3 Years Later: Mass Effect 3 Ending Revisited [spoilers!]

[Bara_no_Hime]

I would have greatly preferred it if they went with the dark energy idea. It was hinted at already, but they never used it for some reason.

Because Casey Hudson didn't like it. Drew Karpyshyn is the one who wrote the Dark Energy ending.

So the bad ending thing? All Casey Hudson's fault. (I hate that guy).

Dark energy is slowly starting to rip the galaxy apart. The first species, those squid things, turned themselves into reapers to become a 'collective intelligence' to solve the problem. But they couldn't find a solution. So more species' intelligence were added in the form of reapers. And more and more... And the human reaper would have been the last piece of puzzle. So the dillema would have been "do we let the reapers 'reap' intelligent life one more time, or do we destroy them and take our chances with solving the dark energy problem ourselves?"

I love that ending idea so much, particularly since the bit you left out is that all this ties in with Entropy and the oncoming Heat Death of the universe... meaning that the Reapers are effectively Kyubey from Madoka Magica.

 

[Estelindis]

The thing with the ending is that it just abruptly flips the entire point of the series around, from the Reapers being the problem that has to be stopped from destroying the galaxy by the protagonist... to the protagonist and the galaxy being the problem that has to be stopped (by the Reapers) from surviving (as they are) the trilogy.

That is a perfect summation of a central problem with the ending. Bravo.

 

[Suncatcher]

There are a lot of problems with the ending.

It cuts all the foreshadowing, all the characterization of the Reapers, everything that was built up over the story off at the ground and replaces them with something that retroactively makes all the hints and all your theories bullshit for no reason. It's a pile of bad, tone-deaf philosophy tacked on where it doesn't fit. The writing and characterization were completely disconnected from anything preceding it. Until the Extended Cut it was impossible to figure out what actually just happened. It makes all the godlike implacable foes no longer individuals with their own sinister and mysterious goals, but simple drones being steered by an idiot child.

But those are all forgivable. Good stories have ended with those elements, and while it's been a bit of a disappointment that didn't detract much from the stories. In my mind there are two things here that cannot be forgiven.

First, every choice you have made before is discarded. And I'm not talking about every single conversation option being recalled, I'm talking about major plot things, the end goals of entire quest lines. Unified the Quarians and the Geth? Not even going to be mentioned in the big speech about how organics and synthetics can never be unified. Betrayed the Krogan to acquire Salarian fleet support? You're not going to see a single Salarian ship in this fight, or in fact any of the space combat whatsoever. Did absolutely everything possible to weaken Cerberus and strengthen the defenders of the Citadel? Cerberus took over the Citadel anyway while you weren't looking and killed everybody you've ever talked to offscreen. ME2's ending changed with every loyalty mission, every ship upgrade, but ME3's would be literally identical if you had picked up somebody else's save file 5 minutes before the Citadel run. The whole series has been built from the beginning on your choices changing the universe. In another game that might have been allowable, by from the first questions asked in character creation up through where you see a Banshee named Morinth, everything has been shaped in some small way by your actions, and it was promised that the ending would continue that theme.

Second, not a single one of the options given makes any ███████ sense. If I can take control of the Reapers, why does that somehow disintegrate me and override my personality and individuality? If it's impossible for a mortal mind to control so many things of such complexity without losing themself, why can't I just hit the ███████ off switch? Why would destroying the Reapers also destroy all other synthetic life, if the control option can apparently distinguish between Reapers and Geth just fine? How can it distinguish between 'synthetic life' and other technology? Why does it kill cyborgs but do nothing to computers, guns, and ships? What the ████ does "Synthesis" even mean, besides turning everybody green and demonstrating that the writer responsible doesn't have a ███████ clue how genetics, biology, computing, or anything else works? Why do any of these things destroy the Mass Relays, and why does nobody bother to even mention how this will kill a large fraction of the sophonts in the galaxy by trapping them in an environment that can't support them? You're expected to just take at face value three buttons given to you by an omnicidal imbecile despite the fact that every one of them is not just a bad choice but a ███████ idiotic one, and that numerous better options should be easy to kludge together from the capabilities that the Crucible has already demonstrated. The Extended Cut at least gives you one option that isn't presented by the starbrat, but 'kill yourself out of spite while allowing the universe to fall apart around you' is directly contrary to everything that Shepherd has ever said, done, or been.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

I had the good fortune to only play it after the Extended Cut was released.

With the extended cut, the ending was alright, I guess. Not good, just alright. It was an ending. Definitely not the ending the series deserved, but at least there was a LITTLE bit of closure.

