Don't change the ending, just expand on it a little more. Give us an explanation for why our crew went back to Normandy following the failed ground assault, and give a clearer picture or scene of why they Normandy had to run when it did...other than that the ending is fine in my books.
If we're talking DLC content that perhaps is post-game, then make a true expansion. Give the pessimists (there's a lot of them who think everything is terrible after games end which I know isn't true at all) reason to believe that we did in fact SAVE the galaxy and in doing so the trillions of lives the Reapers would have killed had they continued. Epilogues are a good thing for a franchise like this; so the expansion can feature an entirely new character who goes searching for the Normandy; kind of a rescue mission as it were.
Whatever you do though, do not retcon anything. You already were forced to change the ending once by rabid fans who were too silly to not actively find the leaked ending, so don't feel forced to change the ending again as it sets a terrible precedent moving forward.
Modifié par Genera1Nemesis, 17 mars 2012 - 02:37 .
It's already been said by many others, but I have to add my voice to the chorus.
The issue, for me, is two fold: 1. The "choices" at the end are inconsistent with the entire Mass Effect universe, inconsistent with how the majority of us play or see our Shepard. When I was standing there on the platform, I realized: I, as Shepard, wouldn't choose any of these options because all of them were contrary to everything my Shepard stood for over the course of three games. Yet I was forced to pick an out of character choice only to find out that the choice was completely irrelevant as they were all, essentially, identical.
The ending should be comprised of a multitude of options that take into account player choice. The primary reason I'm so disappointed is because I feel like nothing I did in the series mattered at the end. Someone who rushed through the third game only got the exact same options as those of us who played all three games. All emotional connections to the previous content are forcibly severed by the glaring plot holes: Who cares that I just resolved a 300 year old conflict when it's moot? Who cares that the genophage is cured when it obviously becomes irrelevant? The love interest I spent 2 games and a DLC fostering ends up being nothing more than an excuse to provide PG-13 softcore!
As others have said, there needs to be a wide range of endings: Tragic, Happy, Sad, Good, Evil, et cetera. But they must be earned. To have the best possible ending where Shepard lives with his or her love interest must be difficult to obtain, a la ME2, and it still must contain some degree of sacrifice.
2. Closure The lack of closure in the game is appalling. All we can do is speculate based on the universe that we know and the limited (and poorly delivered) content given at the end of the game. I won't go into each of the plot holes here as I'm certain many others have in this very thread. But there has to be closure. It doesn't matter which of the endings the player earns, the loose ends must be wrapped up.
After all, closure was stated by the developers repeatedly during the pre-release build up. It was stated the ending wouldn't be dragged out and confusing like Lost, and that players would see all the story lines conclude. While we saw a lot of series story arcs conclude, the most important one - the Reaper war and "Take Earth Back" (right here on the back of the box) - was left without any closure. And because that was left open, there's no closure for any of the characters, either.
Members of the community have laid the foundation for you. As much as I dislike it due to plot holes of its own, take the Indoctrination Theory and run with it; I can overlook the Indoc plot holes so long as the endings care about player choice and provide closure. Pick up the game right after "the decision". If the player chose Control or Synthesis, have Shepard being "woken up" by his crew mates and then all decisions toward the end are built on those choices (with indoctrination in mind). If the player chose Destroy, have the crew find Shepard in the rubble and because Shepard resisted indoctrination, lay the groundwork for the endings predicated on that choice (a blank slate with the potential happiest ending). This way, players happy with the existing endings can keep them and be happy while those of us who are unhappy have an option to wrap up the series in a more satisfactory way.
I know it's a lot of work and I'm not expecting it for free. However, I must add this caveat: I'm not willing to pay the price for a whole new game just to get the resolution and ending this game was supposed to provide. A $15-20 dollar Expansion DLC, I'll gladly pay for to compensate BW for the work necessary to pull this together. Whatever the case, it needs to be pulled together - and soon.
Edit: Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't keep the linking going:
These two articles hit the nail on the head, with the first one going into extreme depth:
Pretty much verything up until you attack Earth is fantastic. Serisously, it's approaching perfect from my perspective. Sub-plots are resolved in very fulfilling ways, your team is much more interactive with you and each other (like Liara confronting Javik after Thessia), you really have a sense that the galaxy is at war with the Reapers, and feel how this is affecting people, and it's great that not every character you bring on to your ship can be taken in your team, like Wrex and Mordin, and Victus, and later, Legion and the Admirals.
There are two things I would add, however: more teamates, and loyalty missions.
