So...
I can't hold it back. Since we haven't had any good discussions about the game recently, I'm going to make the statement that's going to cause quite a lot of chaos on the forum but I've got to speak my mind in three parts:
ME3 > ME2
We all know by now that ME2 is perhaps the most recognized game being on many top 10 games of all time lists. But for me, ME3 was the more enjoyable game to play and I will give you the reasons why:
Characters:
Don’t get me wrong, the characters in ME2 are all very great especially seeing our two past squad mates get much more attention and see them progress in their lives. But the thing is, ME2 suffers the same hiccups as KOTOR2; “too many characters syndrome”:
1) Loyalty missions are painfully segregated. During loyalty missions, the non-loyalty character is nothing more than a placeholder most of the time. During Tali and Garrus’s respective missions, the other character says absolutely nothing! Do you think if would have been more immersive if the following character, you know the squad mate who knew you from old times, would give their opinion on the mater suggesting that Garrus is going too far down the path of darkness of revenge or if they would give their opinion on what Shepard should do for Tali’s trial? Or perhaps Jack would say something like “Oh cry me a river Cheerleader, it just goes to show you can’t trust anyone,” when Miranda was realizing that she was being stabbed in the back on her loyalty mission. The only interesting part the non-loyalty character said was during Legion’s loyalty mission.
2) Everyone seems to be oblivious to the struggle each character is facing except for the three: Joker, Kelly and sometimes Kasumi. Would it be much more immersive if the characters gave their thoughts on what the other characters’ are going through after each loyalty mission? Or perhaps the biggest one that should spark a reaction would be bringing Legion on board and activating him. Would it be great if the characters expressed their concerns about that, especially Tali after the mission?
3) Everyone is isolated. No one acknowledges the plot progression except the three who are required for the plot to progress: Jacob, Miranda and Mordin. In ME1, you had all six of your crew talking and giving their insight on the story missions. In ME2, everyone but the three are seemingly oblivious to the rising tensions that aren’t as dire. And since everyone is isolated and stays where they are, they don’t walk around your legendary and roomy ship and mingle with all the crew you put together. Not even on the coms you can listen to them mingling.
4) DLC LOSTB and Overlord: The characters say absolutely nothing! Except a “By the goddess” or “Keelah” at the wreaked trading center in LOTSB. I purposefully brought Garrus along with me to meet up with my love interest and he was silent the entire time. Even when the now ice Queen confessed she was the one who found my body, Garrus said nothing, not even a “You what?” And during the Attack of the Clones skycar chase, it’s only Liara and Shepard talking and stressing out. I’d feel better if after you dodge the truck and after Liara says, “You’re enjoying this aren’t you?” and if she was your love interest, Garrus would say something like: “Is everything okay with you two up there?” That would be something wouldn’t it?
Plot:
If you don't already know, ME2 plot is perhaps the weakest of the trilogy because of a number of things:
1) The Collectors: In the grand scheme of things, the Collectors are just minions to the reapers like the geth are. And the thing is, the Collectors are just interested in Humans. What about the others? Is it their fight too? If perhaps there was a revelation near the end that suggested that the collectors were going to target another species shortly after, then perhaps I would have liked it more.
2) Plot progression: We all know that the plot is perhaps the weakest of the series. There’s no real rise in tension unlike ME1 and KOTOR as you go system by system to put the pieces together. And instead of imamate doom coming and a “This is it we have no second chance,” it’s casually cruising the galaxy getting your assets together to attack the collectors at your convenience.
3) Alliance is out of the picture. Now I know this is a minor complaint because the stage of the story is that Shepard’s cut off from what s/he’s familiar with being dead for two years and the Alliance having to deal with the great complications being the new council member and having to see more resentment for their involvement with C-Sec and all. But a plot hole that gets me is after Freedom’s Progress, why couldn’t Shepard upload the video feed of the collectors to the Alliance and show them that it’s not slavers and pirates they’re using to keep people at bay? That would get people to mobilize sooner and perhaps give Shepard more support. What’s worse, Anderson has no purpose other than being a failsafe to get your Spectre status back. You’d think that your mentor, the person who allowed you to fly off and get to Saren would have given you more support or perhaps a special mission to appreciate that you’re alive and kicking.
ME3 is greater
Now here is what I liked about ME3 and why I love it more than ME2 in mostly every way:
1) Anderson: Need I say more? Well I will anyway. He’s the driving factor and the one who gives you support like in the first game.
Plus who could ever forget:
"You did good son/child. You did good. I'm... proud of you."
