Mass Effect 3 ending SPOILERS!

[nightwolf667]

Yep and yep. I think I got two skills off EDI actually.

Decoy is amazing on an Infiltrator.

You get two off of each party member as you secure their loyalty, so it pays to play the game twice, once with each Virmire survivor as Kaiden unlocks Barrier and Reave, while Ashley gets Inferno Grenade and Marksman.

On the subject of the ending, most of it has already been said here and on the Bioware forums. There's things they could have definitely done better, but I'm not broken up over the choices or dying (though the whole Destroy all Synthetics thing is really stupid). I think it's the lack of an epilogue that really gets me. Seeing Earth getting rebuilt would have been a nice touch. The Normandy crashlanding on "Eden" is bull. If anything Earth is the "new" Eden, given how all those races are now trapped there and must come together to rebuild if they are to survive. Personally, I'd rather have seen that then have Shepard wink to the camera as they walk off into the star filled galaxy, setting off for their next adventure on a different plane of existence.

 

[psicat]

I love it how people are trying to justify the ending. I find that funny. You're actually trying to convince yourselves that the ending is good. You're rationalizing it subconsciously. Accept the fact that Bioware fucked up. The sooner you accept it the easier it will be to move on to better and bigger things.

Yes, because anyone that has an opinion that isn't the same as your opinion about the game, must automatically be wrong.

 

[northeast rower]

I absolutely loved this game... until the ending. I chose synthesis and my crew lived, but seriously, I would be fine with dying if there were a fucking EPILOGUE. I want to know that my decisions made a difference. Hell, I want to see the child I had with Ashley! Also, everyone's stuck on Earth?! Fuck you, Bioware!

 

[Danny Ocean]

Also, everyone's stuck on Earth?! Fuck you, Bioware!

Reapers survive->rebuild relays.

Honestly having them all blow up doesnt mean the end of all travel evar.

 

[Lillowh]

And did they promise you closure? Is that some universal law of video-game writing? Is every story supposed to fucking have a happy ending? No?

The writers of ANY fiction (whether it be video-games, movies or books) do not owe you closure. There is not some universal writing-clause that says that by purchasing this work, you are guaranteed a happy ending where all the plot-points are left resolved.

Yes, but can you name a Critically Praised and Successful writer who wrote a series and offered no closure and just said, "every person and or species you cared and have come to empathize with over the past 2 books and majority of this book are now dead or stranded because of a last minute plot point that was not introduced, foreshadowed (properly), does not makes sense in context, and has an assertion that directly contradicts what the main character has proven showing up on the last page of the book? No, because they don't exist. There is grimdark, there is tragedy, but this is neither. This is just poor storytelling.

 

[northeast rower]

Also, everyone's stuck on Earth?! Fuck you, Bioware!

Reapers survive->rebuild relays.

Honestly having them all blow up doesnt mean the end of all travel evar.

Ahh, good point. Thank you very much.

 

[The_Lost_King]

The endings were horrible... No choices throughout the game mattered one bit. Not to mention in general they just sucked. Where's the one where the Mass Relays stay active, Shepard lives, and life can go back to normal? Why does each ending have to be just soo... stupid...

I have been working through the trilogy to get an ending where Shepard lives and life can finally become peaceful. Instead, you don't get any of that.

Game was amazing, best in the series, until the last couple minutes.

this.. so many times this *sigh*.

 

[Tomo Stryker]

There is grimdark, there is tragedy, but this is neither. This is just poor storytelling.

/topic

But honestly I'm not sure how Bioware was expecting us to react, especially with this kind of ending. Its plain and simple, they either lost funding, time, or staff to continue the work and copped out.

 

[wicket42]

This is hilarious, make sure annotations are on


I have found my preferred ending!

 

[CAMDAWG]

Just finished it this morning, and holy shit that was bad. I'd heard that it was bad going into it, but I thought to myself "I've played human revolution, it had a poor ending, no way will Bioware mess up that badly. I can trust them." But no. At least in Human revolution, the ending-tron machine came after just one game, which was reasonably linear (story-wise). ME3's ending-tron machine came after three games (or two if you happen to be a ps3 person), in which the choices the player makes are some of the key features of the games themselves. These choices have great effect all through ME3, and then... I dunno. Maybe it was happy hour at the pub down the road, and they reckoned this was good enough. I was planning to play through again immediately, but I can't bring myself to make all those choices for no reason.

To be honest, I would've preferred an ending that's just a simple "*gasp* shep's dead! OR IS HE!?" setup for a sequel so that EA can continue to milk the franchise. And I hate franchises that overstay their welcome.

I, like many others, would like a patch/DLC/something, to soften this up. I disagree with people who say "DELETE THE ENDING! MAKE IT ALL DIFFERENT!", because ultimately, it's biowares game, they shouldn't have to remove something that their people worked on. Remember the shitstorm with the lucas and the vader and the "NOOOOOO!"? I don't want that kind of crap surrounding a game that I otherwise love. My idea (which, of course bioware will never see, but sharing is caring) is to simply introduce a little new dialogue, and also a fourth option, that lets you kill all, or most of the reapers, and maybe destroy the citadel (but leave relays intact) so that it's not QUITE a perfect ending. Then you can pretty much just have the credits roll, then maybe some quick shots of shep getting medals/building a house on rannoch/rebuilding thessia, earth or palaven depending on your romantic interest or whoever you talked to the most. That would make me quite satisfied.