There's a distinct lack of 'flavor'. Two human, three returning, one new who you already know to an extent. Javik is the only truly new and interesting character. James is...... Unnecessary. Why aren't there any returning characters from ME2? They can be entirely optional. Grunt, if his company dies, Samara, after she leaves her daughter, Miranda, after you meet her in Sanctuary, why not a Batarian character? Better yet, how about Kolyat joins you to honor his father? Why can't you tell Ashley to **** off and help Hackett, or Tali to stay with the Flotilla? More customization of your team.
Your team is smaller in the attempt to have a more personal story with each of them. It doesn't work as intended. You already know most of these characters, there's little more to be learnt. ME2 worked because you've been out of the picture for so long, every person had there own issues, and the game revolved around you resolving them and getting to know each person again. In order to achieve an ever deeper relationship with people like Garrus, there needs to be more loyalty missions. Obviously everyone is already loyal, so it shouldn't affect things too deeply. Perhaps it could just increase how effective the Normandy is.
Take Garrus, for example. He mentions his family is on Palaven, and his mother is very sick. We should have had the opportunity to pursue this.
That's all I think needs changin before Earth. Listing what needs to be done after that would take FAR to long.
I'm just going to type a few things that I believe were minor issues, probably already covered, but if it helps you guys I'm more than happy.
First, magnificent game. Absolutely stunning visually, emotionally and the voice acting was stellar. (For Femshep, can't really review Sheploo) Thank you for making me riveted to my computer, alternately in moments of shock and exhilaration for the first time since KOTOR, my first RPG.
Minor issues for me:
The quest log is mildly irritating, I would like quest tracking on the galaxy map again. I need more information than [ IRUNE : FETCH DOG BONE ]. Which system? etc.
Also on the quest log, I would like some form of reminder if one of your squad/an acquaintance wants to catch up on some part of the citadel - I nearly missed some critical dialogue - using the map for everything seems clunky.
Lack of Navpoint for consoles/etc on missions sometimes meant running around for ages trying to find the button for something. Cerberus base airlock door, anyone?
My two cents on the endings:
I bought the game knowing in my heart the most likely scenario was that Shep wouldn't survive, so the endings didn't really come as a surprise (apart from the consequences). If some more epilogue was added, the sacrifice meant something (easily fixed by not destroying the mass relays) and plot holes fixed, I wouldn't mind running with the current ones too much.
Above all else, the ending cannot raise brand new questions. There is absolutely nothing wrong with an ending that leaves certain issues unresolved or invites speculation as to what future awaits the galaxy and the characters. A good example of a question that I don't think should ever have been answered is the motivation of the Reapers for purging the galaxy of intelligent life- Sovereign tells us on Virmire that we are incapable of understanding the motivations of beings vastly greater than ourselves and it detracts from the sense of wonderment to find out that they have fairly pedestrian (and contradictory for that matter) reasons for their actions. The ending as it currently stands though does not only leave some long standing questions unresolved, but starts churring out brand new issues in the last 5 minutes of the game. Chief among them:
1) Did I just destroy most of galactic civilization by blowing up the mass relays?
2) What in heaven's name is going on with the Normandy, and is my crew doomed to a slow painful death from starvation?
I personally believe that an open-ended ending (sweet, bittersweet, or just plain sour) would not be in keeping with the Mass Effect universe but I could handle it, provided that my level of confusion isn't increasing exponentially as the credits roll.
After three games and countless hours, my Shepard's story is over, and to say I'm disappointed would be an understatement. Mass Effect was billed as a series of games where your choices from one game would carry over and have consequences in the next. However having reached the end, I don't feel like those choices mattered one bit. They seemed to boil down to an arbitrary number that told me how ready for war the galaxy was and regardless of how low or high that number was I'm going to get the same ending. The only difference being what colour energy wave was emitted from the Citadel and how Shepard died. Or her legend was born if you want to be all fancy.
What was the point of curing the genophage? What was the point of resolving the quarian conflict with the geth? What was the point of all these big decisions through all three games if they don't change anything other than a number and have zero effect on the story's ending?
The final scene of the Normandy marooned on an unknown world somewhere in god knows what galaxy or universe raises more questions. How did Shepard's squad mates get back on board? Where is Joker flying to if the Relays are destroyed? More importantly are we supposed to believe that the Normandy crew is large enough, with a diverse enough gene pool to allow humanity to continue on this world? And then what happens to the alien crew members? Or is Liara now responsible for churning out blue babies until the day she dies?
I didn't expect, want or need a fairytale, everyone lives, no one dies type ending, but a range of endings with different outcomes was the minimum I expected depending on Shepard's decisions throughout the trilogy. Endings ranging from the reapers are defeated and Shepard survives to live out her life however she wants, down to Shepard fails and the reapers win, and everything in-between. What I didn't expect was a one size fits all style ending that could be recreated with a black and white image and a box of crayons.