Not only that but Hackett's there too giving you support through each mission.
2) Character contribution: Before you say, “The characters in ME2 contributed to the end battle more because you commanded them” the answer is yes for game mechanics but not at all for the story in between. Like I said already, all the characters do is just fill in the ranks of your ship while they keep to themselves. In ME3, the characters give insight to an actual main plot instead of their segregated short stories that have no cohesion to each other or to the main plot.
One of the greatest things I loved about KOTOR was the banter between the characters. One of my favorite conversations was between Bastala and Mission as well as other conversations between other contrasting characters. Hell, just a few days ago I was playing Dragon Age Origins and I laughed after I heard a conversation between Lilian and Morrigan about fashion sense. (God I love Lilian already.)
In ME2, it is non-existent, other than some characters giving some comments on the characters during recruitment. But after that, they never acknowledge the new crew member’s existence on the ship except for the Jack/Miranda, Tali/Legion confrontations.
In ME3, the conversations on the ship fill in this empty gap. I found that Javik’s conversations were the most interesting. How he was a cynical A**hole and the crew were appalled by his behavior until a little later on as he lightened up with your influence. And HOLY CRAP, Citadel was a dream come true for me to see all characters, those I knew from the beginning and those who didn’t give a crap about the existence of anyone else besides Shepard a game before, talk to everyone! Thane’s memorial gave everything to one character in just 5 minutes that ME2 failed to do in 35 hours.
3) Side missions feel a part of a greater whole unlike the previous games.
ME1 -
“Let’s go after Saren!”
“Hold up, let’s put up a lot of time to halt the geth activity in the Traverse first and stall out while Saren goes to find the conduit.”
ME2 -
“Let’s get ready to go after the Collectors.”
“Wait, let’s fight the blue suns and do all these unrelated things first while the Collectors could be gathering their strength and preparing to attack another colony in the process.”
ME3 –
“Let’s get everyone together to take back Earth.”
“Alright then. We’re going to sabotage Cerberus now and gain intel on them and the Reapers to gain assets to fight them before getting the bigger stuff off the checklist later.”
Granted yes, the side missions don’t contribute so much to the plot like I hear the Witcher 3 does fantastically, but it’s a step up from the previous games because I always know what I’m here to do: I’m here to rally the galaxy to fight Reapers.
4) The biggest one: Why am I here?
In ME1, you’re here to bring humanity on the stage while saving the galaxy in the process. In ME3, well I think this can sum it up with this:
I don’t think I need to say anything more other than I don’t recall ever coming across anything like this in ME2 other than the IM saying "I brought you back to kill Collectors, go kill collectors. And if it's not much to ask for, please acquire the Reaper larva for me to dissect."
Now it’s time I address several things that some fans find irritating about ME3:
- Cerberus are just generic bad guys now:
Well the thing is, Bioware made them the bad guys before ME3 started being made at the end of ME2 when the IM showed his true colors:
"The technology in that base would have secured human dominance in the galaxy. Over the reapers and beyond."
Bold statement especially if Shepard has a nonhuman love interest. I was hoping for a dialog option that says:
"And what of the other species? Where would they fall if humanity achieved this dominance?"
I'd like the IM to answer that question.
Getting back to ME3, what do you think the IM would have done in ME3 if you did save the base? Would he use the collector technology to defeat the Reapers then surrender it to be shared with everyone else? Nope. He'd do what he did. He'd use it to have humanity become the new master race at any cost. From the start, Cerberus was and always will be the Neo-Nazis of the 22nd century.
- Quest Tracker:
Yes it's irritating but this could be fixed with a mod. And yes several side missions are locked out due to progression in the story. (Like Kasumi's mission. Had to restart from before tuchunkka to get her mission done so she would show up to the party.)
-Automatic Dialog:
Okay. So this is a double edged sword. On one hand, you don't have as much control for Shepard's dialog and you can't be natural in conversations. But on the other hand, the conversations feel natural and Shepard sounds and acts like a human being and not a machine who listens to the NPCs talk on and on. But if I'm not mistaken, does DA:I accomplish the balance between dialog choice and actual conversations?
- Your ME2 characters get screwed over in ME3.
This is a problem that was caused by ME2 from the start: too many characters to care for. When you have so many characters who can all die, there’s way too many variables to consider when you want to include characters that give insight to the main plot aboard the ship.
