Greetings,
I just finished Mass Effect 3 in one week despite of work, but I was driven. The story took me in basically completely, and I was planning to use that rekindled power. However, the ending...yes. Yes, I agree, this needs discussion.
<from this here on, heavily spoilered>
It's psychedelic, and it's a way to go. However, you, I firmly believe, made a couple of choices in creating this ending where you failed to understand the love in your creation. We have customized our Shepard, we have travelled with him way over 200 hours through three games, and put up with some shoddy gameplay, some hard decisions and some very corny moments, just to stay with the characters. We love the crew, at least I do, I also love the team, and I am okay with the rest of the galaxy. But most importantly - I was fighting for a future.
And the ending robs me of that.
I fully understand your decision of letting Shepard die in this. That consequence was always possible. No, probable. At the end of an epic, people go into the light. However, the way you did this, the final sacrifice - why wasn't it tailored? Why do I not see my LOVE in the flashback? Why can't I create a future for her? I'm not gonna complain about the fact that she leaves the crashed Normandy despite being with me on Earth about five minutes ago. I just wonder why you haven't tailored anything. It's a waste of the potential, and an ending that is, in my opinion, undeserving of that huge, in many ways close to perfect buildup.
Also I do not understand why Shepard can't live. And save. If this was the key to all this, an existance within the citadel, why reveal it 5 minutes before the end? Why not even explain what it is, where it come from, not even why it takes form of the dead kid! You only hinted at it - ONCE. During the talk with the Reaper on Rannock, I realized that the Reaper's controller must be the target in the end. I thought we'd sit down and talk with him after we destroyed the Reapers, for one possibility. Or end him. Instead you give my wounded and delirious Shepard five minutes to die, die and let his new friends (EDI, the Geth) die, and just go over to "well, that's the legend, anyway" and "now play the downloadable content". Come on, you knew better, whoever talked you into this, I believe, was out of his mind. My Shepard DIED! Why would I play a downloadable content with him now? Why would I not now miss him going home to Rannock, or at least mourn the lost cutscene that I was hoping for? Or Shepard becoming new Councellor of Earth? Or, at least, sit down with the Catalyst and decide where to go now? Were you fed up, did you want to end this?
All three endings have gigantic logical holes. And that is sad. If your aim was a psychedelic ending, you decided for the players, giving him a 3:0 option of our will:your will. After letting the players decide so much in the three games, I believe you overlooked that you can't control them at the final moment and make them smile about it. And the havoc created by that decision is what is this message board, amongst other things. Nobody I know likes to spend time in a virtual, artificial world, full of wonders and stories and loved characters, only to get a Bam-That's-It-Ending that catapults him out of that world with the force of a shotgun blast. Every major book in the history of mankind that definded a part of Fantasy - The Lord of the Rings, The Neverending Story, to mention some - had a slow, and detailed ending, with love and loss, and a future to hope for. You were writing a major story there. You blew the ending, you made it average. And that's not good enough. Not for your own work. For Mass Effect 3 was - up to that point - a potentially defining moment of Science Fiction, and of Gaming history. I was planning on using it as the example of why AAA-Games exist. Now, I must see it as a story that falls short in the end. You owe yourself to correct this.
You created a brilliant Shepard in this game. Mass Effect 3 gave Shepard doubt, and tiredness, and desperation. And an urge to have this being the last fight. You also gave him love, and the possibility to find a rest he himself wasn't believing in. You made him more human than most real ones. And showed the strain of stress and war on him.
Even if you now reconsider the ending - you fell short. And after such an epic, detailed, brilliant work before, I believe you failed. This is failure to bring your own work to an acceptable end. Iit's like you painted the Mona Lisa, in full detail, with all mistakes where you corrected, went back, made errors just to in the end get to a brilliant masterpiece with only the finishing smile missing. Then took paint thinner, wiped the whole canvas clean, and painted a smily face instead. While we all watched.
If you need help to change this game, get a better story ending, several alternatives at least, feel free to recruit my help. I'll do it for cost. But do it quickly. The more people finish this game, the more will be disappointed in you. 9 out of 10, at least. And winning back a disappointed fan - you ever realized how hard that can be?
Awaiting a big mandatory update changing the ending completely within short notice. Until then, I believe I'll refraim from the game for a while. For despite being not completely disappointed by the ending...it was a sour one.
Or, to say it with my romance: "I want more time..."
That being said, I must remind myself from something else she said. And which I posted on Facebook with her picture. "Totally worth it." But you gave me hope, so much hope that there was a future...
Maybe in time I will forgive, and remember the good things. For I doubt you'll truly correct this.
I just wish you would.
Keelah Se'Lai.
Mad