Then I looked it up on youtube without the extended cut and... What. Just...what. I can't believe they released it like that. I know that according to a leak, EA apparently pulled the funding in the last month and said "we don't care, just finish it". Still, the original ending was totally unacceptable. You can't end a huge series with such great characters, dilemmas and decisions with just "different color boom, no closure, yay". If that leak was true, I really hope that bioware went to EA and said "WE TOLD YOU that the gamers wouldn't stand for it! Now you've gone and pissed off everyone that would buy any more of our games!".

Anyway, even with the Extended Cut, it was disappointing. Not heartbreaking, but still disappointing.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

In my mind there are two things here that cannot be forgiven.

First, every choice you have made before is discarded. And I'm not talking about every single conversation option being recalled, I'm talking about major plot things, the end goals of entire quest lines. Unified the Quarians and the Geth? Not even going to be mentioned in the big speech about how organics and synthetics can never be unified.

Yeah, THAT really pissed me off.

I managed to just barely pull that off and end the most difficult conflict I have ever faced in a video game, a conflict to which making peace was nearly impossible. AND I DID IT.

And Shepard doesn't !@#%ing bring it up when HoloKid says that AI and humans can never coexist? WHY?! Why can I not shove in his face that "I'm Commander !@#$ing Shepard. I literally ended the centuries-old conflict with the Geth and Quarians and now they're coexisting FANTASTICALLY. TELL ME AGAIN HOW IT'S IMPOSSIBLE, KID."

 

[Idsertian]

Ugh. I hated the original ending. I still remember being sat in my chair in front of the telly, watching the credits roll with absolutely no idea of what the shitting christ I just watched. I couldn't fathom it. None of it made any sense, nothing I'd done was reflected, nothing was explained re: what happened to everyone else, it was just... I still don't have words to describe what I felt that day.

Then EC happened. When I accidentally discovered the fourth ending, I felt a big shit-eating grin spread across my face. This was the ending the game deserved, not that god-awful tripe they spewed out initially. I very quickly became enamoured with the synthesis ending, too. I've still to try and figure out in my head how space-magic changes DNA, but I love the fact that it subtly changes the story from being Shepard's, to being EDI's story. To basically reveal that she's the one that's been telling the story all along (ignoring that star gazer bollocks, I mean, what even is?)... That actually was pretty damn cool, even if they might never have intended it.

Fucking Star Child circular logic bullshit can still fuck off, though.

 

[Gennadios]

3 years later, I only purchased one BioWare game, on discount 3 months after release, and it wasn't particularly bad or good, but I didn't take to any forums to defend or criticize it. Hell, I've yet to beat DA:I. The ending was the best thing to happen to me as a gamer!

ME3 was my gaming equivalent to that point in a relationship where you know it's over and it stops being worth fighting for.

In hindsight, it wasn't really anything new. BioWare always had the 3 good/bad/neutral endgame switches to hit at the end of the game regardless of prior choices. Players just expected something different because it was an epic finale to 3 games of choices. All BioWare did was prove that they had no fucking idea what they were doing or how to write an endgame that takes the choices they set up into account. DA2 made it pretty obvious, ME3 cemented that fact.

As far as the ending itself? Still shit. I replayed the game in anticipation of EC, but when it hit I just watched a few YouTube videos of the new endings and never finished the second playthough.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

It made sense to me. Organic race create reapers programmed to always ensure intelligent biological civilisation exists.

Organics create synthetics, synthetics don't eat, sleep or require entertainment so any war between synthetics and organics will favor the side with better logistics, always the synthetics unless the organics get them before they have a foothold.

If a synthetic wins a war against all organic civilisations of power in the galaxy and decides it never wants to fight against organics again it can just drop bombs on any planet it notices with life on it loooong before an intelligent species can evolve and even if they do, good luck making it past the stage we are at now in real life with all those radio signals flying into space.

So you get a sterile unchanging galaxy where organic life will always be crushed prematurely if the synthetics agree to it.

That means if you are programmed to ensure the galaxy always has organic life then other synthetics are an unacceptable risk.

Organics want to create, even with laws banning A.I a few rogues will always ignore that law and people resent being controlled and may rebel so reapers standing around enforcing law won't work 100%(and if technology has limits eventually your advantage in military tech is gone if you let them catch up to you in development once again risking your mission. Technologically equal-to-reapers organics can create A.Is also technologically equal.)So the idea is for the reapers to just squash us before we create synthetics that could theoretically defeat the reapers AND commit genocide on any and all organic life.

The only presumption is that we would want to create A.I without morality for some reason. Why not make their minds like a humans only faster?

 

[R Man]

It made sense to me. Organic race create reapers programmed to always ensure intelligent biological civilisation exists.

Organics create synthetics, synthetics don't eat, sleep or require entertainment so any war between synthetics and organics will favor the side with better logistics, always the synthetics unless the organics get them before they have a foothold.

