Ending took my breath away like I had just been kicked in the nuts repeatedly. Two days later and it's still pissing me off.
As a game designer-to-be I felt the same about ME3. The beginning and the useless dreams pointed on that ending, but I thought it would be much better.
While playing the main quests I had the feeling to play SC2 as a 3rd person shooter. Gather a few people with their forces to join me against the current main enemy.
There aren't any twists that could raise the feeling the ending of ME2 had given. (And I think that ME2 was a simple filler) There are so many possibilities how this series could be done so much better than it actually is. I'm glad this madness about the ending is finished now, because everybody can rest until a new series will come.
After all EA published Mass Effect which was their own grave since the beginning.
I just finished it. I seem to be the only one who thinks the ending wasn't just not bad, but actually pretty good. I think a lot of the complaints with it is just that it's fairly deep, and that absolutely nothing remains as it was.
Won't say a more obvious ending where the current state of the galaxy remains intact minus the Reapers would have been bad, though.
You can't make a good ending through extensive plot holes. Don't take this the wrong way, but anytime I see someone claiming the ending "wasn't that bad," I strongly believe they simply aren't aware of how widespread and massive said plot holes are.
I encourage you to look up Angry Joe's . It covers most of the big points and makes it virtually impossible to be okay with the ending. There isn't anything deep to the ending unless you're talking about the sizes of the holes in the plot.
I will say, however, that the music is amazing. It's the only thing holding me over until BioWare decides what to do with the ending.
The whole third game gives you the impression that you have this option to just magically destroy the Reapers and basically return the galaxy to the state it was. We're talking Reapers here - keep in mind that to kill the average Reaper, you generally need a WHOLE FLEET. You've got approximately 20 fleets. There are at least 100 Reapers out there. Let that sink in for a moment. Now consider the fact that the Crucible is in fact a weapon used to 'destroy' ALL Reapers through the entire galaxy.
With this knowledge, how can you even assume that ANYTHING is going to be the same after the events on the citadel? The 'kick in the nuts' feeling people describe they have is the feeling of coming so far and finally realizing that EVERYTHING IS GOING TO CHANGE. Because you can't just 'kill the Reapers and go about your merry way'. This whole thing is the start of a new cycle. That's why the Relays are gone, and that's why you see Joker on his planet. I see the ending as a sort of 'genesis' from the bible where in option A) Adam and Eve exist normally, B) Adam and Eve exist normally but are part computers, and C) Adam and Eve exist normally but the snake doesn't. Analogy might not be perfect, but you get the idea.
Keeping all this in mind, suddenly a lot of those apparent 'plot holes' people complain about are answered. Plus, the things that remain don't matter jack ass because basically, everybody in the galaxy is going to die and a new cycle of life is starting (either with control over synthetics, without synthetics, or half-computers).
Overall, with this view, I kind of liked the ending; the 'kick in the nuts' is the realization that you can't save the galaxy, but that you can only start off the next cycle of life with prospects as you see fit. The complaint that all endings are similar is wrong too; the last 5 minute cutscene is similar, sure, but effectively 'blue explosion' means you start off a new life cycle with computers as slaved, 'red explosion' means you start off a new life cycle without computers and 'green explosion' means you start off a new life cycle with cyborgs.
My main gripe would be the function of EMS and everything that happens in the 'pre-ending' (scenes on Earth). I was both expecting and hoping for this epic final battle where all my (important) assets would come into play. I.E. if you had saved Aralakh company, they'd show up during the defense mission, and if you had secured both the Geth and Quarian fleets they'd... play a more obvious role. That kind of jazz. Now, EMS is nothing but high score and assets are virtually only ten lines of text in a database each.
TL;DR: I don't mind everybody getting a similar last 5 minute cutscene. The 'bad feeling' people get over it is the realization of the price it'll take to actually change something about the Reapers. The endings aren't all the same, the difference is just noted by the final conversation rather than the final cutscene. I would have liked if they had done something more with EMS, though, and made your choices from 1 through 3 impact the final battle on earth.