My overall point is that, while I am admittedly a sucker for a happy ending (I must've replayed the suicide mission 5-6 times to make sure I saved everyone), I know that some people aren't. These are the people who are perfectly happy with what they've been given, even though I'm pretty sure everybody would've preferred something a little more than just a choice of 1 from 3 cutscenes, in which the only real difference is the colour scheme. And you know what? I don't mind. If they want an ending like that, they should have that option. But likewise, they should be able to realize that the sappy, lovey-dovey, everything-is-peaceful-now players should have the option of an ending that caters to them, especially in a game like mass effect.

Also, when it comes to an ending-tron, I fail to see why the game couldn't look at your choices, and then choose the appropriate outcome. In this example, perhaps if you set up Joker and EDI, were best buds with legion in ME2, and saved the geth, at the end they'd simply give you the synthesis ending, and make it so that choices do impact events.

Bioware...you guys dropped the ball...ever since you bent over backwards and became EA's whore...I could've dealt with ME3 being an entirely piece of shit game, so long as my choices had mattered and created a ending worthy of such a great series...but then Bioware had to go and f**kup something that simple...

That video is pretty spot on from my position. Except for the tali face bit. I really couldn't care less about that. I'm kinda of the verge of tali fanboyism, but realistically, so long as the picture wasn't so hideous that it made me think "Oh god was that under there all along? Let me run back to liara and her nice hair tentacle things" I was going to be fine. Although I think it failed to have a big enough impact. As far as I'm concerned, the mask is still her face.

 

[4173]

Essentially, after the clusterfuck that is ME2, I don't give Bioware enough credit to think they wanted "Shepard gave the Reapers what they wanted, only 10 minutes of the trilogy mattered" to be a possible interpretation.


If they did want that option, then Mass Effect is a deconstruction of video games and space opera on the same level as Watchmen. Surpassing Watchmen even, because it kept its true purpose hidden until the very end.

 

[Danny Ocean]

This is just poor storytelling.

Or maybe it's a reminder of the fact that you are viewing your own story.

Once you're dead, you've know way of viewing the results of those best-laid plans. You can't see Garrus alone in that bar with the second empty glass or Liara living out her next 900 years. You can't know if the Krogan rise up or the Quarian peace is maintained. You can only bear the possibilities in mind when you make your decisions in the present, and that's exactly what the game makes you do. If you knew what would happen, the decision would be easy. Because you don't know, the decision is hard. That's what life makes you do.

This way, the game leaves you wondering. I think that's a much better place to be.

 

[Ifrit7th]

I beat the game on Thursday, but I figured I'd take a few days to let my initial anger pass. Frankly my two major complaints were the lack of an epilogue and the self-contradicting logic of the catalyst child (ok three things, that was pretty lame).

Destroying the mass relays and citadel did suck and throw civilization into the dark ages, but it still fit the overall theme of 'relying on other peoples tech is a bad, bad thing' (which, technically, the crucible itself kind of contradicts a little). The whole idea of synthetics inevitably destroying organic life though, did not. The whole thing just felt like a big slap in the face.

Don't get me wrong, I can handle a bittersweet mindfuck ending; just not in a series that's built from the ground up in action-movie sci-fi camp as Mass Effect. Hell, I wasn't even expecting a happy ending, fully expecting that Shepard wasn't coming out of this alive no matter what. In fact, that's kind of what I wanted (Love ya Tali, but I love the narrative even more).

I hear a lot of talk about rewriting the ending, but quite frankly, I wish they wouldn't. What's done is done and any kind of rewrite is going to end up just being done out of spite rather then genuine artistic involvement.

 

[SajuukKhar]

ugh wrong post.

 

[The_Lost_King]

Have you actually played the game and got to the ending?

a) it makes no sense logically.
b) any decisions you made prior is meaningless
c) no sense of closure ie wtf happened in the aftermath.

You didn't "self-sacrifice" anything. Hell, having the reaper wiping everyone out is technically a better ending than this, since technology and the mass relays are still there for future generations. Now everyone's stuck on their own system, and the entire quarian and turian army/population just got wiped out as well.

I have beaten the game

A. Yes it does
B. So the Korgans being cured of the genophage, the Quarrians and Geth being allies, the Rachnai getting a chance to live again and many other decisions, still eare in effect regardless so nice lie.
C. Really I found plenty of closure, Shepard frees all current and future galactic civilization from eternal enslavement by not only destroying/controlling/ merging the reapers but also destroys the chains that the reapers used to bound races into slavery, aka the Mass Relays.


My question to you is did you pay attention at all during the series?

Leaving the mass relays in place defeats the entire point of the series.

A. no it doesn't the geth didn't rise up the quarians attacked them and how does wiping out all advanced life any different than sythetics rising up?
B. They all die because there are no mass relays so no they don't matter
C. Didn't have a problem with this.

