Mass Effect 3 Gets An Ending

[Paradoxrifts]

Yahtzee Croshaw, you're a magnificent bastard! Just make sure to disinfect your massive set of balls after where you just put them.

 

[SiskoBlue]

I loved the entire mass effect series. Read the books, comics, done it all. I'm completely fine with the ending. I'm not sure what everybody expected but it was the ending I predicted. I could see the writing on the wall fairly early on. A bit like Red Dead Redemption. Doom was in the air.

The fact that the "multiple endings" was a bit of a con is absolutely in keeping with Mass Effect 1 & 2. Maybe other people don't see it but each Mass Effect has been a series of bottle necks with some expansion of plot between each node.

No matter WHAT you decide the outcome for every single mission is basically the same. Everyone destroys Sovereign and Saren in the first game. Everybody fights the giant baby terminator in ME2. Everybody does the exact same story missions and the only variation is a bit of dialogue and the "concept" that you picked A instead of B. Killed Wrex? Fine, you get a different Krogan and a bit of different dialogue in ME2. Effect on missions and gameplay and the outcome of other missions? = 0! Nothing, nada.

The Blue Paragon/Red Renegade is the biggest con of all. You need to get person X to do Y. You can sweet talk them with Blue option, result = you get Y. You can intimidate them with Red option, result = you get Y. Where exactly is the massive change in decisions.

I know "the means" is the interesting part and no "the ends" but at no point as Mass Effect even shown anything but a cursory nod towards "multiple-choices". The impact of even the most important choices from previous games result in a bit of dialogue difference, and maybe a footnote in the codex or war assets. As far as concluding subplots I can't see a single thing they didn't answer. Not sure what closure people are missing but no story, film, book, or game is going to list what happens to every single character at the end of a series. Unless it's LOTR and that's the worst part of the books.

I love Mass Effect but I never played it for the "multiple-choices". That's fluff, a thin icing on very lovely cake. Anyone saying Mass Effect set an expectation of multiple endings or massive changes in plot due to choices made is a complete liar or a fool. They've always said this stuff and it's never been true before. It's like CoD going on about "loads of new weapons and perks" when it's the same stuff rebranded and tweaked a bit. They've said this stuff from day one and at no point has a decision made in ME ever made much difference to the major story line. At least not a single change to the chain of events.

I can only presume these people only played ME2, and not ME1 and believed the hype about carrying your decisions over to the next game. Coupled with the fact that the series is ending (sad face) and that it's pretty damn obvious only sad endings are going to occur (how many missions in ME end with "Yeah! Everybody is happy"??) that left them feeling sad. Unable to comprehend or reflect on this new emotion produced by art they had a temper tantrum. You know, like a child does if his hero in a film dies.

You expected Shepard's entire motivation to change within 14 lines of dialogue. See it's not that the ending is overly grim, it's that it's not a culmination of everything Shepard's done up to this point as well as being poorly written. I suppose, unlike you, I thought that up until the end I thought Bioware were fairly good writers.

They are pretty good but they're not Umberto Eco or Kurt Vonnegut. I know lots of people like comic books but I find the plot lines and dialogue a bit too broadstroke. It has to be in comics, the subtlety and nuance is in the artwork, not the dialogue. Games seem to follow comic book style dialogue mostly (Not JRPGs though, they follow the "more is more" like a kid writing his first novel). Bioware are very good, but that doesn't stop them falling in to many of the same traps.

Here's something I haven't come across much, what ending for ME3 WOULD be great? And I don't mean plot points like "Shepherd kills all the reapers and everyone lives" I mean what actually should happen. How would you implement all those choices. People are complaining but I haven't seen a single useful, sensible suggestion about what they could have done.

As far as a culmination of shepherd's actions and decisions, his/her motivation has always been to stop the reapers from destroying all sapient life. Each ending does exactly that. Maybe people are missing the very real moral/philosophical conundrum of synthetic life. What happens when the machines we create surpass us? And when sapient nature is evolutionary bound to create synthetic life, what's the solution? A repeating cycle of growth and destruction to maintain equilibrium(Personally I think this is too much a copy of the Matrix plot but still a good question). Both franchises show that equilibriums are unlikely to last forever, so what's the solution? Which is exactly what faces Shepherd.

Take a look at Extra Credits Singularity episode (2 parter) to see why the ghost child "the catalyst" needs a solution. Interesting stuff.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/the-singularity

 

[Hiroshi Mishima]

Keeping in mind I still haven't played the game, cause I never finished the first one (cause my computer won't play it)... I'd say the only problem I had with the ending from the sounds of things, is the fact that all the choices you make through-out the game, no matter how they change the overall storyline, do not change the ending in any way.

