Mass Effect 3 SPOILER THREAD: LOTS OF SPECULATION FROM EVERYONE
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The stock photo is that good?
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
I really feel sorry for people who've had the ending taint the entire experience, going so far as to 'ruin' the trilogy. Luckily I enjoyed the core gameplay enough and individual story arcs to still have fun and look back with fond memories, regardless of how much is ignored by the endings.
No. But they'd cling to something new.
Yeah, they're like zombies, but they must have given them results.
PsychoSoldier
Banned
I tried, I really really tried to do a second playthrough.
And then I got to the scene with Liara talking about the Catalyst and it just brings back all the bad.
Maybe once I'm a few months removed...maybe.
BannedEpisode
Member
I wouldn't say ruined, soured nearly to the point of requesting it to be sent back to the kitchen? Maybe.
It takes a lot for me to feel strongly about a video game. This rubbed me the wrong way after a completely enjoyable experience.
I wouldn't say it taints the entire trilogy, but I think it definitively diminishes the experience.
Edit: I should clarify. It taints ME3, but not the entire trilogy.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
we are the harbingers of your salvation trough destruction.
so we're just going to send a lot of people straight at you hoping to break your spirit.
btw: reading the death / conversion rate in the codex, they should have been quite far in gaining the material needed for another Human Reaper. Let's not worry about that one either, or ask the catalyst about it... and so on.
I think the reaction to the ending is way overblown. I think some people saw the original leaked text explanation and then decided to hate it before seeing it.
That attitude was then brought over when the game was released and there's a bit of a bandwagon effect that everybody has to act like the ending is terrible. People were expecting a bad ending and so they were looking for the flaws and coloring their expectations and views.
Certainly the ending isn't perfect, but for me it struck an emotional cord on a level that's only happened to me once before in a video game. The whole time the game is on Earth it's just constantly amazing. Saying your goodbyes to everyone, the incredible last battle (HOLY FUCK BANSHEES EVERYWHERE), to the run to the beam, to the hallway of corpses, just excellently done. Superb. And this was just as much a part of the ending as the final explanation and the final choice.
Specifically, to the people who are angry they didn't get their happily ever after little blue children perfect ending, I say "fuck you" for demanding what is honestly the least common denominator when it comes to endings. Happy endings are so predictable and rarely emotionally engaging. Inject some damn bittersweet every once in awhile.
That attitude was then brought over when the game was released and there's a bit of a bandwagon effect that everybody has to act like the ending is terrible. People were expecting a bad ending and so they were looking for the flaws and coloring their expectations and views.
Certainly the ending isn't perfect, but for me it struck an emotional cord on a level that's only happened to me once before in a video game. The whole time the game is on Earth it's just constantly amazing. Saying your goodbyes to everyone, the incredible last battle (HOLY FUCK BANSHEES EVERYWHERE), to the run to the beam, to the hallway of corpses, just excellently done. Superb. And this was just as much a part of the ending as the final explanation and the final choice.
Specifically, to the people who are angry they didn't get their happily ever after little blue children perfect ending, I say "fuck you" for demanding what is honestly the least common denominator when it comes to endings. Happy endings are so predictable and rarely emotionally engaging. Inject some damn bittersweet every once in awhile.
I actually wanted to replay the first two games after finishing ME3, when originally I thought I'd want to hop back into ME3 right away for a Renegade playthrough.
I mean the surgery to tech dead bodies and fill them with implants seems mindblowingly complex, but I guess reapers have those dragon's teeth or whatever. Meh, magic, magic, magic.
That is not the part people have a major problem with.
Nor that.
Too bad the "bittersweet" ending is filled with holes and obviously takes the series in a whole new direction in 10 minutes.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
actually, when I saw the script I thought it sounded pretty awesome, as I assumed Guardian was a VI and not related to the dreams. Then I saw what it meant in the game, and what those 'secrets of the universe' (galaxy...) actually were, which was 'wtf is this' time.
Jake Tower
Banned
You may be indoctrinated . . .
For me it wasn't just the ending. I was disappointed already with many things about ME3. The ending was just the exclamation point. For instance, I put up with the jank of ME1 because I bought into the story. The experience was greater than the sum of its parts. ME3 doesn't have that saving grace for me.
Last Hearth
Member
Stop saying "bittersweet". Nothing about the ending is "bittersweet", "bitter", or "bittersour", there was nothing sweet about any of it.
BannedEpisode
Member
I was one of those people that refused to believe the ending could be so bad that it soured everything. It kinda did.
