(article repeated below for those who don't feel like clicking)
I originally intended to do a technical review of Mass Effect 3, but the ending is such that I just have to get this off my chest first. Major spoiler warning, if you have not completed ME3 then you may not wish to
read further.
There is on only one ending:
Shepard sacrifices himself to end the reaper war, the mass effect relays are destroyed as a result of his actions, the Normandy and her crew crash land on a liveable looking planet.
I can understand why the canon ending is this way, as it sets up things for Mass Effect 4 nicely which I speculate will pick up the storyline many years later (possibly hundreds of years or several generations later as alluded to in what I assume is a ME4 teaser after the credits).
And if you play ME3 twice or import a save from ME2, and you get an almost ideal War Asset score you should be treated with a few seconds of teasing where a body which we assume is Shepard is seen breathing. Thus allowing ME4 to let you either play a descendant or someone related to the Normandy crew, maybe to carry on Shepard's legacy in some way.
The problem with the ending:
The canon ending is not the issue, I think almost all Mass Effect fans won't have an issue with ME4 starting off with a canon ME3 ending as I described above. It is after all many years later, and a new story and new adventures and new characters.
The problem though is that ME3 only has one ending, there is no alternate ending, just minor variations. Regardless of who lived or died in ME1 or ME2 or how little or much your War Asset score is you are still only given 2 (or 3 if your War Asset score is high enough) choices. And they all lead to the same result. Upset fans have nicknamed these endings the Blue, Red and Green endings, since the only major difference is the color really.
What about the 16 or so endings.
Placebo mostly I'm afraid, with the worst war asset score and the best war asset score differing only in how damaged Earth is or not it seems. The endings are just minor variations in which cutscenes are shown, which
are almost identical.
My issue is not the canon ending that ME4 will continue on. My issue is that my own ending is not there. This was
the end of Shepard's tale, although I understand that BioWare did not want to let Shepard take over the galaxy I at least expected a more personal ending.
Knights of The Old Republic had a good and evil ending. and Obsidian which is very underestimated in my opinion managed to make a sequel to that which worked regardless of the two extreme endings. And even though KoTOR2 had a less than happy ending for the main character they did give closure to most of the squad members.
Alternate non-canon ending or endings:
Current Blue end should have remained the control choice, but backfired horribly, with Shepard falling into the same trap as the Illusive Man, and the reapers wins. And Harbinger seen closing in on the citadel and
saying "You Loose Shepard".
Red should have destroyed all synthetics, but backfired horribly and basically fatally wounded in a explosion from whatever he was shooting at. And Harbinger seen closing in on the citadel and saying "You Loose Shepard".
Green should instead have been Shepard rejecting the most likely twisted lies of the entity, and dived into the stream in hopes of getting back down to Earth. The Entity being a AI can not compute this choice and overloads
loosing the block on the device detonation, thus causing the reapers to overload in response as well as starting the chain reaction of the relays.
We maybe see the Admiral Hacket and who else looking up at the explosion of the citadel the reapers disabled, while saying that they hope Shepard is OK while soldiers are cheering. And then we cut to the scene where Shepard is in the rubble suddenly drawing his/her breath. While one of the two squadmates that led the final charge with Shepard shouts to the other, I found him/her, over here, badly hurt.
One of the squadmates could then signal Joker, we found Shepard, and Joker telling them to hurry, as the Mass Effect Relays are starting to become really unstable and seem to be collapsing, and one of the squadmates says "what?" And Joker says that whatever Shepard did had bigger ramifications than anyone could have thought, and that all allied forces are scrambling to head for their own systems and homeworlds before it's too late.
We then see a cutscene with a huge amount of allied fleets jumping out via the relay, and one of ships to make it into the relay is the Normandy. Joker shouts over the intercom to sickbay asking how Shepard is doing, the Doc says that Shepard seems stable for now but unless they get to the medical facility at some specified location soon then Shepard's fate may be uncertain.
We then see the scene with the starting to relay the special energy from relay to relay before being destroyed. Cut to the Normandy and Joker's big headache as seen in that scene at the end. We see Joker exiting with EDI.
And then we see Shepard's love interest beginning to exit, with Shepard on their shoulder, limping outside. The LI asking if Shepard is OK, and Shepard dryly comments he/she really need a vacation. (if no LI then Liara could just support Shepard as a default, or even a random squadmate).
And then the camera changes so we see the entire (surviving squad members) looking out over this huge paradise looking vista, and Joker getting the last line in saying something like "I don't think that'll be a problem
commander!"
Roll credits, and then after the credits, show the man and the kid talking about the legend of The Shepard.
This ending would even work with the canon ending needed for Mass Effect 4. The only difference is that which squadmates are seen depends on whom survived ME1 and ME2 (and possible the end of final ME3 battle, it kinda looked like Wrex almost took a Reaper beam to the face there for a moment.) Maybe how many squad members survive could depend on the War Asset score also or how far into their dialog trees you went on the
Normandy.
But the ending as it is now, is pretty bad indeed like large chunks are missing in some way. If we are lucky, maybe something like what I described above can be provided as a free DLC. (and included in the Game Of The Year edition that I'm sure will appear one day).
The end of the game basically drops to a point just before you attack the Cerberus base, so those who finished the game could simply play from that point on again and get the DLC'ed improved ending. Maybe to indicate this the Cerberus base could end up giving you some extra War Assets captured during the assault, this would show on the War Asset summary for example tipping you above say 10000 points giving you your "personal" Shepard ending that most want.
(BioWare has my full permission to use my ideas above, I hereby place the ideas in this article in the Public Domain, and may be used for any purpose including commercial, alternately I give full copyright of the ideas in this article to BioWare.)
EDIT: fixed some weird line wrappings.
Modifié par LordRescator, 11 mars 2012 - 07:52 .
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