93 réponses à ce sujet

[gothpunkboy89]

 I still don't get why poeple seem to complain to much about ending. Never seen the vanilla ending. Only got the game after extended ending was released. So issues with it before extended ending I can understand.  Seeing as they had to add a DLC to make it more satifying.

 

It should be noted how ever I don't think a game series like this will ever have a satifying conclusion to everyone. It is just impossible given the hype build up around it.  You would need an entire 4th game just to do the ending(s) people feel are needed.

 

If you are a fan of anime in any action series you generally see this set up over and over again. New villan shows up, slaps good guy around like a rag doll. Good guy stops to train/heal. Fights bad guy again but continues to get slapped around to make it look more and more like it is a hopless fight. Then right before hero dies he manages to some how defeat the bad guy that just moments before had a sure victory.

 

To hold the tension in the story the bad guys have to seem like they will win right till the very end. If you don't the story just isn't as good.

 

@Tim van Beek

head cannon for me is that you take your entire squad with you on each mission. It only shows 2 other for game play reasons but the reason your team seems so unstopable is because you have everyone with you.

[AlanC9]

That Shepard would be okay with some R&R when the Reapers are advancing across the galaxy? That Tali and/or Liara are able to party when their planets are in peril (depending on when you throw the party)?

Nitpick: I'm not sure these things are really problems. ME3 plays out over several months, from various NPC dialogues. (Difficult to come up with an exact figure since the timing of those NPC conversations is variable.) While the game clock only advances with the completion of Priority missions, in-universe a day or two of R&R can't delay the completion of the Crucible, and Tali and Liara -- and Shepard and Garrus, for that matter -- can't stay in panic mode forever.

[Jeniva]

 I still don't get why poeple seem to complain to much about ending. Never seen the vanilla ending. Only got the game after extended ending was released. So issues with it before extended ending I can understand.  Seeing as they had to add a DLC to make it more satifying.

 

 

 

My issues with the endings are: 

I want to save EDI and the Geth but DESTROY the reapers. Yet I can't do that. I either have to bow down to the reapers and shake their tentacles, forgive and forget (and die), or kill all the Geth and EDI but get rid of the reapers. 
I personally can't justify control ending at all - it's exactly what TIM wanted to do, doesn't that tell you enough?
as for synthesis I was considering it, but after reading the novels it seems it's exactly what the reapers want. And I will not do anything the reapers want, they damn well killed millions! 

[themikefest]

 I still don't get why poeple seem to complain to much about ending. Never seen the vanilla ending.

If you want to see the original ending, click on the spoiler

Spoiler

[AlanC9]

@ Jeniva: Yep, it's a tough choice, and you can't get exactly what you want. Should RPGs not do that, ever? If not, when shouldn't they?

@ themikefest: that vid skips one thing about the ending that ticked off a lot of people. After the last thing in the vid you get what's basically a DLC plug, before getting bounced back to the Normandy pre-Cronos. That message was changed by the EC too.

[Jeniva]

@ Jeniva: Yep, it's a tough choice, and you can't get exactly what you want. Should RPGs not do that, ever? If not, when shouldn't they?

@ themikefest: that vid skips one thing about the ending that ticked off a lot of people. After the last thing in the vid you get what's basically a DLC plug, before getting bounced back to the Normandy pre-Cronos. That message was changed by the EC too.

 

it's not the fact that you just can't get what you want. it's the fact that you worked hard to FINALLY get peace with geth and quarians and woops no got to kill all the geth and set back the quarians again. 
Plus I'd still be ok with Shepard dying if it meant saving Geth and EDI. 

[gothpunkboy89]

My issues with the endings are: 

I want to save EDI and the Geth but DESTROY the reapers. Yet I can't do that. I either have to bow down to the reapers and shake their tentacles, forgive and forget (and die), or kill all the Geth and EDI but get rid of the reapers. 
I personally can't justify control ending at all - it's exactly what TIM wanted to do, doesn't that tell you enough?
as for synthesis I was considering it, but after reading the novels it seems it's exactly what the reapers want. And I will not do anything the reapers want, they damn well killed millions! 

 

And humans have killed millions of their own kind. Turians as well. Salarians I'm sure have their own impressive body count thanks to STG. Krogan...well lets just say they have the high score I'm sure.

[danivasnormandy]

 

Hey guys I know I'm super late to the ME party, and I didn't want to create a new thread about the ending cause I'm sure there have been thousands. I just finished the trilogy for the first time and, with a lot of strong will, avoided spoilers other than a couple of hints and armed with the fact that almost everyone HATED the ending. So I might be in the overwhelming minority but I actually liked the ending and didn't have any problem with it (granted, I had the Extended Cut and Leviathan so I know that changed a lot, plus playing it long after the dust settled and being more forgiving with video games flaws in general helped ... but still I saw hate at all around anyway and I felt motivated to voice my opinion on why I liked it despite its flaws. 

