Why the Hate for ME3 ending? *spoiler alert*
- Thread starter TitanAtlas
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Hell I would, that's the least I expected, just some different dialogue/cutscenes to recognize what actions I've taken to get to this moment.TitanAtlas said:Many people say this. I guess everyone expected many endings to theyr own terms.
I think something that would fit, or even make people happier, would be different last dialogues. For example the last talk with Anderson. Him telling you suck if you were a evil person, and him saying he is proud if you were a good person. That kind of stuff
I wonder if people would prefer something like that.
It wouldn't be the epic finish a lot of us were hoping for, but it'd be a step in the right direction.
Meh compared to modern RPGs, Mass Effect still surpasses most games (besides The Witcher 2 and Fallout: NV) in terms of choice and consequences. I can see why Bioware would want to make sure there's no "good ending" or "bad ending" so to speak to avoid making the games being a simple "BEING A PARAGON ALL THE TIME TO WIN" and "EVIL RENEGADE SUCKSSS" type of thing.GamesB2 said:
*spoilers*
The endings were varied enough for me to accept. I had one Shepard that destroyed the relays and all the Reapers (while also allowing to live at the end) to Shepard becoming the new Catalyst, preserving the ME relays for the galaxy to allowing human evolution to leap forward by merging with synthetics.
So yes I wished the endings were more diverse but I would hardly say that it was "all the same"
Just going to check, you have watched all three endings haven't you?Savber said:
If not, you might want to check them out.
Obvious spoilers are beyond obvious.
Even at his last moments, the man sacrificed himself for the "better" good.ProtonGuy said:
Also i LOVE your avatar, Protomen. That epic bastard. He sacrificed himself for a race that was too coward to act. I salute you friend!!
The ending when Shepard lives is when You have above 4k-5k effective military strength (overall * readiness %, default 50% if You didn't grind MP) and pick destroy the reapers. You pretty much can't get it without MP unless You made very specific choices in previous games (like killing Wrex in ME1).TitanAtlas said:
Worst things about ME3 ending?
The fact it comes down to the traditional "world defining choice at the end that invalidates all previous options". It's bad design I wish games would abandon already.
The whole London and beyond for me felt just rushed. No challenge in it (played on Insanity), just simple "horde mode" encounters, one after another, even the last "fight" before you enter the beam was pathetic. It feels like the only "true" boss was Kai Leng.
Previously mentioned plot holes with what happens to Normandy and Your squad-mates.
The flashback ignoring LI choices outside of ME1.
The post-credits ending with "And that was story of Shepard, son" ... that's the worst part really. You do not end stories like this without establishing it at some point earlier. It gives the impression of writers running out of ideas and just slapping it as an excuse.
The only goo thing was the fact in my ending Joker ended in the post possible scenario a man could imagine... stranded on a planet with Traynor and Ashley with one task only - recreate the civilization!
I have played all three hence my previous comment.GamesB2 said:
Yes, the endings are not perfect (need more diversity and more closure) but it still is different.
Shepard gave his life in one with another he manages to survive. In one he merges with synthetic, the other he utterly wiped them out.
So basically the endings are different with the synthetics either merging with us, the Reapers get destroyed, or Shepard becomes the Catalyst.
Instead, it the LACK of diverse cutscenes (the noted copy-paste) and the lack of an epilogue that really made the endings feel the "same"
If Bioware added another set of 10 min or so unique cutscenes per ending each showing different cutscenes that reflect upon the different choices you made (e.g. one ending shows the quarian and geth cheering upon the Reaper's defeat and another ending showing a Quarian looking over a dead Geth etc), the endings would easily be a lot better.
So the idea was great, the presentation was lacking so to speak.
They were all the same just a different color. I hated that.Savber said:
I just wanted a "survival list" or a way to tell who lived. Imagine seeing jacobs or Eves kids survive. That would have been great to see eve name her kid. It would be nice if you saved the geth TO SEE THE GETH!, but no you don't get to see the help the quarians rebuild. Imagine if they did that it would be awesome. Right now killing yourself for the geth and not being able to see them survive feels dumb and incomplete. I also choose to let synthetics live on the basis of letting edi live. But she lives either choice thats dumb.
