MASS EFFECT 3 [now with spoilers]

Somehow, "Speculation for Everyone!" means explaining what was better left unexplained, and "You don't need all the answers" means ignoring the stuff that does need answers.

CivBase wrote:Why is everyone concerned about having a final boss? What is this, Mario?

The dlc is supposed to flesh out the endings and add variation to them. That solves pretty much everything else you just complained about.

Mass Effect has always had a final boss, even if it was just a boss enemy at the end of a mission; the Warden, Saren, Kai-Leng, Benezia, Human-Reaper, actual Reaper, Thorian, David... There are so many in all three games.

After all these and the largest and final battle has Marauder Shields. Definitely makes sense.

I understand wanting more conclusion from the ending, but I think that's taking it a little too far. Regardless of past trends in the series, having a boss does not make or break an ending.

CivBase wrote:I understand wanting more conclusion from the ending, but I think that's taking it a little too far. Regardless of past trends in the series, having a boss does not make or break an ending.

This being the ending most certainly breaks it.

Quite, but that has nothing to do with the absence of a boss.

The defeating of a boss gives a feeling of closure to a game.


It makes sense that Bioware didn't put one in the game what with them forgetting to put any other form of closure in it.

Lord Pheonix wrote:The defeating of a boss gives a feeling of closure to a game.


It makes sense that Bioware didn't put one in the game what with them forgetting to put any other form of closure in it.

From what I can tell that's what the Illusive Man was there for. And they decided not to make him a reaper monster (Though they considered it) and tried to make it more dialogue based battle.

Like LP said, killing a boss provides closure. Harbinger was played up as q major threat, and you just see him land blast some shit and fly away. There's no satisfaction from killing Marauder Shields, only the feeling that something is missing.

Vigil wrote:

Lord Pheonix wrote:The defeating of a boss gives a feeling of closure to a game.


It makes sense that Bioware didn't put one in the game what with them forgetting to put any other form of closure in it.

From what I can tell that's what the Illusive Man was there for. And they decided not to make him a reaper monster (Though they considered it) and tried to make it more dialogue based battle.

I agree that the original idea of turning him into a Reaper beast was a bad one, but I still think that a boss battle like the Thorian could have worked in conjunction with the dialog battle.

idk about the rest of you, but shooting something as big as a skyscraper has never, in itself, given me any sort of closure. The Illusive Man and Star Child marked climaxes to the two major plots of Mass Effect 3. The resolution was lacking, but there was a definite climax. Why does the climax need to involve shooting something big?

Didn't need to involve Space Jesus at all.



If they had struck that part, had the device kill all the reapers (and all A.I possibly to show that their is a cost) and gave a "what happened next" showing all the characters i'd have been happy.



Space Jesus showing up and telling you he made the reapers in the last 10 minutes with no build up of his existence at all and having the Normandy leaving the biggest battle in the entire universe for no damn reason at all: not a resolution. Just shit.

I don't like the Star Child concept any more than you do, but it does have more credit than most are willing to give it.

It helps to see the Star Child of the reapers as a whole. Where the Illusive Man ended the Cerberus-focused plot of ME3, the Star Child ended the overarching plot of the whole series. He may not have been in the story prior to the finale, but he was still pulling the strings and his actions had major impact throughout all three games. By seeing him as the unified persona of the entire reaper force, I've become much more comfortable with the event (although it certainly isn't how I would have done it).

Either way, the Star Child is not the primary failing of the ME3 ending.

CivBase wrote:I don't like the Star Child concept any more than you do, but it does have more credit than most are willing to give it.

It helps to see the Star Child of the reapers as a whole. Where the Illusive Man ended the Cerberus-focused plot of ME3, the Star Child ended the overarching plot of the whole series. He may not have been in the story prior to the finale, but he was still pulling the strings and his actions had major impact throughout all three games. By seeing him as the unified persona of the entire reaper force, I've become much more comfortable with the event (although it certainly isn't how I would have done it).

Civ, the Starchild wasn't pulling the strings. The Starchild did not affect anything beyond the last ten minutes of the game. It did NOTHING in the trilogy, unless you want to argue that it left Sovereign to die because it didn't get that Space Hamster for Christmas.

Honestly, if the Illusive Man's PDA was revealed to have been the controlling force behind Cerberus, and you were asked to take what it's saying at face value, would you be satisfied? Would you see it as "the unified persona of the entire Cerberus force"?