 

I loved the trilogy and I can consider myself a new fan, but for obvious reasons I was expecting the worse when I reached the ending. I just liked how it played out, and the three choices we were given. I felt they were in accordance with both the choice driven nature of the game and the themes explored throughout, namely the organics vs. synthetics one. I don't understand why people were so angry, what were they expecting? Did people expect to not have a choice and just kill the Reapers swiftly and cleanly and everyone lived happily ever after? Or on the contrary, they wanted to have more choice, or see how the choices they made through the game had more impact? This wouldn't make sense in my mind because if there's one thing I loved about the whole trilogy, specially in the third, is how your choices DID have an impact, either in deciding the different races' fates, your squad mates' fates and ultimately adding to the War Assets count that also had consequences in the end. I don't know if it was really the designer's intention but the whole game did feel like a big ending of sorts and the final sequence was just the culmination to resolve the reaper issue. I also appreciated that instead of a big final boss battle like video games have us so accustomed to, we get the choices sequence, and like I mentioned, the game give us the chance to choose how to deal with the Reapers and live with the consequences, even if we don't totally like them. More importantly for me, they weren't a typical Renegade - Paragon choice like many of the choices up to this point, but a whole moral dilemma that I found fascinating and even worth discussing the merits of each (like in this thread or many others). 

 

Other complaints I have seen around is how it ditches everything that you were working towards and in here I have special position that I don't know if other fans have mentioned before, and is the fact that since the introduction of the Crucible, no one knows how it works or what is going to happen after is activated. I even enjoyed this little bit of mystery surrounding the Crucible and I think people forgot about it since they were so focused on just killing the reapers. We were told that we wouldn't stand a chance fighting the Reapers by conventional means, not even with a 100% EMS (although ok you only find about this after the fact, but we ARE told that we don't stand a chance), so we were at the mercy of whatever the Crucible did, so why should we be that surprised or shocked that it wasn't what we were expecting? Heck, for all we knew it could have wiped out all life indiscriminately and let the galaxy renew itself. Instead we were able to work with the Catalyst AI (who I didn't see as a villain) and come up with a new solution. So if people didn't like it, well that was the only weapon the whole galactic community through the ages could come up and build to deal with the reaper issue, whether you liked it or not, and if you don't like it then don't use it and get exterminated (granted, the original ending didn't have this option). The only thing I may agree with being flawed is in the Catalyst' logic and its solution to save life from extinction, but again, I can forgive that and actually give kudos to the creators for trying something daring and not stick with a typical good vs evil battle.

 

Additionally, when people say what happens at the end ditches everything and seems so out of place, again I think they forget that this moment that seems so out of place is exactly what you were working towards from the beginning, namely a chance to kill the Reapers, and you did it! That you didn't like how it looks or plays out or that the writers kind of failed to convey some complex meaning to it all, ok, but any disappointment  was because of your and Shepard's expectations. But reaching this point no matter what it was was the goal and you with the help of all the races managed to accomplish it against all odds, hence the new variable the Catalyst mentioned and hence the need to change the solution...

 

There might be other flaws like the consequences didn't differ too much between choices (especially in the original endings). Or that there are some things left unexplained like the presence of the Starchild. or even plot holes and what not. But I was so emotionally invested and engrossed in the game that I perfectly managed to give the writers leeway and enjoy it for what it is. I also haven't looked too much into the Indoctrination Theory, but from what I can gather it may seem like an interesting theory but that EC nullified, although I don't know the details as to how. All in all I liked it for what it was, I expected something much much worse like the Reapers winning no matter what you did (really it was so unanimous the hate that I really thought the Reapers did the harvest no matter what), or being super rushed and/or 

abrupt. 

 

Anyway sorry about my rant, I just wanted to give my opinion. It has been interesting to read many different discussions and views online

[niniendowarrior]

Generally, I always felt that as I was playing the game, emotionally, I thought all the writing was heading towards blowing up the Reapers.  Naturally, that's what I ended up choosing.  Never really did see the original ending and only got the extended one so I'm not at arms with the ending.  Each ending had minor variations and in the end, I was OK with it and let it go.  I think the primary issue is presentation and there are a few things I felt that having an opportunity to give a second take (aka extended cut) would remove, but they are there in the EC endings.  Oh well.

 

That people still talk about the ME3 endings is exactly what BioWare wants.

[danivasnormandy]

Yeah I felt the same, during the whole triolgy we head towards the killing of Reapers that is hard to choose anything else. But I welcomed that we had the other two options and there can be arguments as to why they are the best option but I guess in the end it comes down to personal preference. Like I mentioned, I also welcomed the fact that with these three choices meant we won't have a clean sweep of the Reapers like we expected but we would have to face consequences and collateral damages and in my opinion this was to be expected because from the beginning we are not sure about the nature of the Reapers, nor how we can destroy them, nor how the Crucible works in the third game. With that said I guess I can see how there are presentation issues and it could have definitely been handled better, I'm by no means saying it was perfect, but all in all I was fine and was able to along with it.