I don't mind dieing at the end and I chose it willingly. I just wish showing what happened to what you "saved" by picking death would have been awesome.
The only thing I did not like was how there was no sense of closure with the characters after the final mission. Shepard getting blasted, the talk with T.I.M, Anderson passing away, even the final decisions were all fine for me.The final moment of the old man and the boy was nice too. But, what I was looking forward too once I defeated the reapers was finding out what my crew went on to do with or without me. I expected a moment like at the end of Dragon Age: Origins where you get to have a final conversation with all of your squad mates after the battle, or a big funeral for your warden. I understand we are playing as Shepard, and therefore we see the story through his eyes, but we still deserve to know what happens to everyone. I could have gone for a final big party with the crew on the wrecked Normandy toasting to Shepard and the fallen, or even Tali, my romance, clutching her stomach on her homeworld (indicating she's pregnant). We as the players have spent countless hours developing relationships with these well drawn characters and to have it just abruptly end with Shepard is, not B.S. as some people would say, but just kind of empty. I also, don't like when stories do a quick moment followed by a cut-away like Shepard taking a breath before credits. It reminds me of X-Men TLS where Magneto slightly moves the chess piece. Hope like that is for future games. Why tease? Why can't we just have a definite ending? 10/10, even though it left me felling kind of empty at the end.
That's pretty much exactly what I've been saying in this thread and in my original post, the idea is fine, the lack of individuality isn't.Savber said:
I posted the videos because you said that in the Synthesis endings the relays weren't destroyed, but they are destroyed in every ending.
When it boils down to it, each ending is the same except for roughly 5 seconds worth of difference (reapers collapsing/flying away and the scene where Shepard breathes).
Sorry, I correct myself.GamesB2 said:
The synthesis ending is where the world pretty much still have the Mass Effect tech to quickly rebuild. The preservation of the reaper tech would have easily lended great assistance in rebuilding the galaxy etc while in all the other endings the world would have taken thousands of years to rebuild.
Either way, I'm glad we agree somewhat about the endings. The idea was great, it was the presentation that didn't do well.
Hopefully a DLC could patch this etc.
I didn't get given the choice to join the Organic and Synthetic lifeforms, is there some requirement to be able to do that?
There are several things wrong with the ending that have nothing to do with the tone. Having a tragic end to a series is perfectly fine if done well but Bioware fumbled in a couple of key areas that ultimately makes the ending unsatisfying and anticlimactic.
1) Pacing. The entire last part of the game feels rushed and sloppy. The player is dropped in on London, plays hoard mode to defend the missiles, takes the magic beam up to the Citadel for a ten minute debate with the Illusive Man. Its as if the writers were rushing the player towards the end so they could hit whatever button they chose and end the game. The action builds artificially fast and segregates the action from the story.
2) Anticlimax. The end of Mass Effect 3 offers a flimsy conclusion to what was a previously epic series. This is characterized with the lack of a final confrontation with the chief antagonist that offers player resolution. The player fights Kai Leng and the Illusive Man but neither is Shepard's archenemy. Shepard's nemesis is Harbinger; the Reaper that kidnapped scores of humans and sought Shepard out personally. Harbinger appears only briefly at the end and even then, there is no direct confrontation between our hero and the villain. Kai Leng and the Illusive Man were shoehorned in as attempts to create a Big Bad but players who had played through 1 and 2 have a vested interest in taking down Harbinger personally.
3) Resolution. Typically in tragic works, there is a resolution after the hero's death to show how his or her actions affected the world they were in. In Mass Effect 3, there is no resolution. Shepard sacrificed his/herself, there was a galactic lightshow and somehow the Normandy crashed on a distant planet. We never see the cost of Shepard's decision or what was gained and lost by the different choices. The reason that people say that the endings are all the same is because, from the player's perspective, they are virtually indistinguishable. No matter what you choose, Reapers go bye-bye, the relays are destroyed and your crew is stranded. Shepard's decisions are not shown to have any impact on the post-game and, for all intents and purposes, all the endings are exactly the same.
1) Pacing. The entire last part of the game feels rushed and sloppy. The player is dropped in on London, plays hoard mode to defend the missiles, takes the magic beam up to the Citadel for a ten minute debate with the Illusive Man. Its as if the writers were rushing the player towards the end so they could hit whatever button they chose and end the game. The action builds artificially fast and segregates the action from the story.
