I played the game in 2015. I knew that Shep wasn´t going to make it, which is ok. The protag biting it, is not so unusual as people claim it to be. It´s not like I liked the hollywoody parts. Quite interesting, how much some people are buying into the BW party line.
Not only not so unusual but not surprising at all these days; it serves no purpose. However that's not a structural / logical issue with the endings, more a matter of personal taste.
So I take it you expected a Hollywood ending from the third game?
We got a Hollywood ending!
One on a level or even below of "Mission to Mars".
What I actually expected was an ending that made at least a bit of sense, did not include sudden never before seen or heard of space magic, or last minute characters that tell me everything 3 games before told is somehow invalid.
Single-handedly saves the Council from a coup
Kai Leng was the reason why Shepard was able to save the council. He failed his own mission
Resolves a 400-year old war between two alien races
Wasn't it 300 years?
Kills another Reaper with a laser pointer.
That laser pointer wasn't needed. All Shepard did was paint the target leading to the quarians destroying the reaper
Finds a 50,000 survivor of the last harvest
Without the colony digging in that area, that Prothean would never of been found
Discovers the creator race of the Reapers, which have been in hiding for a billion years or more
Thanks to Dr. Bryson for leaving clues that led to the discovery of the Leviathan
Kills a third Reaper with Bioware's version of the Fat Man mininuke launcher.
You mean the Hades Cannon? I'm not too surprised. It doesn't have the same defenses as a destroyer or capital ship.
What I actually expected was an ending that made at least a bit of sense, did not include sudden never before seen or heard of space magic, or last minute characters that tell me everything 3 games before told is somehow invalid.
The ending made sense to some people, maybe not to everyone. There was no "space magic" in the ending. The kid was proven not to show up in the last minutes. He was seen throughout the entire game, and you were looking for something called the Catalyst throughout the entire game. Nothing is made invalid by the ending.
There's plenty of posts who claim everything the kid said made sense and what was to be expected from ME1, as well as your decisions weren't for naught.
Not only not so unusual but not surprising at all these days; it serves no purpose. However that's not a structural / logical issue with the endings, more a matter of personal taste.
Oh, I agree that it´s not a structural/logical issue,it´s just anoying that the argument "you only want a happy ending and Shep alive" comes up every time in these debates.
Given this was essentially a Hollywood action game on the level of Independence Day or Total Recall, yeah, I expected a possibility for something like that. Certainly not a claim of "realism" to justify even more space magic.So I take it you expected a Hollywood ending from the third game?
DIfferent bad endings.But there was multiple endings though, right? Just like they said.
Dog, horse, or cow, it's still cr*p. It doesn't become not-cr*p because it came from a different animalIt wasn't as simple as what color the ending was. If you've been around since the beginning of ME3 and played the Extended Cut, you can't use that color argument everyone did. It just doesn't hold any water, before or after the Extended Cut. It's one of those thoughtless responses like saying everything in the ending was space magic or the Catalyst's synthetic meme people spammed around.
So you admit the geth and EDI (as well as all synthetic life everywhere in the galaxy) died for no good reason? Glad we agree on something.I don't see how the destruction of the Reapers could be a bad thing. Sounds like a good ending to me. Oh and the mass relays were reconstructed in the Extended Cut, and you only lost EDI and the Geth. That's better than losing the entire galaxy. Wars have lots of sacrifice and sometimes people die for no good reason.
There was no "space magic" in the ending.
There is. Otherwise please explain to me how touching two metal rods that seem to melt your face away makes one able to control or become an AI overlord.
Or how jumping into a 'bottomless pit' while being disintegrated by some form of energy beam takes ones 'essence' and allows 'synthetics to understand organics' while simultaneously 'integrating' both somehow.
And please on a level similar to 'runnig electrical current through element zero creates a mass effect field that manipulates matter'.
There is absolutely nothing pointing to those 'space magic' endings in the whole trilogy before.
IF there was an intended deeper meaning, it was lost completely by the representation of those, which are stated and shown to be instantaneous.
>>The kid[...]<<
I'm not sure why you bring the kid up at this point.
