237 réponses à ce sujet

[AllThatJazz]

Catalyst for me too. Beautiful moment between Shepard and Anderson - I kinda thought that this might be when your War Assets come into play - the Crucible fires, the fleet does its thing, the Reapers are destroyed, forced to flee back to Dark Space, or destroy the Earth, depending on your EMS - and then Shep is either dead, or recovered barely alive from the Citadel and has a joyful reunion with friends and LI. But nope. 

So the Catalyst appears, and I'm not totally surprised - I was expecting a Deus Ex Machina or similar from ME1, as soon as I realised that the Reapers were basically unstoppable by conventional means. I guess I'd thought the Crucible was it. But as illogical as his appearance is, I could stomach the existence of the Starchild - except I can't find out anything about him, his history, his motivations, I can't argue with him (even if my arguments fall on deaf ears), and I can't tell him to get lost (even if doing so results in a Reapers win cutscene, it should still be an option). I can't even tell him that I've already solved the Synthetics v Organics problem by creating peace between the Quarians and the Geth, so his solutions are now irrelevant.

The following cutscenes were confusing, but I didn't altogether loathe them at first - I was at least able to interpret them in a vaguely positive way - Normandy crew survive ... somewhere ... Shep can survive (though i had to watch this on YouTube, being only a SP'er) ... again somewhere (but at least meaning that EDI/Geth aren't necessarily as doomed as I'd feared) ... Stargazer scene implies that galaxy survives ... somehow. I was, however, very disappointed to find that there was no way to end the series on a less ambiguously positive note, particularly regarding Shep and her friends. This level of vagueness would have felt more appropriate had I only got a 2500-3000 EMS, rather than almost maxing out what was possible in singleplayer.

Modifié par AllThatJazz, 11 avril 2012 - 02:30 .

[IndridColdx]

I decided I didn't like the ending when I saw the God-child and couldn't make any Shepard-like decisions. Felt as if any decision-making ability was taken away from me last minute.

I knew I hated the game when I came to the realization that Shepard couldn't survive and was separated from his comrades and love interest, regardless if you make all the best decisions or not. That's not to say I expected a "rainbows and butterfly's" ending, because I didn't, but that down right pissed me off. In the end though, aside from the God-child, I felt the endings were appropriate, I just don't want them for ALL my play-throughs. To depressing of endings for a trilogy I've invested so much time into I suppose.

To be honest though, I felt like story-telling in general declined when the Crucible was introduced in the game. I felt like it took away from the idea that Shepard was gathering nearly an infinite amount of galactic armies and armadas to defeat the Reapers.
But we still needed this Crucible weapon to defeat the Reapers??
We can't beat the reapers with our armies?
In passed cycles I'm pretty sure organics didn't come together like they did in Shepard's, yet we still have this dependency on this damn super-weapon? I guess it was just a "WTF" moment for me.

[Kushan101]

I started getting a funny feeling when I was on the citadel, something about the whole discussion between TIM, Anderson and Shepard felt... Odd. The star child was complete nonsense, I disliked it but the absolute clincher was when I had to choose between the three "options". I alt+tabbed outta there and looked around to see which was "better". How niave I was.

[Sohlito]

"I control the Reapers, they are my solution."

Thats when the questions began filling up my brain passed capacity. To this day, I still have no answers.

[IndridColdx]

Kushan101 wrote...

I started getting a funny feeling when I was on the citadel, something about the whole discussion between TIM, Anderson and Shepard felt... Odd. The star child was complete nonsense, I disliked it but the absolute clincher was when I had to choose between the three "options". I alt+tabbed outta there and looked around to see which was "better". How niave I was.

No kidding right?  I was completely flabbergasted.  I stood there looking at the 3 routes I had to choose,  and I didn't want to pick any of them.  Nothing felt appropriate, I turned around and shot the Star-child, hoping I got a new cutscene.  Kept doing that until I got a game-over lol

[XXIceColdXX]

Slowly. All seemed a bit weird after teleporting up, but wasn't till starchild came along something really didn't feel right. Then onto the big choice , I ended up choosing control accidentally when I wanted to choose destroy.

Anyways bout 15 mins later after letting it soak in I realised the I didn't like it.

[McAllyster]

When I realized: this whole thing is not a dream after Harbinger's shot.

I though: OK, maybe I didn't do something well. My EMS was only 3600 and I read somewhere I need 4000 EMS for the "best ending".