With this knowledge, how can you even assume that ANYTHING is going to be the same after the events on the citadel?
Well, you cure the Genophage and turn the Krogan into a potential thread to the universe. You save the Rachni which is pretty much the only organic race even more dangerous than the Krogan. It's pretty obvious that the universe won't ever be the same.
The problem is that you don't see any of it. You say things will change? Well, according the the ME3 ending they really don't. At least you don't have a hand in it. The Reapers disappear. The Relays will be destroyed. That always happens. And maybe the Synthesis or destruction of technology. But you don't see it's consequences. But what about your decisions? What about all races? You don't get to see anything about the things you have done.
The worst problem is that even I can work out a different ending for ME3 which opens less plot holes, would provide more choices and bring the series to a better end. And I don't consider myself a good story writer at all.
Think about this ending:
Quote:
The final battle starts normally, you do your Hammer ground assault, link the Crucible to the Citadel.
Now, the Cruicible is basically just a massive artillery cannon, drawing energy from the Citadel and unleashing it via a massive laser beam (not unlike the Reapers').
However, the weapon needs more time to destroy all Reapers so the Liberation Fleet has a last stand in order to protect the Crucible at all cost. Maybe that would be a nice place to pit the Illusive Man as the final boss against Shepard, just like Saren from ME1 he's a result of non-human enhancements and subconscious Reaper indoctrination and he wants to shut down the Crucible from inside the Citadel (that's where you are right now, just like you'd be in the actual ending).
After you've defeated him you see how the last dozen-or-so Reapers rally and try to leave the system. You're faced with a decision:
A: Order the fleet lick their wounds. Rescue survivors, evacuate doomed ships and help liberate earth from the last Reaper minions. However, the dozen Reapers escape into dark space. No one knows how long they'll be gone, but one is for certain: They will return. And when they do the universe must be ready again. Bearing that knowledge all sentient races manage to put aside their differences.
B: Order the fleet to chase the Reapers to destroy every last of them. The Liberation fleet has enough vessels left to engage the last Reapers without the help of the Crucible (which is damaged and overheated). The Reapers are finally destroyed, but so is basically the entire Liberation fleet. Which leads to a few important conclusions:
Unless you liberated the Quarian homeworld from the Geth, the entire Quarian flotilla is destroyed, including the liveships. The race is extinct.
Depending on how much War Assets you've acquired and the Normandy's upgrades the Normandy might be destroyed, only you and your two companions survive as you weren't on board.
Apart from your decision there'll be a few other consequences:
The Crucible will overheat after the Reapers flee. If you've upgraded it well there are emergency systems that undock the Crucible and let it drift far enough away that the explosion won't destroy the Citadel. If you haven't upgraded it well enough the Citadel will also be destroyed, which ends in your death.
Look at that! I've spent 5 minutes writing down a rough sketch and it still looks better than what Bioware gave us:
It doesn't create plot holes like the stranded Normandy or the Catalyst kid because there aren't even there.
It gives you a different ending depending on your decisions and War Assets, which is lacking extremely in the actual ending.
It actually fits into the rest of the story just as nice as the acutual ending! There is nothing important throughout Mass Effect that hints at how the game actually ends. So it could very well end like this without creating discrepancies with the rest of the story.
It gives a nice end to the Illusive Man, showing that even he cannot control the Reapers, but became their puppet out of initally good intentions.
It allows you to pick a "good" end where most people survive, the races unite in peace, etc
It allows you to pick a "bad" end with WWII consequences: Races extinct, Citadel (= Icon for civilisation and technology) destroyed, countless millions of lives lost when the Fleet was destroyed. Without the Council or a military status quo anything could happen. Geth, Rachni and Krogan are free to do as they wish, the universe might be left in a state of Cold War.