>>you were looking for something called the Catalyst throughout the entire game.<<
A device, not a character. I believe I already said that this change is pretty significant, imo.
>>Nothing is made invalid by the ending<<
Over 3 game we are basically beaten over the head with implied or spoken statements like:
ME1-3: "Genocide is bad. Something that preserved galactic peace is bad because maybe looks a bit like genocide"
Ending: "Oh, you want to kill all synths. Great! Surely you want to kill all of those others too?!"
ME1-3: "Diversity! People and species are different. But they can live together and actually do some big stuff if they work together. Chaotic, but great"
Ending: "Nope, diversity is bad. You all have to become one. Order is a must. We are the Borg"
ME1-3: "Only maniacs and politicians (aka maniacs) favour control"
Ending: "Use this and together we can rule the galaxy!"
And just to mention my favourite parts of the other rubbish the AI stated:
"There is no conflict"
While the Reaper in the background destroys an Alliance cruiser...
"We preserve the essence of advanced species, so they don't get annihilated by AI"
Meanwhile their AI warships annihilate the population of whole worlds.
I didn't see nor hear of any 'essence preserving' or ship building actions on the batarian, turian, asari or vorcha (home) worlds.
And the Best:
"We leave those species not far enough advanced alone"
Right. Tell that e.g., to the bronze age civilisation of Aphras. Oh right, the reapers bombarded all settlements on that planet, there is nothing living left, except for some single celled organisms.
Ah, that´s the planet, people were talking about in the Fate of the Raloi thread.
But well, could have been anyone. Perhaps it was some kind of weapons test by some other species?
As much as I hate to say it it's not entirely invalid, since nonsense is more easily swallowed if people leave happy. ME2's Reaper Baby should get nearly as much criticism, and ME3's opening is nearly as bad as its ending but at least there's stuff to move on from there. Not saying that they don't get criticised but nowhere near as much.Oh, I agree that it´s not a structural/logical issue,it´s just anoying that the argument "you only want a happy ending and Shep alive" comes up every time in these debates.
Yeah ok, maybe. Dunno the reaction would be similar, if you just pushed a button in the approriate color, Shep lives and the rest stays the same. Could be, probably the whole thing would feel rather hollow. Is the peoples happiness tied to Shep surviving or something else? The Reaper baby was dumb, but you blew up the base/claimed the thing for Cerberus and the colonies were safe again with the enemies vanishing in a big blast. Perhaps the problem is, that Shepard´s death was rather pointless. It wasn´t Arnie´s "I have to do this, s you are safe" in T2 or going out in blaze of glory to accomplish what you came for. It felt a lot like Reapa Commander telling you to kill yourself to do something and Shep´s death felt rather forced.
The game doesn't refer to it as space magic, only you do.
Most of those ending statements that you stated aren't even worded like that in the game. There was not one word out of the kid which states "Use this and together we can rule the galaxy".
With the exception of the one about only preserving the advanced races. It's simply they don't want to harvest something like a fish or a gopher. It might get killed in other ways, but the Reapers have no intention to implant it with Reaper DNA, because it's not advanced enough.
What the heck is an Aphra? I'm kind of wondering if you even played the game or not, because there's no mention of that anywhere in the game.
You were told the Catalyst was the Citadel, and the kid claims he is part of the Citadel. So he is an AI built into the Citadel itself. Much like in ME1, you were looking for the conduit, and thought it was a weapon of some kind earlier on in the game, but it turns out it was a backdoor onto the Citadel later in the game.
The easiest way to interpret that scene is that everything you are being told is a lie.
With the Extended Cut revealing the true nature of the kid being a Reaper in sheep's clothing and all. They made it pretty obvious that this thing can't be trusted.
If people are still debating it, thinking that you can argue your case with it, I don't know what to say. The writers clearly intended that scene where you are not to trust the kid and to tread lightly. The way to tell him off is to destroy the Reapers. He disappears immediately, because you destroyed the Reapers, and thus destroyed him.
Lo and behold, Aphras: http://masseffect.wi...com/wiki/Aphras
Or if you don´t trust the Wiki, fire up ME 2, fly to Shrike Abyssal, Xe Cha system and look for a planet named Aphras.
