Saephon said:
Finally got around to checking back on this thread. I feel like Griffith just gave me a renegade "Illusive-Man" like speech, explaining why a disappointing ending is consistent with the second half of the series.
I don't dispute that interpretation.
Saephon said:
I honestly would've been happy if it'd ended right before the Magical Elevator of Sudden Plot Twist; cheesy? Yeah. But kind of fitting!
I know what you mean, but I really doubt you'd feel the same way
without the next part, of which all you said is pretty subjective, like, "It's unsatisfying if you look at THIS way, which I definitely do." Well, then try looking at it the numerous other ways it can be interpreted that we've discussed. If you want choices, choose one of
those other choices. =) Anyway, if it ended there without something "worse" to compare it to, we'd just be saying "that's it!?" to their little pseudo-Mexican standoff (if people found the explanations to come unsatisfying, all the
nothing beforehand probably wouldn't cut it either). Actually, now I'm disappointed the opportunity was missed to make that the "worst" ending, even if some would prefer it. No elevator ascends, the crucible never activates, Shepard dies inches short of the goal line and better luck next cycle. Come to think of it, that would have been great, especially for those that discovered the "real" ending. Then it would have been liked on principle since this all seems to go back to people's perceived sense of self-determination and accomplishment.
Anyway, my simple philosophy here is more is more, if you really would have been happy with the standoff, then you shouldn't have been upset by getting a hell of a lot more than that. Which is why I'm not particularly opposed to augmenting the ending as long as they don't contradict/betray it completely, "that was all a Reaper dream, here's the new EVEN WORSE ending!" (and that's what everyone is waiting to say; and perhaps, like your relative satisfaction with the standoff, the only way BioWare can make the old ending considered better is by releasing one considered worse). At least they were literally reaching for the stars here, but short of actually revealing the meaning of life, they were doomed to be shat on for going out on a limb that broke under the weight of their desired pretensions.
Saephon said:
I must disagree with people who feel there was enough closure though. Are the reapers destroyed? Yeah, in my case, they are. But I didn't invest 150+ hours into this series because of a burning desire to eliminate faceless, amoral enemies. I did it because of my crew, the friends Shepard made from various races, and the person I chose to fall in love with. My favorite moments from Mass Effect aren't shooting something, blowing something up, or what have you. It's usually talking to someone. I want to know what happened to those 8 or 9 people, beyond a binary "are they alive or dead". If that makes me an anomalous fan, or I'm "doing it wrong", then sue me. Because that's what mattered most to me.
Well, first of all, it's a little jarring the way you unintentionally (I hope) distinguished between Shepard's friends and the "person"
you fell in love with.
That aside, as the cliche goes, it's the journey, not the destination. The whole game is basically discovering what becomes of all those characters, and most importantly it's that they didn't become dead so you can long for their future at all. Beyond that, or outside the scope of the playing experience, it really isn't that important; it just becomes made up biographies with no anchor. But here, Nomad sent this for those in need:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG4EyfXOTJ4
Saephon said:
In the end, it is a video game. The sequels will never be as good as the original Mass Effect, but they still have their merits, and I consider them to be enjoyable experiences. Should I be irked that Casey Hudson specifically said the endings would not be as simple as "A, B, and C"? Maybe. Perhaps the real problem is that ME has been lauded by both its creators and fans as something more than it is, where your choices really matter. It's all really an illusion of choice, and sometimes it's written so well I forget that fact. I suppose the final culminations of plot decisions (Rakhni, Genophage, squad deaths) made it more difficult to maintain the fantasy.
See, I just don't get that, because I never thought about it in terms of
my choices really mattering, but judged it by what choices were given, what
could happen (which is a far more accurate perception). There was no pure agency here on our part, only options within certain parameters. Also, if you care about character exploration/conversation, that's what ME2 an 3 emphasize most, at the expense of overall plot (especially ME2). The first Mass Effect's advantage there is that it wasn't self-aware and a little more natural, so the conversations weren't so perfectly constructed, at worst contrived, to play to the audience's expectations of the character's, etc. I feel like certain characters in ME2 and 3 aren't themselves anymore so much as playing themselves on TV, "Hey everybody, it's
Garrus!"
*applause*
On the subject of decisions and closure, we actually get to see and have a hand in, as Walter pointed out, the culmination of the Genophage and the Geth/Quarian conflict respectively. That was major broad stroke, world building background information stuff that came extraordinarily to the foreground. When was that closure ever promised? The real life equivalent would be like if you happened to solve historically significant problems like curing Cancer and brokering peace in the Middle East within our lifetime, and neither was the most important thing you did in your life (just side projects =)! I guess that stuff happened too early to be counted toward a satisfying ending.
Saephon said:
Hell, if anyone dies in your game, their role in the story is replaced by a practically identical stranger of the same race.
That's if you're lucky, it might just be literal carbon copy!
Saephon said:
Maybe BioWare promised a bit more than they could deliver. But maybe I expected too much too, and that's my fault. I still love this universe. Time to replay ME1 I think.
Once again, look at it another way. Maybe they actually delivered something more than they promised. More than they even knew or one could even expect in those 100+ hours. Something that can't quite be quantified, which is precisely why bringing "closure" to a project of such scale is bound to feel unsatisfactory and limited; because that's what closure is by nature; it's closing off the possibilities, winding something down, quantifying it, limiting it,
finishing it off. That's counter-intuitive to the previous Mass Effect experience, and the people asking for more, more, more and branching choices (that'd have nowhere to go, since it's not like this was leading into another game) don't seem to have fully accepted this going in. As if it really was "to be continued," or there was a way to properly capture the substance of an open world in a closed end. It's no wonder if the final choices felt contradictory or upsetting, even like a betrayal: Mass Effect 3 was ostensibly about saving a galaxy, but its true purpose was to end one.
(being able to count as well as a calculator, etc.)
They really didn't spare her any love in this game.
) and didn't want an overfriendly Cerberus spy to be snooping around. As a consequence our relationship never really developed, and she never even showed up in ME3. 
)
It seemed a bit arbitrary that all synthetic life must be destroyed. Many of the complaints I've heard really do bother me, Joker booking it for some reason, (how did you get on the ship Liara? You were next to me when Harbinger Blasted me.) all the galaxy's armed forces are stranded in our solar system, did the relay's have to be destroyed.
