Am I going to cry at the end of Mass Effect 3? No spoilers!

Smiley Face

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Not The Bees said:
My husband played the first two before we had met, and I got sucked into the third one after we had met and started dating. So I didn't even know all the characters or his Shepard. And yet... I cried like a baby. And I really get into my fiction as well. I'd suggest getting the DLC... um, I can't remember the name of it, but it included a party... anyway, it was really sweet and I really enjoyed it, and it was a lot of fun and it kind of takes a bit of the emotional sting out of the end of the game. At least it did for me.
the citadel DLC. i HIGHLY recommend it if you are even remotely attached to the characters

as for your question.. i dont normally cry with games but yeah there is one part before the ending where you share moments with people, and right at the end when you do as well. that had me bawling
Very much seconded. One of the main reasons people have a problem with very end of the game is that it only resolves the plot, doing very little to provide closure with the characters you've really gotten fond of over the series, and which the entire game did an excellent job of fostering right up until that ending point. Many found that unforgivable, I for one don't think it invalidates the excellent job the series, and the third game did with the characters up until that last hour or so. It's more about the journey than the ending and all that.

And then, later, the Citadel DLC came out, and it basically made up for most of that as far as I'm concerned. It takes place before the end-of-game mission sequence, Shepard can go and have one-on-one downtime with all the squadmates from the series that are still around, there's a fun story thing going on, and then there's a party at the end where everyone chats and dances and gets a little tipsy, and the character writing is so good and strong it pretty much makes up for them losing sight of that in the original ending.

And yeah, there will be tears and heroic sacrifice and tense moments, but you come out of it feeling kind of good, because it really is a reflection of how much they make these characters mean.

Man, I need to play this again...
 

BlackJesus

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Yes. It's nowhere near the Game of Thrones level of hysterical sobbing, but it's still quite intense.
 

bigfatcarp93

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Mass Effect 3 holds the record for times I cried at a work of fiction, at a staggering SEVEN times in my first playthrough, including the ending.

You will bawl.
 

Platypus540

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Yes, you almost definitely will. I was tearing up at the end, and that's really rare for me. Also, I'm going to repeat what some other people have said and say to make sure you play the Citadel DLC. It's absolutely the best DLC for the series, and it really adds a lot more interaction with the characters.
 

Sniper Team 4

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CrystalViolet said:
So I don't want you to spoil anything, but should I prepare for the worst? Is possible to clear the game without suffering from gaming PTSD? Basically, am I going to be in floods of tears by the end of the game? :p
Not everyone makes it. A lot of people can be saved if you make the right choices, but some of them are going to die regardless of what you do.

I say there are two parts that will get you. The first is when the event that kills one of your characters happens. It's very quick and happens in a flash, but it's still gut-punching because you realize what just happened. You may take solace in the fact that the character goes down fighting like a true hero.
The second part is what follows after that fight dies down. You MUST make sure you visit the character in the hospital right away to say goodbye. Fair warning, you are going to cry. I had tears running down my face to be honest. It is gut wrenching, but it is a beautiful scene.
 

Kingjackl

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Maybe not the ending itself, but the penultimate scene and the scenes leading up to it will almost certainly get to you. The final level, as well as the endings of the first and second acts are what are most likely to make you cry, especially if you make Paragon choices.
 

Therumancer

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CrystalViolet said:
I'm the kind of girl who gets waaaay too into my fiction. When I really, really like a book, a movie, a game, etc I get excessively emotionally invested. This is why it was a very bad move for me to start playing the Mass Effect series during a transitioning time of my life (my bad!) However, I started this quest and I must persevere!

I may veer into spoiler territory here so best stop reading if you plan to play Mass Effect. So I finished the first two games and managed to survive the suicide mission without losing any members of my crew. This is fortunate because I'm totally enamoured with Tali (why? why can't a female Shepard lez out with Tali?!?!) If Tali, Garrus, Thane, Liara or any of the other characters I've grown fond of die in the third game I'll be emotionally distraught :p

So I don't want you to spoil anything, but should I prepare for the worst? Is possible to clear the game without suffering from gaming PTSD? Basically, am I going to be in floods of tears by the end of the game? :p

In before, "hur hur, the shit ending will make you cry". I'm not completed shielded from spoilers so I know that the ending got a lot of negative press, but I'm just asking specifically about potential character deaths. I don't want to know specifically who dies but it would be good to know whether I should emotionally prepare myself :p Gosh, if Tali dies I'm fucked :eek:

Sorry for my weird English. I'm a non native speaker and I'm kind of out of practice :p

Captcha: Dueling banjos. I don't know why I find that so funny.
It's not an ending people don't like because it's sad or tragic. They don't like it because it's stupid and doesn't fit with the story or tone, and makes very little sense on a whole lot of levels which I couldn't explain without ruining it.

