The first game should have been the precedent-setting game. The one that sets the themes and tones for the trilogy.
And for ME2, it blurred the lines a bit but the Reapers were still "your salvation through destruction"
Sure it should have been, Im not saying otherwise. Only pointing out that it isn't ME3's ending that suddenly changed the reapers. They haven't been the same since ME2 came out.
I didn't listen to the podcast, but IIRC the two options they had in mind for resolving that whole thing were a) destroy the Reapers and hope and pray that everything will work out (in typical paragon fashion), and b ) allow humanity to by Reap'd because the existence of a Human Reaper would somehow fix the problem, which doesn't make sense, but then it was just a vague outline of the idea.
It definitely needed fleshing out, but the idea of Mass Effect technology being used to regulate dark energy in the galaxy is an interesting starting point imo. The problem with it is that it kind of doesn't allow for a galaxy without Reapers managing everything, unless organics somehow come up with a solution that hyper-advanced machines couldn't in a billion years, which is kind of silly.
Honestly the Organic/Synthetic thing isn't a terrible idea either, I mean I remember seeing theories that the Reapers were preventing a technological apocalypse being posted around the boards as early as pre-ME2. The problem with the current ending was the execution. If the whole SynthOrg thing had been properly delved into over the series it would have been better, instead we got some poorly delivered exposition by a character that ruined what were supposed to be the antagonists we'd spent 2 1/2 games worrying about. I guess I'm saying DE isn't inherently better or worse than the SynthOrg reveal, it's a matter of how it was handled.
Any solution that presented the Reapers as saviors was doomed to fail thematically. They have created Holocausts a million times over. Particularly in ME3 they are shown to be pure abominations right up until starbrat starts to claim this was all for our own good. To suddenly try to present these pure monsters as somehow "good" was futile. At some point the means cannot justify the ends and the Reapers means were in no way justifiable. They could have easily come up with some other solution, particularly if the problem was one of dark energy. Instead of destroying organics, couldn't they have tried to work with them? Even the synth/organic problem had other solutions than genocide. Besides the logical absurdity of their "final solution," they clearly had the means to try out other options, based on just how powerful they were, like mediating/putting a stop to synth/organic wars.
Thematically, the Reapers were an evil that needed to be stopped. They were never presented as anything other than an evil that needed to be stopped. Yet in the last few moments we are told that all that thematic stuff we were fed was a total lie. Either the ending was the lie or the whole rest of the trilogy was a lie.
Any solution that presented the Reapers as saviors was doomed to fail thematically. They have created Holocausts a million times over. Particularly in ME3 they are shown to be pure abominations right up until starbrat starts to claim this was all for our own good. To suddenly try to present these pure monsters as somehow "good" was futile. At some point the means cannot justify the ends and the Reapers means were in no way justifiable. They could have easily come up with some other solution, particularly if the problem was one of dark energy. Instead of destroying organics, couldn't they have tried to work with them? Even the synth/organic problem had other solutions than genocide. Besides the logical absurdity of their "final solution," they clearly had the means to try out other options, based on just how powerful they were, like mediating/putting a stop to synth/organic wars.
Thematically, the Reapers were an evil that needed to be stopped. They were never presented as anything other than an evil that needed to be stopped. Yet in the last few moments we are told that all that thematic stuff we were fed was a total lie. Either the ending was the lie or the whole rest of the trilogy was a lie.
I can agree with that. The Reaper revelation doesn't pay off in any way. Normally a good twist has a way of putting the story in a different perspective or answering some big, lingering question. This one just leaves behind a confusing, bad taste. I don't think many people had a burning desire to know the secrets of the Reapers -- not that the series pointed to them having a particular interesting or worthwhile one.
When I think of a good ending I think of ones that either provided closure, answered some big questions, reaffirmed whatever theme the story was going for, or some mixture of the three. ME3 went for the question answering one which was bound to fail given the vicarious heap the plot was at that point and was further hurt by the actual explanation being so dumb. Most players I assume were largely there for the characters and the series had this way of increasingly painting the more morally ambiguous conflicts in clear black and white so it wasn't like some standard ending would have been bad.
** Actually I guess you could say the ending very well summed up the fatalistic bent the series took when implementing consequence into account.
While I dislike defending the ending I actually believe, but can't prove, that a lot of people wanted to understand the Reaper's motivations better. I'm not saying how it was presented was good but I believe that the devs thought it was something they HAD to address.
While I dislike defending the ending I actually believe, but can't prove, that a lot of people wanted to understand the Reaper's motivations better. I'm not saying how it was presented was good but I believe that the devs thought it was something they HAD to address.
That could very well be the case. For me though, I thought the ME1 Vigil conversation was pretty final on that idea. "It's beyond your comprehension" might be pretty hand-wavy or just play into the whole Eldritch motif, but it felt like a clear sign that Reaper motives weren't going to be central to stopping them.
