The point is massively that out of all the endings the ec improved, they studiously ignored the ending where s/he lives.
Which is rather strange.
I think they wanted Shepard's survival to be ambiguous so we the players could form our own ending for Shepard. Did he/she live happily ever after with their love interest? Were they hospitalized and essentially a vegetable?
That doesn't work for me because whilst those (and others) are possibilities that's all they feel like, rather than something I know. I'm not the author after all. Headcanon is just wishful thinking (even if it's very plausible wishful thinking).I think they wanted Shepard's survival to be ambiguous so we the players could form our own ending for Shepard. Did he/she live happily ever after with their love interest? Were they hospitalized and essentially a vegetable?
The point is massively that out of all the endings the ec improved, they studiously ignored the ending where s/he lives.
Which is rather strange.
I believe it's because all the other endings are done and closed as far as Shepard is concerned. He's dead and finished in all of them.
In this one, he yet lives, and BW is giving us the ability to imagine what happens next for him.
That doesn't work for me because whilst those (and others) are possibilities that's all they feel like, rather than something I know. I'm not the author after all. Headcanon is just wishful thinking (even if it's very plausible wishful thinking).
This is a case where the author is giving you the power to determine what happens next.
That doesn't work for me because whilst those (and others) are possibilities that's all they feel like, rather than something I know. I'm not the author after all. Headcanon is just wishful thinking (even if it's very plausible wishful thinking).
*shrug* What works for one game won't work for another. I know plenty of people in real life who enjoyed the ending post-extended version of it, and didn't mind the ambiguity of it, while I know a few others who absolutely hated it and wanted to be told flat out what happened.
And I also know a few who just never got into the series. Picked up the controller after watching me play for a bit, then put it down before completing the prologue because the weren't emotionally invested in the game at all, and they weren't into shooters. One person is more into Dragon Age and Harvest Moon, but I cannot convince her to give shooters a shot. (lol, punny)
That doesn't work at all for me, and not because I'm incapable of imaginating a suitable outcome but because it'll never feel like more than headcanon or fan fiction.This is a case where the author is giving you the power to determine what happens next.
That doesn't work at all for me, and not because I'm incapable of imaginating a suitable outcome but because it'll never feel like more than headcanon or fan fiction.
So you're one of the gamers who like a definite ending with little ambiguity?
Nothing wrong with that, just like I'm pretty flexible in what I'll accept in gaming, pretty laid back and mostly come on the forums to debate and for fun.
I think they wanted Shepard's survival to be ambiguous so we the players could form our own ending for Shepard. Did he/she live happily ever after with their love interest? Were they hospitalized and essentially a vegetable?
That logic can make sense if not good sense before EC where all endings are completely ambiguous for their speculation BS. However after a DLC designed to provide clarification and closure, which provides these things in spades for the other endings to leave high EMS with nothing is an utterly disgraceful and unforgiveable.
That logic can make sense if not good sense before EC where all endings are completely ambiguous for their speculation BS. However after a DLC designed to provide clarification and closure, which provides these things in spades for the other endings to leave high EMS with nothing is an utterly disgraceful and unforgiveable.
EC provides as much closure for Destroy as it does for Synthesis and Control and even more, considering breath scene.
You get slides showing the state of the galaxy after your choice in every ending. You get a memorial scene after every ending. And only Destroy shows more by including breath scene.
You get a memorial scene after every ending. And only Destroy shows more by including breath scene.
Tell that to Miranda and Jack who weren't able to hold Shepard's nameplate
EC provides as much closure for Destroy as it does for Synthesis and Control and even more, considering breath scene.
You get slides showing the state of the galaxy after your choice in every ending. You get a memorial scene after every ending. And only Destroy shows more by including breath scene.
It depends upon where the ambiguity lies. What may happen in the future - will the cured krogan become responsible or try to wreak havoc for example, that ambiguity is good. The answers to that type of question are beyond the scope of the game and interesting to think about. When it comes to the immediate case of main characters though it just feels incomplete. A lot of the EC slideshow went too far in the other direction, jumping in to a future that it didn't feel like the story had got to and was beyond its scope.So you're one of the gamers who like a definite ending with little ambiguity?
Nothing wrong with that, just like I'm pretty flexible in what I'll accept in gaming, pretty laid back and mostly come on the forums to debate and for fun.
Control gets closure for dead Shep via both voiceover from reaper shep and a memorial for dead shep. Live shep gets nothing but dumped breath scene at end of years of rebuilding epilogue and the same scummy memorial where random squadmate cheaply pauses for one tiny second. Utterly vile and scummy, akin to giving control an epilogue that didn't touch on the new entity or Shep's death.
Reaper Shep is not the Shepard you played. It says that much. Through his death I was born. The closure you're talking about is the same as Hackett's words in Destroy. Both endings get the memorial scene. Destroy also gets the breath scene. I'm not sure where are you coming from when you claim that Destroy has less closure than Control or Synthesis.
