Poll: What's so bad about ME3's ending?

[Zeh Don]

For me, it was the utter lack of an ending to MY STORY about MY Sheppard.

Casey Hudson and crew decided to swap out the very things that made Mass Effect good, in order to tell their own ending to EVERYONE ELSE's stories. They basically bought into their own crap about Mass Effect being gaming's first "Epic", and somehow thought that this meant they could dictate the ending to everyone's stories, instead of doing what they'd been doing all along - providing the framework so that people could play their own damn stories.

And, my Good Lord in Heaven, if you're going to tell people to go fuck themselves, at least do so with a decent story. The Star Child rubbish is easily among the worst endings I've ever sat through. Fuck, Super Mario Bros. ended more satisfactorily than Mass Effect 3!

 

[Something Amyss]

Starchild: Synthetics will always rebel aganst organics so we have to protect you.
Me: You mean when the Geth were attacked by the Quarians without any previous provocation? Or when they fled beyond the veil and bothered nobody? Or when you took control of them and told them to kill organics?
Starchild: Synthetics will always rebel against organics...

You forgot to add "because ponies."

The best part is that the catalyst is all "Our plan hasn't worked. We need new ideas. Here, take one of these three choices I wll give you that fit with the logic I admit has already failed."

 

[MPerce]

It's rushed and comes out of nowhere, with a deus ex machina that was never even hinted at beforehand.

It wasn't the worst thing I've ever seen, but considering how well Bioware had told its story leading up to that ending, it was incredibly disappointing.

 

[FavouriteDream]

Honestly, I don't think the Reapers should have had a reason. They should have left it as something that is truly beyond human comprehension - like Sovereign made out. "Synthetic life will eventually destroy all organic life so we are here to destroy all organic life in order to prevent organic life building dangerous synthetic life". And we have to swallow it. Well, technically we don't - but the game hinges on the Reaper's being correct.

I think Bioware missed the mark. The motive behind the Reapers was never the fucking point - the point was about teamwork, relationships and overcoming adversity. That's what the ending should have been about!

 

[AD-Stu]

The worst part is that you people won't just shut the fuck up about it.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - nearly a decade later people still like to talk about how messed up KOTOR2's ending and cut content was. If something is far reaching enough and people feel strongly enough about it, then some topics are just going to endure.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

It's like there's new threads like this every day on this site and it's not even that bad compared to other endings in other games. Yes it's the ending of a series spanning 3 games but there's been worse I think

Bad game endings I've had recently:
RAGE
Bioshock
Metroid Other:M
Sonic 4 Episode II
Diablo 3
Space Marine
Fallout 3's original ending

Heck Most NES/Master System/SNES/Genesis/Turbo Graphix 16 games have crap endings

But whatever, we get it, it's not a great ending. The game, and series however I felt were some of the best games I've played in a long long time. Don't like the ending? Make a new one up in your head, everybody lives and they go on to play Orcs Must Die 2, together, and they kill all the orcs there ever was.

Bad endings are not uncommon, they're more common than good I'd say...it'd be nice to see a thread discussing ...GOOD endings for once or endings that someone enjoyed.
Sure it'd be a bunch of spoiler tags and such for posts but it'd be different than the constant game hatred everyone seems to have here where nothing meets expectations seriously it's like if the game isn't a 10/10 it's crap.

I had to explain this before, so I'm going to quote myself.

"A was bad, but so is B.C,D,E,F,G" is not a cohesive argument, it hinges close to common practice fallacy.

Bioware was (big emphasis on WAS) known for decent videogame narratives. For ME3 they made something that was not average or below-average, but just diametrically opposed to what the series had been about.

tl;dr
Videogame endings usually being bad does not excuse ME3's from being criticized, in fact people thought Bioware could y'know "break the mold" of this.

 

[LiquidGrape]

It was a better ending than the self-indulgent exposition tableau BioShock: Infinite provided. At least Mass Effect 3 had the decency of providing the player with a meaningful choice.

