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[Gottii]

Goddamnit EA. 

They murdered DA2.  Turned it into this horrible mutant thing that wasnt good at any one thing.  A good story, a horrible game.

I started playing ME3.  Thought "meh" at first, then really got into it. 

Thought "ha!  EA didnt fuck up the ME series!  Im enjoying this!"

Then the end. 

[Vikarion]

Goddamnit EA. 

They murdered DA2.  Turned it into this horrible mutant thing that wasnt good at any one thing.  A good story, a horrible game.

I started playing ME3.  Thought "meh" at first, then really got into it. 

Thought "ha!  EA didnt fuck up the ME series!  Im enjoying this!"

Then the end.

I rather suspect Bioware did this one itself. Maybe I'm wrong, but the developers are certainly coming out swinging with the typical anthem of "why is our player base so sucky?". IOW, blaming the victim. Next will come the appeal for patience, I'd guess, followed by the hope that it all blows over.

You know, when you go to tell a story, the story might have a happy ending, a sad ending, whatever. What it must have, if you want the audience to be satisfied, is an ending, one that goes with the story. What we got with ME 3 was an ending that belongs to another game, with the faces of Mass Effect's characters pasted in.

[Lyn Farel]

You are starting to scare me, I havent finished the game yet.

[Seriphyn]

Looking at what some people are saying in response to the ending, I think in some cases, Bioware overestimated their fans. I'm noticing a handful of comments of people who want fairytale endings...

If I were to die in fighting then this beautiful song would be what I want to hear as my last moments remaining as I say goodbye and think back to everything and everyone I loved  and knew. Liara how I love you and wish I was with you instead, Joker you were my best friend, Ashley for seeing the good in me exists still, giving Anderson one last salute. This is my goodbye. This is Commander Shepard and this is my last favorite song on the Citadel. [Smiles & closes eyes] “Death, do your worst”

Yeah, I'll stick with the current one, though I am hoping for an Epilogue DLC that confirms Indoctrination Theory.

[Caellach Marellus]

I don't want a fairytale ending, I just would like one that isn't covered in plotholes and dooms the galaxy to a death by technological withdrawl.

I don't need my Shepard to live forever, he can die riddled with bullets and torn apart. Give him the "I'm going to hell, but taking you all with me!" style ending where he's dead but the Galaxy is safe and able to progress without the future being a bleak uncertain-yet-likely-doomed mess.

[Kybernetes Moros]

My counterpoint would be "why should the galaxy be saved and/or the Reapers eliminated as a threat?".

That said, I'm extremely fond of both the explanation that Shepard has been indoctrinated for a long while now, and even more fond of the one saying that Shepard was killed outright by Harbinger's laser on the run to the beam and the end sequence was entirely hallucinatory. Pinches of salt might be necessary.

[Morwen Lagann]

I'll wait for a steam sale...

This is my plan. I haven't even really gotten into ME2 yet, trying to find my ME1 disk to reinstall, play through that, etc, and this thread has put a mild hurt on my eagerness for ME3. So I'll take my time and wait for it to be cheaper.

You two are going to be waiting a long time if you're waiting on a Steam sale.

[Mizhara]

"Over-estimated their fans"? Nice bit of arrogance there. There is nothing inherently 'better' with depressing or bittersweet endings. They're just endings just like any others, fitting to some story-arcs and not fitting to others. It's certainly one of the ending types that can work for a game like this but it sure as hell doesn't work as the only possible ending.

For a huge amount of the players out there, Mass Effect has always been about the hope against the odds. Triumph against the impossible. I don't know if any of you remember that moment when you first finished Mass Effect. When everything came to a peak and you finally took out Saren/Sovereign. Explosions, the caught breath when the tower gets hit by a piece of Sovereign, the resignation on your team-mates and Anderson and so on. Then that blink of motion, Anderson turning, then Shepard shown climbing wounded but alive on top of the defeated enemy with a cheeky smile. Reading the forums and remembering my own experiences at the time, it was the moment when fists were pumping in the air, whoops and cheers filled living rooms and computer dens alike. Hell, the time spent just staring at the credits with the amazing music going, getting strength back in your knees and the time needed to get down from the high.

That is what Mass Effect is to a staggering amount of players, and there is nothing wrong with that. I'll admit it myself, I loved that feeling and the victory. The reward for perseverence. The pay-off for all that effort. The win. You can call it a 'fairy-tale ending' as much as you want, but the derision inherent in that is misplaced and frankly rather ignorant. Not to mention the fact that you have to keep in mind the medium as well.

Video games differ heavily from movies, books and TV series and so on. It differs because the players put so much of themselves into it, games like Mass Effect and other RPGs in particular. There's so much time and effort spent. When it all comes to a head and it turns out there's no reward at the end, no pay-off for the hard work... just a loss, no matter what you do... it's not good enough. Three whole games worth of gameplay and there's absolutely no way to win? No way to beat it? How the hell are people supposed to react to that?

This series deserves so much better and so do the players. Of course the bittersweet and bad endings should be kept for those who like that kind of thing and for those who's playthroughs reflect that, but a lot of people played these games to win. A lot of people played this game to get a good ending. How about a middling good/bad ending? A really bad ending where the galaxy goes poof?

