I liked the ending to Mass Effect 3

[Bara_no_Hime]

I really only had two problems:
1) Where is the Normandy going, why is it going there, and how are Liara and Garrus on it when they were down on Earth with me?
2) Was the destruction of the relay network necessary, BioWare?

1) Obviously Liara can now teleport. It is her secret magical girl power. The radio guy seems to indicate that everyone but you died in that charge, so Liara not only teleported (in your game and mine) but apparently rose from the dead. My theory is that Liara is secretly Sailor Thessia, and used her magical crystal to return from the dead and save Garrus (or whomever went to the final push) as well.

....

Actually, my assumption is this was poorly written code. I think the creators assumed that the player would keep their "waifu" safely on the ship, not take them on the final push. IE, the characters in your final push died, but your romantic interest and best buddy are still on the ship. ... except that lots of people (like me) took my romantic interest with me, so that we would either win together or die together. Also because Liara rocks vs Husks/Cannibals, and was helpful vs Banshees as well. So not really bad writing so much as bad implementation.

2) I have no idea. Although, it only really matters if you chose Destroy.

If you chose Control, then you can have your Reaper army rebuild the relays.

If you chose Synthesis... well, Geth and EDI don't age or require food. The Reapers (which are synthetic creatures made from organic matter) don't eat and are immortal. It is at least vaguely reasonable that the results of Synthesis would be similar. So... people can just use FTL drive. Sure, it takes years to get from cluster to cluster, but if everyone is immortal, it doesn't really matter how long it takes. Taki could take three hundred years to fly back to her homeworld, and still spend centuries upon centuries living there.

If you chose Destroy, then... yeah, everyone's pretty fucked. I think that's why that's the Renegade option.

 

[Lithan]

I ALWAYS take my LI with me... the Tali(LI)/EDI convo during the geth frigate mission is not something you can risk missing.

 

[lowkey_jotunn]

Eh, the ending was alright, I suppose. The problem is, it's set against the endings of the other 2 games, and by comparison #3 is by far the weakest ending, and it's not even close.

In #1, you jump a freaking TANK through a mass relay from an uncharted planet into the Citadel, btw I'd like to point out that you arrived on said uncharted planet via freaking AIR DROP while riding in said tank. Once you yippe-kai-yay back to the Citadel you run along the outside of a space station in zero G, tear through Geth armies, you fight the big bad who has personally tormented you all game, is directly responsible for the death of a crewmate and indirectly responsible for the death of another's mother. Whether you convinced him to shoot himself or fought his "normal" form, you still got a solid boss fight against his "body horror" form, and got to see the bigger big bad get blown to high hell.


ME2's ending involved a series of protracted battles both on your ship (vs the eye-bot thing) and on the enemy's base. Everything hinged on knowing your squadmates, and who would perform certain tasks well. Any poor choices you made in preparation are laid bare during the final mission as you watch friends die. If you chose wisely and prepared well, everyone can live and your friends get their crowning moments of awesome. Even brittle bones joker hobbles out to get a piece of the action.


In ME3. The ending has you kill 3 husks and Marauder Shields. Stagger around a little bit, and watch 15 minutes of cutscenes. The "Big Bad" is a corporate jack-hat who hasn't actually done anything to you, aside from being obstructive, and he is defeated by a single bullet... he'll do it himself or you can. And that's pretty much it. The part leading up to that, the battle in London, is identical to every other mission you've done throughout the game.

.

Final thought: If ME3 was it's own game, completely unrelated to the franchise, the ending would be just ... very mediocre. As the "final" closing moments of a half-decade long epic tale, that just doesn't cut it. Final in quotations because, well, DLC.

 

[Still Life]

I was also satisfied with the ending and the only part I have a real issue with is the Normandy scene. I can understand why many are not satisfied (to put mildly) and if I were to make a point on that, I would say that there are sections that need clearer and more detailed elucidation.

Outside of the game itself, I would say that there has been dissonance of expectation.

 

[Zen Toombs]

I respectfully disagree with your opinion.

You aren't allowed to respectfully disagree! You are only allowed to disagree with bullets.

 

[Julianking93]

From what I remember of Return of the Jedi, they had about as much closure as Mass Effect 3. The galaxy is implied to be saved, and the primary characters end up on a jungle planet (moon, whatever) and two characters kiss. The end. In fact, that's surprisingly similar to Mass Effect 3's ending.

Spoiler

Hm.... nope, unless I'm remembering this wrong. Empire's destroyed, galaxy saved. That's about as much closure as you can get. Mass Effect only bothers with killing off its protagonist and... that's it.