And that's only about the general plot direction.
Didn't you (optionally) rescue a Turian sniper squad somewhere? How ballers would it be if you saw a short cutscene showing how they take position inside the buildings during the defend-the-missile-trucks mission and giving you fire support.
Or see Elcor with back-mounted cannons (if you got that War Asset) walk next to the tank line that you see when you fight your way through the ruins a little earlier?
My main gripe would be the function of EMS and everything that happens in the 'pre-ending' (scenes on Earth). I was both expecting and hoping for this epic final battle where all my (important) assets would come into play. I.E. if you had saved Aralakh company, they'd show up during the defense mission, and if you had secured both the Geth and Quarian fleets they'd... play a more obvious role. That kind of jazz. Now, EMS is nothing but high score and assets are virtually only ten lines of text in a database each.
I could put up with EVERYTHING story-related if they did this. I've read each and every entry in the War Assets database and I've been itching to see some of them come into action. It was very disappointing that the only thing that changes is that you hear "<Quarian/Geth/Turian/...> Fleet ready" from Joker :/
You make some good points... I've revisited my position since the last post and I think it boils down to this:
I like:
-The final 'revelation' of what it's going to cost to get rid of the Reapers. I love how the game gives you this sense of 'hope' that everything can be alright all through game 3 and then at the end shoves into your face a feeling of "wtf were you thinking, these are REAPERS, it's obvious, how could you not know you'd have to change the entire galaxy in order to end them?". I felt sad in a good way about this - it really felt like I had known this all along, but, like the characters, just didn't want to believe that life as we knew it was over.
I can live with/am indifferent to:
-The Reaper 'supercomputer AI'. I don't think he comes out of nowhere as much as everybody seems to do. I'm genuinely wondering how the Reapers were created, and even though people view the logic as flawed, it makes sense to me: this AI has simply, through its own observations, decided that the only way to create some kind of order is to enforce 50.000 year life-cycles for organics.
-The majority of the stuff people are calling 'glaring plotholes'. "An exploding mass effect relay should destroy the entire solar system!". A) it matters jack shit, life as we know it is over anyway, and B) there's a thousand ways you can explain these plotholes in a fashion realistic enough for me.
I can't really live with/dislike:
-The fact that assets matter jack shit. Things people have mentioned should be in there. I save Aralakh company, I should get to see them in goddamn action, not never have them mentioned again after the fact (which is literally what happens).
-The three similar ending-cutscenes. These I could easily live with if the asset point was taken care off, but as it is now, it's too lame. Assets simply need to be in there somewhere. If it's not on Londen, it has to be in these cutscenes.
Overall I guess I can live with the ending, but it's far from what I would've wanted to see. Guess it'd be a 6/10 in my book.
Ending took my breath away like I had just been kicked in the nuts repeatedly. Two days later and it's still pissing me off.
Haha!
As a game designer-to-be I felt the same about ME3. The beginning and the useless dreams pointed on that ending, but I thought it would be much better.
While playing the main quests I had the feeling to play SC2 as a 3rd person shooter. Gather a few people with their forces to join me against the current main enemy.
There aren't any twists that could raise the feeling the ending of ME2 had given. (And I think that ME2 was a simple filler) There are so many possibilities how this series could be done so much better than it actually is. I'm glad this madness about the ending is finished now, because everybody can rest until a new series will come.
After all EA published Mass Effect which was their own grave since the beginning.
I just finished it. I seem to be the only one who thinks the ending wasn't just not bad, but actually pretty good. I think a lot of the complaints with it is just that it's fairly deep, and that absolutely nothing remains as it was.
Won't say a more obvious ending where the current state of the galaxy remains intact minus the Reapers would have been bad, though.
You can't make a good ending through extensive plot holes. Don't take this the wrong way, but anytime I see someone claiming the ending "wasn't that bad," I strongly believe they simply aren't aware of how widespread and massive said plot holes are.
