The Mass Effect 3 Ending

[MysticKnightFF5]

Discuss.

[Pickle Girl Fanboy]

What's Mass Effect 3?

[Dome]

What's Mass Effect 3?

[Kaijyuu]

Penny Arcade is my only source of information on this.

I support the ice cream ending.

[GeneralStrife]

it was shit
y u people commenting if u no never played?!

[Kaijyuu]

From what I hear the ending was not Happy (tm) and thus angered a lot of people who are used to stories ending on an uplifting note.

Do enlighten us if that is not the case.

[GeneralStrife]

spoiler

no matter what happens shepard dies, the mass relays blow up, and you are given 3 shitty choices for the ending from a spacegodchild. none of your choices mattered, and the 3 endings are exactly the same except for a different colored explosion. the developers were quoted for saying there would be a ridiculous amount of endings based on your choices throughout the 3 games.

[Celdia]

spoiler

the developers were quoted for saying there would be a ridiculous amount of endings based on your choices throughout the 3 games.

spoiler

Well those will all come in the later DLC for a mere $1.99 per ending

[Tea]

Why would I even start Mass Effect?

[Ryqoshay]

Penny Arcade is my only source of information on this.

I support the ice cream ending.

The cake is a lie!
The cake is a lie!
The cake is a lie!
The cake is a lie!

[MysticKnightFF5]

ANYWHOOOO The issue isn't that Commander Shepherd dies in some choices.... the issue is the fact that all your choices from the previous two games were supposed to build up into this one EPIC moment...
THEN BOOM NOTHING! NO MATTER WHAT YOU'VE DONE IT'S THE SAME TWO ENDINGS!

[GeneralStrife]

[Eternal]

That last picture reminds me of elementary school. What were those things called again?

[Joseph Strife]

Some people will agree...

[Kaijyuu]

So the complaint is that it's a shaggy dog story?

[EmmaNigma]

So the complaint is that it's a shaggy dog story?

Actually, yes. I had just finished the game today. I was impressed with the game (except for the detection for pressing the button for going into cover, but that's a different story for a different day) up until you land on Earth for the final push. All of your decisions in previous games mattered up until that point. I cannot imagine the game WITHOUT having import data, that's how well it was integrated. Until the end.

There's a lot of issues I have with it, which I'll get to in a moment, but I do want to say that I did find the finale... fitting, if quite a bit jarring. Most of the game you're building bridges, making alliances, bringing everyone together. Then you land on Thessia and everything goes to hell. Everything you've worked for falls apart, everything fails, and you realize just what kind of force you're dealing with. Hell, just as you're about to make it to the conduit at the very end, Reaper dreadnoughts drop down and instantly kill the entire squad you, Anderson, and your teammates were running with. Your armor is MELTED to your flesh, you limp to the conduit, and are deposited in a room full of rotting corpses. If they DIDN'T do something like this, I would've felt the Reaper threat was a trivial thing. You tend to forget, until the end, that these things destroy planets.

What I DO have an issue with, even before the actual ending itself, is that you MUST play the multiplayer mode in order to have the best available resources for the final battle. I'm sorry, but I should not have to play multiplayer to succeed in my single player campaign. I don't want to pay for Gold, I have an absolutely shitty internet connection because I can't afford 60 a month for a good one, I don't have people to play with on a consistent basis, and I object to it on principle. You play multiplayer to play with friends. You play single player for the story and missions. Oh! That's right! You could always get the official Mass Effect app for iOS and that will help with your single player game! Get fucked, EA. That's not how games should work. We're paying 60 bucks for an RPG because it's a goddamn RPG. You don't make people do this shit for single player offline.

Then there's the ending itself. I don't mind that Shepard died. I expected it. (Actually if you are at max preparedness and have nearly all the assets and decide to destroy the Reapers Shepard lives :shh:) But I do take issue with the aforementioned point: It doesn't matter at all what happens before that. Nothing you do changes or effects the ending in a meaningful way. They hype up the reason for the Reapers destroying/harvesting organic life as unknowable and alien for the entire series, and then sum it up in less than a paragraph. All synthetic life will rebel against organic and destroy all organic life. There. That's the reason. OH WAIT that's ignore what they JUST ESTABLISHED in this game: The Geth. The Geth didn't do this at all. Even as the Quarians killed them and their own people who supported the Geth, the Geth would sacrifice themselves to save other Quarians. In fact, when they had the chance to obliterate the Quarians, they refused to do so. Exiling them ensured their peace enough, and the only reason they exiled them was because the Quarians were scared of the Geth and decided to kill them rather than work with them. Hell, the Geth are the ones who offered to allow the Quarians back on the planet, and even helped with building them homes and getting their immune systems re-acclimated with the atmosphere. The Geth disprove the end of the game.

So what are you left with? 3 options that mean more to the player than it does the game. No matter what option you choose, it'll end the same way. It becomes a personal choice for the player. How have I played this character so far? What would I do? Which would create a better, lasting peace? There's no real answer to that last bit. You have to do what YOU feel is the right thing to do. That's really what the game has been having you do since the very beginning of the series. In that sense, the decisions you've made matter to the ending. It just takes the form of an arbitrary and sudden choice never considered previously in the series. I really do wish it concluded things better. How has the last decision you make effect all the others you've made previously? Because no matter what you choose, it changes galactic civilization forever. I wish they let you know HOW it does, but luckily my imagination is augmented.

tl;dr: The very last screen you ever see says "You can continue the Legend through further gameplay and Downloadable Content." Fuck you forever, EA. May you all choke on spicy poison and die.

And that's the most serious post you'll ever likely read in this subforum.

[EmmaNigma]

Why would I even start Mass Effect?

Because the first game is a brilliant masterpiece of gaming. It gets a lot of shit for the elevators and the inventory system, but those are minor flaws at best. Mass Effect 1 is just.. It's fantastic. One of my favorite games. The 2nd one.. eh.... But the 3rd one really makes the series an epic. It's not just a bunch of sequels. It becomes an emotional investment that you control. There are so many subtle things that carry into each game that it becomes a living, breathing entity YOU made. It's a fantastic concept and to see it realized is deeply satisfying, yet ultimately leaves you sad because this thing you developed has ended once and for all.

[Kaijyuu]

Well all I have to say really is that it's fantastic that a video game is getting such flak for its story. Seems like not too long ago this sort of thing would be replied to "it's a video game who cares about story?" Shows that the medium is getting more accepted as a storytelling medium.

[Celdia]

The very last screen you ever see says "You can continue the Legend through further gameplay and Downloadable Content."

Fucking hell...I was only making a joke about the $1.99 DLC endings...figures.

[EmmaNigma]

Fucking hell...I was only making a joke about the $1.99 DLC endings...figures.

They have gotten so many complaints about the ending that they are supposedly working on a different one that is purchasable through DLC. This message was put into the game before anyone had even seen the ending. Right now, the only DLC for the game itself is a secret character. The implication being that either they are planning a lot more DLC for it, or they are encouraging you to buy the previous games and buy the DLC for that. ME2 had I think.. 4 DLC missions that cost money, 2 of which were vital to the story.