Conniving_Eagle wrote...
I did not think that the biggest problem that most people had with the ending was the lack of closure, because that is what the Extended Cut supplements. I am very surprised. There are a lot of areas that Mass Effect 3 could have improved upon, but let me just talk about the ending for now.
My Mass Effect History
First, some back story. Mass Effect was(technically it still is) my favorite video game series. I discovered the joy of the Mass Effect series during a very depressing time in my life, and it gave me hope. I had something to look forward to again when I wasn't busy. My life was still very stressful when I picked up the first two, but when I was escaping into the universe of Mass Effect, I felt a happiness that I hadn't felt in years. I was so excited for Mass Effect 3, and then, something happened. About a week before its release, my 5-year-old Xbox finally broke. Not just that, but I was in need of a new hard drive as well. This created complications. I had saved just enough money to buy a Collector's, addition, but now I had to buy another Xbox (among some other more important things). I had to drop my preorder, and make enough money to buy a new Xbox for $300. Going through March was terrible, I was so tempted to find out as much about the game as possible, I had to try very hard to refrain myself from spoiling anything. Then, the news about the ending came, I heard all the talk about how it almost ruins the whole series, a betrayal of Shepard's character, etc (it still is). I didn't want to believe it,
Finally, come mid-June, I bought a new Xbox along with a regular copy of Mass Effect 3. I played the game, it was amazing, until I got to those last ten minutes, those last ten f***ing minutes, where I watched the series I loved so much get destroyed. I cried a bit the night before, knowing that the incredible journey of my favorite franchise was coming to an end. That day, I cried myself to sleep, in disbelief of what just happened to the series that I revered so much. I understood Kaidan/Ashley's devastation in Mass Effect 2 when they found out Commander Shepard died, it was almost "like losing a limb," so to speak. And please don't ridicule me for that, I'm being very vulnerable right now, no one I know in real life understands how I feel about Mass Effect, I am hopeful that someone on these forums will.
My Problems with the Ending
I do not like the ending because it is tainted by nihilism. It goes against everything that my Shepard believed in and fought for throughout the trilogy. Not only that, but it made all of my choices pointless. Over a hundred hours of amazing gameplay, rendered obsolete by the last ten minutes. My original choice was Synthesis, because out of the three, it seemed the least evil. I still loathed it. Back then my options were:
Destroy: Destroy all technology in the galaxy, including the Mass Relays and myself. This would also destroy most life in collateral damage.
Control: Sacrafice your identity to take the role of the Catalyst and control the Reapers.
Synthesis: Impose all organic and synthetic life in the galaxy into a singular existence.
My biggest regret was not being able to tell my squadmates goodbye. I was very attached to my crew, I felt a connection with each one of them, because almost all of them had something about their past or their character that I could relate to; and friends are very dear to me, I only have a few, close ones in real life. But Shepard never got to see them again, Shepard never got to open that bottle of Brandy with Dr. Chakwas, he never got to retire some place tropical with Garrus, be reunited with his/her LI, etc, etc.
These endings were horrible and full of plotholes. After watching the credits, the last thing I get is a message from EA/Bioware asking me to buy their DLC. Yeah, you betrayed your fans, and now you want more money? F*** you.
Extended Cut
I beat Mass Effect 3 the day after Extended Cut released. I watched the videos on YouTube; they didn't help. Although clumsily (with retconning and the use of proverbial smoke and mirrors), Extended Cut did fix some things and add clarity, but the main problem was still there: there were still plotholes, some old and some new, the catalyst still had an irrational and circular logic, and the nihilism remained.
The ending that was changed the most was the Destroy ending. I haven't played Mass Effect's story since completing the third, but if I could change my choice, I would most likely choose Destroy now. Because now, only the Geth and EDI are sacraficed, and Shepard doesn't die. Respectively, I would have to metagame. There ultimately is no 'best' choice, though.
Destroy: Why do I have to sacrafice the Geth and other AI? According to the Catalyst, organics and synthetics cannot peacefully coexist, but my Shepard's actions refute that. My Shepard created peace with the Quarians and the Geth, he taught the Geth to value and respect the perspective of organics, as he did with EDI. This seems like a cheap and arbitrary consequence tacked on so that the player will be more prone to considering the other choices, even though destroying the Reapers is what we set out to do in the first place.
