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Ok seriously, read this thing and the comments that followed its clear that people bashing those of us doing this never even played the game. 5 years we have been told our choices would affect the ending, that WE could choose how things went, and the end invalidated everything we did and were told in 10 minutes.
Someone at work called me on my apathy today and i asked her "have you ever cried during a movie?" she said of course she did. "Ok now imagine that you spent 200hrs total over 5 years with that movie, with its characters, its story, and suddenly in 10 minutes at the end, everything you had ever hoped would happen was ripped away and left with nothing"
200hrs, that's around 17 seasons of a sitcom. So after 17 seasons main characters finally profess love for one another, except character A has incurable cancer and has 10 minutes to live...The End.
she understood
Someone at work called me on my apathy today and i asked her "have you ever cried during a movie?" she said of course she did. "Ok now imagine that you spent 200hrs total over 5 years with that movie, with its characters, its story, and suddenly in 10 minutes at the end, everything you had ever hoped would happen was ripped away and left with nothing"
200hrs, that's around 17 seasons of a sitcom. So after 17 seasons main characters finally profess love for one another, except character A has incurable cancer and has 10 minutes to live...The End.
she understood
I, um, wrote a bit of an essay on the subject, which I am shamelessly linking to everywhere I can, 'cause I want more eyes on it. My thoughts are here: http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9746186
People are taking this the way they are because the ending is "wrong," not because it's lacking sunshine or rainbows. It violates the reader-writer contract. Bioware has gone to great lengths in past games emphasizing player choice, character development, and visible reactions to Shepard's decisions.
With this ending, the only decision in the entire series that matters is the color of lights in the endings. The star-child and his space-magic do not have the same level of backstory seen in just about every character of importance elsewhere. Worst of all, we don't even get to find out what happens to the rest of our team-- dozens, maybe hundreds, of threads are just left dangling.
The end result of shredding the contract is anyone emotionally invested in the story pulls out of it. With any sort of fiction, we suspend disbelief with the trust and expectation that the writer will create something with a satisfying (be that happy or sad) resolution, and the author will follow the rules of the universe they set. When that is broken, the raison d'etre of the work also breaks.
In Mass Effect 3's case, this means the non-resolving ending of the trilogy undermines the importance of work. It might be a great "game" but it trashes the "story."
With this ending, the only decision in the entire series that matters is the color of lights in the endings. The star-child and his space-magic do not have the same level of backstory seen in just about every character of importance elsewhere. Worst of all, we don't even get to find out what happens to the rest of our team-- dozens, maybe hundreds, of threads are just left dangling.
The end result of shredding the contract is anyone emotionally invested in the story pulls out of it. With any sort of fiction, we suspend disbelief with the trust and expectation that the writer will create something with a satisfying (be that happy or sad) resolution, and the author will follow the rules of the universe they set. When that is broken, the raison d'etre of the work also breaks.
In Mass Effect 3's case, this means the non-resolving ending of the trilogy undermines the importance of work. It might be a great "game" but it trashes the "story."
eh. I personally hate the ME franchise. The shooting is frustrating and everything sorta bored me, and this is coming from a dude who played over 100 hours on Fallout 3 and New Vegas each and loved them. That game is 60% walking across fucking nothingness.
Ok seriously, read this thing and the comments that followed its clear that people bashing those of us doing this never even played the game. 5 years we have been told our choices would affect the ending, that WE could choose how things went, and the end invalidated everything we did and were told in 10 minutes.
Someone at work called me on my apathy today and i asked her "have you ever cried during a movie?" she said of course she did. "Ok now imagine that you spent 200hrs total over 5 years with that movie, with its characters, its story, and suddenly in 10 minutes at the end, everything you had ever hoped would happen was ripped away and left with nothing"
200hrs, that's around 17 seasons of a sitcom. So after 17 seasons main characters finally profess love for one another, except character A has incurable cancer and has 10 minutes to live...The End.
she understood
Someone at work called me on my apathy today and i asked her "have you ever cried during a movie?" she said of course she did. "Ok now imagine that you spent 200hrs total over 5 years with that movie, with its characters, its story, and suddenly in 10 minutes at the end, everything you had ever hoped would happen was ripped away and left with nothing"
200hrs, that's around 17 seasons of a sitcom. So after 17 seasons main characters finally profess love for one another, except character A has incurable cancer and has 10 minutes to live...The End.
she understood
You know what? This is a great, double-super fantastic idea, one which should be applied to any created property that anyone has ever had dispute. Shindler's List was too sad, lets wrap that up with Hitler throwing a picnic for the Jews. Dumbledore died? Not anymore! Fawkes is a pheonix, right? Res the fucker. Works in the Final Fantasy games (most of the time anyways. Don't worry, we'll fix the Aerith snafu, too).The frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel are nice and all, but it's a little discriminatory to have all them white angels in this day and age, so let's paint over an appropriate percentage of them to demonstrate modern equality. While we're at it, Andy Warhol's a hack, so lets pretend that the bastard never existed.
Bioware is allowed creative license over their creative property. You're allowed to disagree, but you are not allowed to demand that an artist censor his/her work just because you find it disagreeable or unfulfilling. It's ludicrous to ask more from a developer that's already allowed the player unparalleled personalization of a narrative to bend over and have their right to free expression fucked in your choice of orifice. After all, it's what you want that really matters, right fanboys?
Bioware is allowed creative license over their creative property. You're allowed to disagree, but you are not allowed to demand that an artist censor his/her work just because you find it disagreeable or unfulfilling. It's ludicrous to ask more from a developer that's already allowed the player unparalleled personalization of a narrative to bend over and have their right to free expression fucked in your choice of orifice. After all, it's what you want that really matters, right fanboys?
1. I've played it and it really does feel like the choices are pretty worthless. But that being said....
2. Some bullshit happy ending would be absolutely ridiculous after everything that happens in 3. It would make no sense, none at all.
"Oh, the Reapears have spent an entire game tearing shit up but now everything is butterflies and rainbows!"
Bioware may not be the absolute best at game design all the time (clunky shooter controls through all of Mass Effect, for example), but they can craft a damn story. And it's incredibly arrogant of their 'fans' to 'demand' that they change their own work. Bioware's response should just be 'fuck off'.
If it were an issue of Bioware's abuse of DLC and all that, I totally support protest on that front, but demanding they change the STORY? Too much.
2. Some bullshit happy ending would be absolutely ridiculous after everything that happens in 3. It would make no sense, none at all.
"Oh, the Reapears have spent an entire game tearing shit up but now everything is butterflies and rainbows!"
Bioware may not be the absolute best at game design all the time (clunky shooter controls through all of Mass Effect, for example), but they can craft a damn story. And it's incredibly arrogant of their 'fans' to 'demand' that they change their own work. Bioware's response should just be 'fuck off'.
If it were an issue of Bioware's abuse of DLC and all that, I totally support protest on that front, but demanding they change the STORY? Too much.
@Chris
"
That's a strawman, and assuming the ending text would be horribly written like a fanfic."
...you mean like Dragon Age: Origins was? Because that's exactly what we're talking about here... a couple of lines of text per character you made a decision about or had any meaningful interaction with, which, it seems to me, is what you're asking for at the end of ME3, and that absolutely IS nonsense. It's not even remotely in keeping with the storytelling present in the series.
Now, you may infer that I fucking hate that kind of throwaway epilogue text as a means of providing closure at the end of a game (or anything, really). However, I'm willing to at least concede that it was a bit more appropriate for DA than ME. That's not because I'm putting ME on a pedestal, as you suggested, but because the means of storytelling is entirely different. DA:O (but not DA2) had much more of a third person, narrated feel to it. In contrast, ME was a VERY personal experience. My Shepard was MY Shepard, and yours was yours. We were very attached to our player characters, and it makes much less sense to be fed extraneous info outside of our player character's perception in the epilogue. The little scenes with the Normandy and grandfather, fine, those can slide because they're pretty harmless and don't really give us much info, but a complex description of something our player character couldn't have known wouldn't be in keeping with the rest of the series.
"
That's a strawman, and assuming the ending text would be horribly written like a fanfic."
...you mean like Dragon Age: Origins was? Because that's exactly what we're talking about here... a couple of lines of text per character you made a decision about or had any meaningful interaction with, which, it seems to me, is what you're asking for at the end of ME3, and that absolutely IS nonsense. It's not even remotely in keeping with the storytelling present in the series.
Now, you may infer that I fucking hate that kind of throwaway epilogue text as a means of providing closure at the end of a game (or anything, really). However, I'm willing to at least concede that it was a bit more appropriate for DA than ME. That's not because I'm putting ME on a pedestal, as you suggested, but because the means of storytelling is entirely different. DA:O (but not DA2) had much more of a third person, narrated feel to it. In contrast, ME was a VERY personal experience. My Shepard was MY Shepard, and yours was yours. We were very attached to our player characters, and it makes much less sense to be fed extraneous info outside of our player character's perception in the epilogue. The little scenes with the Normandy and grandfather, fine, those can slide because they're pretty harmless and don't really give us much info, but a complex description of something our player character couldn't have known wouldn't be in keeping with the rest of the series.
Reading the comments it looks like the problem is a diabolus ex machina appearing at the end and then things end without an epilogue. And that there's plot holes everywhere.