If a synthetic wins a war against all organic civilisations of power in the galaxy and decides it never wants to fight against organics again it can just drop bombs on any planet it notices with life on it loooong before an intelligent species can evolve and even if they do, good luck making it past the stage we are at now in real life with all those radio signals flying into space.

So you get a sterile unchanging galaxy where organic life will always be crushed prematurely if the synthetics agree to it.

That means if you are programmed to ensure the galaxy always has organic life then other synthetics are an unacceptable risk.

Organics want to create, even with laws banning A.I a few rogues will always ignore that law and people resent being controlled and may rebel so reapers standing around enforcing law won't work 100%(and if technology has limits eventually your advantage in military tech is gone if you let them catch up to you in development once again risking your mission. Technologically equal-to-reapers organics can create A.Is also technologically equal.)So the idea is for the reapers to just squash us before we create synthetics that could theoretically defeat the reapers AND commit genocide on any and all organic life.

The only presumption is that we would want to create A.I without morality for some reason. Why not make their minds like a humans only faster?

The problem is that the Reapers dichotomy and logic are seriously flawed. First of all take the term 'synthetic'. Synthetic refers essentially to anything created in a laboratory. Synthetic does not necessarily mean 'robotic'. Miranda is a synthetic. So is Grunt. Yet both are organic. The Rachni too have been genetically modified and are at least partly synthetic.

Another big problem is that the terms 'organinc' and 'synthetic' are largely irrelevant politically. The worst wars fought by organics were fought against other organics; the Krogan and the Rachni. Nor do 'synthetics' have much in the way of solidarity with each other. Both Edi and the Geth oppose the Reapers when they can. Even the Geth have political factions, despite their collectivist ideology.

A further problem is with Reaper conduct, in that they attack organics. If the goal is to protect organics from synthetics, why attack the organics. In fact, they help synthetics, the Geth, to fight the Quarians. Why do they attack people who have not created synthetics? Why the Turians, or the Batarians? They were having nothing to do with creating AI's. If the Reapers think that synthetics will become a threat later, why not wait until later and destroy them when they become a problem? Or, using the Reapers considerable mind-control powers, mind-control people NOT to build synthetics.

The real problem is that we have no idea how 'synthetics' would actually behave. We don't know any. We've never built any. Any assumptions on that end, are just that; assumptions. Yet Mass Effect shows us that 'synthetics' have a wide range of behaviours and ideologies, from genocidal Reapers to organic-sexual Edi. Again, even the Geth are not unified in their beliefs. Ultimately the assumption about how 'synthetics' will behave are not founded on any real understanding of how 'robots' would think. Its based on how people, humans behave. Collective punishments, collective guilt, are human concepts. They come from the way we think, not from the way 'synthetics' think.

 

[sumanoskae]

Mass Effect 3's ending is and has always been, totally fucking broken. You could cut it in half and see every classic storytelling mistake. It took one guy a whole 40 minutes to explain everything wrong with 5 minutes of gameplay (8 fuck ups per minute!).

My opinion of it's original form is entirely negative. It's contrived, rushed, and tone dissonant WITH ITSELF. The biggest problem with it, if you ask me, is that it discards the emotional core of the story; the characters. Practically nobody important has anything to do, and the player doesn't get any real closure, because the whole reason you were fighting in the first place, the fate of your friends, is left a mystery. The game doesn't even properly explain what the choices mean, so you might as well not be making them. (So I jump into a beam of green light, then all synthetic in organic life is merged... How the fuck does that work, and how does it help?)

The DLC helps; you at least get some closure for the cast, and some foreshadowing for Starkid. But the ending itself is still supremely underwhelming, and it still feels rushed. You don't get the catharsis you want, because the game doesn't illustrate the consequences of your choices, and more importantly, how they relate to the characters that form the story's emotional core.

The ending doesn't seem to understand the difference between informing and establishing.

Mass Effect really could have used a Lord of the Rings style epilogue. When you've built up that much momentum, you need to bring the story to an ending gradually. You need to give the audience some time to come down from their high, and process the information.

In a sense, Mass Effect didn't have a real ending.

 

[Randomvirus]

I felt like it took all of my hard work over the series and threw it out so the writer could shove in a cheap piece of garbage of an ending.

I think it actually hurt my feelings, and after finishing ME3, I took down my whole ME trilogy to a game store and traded it in. I had plans to keep doing different playthroughs, but the ending of ME3, it just ruined the franchise for me, and I'll never go back to it.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

It made sense to me. Organic race create reapers programmed to always ensure intelligent biological civilisation exists.