So I started reading the forums - I believed I missed something important, maybe after 4000 EMS I'll play a perfectly new ending. I though: "OK, my EMS was not high enough... maybe with higher EMS the fleet will stop Harbinger and give me time to do my job.".

After a quick investigation I realized: there are no alternate / better endings. For me, survival of Shepard was not a big issue - I just wanted a logical and satisfying ending. I was prepared a DAO1-style ending where Shepard must sacrifice himself for a better galaxy.

[Steel Dancer]

When I got to the end of the "conversation" with Starbrat I was irritated as I couldn't ask a damn thing that I wanted to, especially about the "choices".

The whole planet out of nowhere scene with the Normandy and Joker left me going "...what?".

But when the credits rolled and I realised that really WAS the ending, that was when I got to really hating it.

[mokbass87]

The Shepard,Anderson and TIM conversation was decent but just as it started for the first time i said to myself as soon as the the illusive man walked in 'ah where did you pop out of'

[Noelemahc]

The paranoia crept in when Vendetta all but said "The Crucible is of Reaper design" and Shepard flat-out ignored it.

The big thing started when Harbinger flew away without saying a word, and it went downhill from there.
The intangible keepers, the disconnect between the Conduit Beam and the hallway Sheppy Shep wakes up in, the lights that are still on in the Citadel as if cars are still flying around in there, and, of course, everything that happens after Anderson dies.

[DamonD7]

Felt "wait, what?" about it when given the three choices and nothing else. But rolled with it.

Didn't feel quite right when it finally finished, credits had rolled. A bit "...huh." about it all.

Pondered and thought about it some more over the space of about an hour, getting more depressed in doing so.

Finally decided I really didn't like it.

I wanted to get other opinions, so and looked in here. Now you're all stuck with me, hah.

Modifié par DamonD7, 11 avril 2012 - 02:08 .

[Asuka Bianchini]

1- My squadmates disappear and Shep don't do anything. (they were 75% of why my shep is fighting).
2- inconsistencies after the beam hit - "no one survived" Anderson got there 1st. I started to get VERY confused and like there was a node in my brain. Felt bad.
3- when I think it's all over: elevator scene WTF
4- WHAT THE SH!T is this kid (anger)
5- NO, THE ILUSIVE MAN WASN'T RIGHT, stfu Shep (more anger)
6- ..... Those are my options? (here I started to think I was crazy and havent slept for too long. It didn't make sense nor it felt like ME)
7-.......... *implied facepalm after watching synthesis ending. No comments.*
8- ..... the relays.....
9- joker running (anger, despair)
10- see my Garrus "and not a **** was given that day" - extreme rage
11- stupid planet and all - ok, not commenting for I still get angry over this

[b2smooth]

I wish I could have chosen "Renegade" and told Casper to go flog himself and led my massive army into a suicidal war to the end. That could have been the yellow option. My forces were massive and red, green, blue didn't cut it. Let's fight the bastards!

[BDelacroix]

Most of all the earth part is where I didn't like it, I could overlook that but then the slomo dreamy part happens when you get hit by the beam and well it just gets worse from there.

[Avissel]

I decided I didn't like it as soon as I was unable to argue against the Reaper God.

The fact that your forced to just believe what he says is some serious bull.

[Xandurpein]

MattFini wrote...

Well, I wasn't liking anything that StarChild had to say, and my initial unease slowly turned to disbelief/disappointment once it became clear that Shep wasn't going to have any further dialogues with it.

Then, when I realized I had to make one of three crummy choices I found myself personally disconnected from the series for the first time ever.

The Normandy cutscene was the last straw though ...

Sums up my experience too.

[Flamewielder]

Was dissappointed with it from the first playthrough. I was utterly ignorant of the rage over it, having avoided the internet from the day before release. I avoided everything about the leaked script, so I was not biased either way.

Mainly, I felt cheatened out of my ability to choose what my Shepard's story was going to be like. After playing 3 games and being given the freedom to write my own story, I feel like this about-face is jarringly out of place in a series like ME.

If you feel like expressing your own artistic views, don't give someone else the brush or allow them to choose the colors of your Mona Lisa. Make a third person shooter like GoW and stop pretending the player has a choice in anything. A choice of predictable set of "cliché" endings might have earned a minor negative comment in some of the more artsy-type game reviews but it would have satisfied the vast majority of players who would have been satisfied with the whole series (including the last 5 minutes). But it's too late for that now, so I'll let BW reap what they've unwittingly sowed and move on to the next promising CRPG IP.

