A Logical Breakdown of Why the Mass Effect 3 Ending Makes No Sense
Probably the end-all, be-all resource for all collected evidence against the ending sequence.
Originally posted by NephthysSpoiler:
At least it would make the War Assets actually mean something. Plus havn't the fleets been kinda holding the Reapers back throughout the game anyway?
Spoiler:
They've been "holding them back" because the Reapers are spread so far out. Think about it, a mere portion of the Reaper forces was wrecking the Turian military, the strongest in the galaxy. I don't doubt that the fleets, at high enough War Assets, could deal significant damage to Reapers, but to suggest that they could actually wipe them out, especially when reinforcements are just a mass relay or two away, is unrealistic, imo
Originally posted by FinalAnswerSpoiler:
They've been "holding them back" because the Reapers are spread so far out. Think about it, a mere portion of the Reaper forces was wrecking the Turian military, the strongest in the galaxy. I don't doubt that the fleets, at high enough War Assets, could deal significant damage to Reapers, but to suggest that they could actually wipe them out, especially when reinforcements are just a mass relay or two away, is unrealistic, imo
Spoiler:
the entire might of the asari military couldn't prevent the loss of Thessia, and they were believed to be of strength close to the turians.
Originally posted by Smasandian
I always thought the point of the war assets was to make sure you can get the Crucible built and protected.Spoiler:
The entire war scene played out like an attack on the Reapers to keep them busy so the secret weapon can be attached and then fired.
I forgot about that.
It was kind of nifty for you to come back from a mission/planet scanning and see the short history behind each asset.
I like how that was part of the game. The first was all about finding out about the galaxy, the second was finding friends to help you, and the third is reunite the galaxy for a common purpose.
I give Bioware credit, at least each game in the series is not the same.
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/technology/Mass+Effect+fans+campaign+ending/6329474/story.html
All but confirms that there's going to be some sort of DLC about the ending.
God I hope they don't shoehorn a happy ending into the story. I worry about that because a lot of people seem to think that that's what most of the complaints are about, as opposed to perceived plot holes which is actually what all of the reasonable complaints stem from. The people complaining about a lack of a happy ending are just idiots who don't understand storytelling.
I can just see some EA exec reading briefly through the articles that constantly cite that fans are mad about a 'sad' ending and say "Well, best put a happy ending in, quick get it done." Would be the biggest disservice to the series and the most shortsighted decision that they could possibly make.
I see nothing wrong with a happy ending to the story. Really what is so wrong about kids worldwide wanting a happy ending? So Long as you have to work extra hard and get all assets and all the shit needed to get it...why not? You can always choose the other endings.
My main beef with the ending is that it completely shits on what made ME2's suicide mission so unique and epic. I remember the feeling of frustration and guilt the first time I went through the Omega 4 relay unprepared and ended up losing 3 squad members before even docking into the collector base. That sort of engagement made the situation feel intense and real because your choices were affecting how everything played out.
When you compare that to the ME3's final mission; ME3's approach seems to be lacking if you ask me.
Originally posted by General Kaliero
A Logical Breakdown of Why the Mass Effect 3 Ending Makes No SenseProbably the end-all, be-all resource for all collected evidence against the ending sequence.
That is amazingly well said. I can't think of anything else to add.
Yep, masterfully written. I've never seen a more comprehensive list of problems. It makes Redlettermedia look tame.
The list of things the link points out is pretty damn compelling in suggesting
Spoiler:
the whole ending is fighting off indoctrination. Particularly waking up in London. What the **** is up with that? How did Shepard get back there? Why is it only present in the Destroy ending?
Originally posted by FinalAnswerSpoiler:
They've been "holding them back" because the Reapers are spread so far out. Think about it, a mere portion of the Reaper forces was wrecking the Turian military, the strongest in the galaxy. I don't doubt that the fleets, at high enough War Assets, could deal significant damage to Reapers, but to suggest that they could actually wipe them out, especially when reinforcements are just a mass relay or two away, is unrealistic, imo
Spoiler:
The Reapers are not that powerful imo. It took them 100 years to subdue the Protheans, who didn't put up as much as a fight as Shepard and his allies. With the full power of the galaxy consolidated into a single fleet I'm not sure that the Reapers have that much of an overwhelming advantage. Its plausible enough that I wouldn't call bullshit on it, but thats just me.However, I havn't got to the end of the game yet so I'm not as knowledgable as you or many others. So we can tweak the ending the guy wrote to just make the fleet inflict enough damage to force the Reapers to retreat. Remember that each Reaper lost constitutes a massive blow, an entire cycles worth of effort if I'm not mistaken. The 4th ending could be Shepard pointing this out to the Child and arguing that its meaningless to preserve organics this way if you're just going to lose them in the next war or just plain arguing him down another way.