Control: Control leaves a lot of interpretation to what can happen. Shepard sacrafices himself, but he does not truly control the Reapers, a Shepard AI/VI does. Shepard becomes the new abomination that is the Catalyst. He/she says that they will use the Reapers for good, but how long will that last? Who is to say that its perspective won't change and eventually it will use the Reapers for the same purpose, or an even worse one? So does this mean that the Illusive Man, the same person a lot of us have opposed throughout the entire series, was right all along? I believe that a common belief for Commander Shepard is that no one should be able to control that kind of power, it is too dangerous, it is playing with fire, it is better to get rid of it. That was my reason for destroying the Collector Base at the end of Mass Effect 2.
Synthesis: I now think that this is the most evil choice of all. Shepard makes the Crucible fuse all organic and synthetic life into a singular existence. No one deserves to make this choice. One of the underlying themes of Mass Effect is diversity, the beauty and disversity of the galaxy and the universe. In all three titles, Shepard leads a team of people of different religions, races, backrounds, and cultures, to accomplish the impossible. When you find Navigator Pressly's datapad at the Normandy crash site, he wrote that he would be willing to fight and die for any of his crew, regardless of what world they were born on. He learned to appreciate that uniquity, and came to regret his pervious, bigoted and xenophobic beliefs. When Legion discusses the issue of the Geth heretics, it mentions that it cannot form an opinion whether to rewrite them or not because of the consequences. The Geth heretics left to pursue their own future, the other Geth allowed them to do so because they respected their decision. They did not agree with it, but they understood it. The heretics offered unique perspective, a perspective that benefits all Geth. If they are rewritten, that perspective is destroyed. That is what Synthesis does, it fuses organics and synthetics, eliminating their uniquity and perspective to form a 'perfect society.' In technicality, this choice turns everyone into the same thing as the Reapers.
Refusal: I don't think I need to go into much detail for this one. Essentially, it is the game's articulation of Hudson and Walters' "You don't like the artsy ending that we made? Well fine! Screw you, then!" All those hours that you put into Mass Effect were for nothing, everybody dies, because you didn't want to play by god-boi's/the writers' rules.
Uh, about the Refusal Ending, I seriously doubt that it's a "F**k you" of Hudson and Walters, I think the point that ending makes is that sometimes, in wars where your enemy appears to be immortal, sometimes you have to temporarily cast aside your morals and ethics to beat them. Destroy does kill the Geth and EDI, but it also destroys the Reapers, which is obviously a good thing. Control has Shepard replace the Catalyst as the new controller of the Reapers. We all know the Catalyst's solution is seriously flawed, even the Catalyst himself admits that since Shepard is the first organic he has personally met, it shows that his solution is faulty, but Shepard's "solution" is flawless, if you've made paragon choices, supporting both organics and synthetics, believing in peace for everyone in the galaxy machine or organic. But the question is, what if Shepard, as the new catalyst ends up having his morals corrupted? Then there's the synthesis ending, an ending where the Reapers are free from the Catalyst's control and faulty solution and are able to coexist with organics, but there's a catch for that: you have to "merge" organics and synthetics into a singular DNA, which is something we have never supported. We always believed that diversity is never a bad thing-- differences between species is what makes them stronger, especially when they team up together.
And last and least, the Refusal ending. Contrary to popular belief, this is not a "Screw you" from the writers of Mass Effect... But if you think about what I have to say about this ending, it might be a "Screw you" to the ending haters after all, because the whole concept behind the Refusal ending is to show that in order to defeat enemies that appear to be immortal, you sometimes have to temporarily cast aside your morals and ethics to conquer the Reapers, a grim truth that even the Illusive Man acknowledges. If your morals hold grievances of sacrificing the Geth, losing everything Shepard has to be the new Catalyst AND removing diversity between all life, then you've already lost. The only good tihng about this ending is the next cycle successfully defeats the Reapers using the Crucible, something refusal end choosers didn't do. It's already been shown that conventional victory isn't possible agaisnt the Reapers. Remember how much it took to beat Sovereign in ME1? It took the entire Alliance fleet and the Destiny Ascension, the asari military's best dreadnought to take down Sovereign, in ME3, it took Tuchanka's biggest Thresher Maw, Kalros, to defeat a Reaper guarding the device that'll cure the genophage, and Shepard had to enlist the help of the entire Migrant Fleet to take down the Reaper on Rannoch. So how do you think you'll fare agaisnt a Reaper force in the Sol system? And that isn't all of the Reapers, either! You think you battle all the Reapers in the Earth mission? That's only a fraction of their full force! There are still Reapers on Palaven, Thessia and Tuchanka, they're all over the galaxy!
Modifié par N7Gold, 09 juillet 2012 - 01:49 .
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