You are aware that the untrustworthy kid is actually telling you, how to activate the self destruct mechanism? By shooting a tube on the mechanism? I mean I agree, that the kid isn´t a relly trustworthy fellow, it´s just that this whole "don´t trust the kid" isn´t really obvious, if you have to follow its instructions on how to blow it up, which sound a lot like sabotage.
It´s probably some awesome manipulation by the Crucible, but in this situation without hindsight, there is actually nothing there from an independant source to verify, that it´s even telling the truth about how to destroy it. As far as Shep knows in this situation, the awesome Crucible tech is keeping physical Reaper troops at bay until it is finished with wiping the Catalyst´s hard drives and only an unindoctrinated person can get close enough to stop it.
Or in short: I don´t trust this guy, how can I trust his statements on how to destroy it or are they a lie, too?
The kid losing his voice and saying "so be it" in a Reaper voice, is the most obvious one.
He claims you will die because you are partly synthetic. False, Shepard is alive if your EMS is high enough. Claims all the technology will be wiped out. Well I see Grunt and Wrex getting off a shuttle with the door opening in the Extended Cut, so the tech (shuttle) still works and wasn't destroyed. Not to mention there are shuttles flying in the background. The most convincing lie is hidden between two truths, which I described
No, you don't need to follow his instructions, that will only end up with you being killed.
It's a Reaper, don't trust anything it says. Just destroy it before it destroys you.
The Catalyst tells you how to activate the different options. 
Shepard didn´t have a sudden flash of insight and knew how to blow it up himself. No one knew how the thing worked and as far as we know, it was expected that it started operating automatically after docking with the Citadel.
I meant instructions as in "how to operate the Crucible and choose whatever you want." So yeah, you followed its instructions even when blowing it up, quite interesting because that´s the last thing you would expect it to reveal. Considering that the ramps leading to the choices, the Catalyst liked less, weren´t even there before you started walking and that they were part of the Citadel section in the decision chamber, you could make a case that the Catalyst actually allowed you to kill it.
Funny thing is, pre extended cut, the Catalyst was totally right with each of its statements. Shep´s dead, higher technology is gone and in a time far into the future, people are still pre spaceflight.
So it seems, that in the original ending, as envisioned by the writers, the Catalyst was right, Shep bows to his superior wisdom and assumes his chosen role to determine what to actually do with all that, to prevent the inevitable robo apocalypse. Oh and synthesis is the best ending ofc. I wouldn´t be surprised, if it there was a reveal that they actually wanted no choice at all in the end, but had to include it.
Don´t think that there was a hidden "don´t trust it" message hidden somewhere. It´s the same in ME 2 where you totally throw in with TIM and his insane plan to assault the Collector homeworld with a frigate only to find out, that it´s actually possible later because it´s a station or Thessia where everyone somehow know that the artifact on Thessia is actually more important than a random prothean artifact war asset. The writing isn´t subtle and sometimes operates with knowledge your characters or the NPCs can´t know but somehow have it anyways.
Same with the ending. It never crossed their mind until the shitstorm rolled over them, that the guiding intelligence of the Reapers could be considered untrustworthy. Actually rather interesting because that thing probably got shuffled into the hostile category in the minds of most people as soon as it said "the reapers were my idea."
Anyways your evidence is stuff after the scene. Scene is over, that´s the result. Hard to use stuff that comes after you already made your decision in your decision making. Ok Save-Reload is not so uncommon in video games, but seriously, the hints should be in the scene itself or somewhere before it, if they are important in the scene. The weird thing is, that you couldn´t challenge its logic, ask why they are still firing when it´s agreed upon the harvest doesn´t work anymore* or about its trustworthiness. Even Refuse was about freedom of choice and own decisions rather than "Hey dude, I think you are a lying, little sh**."
I wouldn´t even matter, if the whole scene stayed the same and there was no option to persuade the Catalyst or so, this inability to voice an opinion, even if it doesn´t change the outcome, was rather jarring. Why I am doing, whatever I was going to do was missing.
*seriously, that´s one of the things I would have asked, as soon as I saw it and after it said "time for a new solution."