I dunno, I just liked the ending the guy wrote. IIRC he only wrote it over breakfast though, so theres bound to be some holes.
Originally posted by Zack Fair
I see nothing wrong with a happy ending to the story. Really what is so wrong about kids worldwide wanting a happy ending? So Long as you have to work extra hard and get all assets and all the shit needed to get it...why not? You can always choose the other endings.My main beef with the ending is that it completely shits on what made ME2's suicide mission so unique and epic. I remember the feeling of frustration and guilt the first time I went through the Omega 4 relay unprepared and ended up losing 3 squad members before even docking into the collector base. That sort of engagement made the situation feel intense and real because your choices were affecting how everything played out.
When you compare that to the ME3's final mission; ME3's approach seems to be lacking if you ask me.
There's nothing inherently wrong with a happy ending, or with children wanting a happy ending. But the game is rated M, it is not for children.
The problem in this case is that the entire game has a sense of despair and inevitable doom to it,
Spoiler:is foreshadowed in one of the dream sequences. To ignore the consistently bleak tone that the game works so hard to create throughout, and throw in a happy ending would be out of place and inappropriate. Doing so after the game is completed would just come off as a lazy attempt to appease people who don't understand what constitutes good writing, and simply want to 'feel good' at the end of something. It also obviously flies in the face of what the creators wanted. It would simply be disingenuous.
Shepard's death
As far as your comparisons to the suicide missions in ME2, ME3 does have similar consequences if you go in unprepared. The difference is that players who experienced the suicide mission of 2 know not to engage the final mission in 3 until they have everything ready and have as much war assets as possible. If you go to the final mission without the needed number of war assets
Spoiler:
earth is destroyed at the end and you will see the bodies of the squadmates you took with you for the final mission after Harbinger shoots his laser at you.
Originally posted by BackFire
The problem in this case is that the entire game has a sense of despair and inevitable doom to it,Spoiler:is foreshadowed in one of the dream sequences.
Shepard's death
Even if
Spoiler:the game would still have a sense of doom in it what with the
Shepard survived
Spoiler:
Mass Relays blowing up, resulting in either the deaths of many throughout the galaxy or just leaving most of the species stranded in the Sol system, incapable of returning back to their homeworlds which will put the overpopulation crisis on the Drell homeworld to shame since Asari, Krogan, Turians, Quarians, etc. will all have to try getting used to living with the humans in one system.
To ignore the consistently bleak tone that the game works so hard to create throughout, and throw in a happy ending would be out of place and inappropriate. Doing so after the game is completed would just come off as a lazy attempt to appease people who don't understand what constitutes good writing, and simply want to 'feel good' at the end of something. It also obviously flies in the face of what the creators wanted. It would simply be disingenuous.
Yeah 'cause it's totally not like the ending we have now isn't out of place and inappropriate. Oh, wait...it is. What good writing? Sure the beginning and the middle had good writing but to say the ending had good writing is completely exaggerating.
Spoiler:
"Shepard, my task is to end the conflict between organics and synthetics by making synthetics called Reapers to kill the organics so that way, organics can be safe from synthetics. IS THAT A BRILLIANT PLAN OR WHAT?! No I don't care if you got along with the Geth for there's no way that can happen 'cause I say so. Now choose your colored beam to walk into for no matter which one it is, it'll still still destroy galactic interstellar travel and ruin everyone's day dur"
As far as your comparisons to the suicide missions in ME2, ME3 does have similar consequences if you go in unprepared. The difference is that players who experienced the suicide mission of 2 know not to engage the final mission in 3 until they have everything ready and have as much war assets as possible. If you go to the final mission without the needed number of war assetsSpoiler:
earth is destroyed at the end and you will see the bodies of the squadmates you took with you for the final mission after Harbinger shoots his laser at you.
But wouldn't everyone still be screwed overall?
People like to criticize the "happy" ending by making it out to be a giant happy party with smiley faces and everyone on earth comes back to life and every person who ever died is resurrected and the Reapers turn good and we all hold hands and sing songs as the reapers and the galaxy work together to rebuild earth.