I guess the rage is understandable, but I'd say Bioware made this on purpose so they could sell some overpriced DLC later or w/e. Or they just stopped caring. Or both.
Never played ME, and probably never will for other reasons, so I'm probably talking shit, but I'd say fans deserve a complete ending. Good or bad doesn't even matter.
I guess the rage is understandable, but I'd say Bioware made this on purpose so they could sell some overpriced DLC later or w/e. Or they just stopped caring. Or both.
Never played ME, and probably never will for other reasons, so I'm probably talking shit, but I'd say fans deserve a complete ending. Good or bad doesn't even matter.
The game seemed perfect until the ending. I knew Shepard would most likely die since it is the last of a trilogy. My problem with the ending isn't that. My problem is that after playing these games multiple times and investing 100+ hours into them, I would have liked some closure for the characters. Even if it was written out like the epilogue in Dragon Age: Origins. Besides that point, the AI/God child was a rip off of deus ex machina and felt completely out of place in the established universe. Knowing that the endings are so limited and seem to have hardly any differing consequences makes replaying the games seem pointless. Maybe this ending would have worked better in a movie, but not a video game, and certainly not an RPG where player choice is suppose to matter so much.
I loved the Halo series ending, as a big fan since Halo 1's release. I loved Deus Ex: Human Revolution's endings, even if (by nature of being a prequel) none of the choices resulted in a different outcome 20+ years later in the story.
I hated ME3's endings (all 3 of them), for so many reasons, including how terribly the concepts were executed. I am so disillusioned with BioWare; they did so well with ME1's and ME2's endings, and they had the perfect setup with ME3...but it's like they went out of their way to make the worst endings and execute them horribly.
I hated ME3's endings (all 3 of them), for so many reasons, including how terribly the concepts were executed. I am so disillusioned with BioWare; they did so well with ME1's and ME2's endings, and they had the perfect setup with ME3...but it's like they went out of their way to make the worst endings and execute them horribly.
Now that I've had a little time to stew on the endings, I hate them a little less. With that said, the game builds to this big crescendo with a promise of success, and the conclusions given don't feel like success iyam. I don't think they should rewrite it or anything. Just let it be what it is: a blockbuster adventure that tried really hard to break the fourth wall but instead slammed awkwardly into and got laughed at for it.
Probably going to get flamed for this but oh well. The ending is fine, and you get a new game+ that you can do it all over again. Spoiler ALert! That "ending" has a N7 chest piece found on earth and it's breathing. Which means there is more Mass Effect to be had. Bioware told site like this here that we should be saving our Mass Effect 3 data when we are done with it. Why? Probably because there is another one coming, maybe not 4, but perhaps a different game telling a different story alongside the Commander's. The only thing Bioware has done is leave the game OPEN, yet everyone is being so narrow-minded that they want closure NOW. Just wait, something is bound to come along.
Video games are an escape from the misery of real life. Tons of fans of the Mass Effect Universe and Shepard have put hundreds of hours and hundreds of dollors each into this franchise. We play this game to have a few hours of awe and happiness each night before the depressing slog of the next day begins, We aren't asking for a fairy tale ending, just one with a hopeful outlook, I think as fans its something we deserve after putting so much support into this franchise, especially if they expect us to buy non-ending dlc and future games in this universe.
I have a lot of problems with Mass Effect 3's ending, not the least of which that it goes against everything the series has stood for and rips it all away in the last 5 minutes of what was otherwise a phenomenal game. Everyone gets the same bullshit choices, nobody gets an epilogue, and Shepard's entire character is tossed out the window for no discernible reason.
It's just baffling that an otherwise amazing game could have an ending that fit so poorly.
It's just baffling that an otherwise amazing game could have an ending that fit so poorly.
I preferred the end of Shenmue series...and that shit still hasn't been revealed.
I don't mind having people dying at the end of games, but the lack of narrative and the massive plotholes are just far too great for me to ever buy a Bioware game again.
In Mass Effect 2, I destroyed a Mass Relay in which the consequence was a destroyed star system. Basically the end to Mass Effect 3 destroyed most life since all the Mass Relays blew up.
Fuck Bioware.
I don't mind having people dying at the end of games, but the lack of narrative and the massive plotholes are just far too great for me to ever buy a Bioware game again.
In Mass Effect 2, I destroyed a Mass Relay in which the consequence was a destroyed star system. Basically the end to Mass Effect 3 destroyed most life since all the Mass Relays blew up.
Fuck Bioware.
@Jonathan Hernandez
Haha wow. I haven't read any fan reactions to the ending, I just sort of vented in my comment here. But it's scary that what you've posted and what other people are talking about is SCARILY similar to what I've said, and for many of the points I agree completely.
This ending was as bad and lazy for me as the Deus Ex: Human Revelation series was. The only difference being there, that the Mass Effect games, universe and characters have been fucking OUTSTANDING whilst Deus Ex was just pretty much a standalone husk of a game for me.
Mass Effect has had a lot of investment for me, so its ending isn't WORSE than other games. It's probably equal or a bit better than some. But my reaction is different, due to the investment and how much quality has been thrown at it in my eyes.
Whilst I maintain that it can work for Bioware to just say "well tough, everything ends in the end and that's the way it is" because that CAN happen... and even though you spend hours upon hours getting prepared to win a fight and come out losing, you should take that for what it is... because "hey that's life" and tragic endings can happen. I still think there should be something to balance out all those hours?
You spend 3 games, countless hours being sucked into Bioware's expertise of getting you emotionally invested... but then you're presented with a final 10 minutes and ending that is incredibly difficult to draw the same response. I felt no emotional reaction to it other than "what, that's it?"
Seeing Big Ben explode or whatever, seeing nameless soldiers die or cheer, seeing the mass relays destroyed meant nothing to me. If they wanted a real sense of futility, tragedy and sadness, they could have focused on what they've compelled people to care about the entire series; the main characters. Rather than flash backing to their faces for 2 seconds.
I'm not sure what their aim or mission was with this ending. There was no real repurcussion presented for the final choice.
But then again, the entire game seemed to try and make a crap attempt at tugging on my heartstrings from the beginning with that little boy who dies, constantly turning up in nightmares, being a bit of a focal point and becoming GOD REAPER CHILD HAAZZAAAAAHHH at the end.
I actually did not care for Earth. Big Ben. Those soliders or anything that is presented in the ending.
All I cared about is much like in my own life; the specific things and people I invest time in, get to know and work with. All of these things were missing in the ending. And so, the ending failed.
To look at an effective way of finality and ending, it seems that everyone is agreement that Mordin's fate was perfect. We like him. We care about him. What happens to him matters.
Mass Effect 3 was never about saving Earth or to "take back Earth". That was a shallow means of making the plot move along. I wanted to preserve everything that I had been saving beforehand. The characters, the peace, the squadmates and my choices.
The ending threw all this out of the window.
Should it be rewritten? No. This is Bioware's work. They're entitled to stick by it. And be ridiculed for how bad it is.
It is what it is. And for me, it is shit.
Haha wow. I haven't read any fan reactions to the ending, I just sort of vented in my comment here. But it's scary that what you've posted and what other people are talking about is SCARILY similar to what I've said, and for many of the points I agree completely.
This ending was as bad and lazy for me as the Deus Ex: Human Revelation series was. The only difference being there, that the Mass Effect games, universe and characters have been fucking OUTSTANDING whilst Deus Ex was just pretty much a standalone husk of a game for me.
Mass Effect has had a lot of investment for me, so its ending isn't WORSE than other games. It's probably equal or a bit better than some. But my reaction is different, due to the investment and how much quality has been thrown at it in my eyes.
Whilst I maintain that it can work for Bioware to just say "well tough, everything ends in the end and that's the way it is" because that CAN happen... and even though you spend hours upon hours getting prepared to win a fight and come out losing, you should take that for what it is... because "hey that's life" and tragic endings can happen. I still think there should be something to balance out all those hours?
You spend 3 games, countless hours being sucked into Bioware's expertise of getting you emotionally invested... but then you're presented with a final 10 minutes and ending that is incredibly difficult to draw the same response. I felt no emotional reaction to it other than "what, that's it?"
Seeing Big Ben explode or whatever, seeing nameless soldiers die or cheer, seeing the mass relays destroyed meant nothing to me. If they wanted a real sense of futility, tragedy and sadness, they could have focused on what they've compelled people to care about the entire series; the main characters. Rather than flash backing to their faces for 2 seconds.
I'm not sure what their aim or mission was with this ending. There was no real repurcussion presented for the final choice.
But then again, the entire game seemed to try and make a crap attempt at tugging on my heartstrings from the beginning with that little boy who dies, constantly turning up in nightmares, being a bit of a focal point and becoming GOD REAPER CHILD HAAZZAAAAAHHH at the end.
I actually did not care for Earth. Big Ben. Those soliders or anything that is presented in the ending.
All I cared about is much like in my own life; the specific things and people I invest time in, get to know and work with. All of these things were missing in the ending. And so, the ending failed.
To look at an effective way of finality and ending, it seems that everyone is agreement that Mordin's fate was perfect. We like him. We care about him. What happens to him matters.