The main reason this doesn’t bug me is because I have the 3 characters that I cared for the most: Liara (My 
), Garrus and Tali, also it’s good to see the Virmire survivor back for the love birds who were screwed over in ME2 when they rejected you on Horizon. But I will address the thing you’re saying now, “but I loved Thane, Miranda, Jacob and Jack and I wanted them back.”
Well first off, you knew what you were getting into ladies when you let Thane into your cabin in ME2 and Jacob wasn’t a popular a romance so I understand why he’s with Brynn no matter what if he lives. But for Miranda and Jack, I agree they probably could have had a reason to join you for love interest reasons but for their story arcs, it’d be hard to have them find closure for their stories if they saddled up and joined you. For the others well to be honest, I didn’t have much of a connection with them as I did with the fearsome threesome. But perhaps you could ask for Grunt to join you at some point.
And now the moment we've all been waiting for and I'll divide this into sub parts.
The ending:
-Why can't we have a boss fight?
Because it signifies power and triumph. But in ME3 the goal was to make you feel vulnerable and human for the first time. To put this into perspective, how would Return of the King’s Finale be if Frodo was chopping Orks left and right all the way up Mt. Doom instead of crawling with whatever drained strength he had left to perhaps the most emotional flute tune that made me nearly cry at that point? And that’s what Shepard needs to do, he’s got to finish this, Once and for all.
Besides, Bungie figured this out after Halo 2. Not every game needs a final boss fight so they settled for a final Warthog ride, a hold out until extraction and then a last stand to the death in the next titles.
- Revealing the Reaper’s motives was the biggest mistake because they are no longer a mysterious enemy beyond our comprehension. It should have ended with them dying, Period. Whatever purpose they had, we don’t give a damn!
I will address this with a story of my own.
My family and I went to go see Elysium in the theater together and we were excited to see it! My parents were most excited to learn about Jody Foster’s character of why she was this cold hearted head of security hell bent on keeping the under classes from reaching Elysium. In essence, the movie had potential to be a flowing argument about why Class Warfare, Immigration and Health Care should be taken seriously through Matt Damon and Jody Foster’s characters.
But at the end of the film we were disappointed mostly because Jody’s character ended up being a buzz-kill for Kruger to forcefully steal the show and end any real debate on why the lives of ordinary people matter. So by not reveling Jody’s character and motives, the movie’s message sounds forced and dried up which makes it Obama Care Propaganda to many.
In ME, if the Reapers motives were never reveled and they all dropped dead for no explained reason *cough cough MEHEM cough cough* then what did I fight for? What was the reason why we deserve to live on our own without the Reapers? I guess it was all for nothing now. I’m disappointed and wish there was more to what I just did.
-The god child’s logic is circular and makes no sense, goes against Sovereigns “we are each a nation,” and it makes the greatest villains I knew just stupid things.
I’ll give the basics about this with the help of our dear JShepppp and his brilliant thread:
1) 
First off, the catalyst’s purpose is to preserve all life, not just the life that it’s harvesting. If you think about it, if unregulated an organic race might create a synthetic race that might just do just that: kill the creators and all other organic life. And we have several examples of that in other sci-fi hits.
Terminator Series: Skynet nukes the entire planet to destroy humanity and all other life gets in the crossfire.
Star Trek TNG: The Borg go out to assimilate all life.
Avengers- Age of Altron: Altron plans for life to evolve by destroying it and later evolving it with his synthetic image.
The catalyst comes in to act as damage control. Sure it’s hypocritical, but it makes sense like the Christian god. Floods the entire earth to destroy all life in order to purge the evil and so life in the ark can continue on once it’s done. That’s a little hypocritical for someone who “loves” all of us.
So the Catalyst does something that it sees as perfect: selective extinction of space faring races to be preserved so all other life can continue existence and not endure what might happen from other spacefaring races.
2) It’s reasoning was stupid because the solution was there in the game (Peace between the Qurian's and Geth).
For this I will bring up the brilliantly proposed reasoning from Master Pillow:
The Catalyst doesn’t deny this. The Catalyst denies the possibility of lasting peace. The galaxy has existed and will exist for billions of years, and there are countless opportunities for intelligent life to create artificially intelligent life and thus threaten all of life itself. It only takes one rogue spacefaring synthetic to destroy all life in the galaxy. (See The Drake Equation.)
- Catalyst: You can wipe out all synthetic life if you want, including the geth, and most of the technology you rely on. Even you are partly synthetic.
- Shepard: But the Reapers will be destroyed?
- Catalyst: Yes, but the peace won’t last. Soon your children will create synthetics, and then the chaos will come back.
- Shepard: Maybe.