This isn't an accurate representation of what is wanted at all. It's already a pretty grim game, what with millions of innocent people dying in the first five minutes, and those people don't come back.
That doesn't mean the game should have nothing but grim and unhappy endings, though. The whole thing with Mass Effect and it's games is that the player helps determine how things work out. Sure, the grim and unhappy endings should be there. But they should not be THE ONLY option available. Especially if you worked your backside off through the whole game getting your war assets all the way up,
Spoiler:
managed to bring the entire galaxy together, formed an alliance between the geth and quarians, and even help form a romantic relationship with an organic and synthetic. I've heard it said that the idea of "sacrifice" was the underlying theme to the Mass Effect games, but I just don't see how that can be true. The TRUE underlying theme seems to be unity. In Mass Effect 2, you had to put together a team of some of the most drastically different personalities and characters the galaxy had to offer. And if you managed to get them to all work together, you could come out of a seemingly suicidal mission with everyone alive. In Mass Effect 1, you were told time and time again how a group of human's and aliens working together on the Normandy was a bad idea. And, given the right dialog choices, you could refute the idea that humanity needs to stand on it's own. And in Mass Effect 3, you bring together, or can bring together, practically the entire galaxy united. If you can manage that, and manage to fill your war assets, I see absolutely no reason why a "happier" ending is so out of the question. In fact, the grim ending seems out of place if you've played that way through the whole game, only to learn that unity means absolutely nothing in the end, and everything you've worked for and everyone you've helped get exponentially screwed over no matter what.
Neph: You're mistaken.
Spoiler:
Hackett makes it abundantly clear that even the combined forces of all the major fleets in the galaxy will die miserably if the Crucible gambit fails. The turians, who have more dreadnoughts than anyone else in the galaxy, have half of their planet on fire and are losing the ground war until you manage to get krogan support. Most of the ad hoc heavy ships in the Flotilla are converted storeships and liveships, both of which are crucial to continued quarian existence. The asari armada is second to the turians but equally useless. Since they leave in democratic peace among their own kind, Thessia falls literally in a day when the Reapers bring to bear even a fraction of their numbers to crush the guerilla forces onplanet. And all the elchor, batarians, and volus provide for the scramble are token forces which are a fraction of what the Alliance itself can muster. In fact, any resistance whatsoever owes its existence to Hackett sacrificing the 2nd Fleet to let the others escape and build up a battle plan. The War Assets is pretty much a summation of what support you can scrape together for a last-ditch effort to get the Crucible into place and Hail Mary that it works.
Originally posted by General Kaliero
I think what people really want, more than a "happy" ending, is a "grimly victorious" ending. We can take sad things happening, we just want an ending where all our efforts achieved something other thanSpoiler:
the mass murder of most of the galaxy.
^ This
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/03/21/mass-effect-3-player-feedback-spawns-content-initiatives-deta/
Now we can only hope this DLC doesn't cost money if Bioware and EA actually want our full support again.
Originally posted by NephthysSpoiler:
The Reapers are not that powerful imo. It took them 100 years to subdue the Protheans, who didn't put up as much as a fight as Shepard and his allies. With the full power of the galaxy consolidated into a single fleet I'm not sure that the Reapers have that much of an overwhelming advantage. Its plausible enough that I wouldn't call bullshit on it, but thats just me.However, I havn't got to the end of the game yet so I'm not as knowledgable as you or many others. So we can tweak the ending the guy wrote to just make the fleet inflict enough damage to force the Reapers to retreat. Remember that each Reaper lost constitutes a massive blow, an entire cycles worth of effort if I'm not mistaken. The 4th ending could be Shepard pointing this out to the Child and arguing that its meaningless to preserve organics this way if you're just going to lose them in the next war or just plain arguing him down another way.
I dunno, I just liked the ending the guy wrote. IIRC he only wrote it over breakfast though, so theres bound to be some holes.
Spoiler:
Yes. They are. Go to the codex. A Reaper can withstand fire from a small fleet, will one shot dreadnoughts with direct hits, is much faster, and has iirc twice the range of a typical ship, and doesn't require conventional fuel. And that is just one Reaper. Admiral Hackett makes it perfectly clear, they can't win in a conventional fight against the Reapers, and I'm willing to believe the Fleet Admiral over speculation.And as for the Protheans, uh, have you played the Prothean DLC?