495 réponses à ce sujet

[v TricKy v]

Funny how people deny a happy ending for Shepard without sacrifices. The last time I checked the galaxy is seriously damaged and millions of people are dead. That is bittersweet. There is no reason to kill Shepard or the Geth off.

[ABCoLD]

How dare you ask for satisfaction. You impinge upon their Artistic Integrity!

[dirty console peasant]

ABCoLD wrote...

How dare you ask for satisfaction. You impinge upon their Artistic Integrity!

That joke is getting slightly old. Still somewhat funny but approaching overuse and unfunniness.

[iamweaver]

Jassu1979 wrote...

DocGriffin wrote...
What about the ending felt unvictorious to you?

Pretty much everything. Even the musical cues speak of tragedy and loss rather than victory. Sad piano music: yep, that's truly a signifier of victory! Not.

Synthesis dissolves our protagonist into green space magic, killing her. She'll never see her loved ones again, never reunite with the person who suffered all the stages of grief two years previously, and could only tentatively allow him/herself to open up to love her again.

Control kills our protagonist and replaces her with an AI. That being might share her memories and moral stances, but it is not the same entity - our hero "loses everything", as the game puts it.

And even Destroy does little to satisfy: we can exterminate our enemies, but we do so at a terrible price, and the best our hero can hope for afterwards is an easter egg that shows her gasping in the rubble.


There are those who'd call a genuine victory "unrealistic" - but I do wonder whether these are the same people who'd defend green space magic turning every living thing in the galaxy (even plant life) into techno-organic hybrids.
And for what it's worth, the problem isn't even that there's a cost to achieving victory: it's that the costs are SO high in each case that it feels like a Pyrrhic victory at best, leaving a bitter aftertaste in the mouth and effectively killing all desire to celebrate and cheer.

Some RPGs end on a less than perfect victory - like this one and Fallout3.  Just as some books end on a happy note, some on a bittersweet one.

Every video game need not be saccherine-sweet where everyone wins, no one loses other than a few token heroes.  The important question is, did the endig match the tone of the story?  Was it relatively in context? 

For ME3, I would say the execution of the ending was... subpar... but the tone of it matched the tone of the plotline.  From the tone of the starting scene in Vancouver with the death of the child and the haunting theme music for homeworld, you should have known that this was not going to be your typical good guys win, bad guys lose kind of story.

Modifié par iamweaver, 31 juillet 2012 - 07:15 .

[Mcfly616]

You save the galaxy in each ending.....essentially you achieve "victory" no matter what....

[Bill Casey]

v TricKy v wrote...

Funny how people deny a happy ending for Shepard without sacrifices. The last time I checked the galaxy is seriously damaged and millions of people are dead. That is bittersweet. There is no reason to kill Shepard or the Geth off.

But...
Then what would overshadow Anderson's death?

Modifié par Bill Casey, 31 juillet 2012 - 07:16 .

[SpamBot2000]

Being made a suicidal puppet by the Reaper leader wasn't especially bittersweet for me. I guess it's a matter of standards. As long as the synthesis unicorns can prance on, some will be happy.

[Sleepdribble]

Jassu1979 wrote...

DocGriffin wrote...
What about the ending felt unvictorious to you?

Pretty much everything. Even the musical cues speak of tragedy and loss rather than victory. Sad piano music: yep, that's truly a signifier of victory! Not.

Synthesis dissolves our protagonist into green space magic, killing her. She'll never see her loved ones again, never reunite with the person who suffered all the stages of grief two years previously, and could only tentatively allow him/herself to open up to love her again.

Control kills our protagonist and replaces her with an AI. That being might share her memories and moral stances, but it is not the same entity - our hero "loses everything", as the game puts it.

And even Destroy does little to satisfy: we can exterminate our enemies, but we do so at a terrible price, and the best our hero can hope for afterwards is an easter egg that shows her gasping in the rubble.


There are those who'd call a genuine victory "unrealistic" - but I do wonder whether these are the same people who'd defend green space magic turning every living thing in the galaxy (even plant life) into techno-organic hybrids.
And for what it's worth, the problem isn't even that there's a cost to achieving victory: it's that the costs are SO high in each case that it feels like a Pyrrhic victory at best, leaving a bitter aftertaste in the mouth and effectively killing all desire to celebrate and cheer.