There are also issues involved beyond what the ending does story wise, such as this being a style of ending Bioware specifically said was not going to be in their game.

I can't speak for you, but honestly I expect you might be more disappointed and feel a bit ill due to the sheer suck you are about to experience. Of course you might be one of the small, but vocal, minority of people who like this ending, the people who represent the inevitable exception to every rule. At which point count yourself lucky that youc an still enjoy Mass Effect while for many of us the entire series was retroactively ruined by this since we now know where it all goes.
 

Agayek

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CrystalViolet said:
So I don't want you to spoil anything, but should I prepare for the worst? Is possible to clear the game without suffering from gaming PTSD? Basically, am I going to be in floods of tears by the end of the game? :p
Eh yes and no. It's not the end of the game that's the sad part.

Dat Tuchanka mission. All the feels.
 

Fox12

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CrystalViolet said:
I'm the kind of girl who gets waaaay too into my fiction. When I really, really like a book, a movie, a game, etc I get excessively emotionally invested. This is why it was a very bad move for me to start playing the Mass Effect series during a transitioning time of my life (my bad!) However, I started this quest and I must persevere!

I may veer into spoiler territory here so best stop reading if you plan to play Mass Effect. So I finished the first two games and managed to survive the suicide mission without losing any members of my crew. This is fortunate because I'm totally enamoured with Tali (why? why can't a female Shepard lez out with Tali?!?!) If Tali, Garrus, Thane, Liara or any of the other characters I've grown fond of die in the third game I'll be emotionally distraught :p

So I don't want you to spoil anything, but should I prepare for the worst? Is possible to clear the game without suffering from gaming PTSD? Basically, am I going to be in floods of tears by the end of the game? :p

In before, "hur hur, the shit ending will make you cry". I'm not completed shielded from spoilers so I know that the ending got a lot of negative press, but I'm just asking specifically about potential character deaths. I don't want to know specifically who dies but it would be good to know whether I should emotionally prepare myself :p Gosh, if Tali dies I'm fucked :eek:

Sorry for my weird English. I'm a non native speaker and I'm kind of out of practice :p

Captcha: Dueling banjos. I don't know why I find that so funny.
Yes. Many manly tears were shed. Not just because there were some deaths, but because certain scenes were so INCREDIBLY well written. They really knew how push every emotional button to pull out the maximum amount of emotion out of every scene. They also did a good job building the cast. I'll never forget what must have been one of the best casts I've ever seen in fiction.


As for deaths, I think it's theoretically possible to get most, if not all, of the cast killed throughout the series, depending on what decisions you make. You can actually get shepherd perma-killed in the second game. Of course, just because someone can die doesn't mean they will. Despite what some people say, your choices actually do matter a lot.

Also, you'll inevitably have some people complain about the ending, but the controversy literally revolves around maybe 5 minutes of an otherwise flawless 30 hour game. It doesn't ruin the game or story, and most of the plot threads are actually tied up before you get to that section.
 

Therumancer

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Kingjackl said:
Maybe not the ending itself, but the penultimate scene and the scenes leading up to it will almost certainly get to you. The final level, as well as the endings of the first and second acts are what are most likely to make you cry, especially if you make Paragon choices.
(Spoiler Of Sorts)

Well yes and no, if you imported good saves from previous games everything tends to wind up being fairly upbeat as none of the major choices need to happen. Basically whenever you have to choose "A or B" and something really bad and tragic happens no matter what you choose, one of your surviving companions from the previous games shows up, does the awesome, and then you wind up having everything come up roses.

Mostly I wanted to cry at the end of the acts because of that ridiculous tech-ninja that doesn't fit with the rest of the universe, and magically manages to beat me in cut scenes despite having just gotten his arse kicked, exactly the kind of thing that isn't supposed to happen in Mass Effect. "You won the fight, but oh noes... he has clobbered you and stolen the Macguffin anyway....". That made me want to cry too, but not because of weighty story bits tugging at my soul and heart strings with great storytelling and making me empathize with characters I have grown to love...

I am kind of hoping fans tank ME4 if they don't relent and change things, even if it's some kind of re-write in the beginning of ME4.

Of course then again EA doesn't seem to learn it's lessons. Right now there apparently won't be a "Dead Space 4" at least not in the forseeable future because DS3 didn't meet sales expectations... something taken as a lack of interest in the series as opposed to people being pissed because of the in-game micro transactions being added to a single player game. Even if some say it wasn't a huge deal, the very fact that they did it, in any form, ensured a lot of people were not going to buy this game. Of course EA didn't suddenly think "well hey, maybe if we remove Micro Transactions people will buy the next one" nope... axe the entire series. Or at least put it into limbo... (they are saying they are still keeping the IP alive, though it's not under development if I remember). EA will probably assume that the failure of further products couldn't possibly be because of something they did with another one...
 

