I know your forums are inundated with threads and comments about the ending, but I needed to voice my complaints as well with the nature of how the Mass Effect Trilogy was ended. I had actually paused the game on Earth, ate dinner with my wife, spent the time raving about how good the game was narratively, only to be thoroughly dissatisfied with the way it ended.
Throughout the series, there were a few narrative threads that re-occurred that were seemingly neglected in the endings presented.
1. Player Choice and Consequence - One of the hallmarks of this series and many other Bioware titles is that a player's choices matter (like keeping Revan on the path of light/dark, or the Wardens choices throughout Dragon Age: Origins) and having those choices matter or at least seem to matter. Even if the consequences aren't good (I actually loved the tragedy of being unable to save Tali because of prior choices for example), they showed the weight of my decisions in game.
2. Can a people change - You face this first with the Rachni, their species was a threat, but you could choose to save it (twice) if you believed they were no longer a threat to the rest of the Galaxy. You face this again with the Krogans and the Genophage; the Krogans were a brutal and unstoppable force, do you believe that their society can change for the better by curing the Genophage, or will they return to their conquering ways. It comes up multiple times that the cycle of destruction repeats constantly, but can it be changed?
3. Synthetic vs. Organic life - You start out ME1 fighting Geth on Eden Prime, Synthetics are the enemy. You find out that some Organics choose to serve them and are corrupted by them. In ME2 you get an AI on your ship who helps the crew even once unshackled and meet Legion, a Geth who chooses to help Organics, even against his own kind. In ME3, EDI gains a body and grows her personality over the course of the game to be more human, Legion sacrifices himself to give the Geth true independent intelligence and they join to fight the Reapers. The theme is building that Synthetics and Organics can co-exist.
4. Galactic Diplomacy - In ME1, humans are fighting for a seat at the table, have to prove they can benefit the rest of the Galaxy before we can gain a Council seat, Shepard is the first human Specter a test of our competency. ME2, the races are still not getting along, but working outside the political infighting, you assemble a team of multiple races to collectively fight a common threat. Finally, in ME3, the threat becomes real to the rest of the Governments, and you must work out your differences to fight a common enemy, overcoming centuries of bad blood.
These remain strong up until you enter the Citadel for the first time. Choice and consequence are gone when all the endings are so similar it's hard to tell any real narrative difference between them. While your decisions affect your forces going into the endgame, they are just a numerical calculation in the background, not a shown narrative effect. You are explicitly told that people can't change, the cycle is inevitable and synthetics will always kill organics, there is no getting along. Just destroy, control, or merge the two completely.
The ending also came as a Deus ex Machina, literally a God character emerged from the Citadel, to tell you what you have to do and that all your choice is really an inevitability.
My suggestions for how this should have gone and could be fixed in DLC, maybe with a new mission Shepard undertakes to find another way.
1. Alien Fleets - If recruited, protect the Crucible from attack. If not, see the line fall and the Crucible take damage, with worse endings up to the Crucible being destroyed if you neglected to get enough support.
They already modeled and rendered most of the alien race fleets, so it wouldn't take that much more to render the new scenes.
2. Found tech/rescued researchers - If found, Crucible is shown to work properly. If not enough found, parts overheat and break, so you only destroy some of the reapers, or accidentally destroy allied tech or tech Species like the Geth along with Reapers.
Most of these options could use the existing endings made.
3. Squadmates - If saved through ME1/2/3 they protect your flank, provide support for final push.Maybe show Jack's team biotically shielding you, soldier squadmates killing Reaper forces as you limp towards the Citidel. If not, too many weaknesses means you don't make it to the Crucible.
Too weak in any of these could lead to the "worst" ending, perfect/nearly perfect in all three for the "best" ending. It doesn't need to be perfectly happy, just show some effect of my choices and work, and keep within the theme of the rest of the trilogy.
I don't really know if you care about my opinion, you already have my money, and I can't return the opened game in protest. I would if I could, because the ending numbed any desire to take my other playthroughs to the end. I hope your creative team reads this and takes it to heart. Bioware has been my favorite games company for years of quality RPGs, but I don't have that faith anymore. I pre-ordered ME2, ME3, DA2, but I won't be preordering your next game as it stands now or getting the DLC for ME3 unless it fixes the endings.
My opinion on the Mass Effect endings.
Débuté par
Delkarnu
, mars 10 2012 03:58
#1
Posté 10 mars 2012 - 03:58
#2
Posté 10 mars 2012 - 04:16
Big reason I hate the ending is because I proved that little holographic kid wrong by getting peace between the quarians and the geth. Not to mention Joker and Edi being together. Everything about the series has been about the player working out for themselves if organics and synthetics can co-exist. Turns out they can. But for some reason that doesn't matter an I have to destroy half the galaxy anyway.
I ask you. Whats the point of stopping the reapers if civilisations collapses anyway? (No relays after all.) We'd be better off fighting to the death and hoping the next cycle can do what we couldn't. Beat the reapers with good old fashioned guns and fire power.
I ask you. Whats the point of stopping the reapers if civilisations collapses anyway? (No relays after all.) We'd be better off fighting to the death and hoping the next cycle can do what we couldn't. Beat the reapers with good old fashioned guns and fire power.





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