Mass Effect 3 ending sucks BIG TIME!!!

[Kantor]

Pineapple said:

I thought the ending was great. While playing the game, I was wondering how on earth they were going to write a satisfying ending to the game. It didn't really seem possible to me. During the game, I was also a bit upset by the Illusive Man being turned into a pure villain, as he'd been a very interesting character in ME2. In many ways, most of ME3 was far more akin to a stupid American action movie than the previous Mass Effects were, so I was worried about an ending of that kind. With little to no explanation of why or how anything happened.

Instead, the ending was nice and reflecting. I expected the ending of the game to be purely based on what you'd done. If you'd built a giant army and had good friends, one thing would happen, while if you had no allies and friends, something else would. Rather than that, the actual ending sort of asked you to consider how much faith you had in the peoples you had helped during the game. Not only that, but the choice also reflects back on how you view the real world and where humanity is headed. I certainly ended up thinking about stuff like that.

And honestly, I think that's when sci-fi shines best. Not when it creates a set of rules, and then follows them to the point, but when it bends its own rules to tell the best possible story and ask the best possible questions.

All in all, I'm extremely satisfied with the ending. I find it to be the by far best ending of the Mass Effect games, and probably in the top 10 of all games I've ever played. The "plot holes" mentioned earlier really don't bother me at all. How Anderson entered the beam before Shepard, for instance, or why he ended up  in a different place than Shepard, as it's not really relevant to the point the game is making at all.

 

The plot holes are really secondary here. I could live with those; they're a minor annoyance.

The problem is that you are given no control at all. Creepy starchild narrates this stuff which is clearly complete bullshit (like synthetics being destined to destroy their creators) and Shepard just stands there and nods, and accepts what he's saying despite the fact that he's the Reaper overmind. Let's go through these endings one by one.

1) Control. Yes, this is going to work despite the fact that Illusive Man tried it, and the renegade Protheans tried it, and presumably everyone has tried it at some point, but that doesn't matter because Shepard is special and magical.

2) Destroy. Sure, you can just destroy the Reapers, but for no adequately explored reason this will destroy all synthetics in the galaxy. The Reapers are not regular synthetics. They are much more than that. They have nothing in common with Geth.

3) Synthesis. Dear god. So now this child can cast space magic that will alter DNA to make it partially synthetic? How is this even remotely believable? Why has this possibility never even been mentioned before? Wouldn't this destroy the very core of the being of every creature in the galaxy? It makes no sense at all.

Then all of the mass relays are destroyed, which no longer causes supernovae, apparently, and leaves everyone stranded around a now ruined planet Earth.

All three of the solutions are stupid, and 4) Tell the Reapers to screw off and leave us alone makes a lot more sense than any of them. You would think this infinitely wise star child would know that. Incidentally, why is he even asking a puny organic for a decision?

The idea that a race of organics miraculously turned itself into a killer race of demonic robots and decided to terrorise everyone forever is absurd, and it's even more absurd that the king killer demonic robot is suddenly fed up with the whole thing and decides to give you a bunch of nonsensical options which will solve nothing.

It would have made perfect sense in the context of indoctrination, because Starchild's ideas sound exactly like they're coming straight from Harbinger, who is trying to influence you to make their domination complete.