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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Mass Effect 3 ending sucks BIG TIME!!!

Pineapple on 17 April 2012
fillet said:


I think your romanticising a fuck up and giving credit where it isn't due.

Much like people give credit to "great" artists who exhibit questionable modern art in galleries these days then give some kind of deep context to that art.

Yes there is art like that, where it has been thought out and on the surface to many it appears shallow, silly and intellectually insulting. Some of that art, really is art. Some of it, definately isn't and people will still relate to it, art is subjective to a degree of course. But not entierly and context should always be available, or at least a linking concept or idea of where that came from and it's intention. Mass Effect 3's ending does not have that, yet it does have similarities with modern art in so far as it is abstract so I think the comparison is more than valid, regardless of if ME3 is art or not, I'd say not.

I would implore you to look at the context and aim of the Mass Effect series. It was implied that it was going to offer exactly the opposite of what it did, and also the opposite of what you liked. For what it's worth, generally speaking I agree with you, but this wasn't a film, this wasn't a piece of art. It was a series that was designed to give the player the choice, and logical conclusion  to choices they made. Some choices would require thinking a little to get the desired outcome, some wouldn't. But this was not a sci-fi film and cannot be compared to one.

 

I don't know if you're familiar with the game Star Ocean 3 Till the end of time? I'm sure you are you've been here a while, that game offered a similar unsatisfying ending, because the plot took a direction that was neither believeable, but most importantly, not fitting with the series. People invest a lot of time and emotional empathy with games like this, only to be rewarded with something alien and utterly dislikeable.

 

Sorry for the contradictions on art etc, art as in an idea, or a self contained eco system that fits together well...would that always be art, no, sometimes yes.


Okay, that's a very good point, actually. I hadn't thought about it from that point. While I like the ending, it really didn't fit its series.



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d21lewis on 17 April 2012

I think ME3 should have had one of those endings like Nes games in the 80's. It should have just been a black screen that says "The end".

I don't remember Final Fantasy VII getting this much flack.



Pineapple on 17 April 2012
d21lewis said:
I think ME3 should have had one of those endings like Nes games in the 80's. It should have just been a black screen that says "The end".

I don't remember Final Fantasy VII getting this much flack.


That's the safe way of going, yeah. Having a plot-twist at the very end of the game is very risky. If you promise an ending, and then the final mission ends in exactly that, there's really no reason to be pissed off. If you get something completely different, though, people might feel robbed.

One of the really brilliant things with Bioware is that they very rarely play the game safely. They mess around and try new things. That's part of what made Mass Effect so brilliant, really. It would have been a shame if they started with the ending sequence of their most popular series.



Kantor on 17 April 2012
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.



(Former) Lead Moderator and (Eternal) VGC Detective

The Fury on 17 April 2012
d21lewis said:
I don't remember Final Fantasy VII getting this much flack.

I don't think it needed flack, it was 'epic' in it's way. You fight the big fight to achieve your main goal (defeat the bad guy and stop his plans) but the rest of the outcome, the ending was not in your control. You have no say and just have to accept it.



Hmm, pie.

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Naum on 17 April 2012

Been 1 month since I finished ME3.... I still haven't been able to play a single videogame since then beacuse of the horrendous ending ME 3 had

I'm still depressed about it

Hell even Super Mario Bros 1 had a better written ending



If it isn't turnbased it isn't worth playing   (mostly)

And shepherds we shall be,

For Thee, my Lord, for Thee. Power hath descended forth from Thy hand, That our feet may swiftly carry out Thy command. So we shall flow a river forth to Thee And teeming with souls shall it ever be. In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritūs Sancti. -----The Boondock Saints

d21lewis on 17 April 2012
The Fury said:
d21lewis said:
I don't remember Final Fantasy VII getting this much flack.

I don't think it needed flack, it was 'epic' in it's way. You fight the big fight to achieve your main goal (defeat the bad guy and stop his plans) but the rest of the outcome, the ending was not in your control. You have no say and just have to accept it.

You just had to accept that the world may have been destroyed at the end of your epic 70 hour RPG (Talking about FFVII, here) and never knowing what happened aside from a brief video of a destroyed Midgar.  You saw Red XIII and his kids a 100 years (or 300.....anyway, it was a loooooong time after everyone was dead) and your actions always led to this semi-conclusive ending.  And yet, to this day, many consider FFVII the greatest RPG ever made.

Now, we get ME3, the end of an insanely epic journey.  Featured a story that was beyond epic.  Some people are pissed that they ever made any sort of decisions or grew attached to the characters or anything because of the ending.  I can feel their pain but I really enjoyed the journey.  With Mass Effect 3, this series just kicked Gears of War off of the top of my personal list as The Franchise of this console generation.  The ending wasn't perfect but I don't know of any story driven game (as for the guy that said MGS4.....don't get me started.) that resolved everything flawlessly.  Hell, I just finished Valkyria Chronicles and when Faldio broke out of prison and killed the final boss I thought it was pretty stupid but I wasn't mad.  It was the story the creators wanted to tell.  The Mass Effect journey was a wonderful one and the ending is whatever you want it to be (though it's still not a particularly happy one).  I'm fine with that.



The Fury on 17 April 2012
Kantor said:
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 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.

I've missed out most your post as it contains endings I've not seen yet but from before a choice is made, I don't see how this story is that far fetched.

How I understood this was the idea is that an extremely advantaced race found a way to preserve themselves in the form of AI and non-organic matter. It decided that other races around it would end up either destroying them or themselves so took it upon themselves to do the same to these other races as it did to themselves. This was the solution to the chaos created by different species, to bring order in the form of unification in a single race. Every 50,000 years they repeat, taking advance races away leaving young races to grow and develop before the advance races destroy them. The original race would have had incredibly advanced technology to do all this, after all, they did create the mass relays which was used to dictate new races developments.

The final choice was an odd one but I presumed the AI within the citadel essentially had decided that due to the presence of an organic, their  plan was no longer working as the organic races were fighting back. This part could have been more well thought out. 



Hmm, pie.

d21lewis on 17 April 2012

My theory: Bioware just trolled the entire world and the effect that this ending has on the masses (ie: us) is what the game is really all about. That's why it was called Mass Effect.



I'm just fuckin' around, now.



d21lewis on 17 April 2012
Naum said:
Been 1 month since I finished ME3.... I still haven't been able to play a single videogame since then beacuse of the horrendous ending ME 3 had

I'm still depressed about it

Hell even Super Mario Bros 1 had a better written ending


In Super Mario 1, you kill Bowser and save the Princess and while you are saving her, she is telling you to save her again.  You haven't even gotten her out of the castle, yet!  And you have to save her from the Koopa king that you just killed!

If the internet were around in the 80's.......