Which is what most people who liked the ending, including me and the OP, agree with. Yelling at the air, preaching to the choir, take your pick of metaphors.

No argument here. If you're agreeing with me, why are you mentioning it as if I shouldn't have said it?

No, it was showing that the tale of Commander Shepard was still being told centuries in the future, pretty much so they could get a nice cameo from Buzz Aldrin. How the hell did you misinterpret that?!

See, I initially took it as just that; his story being told throughout the centuries.
But instead, I read up more on it and I find that not only are most people referring to it turning out to be a fable, but most official listings I read and the general interpretation is just that; a bedtime story.
No need to get uppity about a possible misinterpretation.

There are a few legitimate complaints about the ending - I definitely, 100% agree with the lack of choice. But every time someone attacks the actual narrative of the one we got, I can't help but find it ridiculous.

I'm not attacking it. I'm simply stating my opinion on it being lackluster.
Do you see me screaming that it's complete horseshit? Do you see me bitching about it insipidly, outright demanding Bioware change the ending itself? Did you not notice that I myself referred to the outcry over a fucking video game ending as "ridiculous?"

You can't understand how the Reapers kill organic life to save it? Did you even bother thinking about that for more than 3 seconds? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culling]

I don't even know what the fuck you're talking about at this point.
I never once mentioned the Reaper's attempts at killing organic life in order to save the universe.
How can anyone not get that? Wasn't that the entire point of the game?
Did you mistakenly quote me on this part instead of someone else, because I didn't mention that at all.
And you don't have to insult someone just because they don't like something you do.

 

[Brighton_Game_Trader]

I didn't actually see what the issue was with the ENDING at all.

The whole game had been filled-up with some bizarre story threads and when they revealed Cerberus' involvement then I realised that there were some pretty major questions left unanswered.... but they were all in the build-up to the ending.

The ending itself was a fairly neat way to tie up the events of the game, offering one last choice to define your path to glory as Shepard and lay down your version of events.

You get to see what happens to each of your teammates, you know what will become of Shepard, you know what becomes of the Reapers - what was the problem?

So, in summary, I have no idea why people hated on the ending so much. If you wanna complain - moan about the rest of the game - that was just as messed-up!

My full review for ME3 is here - http://eclectic-review.blogspot.com/2012/03/mass-effect-3-ps3.html

 

[Lithan]

Culling? That's rich.

I'm an organic, but Im so super smart I made myself a robot so I could make bigger robots to kill smart organics because smart organics make robots and robots kill smart and dumb organics. You know this is true because like I said, I was a super smart organic. Smart enough to know that what has never happened is a certainty unless I prevent it despite the fact that I'm the one who started it and I base the fact that it's a certainty on the fact that I did in fact start it. I also base that fact that it can't be stopped on the fact that I stopped it. And I made these robots so that I can stop you from having to stop it because like me you can't, except I did.


Yeah, Culling. That's what that is.

 

[RedDeadFred]

So you didn't mind that there was very little closure and that the entire reason for the Reaper's existence didn't make sense?

I had no problem with that part. The Reapers ARE the civilizations - they are Borg-like collectives controlled by the Catalyst. That was the AI-Logic solution - make all organics into synthetics when they get advanced enough.

Basically, all those colonists in ME2 weren't being killed - they were being "downloaded" into the Human Reaper. Somewhere out there was a Prothean Reaper and a Capital-size reaper for each Cycle (with the Destroyer class reapers being the other races). They were preserving the DNA of each race - as if the DNA was the most important part.

It was Machine Logic. Technically they were "saving" each race. But not in any way that the race would want to be saved.

Anyway, this was all previously implied. Harbinger said it all through ME2: "We are your salvation." "You are only hurting yourself." "You will become as We are."

THAT part was well foreshadowed and I thought paid off very well.

However...

Or how about how Joker just randomly decides to flee the battle. Very uncharacteristic of him especially after what he did in the second game.

Also, how is it possible that Garrus, who I took with me on the final mission, somehow managed to come out of the crash landed Normandy?

For me, it was Liara. Yeah. Particularly since the guy on the radio said that everyone in that charge (apart from Shepard and Anderson, I guess) died. So I was like "oh fuck, I just got Liara killed" - and then there she was, on the ship.

I think that was just bad programming. I think they assumed that you wouldn't bring your beloved into a war-zone... which was stupid, considering that Liara is one of the best anti-husk characters available (Stasis Bubble FTW).

