I liked the ending to Mass Effect 3

[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.

 

[Revolutionary]

The ending was poorly explained, full of plot holes, and character invalidation. Enough said moving on, next thread!

 

[RedDeadFred]

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.

Honestly it's not whether or not he was using FTL flight that I care about. Fine you've made a good point, that's what he was using. It's the fact that he was fleeing the battle that bothers me. It really does not make sense why Joker would just abandon the fight.

Now it is especially obvious that he is fleeing since I now know that he was using FTL. To crash land on an alien planet would mean that he had been fleeing for quite some time. It seems like he dropped Shepard off and then just fled.

There are just far too many nonsensical decisions in this ending. It is like someone who had not been paying any attention to the trilogy was hired to quickly read a brief plot summary of the last 2 games and then write the ending of the third.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Ah, I see...you don't actually have your own specific plot holes--you are just coasting off of Angry Joe's poorly put together video.

I am very active on Bioware forum. Angry Joe's video was made using arguments we provided on Bioware forums. All you have to do is go there and take a look for yourself.

 

[ezaviel]

I liked the ending, but I also think would have been better if they had added some "this is what happened because of your choices" info about the various events of the game.

I myself selected the "Green" option.

[spoilers]The idea of sacrificing myself to end the "inevitable" cycle, and take the next step in galactic evolution felt appropriate for my Sheperd (even if it did feel like a rip off of Foundation). Though I have been tempted to re-do it as "Red", just so I have the chance to survivie and make those blue babies [/spoilers]

 

[Frontastic]

Yeah, I liked the ending. I can see why people didn't and in fact I agree with some of the reasons people hated it but I don't think that makes it bad and I still like it. It also, in no way justifies the absurd level of hatred. Anything Bioware put on FB; the comments are just flooded with "change the ending" "ending sucked" or other such nuanced points.
As to the claim that us 'likers' don't give reasons? Ok here you go:

The very end and the explanation.
I loved it. I generally find any narrative closure unsatisfying unless it's one of two things; left ambiguous or cyclical. The explanation for the Reapers was wonderful. The inevitable conflict between organic and synthetic being stopped by synthetics destroying organics and preserving as synthetic records of themselves is...beautiful. It's so precise and exact like clockwork. What would you have preferred, the Reapers were just like the Geth but got out of hand and started killing everyone? Yawn, boring, unimaginative. THAT would have killed the franchise for me. Every Reaper since ME1 has been saying how they're our "salvation through destruction", I think Bioware explained that perfectly and in the only way I personally would have found satisfying.

The lack of choice and the lack of YOUR choices making a difference.
Ok, this one the outrage makes sense on. I'm annoyed all my choices didn't have some grand effect but at the same time I like what they did in a sort of meta-joke kind of way. The final scene of the old man reinforces something which became obvious once ME2 shipped. Our choices were meaningless in the grander scale of things. What we did had the same effect on the story as what colour our armour was. The story was always going to be set in stone (after all the framing device turned out to be that it was an old man telling it to a child, the finer details were always going to be changeable), our 'free-will' only existed in terms of the finer points of the plot. I can accept that and it doesn't bother me. Anyone who hadn't figured out by mid-way through ME3 that your choices were meaningless was deluding themselves. Can someone explain to me one instance of the Collector base changing something? Or how about the fact that regardless of who you put on the council at the end of ME1, Udina had to be there in 3 because it was part of the fixed story. How he got there may differ from person to person but he was always going to get there, the Illusive Man would always have enough salvage tech to get indoctrinated and Sheperd was always going to self-sacrifice.
Because that's the thing, free-will IS an illusion. The Catalyst was viewing organic and synthetic life on a galactic scale, that probably equates to the way we view cells and atoms; from that far removed a scale it's all predictable. That's what the finale reflected; as humans we perceive that we have free-will but a god-like entity viewing things on level we cannot comprehend would view us the way we view things on a macro-level. It's pretty much the Bioshock twist on a grander scale and delivered with less grace. But I can see why people are annoyed that BioWare made this philosophical point by pretending the player had free-will for three games only to say "see, now you get it, it was an illusion all along!". The story was always set in stone, we only had say in the plot (and yes they are two very different things, ask any film student).

The ambiguity as to the fate of the galaxy/the inferred bleakness.
Ok I like ambiguity and I hate happy endings so again, this I liked. I also LOVE depressing twists. So the idea that our tiny conflict brought all the races together and to earth for a final showdown only for all life to be wiped out by an even bigger, unseen inevitability; I really like that. Sorry, I'm a fatalist and that notion is simply great. Plus I picked the synthesis ending so the idea that current life has reached its peak and it's time to create a new species by wiping out the old one is also something I can get behind. (To any TR fans out there, yeah that means I think Natla was in the right. Wesker too but he was a (wonderful, loveable) idiot about it.)
Plus, did the implausible optimistic arc not bug anyone else? That after thousands of years of conflict, in a few hours our mighty hero managed to create universal, galactic-wide peace between all the major races? That was just laughably cheerful and was really starting to bug me so the "EVERYONE DIES!" end felt quite satisfying for me.

However...
That nonsense with the Normandy is just plain wrong. It doesn't make any sense. That should be fixed or at least explained why they were running (maybe Shepard them to go). Unless the Indoctrination Theory turns out to be true (which I wouldn't mind as it's fiendishly clever and quite interesting. And makes an alarming amount of sense.)

 

[Aerosteam]

You went for paragon? Congratulations, you're now a husk!

I'm not even going to bother replying to you because of how stupid your post is... shit.

Ha!

But wait, didn't you say you liked the Indoctrination theory? Why is my post stupid then?

Paragon, means controlling the Reapers. The middle is synthesis, fusing both organics with synthetics, e.g. husks.

 

[Major_Tom]

You went for paragon? Congratulations, you're now a husk!

I'm not even going to bother replying to you because of how stupid your post is... shit.

Ha!

But wait, didn't you say you liked the Indoctrination theory? Why is my post stupid then?

Paragon, means controlling the Reapers. The middle is synthesis, fusing both organics with synthetics, e.g. husks.

Both result in "indoctrination was successful", you are now a mindless slave controlled by the Harbinger, i.e. a husk.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Fine you've made a good point, that's what he was using. It's the fact that he was fleeing the battle that bothers me. It really does not make sense why Joker would just abandon the fight.

Now it is especially obvious that he is fleeing since I now know that he was using FTL. To crash land on an alien planet would mean that he had been fleeing for quite some time. It seems like he dropped Shepard off and then just fled.

There are just far too many nonsensical decisions in this ending. It is like someone who had not been paying any attention to the trilogy was hired to quickly read a brief plot summary of the last 2 games and then write the ending of the third.

Well, he could be using FTL within the solar system. To do what... I have no idea.

Which is one point we agree on - the whole Joker scene makes no sense at all.

I feel like there was some other "scene" missing that explained how the squad member got back to the ship and where the fuck Joker is going. Because without that "missing" scene, nothing with Joker or the squad member make any sense.

However, I don't automatically assume that Joker is fleeing. Since nothing at all about the scene makes sense, there isn't enough context to know what the fuck Joker is doing. Nothing about that part makes any sense.