Mass Effect 3 ending SPOILERS!

[Deremix]

So, after all of this destruction, depression and conclusion who just wants to go back to the relatively innocent days of Mass Effect 1 when Reapers weren't really the biggest worry, and Saren was just being stupid and you could go to Noveria and you could call a Hanar a big stupid jellyfish for the first time? (Lol'd when it happened again in ME3.)

 

[Fapmaster5000]

And you are forgetting that eliminating The Reapers still leaves civilizations stuck and dependent on technology that isn't their own, that they will never fully understand, because they didn't make it, and ignorant to possible other, and better path of technology and societal development.

SCIENCE DOES NOT HAVE TECH TREES.

Also... it's not "never understood" mystical crap. I mean, Cerberus was figuring it out in a matter of a year, enough to integrate it. Now, they got hosed down by this with indoctrination, but they DID start to figure it out.

Plus, we've used drive cores (Reaper tech) in the series, making them, modifying them (count every conversation on the Normandy about drive core modifications), and playing with them. If we understand them enough to alter their base functions, we sure as heck aren't dealing with "never fully understand".

I'd put it more in the line of "give us a minute and some funding, and we'll give you one that sings opera".

I never said science had tech trees.

I paraphrased from this:

And you are forgetting that eliminating The Reapers still leaves civilizations stuck and dependent on technology that isn't their own

It does not matter who told me that 1 + 1 = 2, the statement is either true, or false. There can be more accurate ways to describe the math, but it is simple math. Your car starts in the morning because the ignition system drives an internal combustion engine. It wouldn't matter if you designed the car yourself, the engine still lights. If you wanted to learn about the car, one of the best ways would be to open up a working car (ie: designed by someone else) and see what made it tick.

The only time you see crap about "oh, no, I spent all my resources on Fission Power and now I can't research the automobile" (ie: Tech Trees) is in games, and while ME3 is a game, it was far more story driven than to allow drivel such as "you've spent too many research points in the Reaper tree and now your society cannot understand star-drive".

Secondly the Normandys Mass Effect core was still far below The Reapers tech, it fell within their path as it was based off of their systems, and relied on their methods.

Note that you used the words "fell within their path". If you mean philosophically, then I can understand an objection, although I disagree entirely. Star drive is not inherently evil (nor are jet planes/roads/what-have-you). If you mean that using the relays will use up valuable Research Points that could be spent on curing cancer, than you're just wrong.

Also by the time of ME3 the Mass Relay system was still FAR from being completly understood.

True, but I'd chock this one up to laziness more than anything. They had no REASON to start cutting up the relays, since the galaxy, until about 3 years before game, chalked them up to a gift from a Wise Forerunner Race and not plot-coupons towards oblivion. Now that they know better, I'd imagine funding towards figuring them out would skyrocket (and be jumpstarted by all the research from the Crucible relay weapon, a la Manhattan Project).

Of course, this is all discounting the TERRIBLE ENDING, but meh.

 

[Deremix]

So, after all of this destruction, depression and conclusion who just wants to go back to the relatively innocent days of Mass Effect 1 when Reapers weren't really the biggest worry, and Saren was just being stupid and you could go to Noveria and you could call a Hanar a big stupid jellyfish for the first time? (Lol'd when it happened again in ME3.)

Don't worry, ME4 will be just like ME, only a few centuries later.

Aaah. I think after my second playthrough to see what happens with my other decisions, mainly Jack romance, I'm going to reinstall ME1 and just roam around the cities.

 

[Fapmaster5000]

Whoa.

I finally found a game with blacker endings than Geneforge 2. A game which I profess great love for, especially for the endings.

This actually makes me WANT to play the game. Hmmmmmmm.

Problem is, it's not the sadness that makes the endings bad. It's the weapons grade stupid being distributed in them.

I was half expecting the ending to be rows of flag-draped caskets, ending with Shepard's, showing a galaxy united by the equality of loss. I'd have loved that.

As someone else said, letting the Reapers win, passing notes onto the next generation, would have been more appropriate than this mess.

Hell, an option to shoot the star-child/god/AI IN THE FACE and blowing him out an airlock while Shepard has to complete a quick-time-event-dance-battle would have been better than this.