The only thing I could think of was that, after the push failed Liara et al retreated, got picked up by the Normandy, and that they were attempting to board the Citadel from the Normandy when things went crazy. That MIGHT have just been FLT drive, not a Mass Effect jump. Maybe.

That's all I've got on that one. Sorry - that was the only part that really bothered me. It still didn't make me angry - just confused.

It's not that it doesn't provide closure, is sad, or that your choices form the other games have little affect on it (I was perfectly fine with all that). It's that the ending actually doesn't make any logical sense.

The squadmember teleportaion Joker joyriding bit, yeah. The Reaper plan makes perfect sense in screwed-up AI logic. The Lord Reaper obviously doesn't understand what being a "person" means - unlike EDI. It thinks that preserving the DNA is the same as preserving a civilization - which is why it's the bad guy.

See I get the reason the Reapers are doing what they are doing but if they really believe that the creations will one day destroy the creators, why not simply come back every 50 thousand years and destroy the synthetics?

Also, if a unified species is truly something they believe is so good for the galaxy, why didn't they just do it themselves a long time ago?

The way I see it, they had 3 ways to deal with the threat of synthetics destroying their creators. They chose the one that made the least sense. Why do they even have to leave the galaxy? If they really believe in helping organics then why not just wait until each civilization has matured and then introduce them into the rest of the galaxy themselves? They would be able to monitor any synthetic creations and the people of the galaxy would regard them with the utmost respect for helping their species move to mass effect technology.

There are two options for the Reapers that are clearly easier and better for the galaxy. The only reasoning I could possibly see is that they fear what organics could become and thus decided to "preserve" each race when they became too advanced for their own sake. Of course, if this is true, then that contradicts the ending of the game.

Final thing, Joker was not using the FTL drive, he was traveling through a Mass Relay. That is why they got stranded on a random planet. The mass relays were destroyed while they were traveling through one. Why does he and the rest of the crew just abandon all of the forces? I see how you can make the case that he picks up your squad member from Earth and then leaves but they don't explain his motives at all. Why would the man who once went with Shepard on a SUICIDE mission and risked his life to save humanity decide to leave the final battle when the entire galaxy is on the line.

 

[Syzygy23]

Culling? That's rich.

I'm an organic, but Im so super smart I made myself a robot so I could make bigger robots to kill smart organics because smart organics make robots and robots kill smart and dumb organics. You know this is true because like I said, I was a super smart organic. Smart enough to know that what has never happened is a certainty unless I prevent it despite the fact that I'm the one who started it and I base the fact that it's a certainty on the fact that I did in fact start it. I also base that fact that it can't be stopped on the fact that I stopped it. And I made these robots so that I can stop you from having to stop it because like me you can't, except I did.


Yeah, Culling. That's what that is.

"But look out the window, the Geth and the Quarians are-"

NOPE ONLY THREE CHOICES

"Oh come on! What about Joker and EDI?"

THREE CHOICES TAKE YOUR PICK

"The Reapers were right, I CAN'T comprehend their goals and designs because they simply too RETARDED and FUCKING DUMB to understand!"

ALSO ALL YOUR CHOICES MAKE YOU DIE AND THE RELAYS EXPLODE

"Yeah screw this, I'm just going to quit now and do multiplayer forever."

 

[likalaruku]

& I hate Toy Story.

 

[Joccaren]

Then, instead of dropping out of Relay transit or W/E, he is pulled back through the energy Beam to its Origin - in Orbit of Earth. They crashland somewhere along the Pacific Equatorial Region, or some place like that. Of course, the second planet in the sky needs some explaining, but I'll get to that eventually.

Wait, is that what happened?!

I didn't think it was Earth because it looked too... nice. I got the impression that there was very little "open natural locations" left on Earth.

However, if that IS Earth, then... actually, that's a lot better than most people have...

...

Wait, it can't be Earth. Cause doesn't the Normandy still crash on the same planet even if Earth burns/blows up?

As I said, its my Headcanon. No, I don't think it is meant to be Earth, and I am still ironing everything out, but it provides some hope for the crew of the Normandy.

As for few natural locations left: If we have an atmosphere of Oxygen, we have natural locations left. Underdeveloped areas like some equatorial pacific regions likely wouldn't change a lot, and would remain mostly open wilderness.
And yeah, same planet no matter what. To be fair, Shepard survived the Citadel crashing onto Earth in one ending, so I'm pretty sure its semi-safe to say space magic protected Organic life on Earth.