 

[HellbirdIV]

The ending to Mass Effect 3 was bad because it wasn't the ending to Mass Effect, it was an ending to an entirely different soft scifi story about transhumanism and cosmic souls and mint-flavored magic laser beams.

None of that wishy-woshy "Ooh it didn't feel right" or "I wanted closure for the characters!" half-hearted BS some people say they dislike about it.

The Starchild, the Crucible's sudden "Make everyone instantly transhuman" magic powers, the ridiculously flimsly "The Reapers aren't evil! They want to saaaave the woooooorld! From their point of view!" idea, the notion that even though we'd spent the last two games (That includes THE ONE WE'RE CURRENTLY PLAYING) going out of our way to find peace between the Geth and the Quarians who represent the Organic vs. Synthetic battle in a microcosm, Synthetics and Organics are "natural" enemies? Yeah because beings whose thought processes are strictly mathematical with no emotional input are clearly genocidal by nature.

The ending to Mass Effect 3 was and remains one year later the single worst attempt to end a story I have ever seen. Twilight's ridiculous imprinting messiah half-vampire girl is a better ending, because at least it's largely consistent with the rest of the franchise.

 

[mokes310]

I thought the endings, apart from the game, were just fine. The problem I had was that I had been told that every choice had a consequence, and everything action meant something. Then, to get to the end that had but three choices, I felt a bit cheated, like none of my actions mattered.

 

[Agayek]

I've said it before- there was nothing wrong with the ending, it simply didn't appeal to the tastes of some people. It is purely a subjective thing, so I feel the backlash towards BioWare was unwarranted. The ending was tragic, epic and presented the player with one of the toughest choices in the game. The fact that there was no scenario where Shepard lives only made the choice heavier. People are free to dislike the "character dies" approach as an end to the series and even say that BioWare chose poorly with that decision, but outcries of foulplay are simply ridiculous. Nobody has the right to ask of a creator to alter his creation, this is a story told and thus it ends, for better or worse. It's like asking for a rewrite of Romeo and Juliet, so they don't die in the end.

While I definitely agree that the backlash was excessive and rather ridiculous, there's still one thing I need to point out here:

Regardless of whether or not you liked the ending, it violates almost every single objective criteria involved in good narratives.

Believe it or not, storytelling does have a set of rules that govern the quality of a work. They're far less rigid than in more scientific applications, as they're rooted in human psychology and multiple millenia of cultural evolution, but they very much exist. Things like "if it's in the story, it should serve some greater purpose", "do not introduce brand new elements in the climax", "rising action followed by climax followed by falling action followed by resolution", etc.

Any of these rules can theoretically be broken and still have a decent story, but doing so takes a phenomenal level of skill and a damn-near perfect understanding of the audience. By the backlash alone, it's quite clear whoever wrote it lacked both.

The ending's problem(s) is not that Shepard dies. It's the complete absence of good storytelling immediately after some of the best in the industry.

 

[putowtin]

Again?

We're going over this again?!

The original ending sucked (in three different colours)

The Extended Cut was... better, but come on Harbinger landing and performing a song and dance routine with Seth Macfarlane would have been better!

 

[AuronFtw]

It's been said in the thread already, but the disconnection to the ENTIRE REST OF THE SERIES was the biggest problem. It was a shit ending because it wasn't part of the universe. You just got done spending 3 games as the same guy, making the same kinds of choices and seeing your choices affect the lives of individuals and even entire races - without ever feeling disconnected from them. You *see* how your choices impact those around you, and you live with the consequences.

And then the ending happens, and suddenly you're on a gameshow with doors number 1, 2 and 3, and none of it has anything to do with anything you've done, some of the choices don't even make SENSE based on how you've played the games leading up to it, and worst of all the endings don't give ANY sense of closure whatsoever.