I do like how someone mentioned Chrono Trigger's 12 endings, and the ME series had been known for having multiple endings. Really, I see no reason why they couldn't have had multiple endings.. in fact, I think like someone else said, they kinda wrote themselves into a corner cause of the pressure building to get the storyline finished. No single ending would have likely closed the various plot threads.

It's been said more than once that Mass Effect 3 is NOT the first game to have great writing and then a piss-poor ending. This is undeniably true. It's also quite well known for many popular games to have horrible writing (and yet still strangely popular) because people fill in the gaps for themselves.. until it's retconned out of existence (it happens).

Do I think Yahtzee missed the point? No, but he, like many others, underestimate how very LOUD people get when they don't like something. To be perfectly honest, I'm all for changes and being loud where it's needed.. but for ME 3's ending? Really, I think the gamers' voices could be put to better use elsewhere.


Like putting our collective feet down about franchises turning their female characters into sex symbols and ruining a series. *looks at Sakamoto's handling of Samus* But that's just me. Alternatively, we should start trying to get it through that graphics aren't everything, but that could also just be me.

Regardless, I think the fans' outcry and anger is misdirected.

 

[C14N]

These people are not artist. The are employees earning a paycheck. If they have any artistic value, it is marginalized by time/budget constraints.

Whether or not something is art is not decided by the motivation of the person (or people) who created it. If a songwriter is under contract to write 5 albums over 5 years because that's what they're paid to do, is every song they write instantly "not art"? Hate to break it to you but the vast majority of the world's "art" is made by someone trying to earn a paycheck and who has to deal with budget and time constraints.

 

[X10Unit1]

Its not? Are those songs instantly art?

Don't "hate to break" anything to me. Why is art in quotes?

 

[khantron]

I loved the entire mass effect series. Read the books, comics, done it all. I'm completely fine with the ending. I'm not sure what everybody expected but it was the ending I predicted. I could see the writing on the wall fairly early on. A bit like Red Dead Redemption. Doom was in the air.

The fact that the "multiple endings" was a bit of a con is absolutely in keeping with Mass Effect 1 & 2. Maybe other people don't see it but each Mass Effect has been a series of bottle necks with some expansion of plot between each node.

No matter WHAT you decide the outcome for every single mission is basically the same. Everyone destroys Sovereign and Saren in the first game. Everybody fights the giant baby terminator in ME2. Everybody does the exact same story missions and the only variation is a bit of dialogue and the "concept" that you picked A instead of B. Killed Wrex? Fine, you get a different Krogan and a bit of different dialogue in ME2. Effect on missions and gameplay and the outcome of other missions? = 0! Nothing, nada.

The Blue Paragon/Red Renegade is the biggest con of all. You need to get person X to do Y. You can sweet talk them with Blue option, result = you get Y. You can intimidate them with Red option, result = you get Y. Where exactly is the massive change in decisions.

I know "the means" is the interesting part and no "the ends" but at no point as Mass Effect even shown anything but a cursory nod towards "multiple-choices". The impact of even the most important choices from previous games result in a bit of dialogue difference, and maybe a footnote in the codex or war assets. As far as concluding subplots I can't see a single thing they didn't answer. Not sure what closure people are missing but no story, film, book, or game is going to list what happens to every single character at the end of a series. Unless it's LOTR and that's the worst part of the books.

I love Mass Effect but I never played it for the "multiple-choices". That's fluff, a thin icing on very lovely cake. Anyone saying Mass Effect set an expectation of multiple endings or massive changes in plot due to choices made is a complete liar or a fool. They've always said this stuff and it's never been true before. It's like CoD going on about "loads of new weapons and perks" when it's the same stuff rebranded and tweaked a bit. They've said this stuff from day one and at no point has a decision made in ME ever made much difference to the major story line. At least not a single change to the chain of events.

I can only presume these people only played ME2, and not ME1 and believed the hype about carrying your decisions over to the next game. Coupled with the fact that the series is ending (sad face) and that it's pretty damn obvious only sad endings are going to occur (how many missions in ME end with "Yeah! Everybody is happy"??) that left them feeling sad. Unable to comprehend or reflect on this new emotion produced by art they had a temper tantrum. You know, like a child does if his hero in a film dies.

You expected Shepard's entire motivation to change within 14 lines of dialogue. See it's not that the ending is overly grim, it's that it's not a culmination of everything Shepard's done up to this point as well as being poorly written. I suppose, unlike you, I thought that up until the end I thought Bioware were fairly good writers.