I thought ME3 was amazing up to the final part where you charge the beam in order to get on the citadel, and then it felt like someone had changed the channel, or cut in the ending from a different game. It didn't feel like Mass Effect anymore. The final part with the star child just felt completely out of place. The reapers are the solution to the problem of synthetic life rebelling against and destroying the organic life that made them? Even though in the very same game it's possibly to have the quarians and geth reconcile their differences and work together. I'd have preferred the reapers remain a mystery with their motivations left unknown. If that meant an ending where Shepard fires a big gun to kill them, then so be it. I'd rather have that ending to the one I got!
If you're going to create a game and tell your players they can shape the story based on their decisions and have those decisions have a real impact, then follow through on it. This is the biggest problem for me. I feel like my choices don't matter. Regardless of how I play all three games, I'm going to get the same ending. An ending that leaves me with more questions than answers, and one that I can do nothing about.
I have little desire to play ME3 again with my other two Shepards, or to buy any DLC, as I feel it's not going to change anything. I'll get the same depressing cutscene come the end of their story with no chance of attaining the conclusion I want for them.
I love the Mass Effect games and for 99% of the time they're fantastic, but that last 1%, which is ME3's ending has left me with a sour taste in my mouth, and I find it hard to believe that BioWare thought it was a good way to end both the trilogy and Shepard's story. I've become very attached to my Shepard and the characters in all three games and to have that smashed in to the ground, with no idea as to what's happened to them or the civilisations of the galaxy come the end is a real punch in the gut.
Jessica - you asked what you did right so I'm going to start with that. I'm sorry if the formatting on this turns out weird but I'm writing this on my iPhone.
The good: Most of the death scenes were perfect, Thanes final prayer, Tali telling Legion he had a soul and Legion responding with "I know", even Mordin's sacrifice to cure the genophage. These were all heart wrenching, some of the best death scenes ive ever seen in a video game.
The war assets system was actually fun, it made sidequests mean something. Instead of going yay another 5000 credits /rolleyes, I was actually excited to see how much the bar had filled up, and how much closer I was to taking back earth.
Problems:
First off the crucible itself, I know at this point it can't be fixed, but even the idea of this is pretty sad. My best friend hasn't played any mass effect games, and weeks before launch he asked me how I thought the reapers would be beaten. I completely sarcastically said a giant megadeath ray that no one had ever seen before that we discovered just as the reapers attack. He couldn't stop laughing a few weeks later when I told him about the crucible. He's a comic book fan and started calling it Biowares ultimate nullifier.
War assets - Like I said earlier the system itself is fun. Making it impossible to get the best ending without playing multiplayer is not fun. Pretty much everyone has capped out close to 7000 war assets from single player only. With no multiplayer and the .5 multiplier this ends up at 3500 ems which is well short of the 4000 needed to get the Shepard lives ending.
The ending -
I don't really even know where to start here. I do understand the catalysts distinction between killing advanced human life and killing all human life, but it's still a flawed theory, and my Shepard would have called him on it. My Shepard had no desire to control the reapers, or to merge everyone in the universe with synthetics (aren't husks a synthetic human hybrid?), but in the end he never would have sacrificed an entire race (the geth) either.
It could easily have been explained that we are giving the reapers a better fight because of project ilos delaying them for so long, and now we have a fighting chance.
Let our war assets determine the ending in a meaningful way instead of just changing which options the reaper god child offers.
Finally give us some closure. I don't mean a long dialogue strewn cutscene, but a quick flash to how everyone ended up. Personally I would love to have this done with a narration by Liara, explaining what happened to everyone through her little data box. If we got the good ending flash to where people/races ended up, if we got the reapers win ending flash to a future cycle using her box to defeat the reapers themselves. Let our choices up to the ending impact how the game ends - not a dialogue choice in the last 30 seconds.
Game was good for what it was, a continuation and final chapter to a series. Not much room for new players to get into so I'd imagine those players who did just get into the game are probably scratching their heads as to what's going on; and from what I've been told by those without save-import data the game is -DRASTICALLY- different and missing a lot of key characters we've come to love. So as far as the emotional aspect it's a double-edged sword: A veteran player will get the pain-staking heartbreak of watching his friends die, while a new player will be hard pressed to even care about these people/not even see them in the case of the character not being present (presumably dead with the default game data).
Combat is impressive, it's a massive expansion from it's predecessors. I've never really agree'd with the whole "thermal clip" non-sense but it is what it is. The general feel of the battlefield is more refined, smoother, a bit faster paced and gives some room for error more times than not.
Music and audio dialogue is perfect. Couldn't ask for more besides one particular bit in Shepard's dream sequences where the trumpets sound (presumably from the Reaper in his dream) and there's no delay/reverb to add an atmospheric affect, so it sounded somewhat displaced. However, I'm a musician in real life and am very finicky when it comes to audio..!