That 'sad' piano music is there to draw attention to the fact that your ending (ALL endings) are not without pain. To play a foot-stomping, thigh-slapping victory theme would deminish all the things Shepard had to sacrifice in order to bring about his/her brand of victory in the war. In REAL wars people die, friends are divided, families are shattered and nothing is ever the same again.

You're critisisms seem a little short-sighted and 'video-gamey'. (Yeah, I went there.)

[Kildin_of_the_Volus]

Mcfly616 wrote...

You save the galaxy in each ending.....essentially you achieve "victory" no matter what....

Nah, glowboy allows you destroy the reapers, geth and EDI, replace it as puppet master, or achieve it's "perfect" solution.

The kicker is that his current solution that "won't work anymore" seems to be perfectly acceptable again if you refuses any of it's solutions.

Modifié par Kildin_of_the_Volus, 31 juillet 2012 - 07:22 .

[FlamingBoy]

it is to much to ask much from bioware these days

[Mcfly616]

Kildin_of_the_Volus wrote...

Mcfly616 wrote...

You save the galaxy in each ending.....essentially you achieve "victory" no matter what....

Nah, glowboy allows you destroy the reapers, geth and EDI, replace it as puppet master, or achieve it's "perfect" solution.

The kicker is that his current solution that "won't work anymore" seems to be perfectly acceptable again if you refuses any of it's solutions.

we view things differently

[Sleepdribble]

Kildin_of_the_Volus wrote...

Mcfly616 wrote...

You save the galaxy in each ending.....essentially you achieve "victory" no matter what....

Nah, glowboy allows you destroy the reapers, geth and EDI, replace it as puppet master, or achieve it's "perfect" solution.

The kicker is that his current solution that "won't work anymore" seems to be perfectly acceptable again if you refuses any of it's solutions.

'Glowboy' is an AI. The current solution to the organic/synthetic problem (ie. the Reapers) won't work anymore, because the AI has learned of better solutions through it's interaction with the Crucible. That was the AI's original purpose after all - to search for the best solution to the problem it was tasked with solving.

[v TricKy v]

Bill Casey wrote...

v TricKy v wrote...

Funny how people deny a happy ending for Shepard without sacrifices. The last time I checked the galaxy is seriously damaged and millions of people are dead. That is bittersweet. There is no reason to kill Shepard or the Geth off.

But...
Then what would overshadow Anderson's death?

To be fair. His death was also completely pointless. You are both ready to end the reapers and then TIM shows up out of nowhere and is "LOL no I will control you."(Even though it is also some kind of magic seeing that even Reapers cant pull that off with making the victim braindead)

Modifié par v TricKy v, 31 juillet 2012 - 07:40 .

[iamweaver]

Kildin_of_the_Volus wrote...

Mcfly616 wrote...

You save the galaxy in each ending.....essentially you achieve "victory" no matter what....

Nah, glowboy allows you destroy the reapers, geth and EDI, replace it as puppet master, or achieve it's "perfect" solution.

The kicker is that his current solution that "won't work anymore" seems to be perfectly acceptable again if you refuses any of it's solutions.

Eh.  It's not that it's perfectly acceptable, it's that it's the only option left after you refuse.  IMO, Starkid's thoughts are that it recognizes that the current "system" is inherently unstable, because organics are adapting, even between cycles.  But for now, since this cycle won't help it craft a better solution, it will just wait it out.


EDIT: Also - I wouldn't really put it in those terms.  I woudl say that, enabled by SHepherd's Crucible, the AI can now look at a limited set of other options.  Unfortunately, that limited set doesn't include "The Reapers vanish/get offed and everyone lives happily ever after".

Modifié par iamweaver, 31 juillet 2012 - 07:41 .

[Jassu1979]

iamweaver wrote...