It's close to how Deus Ex HR ended, but without wishing to spoil anything in either game, DXHR's gameshow-door-choice ending actually had a plot connection via a character introduced far earlier in the game, not one pulled out of the developer's ass at the last minute to tie up the story because nobody knew how to. Both were fucking cheesy, but I felt DXHR's had a LOT more weight to it because I wasn't completely taken out of the game when I was forced to make my choice. It was merely a mediocre ending to a solid game - lots of those in lots of games. But what Mass Effect 3 had was a shit-tier ending with no connection to anything you've done, no consequences shown for what you choose (aside from a different color of background, harr) all serving to end the entire story of an amazing, immersive 3-game RPG saga.

A lot of people get it wrong when trying to comprehend the dislike - it's not because the ending was merely bad. Plenty of games have bad endings. But very few of those games are story-driven RPGs that span multiple titles and offer to immerse you in a brand new universe with rich lore, character arcs, varied races and choices that require thought and have consequences, that then end with a smack to the face with a sock full of hardened shit. That's what set Mass Effect 3 apart. It was bad on a tier of its own, with no other bad ending hurting quite as much to suffer through because you simply didn't have as much invested.

And I'll try to keep this part TLDR since it's an addon to the main point, but it really is only the ending of ME3 that sucks. The rest of the game is completely fine - and honestly very enjoyable. It even had a part in it that brought me literally to tears, as you sit next to one of the characters on his deathbed and read poetry with that character's son to ease his passing. But all that does is serve to make the ending even worse in comparison, because nothing warns you that it's going to turn to shit. It just happens. You're playing, engaged, saying goodbye to characters, finishing arcs on various planets, preparing for a huge battle... and then blam, shitsock to the face. Just awful.

 

[votemarvel]

Bioware for me got the ending ending of Dragon Age: Origins spot on.

Your Warden has the potential to die, and I actually prefer the endings where this occurs, based on choices you make during the game. Mass Effect 3 on the other hand has Shepard die no matter what, for me the breath scene doesn't count. ME3 made me feel at the end that my input was for nothing.

Origins changed at the end depending on how you played. As I mentioned I like the endings where the Warden dies, it is amazing the variation you get in the funeral scene based on how you played the game.

How could Dragon Age: Origins make such good connection to the world you'd just saved through simple text screens at the end? All of which changed based on what you did. Something simple as failing to save the landlord of the tavern in Redcliffe during the battle there was reflected, if indeed you persuaded him to come and fight at all.

Yet Mass Effect 3's ending was so disconnected from the events of the game that they felt as if they didn't belong. The Extended Cut helped a little with this but painted everything with such broad strokes that it still felt pretty empty.

The Reaper conflict was always in the background of the Mass Effect games, it provided motivation across the trilogy but it was never the focus. You weren't fighting to save the asari, you were fighting for Liara and her Dad. You didn't want to cure the genophage for the Krogan, it was to help your buddies Wrex and Grunt. Did you really want to save the turians for that random soldier or was it so you could hit the beach and have a drink with Garrus.

Characters were always at the forefront of the trilogy, they were the focus, right up until the end. Bioware for some reason decided to shift the focus to the 'grand conflict' rather than keeping it on the people that conflict was affecting.

Again this is what Dragon Age: Origins got right. Even after the defeat of the Arch-demon, the characters were still the most important part.

 

[AD-Stu]

... better, but come on Harbinger landing and performing a song and dance routine with Seth Macfarlane would have been better!

I'd happily donate another twenty bucks to Child's Play to get that ending.

"We saw your booms. In the footage from dark space we saw your booms. Sovereign you made some booms on E-den Pri-me. Leviathan we saw them in the deep dark ocean. Harbinger we saw them on a holo-link... and in Vancouver... and over London... we saw your booms"

 

[Kipiru]

I've said it before- there was nothing wrong with the ending, it simply didn't appeal to the tastes of some people. It is purely a subjective thing, so I feel the backlash towards BioWare was unwarranted. The ending was tragic, epic and presented the player with one of the toughest choices in the game. The fact that there was no scenario where Shepard lives only made the choice heavier. People are free to dislike the "character dies" approach as an end to the series and even say that BioWare chose poorly with that decision, but outcries of foulplay are simply ridiculous. Nobody has the right to ask of a creator to alter his creation, this is a story told and thus it ends, for better or worse. It's like asking for a rewrite of Romeo and Juliet, so they don't die in the end.