I took the initial Sovereign conversation in much the same way.
I wish we could have found out about the Reaper's motivations a piece at a time. While not done super-well in ME2 there were enough pieces you found along the way that when you started getting "the big reveals" it built on what went earlier well enough to paint the picture.
While I dislike defending the ending I actually believe, but can't prove, that a lot of people wanted to understand the Reaper's motivations better. I'm not saying how it was presented was good but I believe that the devs thought it was something they HAD to address.
Are you sure? Because i often hear people on this forums saying that they would have prefered that the Reaper motivations remain a mystery and like how Bioware ruined the Reapers now by explaining their motivations.
I took the initial Sovereign conversation in much the same way.
I wish we could have found out about the Reaper's motivations a piece at a time. While not done super-well in ME2 there were enough pieces you found along the way that when you started getting "the big reveals" it built on what went earlier well enough to paint the picture.
If I was working on the game I think I would have kept their motives a speculative discussion that happened in the background of the game. Like the Reapers would have some sort of methodology that while vague, would denote that they had some sort of higher ulterior goal. During the course of the game there would also be ancient artifacts and conversations among characters that could be used to support any number of things if a player was invested enough. There wouldn't be anything definitive but there would be speculation that the Reapers could be anything from an ancient race merely maintaining dominance, having some sort of mystical origin, using the cycles as tools for some tertiary purpose, or even aspirations to become gods themselves through some kind of transcendence that involves reaping.
Ultimately, it would be mostly restricted to something like the Codex. It wouldn't show up in the main plot at all and the main character can either ignore it completely or dismiss it.
I'm not sure at all. Parts of me wanted the Reapers handled like "lovecraftian" characters that you CAN'T possibly understand. Other parts of me thought Sovereign could have been monologging so at that point you want to know what's up.
While I think a lot of people could handle "Lovecrating" the Reapers I'm not sure if that would sell to a more general audience. Then again maybe I'm underestimating my fellow gamers??????
having some sort of mystical origin, using the cycles as tools for some tertiary purpose, or even aspirations to become gods themselves through some kind of transcendence that involves reaping.
gag, choke, cough, cough. You do realize this was supposed to be a sci-fi game, not Dragon Age goes to space?
I'm not sure at all. Parts of me wanted the Reapers handled like "lovecraftian" characters that you CAN'T possibly understand. Other parts of me thought Sovereign could have been monologging so at that point you want to know what's up.
While I think a lot of people could handle "Lovecrating" the Reapers I'm not sure if that would sell to a more general audience. Then again maybe I'm underestimating my fellow gamers??????
I think the Chthulu motif was one of the major failings of the entire reaper plot.
The problem was that the lesson hadn't been learned yet: we wanted to kick the reapers in the daddy bags.
In Dragon Age Inquisition, Bioware redeemed themselves for the Mass Effect 3 ending.
No, they really didn't. DA I's ending was rushed and although ending on a cliffhanger isn't terrible, it's not a good thing to do after how ME 3 ended.
gag, choke, cough, cough. You do realize this was supposed to be a sci-fi game, not Dragon Age goes to space?
The point is that it would be divorced from the central plot. It would basically be navel gazing for anyone pedantic about ME lore, but other wise pretty ignorable. And there wouldn't be anything conclusive. It would be like an ME conspiracy theory.
I think the Chthulu motif was one of the major failings of the entire reaper plot.
I don't think the Reapers were ever intended to be actual Cthlulu. The themes of the stories don't match up at all. If anything I think it was a bit more of a subversion to make Sovereign's defeat all the more epic and possibly a visual basis to make a sinister looking space ship. I think the game makes it clear that although the Reapers were an epic threat -- they were just machines to be broken.
A friend of mine didn't think Cthlulu when she played ME1, but instead an image of a 'Hand of God'.
ME1 - We are your destruction
ME2 - We are your salvation through destruction
ME3 - We are your salvation
Interesting, that.
and people say the Dark Energy plot would have been better..
they should have left the reapers alone not turn them into saviors
This.
The Reapers are Mass Effect's Blight. Any ending where you hold hands, tentacles, whatever with mass murdering space Cthulhu..and sing kumbaya, was a bad idea.
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Both the dark energy ending and the starkid ending have major problems, since they both nullify the plot of ME1. The reapers of ME1 were not trying to save the galaxy.