Are you saying that synthesis means that we will no longer have problems to overcome?  Why is that?  Synthesis allows, somehow, organics to be able to incorporate nanomachines into their DNA.  This does not eliminate all problems. This simply means that organics can continue to advance past their current physical limitations, matching the growth of synthetics.

Synthesis is the equivalent of handing out nuclear bombs to belligerent nomad tribes, FTL-drives to the krogan - or the amenities of post-industrial life to an indigenous culture, for a real-life example.

Estimates predict that roughly five hundred languages will be dead and gone by 2050, along with the cultures they belonged to. In fact, many of these cultures are already all but extinct, as in the case of most American natives.

What Mordin describes is the difference between a culture that changes, adapts and evolves - and a culture that is swallowed up and eradicated by the poisoned "gifts" of an intruding hegemony. The best you can hope for is total assimilation, losing everything that defined you but gaining the intruder's identity in its place. At worst, you'll be left a hollow shell, living a pitiful life in some shanty town or reservation.

[Sleepdribble]

v TricKy v wrote...

Bill Casey wrote...

v TricKy v wrote...

Funny how people deny a happy ending for Shepard without sacrifices. The last time I checked the galaxy is seriously damaged and millions of people are dead. That is bittersweet. There is no reason to kill Shepard or the Geth off.

But...
Then what would overshadow Anderson's death?

To be fair. His death was also completely pointless. You are both ready to end the reapers and then TIM shows up out of nowhere and is "LOL no I will control you."(Even though it is also some kind of magic seeing that even Reapers cant pull that off with making the victim braindead)

I believe Anderson's death is  what spurred Shepard on in the end -  to not give up, to keep  making Anderson proud, to get the job done and defeat the Reapers. Anderson's death was not pointless. It may have been tragic and heartbreaking, but it was also inspiring.

And TIM did not appear out of nowhere.  The Protean VI told Shepard on the Cerberus Base that  the Illusive Man had gone to the Citadel. And it's repeatedly highlighted throughout the game (and again in this ending sequence)  that TIM was indoctrinated and was attempting to control the Reapers. There is no magic involved here. Just a little brain power on your end to understand the plot of the game.

[Jassu1979]

Sleepdribble wrote...
That 'sad' piano music is there to draw attention to the fact that your ending (ALL endings) are not without pain.

ORLY? (Sorry, I could not resist, either.)

Honestly, though, do you really think I do not "get" that? It's pretty much what I pointed out before.

To play a foot-stomping, thigh-slapping victory theme would deminish all the things Shepard had to sacrifice in order to bring about his/her brand of victory in the war. In REAL wars people die, friends are divided, families are shattered and nothing is ever the same again.

The thing is, though: "Mass Effect" does not depict a REAL war, and I'd say that seeing almost every single homeworld in ruins (and many relatives dead) is all the "realism" that was really called for here. We did not really need the additional, painful sense of Pyrrhic victory communicated by ALL endings.

If you wanted realism, Shepard should have died at the end of ME1, Project Lazarus would have "revived" an empty shell, and the Suicide Mission would have been exactly what the name implied, no matter how much effort you put into maxing out your resources. Oh, and if one of your companions drops dead in combat, no amount of medigel would revive them: once that health bar reaches zero, that truly signifies death. Wounds have lasting repercussions, as with that one soldier on the Citadel in ME3: no amount of medigel could save his leg.

No, "realism" is not what is called for here.

[Zan51]

^ This

[Jassu1979]

And hearing people rationalize the altogether asinine motivation and goal of the Catalyst makes me realize once more just how poorly written that whole segment of the game really is. Ugh, really: they could not possibly have torpedoed their own game more effectively than that.

[Kildin_of_the_Volus]

Sleepdribble wrote...

Kildin_of_the_Volus wrote...

Mcfly616 wrote...

You save the galaxy in each ending.....essentially you achieve "victory" no matter what....

Nah, glowboy allows you destroy the reapers, geth and EDI, replace it as puppet master, or achieve it's "perfect" solution.

The kicker is that his current solution that "won't work anymore" seems to be perfectly acceptable again if you refuses any of it's solutions.