If literal, then starjar has to be telling the truth to a degree, it's just trying to decipher what is actually truth and what is in starjars interests.
The kid losing his voice and saying "so be it" in a Reaper voice, is the most obvious one.
He claims you will die because you are partly synthetic. False, Shepard is alive if your EMS is high enough. Claims all the technology will be wiped out. Well I see Grunt and Wrex getting off a shuttle with the door opening in the Extended Cut, so the tech (shuttle) still works and wasn't destroyed. Not to mention there are shuttles flying in the background. The most convincing lie is hidden between two truths, which I described
No, you don't need to follow his instructions, that will only end up with you being killed.
It's a Reaper, don't trust anything it says. Just destroy it before it destroys you.
Well, these false claims are actually a result of the retcon made by the Extended Cut. As I've said elsewhere, the original intention was very clearly to create a technological dark age that makes Shepard's story into a myth, as indicated, again, very clearly, in the post-credits scene. As for Shepard, the ME team is on record with the statement that Shepard "had to die" at the end, and originally, the breath scene was only available for people who had played online. The EC changed all that, and it's an actual change and not just "clearing up some things" as the ME team had claimed.
It is unfortunate that the ending can't be interpreted without taking meta-level information into account, but that's how it had always been, even when all we had was the original.
As for Shepard, the ME team is on record with the statement that Shepard "had to die" at the end, and originally, the breath scene was only available for people who had played online. The EC changed all that, and it's an actual change and not just "clearing up some things" as the ME team had claimed.
One small clarification:
The breath scene was (apparently) intended for anyone with a "good" playthrough to achieve, or who did a certain amount of MP, that it required MP was "a mistake" A math error or something like it. Grated it was one we were repeatedly assured both before and after release would not happen. And even afterwards, took months to correct even after players mathematically proved it was impossible to achieve strictly though playing the SP campaign.
The breath scene was not, however, meant to "prove" Shepard lived, though. It was expressly described as "a ray of hope" A possibility that Shepard might live. Which imo doesn't come anywhere near balancing all the other endings where Shepard explicitly dies.
And saying "Shepard had to die" is a pretty blatant hijacking of the player character by the GM. In a tabletop game, that would result in some table flippage and a GM finding themselves without a group.
They didn't say the perfect ending wouldn't require multiplayer. They said the perfect ending wouldn't be possible without doing side missions.
If you look at the game, it essentially tells you that synthesis is the best ending and it only requires 2800 EMS. Being the Reapers' "ideal" solution.
Why is synthesis best? Well it probably has something to do with Bioware wanting to turn their fans into husks.
The ending made sense to some people, maybe not to everyone. There was no "space magic" in the ending. The kid was proven not to show up in the last minutes. He was seen throughout the entire game, and you were looking for something called the Catalyst throughout the entire game. Nothing is made invalid by the ending.
There's plenty of posts who claim everything the kid said made sense and what was to be expected from ME1, as well as your decisions weren't for naught.
Are you saying that the kid we see in the Tutorial (and the dreams) is actually the Catalyst?
Surely that would mean that Shepard is suffering at least low level indoctrination?
Are you saying that the kid we see in the Tutorial (and the dreams) is actually the Catalyst?
Surely that would mean that Shepard is suffering at least low level indoctrination?
Of course it's not the catalyst.The catalyst can take different forms depending who is it talking with.It is a kid because of emotional purposes.Why do people want to believe in an indoctrination theory so much?!
Why are they not? I don't think you need to have a character literally use the words "sentient" and "sapient" to describe EDI or the Geth for them to be so in the confines of the games.
They don't need to literally call them.It's the way they communicate with them.They don't communicate with them the same way they do with organics.Both,synthetics and organics,are an enigma for one another.If you can call synth life a life form in the first place.
Yeah this whole "it´s not a Hollywood game/ending/whatever" baffles me. I got a big Hollywood vibe from it, which wasn´t present in the first two games. At least it was a lot less.
Are you kidding?!One of the best things about the ending is that it's very different from your typical AAA fodder!
Are you kidding?!One of the best things about the ending is that it's very different from your typical AAA fodder!
"Different"=/="Good"
Retour en haut