Mass Effect 3 was never about saving Earth or to "take back Earth". That was a shallow means of making the plot move along. I wanted to preserve everything that I had been saving beforehand. The characters, the peace, the squadmates and my choices.
The ending threw all this out of the window.
Should it be rewritten? No. This is Bioware's work. They're entitled to stick by it. And be ridiculed for how bad it is.
It is what it is. And for me, it is shit.
@Tristrix:
Let me put it this way. It doesn't matter how many sidequests you did throughout all three games, whether or not you got everyone out alive at the end of ME2, how much DLC you downloaded, questlines you finished...it has no bearing on what happens at the end.
Neither of the two previous games have any bearing on the ending. You could literally pick up the game without playing any of the previous installments, play through the barebones campaign and still get the same three choices as everyone else.
It's predicated on a deus ex machina that comes out of nowhere and makes your player character into a moron who has no chance to tell him (if you did so) that you just spent the game allying synthetics and organics, as well as mortal enemies.
It has logic gaffes galore - after I saw my squadmates lying dead near the beam to the Crucible, they suddenly showed up alive and well on the Normandy at the end?
Bioware either rushed the ending or genuinely thought the endings were good, ridiculousness and all. I've never seen a fanbase rise up so fast and so quickly as they did with this game. It's sad, really, because the other 95% of the game is incredible.
Let me put it this way. It doesn't matter how many sidequests you did throughout all three games, whether or not you got everyone out alive at the end of ME2, how much DLC you downloaded, questlines you finished...it has no bearing on what happens at the end.
Neither of the two previous games have any bearing on the ending. You could literally pick up the game without playing any of the previous installments, play through the barebones campaign and still get the same three choices as everyone else.
It's predicated on a deus ex machina that comes out of nowhere and makes your player character into a moron who has no chance to tell him (if you did so) that you just spent the game allying synthetics and organics, as well as mortal enemies.
It has logic gaffes galore - after I saw my squadmates lying dead near the beam to the Crucible, they suddenly showed up alive and well on the Normandy at the end?
Bioware either rushed the ending or genuinely thought the endings were good, ridiculousness and all. I've never seen a fanbase rise up so fast and so quickly as they did with this game. It's sad, really, because the other 95% of the game is incredible.
Glad to see people who actually played the game to completion and aren't infatuated with calling out anyone who complains are finally joining the conversation. For some people, yes, the bleakness of the ending was a point of contention. For me, and many others, it was not. I actually WANTED a depressing ending.
Up until the magic platform started rising after Anderson's death, I thought the game was damn near perfect. Hell, I could have accepted the three barely different endings and that stupid vent boy AI if it hadn't been for three things:
1) The mass relays were destroyed. This, in itself, is fine. Welcome, even. But the game actually violates the lore established in Arrival by not obliterating every star system in the known galaxy when this happens. Life continues when what is essentially the game's prologue says otherwise? What? Really?
2) The Normandy somehow being in the mass relay when it's getting destroyed. Never mind that the Control and Synthesis endings shouldn't even be destroying the relays in the first place; why the hell is Joker running away from the battle? There's no way he could have foreseen the Crucible blast doing what it eventually did and reacting accordingly without reading the script, so it becomes apparent that he was abandoning Shepard (and Earth) in their greatest time of need. This is so out of character it's not funny.
3) In my game, Garrus and Liara both died when Harbinger blasted my ass with his laser. Yet when the Normandy crashed, they both came out unharmed. What!? If they weren't hurt in the explosion, then they would have been there when Shepard ascended into the Citadel. If they didn't follow Shepard on his/her suicide run in the first place (which would be highly out of character for ANY of the squadmates), there's absolutely no way they could have been picked up by the Normandy between the beginning of Shepard's approach and his/her activation of the Crucible. Extraction in that area would have literally been impossible.
And if you want to argue that they could have been picked up by the Normandy had they retreated to a safer area, that makes Joker's sudden entrance into the mass relay even more implausible.
Up until the magic platform started rising after Anderson's death, I thought the game was damn near perfect. Hell, I could have accepted the three barely different endings and that stupid vent boy AI if it hadn't been for three things:
1) The mass relays were destroyed. This, in itself, is fine. Welcome, even. But the game actually violates the lore established in Arrival by not obliterating every star system in the known galaxy when this happens. Life continues when what is essentially the game's prologue says otherwise? What? Really?
2) The Normandy somehow being in the mass relay when it's getting destroyed. Never mind that the Control and Synthesis endings shouldn't even be destroying the relays in the first place; why the hell is Joker running away from the battle? There's no way he could have foreseen the Crucible blast doing what it eventually did and reacting accordingly without reading the script, so it becomes apparent that he was abandoning Shepard (and Earth) in their greatest time of need. This is so out of character it's not funny.
3) In my game, Garrus and Liara both died when Harbinger blasted my ass with his laser. Yet when the Normandy crashed, they both came out unharmed. What!? If they weren't hurt in the explosion, then they would have been there when Shepard ascended into the Citadel. If they didn't follow Shepard on his/her suicide run in the first place (which would be highly out of character for ANY of the squadmates), there's absolutely no way they could have been picked up by the Normandy between the beginning of Shepard's approach and his/her activation of the Crucible. Extraction in that area would have literally been impossible.
And if you want to argue that they could have been picked up by the Normandy had they retreated to a safer area, that makes Joker's sudden entrance into the mass relay even more implausible.
I don't think it's a bad thing to have a sense of entitlement when you're putting down 60 dollars for a game.
My issue with the endings is that Mike Gamble actually said in a interview with OXM that "There are many different endings. We wouldn’t do it any other way. How could you go through all three campaigns playing as your Shepard and then be forced into a bespoke ending that everyone gets? But I can’t say any more than that," which I feel constitutes lying to your potential customers (Here's the link to the article: http://www.360magazine.co.uk/interview/mass-effect-3-has-many-different-endings/).
With that kind of hype and advertising, I believe that people who bought the game and have invested money and time in the series have a right to be pissed. Whether or not they deserve new endings is entirely different issue. But criticisms that fans are just self-entitled whiners are nothing more than a hasty conclusion or just plain flame-baiting.
Personally, I want a new ending. Do I want an 30 minute Return of the King-esque ending? Hell yes, but I'm obviously not expecting it, nor did I expect it coming when I first played through ME3. Hell, I just want an ending with less plot holes. Let it be sad and dreary or happy go lucky. Just don't lie to me and tell me there's "many different endings" when they're all the same.
My issue with the endings is that Mike Gamble actually said in a interview with OXM that "There are many different endings. We wouldn’t do it any other way. How could you go through all three campaigns playing as your Shepard and then be forced into a bespoke ending that everyone gets? But I can’t say any more than that," which I feel constitutes lying to your potential customers (Here's the link to the article: http://www.360magazine.co.uk/interview/mass-effect-3-has-many-different-endings/).
With that kind of hype and advertising, I believe that people who bought the game and have invested money and time in the series have a right to be pissed. Whether or not they deserve new endings is entirely different issue. But criticisms that fans are just self-entitled whiners are nothing more than a hasty conclusion or just plain flame-baiting.
Personally, I want a new ending. Do I want an 30 minute Return of the King-esque ending? Hell yes, but I'm obviously not expecting it, nor did I expect it coming when I first played through ME3. Hell, I just want an ending with less plot holes. Let it be sad and dreary or happy go lucky. Just don't lie to me and tell me there's "many different endings" when they're all the same.
Another mini-essay by a Bioware forum denizen:
The community seems to be split on this, with most people disliking the endings, and a handful of people who say they are fine, and the arguments about what makes an ending "good" or "bad" tend to miss the point. In my mind, the biggest problem with the ending isn't that it is disappointing or poorly writting (it is, but I'll get to that in a minute). The problem isn't the tone, the ending could have been happy or sad (preferably one or the other depending on choices, but again, I'll get to that in a minute), and it would have worked either way.
The problem is that the ending is simply wrong. It is incorrect. It is simply not what the series was building up to.
This is a long post, but that's the long and short of it, so stop reading there if you want.
It's like if Return of the Jedi had the ending to 2001: A Space Odyssy, because in essence, that's exactly what happened. At the end of Return of the Jedi, Luke opened up a portal to another plane of existance where a some illdefined God-like being told him "Your friends are screwed, but you can sacrifice yourself to save them." He did it, and that's it. Roll credits. We don't get to see how it all turned out, or how anyone reacted to his sacrifice, and we don't get any explainations as to why that just happened. We just see a wierd looking explosion, and maybe one reaction shot. The End.
But let's get to specifics. Since this will walk through the entire ending, don't read this if you want any surprises.
Let's start with Shepard getting knocked out by Harbinger. That was Harbinger right? I mean, they all look the same to me. Anyway, Shep gets knocked out and from this point on it's never really made clear what's going on. The first time this happened to me, I let the three husks kill me because I thought it was like the nuclear bomb scene from Call of Duty, or a dream sequence or something. I supose between Reaper Indoctrination and Protean Beacons screwing with your mind, this series is already prone to wild theorys of "Everything after ____ is just happening in Shepard's head," but the presentation here makes the idea so plausible it's distracting from what's actually going on.
In the next bit, we join Anderson on the Citadel, and again, I really don't know how that worked. Was he just slightly ahead of us? No. We would have been able to see him. Was he behind us? No, he gets to the Crusable controls before we do. Was he take a completely different route to get there? Maybe, but I didn't see any other paths.