 

[Harrison Grittman]

Ok... So I just beat it... And... All I can really say is like.... What!? And I'm usually the one for dramatic, kill the hero off kinda guy. But seriously... WTF!? Everyone is screwed! And there is literally no closure... What happened to everyone!? What the hell happened to the Reapers!? They just dipped out after the synthesis thing, and were like, "oh they synthesized now... Guess we can just dip out into our vast nothingness."

I could see Anderson dying... Cool with that... But seriously... Killing off Shepard like that? You didnt do that to Revan after the starforge BioWare... Awesome game though... Until the last 5 minutes where Shephard is forced to obliterate himself, and leave the galaxy in an even bigger problem... Where am I... And how am I getting home....

 

[MrFalconfly]

Happy endings?

I got a sollution. Play C&C Red Alert 3. There you have not one but three happy endings.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

Whoa.

I finally found a game with blacker endings than Geneforge 2. A game which I profess great love for, especially for the endings.

This actually makes me WANT to play the game. Hmmmmmmm.

Problem is, it's not the sadness that makes the endings bad. It's the weapons grade stupid being distributed in them.

I was half expecting the ending to be rows of flag-draped caskets, ending with Shepard's, showing a galaxy united by the equality of loss. I'd have loved that.

As someone else said, letting the Reapers win, passing notes onto the next generation, would have been more appropriate than this mess.

Hell, an option to shoot the star-child/god/AI IN THE FACE and blowing him out an airlock while Shepard has to complete a quick-time-event-dance-battle would have been better than this.

An ending where the reapers win and you have to save whatever you can so that the next cycle has a chance of defeating the reapers would be the bittersweet ending this series deserves.

"It's the ending this series deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So, we'll ignore it, because it would make for great DLC. Because it's not our ending. It's a resolute conclusion. A bittersweet finish. A good ending."
---Bioware's ME3 team

 

[Fapmaster5000]

snip

An ending where the reapers win and you have to save whatever you can so that the next cycle has a chance of defeating the reapers would be the bittersweet ending this series deserves.

Agreed. I'd have been totally cool with that. Sad, but cool.

Heck, I would have liked that as the "default" win condition. You only get the "we lives!" if you rack up some astronomical readiness score. Then alter it by paragon/renegade for "how did you do it". Leave the cost up in the air, get some ambiguity from "will the Shepard's Peace last?" Sure, maybe have a perfect ending in there for the diehards, but make it painful to get, New Game + stuff.

This? This was nonsense.

This was amateur "lolplot-twist" stuff that beginning writers pull.

And the worst part is, this was on track to be my favorite game (and series) up until those boggling last five minutes.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

All I can say -All I want to say right now is that they could've done better. They could have done SO MUCH BETTER.

Am I disappointed?
-a little but I have several (which I would call better but I also know my preferences more than Bioware does) endings that I like to entertain as well.

Am I upset?
-no... unless they release a Broken Steel-type DLC later and expect us to pay for it. Either stick by the choices you made and then cemented when you released this game or fix it and make it right.

How am I going to remember Mass Effect as a series?
-Good story, moving characters, great villians.. it had a few things (especially in 3) that rubbed my the wrong way but a solid game series all around.

Am I going to replay these games?
-Hell yeah

Would I recommend them?
-I did, I have and I'm going to.

Final Thoughts?
-They could have done so much better than this but it doesn't make me angry - it makes me sad.

 

[Harrison Grittman]

"Hey guys were Reapers... You guys are chaos... Can you guys evolve so we wont have to blow you guys up anymore? K thnx bai"
-The Reapers

 

[Eddie the head]

If it had just ended when Legion said "I" I would have been fine with it. I am trying to think about it deeper but I don't like it.

 

[ShadowsofHope]

Yep, pretty much my thoughts as well. Mass Effect 3 was officially, for me, the best narrative of the series until the last cutscene after you are lifted up to the final decision.

..And then it became completely detached from everything else in the game (quarian/geth paragon resolution route alone disproves the god-child's theory completely), save for what you could see around you in space (Reapers fighting your awesome fleet of awesomeness). Bioware really dropped the ball on the ending, to say the least. I've already retconned that decision alone with a scenario in my own head for the ending (either a military funeral on Earth for my femShep with her mother there, as per her Spacer background, or Shepard being commemorated by Hackett before the remaining Alliance/Galactic Fleet survivors) to try to ignore it.

