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

[TheRookie8]

In retrospect, the original ending failed to surpass the standards of the series...not providing substantial feedback about what happened to events after the final choice was made, creating confusion regarding the surprise plot device, and generally seeming somewhat lazy in the diversity of the different endings.

...but it was not so bad, in my eyes...simply abrupt.

The Extended Cut solved some of my major disagreements with the original ending, providing some post-ending reflections and consequences. From there the ending went from disappointing to adequate.

The Citadel DLC, however, is not only an example of the level attention I feel the original ending deserved, but also one of the best DLC's I have ever purchased. With it's inclusion, I feel that the ending proves somewhat satisfying.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Really? Get over it people, not like a family member died or anything. Just a sucky ending that didnt satisfy. It was disappointing but seriously, after a year people are still moaning?

 

[DSK-]

I've only finished it once without EC, and I must admit that knowing how it ends pretty much halted my interest in playing the game with the rest of my characters/proper playthrough.

Spoiler

All of the story of ME3 seems to point that everything is going better than expected up until the last 10 minutes where it all gets clusterfucked to hell and gone.

Quite honestly I felt that ME3 was rather underwhelming story wise, and even more disappointing when it came to delivering on ME1 and 2 choices coming into ME3.

I'll eventually get around to completing it with the Extended Cut at some point.

 

[Lhynn]

ME3 wasnt very good... The ending was broken, Space magic didnt make any sense in that setting and utterly ruined it for me.

Anyway, its a good thing that they botched it so badly, it made a lot of people look for their rpg elsewhere wich i suspect was one of the reasons kickstarter has been doing so well.

 

[SteveoTheBeveo]

What is wrong with the ending? What is right with the ending?

There is honestly little to nothing right with ending, even after the Extended Cut. The ending to ME3 was just one giant mass of plotholes that didn't make any sense within the context of the previous games, and it just comes out of nowhere in the very last bit of the game with the Star Child just talking down to you about 'you have to choice red, blue or green to end this game." Shepard hardly even does anything to question or go against this (Extended Cut gave the refusal ending which personally can be interpreted as a way for the fans to ignore the 3 endings or just Bioware giving you the middle finger) but the thing that really hits this thing home is that there is little resolve, and the lack of closure just makes the game feel like a waste of time as there is nothing really spectacular to say the least about it. Its like the previous games and all the effort put into them just become pointless.

Overall, the original endings are terrible and the Extended Cut only was just a spray paint to cover it but its still one of the most terrible endings to a game trilogy that I have ever seen atleast.

 

[Meatspinner]

Somebody needs to make a sticky with an index for all the ME3 threads.

Also what's up with the poll? 4 of the options are varying degrees of "I liked it" and the last one is "I have a hateboner for this game"

 

[Captain Slow]

Nothing! The only people who hate it have no lives and need to critisise others to make up for their failures.

 

[Apollo45]

My question to you is, what did you dislike (or even like) about Mass Effect 3's ending, both before and after the Extended Cut DLC? Please be articulate and don't just say the equivalent of "it sucked I want my money back". At this point, rage-hating on the ending is like beating the mangled blob that used to be a dead horse a year ago.

I, for one, despised the ending for all the reasons everyone else has mentioned, but I won't get in to them except to say that, as far as the "good writing checklist" goes, it's like it went over the thing and deliberately decided to go against everything in it.

Aside from that, however, the last 15-30 minutes of the game is nothing but shuffling through halls and contrived dialogue, then you get into a cutscene. There's no action, no climax, nothing of the sort that would resolve the arc of the story. After all this time with the whole thing, it's that part of it that's the biggest letdown. I can understand people writing themselves into a corner and not being able to write themselves back out, although in this case they really just wrote themselves in to a wall and forgot they could turn right or left. But forgetting the most basic fundamentals of storytelling structure - that the story builds to a climax, then a falling action where things are resolved comes after that climax, leading to an end that resolves most everything - is just pathetic. That's something that you're taught in middle school English class, but they failed to hit the climax part and instead skipped straight to a drawn out exposition of an ending.

