132 réponses à ce sujet

[Trentest0]

When people complain about the ending online, to their friends , and in general, I feel like it's hard to properly identify what it is exactly that makes it bad. 

I've found that there are several camps, or rather two sides of a scale that people lean toward. 

Left Side: People who wanted a happy or positive ending (now arguably fixed with Extended Cut)

Right Side: People who felt that the Ending betrayed the tagline of the game, "Your Choices Matter", and that the tone of the ending in terms of positivity does not matter. 

Is this a fair identification? What kind of person is more prominent? Do you lean one way or the other? I'd like to know. 

[Mcfly616]

Everybody's different. It's probably best not to generalize it and shoehorn everybody into groups


For example, your "Left Side: people wanted a happy or positive ending", is an assumption.

I hated the original endings, yet I loved the Extended Cut. And it certainly wasn't because it was "happy and positive" (maybe you haven't seen the low EMS endings?). No, the EC filled in the gaps of the original ending, and also showed what effect my choices had on the overall galaxy.

[Chashan]

Trentest0 wrote...

When people complain about the ending online, to their friends , and in general, I feel like it's hard to properly identify what it is exactly that makes it bad. 

I've found that there are several camps, or rather two sides of a scale that people lean toward. 

Left Side: People who wanted a happy or positive ending (now arguably fixed with Extended Cut)

Right Side: People who felt that the Ending betrayed the tagline of the game, "Your Choices Matter", and that the tone of the ending in terms of positivity does not matter. 

Is this a fair identification? What kind of person is more prominent? Do you lean one way or the other? I'd like to know. 

Of what is listed, that is one thing.

Other than that, it comes down to a 'character' of the 'Catalyst's' calibre being implemented into the game in the first place. That this did not get thoroughly overhauled in BW's second shot at it in EC, much less removed, did not exactly help improve my opinion on that.

[Stakrin]

I understood the ensigns, but vastly preferred extended cut. I like that it didn't suddenly become happy when the whole game had so much violence and sacrifice.

[Navasha]

For me, the original ending was just "unsatisfying". The only real ending that wasn't simply a betrayal of everything Shepard was trying to accomplish throughout the whole series had you committing genocide of a race that you had JUST finally achieved peace with, plus killing off a companion who I adored.

The extended did improve that somewhat. You still end up killing off the Geth and EDI, but at least you get to see that the sacrifices everyone made was worth it. You actually got to see that victory was hard fought, but finally won.

Don't much care about the other two endings, as I don't view any of my Shepards as weak-willed enough to allow the Catalyst to talk them out of doing what it was they were to accomplish.

[AlexMBrennan]

Third option: People didn't like the head Reaper (Catalyst) suddenly introducing information (existence of the "tech singularity" problem) which changes the entire premise of the series (from "Shepard trying to stop the Reapers" to "Catalyst trying to stop the tech singularity") and introducing a utopia-ex-culo option with Shepard just accepting everything.
I would have been reasonably happy with the endings if this exposition had been delivered by any other character (e.g. the Crucible crews briefing the soldiers on what to do when they get to the beam)

[Manc4life7]

I only played a Mass Effect game for the first time just this past summer, so my perspective is probably slightly different than most on BSN.  I went into the endings having already seen the internet nearly implode with rage when ME3 first launched, and with the EC already loaded up and ready to go.  I never experienced the endings as they originally were, and my expectations were somewhat tempered based everything I had already heard.

I can't speak for anyone other than myself, and as others have pointed out, trying to shoehorn the vast array of emotions people felt towards the ending of ME3 into several small groupings is basically impossible.  But I will say this:  I wasn't disappointed that there wasn't a "Shep & crew ride off into the sunset" ending.  A "happy" ending such as that would not really fit without major changes to the rest of the game(s). 