Whatever, the Illusive man shows up and you talk him down. I liked the way this bit mirrored the ending to the first game.
Then Anderson dies. No complaints about that, I think everyone saw this coming. Honestly, I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did. He's the mentor figure, he has to die, it's like a trope or something.
But here's where things really start to go wrong. We get beamed up to... somewhere and meet the Star Kid, and well, someone in another thread put it best:
"The Catalyst starts going on and on about how the created will always kill the creator. The most critical moment in the game, and yet, there's no option to jerk that kid up by his holographic hair and say, "Bulls***! Look out there. Geth and Quarian, fighting side by side. Look at the Normandy, look at Joker and EDI. We're making it work. Maybe it will last, maybe it won't, but who the f*** are you deny us the chance to try?""
This right here, is my second biggest problem with the ending. We finally have an explaination for the Reapers, and it completely contradicts the theme of the series, or at least this game in particular. Getting the Quarians and the Geth to work together is, to me, the defining moment of the game. It is also the only "pure" victory Shepard ever gets during the main storyline, that is to say, it's the only victory without a "but" attached to it. Shepard escapes the Sol system, but Earth falls. He brokers a peace between the Krogan and the Turians, but in doing so shuns the Salarians or dooms the Krogan. He finds the Prothean beacon on Thesia, but... you get the idea.
And also, where does the Star Kid himself fit into that little theory of his? Is he the creator or the created? If the Reapers have been faithfully carrying out the will of their creator for untold millions of years, doesn't that completely contradict what he's saying?
And now you have your choice, and my biggest issue with the ending. There are so many problems here I don't really know where to start. I guess I'll start with a very simple question: Why does the Star Kid give a damn how many war assets I have? The whole thrust of the game, get more resources to get a better ending, makes sense... right up until this point. Dude's going to shut his ears and go "La la la" just because we didn't want to spend a few hours scanning uncharted star systems? Really?
There's also the fact that one big decision to decide the fate of the galaxy just doesn't cut it anymore. You might be thinking "but that's always how it is, there's always the one big choice at the end, and it doesn't really matter what you did previously." That may have been the case in Mass Effect 1, but that was five years ago now. ME2 did a phenominal job of making it feel like all of your choices mattered in the end. You still had the one "big" choice sure (destroy or preserve the base) but you also had all of the decisions about how to prepare for the mission and how to go about infiltrating the Base, all of which determined your level of success. There was clear cause and effect. Upgrade the Normandy to survive the assault. Choose the right man for the right job. Here you just have some vague number that determines which choices you are going to be presented with for some reason that is never, ever, made clear.
And then there are the choices themselves. Bioware says there are 16 possible endings, but really there are only 5 with slight variations, and even that is being generous since all five of them basically boil down to "Shepard sacrifices himself to save the galaxy" unless you have enough War Assets (again, why??) in which case you get an easter egg hinting that Shepard survived after all.
First of all, this may be nitpicky, and depending on who you romanced, you might not have noticed it, but you see flashbacks to several people during the sacrifice and there's a reasonable chance that you'll miss out on your romantic partner. It's always Joker, Anderson, Kaiden/Ashley, and Liara, so unless you happened to romance one of them, Shepard's final thought isn't of his loved one (or loved ones if you romanced multiple people along the way).
The ending doesn't offer any closure whatsoever. It's not abundently clear who lived and who died since it's never really made clear what exactly that green/blue/red explosion does. For all we know, Joker and company really are the only survivers of the assault on earth (how did the squad get back to the Normandy anyway?) and they repopulated uh... Earth? Where did they land anyway? Even if they survived, with the Mass Relays destroyed, it seems like the entire military strength of the the known Galaxy is stuck on Earth. How exactly is that going to work out? I wonder who in their right mind would choose the "destroy all technology" ending, since the Kid flat out tells you that it will destroy the Geth (implying that EDI would die too).
We get the little epilogue with Buzz Aldrin (check the credits, that's him) talking to a kid, so we know it worked out... somehow. As always, the ending is vague about the details. I'm not sure if this is meant to be taken as a sequel hook, I kind of doubt it since the message afterwards literally tells you that Shepard's adventure will continue via ME3 DLC. In any case, this is a very poor way of conveying the information that the galaxy went on without Shepard. Mass Effect is a character driven story line. I don't want to see how his children's children remember Shepard, I want to see how his friends and allies remember him/her.
So it's not just Shepard's sacrifice that's the problem, it's everything surrounding it. There is nothing worse in fiction than when something tries and fails to bring closure. You can bring closure to a storyline, or you can leave it open to interpretation, but the ending tried to do both, and in doing so, fails.
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9720265/1
The community seems to be split on this, with most people disliking the endings, and a handful of people who say they are fine, and the arguments about what makes an ending "good" or "bad" tend to miss the point. In my mind, the biggest problem with the ending isn't that it is disappointing or poorly writting (it is, but I'll get to that in a minute). The problem isn't the tone, the ending could have been happy or sad (preferably one or the other depending on choices, but again, I'll get to that in a minute), and it would have worked either way.
The problem is that the ending is simply wrong. It is incorrect. It is simply not what the series was building up to.
This is a long post, but that's the long and short of it, so stop reading there if you want.
It's like if Return of the Jedi had the ending to 2001: A Space Odyssy, because in essence, that's exactly what happened. At the end of Return of the Jedi, Luke opened up a portal to another plane of existance where a some illdefined God-like being told him "Your friends are screwed, but you can sacrifice yourself to save them." He did it, and that's it. Roll credits. We don't get to see how it all turned out, or how anyone reacted to his sacrifice, and we don't get any explainations as to why that just happened. We just see a wierd looking explosion, and maybe one reaction shot. The End.
But let's get to specifics. Since this will walk through the entire ending, don't read this if you want any surprises.
Let's start with Shepard getting knocked out by Harbinger. That was Harbinger right? I mean, they all look the same to me. Anyway, Shep gets knocked out and from this point on it's never really made clear what's going on. The first time this happened to me, I let the three husks kill me because I thought it was like the nuclear bomb scene from Call of Duty, or a dream sequence or something. I supose between Reaper Indoctrination and Protean Beacons screwing with your mind, this series is already prone to wild theorys of "Everything after ____ is just happening in Shepard's head," but the presentation here makes the idea so plausible it's distracting from what's actually going on.
In the next bit, we join Anderson on the Citadel, and again, I really don't know how that worked. Was he just slightly ahead of us? No. We would have been able to see him. Was he behind us? No, he gets to the Crusable controls before we do. Was he take a completely different route to get there? Maybe, but I didn't see any other paths.
Whatever, the Illusive man shows up and you talk him down. I liked the way this bit mirrored the ending to the first game.
Then Anderson dies. No complaints about that, I think everyone saw this coming. Honestly, I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did. He's the mentor figure, he has to die, it's like a trope or something.
But here's where things really start to go wrong. We get beamed up to... somewhere and meet the Star Kid, and well, someone in another thread put it best:
"The Catalyst starts going on and on about how the created will always kill the creator. The most critical moment in the game, and yet, there's no option to jerk that kid up by his holographic hair and say, "Bulls***! Look out there. Geth and Quarian, fighting side by side. Look at the Normandy, look at Joker and EDI. We're making it work. Maybe it will last, maybe it won't, but who the f*** are you deny us the chance to try?""
This right here, is my second biggest problem with the ending. We finally have an explaination for the Reapers, and it completely contradicts the theme of the series, or at least this game in particular. Getting the Quarians and the Geth to work together is, to me, the defining moment of the game. It is also the only "pure" victory Shepard ever gets during the main storyline, that is to say, it's the only victory without a "but" attached to it. Shepard escapes the Sol system, but Earth falls. He brokers a peace between the Krogan and the Turians, but in doing so shuns the Salarians or dooms the Krogan. He finds the Prothean beacon on Thesia, but... you get the idea.
And also, where does the Star Kid himself fit into that little theory of his? Is he the creator or the created? If the Reapers have been faithfully carrying out the will of their creator for untold millions of years, doesn't that completely contradict what he's saying?
And now you have your choice, and my biggest issue with the ending. There are so many problems here I don't really know where to start. I guess I'll start with a very simple question: Why does the Star Kid give a damn how many war assets I have? The whole thrust of the game, get more resources to get a better ending, makes sense... right up until this point. Dude's going to shut his ears and go "La la la" just because we didn't want to spend a few hours scanning uncharted star systems? Really?
There's also the fact that one big decision to decide the fate of the galaxy just doesn't cut it anymore. You might be thinking "but that's always how it is, there's always the one big choice at the end, and it doesn't really matter what you did previously." That may have been the case in Mass Effect 1, but that was five years ago now. ME2 did a phenominal job of making it feel like all of your choices mattered in the end. You still had the one "big" choice sure (destroy or preserve the base) but you also had all of the decisions about how to prepare for the mission and how to go about infiltrating the Base, all of which determined your level of success. There was clear cause and effect. Upgrade the Normandy to survive the assault. Choose the right man for the right job. Here you just have some vague number that determines which choices you are going to be presented with for some reason that is never, ever, made clear.