The theme felt a bit rushed however. The planet scanning was done for the better but I honestly expected to be dropped down on the planet to explore a bit when it comes to the side-quests, this wasn't the case however as I was just given a text box explaining that I rescued person A from site B. The side-quests that did allow me to partake an up-close-and-personal perspective usually had to do with cameo appearances from characters that I previously spent time with; unfortunately the majority of those characters (exception of love interest: Jack) I didn't honestly grow too attached to and was somewhat disappointed when my favored characters all died and the less like-able ones wound up living.
For the crowning conclusion... The ending was horrible. Nothing can define the utter lack of interest and respect I had with Bioware for this propositional "interpretation" which, to me, only could be a metaphorical explanation of where the **** the budget went (multiplayer/kinect peripherals). A random omnipotent being was thrown in the place of a very compelling villain (harbinger, who had absolutely no dialogue what-so-ever) with a half-baked premise, and what's worse is that he was given a form of a boy that died very early in the game and didn't even have the common courtesy to explain -WHY- he was in that form.
To top it off the ending was just bland, it wasn't bittersweet at all it was just distasteful. Every decision, outcome, and circumstance that ever occured over the past five years made literally no meaning what-so-ever to a linear and scripted ending with barely any differential evidence to support any of the choice endings actually mattering. It was like being given the option of three equally cooked steaks and asking me which one is prime, choice, or what-have-you. Even in the -BEST CASE SCENARIO- the mass relay's are still destroyed, the entire galaxy's armada (now located around earth) starves to death because half of them can't even consume human food and to top it all off there's no hope for humanity in the same sense because the planet in it's prime (pre-apocalyptic warfare brought on by the Reapers) couldn't keep it's own population properly provisioned, much less an entire galactic armada.
Finally there was the sheer instability of throwing my chosen squad-mates (after I had just made a very influential speech might I add) onto the Normandy without even informing me that they had decided to go AWOL. The Normandy is called off by a barely audible 'hint' during the rush to the Citadel beam where I encountered my final boss; Marauder Shields. To sum it all up I could just go back to the 'Load' screen and select 'Restart Mission' and go through all three of the endings at the drop of a hat, but even that would take more time than simply typing in "Mass Effect 3 Endings" into youtube to see the lackluster conclusion to an immersive series.
This, combined with the Dragon Age 2 flop (which I haven't even bothered finishing because it was so badly made in comparison of it's predecessor) have given me the sense that Bioware simply does not give a damn about it's community anymore. I'd imagine that the corrupt ideal that pre-orders being your major source of profit for the production of these games put's Bioware at an advantage has been branded on and now the company is just trying to find a way to lighten the damage without losing it's primary source of income, producing not one but TWO sequels that don't appeal to the greater sense of the community (as evidenced by statistics alone) regardless of how much disguising a company can seemingly put forth.
The ending would be forgivable if I simply had not grown to expect this sort of product from the company as of late, and my patience has grown remarkably thin. Never before have I personally questioned whether or not I would want to buy a product from Bioware; but this is just speculation and personal agenda. Thank you for your time.
I posted a bunch of stuff, so I am not repeat myself. I am on my second playthrough, and more stuff seems to stick out.
1) It seems like you nail the little details like if Reegar lived, you get a message that he died helping the Tuarians. It is closure for npc that maybe had five lines in Mass Effect 2.
2) On the second playthrough, I wonder why are the Reapers attacking Sanctuary. They did it because the IM learned he could control the Reapers, but the God-kid who controlled the Reapers stated that he couldn't control the Reapers, because they controlled him. So why did the Reapers attack Sanctuary?
The only thing that was wrong with the game was the ending that lend to all bad choices. You could put in a more happy ending (like the mass effect 1 and 2) depending on war assets and show a few scenes of your friends and people you know celebreting in someway and with sheperd making love with his/her lover with a kid or a romatic place.
a HUGE thing to say is theres NO point to DLC atm with the end mass effect has. Ive bought every dlc for MS2 for one thing only improvment and enrichment of the actual END. In hindsight would I have bought em HELL no the end dosnt just kill of DLC:s in kills of the replay value of the ENTIRE series.
I've hitherto been a huge fan of this series; considered it one of the best sci-fi plots ever actually. It's conclusion has definitely compromised its status as such in my mind however. I'm not exaggerating when I say, at least for me personally, it was profoundly disappointing; a paramount culprit for such being simply this; a paucity of answers. (Being that each ending featured but trivial disparities, they were consequently all commensurately disappointing.)
