malestrithe said:
pure.Wasted said:
The ending they're talking about is virtually identical to every other ending, with one EVER SO TINY difference. First of all, it's simply not a big deal. They're not screwing you out of anything by making this one tough to get. You can easily skip it and play the game however you wanted to without worrying.
Second, it's really not that different from any choice/consequence system. If you go in thinking "I want character X to survive no matter what" and approach it from that outcome, looking up every guide, then yeah it's going to feel like they're restricting your options. But what's also an option is simply playing the game, and if the characters dies, so be it. If you didn't get that particular ending with 1 second of extra content, so be it.
I understand that. It just bugs me to know that such an ideal path exists in a choice system game. What if I liked that character? I should not have to tow an rigidly defined line to make sure he or she lives at end game. I do not play these games for my avatar. He is a generic slate that I cannot stand to be around in most situations. I tend to play because there is some NPC I genuinely like to be around.
The last time I saw something like this is in the Valkyrie Profile series. B ending is default and you get just for playing the game. C ending you get for not doing anything. A ending requires a ton more work. It's often worth the effort, but it's requires too many exacting steps and is still a pain.
Well, I think this might be a fundamental difference in what we look for in games. At least with Mass Effect, I'm not looking for a sim-world that I can micro-manage. I want an immersive narrative that happens "with or without me," so to speak, which I am able to influence to some extent through my choices. If I have too much control, ie. keeping characters alive is as easy as choosing the "Stay alive!" dialogue option instead of the "Go fall off a bridge" dialogue option, I find it difficult to take the characters seriously or form any sort of bond with them, because that's simply not how characters in other media/actual people IRL behave. The simplification is intrusive and reminds me that I'm "only" playing a game.
I really don't think that looking up a guide before playing ME3 is the right way to approach this kind of game (and this isn't necessarily addressed at you; for all I know, the ending is the only thing you've looked up in any detail). It gets in the way of the player's ability to perceive the world's
immediacy when said player knows precisely what choice is coming up, and how s/he needs to choose in order to get result X, vs. how for result Y. The world stops being "real," to whatever extent it might have managed otherwise, and is reduced to the code behind the curtain.
I think the game very purposefully means to shock you with your inability to do certain things you would like to do. Without spoiling anything, a certain character's
possible death in ME3 actually pulls up a Paragon interrupt (press L1 to take a heroic action! Fast!), but
even if you hit L1, you can't save them in time. Shepard TRIES, but fails. The horror of that, as you realize what's happening, as you realize you can't do anything to stop it despite trying so hard, is what sells the scene. If you know in advance all of the triggers that go into this scene, all of the decisions that influence it, it's no longer a world, it's just a bunch of boxes that you can tick off while playing the game.