Organics create synthetics, synthetics don't eat, sleep or require entertainment so any war between synthetics and organics will favor the side with better logistics, always the synthetics unless the organics get them before they have a foothold.

If a synthetic wins a war against all organic civilisations of power in the galaxy and decides it never wants to fight against organics again it can just drop bombs on any planet it notices with life on it loooong before an intelligent species can evolve and even if they do, good luck making it past the stage we are at now in real life with all those radio signals flying into space.

So you get a sterile unchanging galaxy where organic life will always be crushed prematurely if the synthetics agree to it.

That means if you are programmed to ensure the galaxy always has organic life then other synthetics are an unacceptable risk.

Organics want to create, even with laws banning A.I a few rogues will always ignore that law and people resent being controlled and may rebel so reapers standing around enforcing law won't work 100%(and if technology has limits eventually your advantage in military tech is gone if you let them catch up to you in development once again risking your mission. Technologically equal-to-reapers organics can create A.Is also technologically equal.)So the idea is for the reapers to just squash us before we create synthetics that could theoretically defeat the reapers AND commit genocide on any and all organic life.

The only presumption is that we would want to create A.I without morality for some reason. Why not make their minds like a humans only faster?

The problem is that the Reapers dichotomy and logic are seriously flawed. First of all take the term 'synthetic'. Synthetic refers essentially to anything created in a laboratory. Synthetic does not necessarily mean 'robotic'. Miranda is a synthetic. So is Grunt. Yet both are organic. The Rachni too have been genetically modified and are at least partly synthetic.

Another big problem is that the terms 'organinc' and 'synthetic' are largely irrelevant politically. The worst wars fought by organics were fought against other organics; the Krogan and the Rachni. Nor do 'synthetics' have much in the way of solidarity with each other. Both Edi and the Geth oppose the Reapers when they can. Even the Geth have political factions, despite their collectivist ideology.

A further problem is with Reaper conduct, in that they attack organics. If the goal is to protect organics from synthetics, why attack the organics. In fact, they help synthetics, the Geth, to fight the Quarians. Why do they attack people who have not created synthetics? Why the Turians, or the Batarians? They were having nothing to do with creating AI's. If the Reapers think that synthetics will become a threat later, why not wait until later and destroy them when they become a problem? Or, using the Reapers considerable mind-control powers, mind-control people NOT to build synthetics.

The real problem is that we have no idea how 'synthetics' would actually behave. We don't know any. We've never built any. Any assumptions on that end, are just that; assumptions. Yet Mass Effect shows us that 'synthetics' have a wide range of behaviours and ideologies, from genocidal Reapers to organic-sexual Edi. Again, even the Geth are not unified in their beliefs. Ultimately the assumption about how 'synthetics' will behave are not founded on any real understanding of how 'robots' would think. Its based on how people, humans behave. Collective punishments, collective guilt, are human concepts. They come from the way we think, not from the way 'synthetics' think.

Remember that big ass Geth ship that Shepard blows up? Remember how shocked everyone was that they could make something that big? The entirety of mass effect 1 we weren't fighting all the Geth but rather just one faction. The Geth alone could defeat every other citadel race if they wanted to. They could just out produce them and turn their whole society to war. They don't, but they could if they wanted to. You said yourself that A.I vary in personality so the possibility remains of any member of any species that has sufficiently advanced tech to create an evil genocidal A.I. No species is exempt from that except perhaps the Rachni because different members of the species will feel differently about laws prohibiting the A.I and the reapers think in terms of millennia. Any chance of it happening at all is a risk to their mission. That should be brought to zero. If they stay around mind controlling us, indoctrination eventually kills us and if they let us develop too long we could challenge reaper authority or create A.I that can and we probably would rebel because we resent foreign powers telling us what to do.

The Geth do not disprove the argument, they only prove that A.I can be peaceful, not that they always are. And also will they still be peaceful in a thousand years? A thousand years of efficient growth without all those creature comforts slowing their development will certainly give them the power base they'd need to effortlessly crush any organics.

The reapers fear allowing synthetics of their equal to exist. If they just continuously crush any synthetics a civilisation makes while allowing them to develop better tech then their synthetics get ever better. Eventually they get tech equal to the reapers and create A.I equally powerful to the reapers.

You seem to have a problem with them killing us to protect us but who said they were programmed to protect any of us individuals?The mission is NOT to protect any individual organics. The mission is to ensure there are always organics in the galaxy, the reapers have decided that sufficiently advanced societies will always create the synthetics and that if you let the organics tech get too advanced they can create ones to rival the reapers that could POTENTIALLY destroy all organic life and apparently they have witnessed the attempts by synthetics multiple times before their final solution. Kill off any advanced races and leave the primitive ones to develop into the next cycle, kill any primitive synthetics who might have developed and rinse and repeat. Sure you kill a lot of organics but there will always be organics that exist.