That is to say, the ending does not ruin the rest of the game, it just brings up far more questions and confusion than it does closure or answers.

 

[John Howard]

Nothing adds up, really.
Joker flies through a Mass Effect relay, trying to escape the blast. His ship gets hit and then BOOM, suddenly he's crash-landed on an earth-like planet that can support human life.

Yeah, I read one of these comments somewhere about it all being an hallucination and I'm beginning to believe it. The best story writers in the game industry could not make an ending as shit as the "everyone's fcked no matter what, thanks for the cash suckers" type. There has to be something we've missed, I dunno...

 

[jason27131]

My question is: Why was he travelling through the mass relay in the first place? Isn't there a god damn battle going on?

 

[Shadowkire]

Wow, lame.

Since Mass Effect 2 Bioware was showing how AI could be more than simple murder machines bent on the destruction of everything not mechanical. This was refreshing because in most science fiction AI/robots all strangely have the urge to kill people despite having little to no explainable reason for doing so.

Bioware continued this trend in 3 with EDI and Joker engaged in some romance and the possibility of a Geth/Quarian alliance. Then at the very end: nope sorry AI hordes throughout the universe want you dead for no reason that can be adequately explained.

 

[TD5160]

I only skimmed this, so forgive me if this was already mentioned... But how does Galactic Readiness affect the endings? And what about the 7th special ending mentioned in the Prima guide?

I heard high Galactic Readiness (mine is currently 98%) prevents a lot of the super bad things from happening when you choose what to do with the Reapers.

I'm also curious if the 7th ending is far better than the other endings. Though I'm thinking the game might not have been out long enough for anyone to have beaten the game twice...

 

[John Howard]

Add me to the pile of people majorly disappointed by the ending. Especially since I couldn't talk Illusive Man down since I didn't have that one reputation bonus in the skill tree, even though my rep was maxed since halfway through the game. Fucking disgraceful.

Also, what a lame-ass reason for why the Reapers attacked. "Synthetics will always rebel against organics" that is the most contrived lame-ass pile of shit I've ever heard. But maybe my puny mind cannot comprehend it.

Anyone know what happens during the better ending and what I have to do to get it? Because if it's solely tied to the multiplayer, then fuck EA.

You don't HAVE to play multi to get the "full" ending, it's just an alternative. Nah you just have to go around and do all the side-quests and get all of the crap in the galaxy using scan (don't remember what it's called, who cares).

 

[William Ossiss]

When I reached the end, I drank. I was that invested in the story. It makes me sad that

Spoiler

my character just up and died for no reason other than dying for the sake of the universe!

 

[John Howard]

You don't HAVE to play multi to get the "full" ending, it's just an alternative. Nah you just have to go around and do all the side-quests and get all of the crap in the galaxy using scan (don't remember what it's called, who cares).

I had like 2 or 3 sidequests I didn't get because I didn't know where to get them from. Hmm. If you're certain, then I'll do that on my 2nd playthrough.

Yeah, if you do everything in single-player you can definitely get the full ending.

 

[Max]

I think all three series of Mass Effect were ONE BIG EXPERIMENT , some smart-a$$ bioware managers in 2006 were reading statistic list"How many people iin the world playing computer games". And then some of them said
-"wOW its so many of em, they better go to the gym or read some books, we need to do some thing with that....Oh I know lets make three AWESOME games with great plot, intresting characters, hole new fiction univers and best of all that there will free choices role play.
And then, after people spent 180 hours playing all three parts(fist and second part mb playing few times replay) thinking about every small deсision, meking romance with Liara, or Ashe, or wtf even Rex, crying when when Legion first time says 'i',after all this awesome stuf.

we will make ending, with... dont laught god-child< after which all 7 millions fans say: WHAAAT?! &#1064;mmediately load again last mission in citadel, trying anothere ending understanding that the only diffrence is color of last beam. Ok if there is no diffrence between ending decisons, there are a lot of games with only one ending. But we ll make ending when shepMAn/Fem dies, destroys Mass Relays, all his freinds stuck in Jacob fathere style, in no where. And all that doesnt even make sence!!!! All biofans crying "Why Bioware..." and throwing there computers in to the window )