Mass Effect 3 Ending, opinions and feelings?

[Satxer]

Funny thing, I was playing yesterday and totally forgot there was that scene where Liara comes to the capts cabin with the recording device. Which they show in the refusal ending, haha.

See, with my current playthrough, I am enjoying the hell out of this game. Which reminds me again how the game itself was solid, and the ending will ruin my fun...

 

[NormanF]

I never thought the end was bad, just mediocre. Like they just phoned it in. And during the speech from the kid/Citadel I immediately thought of Battlestar Galactica.

Sent from my Apple Newton

 

[Jeyl]

Funny thing, I was playing yesterday and totally forgot there was that scene where Liara comes to the capts cabin with the recording device. Which they show in the refusal ending, haha.

Wasn't one of the Reaper's goals to wipe out any evidence of the previous cycle's races? The Protheans were tricky, but at least they didn't leave a freaking beacon antenna in plain sight.

 

[Satxer]

Actually, I think the protheans did leave one in plain sight, maybe two. While Liaras in the refusal, looked to be buried underground. I couldn't play ME1 because they didn't have it on PS3, so I don't recall how that beacon was presented. While the one in ME3, was on the asari planet.

 

[Jeyl]

Actually, I think the protheans did leave one in plain sight, maybe two. While Liaras in the refusal, looked to be buried underground. I couldn't play ME1 because they didn't have it on PS3, so I don't recall how that beacon was presented. While the one in ME3, was on the asari planet.

Well I've played the first game and the beacon was dug up. There was no antenna with a big blinking light pointing anyone to it.

 

[Wes R]

The ME franchise is reminding me a lot of Square's older series like Mana and Final Fantasy: as soon as the original people working on it left (or in the case of final fantasy driven out/fired) the franchises have gone weird places and no longer are the hits they used to be. I see the future ME games doing the same with more and more focus on MP and less on single player.

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

Wasn't one of the Reaper's goals to wipe out any evidence of the previous cycle's races? The Protheans were tricky, but at least they didn't leave a freaking beacon antenna in plain sight.

I don't know if they ever say that was the intent. It could have just been they destroyed the *#@$ out of the galaxy so nothing was left! :lol

 

[DuneMuadDib]

They would have to wipe out all traces of their existence that they were to catch the galaxy unawares in the next cycle. Good job with that, Starbrat.

 

[C1RCA]

i was not happy with the ending at all but there is a dlc that just came out witch i wont be able to try out till i get home till august

 

[thatdecade]

Indoctrination theory made perfect sense to me. Not sure why Bioware expected everyone to listen to every entry in the codex. Indoctrination was in the codex and explains everything.

Haven't looked at the DLC extendo-ending yet. Is it worth the download?

 

[MasterDurangus]

Indoctrination theory made perfect sense to me. Not sure why Bioware expected everyone to listen to every entry in the codex. Indoctrination was in the codex and explains everything.

Haven't looked at the DLC extendo-ending yet. Is it worth the download?

It'll give you some added closure and explain what will happen to the Citadel races in the future. That's about it.

 

[DuneMuadDib]

Indoctrination theory made perfect sense to me. Not sure why Bioware expected everyone to listen to every entry in the codex. Indoctrination was in the codex and explains everything.

Haven't looked at the DLC extendo-ending yet. Is it worth the download?

If you want to see an ass-pull of how the squad members end up on the Normandy, ask Starbrat about his stupid ideas before you pick a color, and then hear a voice-over over a slideshow of how things turn out based on your favorite color then yes it's worth the download.

It doesn't make the endings better, it just explains them. It also lets you tell Starbrat to shove it, but that doesn't turn out well for you.

 

[Satxer]

There is a new free DLC coming out next tuesday for Multiplayer. Adds some named characters to it, as well as Earth maps.

 

[NormanF]

If you want to see an ass-pull of how the squad members end up on the Normandy, ask Starbrat about his stupid ideas before you pick a color, and then hear a voice-over over a slideshow of how things turn out based on your favorite color then yes it's worth the download.

I watched the various endings on YouTube. I'll download that DLC if they come out with a decent looking sequel and need to import my saved game.


Sent from my Apple Newton

 

[Nwerke]

Especially with the refusal ending.