The Catalyst deems this risk to be too high, and thus chose the Reapers as a way to prevent that from happening, much as any nuclear power on earth justifies preventing other nuclear powers from emerging by insisting that they may be trying to make weapons of mass destruction.
However, as an idealist, Shepard may choose to take his chances and bet on the inherent good will of sentient life. In the renegade option, his hope is that no synthetic would be so evil as to wipe out all life, and that no organic would be foolish enough to create such a synthetic. This is much the same as the way many people believe that nuclear power can and should be harnessed for good, and it’s why the Catalyst gives Shepard the option to destroy all synthetics.
- BUT, BUT, BUT… Sovereign’s speech.
Well this contradiction started with ME2 with Harbinger. Sovereign seemed to hate organics and just wanted them gone while Harbinger says we are you’re salvation. And that salvation thing plays into the purpose of what the Reapers believe are doing, saving life from destruction by harvesting the advanced ones.
But getting back to the contradiction of Sovereign and the Catalyst, it’s easy to explain. The Reapers are oblivious to the fact they were created and have a beginning so they could fulfill their purpose with impunity. Like brainwashed Cerberus soldiers; they never question orders, they follow through with them. In fact in the first game, Exogeni were looking for the formula to create the perfect servant with the Thoren samples. The perfect soldier are those who obey without question and to prevent the questions they’re given the impression they’re the be-all end-all without the knowledge they have a master.
- Well even if you could prove 2 right, Shepard should have told it to screw off and leave us alone. Tell the Reapers to fly into the sun to save us the trouble the destroy ending would cause
The reason why this wasn’t an option goes something like this:
"The Crucible changed me, created new possibilities but I can't make that happen."
Which essentially means:
“You must lower me down. I cannot self-terminate.”
If its purpose was to preserve life at any cost, then it’s supposed to follow through with it. And that's what it's supposed to do. Like the T-800, its purpose was to protect John Conner and if he failed he would have no purpose. But in the end, the T-800 knows what needs to be done to stop judgment day but his programing prevents it from doing it by itself. So it needs outside intervention to do it. Same thing with the Catalyst since it was created by Leviathan.
- Everything is a Deus Ex Michiana because we use a superweapon instead of fighting them one by one and achieving victory by ourselves.
Well this problem started since the near beginning when Casey, Mac and Drew made the Reapers to be the 2 mile long space squids they are. They’re hard bastards to kill and it took half a fleet to destroy just one. Let alone at the end of ME2 we saw thousands of them coming down on the Milky Way. It’s going to take some serious fire power to take them down. And before you come at me with the, well the crucible or a substitute method could bring down the Reapers’ barriers, but they could just retreat to Dark space, repair their barriers and come back again and again. Also the “kill Harbinger and all the other Reapers will die as well” thing has a number of reasons that I’ll get to later.
But consider how the other savior of the galaxy defeated his enemy. Master Chief used a Halo Ring to destroy the flood because they were created by Bungie to be a nearly unstoppable force that can regenerate themselves to adapt to any major blow they receive (The Gravemind can be reincarnated if it dies by Chief’s battle rifle somehow) so the only way to get rid of them once and for all is to lure all the flood to the Ark, billions of light years away from the Milky Way, to kill all of it instantly while keeping all life in the galaxy safe from the blast. Also this sets it up so the end is literally the end. No bug hunt afterwards, just a large sweep to tell you it’s all over.
That’s what happens when you make the antagonists nearly unstoppable forces and that’s why the Reapers were defeated the way they were. Instantly to tell you “It’s finally over. No bug hunt needed.”
- Well even if the Reapers' motives are necessary to revile, the Dark Energy ending makes it so much better. BRING DREW BACK! BRING DREW BACK! GET OUT MAC!!!
- Personally I prefer the current ending because it's a social issue not a scientific issue. If the issue was dark matter and the big crunch happening because of Eezo, then the Reapers are just hurting the potential solution to the problem by not telling the organics of the problem for them to solve. Once the problem is solved, it's indefinite it'll stay that way forever. But for Organics VS. Synthetics, it's a social issue that has no definitive answer. Sure the problem was solved in one of the sub-plot outcomes, but it wasn't in the other two and it proves the catalyst's point that way. Like Galactic pillow said:
However, as an idealist, Shepard may choose to take his chances and bet on the inherent good will of sentient life. In the renegade option, his hope is that no synthetic would be so evil as to wipe out all life, and that no organic would be foolish enough to create such a synthetic. This is much the same as the way many people believe that nuclear power can and should be harnessed for good, and it’s why the Catalyst gives Shepard the option to destroy all synthetics.