Unless I misinterpreted the ending (which is very possible since I only played it once) the Star Child explained that he was the creator and, essentially, operator of the reapers. He instructed them to do what they did. At that point, I stopped seeing the reapers as individual sentient life and, instead, saw them as an extension - a tool - of the Star Child. Any prior appearance of sentience became more-or-less an extension of the Star Child's will, not the will of a single reaper.

As I said, I don't like that they ended it that way. It just helps.

"Sovereign: My kind transcends your very understanding. We are each a nation - independent, free of all weakness. You cannot grasp the nature of our existence. "


Because Space Jesus said so is not a good answer to this.



Each is not a nation or independent, they are slave to Space Jesus's will.

They are not free of weakness, Space Jesus has 3 off buttons on the citadel

The nature of their existence that we can not grasp is that Space Jesus wants to save us from dieing by robots by sending a bunch of robots to kill us.



I would have preferred taking Sovereign's word for it and accepting that then the existence of Space Jesus.

Still waiting for a Renegade interrupt to shoot Godkid in the face and wait the battle out the right way.

Or you know a Paragon interrupt to Deus ex style rattle his philosophy kind of thing. Since the three colors are the exact endings of Deus Ex 1

Combine: (You merge yourself with an AI whos is essentially a Lord Pheonix already)

Destroy: (You blow up the internet basically)

Control: (You sign on with the illuminati and with them control the human race and machines with an invisible hand)

and deus ex did it better. At least Icarus would scare the crap out of you and scream "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE" a couple of times instead of showing up out of the blue.

and even then at least you had some idea of what happens afterwards (If your a good boy and do things like save your brother, give dowd his cure, ect they give you more perspective on the endings and whats happened, Your brother is all for the whole merge thing since he tells you everyone is actually ok with an AI being in charge, Dowd has his whole come to the dark side thing going for him) Plus you survive as you were before you picked control-merge since why the hell else would you pick it if you werent going to be the Lord Pheonix emperor of the illuminati/humanity.

Filtering the word "Gawd" to be turned into "Lord Pheonix" was the best administrative decision I have and will ever make.

The ending to ME3 was poorly executed. Gamers derive closure from several sources.

A) Defeating a major enemy in single combat allows us to express superiority.
B) The choices we made having some bearing on the ending allows us to feel important to the events.
C) Twists that are surprising without pulling a random new character out of your ass in the last ten minutes add to drama and suspense, amplifying other types of closurr.
D) Leaving some things unexplained increases intrigue and allows for speculation.

ME3 lacked pretty much all of this at the end. Making the Illusive Man shoot himself was fun, but then your "paragon" option is exactly what he'd proposed all along! The Star Child ruins all speculation about the Reapers and just makes them really stupid Anti-Spirals, yet the game leaves the universe in a fucked situation after your "victory". God dammit all.

Rotaretilbo wrote:The Star Child ruins all speculation about the Reapers and just makes them really stupid Anti-Spirals, yet the game leaves the universe in a fucked situation after your "victory". God dammit all.

And Shephard doesn't even take the Kamina approach of saying "WE DON'T ACCEPT YOUR WAY, WE MAKE OUR OWN FUTURE!!!". The Anti-Spirals tell them it's how it's always been and always will be and Shephard just says "kay" and goes along with them completely out of character.

I liked the ending....

I was seriously expecting Shepard to say "fuck you" to the Anti-Spirals and take the Simon approach like he good and well should have if you payed attention the last 3 games to his character at all instead of just bending over and taking it.

I think its symbolic of EA telling them how the ending will be no arguments, Shepherd expresses Bioware's Submissive pain in choosing the lesser of three evils, Destruction, direct Control or Synthesis, The Fact that Destruction is the only choice that has shep potentially live means that Bioware would rather die than go the way of countless companies before it.

Think of it,

Godchild, EA shows up at the very end of development, tells them how to do their own ending so they can milk the franchise more.

Bioware, Shepherd, has no choice but to listen to this nonsensical business sense and only has to nod their head and agree of suffer the three fates of those who anger EA.

Bioware makes a statement with the destroy ending that they'd sooner die and live again then end up a puppet of their vile overlords.

And before you say blaa blaa ea hate blaa blaa, remember its bioware, bioware knows how to write, which also means they understand the concept of allegory. Ehh? probably just crazy ramblings on my part.