While it is acceptable, and to be expected, that the first installment of any series leave one with more questions that answers upon its culmination, such is not acceptable in the conclusion of the final installment. Installments one and two ended with superb cliffhangers, which installment 3 ultimately failed to adequately resolve.
Things that I really need to be explicated in Mass Effect 3 to achieve adequate resolution and closure:
A more thorough explanation of what the Reapers are.
An explanation of the Reaper hierarchy.
Who/what created the Reapers and why.
A more detailed explication of the Protheans, their civilization, and its extinction.
(And perhaps most importantly of all.) What happens to the main characters following the defeat of the Reapers.
A meandering plot.
The first three items, save for the most vague allusions, are almost altogether ignored. Harbinger, the antagonist of the second installment (and implicit leader of the Reapers), is oddly absent the entire game. The Reapers themselves, who are imposing and distinct entities in the first two installments, are reduced to a mob of aloof and ambiguous foes. Harbinger, who unlike Sovereign was not destroyed, plays no significant role and is relegated to a few tangential references in ME3. This was a drastic change from the original flow of the story that made little sense to me, and leaves what can only be described as a gaping void in the third installment's story. There simply is no primary antagonist (but rather a plethora of unfulfilling vague ones).
Vastly superior master race... or just pretentious a-holes?
On ILos, we are led to believe by Vigil that the agenda of the Reapers is something quite grandiose, even beyond comprehension by organics; the Reapers themselves repeatedly make tantamount assertions over the course of the series. Yet in installment 3, the Catalyst (who should have explicated the first three items above but doesn't) justifies millions of years of genocide with tepid appeals to an absurdly simplistic "chaos versus order" philosophy, and references to one of the most trite science fiction plots in existence as his motivation (organics versus machines); rendering it just another rehashed variant of a rather pedestrian premise; e.g., "The Matrix," "Terminator," "I Robot," et al. (And who/what is the Catalyst exactly? Answers?) Why does the Catalyst intransigently hold this belief? How does he know synthetics will always wipe out organics? This also is never explained, and Shepard, who deluged other characters with queries ("investigate") about far less profound topics all game long, is strangely uninquisitive before an entity which, having observed it for eons, conceivably holds the answers to all the secrets of the galaxy.
Seriously... where's the real ending?
Ultimately, I found the ending suffered a dearth of creativity compared to its antecedents, and mistakenly followed the same "cliff hanger" ending template as its predecessors; which is not feasible for a final installment (which needs to tie all the loose ends). The hologram of the boy being the Catalyst was just vapid in my opinion; reminiscent of that dreadfully awful film "Contact;" in which you endured woefully protracted and uninteresting dialogue, only to have the alien you spent the entire movie waiting to see, be a representation of the main character's human father. (I also expect more than a five minute ending from a game in which I invested four days to achieve the most and best of everything possible. Modern games make me miss the pathos evoking characters of the old FF RPGs, and their protracted sentimental endings.)
Epic space battles are all well and good, but all the CG in the world cannot compensate for a failure to provide character development and story resolution. See this concept somewhat illustrated here:
While I like big explosions and special effects as much as the next guy, I ultimately want to see a meaningful resolution for characters to which I have become connected. It's imprudent to have Shepard die, when three games playing him has made you highly averse to that outcome. (And if he does, I want to feel the loss, which the current ending, by omitting its impact upon anyone close to him, doesn't really accomplish.) Even more, however, I want to see him survive (at least in some form), defeat the reapers, and be with his love interest; to see him, and his friends, assuming roles in everything I spent three games working to save. Such loose ends however, the last item in the list, are not addressed in any meaningful way whatsoever.
Totally nonsensical.
Furthermore, there are some aspects of the ending which make no sense. Liara, my love interest, was with me on Earth during the final battle. Yet in the ending she is with Joker (who for no apparent reason made a mass relay jump) on an alien planet; why they're there and their fate, frustratingly, to be forever unknown to you.
In the end, Mass Effect 3 leaves me with an uncerimoniously, and outright flippantly killed protagonist, and more questions than answers. The answers I do have aren't adequate to achieve finality, understanding, and ultimately self-contentment. While the game, obviously, cannot be remade, the ending definitely needs a major overhaul.
--Additional issues--
The pointless Prothean.
I was hoping the Prothean discovered on Eden Prime would have served to accomplish the fourth item. Rather than making this character a scientist, or some august and erudite Prothean however, he's a frustratingly uninformative soldier; one, lamentably, almost as ignorant of the details of his own civilization as your own squad members. You may as well have found a Prothean janitor in that stasis pod. This character serves no purpose, as he provides little to no elucidation on a species, the understanding and fate of which, are an integral aspect of the game's storyline.