Who knows if it might happen! Perhaps a new space faring race who is as arrogant as humanity make the mistake that the Catalyst fears would happen. But what if the lessons learned from the conflict resided in all of the space faring races now corresponded to the problem to prevent the catastrophe.
After everything Shepard's done perhaps the life lesson can be taken to heart for generations to come. It's all about trusting your gut in the end and to choose what you believe might be best for the Galaxy as a whole.
BTW, Drew said himself he no longer supports his dark energy story.
- Shepard is accepting there is only three ways and only accepts what the catalyst, the enemy, is giving you instead of finding his/her way to beat the Reapers.
So you’re upset because you’re collaborating with the enemy? Well didn’t you do something like that already?
“I didn’t do it for you, I did it for her.”
Hmmmmmmmmmm…
“I’m not turning the Crucible on for you, I’m turning it on for the people I fight for.”
- No matter what I do or try, Shepard dies in every single ending.
Okay either one or two things. One, you either don’t know the techniques of cinematography as you can see a certain N7 body in the rubble taking a breath of life. Or two, you’re so angry you didn’t even bother getting the Extended Cut because you’re closed minded from your anger with Bioware.
- Alright fine Shepard’s alive in one of them but I don’t get to see him reunite. Shame on you Bioware!
Really? You need a cut scene to know that Shepard gets a Return of the King reunion when it clearly hints that the Normandy’s heading home where Shepard is? You can’t make that assumption yourself?
-My choices don’t mean anything, because all the endings end the same way with no proper amount of closure:
This reasoning is half true. First half I’ll cover later but the second half that is incorrect I’ll address right now with the help of Master Pillow again:
Wrex: ‘No matter what else happens today, you did what no one else could – you united a galaxy. That’s a victory right there.’
There’s a saying in the music business: “play the beginning and ending well; no one will remember anything in between”. Never has this held truer than for Mass Effect.
When people complain about all of their choices throughout the 3 games having been for nought, I ask them what they’d been doing throughout the whole of Mass Effect 3. Here’s what one guy said:
"I got maximum EMS, I did every mission, thinking, hoping that it would make a difference as my choices actually made changes within the narrative, but then the ending hits you like a ton of bricks, not in an emotional way of narrative, but more in the way that you’ve just realized, this whole series, you’ve performed these choices, all for nothing because Bioeware and EA decided not to give it a proper send – off."
There’s the problem right there: he’d played the whole game just to rack up points and forgot that all the major issues in the story were resolved during the last game – not at the end.
He’d forgotten that Shepard cured the genophage, gave the Geth individualism and souls and established peace between them and the Quarians, gave the Rachni and Krogans inclusion on the Citadel, found Joker his dream girlfriend, turned Kolyat away from Thane’s lifestyle (much to his relief – one of my favorite scenes), earned vengeance for a living Prothean, and heck, even had his ass saved once by a much-refined Conrad Verner.
All this could not have possibly happened in the ending sequence. It would have been a several-hour-long barely-interactive movie – and that would not have been an appropriate use of the game medium. The last 5 minutes of the game is really the ending of the reaper story, not the ending of everything in Mass Effect. And as far as the reaper story goes, I believe it was a satisfying ending.
Most people seem to have played Mass Effect 3 on autopilot, thinking everything that Shepard accomplishes during the game was a means to an end – not an end in and of itself. They’d united the galaxy, and they still weren’t satisfied.
Think about it: the Mass Effect story is about a hundred hours long, and the ending is proportionately long, because Mass Effect 3 is the ending.
And to further more explain this aspect of this now-I-realize-it’s-a-great-ending ending, I will let my dearest friend soleporpoise explain it:
https://www.youtube....h?v=-CYYjwPMiV4
"Mass Effect allows you to make your own choices about how you interact with this universe. Not as a gimmick, but as a didactic mechanism. That is to say, a way to teach us about the reality in which we actually participate.
And given Sartre's definition of individualism, the player is making this final decision based on how they view the world, and what morals and philosophies they think are worth considering, and ultimately, their decision is justified. So much as people argue that the endings are essentially the same, there is something that you added to them that makes them unique to you - your unique reasoning that informed your choices. This is why this videogame has become one of the most compelling and moving pieces of art that I have ever encountered.
What matters here is not the decision you make. It's that your decision is informed by your philosophies, your world-view, you’re individualism."