Oh amen to that. I may disagree with you on Prometheus but I'll defend your right to criticise Starbrat to the death. :lol

I finally just played through the Refusal and Destroy endings, or rather I watched while my wife did because I'm sick as a dog with flu. Thoughts:

Refusal - as a means to pacify people who felt shooting Starbrat in the face was insufficiently satisfying, Refusal sucks. It goes instantly into the shortest possible wind-down ending. Liara's beacons are the only thing which saves the next cycle? Something of an afterthought for our civilisation, which the Protheans tried too on a far better resourced basis...but it still failed. Hmmm.

Oh, and Starbrat's <scary evil voice> "SO BE IT!!" </scary evil voice> is a bit on the nose. WHAT A GIVEAWAY...the guy's a rogue AI gone psychopathic, plain and simple. That one moment gives the lie to all his preceding dialogue. Not that you need this to see through him (ha ha, pun) after all the Reaper's previous, I say it again, ostentatious evil. I mean these guys waste a lot of time and resources turning people into insane techno-zombie conglomerate creatures and hybrids. To my mind that sort of negates any claims of noble 'higher purposes'.

Anyway - Refusal, too brief. We needed to see Starbrat suffer a little bit.

Control and Synthesis - obvious non-contenders. Both are horribly amoral/immoral and antithetical to the themes of the games to date and to Shepard's personal morality. I will never choose those options, even just to watch the pretty colours.

Destroy - the only remotely moral/Paragon option. Even though, and I'm not sure this has been mentioned, it doesn't just wipe out synthetics, it wipes out machines. Starbrat says this, but glosses it with an airy "you'll recover from that". Yeah, in what...ten thousand years or so? Little arsewipe.

Also, we really needed to see the Starbrat suffer a little bit when this option is chosen. He overtly tries to steer you away from it. It's not what he wants, he's having his toys taken away - so some crying and whining would have been nice, maybe followed by a nice "Hal 9000 deconstruction" sort of scene. Mua ha ha ha.

All that said, it didn't ruin the game for me. Decently satisfying taken all in all; up to the end I'd have given it a solid 'great!' rating. However we get there, seeing the Reapers go dark and tumbling is pretty nice, the ending cutscenes are all pretty nice.

It's tantalising though; does leave you wondering just how much we'd have all been punching the air and hooting if we'd been brought to that point by a really together endgame.

 

[Satxer]

/\ Agree with you there on Control and Synt. The only good thing to Synth, which is also a bad, is that life understands each other at the cost of forcing them to be changed.

However, with destroy, it is synthetics "lifeforms", not necessarily machines. Even the extended cut shows that machines aren't destroyed, as they are flying their ships away. Which leads to Shepard at the end of it, when he breathes. It has come to my conclusion that he isn't the VI that he thought he may be. The destroy ending would eliminate any of his synthetics with the blast, and I think I would consider the VI to be a synthetic addition to him. So, it may give a little more closure to the idea that he isn't the VI that he questioned himself to be.

I had a blast playing up til the very ending, all the battles. I am still boggled by the extended cut, when you make the final run to the portal. I still don't see how the Normandy stayed there as long as it did, without being shot at. It would have made more sense, to have him load your two followers into one of the vehicles to drive off and show it get on the Normandy.

 

[Nwerke]

True, but I read that as a total con. There are any number of cheats in the extended visuals. It's fortunate that nobody took the "artistic integrity" crap too seriously since BW pissed on their own claim from a great height...

It was pretty clear that the original intent was that the galaxy DOES pay a terrible price for victory: the end of unified galactic civilisation, interstellar travel cut back to distances of a few lightyears, and that only after a LONG period of rebuilding from relatively simple tools upwards, because no, it's not just synthetic lifeforms - Starbrat lays it out. The new alien Stargazer jars with the Buzz Aldrin one - the new ones are victors of a new galactic war, but Stargeezer and his "sweet" talk as if interstellar travel doesn't exist again yet *at all*, despite sounding as if they're also centuries off in the future.

Oh, and the formerly implied-to-be-atomised mass relays and SHOWN-to-be-blown-to-bitty-pieces Citadel are suddenly in rebuildable, mostly-intact condition. Drop those wretched things into the Sun already, you people...THEY'RE A TRAP!!! :lol

But BW chickened out and abandoned all that lofty noble-sacrifice stuff. Suddenly the horrible implications of it all just magically don't happen, simply because we all reacted so badly to that. Well, the customer is always right, and it's BW's job to make us happy little consumers, not to force-feed us 'artistic integrity', so that's fine, better late than never...but the PR bulldust is pretty hard to swallow.