Dragon Age team: take note of the mistake made by the ME team and PLEASE learn from it. You've got a great IP, don't make promises you don't plan on keeping.

Only after thinking over the endings did the other source of my dissappointment become clear: Deii ex machina have been successfully used in story-telling since Antiquity, so I see nothing wrong with pulling one out of the writers' bag of tricks; however I object to the obvious plot holes this particular ending creates. Hopefully, the "Extended Cut" will retcon most of them to satisfaction. It won't salvage the series for me, but it may do so for enough customers to keep the ME IP a lucrative one. I'd hate for the wonderful creative team to suffer for one bad call.

[MstrJedi Kyle]

I didn't like the ending as soon as the star child started talking about how synthetics will always kill organics. Then Shepard said "So the Illusive Man was right." And I wasn't allowed to argue anything. I really just sat on my couch will a blank stare on my face. I struggled trying to find reason and logic, when I thought there might be some kind of logic somewhere I found out the Joker and Tali just left Shepard behind.

[sirjimmus86]

To be fair to myself, I was uneasy over this whole crucible thing from the start. I thought it was far too obvious a trick that the Reapers were playing, "hey look just as they invade someone finds blueprints for an ancient device that can stop them, lets focus all our energy onto this instead of actually fighting".

I thought Hackett, Anderson, my Shepard everyone really were being really dense in falling for it, and I resented that I had no option but to go along with this snake oil solution.
From here on in, pretty much everything that happened in the endgame section, just added more and more to my unease that this was going to be a fail of epic proportions, a few key highlights of my journey into despair:

When it actually wasn't a trap, I felt the crucible was even more stupid.

When the success of retaking Earth came down to me manually launching missiles from a truck, I was reminded more of the Soviet missile launchers in Red Alert 2.

When I suddenly seemed to be taking orders from this Major Coates guy, who had not been introduced until 2 minutes previously but was now directing the final assault on the Repears?

When the plan resolved around rushing into a beam of light the REAPERS created and were using for their own means, yes I felt I got it wrong over doubting the crucible, but surely we wouldn't fall for this obvious ploy...

When I had to limp into this red beam thing, after I had survived the death laser that killed me 3 times back on Rannoch, and I had seen chewing up brutes/banshees etc. just minutes before, as well as blowing up the ground all around me.

When I ended up running into the two main avatars of paragon/renegade in what I thought would be the end-game thing, I thought it was just too cheesy.

When the stupid kid who had haunted my dreams in those annoying sequences appeared and talked utter bs that my Shepard just swallowed.

When I really really actually had to accept that this was the end of the game, that I could grab onto some electricity, jump into an energy flux or shoot some cabling to decide the fate of the galaxy.

When Javik and Ashley got out of the Normandy, despite me thinking the last time I saw Ashley was seconds before that red beam hit me on Earth, and Javik, who I ignored throughout the game instead of Liara or Garrus who I interacted with the most. At that time my brain had almost completely shutdown so I didn't even take much notice of the fact that I had no idea why my ship had fled the battle, after managing to rescue my squadmate but not me, then crashed in a jungle somewhere.

Then the final straw was when the epic series that was Mass Effect, that had taken me on many different paths through an amazing backstory, whose lines I can still sometimes hear even now when I think back on how awesome it was ("There's a Reaper in the way Wrex!" "Just doing some calibrations" "You exist because we allow it, you will end because we demand it." etc.) where I had fought to rally a galaxy behind me and unite them in a single cause for survival against one of the most brutal and mysterious enemies ever conceived, ended with a pop up text box telling me to buy more DLC.


I think I sat in stunned shock for a good 10 minutes, before logging onto the BSN and actually finding out it wasn't just me, or a particularly bad playthrough despite having almost maximum EMS, that no it really was that bad, and in fact all I could do differently was to change the colour of some of the ending sequences.

There was a moment of hope when I read the indoctrination theory, and watched the videos and I want it to be true so much it almost hurts, but I think the time for revealing Bioware's greatest ever feat of writing has passed, and they practically knocked it on the head at PAX.

So now I have gone full circle, and just accept its a load of rubbish, that sometimes my expectations for things can get too high and I will always be disappointed at some things. I love the multiplayer however, so end up coming back to the forums regularly anyway depsite really wanting to just erase the entire 5 year experience from my memory forever.