[ImaginaryMatter]

That's the chance to mention another game: "Spec Ops: The Line". Sorry, but the shooter genre cannot, as a medium, transport a message about how killing is brutal. It breaks the bounds of the medium and the genre, because they are just not suited for self-reflection. 

 

I don't think that was the message of the game. I think it was criticizing using real and complicated geopolitical conflicts as a setting for power fantasies where you get to mow down hundreds of people and still get to be the good guy.

[Tim van Beek]

...So I might be in the overwhelming minority but I actually liked the ending and didn't have any problem with it...

Players who liked the ending or never saw it because they did not finish the game are more likely to never post here, so there is a certain bias towards criticism  .

Have you called the service desk of your phone provider latetly to thank them that everything works just fine? 

 

Yes, some people wanted a happy end. Yes, some people did not understand what the game tried to tell them. Yes, some people wanted something more "gamey" like a boss fight. And yes, some people simply were sad that the game was over  .

 

Then there is a lot of objective microscopic criticism about details that don't make much sense, see the OP. There are just lots and lots of those in the last ten minutes. And, last but not least, IMHO the most interesting and devastating criticism is the one about how the ending was handled as a whole from the viewpoint of writing. And yes, I think this is a comparatively objective and valid criticism that is not weakened by the fact that a lot of players weren't bothered by it   (nor am I saying that it should bother anyone, of course everybody is free to enjoy stuff that is objectively bad, I do too  ).

 

A nice summary of what I am talking about can be found in the following blog post and its successor: http://johnswritersb...-mass-effect-3/

 

(Yes, that's pre EC, but then I don't think that the EC corrected any of the most important points.)

 

I don't think that was the message of the game. I think it was criticizing using real and complicated geopolitical conflicts as a setting for power fantasies where you get to mow down hundreds of people and still get to be the good guy.

Okay, that's another way to see it, I don't see a contradiction. The common theme is that the game designers wanted players to understand that what their character does (what they make him do) is wrong, that both Walker and the player are on a path of moral descent, and a good way to end the game is to stop playing it in disgust.

 

The designers asked too much from the form they chose. 

 

For another example, you can't portray any serious crime in a sitcom. Either you break the format, or you grossly misrepresent what that experience means to people.

 

In that line of thinking I don't expect anyone in the ME universe to become traumatized by all the killing  .

 

But some surprise or shock on the side of Shep in the last ten minutes would have alleviated the broken surreal effect that the last ten minutes had on me. Like "What the s*** is this?!" when Shep sees a keeper working on human remains, "Anderson? Where did you come from?", or "TIM, you are here?! I should have known..." or to the Catalyst: "What are you?! How can you take the form of that kid?!" etc.

[danivasnormandy]

So upon closer inspection, and after reading some more articles, including that blog post, and videos and what not I can tell why is considered so bad and why it has so many problems, even after EC. I'm glad it didn't stop me from enjoying the game as a whole and I felt mostly satified when it happend, but I can see now that if one goes all the way back to ME1 and start to pick apart plot points etc, then the end comes across as super badly designed. I guess the reason why the introduction of new characters/villains, elements, etc didn't bother me as much is like I mentioned in my post, because we don't know what's going to happen with the Crucible or what the Catalyst really is, so there's no foreshadowing or anything to go by, just the hope that it kills the Reapers somehow. If it introduced a whole more problems and made the whole universe collapse a little, instead of being smartly interwoven with all that we learned or happened before I guess was a failure on the writers part, but like I said I welcomed that it wasn't a typical or expected resolve.

[AlanC9]

it's not the fact that you just can't get what you want. it's the fact that you worked hard to FINALLY get peace with geth and quarians and woops no got to kill all the geth and set back the quarians again. 
Plus I'd still be ok with Shepard dying if it meant saving Geth and EDI.

Then don't pick Destroy.

[gothpunkboy89]

I also think it is because there is no real solid fairy tale ending so to speak. All options have their negative effects.  No one gives you all the warm fuzzy feeling from playing the best way.

 

I don't know I enjoy all the endings post EC anyways.  Though I honestly can't help but feel the name shepard was picked specifically just for that one joke at the end with stargazer.

[Ieldra]

 @gothpunkboy89, @Danigar:

 

Somewhere upthread, I have posted a summary of how the ending came across to me, that illustrates what I see as the most important flaws. 

[Jeniva]

Then don't pick Destroy.

 

no. I want the reapers dead. I find control just a ridiculous concept. And synth just seems to screw everything up. 

[AlanC9]

So the problem is that none of the choices are what you wanted? Is the universe supposed to provide us with choices we like? I'm just looking for the principle here.

What's ridiculous about Control, anyway? We know that the Reapers can be controlled, because they have been controlled. The cycles are of no use to Reapers as Reapers -- if they want to harvest organics, or rule unchallenged, or whatever you like, the cycles are either an inefficient means to the end, or are outright counterproductive.

[Satele-Shan87]

Destroy is the only ending that makes sense...