You can’t put all of that into an ending cinematic. You can’t put those reasons why you made a choice into the post ending scene because the unique persona of the player goes beyond the 1s and 0s the game code has.
In fact, from what I’ve seen from these two brave people, I realized the EC does a better job ending ME than Dues Ex human Revolution and even Fallout New Vegas ended their stories.
For how it beats Dues Ex HR, it goes like this. At the end, you’re presented with a choice to tell the “Truth” about the Augmentation incident and what you broadcast will ultimately choose the future of Augmentations. If I were there, like really there, I would have chosen to tell everyone the truth not because I agreed with Darrow’s motive of hurting people to make them see reason, but because I’d be the “goody little tattletale Rorschach boy scout” and expose all of the lies and the conspiracy would end and perhaps someway humanity can recover and go down a new path without Corporate oppression and manipulation.
But Jenson says the reason he chose it was because he saw his augmentations as evil and no one should have that power anymore and he even agrees that the suffering that Darrow inflicted was necessary and a seed for change needed to happen regardless of the pain.
And I say “No, that’s not the reason I chose that.” Because I believe that Augs and non-Augs can co-exist, just like mutants and humans in the X-Men universe can. But the ending dialog tells me no, that’s not the reason why you chose it. So that essentially means that I have one other option, destroy the station. The monolog is an in-between that reflects more of my belief in Augmentation and Humanity and Morality but no one will know what really happen and things maybe more of the same or perhaps worse because they don’t know what happened. (You could see that in the Mankind Divided trailer.)
But in ME, the reasons of why I choose an ending is not told entirely by the epilogue, (a little bit in control but not much). Every person who chooses an ending has their own unique reason why they chose an ending. From the reason of “I don’t want to destroy the geth so I’ll control the Reapers and destroy them later.” Others say they would choose to “go through with synthesis because the geth would be saved and a dictator wouldn’t choose the future of the galaxy and/or because it would solve the organic/synthetic problem indefinitely.” Or there’s the reason, which is part of my own reasoning, is that throughout the game, I got hints that our future is ours and no matter the cost, the reapers must be destroyed through sacrifice. All of those reasons are because of what Soleporpoise had said.
Also, I believe the way the EC handled the ending is better than a “What exactly happens afterwards” ending like New Vegas. When I saw the ending, snuck a look to get the Best NCR ending before I finished with that exact ending, I was disappointed in a number of things. The biggest one was Goodsprings getting a kick in the crotch no matter what I do if I side with the NCR. And I was thinking “no,” the old timers don’t leave because I, the Courier, drop by to make donations to keep the town afloat. Also Veronica’s quest and ending is depressing either way because she’s either trapped in the bunker or when she tries to free herself, innocent people die.
But all other things aside, I think New Vegas’s ending was a little more appropriate for itself because you only have one game to get to know the companion characters and complete their stories that have no real connection with an overall narrative like Mass Effect does because of Bethesda’s format of an open world game that Obsidian piggybacked off of, that can break certain elements of a narrative. (I was getting ready for the NCR President’s arrival the next day, but then I went out and did all the DLC which took 4 in-game days to complete, maybe more I can’t remember.)
In ME3, the ending was left with glimpses of the future along with the closure before the ending even began gave a sense of what might happen now the galaxy is freed from the Reaper’s rule. You know the characters through the entire series and know them enough to assume what they’ll do after the fighting’s done. Javik said he’s going to work with Liara on the book she was writing or choose to join his long dead brothers depending on whether he touched the Shard or not. Tali, non-romance, is going to build her house on Rannoch and contribute to the flotilla as an admiral of it and, if you don’t romance Garrus, perhaps there could be a real-life Fleet and Flotilla story happening. Plus other characters find closure; Jack has her new family to look after, Jacob has a life back with the Alliance with Brynn and their baby, Miranda helps the Alliance again now that her father’s gone and her sister is finally safe. And Mordin, if you killed Wrex and destroyed Mallon’s data, perhaps finds another cure for the Genophage after a few more years after Wreve’s great plan of concurring the galaxy die down when he realizes his race is still neutered.
And that goes with Galactic pillow's reasoning too. The closure happened before the last 10 minutes. It's all the details people on autopilot skipped out on.
But for the first half of the ending's problem, yes some choices should have mattered during priority earth. My idea, it could have been like a mix of the suicide mission with some of the New Vegas final battle. The assets are used in the battle and are shown tearing it up and it then corresponds into some character survival as you send squads to advance to the beam. Essentially, the assets are divided into Core assets (Alliance marines, Aria's Mercs, Geth ground forces) with supporting ones adding to their strengths (Dextro Rations, C-Sec efficiency, Eden Prime support). Also, there’s fleet strength, ground strength and crucible strength, and each choice you made through the game and the final battle affect one another.