Remember the race of giant mind controlling Leviathans that created the reapers did not care about us as people, they despised all other organic races, they saw all other races as a resource to be used, other intelligent organics were their slaves. They were just annoyed the slaves kept killing each other and creating synthetics. So they didn't program the reapers to protect and nurture us and defend us. They programmed the reapers to always ensure there is a steady supply of organics so they had slaves to mind control. It's like defending the village whose people you enslave from being massacred by a rival tribe. It's not because you actually care about these people. You just want to make sure there's always slaves, and who knows tomorrow you might decide to burn that very village to the ground if the people there revolt and set up at that new village down the road.

 

[R Man]

Remember that big ass Geth ship that Shepard blows up? Remember how shocked everyone was that they could make something that big? The entirety of mass effect 1 we weren't fighting all the Geth but rather just one faction. The Geth alone could defeat every other citadel race if they wanted to. They could just out produce them and turn their whole society to war. They don't, but they could if they wanted to.

Yeah I remember it. I also remember how the Quarians, yes the Quarians, ambushed and pwaned them, until the Reapers stepped in to help. The Geth, whom they consider to be bad. The idea that the Geth could actually defeat the Council is nonsense. They got slapped about by the weakest race, who is not even in the Council. Nor do we have any idea what the Geth's actual military capacities are. However the difficulty they had in creating Legion suggests that they are not as powerful as you make them out to be. Besides their war capacity is not the actual issue. The issue is why would they want to?

You said yourself that A.I vary in personality so the possibility remains of any member of any species that has sufficiently advanced tech to create an evil genocidal A.I. No species is exempt from that except perhaps the Rachni because different members of the species will feel differently about laws prohibiting the A.I and the reapers think in terms of millennia. Any chance of it happening at all is a risk to their mission. That should be brought to zero. If they stay around mind controlling us, indoctrination eventually kills us and if they let us develop too long we could challenge reaper authority or create A.I that can and we probably would rebel because we resent foreign powers telling us what to do.

So the solution to the problem is to wipe out that race, and every race standing by? Why not just target those particular A.I. Species? Why kill off those who have nothing whatsoever to do with A.I. Creation? If the Reapers method of indoctrination is too damaging, why not create a different type. Or just take a different approach and ask people.

The Geth do not disprove the argument, they only prove that A.I can be peaceful, not that they always are. And also will they still be peaceful in a thousand years? A thousand years of efficient growth without all those creature comforts slowing their development will certainly give them the power base they'd need to effortlessly crush any organics.

Yes they do. They show that Synthetics are capable of discerning behaviour, even mercy, and that generalisations about their nature are incorrect. This does not mean they cannot fight, but just because the can fight, does not make them genocidal. They even held back on the destructions of the Quarians despite being in a position to do so. So what if they develop for another 1000 years. Just because they can, does not mean they will, unless you advocate murder and genocide on the suspicion of crimes which are yet to be committed. Besides we know the Geths ultimate goal; a Dyson Sphere (thingy), to withdraw to.
And if you still think the Geth are so dangerous, why not just destroy them? This still does not answer why the Reapers actively help the Geth. If the Geth are the problem, the Reapers should have helped the Quarians to destroy the Geth. But they don't, why?

The reapers fear allowing synthetics of their equal to exist. If they just continuously crush any synthetics a civilisation makes while allowing them to develop better tech then their synthetics get ever better. Eventually they get tech equal to the reapers and create A.I equally powerful to the reapers.

Except that absolutely not true. The Reapers show no real fear of being supposed by anyone, Synthetic or otherwise, Shepard being the only (possible) exception. Sovereign in particular is dismissive of both the Geth who serve him, and the player. Strangely he seems to be more pleased by Turians, though this could have just been a trick on Saren. As for the rest, surely the Reapers could develop their own advancements too, to ensure they are never surpassed. There is no reason they have to be static.

You seem to have a problem with them killing us to protect us but who said they were programmed to protect any of us individuals?The mission is NOT to protect any individual organics.

What the Reapers believe does not matter. They can believe they are the reincarnation of Elvis for all it matters. The problem is that their logic is flawed, and the way the ending is structures presents no rejection of this idea. Even Destroy and Refuse still imply that Shepard, and the Player, accept the premise. There is no option to actually refute its argument.

The mission is to ensure there are always organics in the galaxy, the reapers have decided that sufficiently advanced societies will always create the synthetics and that if you let the organics tech get too advanced they can create ones to rival the reapers that could POTENTIALLY destroy all organic life and apparently they have witnessed the attempts by synthetics multiple times before their final solution. Kill off any advanced races and leave the primitive ones to develop into the next cycle, kill any primitive synthetics who might have developed and rinse and repeat. Sure you kill a lot of organics but there will always be organics that exist.