'Glowboy' is an AI. The current solution to the organic/synthetic problem (ie. the Reapers) won't work anymore, because the AI has learned of better solutions through it's interaction with the Crucible. That was the AI's original purpose after all - to search for the best solution to the problem it was tasked with solving.

Going to try an keep within the scope of the topic.

I don't see vicotry in any of glowboy's three options simply because all three are based on the false assumption that synthetics will destroy all organics.  There's no evidence shown in game of this ever happening.  Even in a galaxy where the Geth destory the flotilia, this is not proven (one race isn't all organics).  Nor has it ever happened as far as we know.  At best, the "sythetics will kill all organics" is an argument based on an appeal to probability.

In fact, it seems the reaper's interference accelerates hostilities between organics and synthetics.  Examples being the minority geth heretics, and the zha'til from Javik's cycle.  But that's an entriely different topic.

Anyway, the very existence of glowboy and what he represents flys in the face of everything that preceded it.  Thus, I really don't see any victory in bargining with it and it's contrived choices.  To me, it's like bargining with a terrorist who won't see any other options other than it's own.

Modifié par Kildin_of_the_Volus, 31 juillet 2012 - 08:25 .

[v TricKy v]

Sleepdribble wrote...

v TricKy v wrote...

Bill Casey wrote...

v TricKy v wrote...

Funny how people deny a happy ending for Shepard without sacrifices. The last time I checked the galaxy is seriously damaged and millions of people are dead. That is bittersweet. There is no reason to kill Shepard or the Geth off.

But...
Then what would overshadow Anderson's death?

To be fair. His death was also completely pointless. You are both ready to end the reapers and then TIM shows up out of nowhere and is "LOL no I will control you."(Even though it is also some kind of magic seeing that even Reapers cant pull that off with making the victim braindead)

I believe Anderson's death is  what spurred Shepard on in the end -  to not give up, to keep  making Anderson proud, to get the job done and defeat the Reapers. Anderson's death was not pointless. It may have been tragic and heartbreaking, but it was also inspiring.

And TIM did not appear out of nowhere.  The Protean VI told Shepard on the Cerberus Base that  the Illusive Man had gone to the Citadel. And it's repeatedly highlighted throughout the game (and again in this ending sequence)  that TIM was indoctrinated and was attempting to control the Reapers. There is no magic involved here. Just a little brain power on your end to understand the plot of the game.

I know that went to the Citadel but it doesnt change the fact that he suddenly appears behind you in an inaccesible area of the Citadel.
Also the the act of TIM controlling Shepard and Anderson is magic. They are both not indoctrinated(or are they? IT?) but TIM can control them like puppets. I repeat even the Reapers cant pull that off. They can take control of victims by indoctrination but taking almost complete control means turning the victim into a babbling idiot incapable of doing anything for themself.
Check the Codex about indoctrination and the captured Salarians on Virmire in ME1.

Modifié par v TricKy v, 31 juillet 2012 - 08:17 .

[Kildin_of_the_Volus]

thematic wrote...

v TricKy v wrote...

I know that went to the Citadel but it doesnt change the fact that he suddenly appears behind you in an inaccesible area of the Citadel.
Also the the act of TIM controlling Shepard and Anderson is magic. They are both not indoctrinated(or are they? IT?) but TIM can control them like puppets. I repeat even the Reapers cant pull that off. They can take control of victims by indoctrination but taking almost complete control means turning the victim in babbling idiot incapable of doing anything for themself.
Check the Codex about indoctrination and the captured Salarians on Virmire in ME1.

Inaccessible? Do you not remember Anderson saying mere minutes ago that the place was moving and shifting? Corridors opening, closing...there's nothing "inacessible."

And I have to say, out of the three times I've played the ending so far, I haven't noticed TIM really controlling Anderson. Just Shepard. I may be wrong.

Anderson usually doesn't stumble around awkwardly, and roll his head around like he's possessed.  There's also a strange tone in his voice like he's struggling against something.  It doesn't appear like he's been injured prior to this.  In addition, this strange behaviour ceases after TIM is dead.  Just my interpretation though.

Modifié par Kildin_of_the_Volus, 31 juillet 2012 - 08:25 .