I really wish more focus was given to resolving the main story, rather than adding numerous side missions which were little more than pointless filler (basically all of the multi-player maps). Playing as a Prothean during the Reaper invasion in their cycle, in a real time flashback after Shepard touched a beacon for example, would have been fun, a great tool for explaining more about them, and a far preferable alternative to cleaning up a nuclear reactor with a nobody Captain Riley. (The battle in which the Prothean you find on Eden Prime took part could have also been such. That would have been some worthwhile DLC.)
All previous races were cuttlefish.
At the end of installment two, the Reaper "army" in dark space exhibits a variety of (somewhat) differing Reaper designs.
Yet virtually all of the large "original" Reaper types are seemingly identical in this installment. If they're all based on different races, why are they so similar in appearance, and why was the Human Reaper demarcated by a such stark contrast in design. This is something else never explained. Also, what is the purpose of the smaller type 2 Reapers (e.g., the one killed by the Thresher Maw)? What is the significance, if any, of the size disparity? Are they made from lesser, or less valued, races (in the eyes of the Reapers)?
P.S. I would also like to state, frankly, that the failure to show Tali's face was utterly lame; as were the excuses given for such (e.g., the Geth server). I have waited three games to see it, and you've still failed to deliver. This isn't Halo. She isn't Master Chief. I want to see the face of my virtual girlfriend for two straight games (not a photo of it).
P.S.S. I'd also like to see the multiplayer, which now only serves an ancillary role, expanded to be it's own stand alone entity. Rather than these annoying packages being purchased for upgrades, make the it more like single player, with a level/unlock system for new weapons, and which allows you to spec for certain ammo types, powers, etc. It would be a lot more fun, and have greater replay value as such.
Me, I feel that if they want to keep the ending/s, it's okay. Fine. But I need an epilogue. You know, so I could find out what happens to the rest of the galaxy, so I could get some real closure. And please, let it be a epilogue that's affected by one's choices in the game.....unlike the ending....
I liked the game for the most part. The "auto-dialogue" actually served to breathe life into the character of Shepard, who was no longer the "brick wall" from the previous games. This created some powerful moments, and it made Shepard my favorite characters in the game. I liked the focus on the main storyline, unlike what we got in ME2. It was a great experience, and up until the ending I genuinely thought this game was even better than I had dared to hope. There were some bugs and the game felt a little short, and the new characters weren't all that interesting (Allers and Kai Leng in particular) but overall it was a great experience. There's also the link to MP that I find very questionable, but then came the ending...
The ending felt like I was playing a different game altogether. I was expecting a lot of very different endings, ranging from good to bad. I was expecting endings where the Reapers win, where Cerberus wins, the galactic civilizations win, where Shepard lives/dies all depending on past actions. What I got was an ending that felt extremely limited in choices, and had (my) Shepard acting out of character. The Catalyst was only introduced in the very last minutes and forced its twisted logic upon Shepard (and the player), even when Shepard had worked so hard to prove those theories wrong. I was grudgingly left to choose an option, receiving some sort of "spritiual" ending with little or no closure and a Normandy crash scene that only serves to leave me questioning what the heck I just watched. One week later, I can only conclude the ending is still as disjointed and not fitting for the franchise as I initially thought it was. People are even trying to explain it by saying "it's all a dream and it happened in Shepard's head", which says a lot about how little sense the endings actually makes.
It's not so much about wanting a happy ending, as the initial gaming media response to the ending tried to suggest. Truth is I totally expected that option, much like ME 2 did, and I also support the people that wanted this option. After all the talk how the games were meant for fans to make their own story, forcing them down a dark and more tragic ending is a questionable tactic. But that's not even the main issue, some of my favorite games had very dark endings (though those actually fit the rest of the game). What bothers me are the plotholes, lack of closure, lack of options and my Shepard not acting anything like the Shepard I know from the three previous games.
If it stays like this, so be it, but then I'm just going to shelve the game. I'll remember the ME games for what they are, great games with a disappointing conclusion that doesn't fit the games at all. And I really regret that, because it would otherwise have been one of my favorite game trilogies ever, a trilogy I would recommend to everyone even five years from now. A trilogy that rewarded the fans that played through all three games. I don't care how many times I have to read about how the people complaining are "entitled whiners", I know what those people feel after investing so many hours in these games. I'm convinced Bioware can fix this and deliver what they promised in the first place, if that's in the form of DLC they charge for then I'd understand, they've already shown they can release DLC of an exceptional quality (LoTSB) that used fan feedback to improve the experience. Nonetheless, a genuine thank you goes to the people at Bioware for giving us such an interesting sci-fi universe filled with unforgettable characters. You have now received more feedback than ever on one particular ill-received aspect of your games, one I'm convinced you can do something about. I can only hope you use that feedback once again.