The Reapers have decided? Whoopdy fucking do! Your entire argument relies on the idea that this is possible. POSSIBLE. Possible is not the same as inevitable. Do you really support the principle of exterminating billions to prevent something which is only possible, and far from certain? You can't prove that it would ever happen. You are guessing. There is nothing from real life (for there cannot be), and nothing from the game, to suggest that the development of new A.I.s is inevitable, or that these will be genocidal.

Remember the race of giant mind controlling Leviathans that created the reapers did not care about us as people, they despised all other organic races, they saw all other races as a resource to be used, other intelligent organics were their slaves. They were just annoyed the slaves kept killing each other and creating synthetics. So they didn't program the reapers to protect and nurture us and defend us. They programmed the reapers to always ensure there is a steady supply of organics so they had slaves to mind control. It's like defending the village whose people you enslave from being massacred by a rival tribe. It's not because you actually care about these people. You just want to make sure there's always slaves, and who knows tomorrow you might decide to burn that very village to the ground if the people there revolt and set up at that new village down the road.

You do realise that this undermines your argument right? The Leviathans fucked up. They screwed the pooch. Ticked the wrong box on their tax return. Left a sponge inside their last patient. The problem with Leviathan is that it makes it clear that the Catalyst, and the Reapers by extension, are operating under the Leviathan's flawed and selfish logic. So why can't we point this out? Their views on synthetics and organics are cultural, not absolute. Why are we supposed to accept the views of such a stupid and arrogant race?

This topic deserves some kind of summary. Your arguments here are based entirely on presumption. You presume that the Geth will someday plot to destroy organics. Ignoring the fact that the Geth's stated goal was to build a collective and pretty much ignore us. Also ignoring the fact that the Geth are not unified, and will not act in unison, and that they respect self determination. Now, I'm not saying that synthetics can't pose a threat to the future. The problem is in believing that this threat justifies the extermination of billions who do not pose any threat, organic and synthetic. If a group of synthetics does pose a threat, then the problem is with that group. If a group of 'evil' synthetics shows up, the problem is with them, and not the Asari, or the Salarians, or even the Geth. The Geth might even side with us. After all, there is no inherent solidarity between synthetics.
Nor are other important issues addressed. Why is getting wiped out by, say the Geth, somehow worse than by the Reapers? Or by another organic species. The Krogan have a far more violent, militaristic past than the Geth. They never apologise for it either. Even Wrex has no guilt or shame about the carnage the Krogan Rebellions caused. I know what you will say, you'll say that other synthetics will wipe out every organic life-form. Except this is rubbish. Why would any synthetic go to the trouble of doing that? On principle? Is it even possible? We know that the Geth wouldn't; they left Ranoch in a well maintained state .The only reason to assume that they would is if one believes that synthetics are inherently disposed to do this. But there are no examples from Mass Effect. Edi doesn't want this. Neither do the Geth. Even the Reapers don't go that far. So the Reapers are exterminating billions, and have exterminated trillions upon trillions, to stop a race that may never exist from doing something which is not actually possible for reasons which are entirely unknown. And the player is expected to look at this and go, ?sure.? Ridiculous.

What this does show is how human the beliefs in paranoia, collective guilt, and group punishment are. The idea that 'they' must all be evil, 'they' must be plotting against us, 'they' must all be killed. This is the way people think. I've even done a bit myself.

 

[sanquin]

I love that ending idea so much, particularly since the bit you left out is that all this ties in with Entropy and the oncoming Heat Death of the universe... meaning that the Reapers are effectively Kyubey from Madoka Magica.

Heh, I see the entropy of the universe thing as common knowledge these days. Guess it isn't. But yes, the universe will indeed eventually 'rip apart' because of dark energy according to science. At least, that's what the theory seems to point to at the moment. Though it will take trillions of years before that happens.

 

[CaitSeith]

I wonder what would had happened if there had been no multiple final choices and no God Child. How would people had reacted if after the Crucible docked on the Citadel the Destroy Ending happened. Yeah, people would still be upset of not having their choices reflected on the ending; but it would had more sense than the Deux Ex Machina mess that Bioware created.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Heh, I see the entropy of the universe thing as common knowledge these days. Guess it isn't. But yes, the universe will indeed eventually 'rip apart' because of dark energy according to science. At least, that's what the theory seems to point to at the moment. Though it will take trillions of years before that happens.

Well, it's fairly common among sci-fi fans and those who study physics, but I wouldn't necessarily apply that to the general population.

