catalyst makes it pretty clear that it thinks synthesis is the best option, followed by control, and that destroy is the worst option. So why did it even bother mentioning the other two options? Why didn't it just leave the two bridges down and tell Shepard to jump in the magic beam or watch his entire planet be disintegrated. Out of a sense of fair play? Unlikely.
Heres another question. Why are the controls of the crucible built into the citadel (they are on the citadel, not the crucible)? Did the reapers, when they were constructing the citadel think, "Hmm, this whole killing organics to prevent them from developing synthetics that would kill them thing is great and all, by how about we build a random control thingy under the citadel so that if organics make a giant battery and plug it into the citadel they'll have some nice color coded choices regarding our fate that we will not have any say in!" And why are they not buttons? Or levers? Or something even slightly sensible? What kind of mechanism works by shooting a tube? What's in the tube? Why does Shepard keep walking towards the exploding tube? How does he know that shooting the tube will trigger the destroy ending? The catalyst never told him how this stupid thing works.
Lastly the catalyst can be proven to have lied to you (or a least deliberately misled you) at least once (and arguable a number of times).
I could go on and on and on (and on (and on (and on)))... and on... ok I'll stop now... (and on) about the problems with just the choices themselves, outside of the rest of the issues with the ending, but I'll stop because I and others have pointed them out before and talking about it is just making me angry again.
I'll wrap on on a slightly happier note with how my head cannon for the ending goes (I'm fully aware this is not the official canon, it just makes me happy).
(This requires the Citadel DLC - complete the combat portion of the DLC before doing the ending, but don't hold the party)
So I start by assuming after the whole showdown with the Illusive Man, and after Anderson and Shepard have their last conversation, Hackett messages Shepard alerting him/her that the crucible isn't firing. (All that's needed is to press a button on the control panel to start the firing sequence). Shepard moves towards the console, but blacks out on the way there. The next section with the catalyst all takes place in Shepard's head, a mental battle between him, and Harbinger trying to prevent Shepard from destroying the reapers. Because of Shepard's strong will, Harbinger knows he would be unable to break him/her in time to stop him/her, so instead he needs to trick him/her. He presents three choices (two of which mirror Reaper ideals) and pushes him away from the third option, destruction of the reapers. He lies to Shepard, telling him that this choice would also kill his/her allies (the Geth) and his/her friend (EDI). If you pick any option other than destroy, GOTO Refusal ending, because it means Shepard gave in and lay unconscious on the floor of the citadel until s/he died. Picking the destroy ending snaps Shepard out of it long enough to move forward a few more steps and fire the crucible from the control panel. As the citadel starts to crumble under the force of the detonation, Shepard says a last silent goodbye to Anderson, grabs Anderson's dog tags and limps off down the corridor towards the transporter beam. Moments before the citadel explodes, s/he makes it, and is transported back to the rubble in London, where s/he lands, unconscious. The rest of the scenes from the ending play out as normal. After the Normandy repairs itself, they head back to earth to search for Shepard, where his LI finds him/her barely clinging to life where he landed. After a few weeks of recovery, Shepard moves to Anderson's old apartment and decides to hold one last party with his/her crew before they go their separate ways. S/he's also now free to enjoy the attractions of the Strip with his/her old comrades. (You have to ignore a few lines that mention the fact that the war is still on during the party and other scenes, but there are surprisingly few conflicts). After the party, Shepard's LI moves in with him/her, and you're free to imagine what your Shepard does after the war for yourself.
That's my ending. It's not perfect, because it has to fit into the current shit ending, but it works well enough that I can continue to play through 3 without tearing out my hair, or being too depressed to finish the game.
I'll keep this tirade contained to the three ending choices (Refusal supposedly isn't cannon, and just felt like a middle finder, so we'll ignore that one). Control and Synthesis were utter bullshit. I don't care how the catalyst tries to explain it, they are weapon grade nonsensium. In addition to the fact that they are essentially saying, "Oh yeah by the way the Illusive Man and Saren were right, despite all the evidence to the contrary," neither of them made any goddamn sense. The entire game (and in parts of the first and second) every single character we have any respect for was adamant that the only way to end this war was to destroy the Reapers. Javik even states explicitly that the splinter group of Protheans in his cycle that wanted to control the reapers were not only delusional, they were indoctrinated. But yeah, we're going to say now at the end that it's actually an option, and is apparently preferable to our original goal. That's not so much a thematic departure as a dive off the deep end of a pool with no water.
Synthesis... is silly. Reading through the codex entries about it, and emails about it, and conversations about it, the Crucible seems to be - basically - a giant battery. Which means that the implication is that the Citadel had the power to convert all organics in the galaxy simultaneously into cyborgs, and "give perspective to synthetics" whatever the bloody fuck that means, and all it needed was more power? If this is seriously the technological level the reapers are at, we should have lost the war in minutes. But fine, let's ignore that nonsense for a moment... you're saying this is preferable to your current solution now because one organic managed to stumble half dead to the center of the citadel during a pitched battle (although why that would indicate anything other than Shepard is stubborn as fuck is beyond me), so why didn't you do it before? Don't tell me that the reapers wouldn't have been capable of producing something like or even better than the Crucible in the several million years they've been doing this whole cycle thing. If you really think this is the best option, why didn't you do it? "Organics weren't ready" Well what the fuck does that mean? You think the fact that one human managed to stumble upon your control room (possibly because you put it right next to your transport organics to use them for stuff room) means they are?