2) Anticlimax. The end of Mass Effect 3 offers a flimsy conclusion to what was a previously epic series. This is characterized with the lack of a final confrontation with the chief antagonist that offers player resolution. The player fights Kai Leng and the Illusive Man but neither is Shepard's archenemy. Shepard's nemesis is Harbinger; the Reaper that kidnapped scores of humans and sought Shepard out personally. Harbinger appears only briefly at the end and even then, there is no direct confrontation between our hero and the villain. Kai Leng and the Illusive Man were shoehorned in as attempts to create a Big Bad but players who had played through 1 and 2 have a vested interest in taking down Harbinger personally.
3) Resolution. Typically in tragic works, there is a resolution after the hero's death to show how his or her actions affected the world they were in. In Mass Effect 3, there is no resolution. Shepard sacrificed his/herself, there was a galactic lightshow and somehow the Normandy crashed on a distant planet. We never see the cost of Shepard's decision or what was gained and lost by the different choices. The reason that people say that the endings are all the same is because, from the player's perspective, they are virtually indistinguishable. No matter what you choose, Reapers go bye-bye, the relays are destroyed and your crew is stranded. Shepard's decisions are not shown to have any impact on the post-game and, for all intents and purposes, all the endings are exactly the same.
Because it doesn't make any sense.TitanAtlas said:
Mass Effect is a sci-fi universe. The organic/synthetic unification happens with an "energy nova" of a sorts. Thats moving BEYOND the Sci-Fi theme established into the realm of magic. Remember, the game is called Mass Effect because of Mass Effect fields that can alter and modulate the mass of space-time, therefore enabling faster-than-light travel and be used for kinetic energy purposes (mass driver weapons, telekinesis etc.). That's why it's called "Mass Effect", not "Magic Effect", two entirely different concepts.
Then there is The Catalyst. Now lets scroll back to Mass Effect 1. Remember when Shephard talked to Sovereign and asked about the Reapers, and Sovereign said "We simply are"? That's the way it should have stayed, because it leaves us to fill the blanks with some of our imagination about who this terrible enemy is. Like Yahtzee once said, mysteries lose all interest when you explain them, and BioWare decided to "explain" the Reapers with the Catalyst as some sort of godly entity (that might as well have come from the minds of the Intelligent Design-religion) when the Reapers were better left with Sovereigns explanation.
So in short, after 60-80 hours of Sci-Fi gameplay over the course of all 3 games, BioWare decided in the last 30 minutes to move from Sci-Fi into the realm of what can be considered "Supernatural" with the two described moves above.
This might not mean so much to you, but for many people this completely destroyed the believeability of the universe because it runs against everything that has been established in the game so far. Even the Reapers, as powerful and massive as they are, are at least a BELIEVABLE enemy in a Sci-Fi universe. Mass DNA-altering universe-spanding energy waves are not believeable in the established fiction.
Beyond that, there is the problem with the endings that, to many people, there is no real "Happy Ending". For example, the unification of organics and synthetics you see a 'beautiful' is something many (if not most) people would see as immoral, since you are basically doing it against the will of the universe (i bet you wouldn't be so happy to be turned into half machine without being asked first).
And then there is the fact that the other endings end with the characters that BioWare has spent 3 games to make us love, including Shephard, being pounded into the dirt.
Now, this would be okay in most other games (people rarely complain about the atrocities that the protagonist in a Horror Game goes through). The problem with Mass Effect 3, however, is that the game gives you a way to tracks it's progress. What this does is set up the expectation that if you max out on Readiness Rating, do every sidequest and do everything you can to make the war go your way, you can get a "happy" (or at least semi-happy ending).
What this does is make some players bust their ass off and do everything (including the Galaxy At War multiplayer) to get the best possible ending, just like it was possible to make everyone survive the suicide mission in Mass Effect 2. Instead, in ME3, you are treated to a punch in the guts by BioWare, no matter how much you worked your ass off.