 

[flipthepool]

Hm, weird posting issue. Disregard this post.

 

[iseeyouthere]

Why couldn't we just shoot the Catalyst? Seems like that would of solved everything, seeing as he controlled the Reapers and pretty much stated a bunch of maybes and do this because I say so.
...Brb, going to try shooting the little kid.

 

[The_Lost_King]

Honestly, have none of you ever read a science fiction story?

I... don't understand why there's such a fuss. The ending made perfect sense to me. Everything the child says adds up to everything that's happened. Now, I didn't get all war assets and as such my ending is probably not as optimistic as the 'best' one. I hear there's even one where Shepard lives. In my ending, the Reapers are destroyed (and by proxy every synthetic). Shepard dies as well. Of course the relays are destroyed and pretty much everyone is fucked. But only for a while. My Shepard's sacrifice has given the galaxy a new chance.

No, the galaxy's sacrifice has done that. That's what I got from my ending. And sacrificing things has been a theme since the very first game.

The whole game has a depressing tone, mixed in with little happy moments. From the get-go, the entire galaxy is under direct attack and everything around Shepard is falling apart. This is really the end. To suddenly have everyting work out at the end, that would be a complete betrayal of everything that happened before.

There is no sudden move into 'MAGIC' territory, as some claim. The Child is obviously an AI of sort and chooses this form to be recognizable for Shepard. It's not a 'MAGIC SPACE CHILD HURRR'. Please.

The Child speaks of 'we'. That implies the first Reapers who decided upon the idea of the cycles. The idea of Reapers as almost almighty beings is not new. Now that Shepard and the rest of the galaxy (very important that part) have broken through that cycle, it clearly doesn't work anymore. That's what the Child literally says. So there has to be a new start. And yes, that can only be done by almost dooming the current galaxy.

But to see so many people disillusioned must mean they haven't made all this clear enough to most people. That is a fail on Bioware, and should be recognized as such. But the claims of this ending making absolutely no sense are just wrong. It's probably just disappointment venting. Take a step back, think about it a little. I will admit I had hoped for a more happy ending as well, but that would just be completely contradictory to the tone of the whole game.

A lot of people will probably still rage and say the ending sucks, but what can you do. I don't think there's any way Bioware could've done this that wouldn't have incurred the wrath of the gaming community. Happy/bittersweet ending? I get why you want it, but as I tried to explain I don't think that would've been any 'better'.

Their reason doesn't make sense. The geth didn't rise up the quarians attacked.

 

[SajuukKhar]

A. no it doesn't the geth didn't rise up the quarians attacked them and how does wiping out all advanced life any different than sythetics rising up?
B. They all die because there are no mass relays so no they don't matter
C. Didn't have a problem with this.

A. The Catalyst says Synthetics try to destroy organics, he never makes mention of WHY they do. Be it from Synthetics own desire, to Organics trying to kill them, no specific reason why ever stated. You have made up your own assumptions as to why Synthetics atack that are not suppored by the game itself.

B. Umm no the races DONT die, those races have survived fine for countless ages before finding the Mass Relays, why you assume they would die is beyond me but there is nothing in game that supports that they would. Again you making things up.

 

[Agayek]

I don't understand people who seem to take what the catalyst says as the absolute truth. He is obviously some sort of AI or something that has reached its own flawed logic as to why the reapers must be needed. You can choose to take what he says as the word of god, or you can choose to disbelieve that it is inevitable or you can think there is perhaps some merit to what he says (as evidenced by the geth and quarian wars) and attempt to fix it with synthesis.

Yet everyone who posts about hating the ending seems to take everything the catalysts says as the word of god then shouts 'these are flaws and plot holes and it makes no sense' you see the catalyst is speaking from the perspective of himself and presumably he is responsible for the reapers if not a reaper himself. What he says is bias and not something you should take as literal truth. He isn't god people he is just a machine.

The problem with the Catalyst is that his argument doesn't make any sense. At all.

His argument boils down to "In order to stop people from making robots that will kill them, I built robots that will kill them first". That is the entire reason the Reapers exist in the first place. It's utterly nonsensical. It doesn't matter what perspective you approach it from, it still doesn't make any sense.

That scene utterly invalidates everything that has been established about the Reapers up to that point. In ME1 they were basically Space-Cthulhu, unknowable and unstoppable avatars of death that would kill us for their own inscrutable purpose. In ME2, their reason was explained: they wanted to kill us to create more of themselves. ME3 directly contradicts this. It's fucking stupid and incredibly aggravating that it was actually approved as the final storyline.

Beyond that, the actual choices you were presented with were incredibly fucking stupid as well. The outcome of any of the end choices is determined solely by that end choice. It completely ignores everything you've done in the game up to that point, making the player feel cheated that they weren't able to influence the outcome. This is made even worse when you consider that all 3 endings are, as presented to the player, exactly the fucking same. Literally the only difference between the three is the color of the beam that bounces around the relays. If there was a proper epilogue that may well have been fixed, but since they couldn't be fucked with doing even that much, it fails miserably in every sense of the word.