I encourage you to look up Angry Joe's . It covers most of the big points and makes it virtually impossible to be okay with the ending. There isn't anything deep to the ending unless you're talking about the sizes of the holes in the plot.
I will say, however, that the music is amazing. It's the only thing holding me over until BioWare decides what to do with the ending.
I've watched such videos. Problem is, I think the 'extensive plot holes' people are talking about aren't all that extensive at all.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>(SPOILERS ZOMGZZZZ SPOILERS AHEAD)<<<<<<<<<<<<<
I think the main problem with the ending is this:
The whole third game gives you the impression that you have this option to just magically destroy the Reapers and basically return the galaxy to the state it was. We're talking Reapers here - keep in mind that to kill the average Reaper, you generally need a WHOLE FLEET. You've got approximately 20 fleets. There are at least 100 Reapers out there. Let that sink in for a moment. Now consider the fact that the Crucible is in fact a weapon used to 'destroy' ALL Reapers through the entire galaxy.
With this knowledge, how can you even assume that ANYTHING is going to be the same after the events on the citadel? The 'kick in the nuts' feeling people describe they have is the feeling of coming so far and finally realizing that EVERYTHING IS GOING TO CHANGE. Because you can't just 'kill the Reapers and go about your merry way'. This whole thing is the start of a new cycle. That's why the Relays are gone, and that's why you see Joker on his planet. I see the ending as a sort of 'genesis' from the bible where in option A) Adam and Eve exist normally, B) Adam and Eve exist normally but are part computers, and C) Adam and Eve exist normally but the snake doesn't. Analogy might not be perfect, but you get the idea.
Keeping all this in mind, suddenly a lot of those apparent 'plot holes' people complain about are answered. Plus, the things that remain don't matter jack ass because basically, everybody in the galaxy is going to die and a new cycle of life is starting (either with control over synthetics, without synthetics, or half-computers).
Overall, with this view, I kind of liked the ending; the 'kick in the nuts' is the realization that you can't save the galaxy, but that you can only start off the next cycle of life with prospects as you see fit. The complaint that all endings are similar is wrong too; the last 5 minute cutscene is similar, sure, but effectively 'blue explosion' means you start off a new life cycle with computers as slaved, 'red explosion' means you start off a new life cycle without computers and 'green explosion' means you start off a new life cycle with cyborgs.
My main gripe would be the function of EMS and everything that happens in the 'pre-ending' (scenes on Earth). I was both expecting and hoping for this epic final battle where all my (important) assets would come into play. I.E. if you had saved Aralakh company, they'd show up during the defense mission, and if you had secured both the Geth and Quarian fleets they'd... play a more obvious role. That kind of jazz. Now, EMS is nothing but high score and assets are virtually only ten lines of text in a database each.
TL;DR: I don't mind everybody getting a similar last 5 minute cutscene. The 'bad feeling' people get over it is the realization of the price it'll take to actually change something about the Reapers. The endings aren't all the same, the difference is just noted by the final conversation rather than the final cutscene. I would have liked if they had done something more with EMS, though, and made your choices from 1 through 3 impact the final battle on earth.
Well, you cure the Genophage and turn the Krogan into a potential thread to the universe. You save the Rachni which is pretty much the only organic race even more dangerous than the Krogan. It's pretty obvious that the universe won't ever be the same.
The problem is that you don't see any of it. You say things will change? Well, according the the ME3 ending they really don't. At least you don't have a hand in it. The Reapers disappear. The Relays will be destroyed. That always happens. And maybe the Synthesis or destruction of technology. But you don't see it's consequences. But what about your decisions? What about all races? You don't get to see anything about the things you have done.
The worst problem is that even I can work out a different ending for ME3 which opens less plot holes, would provide more choices and bring the series to a better end. And I don't consider myself a good story writer at all.
