Archonsg wrote...
1) Nihilistic message intended or not ia just wrong
2) Hero dying heroically is good. Suicide because there is *no other choice is not.
3) *no other choice ; And we now have The Refusal ending, refer to point 1
4) Pyrrhic victories are fine in a book or movie. For a game where both time and player investment is made by playing the game, it should not be the *only* choice.
Having only a Pyrrhic Victory ending *can*work, like what we had for Planescape :Torment but it must not just be lead up to from the events in the game, *it must fit the narrative theme* which again the ending of Planescape : Torment did.
ME3's ending unfortunately did not.
Another good example of a Pyrrhic Victory for the player would be Dragon Age : Origins "Ultimate Sacrifice" ending. It's my favorite when playing as the Dalish Elf.
However Dragon Age : Origins offered the one thing ME3 did not, a way for the Hero to survive.
Both ME2 and DA:O have this option and because of it, are far better games then their progeny.
Well here is part of the issue for me. The kid and the reapers have always seen Shepard as a threat. The intent all along was to kill and get his/her body. So the idea that it makes any sort of sense for Shepard to meet and greet the reaper keeper kid, hear him say that in two of three choices s/he must commit suicide and in the third that it's anyone's guess as to whether s/he will die or not is ludicrous.
Yeah, when confronted with someone who sees me as a threat my natural reaction is to go kill myself because they say in order to help them I must. Ok, brains exist for a reason. They are to be used.
The issue here of course is a happy ending. Well, it's always been one part of the whole ball of wax for me. Rational is what I wanted and happy ending possibility was what I needed.
I'm not lookiing at this and saying everyone should have wanted a super happy reunion ending where no loss has occurred and so on. I am saying that when you create a game with a story that allows for choices to be made with a variety of outcomes based upon those choices, you have to be consistent.
Prior to the ending review what happened. Could the Krogan get a happy ending? Yes. You could cure the genophage. Could the geth and the quarians? Yes, because you could make a mutually beneficial peace happen for both of them. Could EDI have one? Yes, she could because not only did you help her by not telling her what to do, become alive. You could help her begin to understand love, romantic and a sort of filial kind of love.
Once the ending hit, could you achieve this same thing for Shepard? That's unknown. Head canon can lead you to believe it's possible but it requires you to imagine away what just happened. The blast was not so big that it destroyed Shepard's organic parts. The rubble not so heavy that it would crush Shepard an lead to a heavy loss of blood. The geth and EDI well no they weren't destroyed at all. In fact, EDI helps locate the torso that Bioware has no respect for because she was able to track Cerberus material contained within Shepard's synthetic parts. She also noted there were life signs. That memorial wall scene was the friend or LI thinking about what EDI said (Shepard could be alive) and what others believed (Shepard was probably dead) and believing EDI. The one crucial thing here is that a Shepard, in fact my Shepard cared about EDI and that torso would have a hard time living with the knowledge that s/he indiscriminately used the god device of unknown origin and it killed EDI, just because. My Shepard would ask someone to throw that rubble back on top of her.
The idea of a happy ending is one where life is affirmed and where love and relationships matter. I couldn't give a rat's ass if an empty Citadel was saved or not. I couldn't give a rat's ass if the relays work or not. I don't give a good flying frick if ships can fly or inanimate not alive tech can be used. I care about the people and if they cannot come out of this together in at least one ending (and they don't) then BW failed to conclude the story they began. They failed at sticking to the theme of unity. And the destroy speech that Hackett should not have been giving but that Shepard should have, rings hollow.
Retour en haut
Now, please don't make me laugh! You were playing a damn game, which is a quite lazy pass time activity, or hobby (a waste of time for many) where I live and you're talking about it like you were working in a mine, so you deserve a payment for it... I mean, I hope you get the irony. You payed for many hours of fun and ME story and you got that. It was a fair deal. Just because you happen to dislike a part of the game because you expected something else does not make you any more entitled to demand a refund or another "more fitting" ending to the story they aimed to tell. Get over it and next time don't buy from them, if this particular product hurt your feelings so much.