And then there are the choices themselves. Bioware says there are 16 possible endings, but really there are only 5 with slight variations, and even that is being generous since all five of them basically boil down to "Shepard sacrifices himself to save the galaxy" unless you have enough War Assets (again, why??) in which case you get an easter egg hinting that Shepard survived after all.
First of all, this may be nitpicky, and depending on who you romanced, you might not have noticed it, but you see flashbacks to several people during the sacrifice and there's a reasonable chance that you'll miss out on your romantic partner. It's always Joker, Anderson, Kaiden/Ashley, and Liara, so unless you happened to romance one of them, Shepard's final thought isn't of his loved one (or loved ones if you romanced multiple people along the way).
The ending doesn't offer any closure whatsoever. It's not abundently clear who lived and who died since it's never really made clear what exactly that green/blue/red explosion does. For all we know, Joker and company really are the only survivers of the assault on earth (how did the squad get back to the Normandy anyway?) and they repopulated uh... Earth? Where did they land anyway? Even if they survived, with the Mass Relays destroyed, it seems like the entire military strength of the the known Galaxy is stuck on Earth. How exactly is that going to work out? I wonder who in their right mind would choose the "destroy all technology" ending, since the Kid flat out tells you that it will destroy the Geth (implying that EDI would die too).
We get the little epilogue with Buzz Aldrin (check the credits, that's him) talking to a kid, so we know it worked out... somehow. As always, the ending is vague about the details. I'm not sure if this is meant to be taken as a sequel hook, I kind of doubt it since the message afterwards literally tells you that Shepard's adventure will continue via ME3 DLC. In any case, this is a very poor way of conveying the information that the galaxy went on without Shepard. Mass Effect is a character driven story line. I don't want to see how his children's children remember Shepard, I want to see how his friends and allies remember him/her.
So it's not just Shepard's sacrifice that's the problem, it's everything surrounding it. There is nothing worse in fiction than when something tries and fails to bring closure. You can bring closure to a storyline, or you can leave it open to interpretation, but the ending tried to do both, and in doing so, fails.
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9720265/1
Nobody is asking for a sunshine and puppy dogs ending. We're just asking for a little hope. The ending seems purposely designed to eliminate all hope for Shepard and his squad. No chance for a happy ending, no chance for a future together. Nothing.
I just dont see how building synthetic to kill organics stops synthetics from killing organics........ thats why the ending sucked.
(besides destroying the relays cutting off entire races from their environments.)
(besides destroying the relays cutting off entire races from their environments.)
The community seems to be split on this, with most people disliking the endings, and a handful of people who say they are fine, and the arguments about what makes an ending "good" or "bad" tend to miss the point. In my mind, the biggest problem with the ending isn't that it is disappointing or poorly writting (it is, but I'll get to that in a minute). The problem isn't the tone, the ending could have been happy or sad (preferably one or the other depending on choices, but again, I'll get to that in a minute), and it would have worked either way.
The problem is that the ending is simply wrong. It is incorrect. It is simply not what the series was building up to.
This is a long post, but that's the long and short of it, so stop reading there if you want.
It's like if Return of the Jedi had the ending to 2001: A Space Odyssy, because in essence, that's exactly what happened. At the end of Return of the Jedi, Luke opened up a portal to another plane of existance where a some illdefined God-like being told him "Your friends are screwed, but you can sacrifice yourself to save them." He did it, and that's it. Roll credits. We don't get to see how it all turned out, or how anyone reacted to his sacrifice, and we don't get any explainations as to why that just happened. We just see a wierd looking explosion, and maybe one reaction shot. The End.
But let's get to specifics. Since this will walk through the entire ending, don't read this if you want any surprises.
Let's start with Shepard getting knocked out by Harbinger. That was Harbinger right? I mean, they all look the same to me. Anyway, Shep gets knocked out and from this point on it's never really made clear what's going on. The first time this happened to me, I let the three husks kill me because I thought it was like the nuclear bomb scene from Call of Duty, or a dream sequence or something. I supose between Reaper Indoctrination and Protean Beacons screwing with your mind, this series is already prone to wild theorys of "Everything after ____ is just happening in Shepard's head," but the presentation here makes the idea so plausible it's distracting from what's actually going on.
In the next bit, we join Anderson on the Citadel, and again, I really don't know how that worked. Was he just slightly ahead of us? No. We would have been able to see him. Was he behind us? No, he gets to the Crusable controls before we do. Was he take a completely different route to get there? Maybe, but I didn't see any other paths.
Whatever, the Illusive man shows up and you talk him down. I liked the way this bit mirrored the ending to the first game.
Then Anderson dies. No complaints about that, I think everyone saw this coming. Honestly, I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did. He's the mentor figure, he has to die, it's like a trope or something.
But here's where things really start to go wrong. We get beamed up to... somewhere and meet the Star Kid, and well, someone in another thread put it best:
"The Catalyst starts going on and on about how the created will always kill the creator. The most critical moment in the game, and yet, there's no option to jerk that kid up by his holographic hair and say, "Bulls***! Look out there. Geth and Quarian, fighting side by side. Look at the Normandy, look at Joker and EDI. We're making it work. Maybe it will last, maybe it won't, but who the f*** are you deny us the chance to try?""
This right here, is my second biggest problem with the ending. We finally have an explaination for the Reapers, and it completely contradicts the theme of the series, or at least this game in particular. Getting the Quarians and the Geth to work together is, to me, the defining moment of the game. It is also the only "pure" victory Shepard ever gets during the main storyline, that is to say, it's the only victory without a "but" attached to it. Shepard escapes the Sol system, but Earth falls. He brokers a peace between the Krogan and the Turians, but in doing so shuns the Salarians or dooms the Krogan. He finds the Prothean beacon on Thesia, but... you get the idea.
And also, where does the Star Kid himself fit into that little theory of his? Is he the creator or the created? If the Reapers have been faithfully carrying out the will of their creator for untold millions of years, doesn't that completely contradict what he's saying?
And now you have your choice, and my biggest issue with the ending. There are so many problems here I don't really know where to start. I guess I'll start with a very simple question: Why does the Star Kid give a damn how many war assets I have? The whole thrust of the game, get more resources to get a better ending, makes sense... right up until this point. Dude's going to shut his ears and go "La la la" just because we didn't want to spend a few hours scanning uncharted star systems? Really?
There's also the fact that one big decision to decide the fate of the galaxy just doesn't cut it anymore. You might be thinking "but that's always how it is, there's always the one big choice at the end, and it doesn't really matter what you did previously." That may have been the case in Mass Effect 1, but that was five years ago now. ME2 did a phenominal job of making it feel like all of your choices mattered in the end. You still had the one "big" choice sure (destroy or preserve the base) but you also had all of the decisions about how to prepare for the mission and how to go about infiltrating the Base, all of which determined your level of success. There was clear cause and effect. Upgrade the Normandy to survive the assault. Choose the right man for the right job. Here you just have some vague number that determines which choices you are going to be presented with for some reason that is never, ever, made clear.
And then there are the choices themselves. Bioware says there are 16 possible endings, but really there are only 5 with slight variations, and even that is being generous since all five of them basically boil down to "Shepard sacrifices himself to save the galaxy" unless you have enough War Assets (again, why??) in which case you get an easter egg hinting that Shepard survived after all.
First of all, this may be nitpicky, and depending on who you romanced, you might not have noticed it, but you see flashbacks to several people during the sacrifice and there's a reasonable chance that you'll miss out on your romantic partner. It's always Joker, Anderson, Kaiden/Ashley, and Liara, so unless you happened to romance one of them, Shepard's final thought isn't of his loved one (or loved ones if you romanced multiple people along the way).
The ending doesn't offer any closure whatsoever. It's not abundently clear who lived and who died since it's never really made clear what exactly that green/blue/red explosion does. For all we know, Joker and company really are the only survivers of the assault on earth (how did the squad get back to the Normandy anyway?) and they repopulated uh... Earth? Where did they land anyway? Even if they survived, with the Mass Relays destroyed, it seems like the entire military strength of the the known Galaxy is stuck on Earth. How exactly is that going to work out? I wonder who in their right mind would choose the "destroy all technology" ending, since the Kid flat out tells you that it will destroy the Geth (implying that EDI would die too).
We get the little epilogue with Buzz Aldrin (check the credits, that's him) talking to a kid, so we know it worked out... somehow. As always, the ending is vague about the details. I'm not sure if this is meant to be taken as a sequel hook, I kind of doubt it since the message afterwards literally tells you that Shepard's adventure will continue via ME3 DLC. In any case, this is a very poor way of conveying the information that the galaxy went on without Shepard. Mass Effect is a character driven story line. I don't want to see how his children's children remember Shepard, I want to see how his friends and allies remember him/her.
So it's not just Shepard's sacrifice that's the problem, it's everything surrounding it. There is nothing worse in fiction than when something tries and fails to bring closure. You can bring closure to a storyline, or you can leave it open to interpretation, but the ending tried to do both, and in doing so, fails.
The problem is that the ending is simply wrong. It is incorrect. It is simply not what the series was building up to.
This is a long post, but that's the long and short of it, so stop reading there if you want.