And it's not because it's not a happy ending or some bullshit. Its because it has zero closure, doesnt make sense (Garrus and Liara were with me when the ground assault got reaper lasered and somehow ended up on the Normandy), the endings are all the same, and none of my decisions honestly were represented.
Maybe some people are fine with it, I don't know. Maybe this will be what it feels like to be someone who hates how mgs4 ended.
PsychoSoldier
Banned
I avoided all spoilers before this came out. My negative reaction is all my own.
I went into this knowing that Shepard was likely to die. I just wanted my choices to matter at the end, for him to go out like a boss, and just to have a little epilogue to know how my dudes were doing.
I got none of that, and on top of that I got a mostly bitter ending with very little sweet.
Trust me, I read the ending was bad, and thought people were overreacting and I would enjoy it, or at least think it was okay. I wasn't thinking about anything I heard about how bad the ending is supposed to be as the game was winding down.
And I'm not disappointed because the ending wasn't happy enough, I'm disappointed because there's no fucking closure. I have no idea who survived from my squad, what happened to the alien soldiers helping fight on Earth, where Joker crash-landed the Normandy, and it seems silly NOBODY stops to pour one out for Shepard or at least acknowledge his/her sacrifice. The only mention of Shepard's death is by Stargazer (how the hell does he know what happened in the Citadel anyways? That dude is making up shit).
Oh, and pretty much nothing I did throughout the series changed my ending. Seriously, nearly all of it was all moot. I was expecting an epic battle that could be lost if you did a crap job preparing. Not a mostly canned ending.
I know it's not. But like I said, everything dealing with Earth is part of the ending. It's not the final five minutes but it's still a hugely significant part and everybody is glossing over it.
Oh, I've seen a couple people complain they didn't get their happy ending.
Does everything have to be explained to you in intricate detail for you to accept it?
Gamer @ Heart
Member
So what are the special armors in this game? I bought them all, but then i saw a youtube video with a shepard dressed like a space marine. is this preorder stuff?
Edit: nvm, its amalur stuff. Aside from that, what else is there?
Edit: nvm, its amalur stuff. Aside from that, what else is there?
Last Hearth
Member
Complete strawman, no one is asking for a 5 page report on every squadmate, a line or two about each crew member and each species future and how my choices affected them would be absolutely required to bring closure to trilogy.
Rodney McKay
Member
And sad endings are always unpredictable and emotionally engaging? Bioware already showed with Dragon Age Origins that they are capable of giving players the choice of sacrificing the main character or not. Mass Effect was all about giving players choices for their outcomes and all ME3 does is give you 3 different colored buttons to press that have nothing to do with anything that happened in the trilogy up to that point.
I can't speak for everyone here, but I didn't read one word of the leaked script nor did I read any of the impressions people had.
I agree that everything leading up the ending was pretty great. Fun, tense battles and the walk to the elevator. But after the elevator started to lift Shepard up it all went down hill.
I still enjoyed the game, but the ending had a negative effect on me and many, many people in this thread and elsewhere without any expectations whatsoever.
The Destroy ending explicitly commits genocide on an allied race, and murders one of your squadmates.
The Control ending saves everyone left alive except for Shepard, leaves the Citadel intact as both a place for the stranded alien fleets to temporarily settle instead of dropping it down onto the Earth's surface where it could very well cause an extinction-level event, and (maybe) mitigates the galactic dark age brought on by the destruction of the Mass Relays by leaving the Reapers behind to help the galaxy recuperate and rebuild.
People are dissatisfied because after dozens of hours of play across three titles, we get an ending that is split into three decisions where all decisions taken up to that point are considered irrelevant. Those decisions are then light on resolution; differ in color scheme only; and insultingly, lack any sort of catharsis because the events in the series had built up to a moment prior to the actual encounter with Starchild.
Personally: I would have been happy with the game ending where Shepard and Anderson is sitting together, dying.
As much as I hate the endings, I honestly loved the rest of ME3. I am currently replaying it and loving it just as much as the first time. The ending just makes me curious why the hell it is so much worse than the rest of the game.
LightofRohan
Member
Well yea, that's what my example was.
Doesn't mean the meal was bad at all, it was delicious. But leaving off on a negative note completely sours the entire experience. And it just invalidates everything the series was about -- I've never looked at it as a "fun shooter experience!", that wasn't the point of the game to me. And I've said, the ending did not have to be an amazing work of cinematic mastery -- at the very least be a little longer and give actual important choice; three identical videos is insanity.