Reaper Shep is not the Shepard you played. It says that much. Through his death I was born. The closure you're talking about is the same as Hackett's words in Destroy. Both endings get the memorial scene. Destroy also gets the breath scene. I'm not sure where are you coming from when you claim that Destroy has less closure than Control or Synthesis.
Reaper may not be shep but it provides clarification of Shep's fate in control transformation. Breath scene existed prior to extended cut and is given zero clarification and worse still isn't even integrated into the epilogue. Don't view use of Hackett as providing proper closure in live shep scenario. Equally so what that all endings get memorial. It only provides closure in dead shep scenarios, in live shep's it is a deep insult.
What happened before EC was not a point of this discussion. The question was that EC failed to provide as much closure to the Destroy ending as it did to Control and Synthesis.
Memorial scene makes sense for all versions. If you have noticed, it plays differently with Shepard alive. His name is not added to the wall, unlike Control and Synthesis.
"Proper closure" is purely subjective. I'm quite content with what we got and high EMS Destroy is my canon ending.
Reaper Shepard talks about Shepard's fate to explain the weird idea presented by the Catalyst. You will die but the Reapers will obey you. There is no such explanation needed in Synthesis - Shepard is dead without any "side effects", and Destroy - Shepard is alive (shown with a breath scene).
Perhaps you wanted something like MEHEM, for Shepard to stay with his squadmates instead of a breath scene? Might've been better, true, but the breath scene serves the same purpose. It is extra content that shows Shepard being alive.
Shepard is dead and AI Shepard isn't him?
In the same way that Jon Osterman is dead and Dr Manhattan isn't him I suppose.
Talking about Osterman, it's very interesting to see the similar visual imagery between his death and Shepard's death in Control. Bioware probably got inspiration from it.
Omg this is so awesome! Dr. Manhattan is like the best comparison to post-Control Shepard.
Shepard is dead and AI Shepard isn't him?
In the same way that Jon Osterman is dead and Dr Manhattan isn't him I suppose.
Talking about Osterman, it's very interesting to see the similar visual imagery between his death and Shepard's death in Control. Bioware probably got inspiration from it.
"Eternal. Infinite. Immortal."
"The man I was used these words but only now do I truly understand them."
"And only now do I understand the whole extent of his sacrifice"
"Through his death I was created. Through my birth his thoughts are freed. They guide me now, give me reason, direction."
The ending of ME3 was an "open ending" where Mac & Casey didn't want to write what happened. They wanted to leave it to our imaginations what happened.
The only thing you're sure of is that the cycle ended unless you refused. You died, the relays blew up, and the Normandy crashed. If you had enough EMS and picked destroy by some miracle, your chest took a gasp of air, but it could have been your last gasp. What happened afterwards is pretty irrelevant since.... drumroll... you're dead.
I believe the breath scene and the one more story is there to bring Shepard back for another game, not saying it will happen, but it leaves the door open for that possibility
I always thought that the breath scene was just added so that in future games they could reference some people believing Shepard is alive. With no intention of bringing Shepard back but people in the MEU believing that Shepard survived. My reasoning is slightly tenuous but there are significant messianic aspects to the Shepard story.
1) The name Shepard. A shepherd is how Christ is described, I don't think its an accident that the names are phonetically identical
2) Death and Resurection
3) Control ending gives us an Ascension mythos
4) The Companions are like Apostles following Shepard and obeying him even when they are not military
5) Committing seeming miracles (at least on the surface) like curing the genophage (even if Shepard didn't personally do so), Solving the Geth/Quarian conflict, Saving earth, Entering the omega relay and returning when everyone else before that had died.
6) being prophetic about the reaper invasion as if Shepard had diving knowledge
7) Association with an Enkindler. Not just an association but an Enkindler was subservient to Shepard.
There are symbolic aspects that are possible to the story of Shepard that are very messianic. (And yes not all players will do all these things) the point is they are part of the story's Zeitgeist. I can see in a post reaper war galaxy the cult of Shepard arising where Shepard is viewed as more than mortal. The hanar have the enkindlers, so having a group of people believing that Shepard is part divine seems very much a possibility. And you can't kill a god so there has to be this idea that Shepard could have survived and the breath scene creates that "possibility" within the community. Are the Shepard sightings you hear about in the next game, real? Did Shepard really survive? If there isn't that breath scene then it has no impact on players as they "know" Shepard died when the crucible blew up shooting out the energy beam the solved the reaper problem. However the breath scene means it could be true, it will mean some people will adamantly believe it and other that wont without definitive proof.
Its this is all speculation, I don't think you will ever see Shepard in another ME game set post reaper war. I could be wrong but I am pretty confident this will hold true.