Think about this ending:
Look at that! I've spent 5 minutes writing down a rough sketch and it still looks better than what Bioware gave us:
And that's only about the general plot direction.
Didn't you (optionally) rescue a Turian sniper squad somewhere? How ballers would it be if you saw a short cutscene showing how they take position inside the buildings during the defend-the-missile-trucks mission and giving you fire support.
Or see Elcor with back-mounted cannons (if you got that War Asset) walk next to the tank line that you see when you fight your way through the ruins a little earlier?
I could put up with EVERYTHING story-related if they did this. I've read each and every entry in the War Assets database and I've been itching to see some of them come into action. It was very disappointing that the only thing that changes is that you hear "<Quarian/Geth/Turian/...> Fleet ready" from Joker :/
You make some good points... I've revisited my position since the last post and I think it boils down to this:
I like:
-The final 'revelation' of what it's going to cost to get rid of the Reapers. I love how the game gives you this sense of 'hope' that everything can be alright all through game 3 and then at the end shoves into your face a feeling of "wtf were you thinking, these are REAPERS, it's obvious, how could you not know you'd have to change the entire galaxy in order to end them?". I felt sad in a good way about this - it really felt like I had known this all along, but, like the characters, just didn't want to believe that life as we knew it was over.
I can live with/am indifferent to:
-The Reaper 'supercomputer AI'. I don't think he comes out of nowhere as much as everybody seems to do. I'm genuinely wondering how the Reapers were created, and even though people view the logic as flawed, it makes sense to me: this AI has simply, through its own observations, decided that the only way to create some kind of order is to enforce 50.000 year life-cycles for organics.
-The majority of the stuff people are calling 'glaring plotholes'. "An exploding mass effect relay should destroy the entire solar system!". A) it matters jack shit, life as we know it is over anyway, and B) there's a thousand ways you can explain these plotholes in a fashion realistic enough for me.
I can't really live with/dislike:
-The fact that assets matter jack shit. Things people have mentioned should be in there. I save Aralakh company, I should get to see them in goddamn action, not never have them mentioned again after the fact (which is literally what happens).
-The three similar ending-cutscenes. These I could easily live with if the asset point was taken care off, but as it is now, it's too lame. Assets simply need to be in there somewhere. If it's not on Londen, it has to be in these cutscenes.
Overall I guess I can live with the ending, but it's far from what I would've wanted to see. Guess it'd be a 6/10 in my book.
@s3rius: Go
your ending sounds a bit childish.
I felt like I was being sucker punched with the way the trilogy ended.
If I could have it my way I'd say ME3 never happen, the god child dream all that.
My fem Shepard is still chilling with her best bud Garus on board normandy.
My projects : The Hammer of Dawn, Noir : Automata, Noir : Evolution, Noir : Ascension, Hammer of Dawn Revamp
Many awesome projects : Custom Campaign Initiative
Something for the community : A Small Letter of Thanks, SC2mapster Classic Skin - Alevice
@FenixKissKerrigan: Go
She won't have to pick anything, if it's a dream it never happen, she'd still be at mass effect 2.
Man after watching this guy video I really wish I hadn't trade in my me3 before getting the DLC.
Oh well..
My projects : The Hammer of Dawn, Noir : Automata, Noir : Evolution, Noir : Ascension, Hammer of Dawn Revamp
Many awesome projects : Custom Campaign Initiative
Something for the community : A Small Letter of Thanks, SC2mapster Classic Skin - Alevice
Like I Said 4 post above
If I could have it my way I'd say ME3 never happen, the god child dream all that.
Then I said 2 post above
She won't have to pick anything, if it's a dream it never happen, she'd still be at mass effect 2.
My projects : The Hammer of Dawn, Noir : Automata, Noir : Evolution, Noir : Ascension, Hammer of Dawn Revamp
Many awesome projects : Custom Campaign Initiative
Something for the community : A Small Letter of Thanks, SC2mapster Classic Skin - Alevice