It's like if Return of the Jedi had the ending to 2001: A Space Odyssy, because in essence, that's exactly what happened. At the end of Return of the Jedi, Luke opened up a portal to another plane of existance where a some illdefined God-like being told him "Your friends are screwed, but you can sacrifice yourself to save them." He did it, and that's it. Roll credits. We don't get to see how it all turned out, or how anyone reacted to his sacrifice, and we don't get any explainations as to why that just happened. We just see a wierd looking explosion, and maybe one reaction shot. The End.
But let's get to specifics. Since this will walk through the entire ending, don't read this if you want any surprises.
Let's start with Shepard getting knocked out by Harbinger. That was Harbinger right? I mean, they all look the same to me. Anyway, Shep gets knocked out and from this point on it's never really made clear what's going on. The first time this happened to me, I let the three husks kill me because I thought it was like the nuclear bomb scene from Call of Duty, or a dream sequence or something. I supose between Reaper Indoctrination and Protean Beacons screwing with your mind, this series is already prone to wild theorys of "Everything after ____ is just happening in Shepard's head," but the presentation here makes the idea so plausible it's distracting from what's actually going on.
In the next bit, we join Anderson on the Citadel, and again, I really don't know how that worked. Was he just slightly ahead of us? No. We would have been able to see him. Was he behind us? No, he gets to the Crusable controls before we do. Was he take a completely different route to get there? Maybe, but I didn't see any other paths.
Whatever, the Illusive man shows up and you talk him down. I liked the way this bit mirrored the ending to the first game.
Then Anderson dies. No complaints about that, I think everyone saw this coming. Honestly, I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did. He's the mentor figure, he has to die, it's like a trope or something.
But here's where things really start to go wrong. We get beamed up to... somewhere and meet the Star Kid, and well, someone in another thread put it best:
"The Catalyst starts going on and on about how the created will always kill the creator. The most critical moment in the game, and yet, there's no option to jerk that kid up by his holographic hair and say, "Bulls***! Look out there. Geth and Quarian, fighting side by side. Look at the Normandy, look at Joker and EDI. We're making it work. Maybe it will last, maybe it won't, but who the f*** are you deny us the chance to try?""
This right here, is my second biggest problem with the ending. We finally have an explaination for the Reapers, and it completely contradicts the theme of the series, or at least this game in particular. Getting the Quarians and the Geth to work together is, to me, the defining moment of the game. It is also the only "pure" victory Shepard ever gets during the main storyline, that is to say, it's the only victory without a "but" attached to it. Shepard escapes the Sol system, but Earth falls. He brokers a peace between the Krogan and the Turians, but in doing so shuns the Salarians or dooms the Krogan. He finds the Prothean beacon on Thesia, but... you get the idea.
And also, where does the Star Kid himself fit into that little theory of his? Is he the creator or the created? If the Reapers have been faithfully carrying out the will of their creator for untold millions of years, doesn't that completely contradict what he's saying?
And now you have your choice, and my biggest issue with the ending. There are so many problems here I don't really know where to start. I guess I'll start with a very simple question: Why does the Star Kid give a damn how many war assets I have? The whole thrust of the game, get more resources to get a better ending, makes sense... right up until this point. Dude's going to shut his ears and go "La la la" just because we didn't want to spend a few hours scanning uncharted star systems? Really?
There's also the fact that one big decision to decide the fate of the galaxy just doesn't cut it anymore. You might be thinking "but that's always how it is, there's always the one big choice at the end, and it doesn't really matter what you did previously." That may have been the case in Mass Effect 1, but that was five years ago now. ME2 did a phenominal job of making it feel like all of your choices mattered in the end. You still had the one "big" choice sure (destroy or preserve the base) but you also had all of the decisions about how to prepare for the mission and how to go about infiltrating the Base, all of which determined your level of success. There was clear cause and effect. Upgrade the Normandy to survive the assault. Choose the right man for the right job. Here you just have some vague number that determines which choices you are going to be presented with for some reason that is never, ever, made clear.
And then there are the choices themselves. Bioware says there are 16 possible endings, but really there are only 5 with slight variations, and even that is being generous since all five of them basically boil down to "Shepard sacrifices himself to save the galaxy" unless you have enough War Assets (again, why??) in which case you get an easter egg hinting that Shepard survived after all.
First of all, this may be nitpicky, and depending on who you romanced, you might not have noticed it, but you see flashbacks to several people during the sacrifice and there's a reasonable chance that you'll miss out on your romantic partner. It's always Joker, Anderson, Kaiden/Ashley, and Liara, so unless you happened to romance one of them, Shepard's final thought isn't of his loved one (or loved ones if you romanced multiple people along the way).
The ending doesn't offer any closure whatsoever. It's not abundently clear who lived and who died since it's never really made clear what exactly that green/blue/red explosion does. For all we know, Joker and company really are the only survivers of the assault on earth (how did the squad get back to the Normandy anyway?) and they repopulated uh... Earth? Where did they land anyway? Even if they survived, with the Mass Relays destroyed, it seems like the entire military strength of the the known Galaxy is stuck on Earth. How exactly is that going to work out? I wonder who in their right mind would choose the "destroy all technology" ending, since the Kid flat out tells you that it will destroy the Geth (implying that EDI would die too).
We get the little epilogue with Buzz Aldrin (check the credits, that's him) talking to a kid, so we know it worked out... somehow. As always, the ending is vague about the details. I'm not sure if this is meant to be taken as a sequel hook, I kind of doubt it since the message afterwards literally tells you that Shepard's adventure will continue via ME3 DLC. In any case, this is a very poor way of conveying the information that the galaxy went on without Shepard. Mass Effect is a character driven story line. I don't want to see how his children's children remember Shepard, I want to see how his friends and allies remember him/her.
So it's not just Shepard's sacrifice that's the problem, it's everything surrounding it. There is nothing worse in fiction than when something tries and fails to bring closure. You can bring closure to a storyline, or you can leave it open to interpretation, but the ending tried to do both, and in doing so, fails.
The ending is equivalent to the writers placing your head level with their crotch, slowly unzipping their pants while you can't do anything to speed up the horrifying process.(just like you can't skip through the idiotically drawn out cinematic that's exactly the same each time scratch mild alteration) Then they unceremoniously lash you across the face with their genitalia in three different ways. The problem is, either way you choose be undignified you still can't escape the fact that you've just been **** slapped. To add insult to injury you probably paid ~50$ for the experience.
I honestly don't mind not having access to a perfectly happy ending. Hell, a lot of the events in the game make a perfectly happy ending impossible. That's not my problem. My problem is twofold:
1- Regardless of the ending, Shepard personally is responsible for the destruction of the galactic community.
2- Shepard does not choose the galaxy's future. In the end, Shepard only chooses one of the futures that the AI allows him/her to choose. It's the same situation as the confrontation between Neo and the Architect in the Matrix Reloaded, except Neo does reject the "choice" given to him by the Architect and creates his own option.
The end result is that, no matter what you do or how prepared you are, you cannot achieve victory in Mass Effect 3. The only thing you can do is choose how badly you want to fail. Even then, I could probably deal with that. I wouldn't like it, but I could get over it. In the grand scheme of things, the ending of a video game isn't a big deal.
What really bothers me is that I don't think Bioware thought either of those points through. The game completely ignores the obvious consequences of destroying the mass relays and pretends that everything turns out okay and Shepard isn't given the chance to tell the AI what future he/she wants. Combined with Dragon Age 2's own lackluster ending, I am beginning to have serious doubts about the quality of future Bioware games.
1- Regardless of the ending, Shepard personally is responsible for the destruction of the galactic community.
2- Shepard does not choose the galaxy's future. In the end, Shepard only chooses one of the futures that the AI allows him/her to choose. It's the same situation as the confrontation between Neo and the Architect in the Matrix Reloaded, except Neo does reject the "choice" given to him by the Architect and creates his own option.
The end result is that, no matter what you do or how prepared you are, you cannot achieve victory in Mass Effect 3. The only thing you can do is choose how badly you want to fail. Even then, I could probably deal with that. I wouldn't like it, but I could get over it. In the grand scheme of things, the ending of a video game isn't a big deal.
What really bothers me is that I don't think Bioware thought either of those points through. The game completely ignores the obvious consequences of destroying the mass relays and pretends that everything turns out okay and Shepard isn't given the chance to tell the AI what future he/she wants. Combined with Dragon Age 2's own lackluster ending, I am beginning to have serious doubts about the quality of future Bioware games.
@Johnathan Hernandez
That mini-essay sums everything up flawlessly, especially this part:
"The Catalyst starts going on and on about how the created will always kill the creator. The most critical moment in the game, and yet, there's no option to jerk that kid up by his holographic hair and say, "Bulls***! Look out there. Geth and Quarian, fighting side by side. Look at the Normandy, look at Joker and EDI. We're making it work. Maybe it will last, maybe it won't, but who the f*** are you deny us the chance to try?""
That was easily the biggest fault of the ending. Contrary to everything his established character has done, Shepard doesn't even question the random Star Kid and what he's saying.
That mini-essay sums everything up flawlessly, especially this part:
"The Catalyst starts going on and on about how the created will always kill the creator. The most critical moment in the game, and yet, there's no option to jerk that kid up by his holographic hair and say, "Bulls***! Look out there. Geth and Quarian, fighting side by side. Look at the Normandy, look at Joker and EDI. We're making it work. Maybe it will last, maybe it won't, but who the f*** are you deny us the chance to try?""