 

[crudus]

So, to add a bit of discussion value to this, who else liked the ending? All I've seen (on the Escapist anyway) is pure hatred but there must be someone else who liked it, right? RIGHT?

Spoiler: First off, the only this I found wrong with the ending is the lack of closure

Spoiler: no seriously, there are spoilers here

All of the relays getting destroyed is the worst thing to happen to the galaxy short of the reaper invasion. Seriously, commerce is ruined. The head of the government is cut off from the rest of the galaxy. An entire turian fleet is orbiting an planet where they physically cannot eat the food(the flotilla is ok since it is self-sustaining). Long story short, the entire thing society is built upon is gone. Basically imagine if import/export around the world just stopped.

There are a few things I would want done differently just to fix the pacing and scope of the game. That last scene does seem like the entirety of the galaxy is there in a last ditch effort for survival. The end where you are running to that teleporter to the Citadel was amazing, but that last little bit ruins the immersion and pacing if you die(fucking marauder). Another thing is the game doesn't really feel like you are on a time limit, when in reality you would be (but there really isn't a good way to do that anyway).

More of an explanation as to why I liked is is in the below spoiler tag.

Spoiler: Basically, why I don't like the endings boils down to this:

and this

Spoiler: Here be spoilers

You aren't the only one I have heard say that about the ending. Why is that a problem? I find it a fantastic end to the series. It really did make me think, and no other game series has really made me do that. The entire series has built up the "universe is meaningless" notion over three games. The game is asking "what do your choices amount to in the grand scheme of things"? How else would it end? How else could it end? The series even seems to be an almost perfect allegory for life itself. Seriously in that second picture you posted replace "ME1" with "birth", "ME2" with "adulthood", and "ME3" with "Death" (which is made even more plainly since Shepard fucking dies!). That is more of a side note, but it just drives home the point of "your choices are meaningless" a little bit more. Maybe I am reading too much into it. All I know is it makes me enjoy the ending.

Hm.... nope, unless I'm remembering this wrong. Empire's destroyed, galaxy saved.

You are remembering it wrong. All that was killed was the Emperor and his second-in-command. The Empire still exists and what is worse is now there is a huge power vacuum. The ships are still active. The empire was doing a very good job of being an empire before the Deathstar, and that is where we are at at the end of Jedi

 

[Zen Toombs]

Spoiler: Basically, why I don't like the endings boils down to this:

and this

Spoiler: Here be spoilers

You aren't the only one I have heard say that about the ending. Why is that a problem? I find it a fantastic end to the series. It really did make me think, and no other game series has really made me do that. The entire series has built up the "universe is meaningless" notion over three games. The game is asking "what do your choices amount to in the grand scheme of things"? How else would it end? How else could it end? The series even seems to be an almost perfect allegory for life itself. Seriously in that second picture you posted replace "ME1" with "birth", "ME2" with "adulthood", and "ME3" with "Death" (which is made even more plainly since Shepard fucking dies!). That is more of a side note, but it just drives home the point of "your choices are meaningless" a little bit more. Maybe I am reading too much into it. All I know is it makes me enjoy the ending.

Wat.
Seriously, what games were you playing? Mass Effect was building up to "choices have consequences", not "the universe is meaningless". The game said so, the producers said so, every single thing said so.

It's those choices having consequences that gives those choices weight, and it's those choices having consequences that allow those choices to force you to think. If choice is truly meaningless, there would be no reason to think about those choices.

Also, your allegory is nonsensical. As in, I can not make sense of it.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Final thing, Joker was not using the FTL drive, he was traveling through a Mass Relay. That is why they got stranded on a random planet. The mass relays were destroyed while they were traveling through one.

Again, no. Relay jumps are instant. You don't "travel" through a Relay - you activate it and Boom, you are there in a second.

The "blue energy" is FTL drive. If you look out a window on the Normandy, you see it.

Now, it's possible that some sort of shockwave from the exploding Relay caught the Normandy while it was using FTL drive to go... somewhere. Where, I have no idea.

Every other picture of the ship in FTL or doing a Relay jump disagrees with what you said. Look at the footage again. That is clearly FTL, not a Relay jump. The shockwave is from the Relay (or the Citadel?) but Joker wasn't in a jump at the time.

It is POSSIBLE that every single ship in the fleet experienced a shockwave like that.

Again, this does not excuse the "squadmember teleporting to the ship" issue. But that whole "Joker wouldn't do that" is because he didn't.

Also, I'm not the only one to have noticed this - there are others (in this thread, see above) who have paid attention to the tech and realized that it was FTL flight, not a Relay Jump.