But that wasn't my point. I wasn't criticizing you for leaving it out, just pointing out that the part you left out was key to why I wish that had been the ending that got made - because it would have set up Mass Effect and Puella Magi Madoka Magica being the same universe. Kyubey is clearly some sort of AI controlling a series of puppet bodies - much as the Reapers take control of their indoctrinated minions. I just love the image of a Reaper sitting in Earth orbit, cloaked, and remote-controlling tiny plush rabbit creatures into draining energy from human emotions to hold back entropy.

 

[CaitSeith]

I disliked it as well. I'm not sure quite what it is. Maybe its the voice acting or that fact that they refer to Shepard as "The Shepard".

It sounds like the way a sect would call to their divine leader (and probably it would had been founded by Conrad Verner).

 

[MysticSlayer]

I wouldn't say the ending was good or bad. Granted, I played the game after the DLC had come out (though I chose not to use the Extended Cut), and by that time, expectations couldn't have been lower. At the very least, the Leviathan DLC helped prevent the whole scene at the end from being totally out of place. That said, I thought the choices we were given, though poorly presented, fit well with the themes of the trilogy, and I'll admit that I got teary-eyed as I realized it was the end. As a result, though somewhat jarring, I wouldn't say that the ending was entirely bad, just not what I would have preferred.

Edit: As for what I would have preferred: It would have been nicer to have it all presented during the final conflict with The Illusive Man. I was in the mood then to learn everything left about the Reapers and make the final, series-ending choice. After the confrontation, everything felt like it was over only for it to come back, expect when it came back it felt like a completely different game outside of what was being talked about.

 

[Tono Makt]

The question is simple: What did you think of and feel about the ending of Mass Effect 3? Was it good? Bad? Did it measure up to your expectations? Did the Extended Cut change your opinion on the ending?

Three years on and I'm still not a fan of the endings. The EC fixes the errors that were absolutely intolerable (the lack of closure, the crazy out of character actions of Joker and the Normandy, the possibility that a person you took with you on the final run to the Beam suddenly showing up on the Normandy virtually unharmed) and both polishes and sculpts the turd known as the Star Child along with the three choices given by it. This doesn't make the ending "good", only that it now gets a "Pass" instead of "Failure - DNC".

The lasting effect of the ending for me is that I won't buy Bioware games until at least 6 months has passed. Or more. If the game is going to part of a series of interconnected games I might not get into the series at all until the last game has been out for a few months. Essentially, my dollars aren't going to be doing Bioware or EA a bit of good even if I do decide to purchase their games because I'll be getting them when they're on sale (GOTY editions or ridiculous mark-downs, included with DLC packs, etc.) and well after their financial information is useful to the company. That's the lasting effect for me from the ME3 ending - it's a fundamental change to the way that I choose to consume Bioware games.

 

[Joccaren]

Mass Effect 3 was the single worst game to come out in recent history, in my mind.
Not because it was mechanically broken, or because it had the worst story in existence, or terrible graphics, but because of the expectations built around it, and how it completely betrayed them. Big Rig Truckers is, objectively, the worse game. Worse gameplay, broken mechanics, bad graphic... ect. However we expect it to be bad. ME3 we expected to be fantastic, given the previous games in the series, and the promises we were made about its end. Not only did not a single thing meet those promises and expectations, they fell well short of them.

The entire game was a rush job. Its evident from the first 10 minutes. Not only did they completely change the tone from previous games [Mass Effect 1 was very much your old school sci-fi adventure, Mass Effect 2 was still your old school sci-fi adventure, but with modernised gameplay {Eww =/}, Mass Effect 3 was modern 'edgy' sci-fi in a post apocalyptic world where psychology and philosophy have to be deeply discussed, and the protagonist has to be an analogue of Jesus Christ. See the Matrix for what I mean]. Beyond that, it also failed in the buildup department. 90% of Matrix 3 was fighting. It STILL had a 10% buildup to that fighting. ME3? Starts. 30 seconds later BOOM, EXPLOSIONS, DEATH, OMG REAPERS WE MUST FIGHT. Pacing, Bioware. Have you heard of it?

Now I'll get the good out of the way. Gameplay wise, best of the series, just beating ME1 because of the polished shooter mechanics which still had depth. 2 had the worst gameplay IMO, as it was simply generic cover based shooter in space. It got old, fast, and without appropriate customisation options, it fell flat on its face. ME3 fixed this, though more customisation and inventory management [Limited number of each gun, not "You have 50,000 of this gun. Please melt one for more items"] would have been great. But, by and large, the shooting gameplay was good.