The only thing I could say I was "disappointed" in was the execution of the final act.  It just felt rushed - like BW got down to their deadline for launch and had to throw something together last minute.  Please note I am not talking about the plot lines that are used from Priority: Earth onwards, I am talking about the game content used to flesh out those plot lines.  The battle to reach the Citadel beam felt small given the build up before it - again, like it was put together last minute in order to meet a deadline.  It seems like with just a moderate amount of additional effort BW could have put together a mission structure for Priority: Earth that would have made all those previous choices and all that previous effort mustering support matter.  And they could have done all that without needing to change much, if anything at all, about the endings once you reach the Citadel.  

[AlanC9]

Navasha wrote...

Don't much care about the other two endings, as I don't view any of my Shepards as weak-willed enough to allow the Catalyst to talk them out of doing what it was they were to accomplish.

Of course, only a Destroy fan would characterise the choices that way. Re-evaluating your chosen course of action after receiving new information isn't weak-willed under any sane definition of the term.

I don't think fans can be neatly divided into two camps, but certain patterns do repeat. This sort of thing is one of them. In extreme cases you see people making up bad stuff about non-Destroy endings. (The end-stage of the disease is IT, of course.. This current thread shows a nearly-terminal case too.)

Note that this relationship doesn't work both ways. Control and Synthesis fans don't distort their interpretations of the other endings to support their preferred option, possibly because they're happier with their choice in the first place and don't feel a need to.

Modifié par AlanC9, 13 novembre 2013 - 04:24 .

[AlanC9]

AlexMBrennan wrote...

Third option: People didn't like the head Reaper (Catalyst) suddenly introducing information (existence of the "tech singularity" problem) which changes the entire premise of the series (from "Shepard trying to stop the Reapers" to "Catalyst trying to stop the tech singularity") and introducing a utopia-ex-culo option with Shepard just accepting everything.

People who don't see the italed as being true do tend to like the endings better, yes.  If someone thinks that the Catalyst is just plain wrong, or that the tech singularity isn't something Shepard has to solve even though it might be real, the Catalyst doesn't introduce a problem. (One reason Synthesis is so unpopular around here, I think, is that its main virtue is solving the singularity problem.)

There's a fair number of unhappy players who don't find the Catalyst's position credible but feel compelled to believe it's true as a matter of narrative, or some such.

Modifié par AlanC9, 13 novembre 2013 - 04:21 .

[Ticonderoga117]

I'm in both camps myself. I'd very much like for there to have been the chance for a happy ending. I also feel that my choices throughout the series (Mainly the big ones) did exactly nothing to the main plot. Anything I did was reduced to meaninglessness.

What would've been nice is if your choices through the series effected your ending more than "Pick your favorite color at the End-o-tron 3000". Sure, the EC alleviated this problem somewhat, but the game should never have shipped with that BS original ending.

Also, there's a third camp I think you're missing; The "This doesn't make a lick of sense" camp. Everything dealing with how the Crucible, Catalyst, and the Citadel is setup relies solely on it working because "The writers said so". Now sure, this has shown up in earlier games, but not to this degree. It's ridiculous.

[Bizantura]

It's a hero's story two games and 99% of the third with the last ten minutes a tragic ending tacked on. That's bad writing not art... If they wanted a tragic story they should do it from the get go. Within the story there are inconsistencies and understandable some people are annoyed by that.

[AlexMBrennan]

There's a fair number of unhappy players who don't find the Catalyst's position credible but feel compelled to believe it's true as a matter of narrative, or some such.

That's my main complaint about the ending though - the conflict/moral dilemma the writers tried to set up fails completely because I don't trust the characters introducing the options: I'm not going to pick Control moments after shooting an indoctrinated TIM, and I'm not inclined to completely abandon my quest (stopping the Reapers from killing us) when the head Reaper tells me about some alleged greater evil.
It's just a massive wasted opportunity.

[FlyingSquirrel]

Well, I had two big problems with the endings as they originally existed:

1) As someone who played an Idealist Paragon for several of my Shepards, the endings didn't really give me an option with which I felt ethically comfortable. So after allowing me to work my way through 2.9999 games and usually (though not always 100%) giving me what I considered a principled way to solve the major conflicts, I was told that I couldn't do that on the biggest decision of the trilogy.