Here's another suggestion; make Mass Effect 4. The future is bright; Reapers are gone and so is there limiting space travel technology. Maybe a whole new drive system is developed on Earth by the survivors of the war; and while things might get a little dicey for a few years the galaxy can continue on in an awesome way....I'd love to play as an 'explorer' on the first ship capable of generating speeds relative to what relays offered but without the relays. You could go and visit all these 'saved' worlds and see where the ended up following the Reaper war.
Lol, this is just food for thought however. Mass Effect 4 wouldn't have to be so grand a scale as the Shep trilogy; it could be a low key, exploration mission with a few twists depending on how Shep shaped the galaxy. In fifty years are the Krogan flourishing or did they go extinct because I didn't cure cure them? That sort of idea, and it would still allow all of our choices to really matter as the series moves forward.
Plus Points Gameplay - really enjoyable especially when outsmarting the enemy like flanking them with the new map layouts that is a vast improvement over ME2's shooting galleries
Story - apart from the ending the story feels very much like a real war with consequences with you feel emotionally involved with (one of my friends was gutted that he had to kill Mordin to stop him from releasing the genophage cure from being released in his situation)
Graphics/soundtrack - exceptional feels like I am watching a film rather than playing a game (i mean it as a compliment)
Characters - the squad members in ME3 really do go through change in the story with them having high and low moments throughout and seeing them actually socialising with one another is a nice touch
Negatives
Ending - I know you have heard enough on this note but the ending does feel rushed with little to no explanation of what is going on and why only those options and does not feel like you are Shepard because you usually question as much as possible and in the ending he/she just accepts it.
No consequences - the ending barely changes depending on your galactic readiness apart from colour of explosion and a final clip of Shepard in the rubble of london which does destroy all that effort getting the krogan and the turians to become best friends and resolve the issues with the geth and the Quarians.
Plot holes - the ending sequence is full of them especially with normandy which the vast majority of it is why is joker leaving the battle when he is meant to be fighting the reapers, why is your squad on the normandy when they are fighting in London. How did the reapers regain control of the Citadel when the conduit meant to disable them access.
ME2 appearances - most of the appearances feel like after thoughts and most of them do not get treated very nicely especially for those who romanced them. With me I did not have this issue too much with Love interests because i romanced Miranda and granted it was not great but it was a damn sight better than Jack, Jacob and Thane's
LI - the ending destroys the entire basis of having a LI because they are most likely trapped on a distant planet and most likely die on that planet and you are either dead or trapped on earth and will likely die because it is in no state to sustain the population and different races on earth without assistance which won't happen thanks to the mass relays being destroyed.
War Assets - annoying process that the vast majority of the time you get money which is NOT what you do it for you do it for war assets. (prefered ME2's system because at least that was not challenging and you got what you were after
Overall Overall if it was not for the last section of the game i will be my favourite game of all time but the ending severely damages the replay value and the feelings of the ending.
Everything I would have thought to written, so many others seem to have covered already, so even though I came in here prepared to write a full-fledged essay, I'll stick to some short points, instead!
1. Fix the endings; not there yet myself, but I have seen the videos and spoken with a lot of people who have already finished the game, some online, some in rl; everyone was disappointed, crestfallen, even traumatised! I understand the concept of an open, sci-fi ending, but not when you get the feeling nothing is over; worse yet, there are so many and so immense plotholes there and I was able to see them just by the videos, for crying out loud! If this is the last part of Shepard's story, then the story, the characters, the players need some degree of closure!! And the endings available right now, just fail tragically at providing that!
Not vying for a happy ending; in my view, given the stakes are so high, there can probably not be a happy ending, not overall. But we had a choice of endings in ME2, from optimal-everyone lives- to disastrous-everyone, including Shepard, Joker, even the Normandy itself-get annihilated! The options given at the end of ME3 hardly seem satisfactory, to put it mildly!
I think the indoctrination/hallucination theory makes perfect sense-perhaps you ought to consider hiring some of the fans in that creative team, since that theory is so well-thought out it probably puts the officially scripted ending, as we see it at the end of the game to shame, for that matter!
Go for it and give us more ending options, let us see an epic-scale endgame battle-that takes advantage and utilises all our efforts to gather was assets; let us see them in action! And for crying out loud, use the indoctrination theory for the endings, it's an awesome idea!!
At the very least, give us more choices, allow our choices in the previous games to have a bearing; and if that cannot be, a video with what really happened as an epilogue would be OK...not fine, not the best choice, but it would serve!