Kingjackl

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Therumancer said:
Kingjackl said:
Maybe not the ending itself, but the penultimate scene and the scenes leading up to it will almost certainly get to you. The final level, as well as the endings of the first and second acts are what are most likely to make you cry, especially if you make Paragon choices.
(Spoiler Of Sorts)

Well yes and no, if you imported good saves from previous games everything tends to wind up being fairly upbeat as none of the major choices need to happen. Basically whenever you have to choose "A or B" and something really bad and tragic happens no matter what you choose, one of your surviving companions from the previous games shows up, does the awesome, and then you wind up having everything come up roses.

Mostly I wanted to cry at the end of the acts because of that ridiculous tech-ninja that doesn't fit with the rest of the universe, and magically manages to beat me in cut scenes despite having just gotten his arse kicked, exactly the kind of thing that isn't supposed to happen in Mass Effect. "You won the fight, but oh noes... he has clobbered you and stolen the Macguffin anyway....". That made me want to cry too, but not because of weighty story bits tugging at my soul and heart strings with great storytelling and making me empathize with characters I have grown to love...

I am kind of hoping fans tank ME4 if they don't relent and change things, even if it's some kind of re-write in the beginning of ME4.
What I meant is that if you play Paragon, tragic things happen and you will feel bad. If you play Renegade, tragic things will happen, but you won't care because you've done that dance before. This is partly based on the fact that up until 3, Paragon was often the equivalent to a flawless run in Mass Effect, where there were no real negative repercussions for playing full Paragon the whole way through. Whereas in 3, while a lot of big decisions still work out positive, there's no way to play without making sacrifices or losing people you care about. Hell, the Renegade outcomes are actually more likely to avoid that.

Don't hope for the next game to fail, because that's not going to happen, and even if it did, it wouldn't change anything. The writers and developers have decided on a tone for the series, and they're not going to change that vision for the benefit of a few upset fans who haven't moved on.
 

Tsun Tzu

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Frankly, my experience was mostly frustration with both the ending itself (Oh, LAWD, I won't get into that...though I'll politely ask what color you'd like your tears to be, red, blue, or green?) and unavoidable character deaths...AND THE HANDLING OF SAID DEATHS.

Lots of off-screen crap or via mails of all things with characters who'd been around in 1 and 2. Hell. One was killed off on TWITTER. Not even in the actual GAME! And most likely to give Chobot a reason to exist too. Bleh.

Some bits were depressing, to be sure, but considering the "galaxy at war" motif, it's not at all surprising that the general tone is one of unmitigated sadness.

Though, I will genuinely admit that some scenes were quite close to rustling my emotional jimmies, such as this one...
BloatedGuppy said:
I'll tell you when I did tear up...


Had tears streaming down my face through that entire sequence. Seemed like the natural culmination for the series, really. Almost all of the major themes were represented, at least for a Paragon/Paragade playthrough.

Then, you know. A bunch of other shit happened. =(
...but mostly in a "YES! This is awesome! Kick their ass!" kinda way. Totally the manly way. Yes. No tearing up was had at the magnificence of said scene. None at all.

*Siiiigh*

And Blue Rose...just...maaaaaaaaan. The sad.
 

michael87cn

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you'll cry when you realize you spent all that time caring about the game world only to have it boil down to red, blue or green layered ending.
 

Zetona

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There's some really emotional moments. Not even where characters die?just where they share a particular tender moment with Shepard that sums up their bond over the past three years.

The ending itself is less likely to make you cry than it is to make you yell, "what the fuck is this bullshit?" and storm off to the nearest forum to try and stir up debate with people who already got over their disappointment back when they first played it in 2012.
 

Asita

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If you go in without the Extended Cut...well I'd put that as more a "scream in [meta] rage" than "cry" reaction (but given that the EC is free...there's really no reason NOT to install it, so this is pretty much an academic point). With the Extended Cut that's a bit more of a toss up depending on whether the added closure makes up for what preceded it. The game does have tears moments (some optional, some not), but they come well before the ending.

Fair warning though: Rannoch can be devastating if you play your cards wrong (read: You want a save file for before you go to the mission). Also...well let's just say that you'd do well to remember that distress signals tend to mean that you want to get there to provide aid ASAP.
 

Methodia Chicken

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There are many major moments in the story that are likely to cause tears, tears of joy, loss, guilt and anger.
if you are invested in even half the characters or cultures in the universe.

none of these moments occur at the end of the game.
 

Godhead

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I found the ending to be shit, however a large amount of the build up to the end, from some of the more emotionally vamped missions (like the genophage) and some of the other smaller ones that really only take like half a minute to do (Rose of Illium) can tug at your heart a bit.