I still think ME3 is a lot better than ME2 and close to ME1 (if the ending can just be fixed a bit)
The universe exploded.
Man just listening to the music where anderson and shepard talk at the end is amazing. They should've just gone with the predictable ending, kept the little dialogue between the two that they cut out and let the war and the effectiveness of the crucible be based on the military rating. It would be cool if Anderson would run down all the things you accomplished throughout the series and then let the 2 character's survival be based on the military rating as well.
So many missed opportunities all caused by the infamous elevator to the ending room. Always knew it would be a damn elevator to fuck up this game, we've come full circle.
So many missed opportunities all caused by the infamous elevator to the ending room. Always knew it would be a damn elevator to fuck up this game, we've come full circle.
Last Hearth
Member
Me too, I never read the spoilers, I stayed away from them on purpose. My disappointment about the end was entirely my own.
In fact I replayed the ending 3 times on each choice just to make sure there wasn't a decent ending that I missed, nope, all were basically the same with different color explosions. All equally unsatisfying.
In fact I replayed the ending 3 times on each choice just to make sure there wasn't a decent ending that I missed, nope, all were basically the same with different color explosions. All equally unsatisfying.
Rodney McKay
Member
Maybe they outsourced it. lol
Definitely reminded me of the Deus Ex: HR ending. (Which button do you push)
Last Hearth
Member
Extrapolate, you mean make it up.
Because tell me, what happened to Wrex? Samara? Jack? Extrapolate for me.
re: closure
It's an ending that offers none. It's a bad ending. People are extrapolating that it doesn't exist because it completely lacks any sort of closure. It's an ending where its absence would improve the game.
When my squad mates mysteriously appear out the Normandy doors with Joker, yes, yes it is.
Besides, after three games with a lot of these characters, it shouldn't be unreasonable for people to want to have some idea what happened to them.
Hellsing321
Member
This is the way it should have ended. I felt like I didn't really need to make any more galaxy changing choices at the end. Just having two old war buddies shooting the shit as their life fades away would have been fine with me.
I have to say, the goodbyes in London were one of my favorite parts of the game and sombering in a way no other game has been (IMO). It was like sending a TV series off with characters you had known for years. You knew that it was the end, and most likely the last time you would see them in game and for a video game, it was a pretty poignant moment,
LightofRohan
Member
Yep exactly my experience. I'm an insane Mass Effect fan, it's my favorite Scifi universe ever in any medium (read all the books ect.). Shut out from even the most mild of spoilers, I got mad when someone mentioned something about a weird Husk. The only thing I heard was, "some people are upset at the ending" which I was pissed to here and kept assuring myself those people were just being sensitive and I lowered my expectations. Even with all that, I was still extremely upset with it...
Yup exactly. Game of the Generation up to the elevator to Heaven. I'd be completely fine with a predictable ending, it depends on your ratings, see the battle play out, you win? Ewok song, friends there, rejoice. At least it'd leave the Universe viable for more stories... destroying all the Relays really fucks with that.
Empty Space
Member
OMG you figured it out the elevators were the super secret reapers of the first game and to wreak vengeance upon the player for being cut out they have ruined the ending to Mass Effect. It all makes sense now.
This thread moves too fast, goddamn. Reposting as a separate post instead of an edit:
A happy (or at least happier) ending would have been thematically consistent with the rest of the game and the rest of the franchise. The ending we got is flat-out contradictory to almost every single major theme running through the entire trilogy - and while it needn't have had a storybook ending to remedy that, the chance at having an "everything is awesome now" would have been infinitely more resonant and appropriate to the tone of Mass Effect.
Not that there are a whole lot of people demanding a perfect storybook ending in the first place, but the corollary to "Happy endings are sometimes trite, cliche, and inappropriate" is not "Every happy ending is inherently bad and every unhappy ending is inherently better".
A happy (or at least happier) ending would have been thematically consistent with the rest of the game and the rest of the franchise. The ending we got is flat-out contradictory to almost every single major theme running through the entire trilogy - and while it needn't have had a storybook ending to remedy that, the chance at having an "everything is awesome now" would have been infinitely more resonant and appropriate to the tone of Mass Effect.
I love some fucked up shit. But there was nothing actually sad except that Shep may or may not have died depending on the choice.
Actually, isn't the destroy ending the only ending in which Shep can live? And also there's a plot hole (?) because EDI can be seen in the planet for some people. (I guess it depends if she was in your party.)
