My experience for what it's worth:
I've been a huge sci-fi fan all my life but I was really attracted to the Mass Effect series based in part on the BioWare pedigree (NWN, DA:O, etc) but mainly because the player was asked to make choices that actually mattered - changes that effected the game's world. Even better, this changes would be continued from game to game! It was extraordinary.
When the time came for Mass Effect 3, I was pumped. In fact, playing through the game, it was amazing the way all your choices came together. I loved the resolution to the Genophage as well as the Geth/Quarian situation. The deaths of Mordin, and Thane were exceptional, emotional moments. I even teared up for a moment when it turned out Grunt had survived, and he wasn't even one of my favorite characters! The resolution for Conrad Vernor was a similarly seminal moment, spanning the entire series. Combat was also vastly improved, finally giving us the ability to roll, an improved cover system, and we could finally turn while running. These were some great changes. If the game itself was this good, imagine how good the ending would be! Throughout it all, however, the seed had been planted and I was never expecting a happy ending. But I was okay with that since I new this was the intended end of Shepard’s story. Shepard said goodbye to everyone in epic fashion and we were off to the final conflict.
The ending we got, however, I was not prepared for in the least. For the most part, everything was great until we got hit by the Reaper's beam. The charge was a truly cinematic moment. Everyone running and dodging huge laser blasts. Upon arriving in the Citadel, however, it felt like something was wrong; my squad, my constant companions were missing. Yet, I expected to find them above and that we'd face the final challenge together. That didn't come to pass, however, but that wasn't the end of the world. It looked like it would be down to Anderson and I, which was fitting in a way, for that was how the series started.
The conversation with the Illusive Man was similarly fine, but nothing great. I was a little dismayed to find I was barred from picking the final Paragon option, as I’d followed the Paragon path 90% + of the game, but I would later read there was a less obvious choice I’d missed in one of the early conversations with him. But it echoed the situation with Saren in ME1. The confrontation was fine, though, and I didn’t miss having a boss fight with him at all. The final scene with Anderson was touching (although, hearing what was cut from the original conversation, discussing Shepard as a parent, were more emotional still and I’d love if there was some way to reincorporate this into the game, even if it’s only beyond a certain EMS threshold). In retrospect, I would have been happy if things had ended here. Shepard and Anderson watching the defeat of the Reapers through the windows would have been vastly satisfying, followed by Anderson’s eventual death and possibly a prologue (even if a vague one); Shepard would have gone out on a high note and I would have been able to forgive and lose ends.
Anyway, though, as with most people, my problem came in with the StarChild. Though not annoying in and of itself, the first disconnect came with his statement that he was in charge of the Reapers. This seemed to contradict what we’d been told of the Reapers previously, as back then it seemed like they were their own individuals (or at least a collective consciousness in each body). As time went on, it became clear there would be no payoff on the dark energy plot line from the second game either. Both of these things were somewhat disappointing but I would have been able to overlook them if not for what happened next: I was given the same three choices as everyone else regardless of anything that I’d done before and I had no option but to pick one. In a game that’s always advocated free will, Shepard unquestioningly went along with what the Catalyst was saying. The Catalyst said that all that had happened was due to the fact that synthetics and organics were always destined to destroy each other. However, at least in my game, I had just united the Geth and Quarians, putting an end to a similar war that had been going on for decades. The Shepard I’ve come to know in the rest of the series would never have accepted the Catalyst’s words at face value, even if this didn’t change anything, (s)he most certainly would have pointed this out. Plus, in an ideal world, if my choices really mattered, I personally would have like to see the Catalyst swayed by this logic, to a different outcome.
Either way, one of the choices had to be made, though the first problem was it wasn’t clear which direction represented which choice. Honestly, the first time I played through the ending, I didn’t even realize there were other choices to the side, I kept looking for them on the way to the light, assuming I might be presented with a choice via dialogue. But I still got what I felt was the best choice, the one that would save the most people, and went with Synthesis. Destruction was unacceptable since I’d just spent two games advocating that the Geth be given a second chance – there was no way I was going to destroy them now. Plus, destroying the mass relays would kill everyone in the galaxy – something that was reiterated several times in Mass Effect 3, based on the events of The Arrival. Similarly, there was no way I would choose Control either, having argued against that very thing for the whole third game.
So I chose the best choice I could, given the circumstances, and the worst thing I could imagine happening in a Mass Effect game happened: the mass relays exploded. All of them. The explosions were so big we could see them from a zoomed-out map of the galaxy. This meant that everything I’d done, everyone I’d saved, had just been destroyed. And if this somehow wasn’t the case, despite this contradicting the mass relay destruction physics reiterated in this very game, everyone was stranded, likely for hundreds of years and would likely die anyway. Surely they would have in the Destroy ending with the destruction of all technology (the only ending where Shepard could be saved, somehow, despite having all sorts of life-sustaining implants).
Further, the ending video was very confusing; why was the Normandy suddenly flying through hyperspace? Why had Joker abandoned the fight? That ran contrary to everything we’d seen about his character. And then, when the Normandy fainlly crash lands, we see characters who were with us in the final charge. Side-stepping the issue of why Joker was running, why were our companions running with him, much less running in the first place? They’d sworn to hold the line until the end. Then the biggest insult, I reloaded and tried a different ending to see what I got and the ending was 95% the same, albeit pallet-swapped. This struck me as not only unrepresentative of our choices but as a lazy way to put an ending together. I will admit to liking the Buzz Aldrin scene with his granddaughter in the future, however, but I still left having more questions than I should have, especially when Casey Hudson promised the fans a definitive ending.
I don’t need a happy ending, nor do I need one where Shepard survives. I just want an ending that pays off on the choices I made. Sure, one could argue that the entire game is the ending, and indeed much of it is a satisfactory end to the events of the first two games. However, what of the end of Mass Effect 3? Where’s the closure for that? For example, the game pays off the story of all the squad members from Mass Effect 2 phenomenally well, but I don’t feel there was any closure for my squad members in Mass Effect 3.
I’m fine with making tough choices. Honestly, they’re one of the best things about Mass Effect. However, what make those choices mean anything is seeing the consequences of our actions. Even if everyone didn’t die, did I make the right choice about the Krogan? The Rachnai? Did the Quarians and Geth make it? Moreover, what of Shepard’s final choice – you know, the one which forever changed the galaxy? At least we got some idea of what resulted from the other choices, yet we’re told nothing of the outcome from the biggest choice we made. If I gave you $1,000 but then told you that money no longer meant anything, it wouldn’t have any value for you anymore. This, at least for me, is what happened at the end of Mass Effect 3, and why I’d like to see it expanded upon.
Sorry for the length, but I wanted to provide a comprehensive picture of my experience.
Modifié par baronkohinar, 17 mars 2012 - 05:01 .
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