 

[SycoMantis91]

Well, it contradicts the player choice the series is built around. It contradicts itself by allowing you to unite organics and synthetics to fight the Reapers, the "Starchild"'s logic, even without the aforementioned union is broken and idiotic, and it pretty much steals the whole concept from Deus Ex, aside from the quality of execution. Also, even in the best endings, you doom everyone on Earth to starvation and death by destroying the mass relays, not to mention the fact that relays blowing up like that would pretty much destroy everything.

 

[TheCommanders]

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.

Not to belabor the point (if you like something no one, not even me can tell you you're wrong), but I'm curious how you could possibly consider the endings logical. Especially when I remember reading a thread that went through and showed how *literaly* every single line the catalyst utters is either a logical fallacy, an outright lie, or a deliberate deception. I won't take the time to list them all here, because that would take hours, but would be happy to send you a link to them should you desire. In addition, nothing about the ending-o-tron holds up to even the slightest bit of scrutiny (again, would be happy to go into detail upon request). In answer to a question many ask, no I don't go through games, novels, or movies looking for plot holes. I, like most people, have a reasonable ability to suspend my disbelief for the sake of a good narrative. A really engrossing narrative (like most of Mass Effect up to this point) can suspend my belief pretty thoroughly. So when a narrative missteps so massively that I'm jerked out of this pleasant sensation of immersion, I generally consider that a bad thing. Again, I can't tell you that you don't enjoy the ending, taste is subjective, after all, but what pisses me off is when people claim the opposite, that the reasons I hate the ending are mine alone. They are not. They are objective issues pertaining to the logic and cohesion of the ending that can be clearly defined and illustrated. Your ability to ignore these for sake of the narrative does not mean they don't exist.

 

[Mortons4ck]

My problems with Mass Effect 3's story go beyond just the ending, but since this isn't the thread for that, I'll just go with the usual.

The StarChild's whole argument falls flat on its face if you united the Quarians and Geth, yet you never get the chance to tell him off for it. The game demands you go on with his broken logic, and then says "fuck off and die" if you choose to refuse his demands. You have no way of telling him "uhh, we proved that synthetics and organics can live alongside each other, also, what does this have to do with stopping the Reapers?"

Artificial intelligence rights is a big part of the series, but it wasn't the main focus. The main focus was always to Stop the Reapers. Honestly, I would have rather just gone with the Reapers being arrogant and cryptic instead of having their ludicrous origins explained. Sovereign was arrogant and considered their reasoning to be beyond organic comprehension, so why did they back out on that prospect and instead give them a really stupid motivation? "As Synthetics, we will destroy and assimilate your cultures to prevent you from creating Synthetics that will destroy you. Because we're totally not like those synthetics who rebelled and overthrew their creators-OH WAIT"

Agree 100%. I hated the thematic direction the ending went in. Much preferred the proposed ending where the Reapers are out to solve the heat death of the universe, whatever happened to that ending?

 

[AD-Stu]

A really engrossing narrative (like most of Mass Effect up to this point) can suspend my belief pretty thoroughly.

This is an important point. The Mass Effect trilogy as a whole is chock full of plot holes, logic problems and inconsistencies (don't think it's necessary to go into detail, though I can start listing them if anyone wants...), but because we all love the series so much we've been willing to forgive them for the sake of a good time and because they didn't go so far that they broke immersion.

Fans of the series have proven they're willing to stretch their disbelief pretty far - it's why they're still fans. So I think it says something when the endings went so far that the majority of the fanbase cracked...

 

[chuckdm]

I've been doing a full replay of both Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age 2 on the vague theory that DA3 won't suck (because I'm an eternal optimist, I guess?) and I want a decent import, and almost finished with DA2 has got me thinking. I now know why I didn't like the ME3 ending, and it's not even why I thought I didn't like it.

I thought I was fighting an enemy that intended to annihilate all life and instead I was forced into a considerably less important decision with no right answers - Mages vs. Templars. Or Organics vs. Synthetics, as the case may be.

