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Mass Effect 3 *MAJOR PLOT AND ENDING SPOILERS: YE BE WARNED*
13 years ago
Please excuse the huge amount of text, as well as any mistakes. I'm irked and really needed to get this off my chest.
HUGE SPOILERS FOR MASS EFFECT 3: Character Deaths, endings, etc. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Mass Effect 3. Never have I been so divided on a game. I’ve never been one to get emotionally invested in games, yet this one manages. Every choice I’ve made, every important character I’ve met throughout the series comes back, usually to give me warm and fuzzy feelings or jerk some tears. 99% of the game is pure distilled awesome, especially the story. Romance, humor, sacrifice, hope; it’s all there and wonderfully written. The gameplay has been tweaked to be even better than ME2. Even the multiplayer, which people who know me know I normally despise on general principle, has given me quite a lot of entertainment.
Which is why it may surprise you to know that Mass Effect 3 also marks the most disappointment I’ve ever felt with a game.
Until the last 10 or so minutes of my 38 hours playing through the game, Mass Effect 3 was a sure lock for my game of the year. That is… until I saw the endings, which without hyperbole are the worst and most infuriating I have ever seen (though this may just be because it came at the end of an otherwise awesome game). Mass Effect 3 may still end up being my game of the year, but these endings…guh.
Throughout the entire game you make alliances, bringing together warring factions and uniting the galaxy to help take back Earth and defeat the Reapers. In the end, what effect do all these alliances and armies you have developed have on the endgame? None. None of the alliances and connections you forge have any real effect on the endings. They are just reduced to simple numbers, added up to decide which ending options are open to you. There are a lot of endings, based on the aforementioned numbers, and…I believe whether you destroyed the Collector base in ME2 or not. The differences are fairly minor from what I’ve seen, though, and the main choice just boils down to 3 options:
1. Control
This option allows Shepard to save the galaxy by becoming a Reaper and taking control of the whole Reaper fleet. Very unsatisfying, but I think as it’s easier to unlock than the others, one can just consider it one of the “bad” endings, just slightly ahead of the Earth exploding.
2. Synthesis
This choice has Shepard merge himself/herself with the Crucible and turn all life in the galaxy into a organic-synthetic hybrid, which makes the reapers leave. Kind of creepy and depressing, and I don’t think much of the message: “Different people will never be able to get along, unless they become exactly the same.”
3. Destruction
Most of my ire is reserved for this, the ending I got, the supposed “best” ending (on account of it being the hardest to unlock and being the only one where Shepard potentially survives as something other than Robo Space Cthulhu).
In it, Shepard decides to destroy the Reapers by releasing the Crucible’s energy, apparently sacrificing his life in the process. However, this has the side effect of destroying all other synthetic life in existence as well, including the Geth and EDI (though her destruction is not mentioned, it seems a strong possibility given her development as a synthetic lifeform). It also destroys the mass relays (this happens in every single possible ending, apparently), preventing all interstellar travel and basically stranding your entire fucking surviving army in the Sol system, light-years away from home with no chance of returning. The Normandy is caught in some kind of energy field and sent crashing on some unknown world, with the only confirmed survivors being Joker, Tali (I'm assuming Tali is replaced by whoever your love interest is), and the DLC character Javik. Still, having your squad on the Normandy in this scene seemingly creates a plot hole, given that they were on Earth in the middle of a heavy combat zone and the Normandy was busy fighting in the atmosphere with no real time for a pick-up.
Now at first, I was irked, but then I thought that this crash-landing could lead to more adventures and potentially the solving of all the problems involved in destroying the relays, especially given that Shepard is revealed to be alive in some rubble in an unknown location just before the credits roll. I had hope going into the credits. But no, the post-credits video ruined that notion. Basically you hear some old guy telling a kid about Shepard, and how the details are lost as it happened “so long ago”. In the conversation, we hear that fast interstellar travel still is impossible without the relays, so everything that was fucked in the ending will remain fucked. Oh. Good.
SO, LET ME BULLET POINT WHAT HAPPENED IN MY “GOOD” ENDING:
-The mass relays are destroyed, stranding your army in Sol, the survivors likely never to see their homes again. This is especially depressing for the large contingent of Quarians in your army, given that they only just reclaimed their home planet after centuries of exile. Yet now, even though the war is over, they’ll still never see their homeworld again. So...that's fun.
-The Geth die, rendering the potential peace between them and the Quarians moot. All the possibilities discussed, like the Geth helping the Quarians become able to live without their envirosuits, are just out the fucking window. Also, Legion? Turns out he died for NOTHING. Whoopsy.
-Wrex is either dead or trapped on Earth. Without his aid, Eve may not be able to stop the Krogan from backsliding into their barbaric ways. Even if they don’t, they’ll never get the chance to reintegrate into galactic society, making Wrex’s dreams of a bright future for the Krogan into a hollow joke. And by doing that, Mordin’s sacrifice on Tuchanka is also diminished.
-EDI dies (probably). Like Legion, she was a living (sorta) example of how organic and synthetic life could peaceably coexist, flying in the face of the Reapers’ assertions to the contrary. Now she’s just scrap electronics. How uplifting.