Here's a big question. The catalyst makes it pretty clear that it thinks synthesis is the best option, followed by control, and that destroy is the worst option. So why did it even bother mentioning the other two options? Why didn't it just leave the two bridges down and tell Shepard to jump in the magic beam or watch his entire planet be disintegrated. Out of a sense of fair play? Unlikely.
Heres another question. Why are the controls of the crucible built into the citadel (they are on the citadel, not the crucible)? Did the reapers, when they were constructing the citadel think, "Hmm, this whole killing organics to prevent them from developing synthetics that would kill them thing is great and all, by how about we build a random control thingy under the citadel so that if organics make a giant battery and plug it into the citadel they'll have some nice color coded choices regarding our fate that we will not have any say in!" And why are they not buttons? Or levers? Or something even slightly sensible? What kind of mechanism works by shooting a tube? What's in the tube? Why does Shepard keep walking towards the exploding tube? How does he know that shooting the tube will trigger the destroy ending? The catalyst never told him how this stupid thing works.
Lastly the catalyst can be proven to have lied to you (or a least deliberately misled you) at least once (and arguable a number of times).
If you pick the destroy ending, Shepard lives even though the catalyst said... or a least heavily implied that he would die if he picked that
I could go on and on and on (and on (and on (and on)))... and on... ok I'll stop now... (and on) about the problems with just the choices themselves, outside of the rest of the issues with the ending, but I'll stop because I and others have pointed them out before and talking about it is just making me angry again.
I'll wrap on on a slightly happier note with how my head cannon for the ending goes (I'm fully aware this is not the official canon, it just makes me happy).
(This requires the Citadel DLC - complete the combat portion of the DLC before doing the ending, but don't hold the party)
So I start by assuming after the whole showdown with the Illusive Man, and after Anderson and Shepard have their last conversation, Hackett messages Shepard alerting him/her that the crucible isn't firing. (All that's needed is to press a button on the control panel to start the firing sequence). Shepard moves towards the console, but blacks out on the way there. The next section with the catalyst all takes place in Shepard's head, a mental battle between him, and Harbinger trying to prevent Shepard from destroying the reapers. Because of Shepard's strong will, Harbinger knows he would be unable to break him/her in time to stop him/her, so instead he needs to trick him/her. He presents three choices (two of which mirror Reaper ideals) and pushes him away from the third option, destruction of the reapers. He lies to Shepard, telling him that this choice would also kill his/her allies (the Geth) and his/her friend (EDI). If you pick any option other than destroy, GOTO Refusal ending, because it means Shepard gave in and lay unconscious on the floor of the citadel until s/he died. Picking the destroy ending snaps Shepard out of it long enough to move forward a few more steps and fire the crucible from the control panel. As the citadel starts to crumble under the force of the detonation, Shepard says a last silent goodbye to Anderson, grabs Anderson's dog tags and limps off down the corridor towards the transporter beam. Moments before the citadel explodes, s/he makes it, and is transported back to the rubble in London, where s/he lands, unconscious. The rest of the scenes from the ending play out as normal. After the Normandy repairs itself, they head back to earth to search for Shepard, where his LI finds him/her barely clinging to life where he landed. After a few weeks of recovery, Shepard moves to Anderson's old apartment and decides to hold one last party with his/her crew before they go their separate ways. S/he's also now free to enjoy the attractions of the Strip with his/her old comrades. (You have to ignore a few lines that mention the fact that the war is still on during the party and other scenes, but there are surprisingly few conflicts). After the party, Shepard's LI moves in with him/her, and you're free to imagine what your Shepard does after the war for yourself.
That's my ending. It's not perfect, because it has to fit into the current shit ending, but it works well enough that I can continue to play through 3 without tearing out my hair, or being too depressed to finish the game.
You can really get into it deep about how the ME3 ending is flawed on a mechanical level, but I went into it fully aware of the hate and after the EC was released so it wasn't so bad for me. It's still unsatisfying on the level that you're never doing what you set out to do, which is destroy the Reapers and save everybody. Mass Effect was never especially deep or artsy, just a really fun sci-fi action adventure, so it's really jarring when you're set up for a giant space/ground battle ala Star Wars but end up with the ending to the Matrix Reloaded.
The main flaw in the "writing" that's most identifiable is basically that they introduced a bunch of stuff right there with that ending. Originally it was never implied at all what the Reapers motives were so to bring up all the stuff about the cyclical conflict between organics and synthetics, something that's really supposed to be the central theme spread out throughout all Mass Effects, in the last minutes of the last game would be bad writing or at the very least has a very high likely hood of people going "WTF," which you generally want to avoid when writing a story.shrekfan246 said:
I enjoyed the ending for multiple reasons. 1) I destroyed the Reapers. 2)To me it made sense. 3)I was able to rationalise why most of the endings (before EC) were very similar. The radiation burst comes from the same machine, everyone is doing the exact same thing at the beginning of the ending, and I got that nothing huge would change other than the Reapers being stopped in the first 5 minutes of the burst. I mean...Destroy shows the Reapers fall over, Control shows the Reapers fly off, and Synthesis shows everything with a green tint. I accepted that as something that would likely happen, and as Shepard is dead, I felt that my time in that universe had passed and I need not know the long term effects as my eyes in the world were no longer living (except for Control). So yeah, I felt my time was well spent, I achieved my goal and it was time to move on, for better or for worse I will never know.