In both series's, I am forced to make a moral choice where I support neither. This isn't the problem though. The problem is that I was told my major overarching goal was to save the world (or the galaxy) from the major boss at the end, be it the Archdemon or the Reapers. And now, at the end, I find myself being forced to choose between two sides where I support neither, instead of just defeating the boss I came all this way to defeat, because that would be too easy or something, I guess.

I see both sides. I can see how some Mages resort to blood magic solely to enable their escape from the Templars. I can also see how that's a totally valid reason for the Templars to hunt them in the first place. I really do see how both sides have a 100% valid argument and I find it very, very hard to condemn one or the other to total destruction when I know both are right. In real life, I don't have these decisions. Either one decision is always right and another is wrong, or at the very least the "no right answer" choices are above my pay grade. So naturally, I hate all the choices - all have collateral damage that don't feel clean, or not final. They all feel like not just a compromise, but an unnecessary one at that. I could always just kill the boss, and it was a clean victory. Now games seem to want to force me to pick between two equally good - and equally bad - options. Sorry, but I don't like that, and while I may be FORCED to pick between them in real life, a game is entertainment. I should ALWAYS have a "ride off into the sunset with the girl" ending available. If I don't have the option to choose that ending, then that is a flaw in game design. That, in itself, is a flaw. Yes, it is.

The same issue arises in ME3, to me anyhow. I don't want to wipe out the Geth. I don't want the Quarians to starve. And I don't want EDI to transform into some sort off organic creature that now has a lifespan and this will eventually die, whereas she could have lived forever. NONE of these are good options. They're all different shades of bad. And with EC, now I have the option to just throw up my hands and say "screw this, I just spent most of my (shepherd's) life saving the galaxy but since I don't like the three shitty choices I've been given, I'll just let you exterminate us all now, kthxbye!" No. Just no. Someone at bioware (idr who it was, Hudson probably) said there wasn't going to be any super-happy ending.

Well here's my question: why the fuck not? What is inherently wrong with an ending where the good guy wins and the bad guy dies, cut, dried, the end? How is that a bad thing?

And at the very least, could we stop the artificial Mages vs. Templars bullshit in DA3 and at least not ruin that franchise too? Surely there must be a way to write an archdemon back into the game, no?

 

[compaqdeskpro]

I wasn't shocked too hard by the ending, because I could tell that when I was late in the game and the crucible progress is coming along nicely, and still nobody has any clue what it does, I knew something stupid was coming. That stupid something was that ghost kid, I would have much preferred getting to the top and speaking to Sovereign himself, where he explains that the creation of the Crucible is an evolutionary back door to the Reapers designed in by the creators, where he invites you to pull the trigger and suffer the consequences, but no...

The ending was not fully baked, full of technical issues, the crash planet was cancer and should be dumped, the hallway of bodies wasn't explained, the Illusive Man's mind control was pulled from nowhere, and all sorts of other things that seemed to half thought out, but overall the rest of the game and series being top notch made up for it.

 

[putowtin]

... 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"

I'm gonna have images of that floadting through my head all day!
(Well it's one way to get through the working day)
We need someone with more talent than me to make this so!

 

[Silly Hats]

I do think that Indoctrination still completely holds ups, Bioware never directly rejected the concept (if anything gave more evidence in EC)and there is more than enough cookie crumbs spread throughout the trilogy to suggest this is the case.
Whether or not it is considered 'official', who cares? It honestly makes the most sense, there is nothing wrong with reading between the lines. It honestly doesn't matter.

The ending was not fully baked, full of technical issues, the crash planet was cancer and should be dumped, the hallway of bodies wasn't explained, the Illusive Man's mind control was pulled from nowhere

Illusive Man was always indoctrinated - as said by the Child. Anderson said that the beam was likely used to transfer bodies (for processing?) along with mentioning the presence of Harbinger. Whether you not you believe it was a hallucination or not, these are mentioned.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Shepard was ordered to commit suicide by the enemy commander, and he does. How is that the epic ending we were promised?

This is why the ending sucks.