Point? Missing it.

The biggest problems with the ending have nothing to do with the fact that Shepard dies in *most* (not all) of the endings. It's the thematic departure from the rest of the series, and the complete lack of logic. Using your chosen example, it's like if Romeo and Juliet had ended with Macbeth suddenly appearing and killing Romeo, and then asking the audience to decide if he should force Juliet to marry him, kill her, or knock her out and sell her to a better suitor against her will. It makes no sense, comes out of nowhere, introduces a new character that feels like it's from some other story entirely, ignores what's happened before it, introduces a choice we've had no reason to anticipate, for which no option sounds particularly appealing, and then forgets about the main character.

If you missed it, then you should read my post harder- I think the ending was perfectly fine. I see your points about the introduction of elements previously not even hinted, but I still think it was not that far a departure of what the series had shown us so far as presenting story elements goes. The choices were valid and logical solutions to a complex problem, not solvable by brute force. And had an adequate price to them.

While I definitely agree that the backlash was excessive and rather ridiculous, there's still one thing I need to point out here:

Regardless of whether or not you liked the ending, it violates almost every single objective criteria involved in good narratives.

Believe it or not, storytelling does have a set of rules that govern the quality of a work. They're far less rigid than in more scientific applications, as they're rooted in human psychology and multiple millenia of cultural evolution, but they very much exist. Things like "if it's in the story, it should serve some greater purpose", "do not introduce brand new elements in the climax", "rising action followed by climax followed by falling action followed by resolution", etc.

Any of these rules can theoretically be broken and still have a decent story, but doing so takes a phenomenal level of skill and a damn-near perfect understanding of the audience. By the backlash alone, it's quite clear whoever wrote it lacked both.

The ending's problem(s) is not that Shepard dies. It's the complete absence of good storytelling immediately after some of the best in the industry.

I still say subjective tastes had much more to do with the dislike of the ending, than any reasoning about narrative structure, that sprung up later along with more nitpicking to add to the problem in a somewhat snowball effect. At least it all started that way. Now reasons to hate the ME3 ending are a dime-a-dozen and I've given up on trying to justife my personal like of it. Play and let play, the haters have lost a wonderfull game from a wonderfull studio and I haven't- I can live with that

 

[Agayek]

I still say subjective tastes had much more to do with the dislike of the ending, than any reasoning about narrative structure, that sprung up later along with more nitpicking to add to the problem in a somewhat snowball effect. At least it all started that way. Now reasons to hate the ME3 ending are a dime-a-dozen and I've given up on trying to justife my personal like of it. Play and let play, the haters have lost a wonderfull game from a wonderfull studio and I haven't- I can live with that

Almost certainly. Most people don't really think in terms of narrative structure and whatnot when they're experiencing something. That doesn't necessarily mean the complaints about its lacking narrative are any less valid though.

And personal preference works like that. Don't bother justifying anything. If you liked it, you liked it. At least somebody enjoyed it.

 

[Longstreet]

Somebody, anybody. PLEASE!
Think of the zombie horse! He has had enough now.

But a short rundown, and i have't played the EC dlc FYI. Actually played ME3 again after i finished it the first time, only the second time around i let Marauder Shield kill me, but i digress.

- Plot holes in general
- The moment you arrive on earth you just feel it is rushed out. That they ran out of time and had to make something up real quick.
- Star child and his BS
- Complete contradiction of the ENTIRE game, and half the bloody series in the last 2 minutes.


EDIT: Damn forgot the most important one.
False Advertisement.
"It will not be a pick A/B/C ending."

What is it? Exactly, a pick A/B/C ending.

