Super massive rant GO!
My main issues with the ME3 ending could be divided in half between lack of choice and lack of cohesion.
1. Lack of choice. Obviously, I'm referring to the point with the Catalyst and onward. It's really important to realize the depth of the problem here. There are three layers to it:
- The ending does not take into account the choices the player has made.
- The ending is not divergent.
- The ending actively negates the choices the player has made.
- Starting with the first, no matter how we have played the series up to this point, the options are the same. Somebody who has played Renegade throughout the entire series will get the same exact options as someone who has played Paragon. At this point, whether you cured the Genophage, or brought the Geth and Quarians together, or let the Rachni live...none of it matters one iota. It is at this final point in the game that you realize the payoff to these actions has been raising a number. Honestly this is not the most major of the issues, as the ending could still work so long as the different options are divergent enough.
- But they aren't, which leads us to the second bullet: each one produces the same outcome. Yes, they are in theory dramatically different: one destroys the reapers, one merges organic/synthetic life, one allows control of the reapers. However, the player really can't appreciate the differences at all (I certainly couldn't), because it is left up entirely to their imagination what the implications of these decisions are, or what they even mean. For instance, can someone really explain to me what it
means for organic and synthetic life to 'merge'? I had to roll my eyes a bit; isn't something either organic or synthetic?
This is all made infinitely worse by the fact that the different ending cut-scenes are all the same,
save for the different coloured explosions. This idea is, on the face of it, ludicrous. I understand that creating different end cinematics costs time and resources, but in the case of this game it is pretty much necessary, especially given how the game was hyped. As a result of this cut corner, the three supposedly radical decisions seem entirely the same. Who cares if the reapers are controlled or destroyed if the only visual difference is red/blue? Most don't. The player, in truth, has not grown invested in the fate of the galaxy as a whole. Honestly, as a player I do not really care about galactic civilizations 50,000+ years in the future; call me selfish. I care about my character, about my squadmates, about the Krogan, etc. I want the endings to make a difference to those things. The past three games have not made me care about the larger picture of galactic life millions of years in the future, and that won't change in the last ten minutes. But I'll leave the rest of this for the section on Cohesion.
So, yes, the different endings are radically different, but not in any way that is represented in the story of the game, or in any way that the player has grown invested in. So really, they aren't different in any way that matters.
- Lastly, the endings actually negate the choices that the player has made. The entire gameplay of Mass Effect 3 revolves around uniting the galaxy together to face the Reaper threat, but the ending unavoidably destroys all mass relays, stranding the separate galactic civilizations from each other, forever. So, you united the Turians and Krogan together? Too bad that it doesn't matter, at all. You destroyed Cerberus? Yeah, but that doesn't really matter either. Everybody is now so far away from each other that previous wars/alliances are pretty much meaningless. Whether the Krogan were planning on invading everyone again or not doesn't matter, because the logistics of doing so are so much higher now!
This is honestly the worst problem in regards to choice. While the other two bullet points are somewhat forgivable because their solutions cost time/resources, this one boils down to writing and could have been easily avoided. Not only is the player left to imagine what the different endings will mean, even in their imagination all of their previous choices mean nothing. The freedom of the other games turns to ash in the player's mouth. As another player said, Shepard may as well have sat next to one of the bombs on Eden Prime in ME1 and let them kill him. Nothing he does, save the final ten minutes, has a sense of weight.
Okay, one last thing. The common defense of the ending here is that it's about the journey, not the destination; the whole game is the ending! This is a non-argument. True, for the disenfranchised player it is helpful to focus on the parts they enjoyed, but the whole game is obviously
not the ending in terms of narrative structure. Yes, throughout ME3 certain things in the series are resolved, such as the Genophage, but these are secondary plot-lines. The primary plot-line, which has been far more present throughout the entire series (ie, struggle against the Reapers) is only resolved at the very end. This is the primary conflict throughout the series and is the most important resolution in terms of narrative. No other smaller resolutions can be equated with this.