There is absolutely no excuse for locking all these players into one single utterly shit ending. Especially when there's absolutely no answers given as to what the hell happens to the galaxy and the races in it, plot holes not even mentioned. The plot holes alone are terribad enough.

[Gottii]

Looking at what some people are saying in response to the ending, I think in some cases, Bioware overestimated their fans. I'm noticing a handful of comments of people who want fairytale endings...

If I were to die in fighting then this beautiful song would be what I want to hear as my last moments remaining as I say goodbye and think back to everything and everyone I loved  and knew. Liara how I love you and wish I was with you instead, Joker you were my best friend, Ashley for seeing the good in me exists still, giving Anderson one last salute. This is my goodbye. This is Commander Shepard and this is my last favorite song on the Citadel. [Smiles & closes eyes] “Death, do your worst”

Yeah, I'll stick with the current one, though I am hoping for an Epilogue DLC that confirms Indoctrination Theory.

Let me be clear.  I assumed Shepard was dead from day one.  Its not the type of ending that bothered me, I'm all about the grim dark, its the fact that after 100hrs of game play and a huge focus on continuation in the game and in the storyline, all those choices boil down to "door 1, 2 or 3". 

[Kaldor Mintat]

I'll wait for a steam sale...

This is my plan. I haven't even really gotten into ME2 yet, trying to find my ME1 disk to reinstall, play through that, etc, and this thread has put a mild hurt on my eagerness for ME3. So I'll take my time and wait for it to be cheaper.

You two are going to be waiting a long time if you're waiting on a Steam sale.

Yup. as EA pulled most of their games from steam for their own Origins service.

[Lyn Farel]

I don't know if any of you remember that moment when you first finished Mass Effect. When everything came to a peak and you finally took out Saren/Sovereign. Explosions, the caught breath when the tower gets hit by a piece of Sovereign, the resignation on your team-mates and Anderson and so on. Then that blink of motion, Anderson turning, then Shepard shown climbing wounded but alive on top of the defeated enemy with a cheeky smile. Reading the forums and remembering my own experiences at the time, it was the moment when fists were pumping in the air, whoops and cheers filled living rooms and computer dens alike. Hell, the time spent just staring at the credits with the amazing music going, getting strength back in your knees and the time needed to get down from the high.

I remember it too well. The first thing that came to my mind was "oh fuck no, thats just too obvious and cheesy, they should really stop that kind of hollywood screenplay that usually makes me vomit". I also thought the same at the end of ME2. I hope it will not be like that in ME3, especially considering how grim dark this one is compared to the 2 other ones. Then, I realized that this is actually at least half wanted and openly admitted in something that is B series by artistical choice (at least a little...). But tbh, I was not pleased at all when I saw that. This continues to happen in all the ME titles here and there when it comes to stupid rubbish clichés that hold the gift to totally ruin the sequence they are inserted in. But well yes, it is not that bad as it is in the spirit of the game and the story.

Anyway, the fact that Bioware lets the choice to their players to choose their own stories and how it might end, they could have actually implemented several endings suited to different tastes (much like in ME2 where you can kill whoever you want if you know how the storyline works behind, including Shepard) : a happy end, a happy-bitter end, a bad ending, etc.

But for now I am really pleased by ME3, which is a lot more grim than the other ones to my opinion. ME2 was dark and grim, yes, but not visceraly like this one. ME2 was very "dirty" before all, with obvious gore things. Here in ME3, everything is a lot more subtle and deep. I mean, like the time when I came back to the Citadel after the Cerberus attack and I do not find Chambers at her usual place, and someone just tells me bluntly that she has been killed a bullet in the head. It was almost shocking considering the suddenness of the moment and how I was definitly not expecting that, and they throw it to my face like this. It happened several others times here and there with more secondary characters or just the war in the background behind, where it tends to get sometimes very, very grim just by simple suggestions done by the story, letting a place for people's imagination.

[Graelyn]

[Caellach Marellus]

My counterpoint would be "why should the galaxy be saved and/or the Reapers eliminated as a threat?".

So you should play through three games with that one goal in mind and then fail to achieve what you set out to do ever since Eden Prime back on Mass Effect 1?

That'd be ridiculous, you don't end a game series where no matter your efforts you will fail to accomplish your goals. You have games where you accomplish your task but at great sacrifice (like blowing yourself up in Ikaruga to destroy the enemy) But never to fail to achieve the mission that drives the plot.

[Kybernetes Moros]

We have different tastes, then. I don't see the problem in a series ending without the protagonist's / protagonists' goal(s) being accomplished, provided that the reasoning behind them not is sound -- and given the godlike intelligences that have wiped out all civilisations to reach a certain level of advancement have done a good job of it thus far...

I definitely struggle to see it as ridiculous, but hey, ymmv.

[Lyn Farel]

This may also be because we do not see the story like some players see it Kyber. I am not sure for you but I have always seen a RPG story like a story involving characters. Even with games ala Bioware where they do whatever they can to make the player feel he is the main protagonist (oh look how its you in control and how awesome you are, blabla). But most players do not see their character as... a character. It becomes quite obvious when you hear them refering to Shepard as "me", "I have done this, this and this", etc.

Oh and I just finished the game. I found the end pretty decent tbh. There was something really deep behind with a good screenplay (for once...), but it got somehow lost in stretched concepts like "we have been protecting you from being eradicated by synthetics since day one by sending to your advanced civilizations the reapers".