Ok, Bioware you're *somewhat* forgiven

[way2sl0w]

I still haven't played ME3 because of that day-1-dlc farce, but judging from the vague descriptions I hear about the game's ending, I *might* be willing to forgive Bioware and actually pay $70 for this.

Correct me if I'm wrong but the ending is:
a) a downer
b) negates some of choices you made along the way

I might be in the minority on this, but I consider that a GOOD thing. Not every story needs to have a happy ending with the overpowered stalwart hero saving the universe for the evil supreme beings. Maybe the message is that no matter what you do or how hard you try, you just can't win. That's a perfectly acceptable ending in my opinion.

It helps build atmosphere and suspense if I can't laughably predict how a game/movie's plot will unfold. It makes commander Shepard into a character that I can actually sympathize with. I didn't even like him that much in the first two games because he reminds me of:

a) the popular jock that can get away with stealing my lunch money because he can throw a ball (renegade shepard obviously)
or
b) the virtuous straight A, handsome, nice jock (who can also throw a ball) that everyone points to and asks 'why can't you be more like him?' (paragon shep)

The story is much more interesting to me if the protagonist is struggling against an ACTUAL insurmountable force rather than strolling invincibly through the enemy base or *pretending* to be vulnerable and then pulling a BFG9000 out of his ass to slaughter the bad guy to avenge his family.

I applaud whoever wrote this for putting in some actual thought into his/her work rather than applying the same cookie cutter 'Shepard saves the universe! hip hip hooray!' storyline from the ME1 and 2.
Congratulations Bioware, I hereby pardon you for the heinous crime of trying to sell me $10 day 1 dlc.



Agree? Disagree? or am I just a cynical, overcompensating a-hole?

 

[spectrenihlus]

I think this guy best explains what is wrong with the ending (spoilers, tldr ect)
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/10022779

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Correct me if I'm wrong but the ending is:
a) a downer
b) negates some of choices you made along the way

You've not played it, presumably, and are apparently unspoiled, so I don't want to be the guy who wrecks that for you.

You may want to know that A) is not an issue at all, and B) is only the tip of the iceberg.

Here's some general facts for you...

1. I liked the Sopranos ending.
2. I liked the Lost ending.
3. I generally enjoyed DA2 quite a lot.
4. I thought 98% of ME3 was surpassingly excellent.
5. I thought the ending was so terrible it comes close to retroactively destroying my enjoyment of the entire series.

 

[way2sl0w]

5. I thought the ending was so terrible it comes close to retroactively destroying my enjoyment of the entire series.

as in 'and then shepard woke up and realized it was all a dream' bad?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

as in 'and then shepard woke up and realized it was all a dream' bad?

Ya know, what you're going to find really, really funny, or possibly really, really horrible, is that "Shepard woke up and realized it was all a dream" is almost exactly (with some slight variations I won't get into) the scenario many of us are praying is true, so that we get anything other than the train wreck we got saddled with.

 

[The Forces of Chaos]

5. I thought the ending was so terrible it comes close to retroactively destroying my enjoyment of the entire series.

as in 'and then shepard woke up and realized it was all a dream' bad?

I think that would have been an point in its favour had that happend.

 

[spectrenihlus]

5. I thought the ending was so terrible it comes close to retroactively destroying my enjoyment of the entire series.

as in 'and then shepard woke up and realized it was all a dream' bad?

We wish it was only that bad.

 

[Newtonyd]

I feel like cheating and just reading up on the ending. I'm not sure yet whether I want to even buy ME3, with all the stuff I've heard about it and the ending... yet I'm not quite sure I want to ruin it for me. Especially since everyone keeps saying it was so ruinous.

Maybe I should just accept that everyone died in the suicide mission for ME2 and call it a day.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

There is more to it than that. It isn't just because it is a downer that people are hating on it. They are hating on it because it is lazy, non-sensical and completely negates any choices the player made for all 3 games.
The ending is so bad that I just pretend the entire ending didn't happen and made up my own.