 

[TheDoctor455]

My problems with the ending, both before and after the EC are thus:

1. The starchild's existence makes all of ME1 a giant plothole. For instance, how could the Protheans have hacked the Citadel in the first place if the starchild was there? The geth aren't as advanced as the Reapers, and yet they can only usually be hacked for a few seconds... so how the hell did the Protheans manage to hack the Citadel with the Catalyst sitting there? On that vein... if the starchild was there the whole time, why did Sovereign need to re-hack the Citadel?

2. A lot of choices by the end were irrelevant... the rachni aren't even there... there's no sign of a krogan charge, or anything like that. The geth don't seem to be doing much more than 'turning up.'

3. Why is Hackett still giving the speech on the Normandy? Fine, you want to use the actor for all he's worth, but why not let Shepard say a few words before or after Hackett has a go? I mean... Hackett essentially puts you in charge of the entire war effort specifically BECAUSE you, of all his men/women, can make people believe they have a chance, no matter how bad the odds seem. So why isn't Shepard the one to give a speech to the fleet?

4. Why does Harbinger just let the Normandy land, pick up squadmates, and then escape? Why? That makes no sense. While we're on that... why wasn't Harbinger a bigger presence in this game? He's supposed to be the one leading the Reaper forces in battle from what I can tell... and yet he had more of a presence in ME2, when he was still in DARK SPACE.

5. I know Bioware keeps banging on about how 'sacrifice' was supposed to be a major theme with this game. Trouble is... a sacrifice can only be a sacrifice if it is a CHOICE. And as we've seen, there is no option available where Shepard knows or has any reason to believe that they will make it out of the Crucible alive. None. Not being able to choose another option, even a cowardly option to live another day... immediately undermines any heroism Shepard might have had if they instead choose to sacrifice themselves. For comparison... look at Legion. He HAD a choice. Not one the player can really control, but he HAD one. He could've been selfish, but he wasn't. He died to free all Geth. He was a hero. By contrast, Shepard is just a lamb led to the slaughter.

6. On the whole, ME3 wasn't about Shepard anymore. It was about the situation. What is the whole point of a proper RPG? Give the player a character, have them play out a role... and throw them into a situation (or situations) and give them different options to show how their character reacts to the situation. Making it entirely about the situation takes away from the very personal focus on characters that got all of us invested in the series in the first place. Don't believe me?

Then answer me this: would have you have cared as much about the genophage if you hadn't first seen how deeply it has affected Wrex's life? He basically had to kill his father because of the genophage. Would you have cared as much about the genophage if you hadn't first seen how much guilt Mordin was wrestling with because of his work on the modification project?

And... would you have cared as much about the Quarian/Geth war if you hadn't met Tali, learned her people's history, and seen how she grew as a person over the course of three games? Would have been conflicted at all about killing the geth or saving them if you hadn't met Legion?

It is the CHARACTERS that drew people to the series. Not the 'end of the world' scenario they all met in. And by turning the focus away from the characters, Bioware just shot itself in the foot. Even DA2 had a better ending than this.

 

[Kipiru]

I still say subjective tastes had much more to do with the dislike of the ending, than any reasoning about narrative structure, that sprung up later along with more nitpicking to add to the problem in a somewhat snowball effect. At least it all started that way. Now reasons to hate the ME3 ending are a dime-a-dozen and I've given up on trying to justife my personal like of it. Play and let play, the haters have lost a wonderfull game from a wonderfull studio and I haven't- I can live with that

Almost certainly. Most people don't really think in terms of narrative structure and whatnot when they're experiencing something. That doesn't necessarily mean the complaints about its lacking narrative are any less valid though.

And personal preference works like that. Don't bother justifying anything. If you liked it, you liked it. At least somebody enjoyed it.

Wow, an agreeable comment- thanks, for the courtesy And I'm not saying there are no flaws like you pointed out- there are and there is a bunch of them, just that they were highlited by the initial responce of disappointment.