2) The destruction of the mass relays, IMO, really did undermine the notion of my choices mattering. Sure, it's great if the krogan are finally unified and rebuildling, the geth and quarians are at peace, the Grissom students survived, Eden Prime is free, etc. etc. *BUT* the impact of those things is going to be outweighed by the fact that a highly interdependent galactic society is now going to be struggling to survive in isolated pockets and probably limited contact with each other.

Problem #1 was still not entirely addressed by the EC. I can come up with headcanon reasons why the more seemingly coercive elements of Control or Synthesis might not actually be that coercive, but that's really me doing the writing in place of Bioware. Heck, the EC actually makes Control a little *more* questionable on that front - even the Paragon version of the final narration leaves me wondering if this new Shepard-AI can be entirely trusted, whereas previously it was left entirely up to us to imagine how that might play out.

Problem #2, on the other hand, was addressed reasonably well by the EC in showing the relays as being reparable as long as we have reasonably high EMS. The sense I get from the ending slides is that, while there is obviously going to be a long reconstruction process, the galactic society that existed before the war does still exist and will be in a better place for all of Shepard's efforts. So that did alleviate the feeling that the impact of my choices was limited. It doesn't bother me that the immediate impact on the war of some of my choices was relatively indirect, as long as their influence is still felt afterwards.

Modifié par FlyingSquirrel, 13 novembre 2013 - 05:20 .

[Iakus]

The two sides that seem to exist (and the two are not mutually exclusive) are:

There are six endings where Shepard clearly dies, yet the one where Shepard "lives" is intentionally kept vague. It's only implied that Shepard is found and rescued. All the others leave Shep a charcoal briquette or worse.That is not proper balance.

The other is the endings themselves. A lot of people think they are all so awful they turn Shepard from the hero to the villain, or at least the tool of the villain.At best the endings and their implications were not well thought out. They fly in the face of the messages of the story for the entire trilogy.

[Clayless]

You wont find sense in looking for an answer to this OP, so I wouldn't bother if I were you.

[ImaginaryMatter]

The two most general camps to me always seemed to be those who accept the Catalyst and those who don't. The former don't like the ending because of things like lack of closure and ambiguity, I would say a large number of this camp liked the EC and were fine with the endings forever after. The later think the entire premise of the ending is a failure that must be completely removed.

[Sion1138]

Two camps, I guess, lovers and haters. You can turn anything into a dichotomy but of course there's always more to it.

I mainly protested the introduction of a new character as the main 'antagonist' during the last few minutes of the game and the major exposition dump that came with it, which from my perspective completely redefined a great many elements of the story.

Also, I was bothered by the fact that the protagonist, my character, was not allowed to emerge at the other end. In that respect, I expected a conclusion in line with the epic narrative, which for the most part this trilogy was.

You don't just leave Odysseus in limbo.

Modifié par Sion1138, 13 novembre 2013 - 06:03 .

[Linkenski]

The camp I'm in is all about the consistency of the story so I'm in the right camp. although I didn't have issues with the tone being different in the last 15 minutes, but rather how the theme was suddently changed at the 11th hour.

[Armass81]

I understood the catalysts motives and all that first time, but the execution of it was just wretched, and they really didnt seem to think about the players feelings too much going into it. The EC made it adequate, but theres still problems. In short I get what they went for, but didnt agree how they did it. A fan here made a much more better version of the ending.

All in all, they could have done much better with that scene, even second time around when they got the chance.

Modifié par Armass81, 13 novembre 2013 - 06:21 .

[Vortex13]

Armass81 wrote...

I understood the catalysts motives and all that first time, but the execution of it was just wretched, and they really didnt seem to think about the players feelings too much going into it. The EC made it adequate, but theres still problems. In short I get what they went for, but didnt agree how they did it. A fan here made a much more better version of the ending.

All in all, they could have done much better with that scene, even second time around when they got the chance.