 

[Erttheking]

I know we're in a bad spot when I can honestly say " I agree with Zeel on this one"

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Quoting a review here. It starts out non-spoilery, and gets a bit spoilery later on. The spoilery bits are going into spoiler tags. DO NOT CLICK ON THE TAG IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED.

But there's only so much dancing around the issue I'm willing to do. Nearly 99% of Mass Effect 3 is a superb game, quite possibly Game of the Year material. Even the missteps are largely forgivable. It is precisely the evolutionary drive western RPGs should embrace.

However, that remaining one percent, culminating in an out-of-the-blue reveal during literally the last five to ten minutes of the game, is so ill-thought-out, so inconclusive, so almost genuinely insulting coming after a game experience that radiates love for its universe and its narrative, that it doesn't just damage this title but the entire franchise. It ripples backwards in the series and hurts replayability for the previous two games, a rare feat indeed.

A cohesive trilogy spanning years is destroyed by five ill-conceived minutes. It's as if the scenario writers and the writer weren?t just two separate groups with separate ideas of what Mass Effect meant, but that they actively set out to negate each others' work. (If only it were this simple! Released dev documents do not inspire confidence.)

Spoiler: Look out! Herein lie spoilers!

I cannot overstate the shadow of this ending. To those who've started with Mass Effect 3 it might be merely vague and frustrating ? to fans who?ve stuck through all three games, it is manipulative, scornful, and creatively bankrupt. It is contradictory to everything the Mass Effect series has said ? a sudden deus ex machina in reverse, an arbitrary choice of damnations offered by a malevolent and untrustworthy figure parroting deeply flawed arguments who makes their first appearance in the last five minutes of the game, followed by one of three all but identical versions of a vague, unsatisfying and plothole-ridden cutscene that guts characterization and neither shows nor tells.

At best, the ending merely contradicts the themes of the game and (if you were paying attention to the in-universe lore) ends in an inferred holocaust and breakdown of galactic society, to say nothing of the complete lack of closure for the fates of characters or civilization as a whole. Interpreting it at its worst, it renders literally everything the player ? or Shepard ? ever did completely pointless?coming after a touching and poignant discussion between Shepard and a dying character as they sit waiting for the end that validates Shepard's heroism and choices. When the player has to invent ways to have the ending be less than crushing, it's not clever ? it?s maddening.

Unsurprisingly, the explosive fan reaction has been almost overwhelmingly outraged, and BioWare's frantic attempts to put out the fire haven't helped one iota ? every new tidbit revealing how thoroughly this debacle was embraced on the dev team seems to inspire more outcry.

Accusations are already flying from professional game reviewers ? many of which have a history of validating questionable developer choices ? that this outburst of fury is merely a form of entitlement, a demand for a classic "happy ending" where everyone lives. Even if we don't question the inherent assumption that a tragic ending is more poignant and appropriate for a series that so far has been genuinely optimistic, they are deeply mistaken.

It is not merely that the ending is unhappy; an ending can be satisfying, conclusive, and yet tragic. (Dragon Age 2's ending was undeniably a tragedy, and yet satisfyingly followed from the overarching themes of the narrative.) The crux of complaints is that the ending is nonsensical and rigged; a betrayal not only of the narrative themes but of player expectations and agency. The villain doesn't just win ? they hold court with views the narrative has proven are objectively wrong, and dictate the terms of that victory to a captive and outraged player whose reaction is precisely the same while Shepard meekly succumbs to unconvincing rhetoric and the power of authorial fiat.

 

[Krantos]

Correct me if I'm wrong but the ending is:
a) a downer
b) negates some of choices you made along the way

The problem with your comments are these assumptions.

a) Not the issue at all. Look at Red Dead Redemption. It had definite "downer" ending, and it was fantastic.

b) It doesn't just negate some. It ignores ALL. No matter the choices you made in all three games, the ending plays out exactly the same way every single time.

There are more reasons than that, but since you haven't finished it yet, I don't want to spoil it. Finish the game and then come back and tell us what your opinion is. I'd be interested to see if it changed.

 

[Freechoice]

overcompensating a-hole?

More like tasteless.