-Shepard’s crew is stranded in the middle of fucking nowhere with no realistic possibility of rescue. Tali (my Shep’s love interest) is likewise trapped, and without the relays will probably never see the man she loves again, much less the homeworld she only just rediscovered. Thanks for that.
-Shepard is alive, though barely and trapped in rubble and ruin. Maybe he/she could be conceivably rescued, but the chances of ever reuniting with his/her crew and love interest given the situation are pretty much zero.
That is the most depressing happy ending ever.
Now, I was expecting a bittersweet ending, given the scale of the destruction the Reapers had unleashed throughout the invasion, and the deaths of beloved characters along the way. Hell, the entire game had been alternating between bitter and sweet moments throughout. But the endings…there’s basically no sweet to be found. Just showing how much had been lost in the war, how much was left to rebuild, that would have been enough. This ending was supposed to be the culmination of the entire epic trilogy, and instead it feels like an insult to everyone who was invested in the series.
In Dragon Age, your choices had a much greater influence on the endgame. In the epilogue, you get to see the result of many of the choices you made throughout the game, giving your decisions a feeling of weight. Though the story was dark, and involved a lot of sacrifice, in the end, you could still have a reasonably happy ending, love interest and all. Either way, despite being the first game in it’s series, Dragon Age: Origins’ ending gave me much more sense of closure than Mass Effect 3’s.
Mass Effect, more so than any other Bioware series, has always been about choice, and the far-reaching consequences of those choices. But in the end, none of those choices players made but the very last one had any real bearing on the entire trilogy’s ending (save perhaps the final choice in ME2, which even then I've heard mostly just affects some dialogue in the final confrontation). This might be fine, if the endings involved were not all incredibly depressing and awful. Call me a sap, but I think some sort of not-totally-depressing-actually-kind-of-happy-ending for Shepard and company would have been preferable. Players like me, who worked hard not only to save the galaxy but to make it a better place...we wanted to see that our choices mattered in the end. We wanted to earn our happy ending.
Apparently, I'm not the only one who feels this way. Lots of people online seem incensed regarding the game’s endings. Maybe if enough of a fuss is raised, the developers will pull a Fallout 3 and give us DLC with an ending that isn’t utter garbage. Now that would be a happy ending.
HUGE SPOILERS FOR MASS EFFECT 3: Character Deaths, endings, etc. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Mass Effect 3. Never have I been so divided on a game. I’ve never been one to get emotionally invested in games, yet this one manages. Every choice I’ve made, every important character I’ve met throughout the series comes back, usually to give me warm and fuzzy feelings or jerk some tears. 99% of the game is pure distilled awesome, especially the story. Romance, humor, sacrifice, hope; it’s all there and wonderfully written. The gameplay has been tweaked to be even better than ME2. Even the multiplayer, which people who know me know I normally despise on general principle, has given me quite a lot of entertainment.
Which is why it may surprise you to know that Mass Effect 3 also marks the most disappointment I’ve ever felt with a game.
Until the last 10 or so minutes of my 38 hours playing through the game, Mass Effect 3 was a sure lock for my game of the year. That is… until I saw the endings, which without hyperbole are the worst and most infuriating I have ever seen (though this may just be because it came at the end of an otherwise awesome game). Mass Effect 3 may still end up being my game of the year, but these endings…guh.
Throughout the entire game you make alliances, bringing together warring factions and uniting the galaxy to help take back Earth and defeat the Reapers. In the end, what effect do all these alliances and armies you have developed have on the endgame? None. None of the alliances and connections you forge have any real effect on the endings. They are just reduced to simple numbers, added up to decide which ending options are open to you. There are a lot of endings, based on the aforementioned numbers, and…I believe whether you destroyed the Collector base in ME2 or not. The differences are fairly minor from what I’ve seen, though, and the main choice just boils down to 3 options:
1. Control
This option allows Shepard to save the galaxy by becoming a Reaper and taking control of the whole Reaper fleet. Very unsatisfying, but I think as it’s easier to unlock than the others, one can just consider it one of the “bad” endings, just slightly ahead of the Earth exploding.
2. Synthesis
This choice has Shepard merge himself/herself with the Crucible and turn all life in the galaxy into a organic-synthetic hybrid, which makes the reapers leave. Kind of creepy and depressing, and I don’t think much of the message: “Different people will never be able to get along, unless they become exactly the same.”
3. Destruction
Most of my ire is reserved for this, the ending I got, the supposed “best” ending (on account of it being the hardest to unlock and being the only one where Shepard potentially survives as something other than Robo Space Cthulhu).
In it, Shepard decides to destroy the Reapers by releasing the Crucible’s energy, apparently sacrificing his life in the process. However, this has the side effect of destroying all other synthetic life in existence as well, including the Geth and EDI (though her destruction is not mentioned, it seems a strong possibility given her development as a synthetic lifeform). It also destroys the mass relays (this happens in every single possible ending, apparently), preventing all interstellar travel and basically stranding your entire fucking surviving army in the Sol system, light-years away from home with no chance of returning. The Normandy is caught in some kind of energy field and sent crashing on some unknown world, with the only confirmed survivors being Joker, Tali (I'm assuming Tali is replaced by whoever your love interest is), and the DLC character Javik. Still, having your squad on the Normandy in this scene seemingly creates a plot hole, given that they were on Earth in the middle of a heavy combat zone and the Normandy was busy fighting in the atmosphere with no real time for a pick-up.