Imagine we replicated this logic with another series. Let's remove the resolution with Darth Vader and the Emperor at the final Star Wars and just say, "The whole movie was the ending!" The Empire loses, Han and the princess get together, isn't that good enough? No. It doesn't work like that.
2. Lack of cohesion. This is, to me, even more offensive than the lack of choice. The last ten minutes of this game are fundamentally at odds with everything else in the series, and that is the part that really made it so sour for me. It may not be a bad ending, if it were the ending to an entirely different sci-fi series. However it seems obvious to me that the writer, in an attempt to be mysterious and "unforgettable", did not take into account, well, anything else.
As Eternalsteelfan points out, the scene with the Catalyst introduces far too much new information to be an appealing conclusion. In this last scene, entirely new conflicts and themes are introduced right around the time that the existing ones should be wrapping up. The final ten minutes of a 100-hour story is
not the time to bring up new themes. You've had your chance, now the point is to resolve things. Any awesome plot twists should fit into the narrative that has already been constructed, and it is obvious that the Catalyst's scene does not. Maybe you don't believe me. Fine. Let's walk through the three games briefly so I can lay out what I mean.
Mass Effect 1: The game is all about discovering the nature of Protheans, the Reapers, and Reaper indoctrination. The game's antagonist is clearly Saren, a Reaper ally, and the conflict is all about chasing him down and stopping him and Sovereign. Thematically, there are two things going on. First is the play between Paragon/Renegade, and the place that humanity should have in galactic civilization; should humans work with other races, or seek to be above them? Secondly is the theme brought up by indoctrination; in the face of invincible opposition, do we surrender as Saren has, or resist? The former is up to the player, and reaches its climax with the salvation/destruction of the Citadel council. The latter is inevitably resolved by Shepard resisting, Saren dying, and Sovereign being destroyed.
Admittedly, when I first played ME1 I was half-expecting some crazy plot-twist involving the Protheans and Reapers, but there wasn't any. It was at this point, years ago, that I resigned myself to the notion that Mass Effect is a lighter, more conventional story, which is more interested in its characters and setting than in heady philosophical mind-benders. In my opinion if you want the Catalyst scene to really work along with the whole series, you have to go all the way back to the first game, because this is the one that set the tone for all of the veteran players.
Mass Effect 2: There's a slight change in tone here, but there are of course similarities. The game revolves around the moral implications of working alongside Cerberus, a known terrorist organization. The antagonist is Harbinger and the collectors. The themes are, again, Renegade/Paragon; do we work grudgingly with Cerberus, or do we support their philosophy wholesale? And secondly, a theme of sacrifice for victory's sake; we know this is a suicide mission, and the question is how much we're willing to sacrifice. As before, the former is up to the player as we can choose whether or not to destroy the human Reaper. The second is resolved by the fact that any varying amount of sacrifice on the part of our squad (from no one dying to everyone dying) will still result in the Collector base being destroyed.
Again, no crazy plot-twists here. Instead, the game centers around the squadmates, while it may be fair to say that the first game centers more around the setting as a whole. The entire game is about bringing the group together and getting them absolutely devoted to the mission, which falls in line with the theme of sacrifice. This itself is pretty reminiscent of the first game's theme of resistance. We have in the first game established that yes, even the impossible foe of Sovereign should be resisted. Now we establish that even in the face of certain death, and even if we must sacrifice our loved ones, it's worth it.
Mass Effect 3: The antagonist is now the Reapers and Harbinger and the conflict is taking Earth back. Throughout the game, the Paragon/Renegade theme is how best to unite the galaxy; do we do it through compromise, or deception/coercion? For instance you can either (Paragon) help the Krogan, or (Renegade) lie to them for the support of the Salarians. And while compromise is most beneficial, you also have the option of either taking sympathy on the Geth and helping them, or wiping them out to give the Quarians back their homeworld. If there's another theme, it's harder to pin down than in the other two games. On reflection, I really can't find it, other than perhaps reiterating resistance against an impossible foe. This might be supported by the epiphanies that EDI comes to throughout the game, most notably when she alters her code to make self-preservation subordinate to other things, thus making her more 'human'.
