Did ME3 ruin Mass Effect for you?

[MortisLegio]

ME3's ending didn't ruin the franchise for me but it did ruin ME3. I love the first and second but I can't play the third knowing how "silly" the ending is. There are parts of 3 I liked (Tuchanka and Rannoch were awesome) but too me the ending showed me some of the flaws I kinda overlooked before then. I was playing through the second a few weeks ago and having so much fun with it and the story I'm still trying to figure out what went wrong...

Spoiler: for space

 

[Phlakes]

Christ, are we still talking about this?

Anyway, no, because I can look past five minutes and still enjoy several hours of good content.

 

[Souplex]

Mass Effect 3 didn't ruin anything, the bulk of the game was fine.
It was the ending that was problematic.

 

[octafish]

Nah, ME2 killed it for me.

Ditto. ME was like Star Wars/Star Trek, ME2 was like Lexx...nothing sells a lacklustre story like T&A apparently.

EDIT: Not knocking Lexx BTW, just there was a disconnect between the quite serious ME and the Clevage/Arse centred ME2.

 

[Jon Porcincula]

ME3 didn't ruin Mass Effect for me, it was the customer service.

 

[Jason Rayes]

Christ, are we still talking about this?

Anyway, no, because I can look past five minutes and still enjoy several hours of good content.

Sorry, I only finished the game recently and I avoided the whole controversy before that. This kind of thread will probably continue for a while as we latecomers get to say our piece on the whole debacle

 

[Timzilla]

Depends if the next game was god or not

XD I really hope that was a spelling error

 

[TheCrapMaster]

Didn´t ruin it for me and of course i would buy a new mass effect product, the mass effect universe is probably THE best writen and visualised in gaming. Sure i agree the first endings before extended cut was not what you expected, tho the extended cut endings i think makes up for it.

The Mass effect series is probably one of the best games ever made, i had a blast playing it, i even had watered eyes at some part because of great story parts or just nerd gasm. Im not gonna judge a game series or bioware because they made ONE "misstake" with the ending.

Its like eating a cake, one of the best ones you ever had, but the last slice had some untasty cream in it and then go and say that the whole cake was awfull and never buy that kind again.

 

[Heaven's Guardian]

Yes. It's only one of two fictional franchises for me that this has happened to, but when something raises my hopes with strong evidence that it will rise above the rest of the garbage, then falls apart, I can't bear to look at it anymore. I haven't picked up an ME game since I finished ME3, and I doubt I ever will again. It isn't just the endings, as disastrous as they were, but the whole "Victory through Sacrifice" theme seemed out of place for me. That stupid scene at the very beginning when the kid in the pipe died seemed like it was thrown in as a cheap "Children are dying. Nothing can be more evil!" device that really shouldn't have affected the story much at all, and it seemed contradictory to the knowledge that a Golden End is possible in 2. When a really good story collapses on me like that, I can't bear to look at even the good parts again, since they will always remind me of what could have been.

 

[johnnnny guitar]

Well it wasn't just ME3 it was a combination of BiowarEA wanting the call of duty crowd, EA's insane dev cycle and EA's shitty business practices.

 

[Arina Love]

Yes it ruined not only Mass Effect but bioware. i sold all my ME copies for cheap and never going to buy bioware game again.

 

[Savryc]

Nope. Loved it all, only issue I had was "that's all?" with the ending but I CBA playing through again with the extended cut and I refuse to watch cut scenes on youtube because spoilers are the source of all evil (except after like 3+ years, that's ok)

Spoiler: Ending Snippet

Call me a sap but I loved the little bit with the old man telling the kid about "The Shepard". Hell yes, I deserve to be a fucking legend.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

100 hours of campaign boiled down to nothing. Choices didn't matter and the ending didn't make any logical sense. So yes, ME is ruined for me. I guess the more you love something the worse it is when you're disappointed. It can make a man really jaded. Unless Bioware finds a way to fix the ending of ME3 I will never buy anything from EA/Bioware. That's a decision I made after I finished ME3. All they had to do is make a normal ending that incorporated all of our previous choices and all of this shit could have been avoided. People would still love Bioware and everything would be peachy. But noooooooooo. They had to fuck it up in the last 10 minutes. Who does something like that?

 

[Gameguy20100]

the orginal ending sucked but the ec cut fixed most of my issues but i still loved every second of that game

 

[NLS]

Nope. My only big "problem" with ME3 was the mission journal. It was like "go find someone who may be able to know aunt poppy's secret apple pie recipe, we might have a clue that this person or entity is hiding somewhere in the universe", and then it didn't record much of your mission progress, so after talking to a lot of people who might have a clue or knew someone who could be of help, it would still just say "find that damn recipe" in your mission log.
Waited until the extended cut was out to finish the game, so it wasn't much of a deal for me.

