Finally got through the game and while I don't hate the ending, I definitely don't love it either. I like the fact that your choices at the end come with steep consequences. It is war, you can't expect everything to be super terrific happy. But of course the problem is your choices and the consequences of them are nearly identical. I don't buy the whole Shepard being indoctrinated route either. I just think that's a way of denying lazy, patchwork story telling and avoiding the flaws in the end. And the whole idea that to get I guess the best ending was to play multiplayer to get your readiness rating high enough is complete garbage. I completed every mission (except for finding three artifacts for people on the citadel), talked to everyone, found every asset in the galaxy (I did every mission and scanned every damn planet in ME2 as well)...I tried to do everything and my own reputation and war readiness bars were full. And yet the war map never changed from 50 percent. It just felt like the war room and readiness rating and the numbers for all your alliances were completely arbitrary. The ending options could have been vast.. Spoiler maybe keep the option of controlling, destroying or merging...if you destroy the Reapers, you live but the Relays self destruct, thereby stranding alien races. You're able to reunite with your team and start over on earth while the alien fleets coming to help you face long journeys home, some of which may never make it. Or you opt to control the Reapers and save the relays, thereby keeping the galaxy united for a new beginning, but you sacrifice yourself to achieve that. You opt to merge, and maybe that's the equivalent of becoming fully indoctrinated, allowing the reapers to harvest all organic life, leaving only synthetics, which they themselves assimilate with the Reapers. Maybe your ability to save earth depends on your readiness (which apparently it already does). But maybe if you destroy the Reapers, your ability to rebuild earth depends on how much of it was destroyed, which depends on how much of the Galaxy you're able to unite. Maybe if you have a low readiness rating, humanity is forced to abandon earth in search of a new home. The alliances you make should have an effect too. What if you save the Geth instead of the Quarians (or save both), and the Geth, with their upgraded Reaper technology are able to stun Harbinger in the final mission, saving you and your team from the beam, allowing you and your squad mates to travel to the citadel. And maybe instead if you save the Quarians and didn't upgrade the Geth, Harbingers beam destroys your team except for you. If you saved the human reaper in ME2, perhaps you have to battle it in some form in the Cerberus base. The options are limitless, which does make it pretty disappointing that you're pigeonholed into 3 nearly identical choices. Shoot for me it was only 2 choices. And I don't understand why my reputation bar was filled, yet I didn't have paragon/renegade dialogue choices with the Illusive Man at the end. So really again, I didn't expect a real happy, clean ending. But, considering how much time I devoted to the games (never played 1, just 2 and 3) and how much crap my character and squad has been through, I would have like both good and bad choices in the end. Choice. I think we deserve that.
One thing I found weird that I never heard anyone mention, the very last dialog wheel with the Illusive Man, there are Paragon and Renegade options but they're grayed out and I'm not allowed to choose them. Literally every other Paragon/Renegade dialog option has been available to me throughout the entire game and right there at the end, I'm not allowed to choose it? What the hell is that about?
I hear you have to choose either a renegade or paragon (red or blue) option at some point during every conversation you have with the Illusive Man in the game to unlock those two options at the end.
BULLCRAP! I did all of that work, found all of those "assets" and all I get is to see 2 reapers on London either get destroyed or float away??? How could you not be pissed at that. Every single thing you found, every relationship you forged, and whats the payout? A cookie cutter ending. Can a brother see the Arachni queen putting in work? Can I see the Krogans on the mounts I had cloned? F you bioware!
In ME2, when you go through the Omega 4 relay, you get different cut scenes based on whether you had upgraded your ship or not as well as different scenes for who you had do what in the final mission and whether they were loyal or not. I can't understand why they didn't do something similar in ME3. Just a 5-10 second cutscene for each species or faction you recruited to make you feel like your actions throughout the game played an actual role in the endgame instead of just building up your war assets number. Doing a cutscene for EVERY war asset you pick up during the game might be too much, but having some for your major allies would've been easily doable.
You know I find it interesting that most critics/media have essentially praised the game, but fans have given it horrible reviews. Yeah the ending leaves something less than to be desired. But that 10 minutes shouldn't and doesn't ruin the 35-40hrs of awesomeness and the trilogy as a whole. I don't think they could have possibly lived up to the expectations they and the fans placed on themselves anyways. I guess I was more about the journey really.
I completely agree. That was my main gripe with the ending, more so than the plotholes with the star child. So hopefully the extended cut shows some more of this and can bring some closure and payoff to our choices.
The weird thing is that reviews usually mention if the ending is subpar, even if the review is overall positive and the game is given a very good or great rating. I never saw a review that said anything about the ending before I bought it.
Extended cut with epilogue scenes coming next week, June 26th. Looking forward to some better closure...and hopefully some plot hole fixes.
While the ending was.. uh.. yeah.. The game is still AMAZING. But, as for the ending.. Ugh I hate it when people defend the ME3 ending.. it's not about it being sad or not, nothing wrong with a sad ending.. it's that IT MADE NO SENSE. ME2 clearly pointed out that if a Mass Relay was destroyed, it would destroy the whole system with it. WTF? Every me3 ending ends with the relays being destroyed and the systems are.. just fine?! And WHY did Joker run away like a b****?! He knew good and well, and was prepared, that this was the final battle. And he somehow ends up.. escaping.. a weird ass explosion.. and lands on a planet with the squad mates that were on the way to the Citadel with you Not to mention all the fleets stuck at a ruined Earth since they can't go home because of the relays being gone.. And the biggest problem.. Shepherd has always defied the Reapers. He had a "**** you" attitude towards them.. then you see that little boy Reaper.. thing.. and he gives you three options.. WTF? Shepherd just goes "okay." And that's it?! He doesn't question the options?? He gives up?? Just chooses some generic response
It was all part of the INDOCTRINATION attempt by the reapers but really, I do believe it was an attempt by the reapers though, that's why endings don't make sense
I can understand the Mass Relay part. Yeah if we destroy them they take the system with them. But the Reapers built the Relays, so they must know how to destroy them safely. That's certainly plausible. The Joker and squad part doesn't make a lick of sense though. And defintely dissaponting that you're final showdown was with a little boy and not Harbinger. I wonder if they're gonna make people play through multiplayer to increase their readiness again.
The whole ending was just one big cluster****, but what really confused me the most was that the "best possible" ending just raised even more questions. I mean, we're supposed to honestly believe that Shepard fell from inside the Citadel in space over Earth all the way down to Earth and lived? Yeah, no chance in hell. With that being said, I've restarted the game to get ready for the DLC, and it's reminding me just how amazing this game is (excluding the ending, obviously). The completely overwhelming feeling of "holy **** we don't stand a chance" that you get at the beginning of the game, and then going through the humongous rollercoaster of emotions (to this day it's one of the very few games that has made me tear up)... it's one hell of a ride. And then today I decided to give the MP a try for the very first time and realized it's is extremely fun as well. Man... this game could have very easily jumped to the very top of my list of GOAT had they not botched the ending so much.