 

[crudus]

Wat.
Seriously, what games were you playing? Mass Effect was building up to "choices have consequences", not "the universe is meaningless". The game said so, the producers said so, every single thing said so.

It's those choices having consequences that gives those choices weight, and it's those choices having consequences that allow those choices to force you to think. If choice is truly meaningless, there would be no reason to think about those choices.

Also, your allegory is nonsensical. As in, I can not make sense of it.

Hmm, they said the same thing when I brought this point up. Although I will admit I was trying to rush through that post since it is quite late. "The universe is meaningless" is an over simplification at best and slightly wrong at worst. It was more asking "What is the point of survival in a meaningless universe"?

In the micro choices having weight is true(and as a game mechanic). The galaxy and "our" cycle are in the micro. The cycles and the reapers are in the macro. Now the reapers have been around killing civilizations for billions years. Life evolves and grows to be culled. Whatever meaning to life there is is almost irrelevant when that is the endpoint to all life. Why should you bother? If you don't think the game asks that question, I am asking that question. In the macro (both in time and space) "our" cycle is a footnote. It is even inconsequential to the universe that Shepard broke the cycles entirely. Like I said though, maybe I am reading too much into it.

What did you not understand about the allegory? I will try to clear it up without making my point more confusing.

Again, please excuse the sloppiness of this post. It is quite late.

 

[Zen Toombs]

Hmm, they said the same thing when I brought this point up. Although I will admit I was trying to rush through that post since it is quite late. "The universe is meaningless" is an over simplification at best and slightly wrong at worst. It was more asking "What is the point of survival in a meaningless universe"?

In the micro choices having weight is true(and as a game mechanic). The galaxy and "our" cycle are in the micro. The cycles and the reapers are in the macro. Now the reapers have been around killing civilizations for billions years. Life evolves and grows to be culled. Whatever meaning to life there is is almost irrelevant when that is the endpoint to all life. Why should you bother? If you don't think the game asks that question, I am asking that question. In the macro (both in time and space) "our" cycle is a footnote. It is even inconsequential to the universe that Shepard broke the cycles entirely. Like I said though, maybe I am reading too much into it.

What did you not understand about the allegory? I will try to clear it up without making my point more confusing.

Again, please excuse the sloppiness of this post. It is quite late.

No worries.

And what I do not understand about the allegory is... well all of it. I don't really see it at all.

And I kindof see where you're coming from now, although I slightly disagree. And even if I did, my response would be "if nothing you do matters, all that matters is what you do".

 

[lordmardok]

Well....

I guess someone had to?

I just wish our choices had meant something to the ending, that's all.

 

[masterbazza]

So, to add a bit of discussion value to this, who else liked the ending? All I've seen (on the Escapist anyway) is pure hatred but there must be someone else who liked it, right? RIGHT?

you are never the only one
never.
personally i didn't like it but yeah

YOU.ARE.NEVER.THE.ONLY.ONE

 

[lumenadducere]

I actually like the ending for the same reason that so many hate it: that no matter what you do, even if you spent 100 hours in the game, some ends are simply unavoidable. They wait for us around every pass and corner. We assume that because our choices have consequences, that our consequences will somehow have priority over someone else's. Sometimes, someone outside of the story of our lives makes a decision that is just plain bigger than us, and the consequences of that decision end up being bigger than us, too.

Now, I want to make it clear: I totally understand and feel the rage of someone who spent a combined $180 or so on a game that doesn't end the way they hoped. I get that nihilism is soul-crushing, and that people don't want soul-crushing, let alone soul[crushing that they have to PAY for. I also think that the ending sequence should show more of the consequences of your actions from throughout the games as they stand at the time of Shepard's Final Decision.

That said, I think this is a step towards the long-fantasied dream of recognition of videogames by the larger culture as an artistic medium. The idea of a major game ending in a philosophical statement (even a statement that is essentially a giant metaphysical kick in the balls), is big, and a philosophical statement that gets people debating is even bigger.

This is a step on the path to art. I'm excited to see what comes of it.

I'd feel this way if it had been done better. Nobody knew what the Crucible does, so there were any number of ways to have the Crucible fire and have an unintended/undesired result other than having Star Child come into the picture. Plus all the circular logic and inconsistencies that the game throws at you in that ending sequence...and the whole "wtf is the Normandy doing" thing that everyone keeps mentioning.

I agree that we need more games that have a non-typical ending, even some where the hero utterly fails. But if a developer is going to do that then they need to be sure to do a good job of actually executing it, and IMO BioWare definitely failed on that end.