 

[Korten12]

Depends on how they handle the next game... If it's a prequel then I won't bother since we know how it ends. But if they try to do a sequel (not a sequel to continue Shepard, but after ME3), then it depends on how they handle it if it will kill it or not.

 

[Dahemo]

Another way to look at this question is: Would you ever buy a Mass Effect product again even in best case scenario? (EA losing the IP being a start)

Or did the story ruin it for you?

I take it by "best case scenario" that you will not be buying another Mass Effect game, which saddens me.

Lets break it down, break it down old school:

It took you, bare minimum, 30 hours to complete the trilogy on the easiest setting rushing through the main quest. 30 hours! That's crazy! In the age of 4 hour main plots (i.e. MW3 which I did enjoy) this should be hugely applauded. Personally, I just finished a huge replay of the trilogy and clocked in at 40 hours for ME1, 30 for ME2 and 35 for ME3, so I spent 105 hours with my Shepard, roaming the galaxy, getting into epic struggles and listening to Mordin sing Gilbert and Sullivan mad-libs. I loved every hour of this game, every kooky alien, every second spent considering choices, every headshot and if I get the chance to re-enter this very well conceived universe, I would do it in a heartbeat.

The reason I've given you a paragraph of gush is this, you're the first person I've ever seen questioning the story of ME3. There's nothing wrong with the story! It's a great story, the only problem I can conceive is the ending, which to be honest I enjoyed even before the extension. I enjoyed it because it perfectly fit the tone of not only the game but the series.

That may be controversial but hear me out. Did anyone read the descriptions attached to the War Assets? Did you notice that you previous choices had affected how effective these various forces could be in the final battle. Yeah, you did the right thing and saved the Council, but the Fifth Fleet got shredded and it's a shadow of it's former self. We don't get it all our own way, things don't have cut and dry fairytale solutions just because we want them to, and when I stared down those three paths (well, two, my Shepard was a goody two shoes, he could never destroy!) I knew that this was it, that sacrificing a character I had really bonded to and travelled with through some rough times was slowly shuffling towards the end of his story.

I agreed at the time that I would like to see what happened to my crew afterwards but in all honesty I felt I had fully said goodbye to them during the last hour, I took the time to call every surviving crew member to have that final word. I didn't need a happy ever after because frankly, I didn't get one so I wasn't expecting one.

So to answer your question, yes, I will buy the next ME game, you should too. Replay the trilogy and let us all know if you change your mind...

 

[bojackx]

Yes, It's kind of killed the series for me. I just hated most of mass effect 3. The extended cut was kind of the final nail in the coffin for me,

I thought the Extended Cut fixed a good amount of the problems caused by the original ending, how can it be viewed as a negative addition?

OT: I liked the ending originally, so I will still be buying more Mass Effect if a sequel comes along. Like others have said, the ending had problems, but it was blown way out of proportion by angry fans.

 

[Creator002]

My opinion probably isn't a good one to listen to because Mass Effect 3 was the only Mass Effect I completed.
I didn't enjoy it as much as other BioWare games (Dragon Age Origins and 2 to be specific), but I'd buy another if it's as good as 3. The ending (didn't play with the "extended" or "fixed" or whatever it is DLC) wasn't horrible, though I didn't actually see any choices. All I could do (from what I could see) was shoot the power source.
Knowing me, I probably just missed someone/something super obvious. :/

You only received that option because you didn't do too well throughout the rest of the game, and had fairly minimal war assets. If you

Spoiler

made peace with the Quarians and Geth, cured the Genophage with Wrex or sabotaged the cure with Wreave, completed side quests and made a few other key choices along the way, you would have unlocked the ability to grab hold of lightning poles and be disintegrated, or jump into the beam of light and be disintegrated. Great choices eh?

Aha, I see.
I'm pretty sure I did most of those, but not the side quests. Just skipped past all of those.

 

[crazyrabbits]

You're the first person I've ever seen questioning the story of ME3. There's nothing wrong with the story!

There are not enough emoticons to express how much I laughed at this statement.

Where have you been the last six months?

And, just in case, you wanted to stick your fingers in your ears and pretend nothing's wrong, you don't have to take my word for it. Take [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiN8gL40d84] all of [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MlatxLP-xs] theirs [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go4fx5Gf4LY].