They are pretty good but they're not Umberto Eco or Kurt Vonnegut. I know lots of people like comic books but I find the plot lines and dialogue a bit too broadstroke. It has to be in comics, the subtlety and nuance is in the artwork, not the dialogue. Games seem to follow comic book style dialogue mostly (Not JRPGs though, they follow the "more is more" like a kid writing his first novel). Bioware are very good, but that doesn't stop them falling in to many of the same traps.

Here's something I haven't come across much, what ending for ME3 WOULD be great? And I don't mean plot points like "Shepherd kills all the reapers and everyone lives" I mean what actually should happen. How would you implement all those choices. People are complaining but I haven't seen a single useful, sensible suggestion about what they could have done.

As far as a culmination of shepherd's actions and decisions, his/her motivation has always been to stop the reapers from destroying all sapient life. Each ending does exactly that. Maybe people are missing the very real moral/philosophical conundrum of synthetic life. What happens when the machines we create surpass us? And when sapient nature is evolutionary bound to create synthetic life, what's the solution? A repeating cycle of growth and destruction to maintain equilibrium(Personally I think this is too much a copy of the Matrix plot but still a good question). Both franchises show that equilibriums are unlikely to last forever, so what's the solution? Which is exactly what faces Shepherd.

Take a look at Extra Credits Singularity episode (2 parter) to see why the ghost child "the catalyst" needs a solution. Interesting stuff.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/the-singularity

You know what, I couldn't care less whether synthetic and organic life can get along. I care whether the Geth and the Quarians can get along. I don't care what the Reaper's motivation was. I care about destroying them. I think the fact that the question in your second to last paragraph is even being asked is the problem, not that the resolution to this question is unacceptable.

I mean let's face it, technology "going to far" is a classic sci fi trope that almost approaches cliche. Being relegated to a sub-story is fine but making it the main motivation, especially with so little exposition is a major disappointment.

 

[DiademInDross]

Yahtzee Croshaw, you are missing the point! We don't care that the ending was not bright and happy. We want choices to affect the outcome of the game even if they are all sad and depressing endings! EA wouldn't even need to change this particular ending as long as there were different paths to different endpoints. I hate to be labeled as a spoiled and entitled gamer when I express my concern about something I am not happy with. Any responsible consumer for any other product would/should do the same (Yes MovieBob, even when it comes to movies)!

Even Forbes says EA has made a huge mistake and they are not even gamers! Their opinion is that the customer is always right even when they are "wrong". From a business perspective, BioWare is shooting down their customers. This means that they will lose our business and our support.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/03/30/six-reasons-why-changing-the-mass-effect-3-ending-wont-threaten-its-artistic-integrity/

 

[gadjo]

My problem with the ending wasn't due to a lack of choice. I do agree with Yahtzee's assertion that the ending needed to come down to one unavoidable event. One problem was that the ending was depressing and nonsensical without any context. The best way to describe the themes put forward in the Mass Effect trilogy is "basically just like star trek". Anti-racist message, and basically the people of the galaxy having to work around their differences. The ending did not reflect these values. I would have been fine with Yahtzee's proposed ending if that had been the story they had told, but it wasn't.
The other problem was the massive drop off in quality from the rest of the game. Mordin's death? Dramatic. The end of the geth war? Touching. The ending, however lacked the emotional weight and attention to detail the rest of the series had. It was just plain stupid. Have I seen worse endings? of course. The problem was that the story was about to come to an end. Everything made sense and I knew exactly what the stakes were, and then the story pulls the equivalent of reciting some depressing, nonsensical, out of place monologue and pulls the curtain. While other endings have basically crapped on the stage and ran out of the theater, Mass Effects is so anger inducing because I didn't see it coming. It hadn't written itself into a corner or anything, the obvious ending was right there! It was like the writers got to the ending, turned into hipsters, and deciding ending the story in a way that made any sense was "too mainstream", and endeavored to have it make as little sense as was humanly possible

 

[Lord Revan 117]

"I've been given to understand that Bioware are talking about changing the ending under the massive pressure from the idiot fanbase."
In that sentence I lost a LOT of respect for Yahtzee.

 

[Jedted]

Well said, Yahtzee! I'm sure you probably don't read these comments but i agree with what you said.

I didn't like the original ending to ME3 for the lack of closure but the Extended Cut does a fine job explaining most of it(the rest is up for player interpretation, something i think a lot of fans miss). For the record: In the EC the Mass Relays aren't destroyed, at least not in the same way we see in Arrival. The ending doesn't result in galactic extinction and the Relays CAN be repaired.

If you don't like the ending then you can feel free to disregard everything and write your own fan-fic(not all fan-fics have to be about romances) and make it your canon ending to ME3. Don't demand that Bioware re-write their own ending just to satisfy your vision.