Also, Coats instead says that the head of Hammer is cut off when a pincer counter attack separates Anderson and you from Coats and all your assets who can’t hold against the counter attack so he orders the regroup to hold out and perhaps try to push again to the beam.
But why am I not calling for the blood of Bioware because this wasn’t included? Because in the end, I have a desirable outcome: all possible characters survive and the Reapers are gone for the galaxy to rebuild. When I played ME2 for the first time, I played the suicide mission 2.5 times to get it right (Kelly and the crew are not turned into bug juice because I didn’t go out and finish all the side missions because I knew you can play after the final mission unlike the previous game and Mordin doesn't die in the last stand at the gate because I sent him back instead of Zheed.) No one dies under my watch. NO ONE!!! Well except for the ones who have scripted deaths or for what I believe are for the better. (You will be remembered Mordin, Legion and Thane.)
And I guess that's one of the things about the ME2. Since all you're squad mates can die during the last mission as well as having them all live, their deaths just feel muted since they're avoidable when it's so easy to get everyone's loyalty beforehand.
And here’s the greatest thing about ME3's ending the way it is: It never shows you what exactly happens with the geth in the destroy ending because they never tell you what happens some time down the road. And this leads me to the final part of this thread:
The perfect ending:
And here’s the perfect ending here:
(Who needs MEHEM or JAM now?) And a huge thank you to Grummel83 for bringing my request to life. And here's a link to my full story: A Legion Reborn.
And when you think about it, this is possible because the ending never tells you exactly what happens afterward.
For this unique ending I, the player, came up with thanks to all that I described up top, I will explain everything:
First off standing there at the fork in the road, I look up at the three ways to finally end it once and for all. I consider everything that I’ve seen and done over the series: what I’ve learned, what I’ve done, and reflect on what I’m fighting for. Once I get of the fork, look ahead, to my left and then right. I take a step to my left but stop myself. I turn around and go to the right and continue on to the top and go through with the choice I made for the galaxy.
As for thinking that our genius baby boy David would come up with a miracle such as that, well there’s a number of things.
1) Other than Shepard, who else has been connected to a Geth’s mind and learned about them from the inside?
2) An Image from the EC gives me an Idea:
Hummmmmmmmm… Still working? So I guess that means everything, or mostly everything at least, is still in there after the blast fried most of the tech.
3) Also if you’ve been with EA’s other Sci-fi Franchise you should have an idea about what happens when a human mind meets alien tech:
“Whoa…I built that?”
4) Also from age of Ultron, we saw that Jarvis, or what was left of him, was used to be the intelligence of Vision.
5) If you saw Big Hero 6, you know what I’m talking about there.
But for everyone else, they have their unique ending and their own reasoning for each. Allow me to show you a few:
And for me it goes a little something like this:
*Warning! The first two will probably leave you in tears*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tJ1LYi_tUM
http://www.deviantart.com/art/long-post-The-Ring-3-502228799
(Long post couldn't fit)
And here's a comment from a viewer of this photo:
"I have always seen the Citadel as a symbol. Yes, it can be run by a bunch of arrogant bureaucrats who don't recognize the real importance of their role and responsabilities, attract the worst of the galaxy beside the best and definitively be built as part of a devilish trap by Eldritch Abominions, but it is surely the ultimate proof that the scientific, social and moral progress of the people of every sentient species through peaceful and free coexistence is not only possible, but what they are striving for.
And now, the Reapers are destroyed, the Catalyst faded away, the Cycles broken once time for all, Cerberus disbanded, maybe the heroic sacrifice of the Geth is persuading the galactic public opinion and politicians to start accepting sentient synthetic lifeforms as the people they are.
And Commander Shepard is alive, and finally able to spend the rest of his/her life as he/she desires, by the side of his/her Loved One.
Victory, indeed."
And with my perfect ending brought to life thanks to the great and talented Grummel83, I have just the right ending for it all. And the title of the work Victory is what I used as the title for my Epilogue fan-fic.
So at the end of the day, what does all of this mean? Does this mean I hate ME2’s guts and wish it to be retconned out of the story? Hell Freaking no! It’s a damn fine game along with the rest of the trilogy. But the imperfections I’ve listed just keep it from being the best in the trilogy. In fact to me, there is no best of the trilogy. ME1 is the best in terms of story. ME2 does several things well about choices and consequences. While ME3 hits all the feels and hits a good balance between choice, story and feels but the story of ME1 trumps it so ME3 can’t be the best.
