Poll: Mass Effect 3 vs. Halo 3: Which had the better ending? [SPOILERS]

[dreadedcandiru99]

Yes, it's another Mass Effect 3 ending thread. I just finished the game an hour ago, and I avoided spoilers beforehand, so the bitterness is still fresh here. (And for the record, no, I was not expecting a Disney ending; I went into the final battle having decided that my Femshep would happily die to stop the Reapers.)

So I finished the game. Then I decided that now I do hope they make an ME movie and that the director pulls a Zach Snyder, Watchmenesque "forget the giant squid at the end" move, because Hollywood couldn't possibly come up with something dumber than this ("We had to stop organics from creating synthetics that would destroy organics, so we created synthetics that would destroy organics, now what color would you like your cutscene's Deus Ex Machina Ray to be?"--what the fucking WHAT?!). And then, out of nowhere, I thought of the ending of Halo 3 for the first time in years.

Personally, I think my single biggest issue is closure. As in, Halo 3's ending actually had some, and Mass Effect 3's ending doesn't. At all. You got to see the conclusion of the war with the Covenant and the fates of the characters you'd spent three games with, and you at least got some clear information on how the world would be different as a result of the story. True, you didn't have any serious moral choices to make in Halo, but since the ME3 ending effectively invalidates all the choices you'd made to get there, I think it's a moot point.

Oh, and it helps that at no point did some magical holographic AI-god-child appear at the very last minute to go "we had to create those all-consuming mutant spore-monsters to kill organics before organics blah blah bullshit etc." Plus, when I finished Halo, I didn't feel like never replaying again.

Anyway, thoughts?

(Also, captcha: "love is automatic." Is it?)

 

[Joon Young Kim]

People who voted for Mass Effect 3 have no soul.

 

[Erttheking]

Halo 3, I don't even need to think about it, mainly because Halo 3's ending didn't bring up bullshit philosophical nonsense that were introduced in the last five minutes. Also, ME3 ripped off Halo 3 with the whole "stranded ship" thing. At least with Halo 3 you felt like you actually accomplished something and not because of a Dues Ex Machina and not because a character introduced in the last five seconds of the game let you. Your actions carried the game.

 

[Eddie the head]

Halo 3 wasn't good but it didn't get me pissed.

 

[tippy2k2]

I had to Google the ending to Halo 3 just to remember what happened.

Mass Effect 3's ending was a fitting conclusion to an epic series (I shouldn't have to put this in here but I'm going to due to the sheer bile that has been spit out in these threads in the past: IN MY OPINION. I don't expect you to agree with it but I expect people to respect it).

Easy choice for myself; Mass Effect 3's ending was much better.

*Note: I have not played the Extended Cut

 

[thelonewolf266]

Mass Effect's ending was horrible because it didn't do the game that preceded it Justice but Halo's is worst because the entire story of halo just wasn't interesting enough to make me care.

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

Halo 3 wins because Keith David lives! Although now that I think about it, Captain Anderson and Sergeant Johnson's deaths are really similar.

Anyway, on a more serious note Halo 3 has a far, far better ending. It wraps up most of the important story points and well... It just functions as an ending. It doesn't create a dozen plotholes, it provides at least some closure, it doesn't create a sudden swerve in tone, it doesn't introduce massive ideas literally minutes before the game ends, it has a dramatic and exciting end sequence, the list goes on.

The Mass Effect 3 ending fails on so many levels, it's spectacular. I was going into it literally braced for the worst possible ending, and it still shocked me. Not only that, but it completely killed my interest in the series to the extent where I can't even be bothered to do a second playthrough with my other character, let alone the full trilogy run I was planning to.

 

[endtherapture]

Halo 3 had an awesome emotional ending which made me feel accomplished yet slightly sad. It was the definition of a bittersweet ending and left the plot open to be continued whilst ending the story at the same time.

Mass Effect 3 ending made me depressed and angry and ruined all replay value for the games.

 

[mad825]

I had to Google the ending to Halo 3 just to remember what happened.

Mass Effect 3's ending was a fitting conclusion to an epic series (I shouldn't have to put this in here but I'm going to due to the sheer bile that has been spit out in these threads in the past: IN MY OPINION. I don't expect you to agree with it but I expect people to respect it).

Easy choice for myself; Mass Effect 3's ending was much better.

A "conclusion" that is made very unclear even with EC.