2. The ME2 romances; do something to amend them, it seems to me they all got sidetracked in blatant favouritism to the ME1 ones and that is just not fair to all of us who romanced someone in ME2!!:/
The Thane romance for instance; much as I appreciate your games and have bought quite a few of them over the years ,and much as you have my admiration for your amazing characters and plots, when I read that comment about how it 'didn't click'with some of the writing team that Thane had been a LI, I was furious!! That was not just dropping the ball, in my book, it was never finding the ball to drop it! :/ No offense to the writers, they've done a decent job overall, but come on, that was a disastrous, unacceptable mistake to make!!
Yes, we knew he was terminally ill in ME2 and we still romanced him; you led us on with dropped hints on cures and possible treatments and though we knew it might not pan out and he might die anyway, we still hoped.
And then in ME3 you handled his romance...well, you didn't really handle it; romanced Shepards get a few brief, insufficient and unsatisfactory moments with him before the end and, though I like the fact he technically goes out fighting, I know I'm not the only one who would have liked an option to save him, even at the end, or at least a beautiful, romantic moment with him before the end, a chance to say goodbye!
And after he was gone, if there was no way to save him ,after all,a conversation with someone else about him, the chance for Shepard to show emotion, maybe?
Everyone else, I hear, gets discussed after they die/after we lose them in the game-even Ashley/Kaidan, whichever of them we choose to scarifice in ME1. Everyone but Thane and he is an important character to some of us who romanced him and,why not, to others who didn't romance him, but still liked him! From an RP-point of you, this is entirely unforgivable and it 'breaks' character for Shepard and pretty much everyone else, as well!!
And you do not want to get me started on Jacob, whose character you completely broke! From straight arrow, solid and reliable in ME2, he goes to someone who cheated on Shepard and was all cavalier about it to boot? Another lost and dropped ball, I presume? It'd be nice to see some amendment there, as well!
Hmm...mini essay after all, so much for my determination to keep it short!
I just want to know what happened to EVERYONE in my crew, and what happened to all the aliens in the galaxy. Did they return home? COULD they return home? Was all the peace-making we did for naught? And with the crew, where did they end up? The only people I saw step off the ship in my playthrough was Joker, James, and Kaiden; How the hell are they supposed to continue civilization on some random planet? Won't everyone die with the relays destroyed? Why was Joker flying around in space when he should have been fighting? Was it all a dream? Indoctrination? Shouldn't all these plot holes be fixed before you call the end "complete?" After all, you did promise that we'd leave with more answers than questions, and I speak for all of us when I say we have WAY more questions now than we ever did.
I would suggest multiple options. One would be the indoc theory as long as it combined with other endings.
The one major thing I thought was missing form the final act was chioce. I mean you spent the whole game collecting War Assets and you never really get to use them. Now my idea takes a little reworking of the last level, not changing.
When you start "taking back" earth the game mechanics should be simalr to Mass Effect 2. There would be stages to the final level where you would pick specific alliances to help in situation. For example fighting against overwhelming ground troops you would ask Krogans to help and suceed, asking salarians would mean failure and setback toward a darker ending. There are multiple ways to set up scenarios throughout the level. Another example would be fighting Harvesters, Volus Bombing Fleet Good, Any ground forces, Bad. You get the Idea
On the Beam Run you can employ something similar and this would be the chance to have diffrent endings. Three ways it can go
First: you used your War Assets the wrong way and got a lot of them killed, you would not be able to make it to the beam, get killed game over. Cue Reaper Invasion on multi planets and the end
Second: You did OK, make it almost to the beam and get hit by harbinger beam. Cue Indoc Theory (huge nod to fans here) Flesh out each chioce to have diffrent meaning 1 Control - Shep wakes up as a husk killing some of his teammates (LI if there is one) before being put down. Player has NO control over shep. Cue first ending 2 Synthesis - Wakes up partially indoc like illusive man. has chance to still win but will definately die. 3 Destroy - Breaks form indoc and has a chance at best ending. Can be 50/50 becaus of lost time being in indoc. Cue chance at third Option but way harded (even on easy)
Third: You did everthing right (used War Assets properly with least possible loss) and make it to the beam (this is where you can get creative if indoc theory is in). You make it up to the Citadel and Have to fight your way to the Control panel to allow the Crucible to fire. Along the way you do find out what the crucilbe will do. Give player a chioce A) (Paragon)tell fleets to break off and head home (Renegade) don't tell them and strand them (some would still stay and help regardless of you asking.
The Third ending is where you can get the happy Epic ending. If you have a high enough EMS (6000+ would be my suggestion), If you used the War Assets properly. Obvioulsy it should take work to get here. Oh and once you do ignite the fuse, you should only have minutes to fight your way out, another two possible ending Shep lives or dies)
I want the indoctrination thoery to become true. After that I have no suggestions. You guys are the writers and I want to be surprised on what happens next.
Retour en haut
(Renegade) don't tell them and strand them (some would still stay and help regardless of you asking. 