- "I am beyond your comprehension" not "I am trying the save the galaxy from organic species"
- "Your extinction is inevitable" not "We will save your species from certain extinction"
- "You cannot grasp the nature of our existence" not "Your species makes the same mistakes past generations, and we are here to help"
- "You cannot escape your doom" not "We will save you from doom"
- "I am the Vanguard of your destruction" .... you get my point
Any solution that presented the Reapers as saviors was doomed to fail thematically. They have created Holocausts a million times over. Particularly in ME3 they are shown to be pure abominations right up until starbrat starts to claim this was all for our own good. To suddenly try to present these pure monsters as somehow "good" was futile. At some point the means cannot justify the ends and the Reapers means were in no way justifiable. They could have easily come up with some other solution, particularly if the problem was one of dark energy. Instead of destroying organics, couldn't they have tried to work with them? Even the synth/organic problem had other solutions than genocide. Besides the logical absurdity of their "final solution," they clearly had the means to try out other options, based on just how powerful they were, like mediating/putting a stop to synth/organic wars.
Thematically, the Reapers were an evil that needed to be stopped. They were never presented as anything other than an evil that needed to be stopped. Yet in the last few moments we are told that all that thematic stuff we were fed was a total lie. Either the ending was the lie or the whole rest of the trilogy was a lie.
Yeah, they definitely shouldn't come off as 'good' as such. I do think that a 'doing it for the galaxy's own good' thing could have worked, as long as the amoral, brutal harshness of their methods wasn't downplayed. It's another reason the Catalyst ruins them - they go from being big sociopathic machines like Sovereign to a bunch of mindless drones who are slaves to the Catalyst, which itself is presented in kind of a neutral way. Like we weren't supposed to really hate it for everything it did. All the responsibility for their actions got lifted from the Reapers in the last 5 minutes, after watching them maim, mutilate, indoctrinate and obliterate all over the place.
But then I'm not sure giving them a complex motivation was ever necessary (not that their motivations turned out to be complex in the least). It was only expected because of a load of buildup beginning with Sovereign's speech. If you ask me the Reapers never even needed to be anything more than a bunch of megalomaniacal alien beings who enforce their twisted version of "order" in the galaxy just because that's who they are.
A friend of mine didn't think Cthlulu when she played ME1, but instead an image of a 'Hand of God'.
ME1 - We are your destruction
ME2 - We are your salvation through destruction
ME3 - We are your salvation
Interesting, that.
Hmm, I've never thought about it that way. I can see it though.
The problem was that the lesson hadn't been learned yet: we wanted to kick the reapers in the daddy bags.
In Dragon Age Inquisition, Bioware redeemed themselves for the Mass Effect 3 ending.
I wouldn't know because I swore off purchasing BioWare stuff.
Though who knows, maybe I'll get it without purchasing it. Like borrow it from someone, then toss it away again.
For sure no dollars getting to Bioware/EA from it.
On the ME3 ending...really it was just so atrocious people want to believe something else would have saved it. Bottom line is nothing would have saved it because of the poor decisionst that were being made. If there was an ending worth doing, it would have been tossed out the window. The problem wasn't the story, it was who was inflicting it on the game.
I think the Chthulu motif was one of the major failings of the entire reaper plot.
Definitely I think Cthulu version of the Reapers, for real, was a dumb idea. The point of the game was to beat the Reapers and in that way, as the video says, the two are not alike. And Mass Effect should never have been a game with a Cthulu enemy, even if someone was to do it right. It just wasn't why people liked the Mass Effect series.
It is only speculation (haha) whether that's what the people responsible for the atrocious ME3 ending had in mind, but if they did, it only makes it worse.
Definitely I think Cthulu version of the Reapers, for real, was a dumb idea. The point of the game was to beat the Reapers and in that way, as the video says, the two are not alike. And Mass Effect should never have been a game with a Cthulu enemy, even if someone was to do it right. It just wasn't why people liked the Mass Effect series.
People liked Mass Effect because the protagonist could, and regularly did, talk the pants off anyone. If you're going to reference that, go all the way. The Reapers don't matter to that one way or another.
I think the "you cannot comprehend" motif was well done until the third game. Vast and Lovecraftian in the first game to evoke the right reaction and threat level but beginning to unravel and return to our realm in the second (via learning how they reproduce). That dispelled just enough of the mecha-Cthulu vibe to start lending credibility to the idea of defeating them while still keeping them vast, unknowable and more importantly fundamentally different from us or anything we've encountered. Because really, unfathomable doesn't necessarily mean Lovecraftian and it doesn't mean invincible either. If ME2 had done just a little more to introduce the Reaper's downfall, like bringing in the Crucible, it would've taken us to the perfect spot on the vast-defeatable scale.
"We'll have to upset the players' sense of control in both the narrative and the play without interrupting the flow of game play itself. And in the end, leave them questioning their characters sanity"
Sounds like ME3 to me 
"If ME2 had done just a little more to introduce the Reaper's downfall, like bringing in the Crucible"
The final choice of the game could have been what to do with the Human Reaper. Do you distrust Cerberus and hand it over to the Council or do you think they lack the will to do what is necessary and give it to Cerberus. The research done on it could then be the base for defeating them in the third game.
As it is giving the player the option to nuke the Collector base let them blow up the plot (the Paragon reasoning is also very dumb) rendering the second game irrelevant.
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