 

[way2sl0w]

b) It doesn't just negate some. It ignores ALL. No matter the choices you made in all three games, the ending plays out exactly the same way every single time.

That's what I'm wondering about. Is the game is intentionally trying to convey the message that 'choice is an illusion or whatever' (and subtle/ambiguous enough that people just didn't pick up on it) or is it just a blindsided cock slap with no context or reason like the 'it was all a dream' example?

either way, I'm now sufficiently curious enough to find out what could possibly enrage so many loyal fans to buy the game for that reason alone.

 

[Asita]

There's a part about this that's somewhat when you think about it. You've got two categories of people: One side (those upset with it) who don't want to believe that they actually just saw that due to a variety of issues with it (which are fairly well explained in the spectrenihilus's link), and the other side (those who like it) who tend to champion a belief that it didn't happen (at least, that appears to be the most popular position among that camp) and that the climax was essentially a dream sequence. When it boils down to it, nobody seems willing to say that the ending truly canonical.

More to the point, I'll admit I've yet to play the game[footnote]To clarify, that's due more to pragmatism than bad press[/footnote] but I have seen the endings and...yeah, they're just that bad. The most damning thing about them however is not the ending itself (which is a feat, mind you) but the lack of follow-up. The final scenes with each of the three choices are all but identical, which means that the consequences of those actions are all the more important as that has effectively become the main differentiation. But we never see that. We never see how the results of Option A impact the galaxy, nor do we see the aftermath of B or C. We see those choices enacted, but the moment they run their course, the credits start rolling. It's like they cut out the denoument for the game...how to put it...imagine if the last scene of Mass Effect 1 was Sovereign's remains bursting through the council chamber. No follow-up with Shepherd and Company being found, nor any talk about the fate of the council. Just ending right there. I think that roughly coincides with the execution of Mass Effect 3's final scenes.

 

[ShadowsofHope]

5. I thought the ending was so terrible it comes close to retroactively destroying my enjoyment of the entire series.

as in 'and then shepard woke up and realized it was all a dream' bad?

Let's put it this way:

Shepard randomly flying off a magical (SPACE MAGICAL), synthetic unicorn with Kai Leng's sword to face down Harbinger somewhere on Earth would have made more sense to happen in the Mass Effect universe than the ending of the game we are forced with.

b) It doesn't just negate some. It ignores ALL. No matter the choices you made in all three games, the ending plays out exactly the same way every single time.

That's what I'm wondering about. Is the game is intentionally trying to convey the message that 'choice is an illusion or whatever' (and subtle/ambiguous enough that people just didn't pick up on it) or is it just a blindsided cock slap with no context or reason like the 'it was all a dream' example?

either way, I'm now sufficiently curious enough to find out what could possibly enrage so many loyal fans to buy the game for that reason alone.

I have bolded the correct above.

The vast majority of the fanbase has already personally retconned (unofficially) the ending in favor of the Indoctrination Theory, and pretty much accepted the shit writing present in the last 10 minutes. Look up on BSN if you want to know more, I don't have a link currently.

Don't get us wrong, however, the first 99% of the game up until the end of Earth was a fantastic ride. The ending just is pretty much comparable to watching a crash test of a car in action.

 

[Krantos]

Is the game is intentionally trying to convey the message that 'choice is an illusion or whatever' (and subtle/ambiguous enough that people just didn't pick up on it) or is it just a blindsided cock slap with no context or reason like the 'it was all a dream' example?

It's a Deus Ex Machina (look it up if you don't know).

I can't say more without spoiling something.

However, I think that even IF it was the first option (trying to convey the illusion of choice), that in itself would be a cockslap since the vision behind the series (according to BioWare) has always been that your choices matter.

Regardless, I don't get that feeling from the ending. It's a Deus Ex Machina, simple as that. A hitherto unmentioned, unreferenced, unforeshadowed "thing" appears at the end and magically 'fixes' everything, and then leaves us without even a proper epilogue.

So yeah.

 

[Kushan101]

You haven't played it? Yet you feel you have the tight to tell others that the ending isn't that bad? Play it and say that again. It's awful.