Seriously, ending the game with Shepard and Anderson dying at the control panel would have been a much better ending because it would have been easy to extrapolate what would happen after that if the reapers were then destroyed, but the ending we got created about 10 new questions for every one question that was hastily and and unnecessarily answered by the catalyst. That's not closure that's a cliff hanger.
Oblivionmancer
Member
The lead up to the games final moments was good. There, officially un-glossed over. The final moments were still abominably bad.
This is called a strawman. No the ending did not have to be the absolute opposite of what it was to not be embarrasing, insulting, and terrible. Nobody is saying that. And if someone is then yes, that person has an unreasonable perspective.
But really, the problem with the ending has nothing to do with how upbeat it is, and everything to do with how it is completely divorced from the context created by the previous 100 or so hours you spent playing through the entirety of the series. It has everything to do with how it is absolutely and casually destructive to the lore, the factions, the characters, the world we came to care about in those 100 hours. It has everything to do with how it makes no sense (in particular the Normandy's arbitrary exit from everything that's happening in the game). It has everything to do with you have no effect on the ending based on past choices, and your only agency in the moment is as good as literally choosing what color you want your incoherent end cutscene to be.
Honestly, mentioning high points prior to the final moments are perhaps the best way to illustrate the harm it creates--it retroactively damages everything that came before it, by blasting it into irrelevance with space magic.
Gamer @ Heart
Member
Dude. There are three games worth of investment. Some closure would be nice, especially when they gave us the kind of out there ending that they did. Had it been safer, it wouldnt seem so bad. Instead, they left us with the sour taste of ???? and a very shitty epilogue. To make it worse, there is no satisfaction of replaying it when you learn all the endings are almost exactly alike.
Yup. It's the equivalent of "Sir, finishing this fight." Except here it came at the end of the trilogy.
Last Hearth
Member
There were so many great moments in this game prior to the ending.
I have a feeling if the ending was the "cliched" ending that some complain about, all the conversation right now would be about all those awesome moments before the ending. People would be talking about bottle shooting with Garrus, Mordin's last sacrifice, Legion and Tali on Rannoch, Grunt's last stand, etc etc etc. But we can't talk about them because we're forever stuck talking about the stupid ending. For that reason along I would take that cliched ending over the one we got. Even though I'm not a big fan of cliched endings.
I have a feeling if the ending was the "cliched" ending that some complain about, all the conversation right now would be about all those awesome moments before the ending. People would be talking about bottle shooting with Garrus, Mordin's last sacrifice, Legion and Tali on Rannoch, Grunt's last stand, etc etc etc. But we can't talk about them because we're forever stuck talking about the stupid ending. For that reason along I would take that cliched ending over the one we got. Even though I'm not a big fan of cliched endings.
It still commits genocide on the Geth. And if EDI shows up on Jungle Planet, then I'd take that as more "Bioware didn't bother to make sure that it couldn't happen" than "Bioware was being super clever and the Catalyst was actually lying to you about everything", because if you can't trust the Catalyst, then every ending is complete and utter nonsense, which is just about the only thing worse than taking the endings at face value.
After the destruction of the mass relays, it's very clear that all the forces involved in the last battle are now essentially stranded in the immediate vicinity of the Sol system. The galactic civilization essentially has to rebuild with whatever consequences came about from Shepard's final choice.
Wrex leads whatever is left of the Krogan on Earth. Grunt remains one of the strongest and most loyal Krogan soldiers.
Jack continues to lead novice biotics and works towards rebuilding Earth, now with new purpose.
Samara returns to her Justicar duties, periodocially causing diplomatic incidents with the other races on Earth.
Ashley and Vega continue to serve in the Alliance. Vega becomes an N7 and a respected officer. Ashley continues to operate as a Spectre.
Liara goes to Mars to further examine the Mars Archives and get more data on the Protheans, looking for potential clues as to how they may be able to rebuild the mass relays.
Garrus continues serving the Turians. Eventually becomes the new Primarch.
Tali continues as an Admiral for the Quarians, eventually gaining much more power and respect.
Javik isolates himself, goes to live in a cave, then dies.
Bam. There you go. I did it all for you.
GrandHarrier
Member
My negative reaction was unbiased and I am a die hard Bioware defender. The problem with the ending is that it makes no sense and has massive wtf plot holes. Dude, im with you, the entire game is a-ma-zing. London FOB is pretty emotional. Do you really think the backlash is over the lack of blue babies? No, it's over ghost kid and space magic. It's over the removal of player agency, of choice and consequence.
Indoctrination!
I'm mostly kidding, but seriously, that still makes the most sense to me.
Pollux
Member
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