The Earth-to-citadel and citadel-to-Starkid's lair scene makes no sense. Even with the IT at hand to save the day, what's with the man at the very end called the "stargazer"? Why is the story being told from a third-person narrative? Was it real or made-up? How are there more stories about Shepard?

Good or bad is irrelevant. The story is incomplete.

 

[Saviordd1]

Halo 3 if you don't count EC.
Halo 3 if you DO count EC.
Why? Because even if it wasn't Earth shattering it made 100% sense in context, the Starchild BS, even when cleaned up, still feels way to cheap.

 

[Euryalus]

Halo 3's ending wasn't exactly bad, it just kinda botched the delivery. ME3's ending was Narrative diarrhea and made no fucking sense regardless of whether you count the EC.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I didn't even play Halo 3, but it can't be worse than ME3 ending.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I did not like Halo 3's ending. I wanted Master Chief to make it back to Earth. I was very sad that he ends up trapped in space and that Cortana was going to spend the rest of her life alone watching over him. I wanted a happy ending.
BUT I accepted this ending. While sad, it didn't leave me with a bitter taste in my mouth (throw in Halo 4 now and I'm very happy) and while I wanted the happy ending, I could understand and appreciate the ending Halo 3 went with.

Mass Effect 3 was a simple slap in the face for me. "Ha! You think your choices matter?! Fooled you!" I hated the ending so much I wrote my own that ended up being fifty pages.

 

[Pfheonix]

I have no soul, eh? I felt that Mass Effect 3's ending was fine, because it didn't break anything. Sure, there were some inconsistencies, but that's common. It felt final. There was some vagueness, which allows you to fill in a blank or two if you feel like it, or just leave it as a pyrrhic victory, since most of the "people" who fought at Earth will die. Either way, I liked it. Halo 3, however, I felt was final, but I still didn't like it. Mostly because the Flood was brought back in conceivable, but shoehorned in, ways. I loved the game, and the ending was awesome, but it didn't do it for me. It also had a cliffhanger which allowed further development of a series which should have ended at 3, rather than Halo 4, 5, and 6. Reach was good though. ODST was fun too.

 

[Rack]

I voted Halo 3, which is cheating a bit since it doesn't have any voice balance or subtitles and as a result I was only vaguely aware of half of what happened in the entire Halo series. But it didn't seem to be comical blatherskite in any way whatsoever, there weren't any plotholes so large you could put the entire plot through.

 

[Terminate421]

How was Halo 3's ending bad? Explanation?

The ending was set there, the chief had done his job and was put to rest, how is that a bad ending? It was miles better than Mass Effect 3's of course.

 

[Goofguy]

Halo 3's ending was definitely better because of Ron Perlman. That guy makes everything better.

 

[Vrex360]

Prior to the extended cut for Mass Effect 3 I would say Halo.

The Covenant are defeated, the Flood has been destroyed, the Halos are all dormant again and the ark has been destroyed. The humans and the Sangheili (and other Covenant seperatists) make peace with each other and the Arbiter leads his people back to their homeworld to begin their new lives while the Masterchief and Cortana float out in space. Poetically it ends where it began, Masterchief being put into cry storage and waiting to be awakened.

Damn good ending.

That said I will say that, following the Extended Cut, Mass Effect 3 is doing a lot better then it did before. All the shots of the galaxy and its various races after the event, Ashley and Shepard's final goodbye (and her subsequently refusing to put his name on the memorial wall and the Normandy leaving the planet in search for him juxtaposed with him waking up is quite good too) and the emotional impact of some of the sequences. It's good, not great but still a good ending.

Better than what we had anyway.

 

[FalloutJack]

People who voted for Mass Effect 3 have no soul.

People who make an account here specifically to say crap like that on their first post have no soul.

OT: I say ME3, for two reasons. First, I'm not into Halo. I can't get into it for the life of me. Second, dependent on your ending, Shepard hits the I WIN button and becomes overmind to a legion of squid-vessels, the likes of which allow him to do whatever he wants with the entire universe at large.

 

[scorptatious]

At least Halo 3 had some closure in a way. The war between the humans and the covenant had ended, the flood was destroyed, the control center for the rings was destroyed, and the Arbiter and the other elites get to head home.

I'd say it was a good and satisfying ending to the trilogy.

EDIT: Note, I didn't watch the Extended cut version of ME3's ending.