That was easily the biggest fault of the ending. Contrary to everything his established character has done, Shepard doesn't even question the random Star Kid and what he's saying.
I hope you're being entirely tongue-in-cheek when you compare posting criticism on an internet forum to coercive violence.
Video games are a product. In any other field if a product has a flaw (like a phone that drops calls when you hold it the wrong way) it's understandable that you complain about those flaws and ask the company to fix them. But as soon as storytelling gets involved in the product, you're apparently entitled if you ask for anything, even if that storytelling is entirely interactive and choice based.
Also, criticism is not arrogant. Criticism is not "I think I can do this better than you." "Do it my way" would be, and would be arrogant, but "do it differently" is not. And I don't think anybody would mind the original ending staying intact as long as they had the *option* to *choose* a different one that wasn't just a color palette swap.
I think that customers have every right to tell a company what's wrong with their product. It's not entitled, it's not a waste of time, it's not somehow morally wrong. It's good when companies listen to their customers, although it's ultimately up to them what to do because it's their product. BioWare should do whatever it thinks is best, but this idea that giving in to customer demands is somehow inherently a bad thing is ridiculous. Don't they want to make fans happy and build goodwill so people will buy the next thing? Isn't that what it means to run a business and make a product?
Video games are a product. In any other field if a product has a flaw (like a phone that drops calls when you hold it the wrong way) it's understandable that you complain about those flaws and ask the company to fix them. But as soon as storytelling gets involved in the product, you're apparently entitled if you ask for anything, even if that storytelling is entirely interactive and choice based.
Also, criticism is not arrogant. Criticism is not "I think I can do this better than you." "Do it my way" would be, and would be arrogant, but "do it differently" is not. And I don't think anybody would mind the original ending staying intact as long as they had the *option* to *choose* a different one that wasn't just a color palette swap.
I think that customers have every right to tell a company what's wrong with their product. It's not entitled, it's not a waste of time, it's not somehow morally wrong. It's good when companies listen to their customers, although it's ultimately up to them what to do because it's their product. BioWare should do whatever it thinks is best, but this idea that giving in to customer demands is somehow inherently a bad thing is ridiculous. Don't they want to make fans happy and build goodwill so people will buy the next thing? Isn't that what it means to run a business and make a product?
consider this.
I have not bought ME3 yet.
after reading about how much of a let-down the ending is, I will not be buying this game now.
that is bad business. simple.
people play games for escapism. to feel good after a shitty day.
there are good and bad endings for games the bad endings are plentiful, they are often called 'game over' or 'you lost a life' or 'do you want to continue?' etc. those are the bad endings where the main character fails or dies or the people you are meant to protect end up dying. then there is the good ending, usually labelled officially as the 'ending'. that is where you win, you rescue your friends and your character doesn't get killed.
it's bee this way since super mario bros.
bioware need to do some basic research into what 'video games' are.
really, if they want to do shitty endings, they need to move into making artistic cinema or neon genesis evangelion.
I have not bought ME3 yet.
after reading about how much of a let-down the ending is, I will not be buying this game now.
that is bad business. simple.
people play games for escapism. to feel good after a shitty day.
there are good and bad endings for games the bad endings are plentiful, they are often called 'game over' or 'you lost a life' or 'do you want to continue?' etc. those are the bad endings where the main character fails or dies or the people you are meant to protect end up dying. then there is the good ending, usually labelled officially as the 'ending'. that is where you win, you rescue your friends and your character doesn't get killed.
it's bee this way since super mario bros.
bioware need to do some basic research into what 'video games' are.
really, if they want to do shitty endings, they need to move into making artistic cinema or neon genesis evangelion.
Jim, I'm typically a very big proponent of the things you write. I love the Jimquisition and for the most part feel you make a lot of very, very valid points. But this article is just biased trash. it would be one thing if this were a small portion of the community, but a very big portion of fans are disappointed in the ending we got. It was a series that up until the very end was all about hope. And in the end all we got were nihilistic endings that honest don't even make any sense. That's one of the biggest problems, squadmates we see die with us in the final conflict can somehow end up in the post game cutscene? It just doesn't make sense.
btw, if anybody wants to know the worst ending in gaming history, it is shinobi on the master system.
that game is HARD. and when you beat the end boss, the screen goes black, it says "game over" and goes to the title screen.
that game is HARD. and when you beat the end boss, the screen goes black, it says "game over" and goes to the title screen.
Not everyone has seen Misery, you know. That header image could use one of those yellow boxes right over that knife.
"Let me put it this way. It doesn't matter how many sidequests you did throughout all three games, whether or not you got everyone out alive at the end of ME2, how much DLC you downloaded, questlines you finished...it has no bearing on what happens at the end. "
Except that it does. Again, you can't possibly expect there to have been hundreds of cutscenes covering the possible combination of choices each player may have made. That's silly. Some things, you're just going to have to infer on your own, and there's PLENTY of information provided to you to EASILY make those inferences.
"Neither of the two previous games have any bearing on the ending. You could literally pick up the game without playing any of the previous installments, play through the barebones campaign and still get the same three choices as everyone else."
Except that you can't. Your choice at the end of ME2 absolutely impacts the end of ME3.
"It's predicated on a deus ex machina that comes out of nowhere and makes your player character into a moron who has no chance to tell him (if you did so) that you just spent the game allying synthetics and organics, as well as mortal enemies."
All these people calling this a "deus ex machina" are really stretching that term. The "god child" is just a manifestation of the reapers who have been there since the first came. It's not like it came out of nowhere. This is a debate of the finer points of the story though, we could go back and forth with this one all day.
"It has logic gaffes galore - after I saw my squadmates lying dead near the beam to the Crucible, they suddenly showed up alive and well on the Normandy at the end?"
This one I'll grant you, though I let that one go because the cutscene had no way of knowing which two people were in your squad at that point, so they either had to make dozens of cutscenes there depicting people you didn't have with you, or just not show anyone at all. No good solution, really. But yeah, fine, if that's a sticking point for you, you're right.
"Bioware either rushed the ending or genuinely thought the endings were good, ridiculousness and all. I've never seen a fanbase rise up so fast and so quickly as they did with this game. It's sad, really, because the other 95% of the game is incredible."
They did think the endings were good. They said so. So that's resolved at least. As for the fanbase rising up so fast... dude, the fanbase rose up over 15 fucking different things about this game. That doesn't prove or disprove the legitimacy of this complaint, I just don't think I'd use the behavior of Bioware "fans" as a metric for jack shit at this point.
Except that it does. Again, you can't possibly expect there to have been hundreds of cutscenes covering the possible combination of choices each player may have made. That's silly. Some things, you're just going to have to infer on your own, and there's PLENTY of information provided to you to EASILY make those inferences.
"Neither of the two previous games have any bearing on the ending. You could literally pick up the game without playing any of the previous installments, play through the barebones campaign and still get the same three choices as everyone else."
Except that you can't. Your choice at the end of ME2 absolutely impacts the end of ME3.
"It's predicated on a deus ex machina that comes out of nowhere and makes your player character into a moron who has no chance to tell him (if you did so) that you just spent the game allying synthetics and organics, as well as mortal enemies."
All these people calling this a "deus ex machina" are really stretching that term. The "god child" is just a manifestation of the reapers who have been there since the first came. It's not like it came out of nowhere. This is a debate of the finer points of the story though, we could go back and forth with this one all day.
"It has logic gaffes galore - after I saw my squadmates lying dead near the beam to the Crucible, they suddenly showed up alive and well on the Normandy at the end?"
This one I'll grant you, though I let that one go because the cutscene had no way of knowing which two people were in your squad at that point, so they either had to make dozens of cutscenes there depicting people you didn't have with you, or just not show anyone at all. No good solution, really. But yeah, fine, if that's a sticking point for you, you're right.
"Bioware either rushed the ending or genuinely thought the endings were good, ridiculousness and all. I've never seen a fanbase rise up so fast and so quickly as they did with this game. It's sad, really, because the other 95% of the game is incredible."
They did think the endings were good. They said so. So that's resolved at least. As for the fanbase rising up so fast... dude, the fanbase rose up over 15 fucking different things about this game. That doesn't prove or disprove the legitimacy of this complaint, I just don't think I'd use the behavior of Bioware "fans" as a metric for jack shit at this point.
@tremault
I would say that is better than the ME3 ending, at least there was a climatic boss fight prior to the end, all that happened here was pick a coloured explosion.
I would say that is better than the ME3 ending, at least there was a climatic boss fight prior to the end, all that happened here was pick a coloured explosion.
"This one I'll grant you, though I let that one go because the cutscene had no way of knowing which two people were in your squad at that point, so they either had to make dozens of cutscenes there depicting people you didn't have with you, or just not show anyone at all. No good solution, really. But yeah, fine, if that's a sticking point for you, you're right."
Uh, yeah it's definitely a sticking point, for me at least. They had no issue making tons of cut-scenes for the combination of alive/dead characters who at the end of ME2. Why the hell wouldn't they be just as precise with this ending cutscene?
"Except that you can't. Your choice at the end of ME2 absolutely impacts the end of ME3."
Can you please elaborate a bit with an example?
