Mass Effect 3 Ending Discussion

[Typhoid]

It isn't even an opinion that the ending was bad. It was quantitatively bad. I can give you facts as to why it was bad. Anyone who says it wasn't bad is wrong.

I enjoyed the game, and the ending of it.
Prove my perception and opinion wrong.

I want to see these facts of yours, though.


(While I'm listening to the radio I just [of course] want to question/comment a couple things you said - just gives me something to talk about.)

They just left that universe in such a terrible state.

So? Is utter galactic devastation really so far-fetched when trying to comprehend a pretend alien invasion centred around harvesting all sentient life?

2b. If it wasn't like Arrival, there are an enormous amount of people stranded in Sol system who are eventually going to die of starvation

Again - so? Let those cunts starve, they were the expendable part of war. Maybe they are stranded to make you feel bad for them - because you as the player know that while the Universe is saved, they're ultimately fucked. Unless you chose to fuck the Universe - then they're fucked anyhow.

3. How did Liara/Garrus/etc get back on the Normandy. Makes no sense.

How does it make no sense to you? I don't mean that dickishly - just to you - where do the major flaws lie.
I just took that part as the "feel good" part of the ending. I banged Liara, and when she showed up on that planet with Joker and EDI I felt good, because I was like "Well awesome, at least they all didn't get screwed in that shockwave-thing that would have destroyed the ship fucking them all, and they actually randomly jumped somewhere to live out in peace, like ______ was talking about earlier in the game. And at least Liara has EDI's company and can eat Joker after he dies because she lives for another 700+ years. And at least Joker can get some sweet robot and alien sex in before he gets eaten."

I just assumed the game plopped in your best buddy at the end to show you someone you enjoyed playing with in the game didn't die, so you didn't have a complete empty death-hole left in your heart.


--------------------------------------

Again, about indoctrination.
I don't WANT to believe it. I like to have taken the game literally. What happened, happened.

But things make me think - like if the indoctrination thing wasn't a thing, then what was any of the fucking point of that little fucking kid who explodes in the ship, then shows up in all of your dreams running away from you and burning while smiling, and that kid also seemingly being the kid used as the catalyst.

Because 0 of that makes sense if you take the game literally. That's what makes me think about the game differently now, than the way I took it as while I was playing it.

But if he WAS indoctrinated, then that kid was simply an implant from a Reaper - as was the Catalyst - and the entire thing was a massive setup to attempt to get Shep to prolong the cycle on the Reapers behalf.

[Vampyr]

Those were just things I didn't personally like about the ending, not the reasons why it's bad (other than Liara and Garrus and everyone being on the Normandy, that's a legitimate reason it's bad).

I like how you're entire reason for liking the ending is that some parts made you feel good and some parts made you feel bad. If that's your criteria than this argument is already over and I have no chance of winning.

However, for the sake of argument, here is why the ending is bad:

1. The crew ended up back on the Normandy with Joker even though they were right behind me running to the beam. This is what we call a plot hole. It doesn't matter how it makes you feel - it's a plot hole. It is a quantitatively bad characteristic, not a subjective one.

2. The relays explode as soon as you make your decision. There's no way that Joker got the Normandy that close to the relay without leaving the crucible...which it's pretty safe to assume he didn't chicken out and run away.

3. You "save" the galaxy by having the reapers leave, one way or the other, but you either doomed thousands of people to being stranded at Earth or the explosions of the relays actually destroyed entire systems. You basically did the reapers job for them. Which is fine, if that's how they want to end it, but it's opposed to anything Sephard would have actually done. It goes against every choice you've made up until that point. It makes no sense.

4. It was really short. It treated the us, the gamers, like we were too stupid to understand a proper ending. After 5 years of sticking with this franchise and making hundreds of choices, we are given three choices with nearly identical end results and not told how anything turns out different. May be fine in another game, but not in Mass Effect where choice is paramount and the game was advertised as having endings that would be affected by your choices made through all three games.

[Typhoid]

I like how you're entire reason for liking the ending is that some parts made you feel good and some parts made you feel bad. If that's your criteria than this argument is already over and I have no chance of winning.

That's not why I liked the end, and I never said "I like the game because some parts make me feel good, and some parts make me feel bad" (Although if you break it down, isnt that why anyone likes or dislikes anything, because it makes you feel happy, or angry?)
I said I justified those parts as simply being bullshit "feel good" parts that are in most cheesy action movies at the end to give the viewer a sense of good, when all else is destroyed.

