To keep this post relatively clean, here's a link to some broad storytelling thoughts that relate to why the Mass Effect series deserves a standard hero ending:
http://geekmediamusi...ll-stories.html
Since those are largely broad musings on how we tell stories, to be specific with Mass Effect:
Mass Effect 1: Great sacrifices are made, but goal of game is achieved in a very standard heroic way.
Mass Effect 2: The galaxy is suffering losses, but standard heroics again save the day (with possible squad losses)
Mass Effect 3: The galaxy takes massive losses and sacrifices much to get the Crucible together, and then you're told that you have to sacrifice something something vital to achieve some sort of victory at all.
The third game's ending doesn't really seem to fit. The ending to your story is what people will remember most about it.
I was disappointed by the original endings and thought that the EC improved them, but am still unhappy with them. Tragically, Tully Ackland has already stated on these forums that the EC is the final and definitive ending of Mass Effect 3, so I already know that I'll be left unsatisfied, but I can deal with that because I have no choice and life goes on and other people have great stories to tell, too, perhaps with endings that I feel fit better.
I will look back on Mass Effect 2 as my favorite of the series, but when I think of Mass Effect as a series the first thing that will come to mind will eternally be the ending. While the journey is certainly important, the premise of the Mass Effect series was always one that was destination-oriented. You have an overarching goal and the journey is not for its own sake, but is for the sake of reaching that goal. On top of this, people inherently remember endings. I don't know why, maybe it's because that's the last thing they saw.
So the Mass Effect series will probably long be remembered for its ending by both those who hate it and those who love it.
So, why does there need to be an ending where "Shepard Lives, reapers defeated by conventional means, Geth/ EDI lives, Shepard walks off into the sunset with love interest?"
It's because the series has shown us time and again that with willpower and unity and courage, our Shepards and the galaxy can overcome what seems impossible (like, say, some sort of conventional victory). The endings of both of the first two games display this very clearly. The last things your Shepard does are heroic actions that save the day. And that also happens throughout the series. Those final heroics and their results are our reward for investing time and emotion into the world we've played.
Understand that the quoted above is no flowers and unicorns happy ending. Much has already been lost and sacrificed. You lost one good friend on Virmire, possibly some good friends in the Suicide Mission, and you've lost Mordin. At least, and that's only personally to Shepard. Stacked on top of this, the galaxy has lost countless lives. You've seen Liara break after Thessia. Humans, Batarians, Turians, and Asari have all at the least taken incredibly heavy losses.
And, finally, as we reach the culmination of three games of heroics beating impossible odds, we're presented with something that is far from heroic. It is another sacrifice. Every option is a sacrifice. Control feels inherently corruptible and thus evil, so choosing it is becoming your enemy and sacrificing that integrity with the risk of future Reaper problems. Synthesis is a sacrifice of diversity (not all of it, but much of it) that acknowledges that, no, we can't work together if we're THAT different, we have to make ourselves more similar. The Destroy ending obviously sacrifices the Geth and EDI and more, which you've spent three games proving are more than machines. The Refuse ending sacrifices every living thing in the hope that the future can do better.
Not one of these fits the pattern of what we've seen with the series. Given, you don't want an ending to be exactly the same in all three games, but they're already not the same by nature of upping the ante. That's what many series endings do, and they often work because, while they've kept to the mold, the emotions that they evoke are also more intense just as the stakes were, and thus the emotional payoff is bigger and a culmination of the ideas and emotions that the series has invoked.
The series calls for a typical heroic beat-the-odds ending because that's what we've been playing this entire time since ME1 came out in 2007. That doesn't mean it needs to be the only ending. Indeed, for a series as broad as Mass Effect there is ideally a pure paragon win and lose, a pure renegade win and lose, and a few points in between. I don't buy that you guys couldn't have pulled that off. I think you could have, but I know that now is probably too late because you're a business that needs to make money and people don't like to pay for things that they feel they already paid for once.
The Mass Effect series is without doubt art, but art is not always good, and I'd argue that, because the ending breaks the pattern so heavily and was originally so obscure to the point that it needed a clarifying patch it is bad art (no personal offense meant, I've made bad art before myself and I know that it's hard to own up to that in front of a crowd, nor are you in any position to own up to anything yourself).
Anyways, if you've read all of that ranting, thanks for taking the time and I hope it made some sort of sense. It's all loose thought, so sorry if it didn't.
But if any of it did, I'd love to hear further thoughts.
EDIT: Fixed some typos. Again, sorry for the messiness. This comes from the heart more than the brain.
Modifié par HooblaDGN, 29 juin 2012 - 07:18 .
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