Uh, yeah it's definitely a sticking point, for me at least. They had no issue making tons of cut-scenes for the combination of alive/dead characters who at the end of ME2. Why the hell wouldn't they be just as precise with this ending cutscene?
"Except that you can't. Your choice at the end of ME2 absolutely impacts the end of ME3."
Can you please elaborate a bit with an example?
Bad Dudes is still the best video game ending of all time.
Come to think of it, what games lately had cool endings? Marvel Ultimate Alliance is the only one I can think of.
Come to think of it, what games lately had cool endings? Marvel Ultimate Alliance is the only one I can think of.
Speaking of the word entitlement, hell, most people on the net is just that. It is fine to have constructive opinions, but people often blow up everything into a self righteous, virulent rant. Seriously, notch all that blown up anger down, so it is possible to read, no less tolerate.
Karnov for the NES had the worst game ending ever...is what I would say if the game even had a proper ending. The same goes for any game in the Virtua Fighter series or Bionic Commando arcade or Street Fighter...oh,forget it. If it was released in the 1980s, its ending was probably terrible.
Youth today don't know how good they have it with honest to goodness endings, no matter how bleak, rather than one that essentially told the player "I have all of the cash I need from you. Scram!"
Youth today don't know how good they have it with honest to goodness endings, no matter how bleak, rather than one that essentially told the player "I have all of the cash I need from you. Scram!"
Yeah entitled or not, the problem with the endings is that they don't make sense at all. Shepard's been fighting against odds in every single game, and he keeps doing that through all of ME3 too, until those awful last minutes in which this space jesus kid shows up claiming theres no other way to end this than to choose between A, B or C. All of the options being totally ridiculous, and only explained through space magic. It doesn't matter if shepards dies. Reapers dead or not, the whole saga feels pointless after that, since you can't even get closure. It throws away all the choices made in previous games, every relationship, every alliance don't really count at all because it all boils down to thos three colors of space magic. The whole galaxy its pretty much fucked because a semi-god kid says so? When did shepard ever listened to what oposers said? Why would he start now?
And the normandy fleeing with your crew (who were fighting along you) is so illogical it hurts. It breaks the characters completely. Joker would never scape like that. Thats why we want a change, the endings are completely illogical and out of context and fail to bring any sort of closure to an otherwise amazing series.
And the normandy fleeing with your crew (who were fighting along you) is so illogical it hurts. It breaks the characters completely. Joker would never scape like that. Thats why we want a change, the endings are completely illogical and out of context and fail to bring any sort of closure to an otherwise amazing series.
"Can you please elaborate a bit with an example?"
Sure. I've seen people saying there are only 3 possible endings in this thread. That's not true. There are 3 choices. There is more than one ending per choice. I'm not going to give out blatant spoilers, but how "positive" (if you want to look at it that way) the outcomes can be is, in part, influenced by your choice at the end of ME2 (and if you finished ME2, I bet you know which choice that is).
Googling "mass effect 3 ending guide" will provide links with more info on this, if you're interested.
Sure. I've seen people saying there are only 3 possible endings in this thread. That's not true. There are 3 choices. There is more than one ending per choice. I'm not going to give out blatant spoilers, but how "positive" (if you want to look at it that way) the outcomes can be is, in part, influenced by your choice at the end of ME2 (and if you finished ME2, I bet you know which choice that is).
Googling "mass effect 3 ending guide" will provide links with more info on this, if you're interested.
@Tristrix
How is saving or destroying the collector base equating to every decision counted? I'm sorry, after 100+ hours of gameplay (a lot more if you consider replays), there's just no way a no-closure-ending is going to cut it, not with the fans it wont. Because then you get all this rage. Why the hell would I go through all of this again? For the journey? Yeah, travelling in an aeroplane is really cool except when you know it's going to crash. Why would you go up again is beyond my comprehension.
I liked the ride, yeah, I really did. But after this endings, the lack of closure, I just want nothing from it. Why did I save the Geth and Quarians? To "save" the Earth? I don't mind the kid or the choices, the fact that I got no closure and instead I got the Normandy escaping to nowhere and a kid with his grandpa walking is beyond crap.
Above all, what's this crap about Synthesis, it's the last ending that becomes available. Why would I take that when it's been established throughout the trilogy that races should evolve at their own pace.
By the way, there's a huge plothole there, the original Geth (not the heretics) chose not to ally themselves with the Reapers because they wanted their future to be achieved by their own means (this is why I don't mind if the relays are destroyed, as long as that doesn't destroy the systems they're in). However, in ME3 he's ok accepting reaper enhancements... Seriously? And then Shepard does the same?!
Yeah, sure... The endings didn't suck and no one wants closure after hundreds of hours of involvement costing hundreds of dollars over half a decade. On top of that, the guys that do are unhealthy pathetic geeks that need to get over their retarded and entitled sorry asses... ¬¬
How is saving or destroying the collector base equating to every decision counted? I'm sorry, after 100+ hours of gameplay (a lot more if you consider replays), there's just no way a no-closure-ending is going to cut it, not with the fans it wont. Because then you get all this rage. Why the hell would I go through all of this again? For the journey? Yeah, travelling in an aeroplane is really cool except when you know it's going to crash. Why would you go up again is beyond my comprehension.
I liked the ride, yeah, I really did. But after this endings, the lack of closure, I just want nothing from it. Why did I save the Geth and Quarians? To "save" the Earth? I don't mind the kid or the choices, the fact that I got no closure and instead I got the Normandy escaping to nowhere and a kid with his grandpa walking is beyond crap.
Above all, what's this crap about Synthesis, it's the last ending that becomes available. Why would I take that when it's been established throughout the trilogy that races should evolve at their own pace.
By the way, there's a huge plothole there, the original Geth (not the heretics) chose not to ally themselves with the Reapers because they wanted their future to be achieved by their own means (this is why I don't mind if the relays are destroyed, as long as that doesn't destroy the systems they're in). However, in ME3 he's ok accepting reaper enhancements... Seriously? And then Shepard does the same?!
Yeah, sure... The endings didn't suck and no one wants closure after hundreds of hours of involvement costing hundreds of dollars over half a decade. On top of that, the guys that do are unhealthy pathetic geeks that need to get over their retarded and entitled sorry asses... ¬¬
theres just one ending with different colors and maybe 5 seconds of video
hell yea it should be brutal, war is gruesome
but the relays and citadel blowing up no matter what are shitty
we would have been better off leaving it for the next cycle
hell yea it should be brutal, war is gruesome
but the relays and citadel blowing up no matter what are shitty
we would have been better off leaving it for the next cycle
Obviously they did it intentionally so they can sell some alternate ending DLCs. No Im not just trying to take a shot at Bioware, thats whats going to happen and you all know it.
The choices at the end are terrible and a cobbled together mess. The endings should have been the sum of all your choices through-out the game instead of an arbitrary choice forced upon you from the Star Child. That character and choices shouldn't exist, at all. Self-sacrifice doesn't need to end in a character's death. A friend of mine calls it the "Frodo Ending". Think about it. Frodo (from Lord of the Rings), sacrifices much on his journey to destroy the One Ring: he loses friends, has to make hard choices and bears many scars, both emotional and physical. Yet at the end, he doesn't die. Instead, he goes off to heal. It's bittersweet because he leaves behind the life he had due to his sacrifices.
Had Lord of the Rings followed this game, he would have gotten to Mount Doom and Gollum would have given him a choice: keep the ring or jump into the lava with the ring. When he chose one of those Middle Earth would blow up.
The whole thing just feels out of place. Plus it goes against one of the constant themes of control and free will. Every planet you help out is releasing it from some sort of forced control. Indoctrination forcing people to obey with mindcontrol, genophage controlling the Krogans, everything involving the Geth and Quarians. Yet each and everyone of those "choices" you are given at the end involves imposing some control upon the galaxy. It admits that the Reapers were exactly right the entire time and undoes everything you've fought for the entire game.
It's such a shame too, the entire rest of the game is so goddamn great that it's soul-crushing to have a letdown, out-of-the-blue nonsense "ending".
Had Lord of the Rings followed this game, he would have gotten to Mount Doom and Gollum would have given him a choice: keep the ring or jump into the lava with the ring. When he chose one of those Middle Earth would blow up.
The whole thing just feels out of place. Plus it goes against one of the constant themes of control and free will. Every planet you help out is releasing it from some sort of forced control. Indoctrination forcing people to obey with mindcontrol, genophage controlling the Krogans, everything involving the Geth and Quarians. Yet each and everyone of those "choices" you are given at the end involves imposing some control upon the galaxy. It admits that the Reapers were exactly right the entire time and undoes everything you've fought for the entire game.
It's such a shame too, the entire rest of the game is so goddamn great that it's soul-crushing to have a letdown, out-of-the-blue nonsense "ending".
Though I will admit some of the fans are a bit arrogant most of us don't try to come up with better endings, we just state that we wanted better options. There are some like me who throughout the entire trilogy did every sidequest availible & by the end of ME3 thought they maybe earned a good ending only to get the exact same options as everybody else. & we all know they're going to make DLC for Mass Effect 3 anyway, It would be great PR if they catered to the fans by adding a few brighter endings for those of us who took the time to experiance all the series had to offer.
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