[Ossborn76]

I had 3 steps of growing anger during the final scenes of the game:

At the point, where starbrat told me to choose between gate A, B and C... and none of the decisions reflected the personality of my Shepard, I began to think: "C´mon... you can´t be serious, why can´t I disagree to the catalyst..."

Seeing the Normandy flee from battle and seeing my squadmate and LI walk out of the crashed Normandy with a smile on her face made my anger grow stronger.

Then I yelled at Stargazer Grandpa. ... something like: " You son of a <beep>, you <beeeeep> BIOWARE <beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep>"

Modifié par Ossborn76, 11 avril 2012 - 02:29 .

[King Keasbey]

The ending lost traction for me when the side conflict with Cerberus was not ended at the Cerberus base. The boss battle at the end was the right idea, but it should have been TIM, not Kai Leng. I think Bioware missed a good opportunity to still have a throwback to Saren with a boss fight with TIM while still introducing a suicide mission style final battle on earth (but with war assets instead of squad members).

[LeTtotheC]

It's not just the ending for me.

The moment where I started getting bad vibes about the story telling was the reveal of Legion being hooked into the Geth dreadnought.  It didn't seem to fit the storyline in a way I expected and it felt shoe horned in, as did the re-awakened Quarian-Geth war.  Whilst they mentioned 'trouble' brewing on the Geth border, it seemed somewhat illogical to have the Quarian launch a war just when the greatest threat to sentient life had revealed itself.  To me there should have been a build up where by the in-fighting between the various fleet admirals lead into a shooting war with the fleet, with Shepherd doing his/her best to stop it, but ultimately failing.  That entire war needed re-writing badly to flesh it out into a more believable conflict in the middle of Galactic genocide - I just couldn't buy the Geth submitting to the Repears once more, specifically after you helped Legion free the Geth in the second game.

Another point would be the Reapers assaulting and moving the citedal.  That 
isn't  a small event!  It deserved way more than a few lines to explain it away.  You're talking about an event that wipes out millions of people, and effecitvely kills off a major part of the ME universe.  At the very least an extended cut scene of the Reaper's invading should have been used, with the Citedal's defence force making a desperate last stand against overwhelming odds.  Again, it's a major event, but it feels side lined because Bioware didn't have enough time to treat it properly (Though that's the feeling I get with the entire game to be honest). 

As for the ending itself?  I kind of raised my eyebrow at the Illusive Man suddenly appearing on the Citedal without the slightest bit of explanation.  Mind you, that was just foreplay to the slap in the face that turned out to tbe the Starchild A.I and it's explanation of the whole affair.  If they'd hinted or introduced a larger 'power' behind the Reapers from the start, I think we'd all be doing a lot less complaining. But Bioware didn't foreshadow the Citedal being a gigantic A.I at any point in the series.  Chucking it in during the last five minutes is just bad, bad story telling.  I think it was a mixture of time constraints and an inability to handle what Bioware had helped to create.  The amount of planning work that would have been required to make good their promises would have easily added another six months of work.  That's six months of Bioware not earning money or moving on to a new project in order to earn more money.  

[Onpoint17]

When the credits started rolling and left the entire trilogy unresolved. I was really expecting much more after the Normandy crash.

[sangy]

NYG1991 wrote...

When shep passed out and rode the space elevator.

Yep.  All mumbo-jumbo aside, this is the exact point where it all goes wrong, very wrong.

[MassiveEffects]

I initially got worried when Starchild showed up (one could argue that there were quite a few warning signs before this, but I was rather hyped at the time, and overlooked them), and by the time Joker, Liara and Javik emerged from the Normandy, and the Faunts tune started playing, I was just... perplexed. Then, when the credits started rolling, I facepalmed. I unorinically sat there, staring blankly at the screen in disbelief for a few moments, before I hit "Esc" and skipped the credits (which isn't normal for me, I usually sit through the entirety of the credits if they are the credits to something I enjoyed, as a sort of gesture of gratitude to the people who made it).

Then Buzz Aldrin and a little kid showed up, talking over a bland screensaver, and I was even more confused. This was followed by the "expand the legend through future DLC" message, and I then started getting less confused and more angry.

I decided to sleep on it, and booted up the game as more or less the first thing I did the next morning. I loaded the autosave at the beginning of the "Citadel: The Return" mission, and by the time the credits were rolling again, I realized just how much I hated it.