It just sucks that so many people are letting hatred get the better of them so they won't choose to go deeper into the meaning of this great story and instead blame it all on Mac and Casey. And what sucks more for me is that whenever I hear praise for ME2 or even praise for the Witcher 3 in how it ended the trilogy the way a trilogy should be ended, I only think of that same person smashing ME3 into the dust when 3 has a clearly better story while ME2's story is almost nonexistent. Why does a game that has the weakest story get to go on several best games/RPGs of all time lists? Isn't the central part of and RPG the story? Then why is it that ME2 gets praise while ME3 is left in the dust?
It just concerns me because I fear we're appreciating the wrong things and that's what makes me fearful for Andromeda. I don't want it to be ME2.5, less story more disjointed short stories that forces so many sacrifices to the main plot and narrative. I want Andromeda to encompass the best of all three games, including all the things in ME3 people are dismissing because of the hatred of the ending which isn't bad but just different.
And it just baffles me because when these people bash on ME3, they're quick to defend KOTOR 2. They say, "Oh KOTOR 2 would have been fantastically awesome if Lucas Arts didn't rush them so I'm defending it!" But at the same time, was that the same thing with ME3? If they had that extra year, do you think they could have improved the final battle?
Furthermore, I just don't understand why fans like KOTOR 2 over 1 or even they would trust Obsidian with ME over Bioware any day. I could pick the flaws of KOTOR 2 but I'll just sum it up with this: Instead of a cute, cunning Twilk girl named Mission as our smuggler, we get a whinny, cry baby, who gives Anakin a run for his money, named Anton who, like Anakin, apparently turns into a Sith with the Restored Content mod.
And that's why I'm feeling uneasy about Casey leaving because when Brian Singer left X-Men, the series went down the drain until he came back and fixed it. Furthermore, can Metal Gear Solid be Metal Gear Solid without Kojima now?
But I have hope for Andromeda because Chris is at the helm for the story and I trust him after seeing Halo 4 nearly bring a tear to my eye.
And it just frightens me. When Obsidian makes a mistake, they get a free pass. When Bioware makes a questionable decision, which they compromise with the fans later on (EC), the fans supposedly will never forgive them when it has so much meaning if they set aside their anger and actually look into it.
I guess I'm creating this thing because I'm just sick of Smudboy and CleaverNoobs, who both say that anyone who likes ME3 in any way are idiots, along with the other haters ruling the internet and not allowing the conversation of what did they choose in the end and why and what the deeper meaning of the story is. It's just sad because the great analysis of the story and ending by Soleporpoise and Master Pillow as well as JShepppp which give the story so much more meaning are just being thrown down the garbage bin because of hatred for what people see on the surface.
And this is why I'm creating this: I'm going to challenge it. I'm going to shout out the themes that this series has and I'm going to counter any haters who bash on this game and I will promote that this ending is good and perhaps even great. And I know many of you here will too as well as the majority of the newcomers who have the courtesy of experiencing the full story will.
If someone tells you this "History will only remember ME3 as the greatest disaster and betrayal of fans by a company that used to listen to fans but only now listen to their rulers ignoring any input from fans," tell them this, "You will try and you will fail. Don’t make me laugh."
So I just urge you all, please spread the word around because ME is still one of the greatest game series of all time, beginning to end. And as a small request, if you have MEHEM installed into you’re game data, just remove it and embrace an ending with so much more meaning than just an “I win” ending. Mass Effect is the greatest trilogy I have ever experienced beginning to end.
And as one final request, if you have MEHEM or JAM installed, please uninstall it and play through the game again and reflect on what your choices did for the story and the characters. With your unique understanding of what you have done in the story, I want you to create your epilogue for your characters. If you’re having a hard time, look at the works of others and draw inspiration from them. That’s why I love Deviant Art and Fanfiction.net. We have a collection of ideas that we can bounce off each other based on what the game left for us and many of them are great.
I’ll be posting a new thread about all this later so we can share our ideas. Thank you for reading and I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Artist pages:
http://c-t-elder.deviantart.com/
http://gsjennsen.deviantart.com/
http://grummel83.deviantart.com/
http://phylangan.deviantart.com/
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CYYjwPMiV4
And to close this page I present to you perhaps the best tribute to the series of all time:
https://www.youtube....h?v=iY5tb8qYIiE
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