To sum up. The first two games are really all about an emotional, perhaps irrational (which is an organic sentiment) resistance to a timeless and unfeeling enemy (the Reapers). The first game sets up a conflict between resistance (Shepard) and submission (Saren). The second game sets up the same conflict with Shepard on one side, and enslaved Protheans on the other. Each one has played out more or less conventionally. We aren't overly concerned with researching other Galactic cycles; we are only aware of one, the Protheans, and we mostly rely on Liara to deal with that stuff. The distant past and future are not emphasized. As brought up, the first game spends a lot of time introducing you to the various races and political issues of the present. The second one is almost entirely consumed with getting you attached to your squadmates and their internal conflicts. The third one is almost entirely about rallying the different races under your banner. What we really care about is the here and now.
Looking at the resolution for ME3, we can see immediately that everything brought up here is dropped and replaced with something else. To summarize it, the Catalyst talks about an unending conflict between organics and synthetics and is primarily interested in a permanent solution (ie lasting millions and billions of years) to this problem. In one stroke, our antagonist has been changed at the last second. The motivations of the antagonist has been changed. The organic vs synthetic issue that the Catalyst is talking about has not been developed at all, and in fact conflicts with prior development: after all it's possible for the Geth and Quarians to ally. In addition, we can see that the focus of the other games is not about the longview; it's about immediate survival. It's about human connections and relationships.
The themes of the previous games are not resolved. First of all, the Paragon/Renegade resolution is absent here. But wait! You can either control or destroy the Reapers! No, that's not what's important. In the prior games, the Renegade choice has always been about domination on the part of the humans or the player over the rest of the galaxy. It is not demonstrated that controlling the Reapers will bring about human dominance, or even Shepard-dominance; the way Shepard acts and the way the cinematic plays out, it seems that you will only control them for the sake of making them fly away and leave everyone alone. That's not the same as killing the Citadel council, or stealing Reaper tech. In addition when the mass relays are destroyed, human domination is pretty much a moot point. Likewise, the Paragon idea of destroying the Reapers is undercut by the relays being destroyed, as all of the galactic cooperation you've spear-headed is also rendered moot. Even more confusing, the colors are swapped around to make it seem like controlling the Reapers is the Paragon action, but this makes zero sense.
Lastly, and this is in my mind the bottom line, the primary theme of resistance against impossible odds is not resolved. When the antagonist changes to the Catalyst, Shepard stops resisting. Shepard simply goes along with everything the Catalyst says, accepting what are really terrible outcomes at face value. Before, it was resistance against a force that wanted destruction, but now that motivation has changed, and thus the primary conflict has vanished. If/when the Reapers are destroyed, it isn't because they're evil forces of destruction, but because the Catalyst's solution to fix the inevitable struggle between synthetic and organic life is no longer viable. Um, yeah. No thanks.
The wild plot-holes and so on have been covered already, so I'll end it here.
So what next? From the statements that have been release, it seems as if the writers of Mass Effect 3 were more interested in generating publicity and shocking people than they were in actually delivering a satisfying ending. Creating questions and uncertainty is one thing, but I feel that this was just a short-sighted stunt that seriously misunderstood the reasons behind the success of the series. I'm put off enough that I don't think I can enjoy the Mass Effect franchise anymore, and honestly, I don't think I can become attached to any other Bioware games. There are plenty of other franchises that I like made by other studios, and they all seem to have a lower risk for getting emotionally invested in. Whether or not this ending is addressed in the future, I don't see myself spending money on a Bioware product again. Overall, actually, I really enjoyed Mass Effect 3. But endings are powerful. I'm not left wanting more.
Modifié par huiwang, 17 mars 2012 - 08:04 .
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The linearity. A lot of people didn't have a problem with this, but I feel the game is a lot more linear now. I can't see how I can replay this that many times and get that much of a different experience because it all seems to be pretty much the same thing, in the same order. 