To booth, they also added love interest to the game. Now, i don't know if you remember Baldur's Gate 2 + Throne of Bhaal (assuming you ever played them). In those games, you could also have love interest, and after you have completed the game, you get an epilogue explaining how you and your love interest went on with your lives. What this does is add WEIGHT to the love stories, and also gives more incentive to replay the game with a different love interest. In Mass Effect 3, once you figure out that you and your love interest is gonna be treated to a shitty ending without a proper future together, why bother?
.
So to summerize, the endings (no matter which of the 16 you get):
- Manage to piss on all the characters BioWare made you love (which in turn is like pissing on the players, especially the ones who worked their ass off to get the best possible ending)
- Make all your hard work (which they even let you track) seem all for nothing
- Make many of the choices seem hollow (love interests)
- Destroys the believability of the universe by introducing godlike powers to a Sci-Fi universe, also at the same time completely demystifying an enemy that had better been left more or less mystified.
Why? Because It completely goes against Shepard's character to just accept what the little child was saying (he even disproved it) and because the galaxy get reset no matter you choices which completely craps on all your previous work to make the universe a better place for the species that live there currently. Plus, they knew what the ending was (if their claim about testing phase taking 3 months to complete when talking about the dlc) 3 months ago, they completely lied about it to our faces in this interview in January:
and
Thanks for a good laugh Casey.
Source: http://www.oxm.co.uk/37677/mass-effect-3-citadel-is-bigger-than-ever-endings-will-be-more-sophisticated/
Which is a complete and utter lie because that is EXACTLY what it comes down to.
and
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Thanks for a good laugh Casey.
Source: http://www.oxm.co.uk/37677/mass-effect-3-citadel-is-bigger-than-ever-endings-will-be-more-sophisticated/
Question to OP, did you play the other 3 games in the series?
It's not 100%, but the more of the series people played the less likely they were to like the endings. I chalk it up to the fact that its effectively cheating when a STANDARD BIOWARE MORALLY AMBIGUOUS 3 SWITCH ENDGAME SEQUENCE engages at a point where all that's important is seeing the culmination of a player's attempt to create the perfect Shep and the perfect outcome for every scenario in the first two games. Some players just want to see everything they've done play out. This wasnt the time for a choice sequence and the time to see everything you did take affect.
I for one wanted to see reconciled Geth swarm to protect the Destiny Ascension from a reaper attack, or the promised Salarian STG support flanking a line Cannibals, or Grunt wrestling a Brute to the ground, or the promised Rachni fleet coming out of nowhere to surprise the Reapers.
Also, this was a massive break from the story already established, alot of people thought they were playing a Science Fiction the whole time, only to find out it was actually a science fantasy. Bit of a shock there.
It's not 100%, but the more of the series people played the less likely they were to like the endings. I chalk it up to the fact that its effectively cheating when a STANDARD BIOWARE MORALLY AMBIGUOUS 3 SWITCH ENDGAME SEQUENCE engages at a point where all that's important is seeing the culmination of a player's attempt to create the perfect Shep and the perfect outcome for every scenario in the first two games. Some players just want to see everything they've done play out. This wasnt the time for a choice sequence and the time to see everything you did take affect.
I for one wanted to see reconciled Geth swarm to protect the Destiny Ascension from a reaper attack, or the promised Salarian STG support flanking a line Cannibals, or Grunt wrestling a Brute to the ground, or the promised Rachni fleet coming out of nowhere to surprise the Reapers.
Also, this was a massive break from the story already established, alot of people thought they were playing a Science Fiction the whole time, only to find out it was actually a science fantasy. Bit of a shock there.
In the book with Artwork coming with the collectors Edition they mentioned that the Illusive Man was intented to turn into a huge Hulking Cyborg-Brute people where supposed to fight, but (thank GOD!) later decided that not to be fitting. The last confrontation was a battle of Wits and Shepard literally finally breaking the control the Illusive Man had over him.TitanAtlas said:
Kei Lang is pretty much the traditional "Final Boss" and Bioware tried pretty hard to make the players hate him by having him kill two former Companions, defeat Shepard in Tessia and later mock him by mail. I for one didn't care about that silly Cyborgninja though and killing him wasn't really satisfying.
He's coming from the novels though, so perhaps people who read that crap had more emotional investment in that character.