Of course, having Shepard take a breath was a copout anyway. If she's chosen Destroy, she can't be alive; IINM it was stated more than once that she can't live without the implants.

Agree re the Normandy. Harbinger taking no potshots at your ship, yet somehow hitting you personally with a massive capital-ship laser but merely concussing you, had my wife and I actually laughing out loud. What the hell, BioWare?!? Demented. :lol

I really, really, really needed to fight and kill Harbinger.

 

[Jeyl]

Extended ending or no, I'm still pretty disappointed with ME3 as a whole.

- It's got the weakest use of all your companions due to that boy being the focus of your dreams.
- A lot of story elements built from the previous games are outright abandoned.
- Action that has variety are few and far in-between.
- There's little to no exploration even when compared to ME2.
- Earth being the primary concern of Shepard can be out of character for some builds.
- Reapers strategy is incredibly weak. (They're all over the place, but they don't put a single freaking Reaper near a Mass Relay to ambush people coming and going)
- Earth is boring.
- The fight on Earth is horrendously repudiative.
- Earth being the new home for the Citadel is wrong.
- The kid was stupid.
- The starbrat was stupid.

The one and ONLY thing that I loved about Mass Effect 3 is the character of Samantha Traynor. She's sweet, adorable, deeply dedicated to her job, can turn down maleshep like a pro, and be a very nice, sincere romantic character for Femshep. I love how she's actually treated as a useful member of a crew who can get things done without resorting to using a gun. Plus, she can outdo Liara when it comes to information.

:love

 

[Satxer]

You bring up a lot of good points. However, I don't think the Citadels new home is gonna be Earth. I would imagine they would return it to where it originated, to prevent confusion.

I think they did better on the Combat in ME3, but by far ME2 was the best story and roaming ability.

 

[Jeyl]

I think they did better on the Combat in ME3, but by far ME2 was the best story and roaming ability.

ME2 did some pretty nifty things, but as far as the story is concerned, the human reaper was probably the stupidest thing to ever hit the franchise at that point. But the stupidest point to hit the whole franchise I believe was written day 1 during the writing stage. And that grave misstep was making Mass Effect 3 Shepard's story.

Think about it. Shepard as a character isn't really someone who goes through character growth. From her very first scene, she's introduced as a head strong, competent officer who will stop at nothing to get the job done. She may encounter some pretty important story elements like the beacon in ME1 and be resurrected in ME2, but the real meat of the Mass Effect series for me was always in the side characters.

ME2 is practically an all out companion story where every team mate has their own conflict that they must overcome, whether physical or personal. You know that they change as a character as a result of their stand alone stories because that affects their performance during the suicide mission. Shepard doesn't have any sort of obstacle that she must overcome outside of fighting the Reaper threat.

Making ME3 Shepard's story brought several problems into the mix. If Shepard has a story that is set in stone, there's not going to be a lot of moments that defines your Shepard as a character you created. For example, my Shepard was always about the unity aspect of the galactic civilizations that inhabit the galaxy. She will always be there for everyone. Well, in ME3's opening, it almost plays out like Shepard doesn't even give a crap about any other race in the galaxy.

"The Council? The fight is here!"

Again, that line means she knows that other races with fleets exist, and that they're in as much danger as the humans are. But since this is Shepard's story, BioWare had to make her care more about Earth since, you know, Earth is where humans come from and Shepard is a human. The problem? Earth was NEVER a factor in the previous ME games (well, outside of that stupid "they're going after Earth!" comment in the collector ship) and Shepard herself could be either a colonist or a spacer. You know, someone who wouldn't consider Earth their home. Heck, even playing a Shepard who is Earth born gives your Shepard the description of describing Earth as such a bad place to live that you practically join the Alliance just to get away from it. But BioWare is so insistent that you care more for Earth than anywhere else that they introduced this nameless child who's only purpose in the opening was for inflicting pathos onto the story, and is constantly brought back in Shepard's dreams as a constant reminder of those you couldn't save on Earth. There is more focus being put on Earth than your companions. That was a big mistake.

And the other problem with making this Shepard's story? It reduces every other character's role down to almost irrelevant. Example, ME1 and ME2 ALWAYS had your companions with you all the way to the end. In ME3? They ditch all the companions so Shepard faces the final moment on her own.

:facepalm