Bolded the part I agree with you on.

I don't really have a problem with the endings (post EC) now, in terms of the state of the galaxy, and the fate of its inhabitents. I don't have any issues with each of the four endings either.

My disapointment is more to do with how ME 3 doesn't set itself up for a continuation of the series, and the reveal for the Reapers.

I am fine with this being the last game of Shepard's story, but I would like to see how my choices play out with the races in the future. I helped achieve peace on Rannoch, I would like to see how the Geth integrate into galactic society, but the endings don't really leave room to explore that without cannonizing one of them, and I really don't want to have a repeat of Geth = Bad Robots again for any possible pre-queals or side-queals.

The Reaper thing is more of an annoyance/let down with the reveal and what it does to their character. It's kind of like Darth Vader before the prequel trilogy came out, and then Darth Vader after it came out. You have this cool, and intimidating character (IMO) but now all you can see is a little annoying kid. 

[Han Shot First]

I think a bittersweet ending was the way to go. A sunshine and rainbows ending would have been far too sappy and disconnected thematically from the rest of the game.

The problem for me was not that the endings were bittersweet but that they were not well executed. Where Bioware stumbled I thought was in having the bitter half of bittersweet come from galactic civilization collapsing, and dark age being ushered in that lasted eons. This left far too many players feeling like Shepard had failed in some degree. as the players were also trying to save the setting that they had grown attached to over the course of three games and five years from being destroyed. Instead the fictional universe these fans had grown attached to was completely obliterated.

I think bittersweet endings would have been far better received had Shepard instead saved galactic civilization, but the price for doing so was some casualties during the end run.

Beyond that the endings also suffered from thematic inconsistencies, loss of player agency, religious symbolism, and a main villain who was voiced by a child actor. Children on the whole, can't act. You're far more likely to get Jake Lloyd than you are Haley Joel Osmont. And Mass Effect 3 got Jake Lloyd.

That all being said the Extended Cut at least managed to make the endings palatable to me in that the High EMS versions ditched the dark age, and in making the Catalyst seem more like a flawed A.I. than Q from Star Trek. I still have major issues with the endings, but the EC addressed enough concerns that the series was redeemed for me.

I'm not sure what 'group' that puts me into, except perhaps a minority.

[Eryri]

In answer to your question OP - the author of this essay does a good job of deconstructing and categorising reactions to the ending - http://awtr.ca/long:this-is-not-a-pipe

If you don't have 10 minutes to spend reading it, he or she identifies 3 main groups who are disatisfied with the ending. (For the record I belong to all three.)

1. Those who found it depressing.

2. Those who found it ridiculous due to its plot holes and general overuse of Space Magic.

3. Those who found Shepard's adoption of the Reaper's own methods in all three endings to be grotesque. 

One of these would be bad enough, but the combination of all three is actually quite something to behold. The story is now too depressing for me to enjoy as a piece of escapist entertainment, but too absurd and illogical to be credible to me as a serious piece of science fiction. It basically tries to be two different things and fails at both.

[AlanC9]

This is a pretty good taxonomy, as long as we include the implicit assumption that the person is actually bothered by points 1 and 2. One can believe these to be true without necessarily thinking they're problems, just as one can find Shepard "adopting Reaper methods" to be ironic rather than grotesque. (Quotes there because I don't really see the case in the first place, except in a trivial sense)

For instance, I think point 2 is true for ME3, but also true for ME2, ME1, and pretty much everything else Bio's ever done. And while I didn't find the ending depressing, depressing endings aren't a problem for me.

Modifié par AlanC9, 13 novembre 2013 - 07:17 .

[Han Shot First]

AlanC9 wrote...

For instance, I think point 2 is true for ME3, but also true for ME2, ME1, and pretty much everything else Bio's ever done. And while I didn't find the ending depressing, depressing endings aren't a problem for me.

I think that is a good point.

Mass Effect 1 I thought had the biggest plot hole of the series, yet I still enjoyed it. And both ME1 and ME2 were full of space magic.