Now at first, I was irked, but then I thought that this crash-landing could lead to more adventures and potentially the solving of all the problems involved in destroying the relays, especially given that Shepard is revealed to be alive in some rubble in an unknown location just before the credits roll. I had hope going into the credits. But no, the post-credits video ruined that notion. Basically you hear some old guy telling a kid about Shepard, and how the details are lost as it happened “so long ago”. In the conversation, we hear that fast interstellar travel still is impossible without the relays, so everything that was fucked in the ending will remain fucked. Oh. Good.
SO, LET ME BULLET POINT WHAT HAPPENED IN MY “GOOD” ENDING:
-The mass relays are destroyed, stranding your army in Sol, the survivors likely never to see their homes again. This is especially depressing for the large contingent of Quarians in your army, given that they only just reclaimed their home planet after centuries of exile. Yet now, even though the war is over, they’ll still never see their homeworld again. So...that's fun.
-The Geth die, rendering the potential peace between them and the Quarians moot. All the possibilities discussed, like the Geth helping the Quarians become able to live without their envirosuits, are just out the fucking window. Also, Legion? Turns out he died for NOTHING. Whoopsy.
-Wrex is either dead or trapped on Earth. Without his aid, Eve may not be able to stop the Krogan from backsliding into their barbaric ways. Even if they don’t, they’ll never get the chance to reintegrate into galactic society, making Wrex’s dreams of a bright future for the Krogan into a hollow joke. And by doing that, Mordin’s sacrifice on Tuchanka is also diminished.
-EDI dies (probably). Like Legion, she was a living (sorta) example of how organic and synthetic life could peaceably coexist, flying in the face of the Reapers’ assertions to the contrary. Now she’s just scrap electronics. How uplifting.
-Shepard’s crew is stranded in the middle of fucking nowhere with no realistic possibility of rescue. Tali (my Shep’s love interest) is likewise trapped, and without the relays will probably never see the man she loves again, much less the homeworld she only just rediscovered. Thanks for that.
-Shepard is alive, though barely and trapped in rubble and ruin. Maybe he/she could be conceivably rescued, but the chances of ever reuniting with his/her crew and love interest given the situation are pretty much zero.
That is the most depressing happy ending ever.
Now, I was expecting a bittersweet ending, given the scale of the destruction the Reapers had unleashed throughout the invasion, and the deaths of beloved characters along the way. Hell, the entire game had been alternating between bitter and sweet moments throughout. But the endings…there’s basically no sweet to be found. Just showing how much had been lost in the war, how much was left to rebuild, that would have been enough. This ending was supposed to be the culmination of the entire epic trilogy, and instead it feels like an insult to everyone who was invested in the series.
In Dragon Age, your choices had a much greater influence on the endgame. In the epilogue, you get to see the result of many of the choices you made throughout the game, giving your decisions a feeling of weight. Though the story was dark, and involved a lot of sacrifice, in the end, you could still have a reasonably happy ending, love interest and all. Either way, despite being the first game in it’s series, Dragon Age: Origins’ ending gave me much more sense of closure than Mass Effect 3’s.
Mass Effect, more so than any other Bioware series, has always been about choice, and the far-reaching consequences of those choices. But in the end, none of those choices players made but the very last one had any real bearing on the entire trilogy’s ending (save perhaps the final choice in ME2, which even then I've heard mostly just affects some dialogue in the final confrontation). This might be fine, if the endings involved were not all incredibly depressing and awful. Call me a sap, but I think some sort of not-totally-depressing-actually-kind-of-happy-ending for Shepard and company would have been preferable. Players like me, who worked hard not only to save the galaxy but to make it a better place...we wanted to see that our choices mattered in the end. We wanted to earn our happy ending.
Apparently, I'm not the only one who feels this way. Lots of people online seem incensed regarding the game’s endings. Maybe if enough of a fuss is raised, the developers will pull a Fallout 3 and give us DLC with an ending that isn’t utter garbage. Now that would be a happy ending.
http://www.ign.com/wikis/mass-effect-3/Endings
I've heard that the "secret" ending is unlocked just by doing a New Game + (definitely) and getting 5000+ readiness. However, I've yet to receive any confirmation that this ending actually exists/is better than the rest.
I guess it says a lot about the general quality of the game that I'm so invested in it.
Hopefully, after my upcoming Insanity runthrough (leaning towards Infiltrator again, but willing to consider others if they're easier), I'll get a satisfying ending. Unless the non-crap secret ending turns out to be a hoax. Then I'll just have to look for alternate fanfiction endings or something while sticking my fingers in my ears and ignoring the actual endings.
Nope. Same ending as last time. God dammit.
Kogy's goin' to be really disappointed then.. ;;
You're playin' it on the PS3?