Also - what argument? Maybe this discussion would be better off from point A if you stop viewing each conversation where not everyone involved is a Yes Man as an "argument".

1. The crew ended up back on the Normandy with Joker even though they were right behind me running to the beam. This is what we call a plot hole. It doesn't matter how it makes you feel - it's a plot hole. It is a quantitatively bad characteristic, not a subjective one.

I never said it wasn't a plot hole. And I never defended the bad writing with "I enjoyed the game". I said I took the fact that everything 'worked out' for a handful of characters as a "feel good moment". The moment the hero comes back to the family after the building he was in explodes. That type of thing.

2. The relays explode as soon as you make your decision. There's no way that Joker got the Normandy that close to the relay without leaving the crucible...which it's pretty safe to assume he didn't chicken out and run away.

Isn't there a chance they could have just done some random lightspeed jump thing to take them to a random place in space - and not even use the Relay?
I don't mean that tongue-in-cheek. I'm not sure if that fake ship - The Normandy had the possibility to jump in space on it's own and would just wind up at a random location. I swear you did that in the last game to get away from Reapers or something.

3. You "save" the galaxy by having the reapers leave, one way or the other, but you either doomed thousands of people to being stranded at Earth or the explosions of the relays actually destroyed entire systems. You basically did the reapers job for them. Which is fine, if that's how they want to end it, but it's opposed to anything Sephard would have actually done. It goes against every choice you've made up until that point. It makes no sense.

.....in a series where there is no 'correct' plotline, and everyone has a different character - how can you "Know what Shepard would have actually done", especially when those are the only options given.
You know what your Shepard would have done.
You don't know what little Jimmy's would have done. Maybe little Jimmy's Shepard is a cunt and wants to destroy the entire Universe from day one. Then it makes complete sense.

4. It was really short. It treated the us, the gamers, like we were too stupid to understand a proper ending. After 5 years of sticking with this franchise and making hundreds of choices, we are given three choices with nearly identical end results and not told how anything turns out different. May be fine in another game, but not in Mass Effect where choice is paramount and the game was advertised as having endings that would be affected by your choices made through all three games.

I've never disagreed with that. The only thing I am, is content with the ending I received through my experiences playing the game.
I even said I felt like my choices in this game meant shit, and I felt like I was A(E)ffecting no Mass.
I came to terms with the fact that this game wasn't about choice - but about showing me my choices from the other games unfold - very early.
I agreed this game didn't feel like a Mass Effect game, and felt more like the MGS4 of it's series.
But I'm okay with that, and I'm allowed to be okay with that. I enjoyed the game(s) I played, I enjoyed the ridiculous amount of cutscenes I watched. I enjoyed the Universe they presented me, and they way they let me immerse myself in it, and interact with it.

Could the ending have been better? Of course. Hindsight's fantastic, and I never said the ending was amazing. I only said I was okay with it. That doesn't mean it's great.

A lot of parts of this game felt like cheese to me. Ultra 80's action movie cheese. They would put on some violin music, and Shepard would spew a few paragraphs of cheese while talking to Tali about her planet, Liara about...Liara, or Garrus about all the shit you've done in the previous two games. It had a lot of after-school-special moments. A lot of "Holy fuck, the Universe might end, let's declare how much we like eachother all the time" moments.

Maybe they thought it would go over really well, and it would make their fans think on a deeper level and appreciate the fact that no matter the choices they made, many people from many species still had to die to save everyone as a whole, and would look at the series as the big picture of all 3 games as 1 amazingly-intertwined story, rather than focusing on the ending of the series - where even the best outcome is still horrifyingly devastating - and wouldn't be upset that loose holes like how people got on ships mattered.

[Combine 017]

Originally Posted by Typhoid

Isn't there a chance they could have just done some random lightspeed jump thing to take them to a random place in space - and not even use the Relay?
I don't mean that tongue-in-cheek. I'm not sure if that fake ship - The Normandy had the possibility to jump in space on it's own and would just wind up at a random location. I swear you did that in the last game to get away from Reapers or something

Yes, the Normandy could have used its FTL drive to randomly jump to some point in space, but it didnt do that, it used the Mass Relay, and due to the relay exploding the warp tunnel destabilized and cause the Normandy to crash.

And why must you constantly state that this is "pretend" or "fake"? Clearly you arent very deep into the Mass Effect lore.

[Fox 6]

FTL and the Mas Relays are 2 different things. FTL is for like shorter ranges between stars in the same system. The mass relays are for longer jumps like across the entire galaxy. He wouldnt be crashing from the mass relays exploding if he wasnt using them in the first place.