Everything else though... Terrible.
Many, many plotlines were dropped. Giana Parasini. Anyone remember her? Her arc didn't really finish, but she just disappeared in 3. There were a lot of such characters and stories, which quietly disappeared. I understand budget restraints, but perhaps rather than dumping budget into Kai Leng Anime Space Magic, you should have dumped it into things people actually like.
Dialogue was fucked. It was removed near entirely, outside of one or two options at 'choice' moments. It was more like playing a visual novel than Mass Effect. Even if not every one of your dialogue options makes a difference, the ability to portray YOUR Shepard, rather than Bioware's Shepard, was an important part of the game.
Speaking of your Shepard, he died at the end of Mass Effect 2. Shepard in 3 is, regardless of your choices, a PTSD guy who has nightmares about some kid and a forest, whilst not caring about his dead squadmates, and who loves Liara. Yay. If you were going for an angle on how PTSD is bad and can affect your ability to make choices, games like Depression Quest [I think there was some controversy about that, but I never got involved and don't even know what it was, so please don't flame me] do that much better.
Then there's your choices and each mission. Regardless of previous games, your Shepard always saved the Rachni, destroyed the station without rewriting the Geth, and put Udina on the Council - after saving the Destiny Ascension. Any choices other than those ones were not reflected in the game, and were simply deflected and redirected onto those paths by 'convenient' story elements. Beyond that, inside most missions, there's little choice involved. There is no different way to approach a given mission. You shoot everything that moves, kill the boss, and then make a single choice. Unlike ME1 where you could talk your way out of fights, and I'm pretty sure I saw that in ME2 occasionally too... ME3 is very much just a run and gun game. Your choices from previous games also just add to a numerical score. I didn't realise I was playing Galaga here. I thought I was playing a story game where, rather than a numerical score, I'd get a specialised cutscene reflecting my choice - even if it wasn't too long.
There were poorly managed budget things - pushing an IGN reporter into the game as a reporter for... Reasons. IDK why to be honest. The cynic in me says for the 10/10 review. Whatever the reason though, it was a character that didn't really belong in the game, and took valuable resources away from improving other areas of the game.
The story itself was... a bit unfocused really. Tonally inconsistent, jumping from place to place, and in a lot of places was kind of iffy. Of the story, I think the Krogan and Quarian homeworlds were the only decent parts, and the Krogan moreso than the Quarian due to the lack of influence on the story anything to do with either the Quarians or Geth had on the Quarian arc, even where it could/should have, whilst the Korgan arc was more limited in that aspect from the beginning [Note; I'm just talking homeworlds here. Things like Grunt's quest don't count, as they sucked, for aforementioned Rachni reasons].

And then the ending. Take all the building problems from the rest of the game, and compress them all into the space of 20 minutes or so. Every choice you ever made, ignored. Hundreds of plotlines, entirely dropped [Everything but the Crucible plotline amusingly enough]. Gameplay being scaled back to the most unimaginative portion possible; 3rd person shooter horde mode survival. Story jumping tonally with little explanation. No choice in the entire mission outside the final 3 "Choices". Your Shepard being entirely removed for Bioware's Shepard for their "Artistic" ending. The ending wasn't the singular bad part of the game, like many took it to be. It was simply a compounding of all the issues throughout the rest of the game, concentrated into a single mission.

How did I feel about it? I remember I spent about half a year rewriting literally every mission in the game to fix all the problems I described above. I played through it once. Extended cut came out and I tried to play through it again. I got up to the Turian homeworld, quit, and just watched the endings on Youtube. I played through ME1, got to ME2 when you get to Illium, and gave up.
Mass Effect 3 killed my interest in the Mass Effect franchise. The entire series was a buildup to the finale, and that finale was the biggest blue balls ever delivered. I can stomach ME1 because it works as a completely self-contained story. Bioware could have never made ME2 or 3, and I would have been satisfied with the end to ME1. Sure, I don't know exactly what happens, but its a GOOD open ending. Its plotlines are resolved. Even the Reaper threat is somewhat resolved with a "We'll prepare for them" line. In actual fact, ME1s ending is actually sullied by ME2 and ME3's stories. All this is making me want to play 1 again, actually, which is a miracle in itself. But I think I'll treat 1 as the entire Mass Effect series. 2 was decent, but too dependent on 3 to finish it off. 3 was horrible. So I can't do either of them.
Mass Effect 4? Zero interest. I know literally nothing about it that's how little I care. Meanwhilst up until ME3 I knew everything there was to know about Mass Effect, all the dev statements and press conferences and sneak peaks and articles and lore bits and Easter eggs, entire codex memorised by heart.

So, how do I feel about the ME3 ending?
Same way Jim Fucking Sterling feels about Konami. Originally, it was a horrible insult and something that deeply hurt. Now, I just laugh at it. I don't even care anymore.