EC provides as much closure for Destroy as it does for Synthesis and Control and even more, considering breath scene.
You get slides showing the state of the galaxy after your choice in every ending. You get a memorial scene after every ending. And only Destroy shows more by including breath scene.
Actually not true. The fact that people don't feel like the breath scene gave them closure is glaring evidence that the EC did a good job of giving closure to the the control and synthesis endings, but a poor job for the breath destroy ending. I don't see people complaining about closure for control or synthesis post EC. When work of fiction has people complaining they didn't get closure and this isn't a small isolated group here, its a pretty definitive case that the work didn't give you closure. now some works of fiction deliberately don't give you closure but you can't claim that a work of fiction that doesn't provide closure is providing closure by not doing so.
Should ME3 provided closure is the question? I think yes it should have because it was a 3 part series that should have felt players feeling satisfied. Not necessarily happy or even sad, but satisfied. The ME3 endings don't do that, at least for the vast majority of people. it is why the ending is almost universally panned as crap. And not everyone that hates the endings hates them for having no "happily ever after ending" I personally think Shepard should be dead full stop. No retires to a beach for the rest of his/her life, just dead. No chance for a last good bye no body found, just gone.
I wish I knew how to mod the game so the breath ending was impossible.
Now the above said I don't think there will ever be a change to the endings, they are what we have. I think the developers had every right to make the endings they did but I also think its my right they criticise them when I think they got something wrong. I don't so much think the breath ending was a slap in the face to fans but rather really stupid to do something you know upset fans and not provide any clarifications to it, when you provided a DLC to explain the endings that had so many fans upset. You don't want fans upset about an ending you want them to end your game going WOW! not WTF!?!
What happened before EC was not a point of this discussion. The question was that EC failed to provide as much closure to the Destroy ending as it did to Control and Synthesis.
Memorial scene makes sense for all versions. If you have noticed, it plays differently with Shepard alive. His name is not added to the wall, unlike Control and Synthesis.
"Proper closure" is purely subjective. I'm quite content with what we got and high EMS Destroy is my canon ending.
Reaper Shepard talks about Shepard's fate to explain the weird idea presented by the Catalyst. You will die but the Reapers will obey you. There is no such explanation needed in Synthesis - Shepard is dead without any "side effects", and Destroy - Shepard is alive (shown with a breath scene).
Perhaps you wanted something like MEHEM, for Shepard to stay with his squadmates instead of a breath scene? Might've been better, true, but the breath scene serves the same purpose. It is extra content that shows Shepard being alive.
It makes no sense. They all gather to mourn his/her death even though we're supposed to believe he/she is not dead.
In control we always knew just as with breathe scene that control Shep had been created. What he/she was was ambiguous until they provided clarification via EC . Breathe Shep gets no such clarification.
I certainly think MEHEM shows how easily you can provide Closure/Clarification for live shep. There's a myriad of other ways too but sadly they were tyoo scummy to give the clarification and closure that ending required. Breath scene doesn't show Shep is alive. Hence devs trolling about it being his/her last breath. It certainly isn't integrated into the epilogue in any way.
I liked the ending and find it inspiring. Whatever bad writing is simply the same bad writing I've been forced to accept for all 3 games, as well as other Bioware games. To be honest, from a writing standpoint, I always felt the writing was a 6/10. Passable or good, but still lacked development, had issues, and of course, plotholes. They're good at writing characters, but that's it. I think many players are just less forgiving about the ending, because none allow Shepard to be alive with his crew, besides Destroy, which only teases his survival, but doesn't officially confirm he'll be around for his LI (which I don't understand why everyone assumes the worse). If all the current endings had Shepard in a slide show alive and well, half of the hate would disappear. There'd still be criticism, but no different then what ME2's ending got with the Giant Contra boss fight.
Yeck, another guy who stumbles into a discussion thinking everyone hated the endings because "Shepard died!" or "it was too sad". Yet another one who simply doesn't comprehend the issue the ending has when it comes to basic storytelling and ways to properly handle a conclusion (OF AN ENTIRE TRILOGY).
Speaking of someone just stumbling into a conversation... If you read the rest of his posts in this topic (or even the one you quoted) you'd realize that he TMA does comprehend the issues the ending has. He wasn't saying "people die, suck it up buttercup". He only pointed out that more people would had likely been willing to give the ending less scrutiny if it ended on a happier note. Don't blow things out of proportion.
The ending of ME3 was an "open ending" where Mac & Casey didn't want to write what happened. They wanted to leave it to our imaginations what happened.
The only thing you're sure of is that the cycle ended unless you refused. You died, the relays blew up, and the Normandy crashed. If you had enough EMS and picked destroy by some miracle, your chest took a gasp of air, but it could have been your last gasp. What happened afterwards is pretty irrelevant since.... drumroll... you're dead.
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