GAF, bear with me. This is essay length, and I'm not going to do a TL;DR for this, because if you can't handle reading the essay I'm dropping, you can easily hammer the back button and focus on the shiny things which distract you.
Cool? Cool.
Alright, so... Mass Effect 3 has, rightly, gotten quite a lot of flack for the way it concluded the series, and quite a lot of people have condemned the ending of Mass Effect 3 as being bad. It's meme-tastic at this point. Gamers were fantastically disappointed with the finale to the Mass Effect trilogy, and let's be honest: Their disappointment came with good reason.
The last few hours of Mass Effect 3, extended cut or not, are a fucking mess. No amount of editing or leniency can excuse the slop-filled bucket which is the final moments of a franchise trilogy bound by Bioware's core concepts. What should have been a redemption after Dragon Age II and an affirmation of their storytelling ability is, instead, a condemnation of them as a studio, and people who think such are not wrong to think so.
The problem with Mass Effect 3 is that the finale (which, here, means the final few hours of the game) is a culmination of three separate failures... Of which only two are Bioware's fault. That's why the Mass Effect 3 finale fails so hard: It disappoints gamers on a bunch of different levels.
So let's address them, shall we?
Failure One: Your Choices Matter
I'll be honest, anyone who expected the story to truly branch out based on their decisions in the first two games is an idiot. Logistically speaking, there's no way to generate even broad story paths for the culmination of the many decisions made in Mass Effect 1 & 2 in a way which didn't result in a game like Mass Effect 3.
Flat out, it's impossible to make a game which would have lived up to the franchise which offered true choice and consequences. The game would have been too huge. The only reason Mass Effect 3 feels restrictive as a Bioware game is because your choices are weighed against two previous games worth of choices.
It's the culmination of a three-game series, and the amount of scenarios they'd have had to tackle without restricting things would have bankrupted EA. Not Bioware, EA. They would have had to make a game ten times the size to satisfy the potential of Mass Effect 3, and it's hard to blame them for not living up to it.
However, their other two sins are their own. Specifically...
Failure Two: The climax of the game SUCKED
The first Mass Effect's climax is unforgettable to anyone who's played the game. From Ilos, you crash the Mako through an army of Geth to hit the Beacon, and then you fight your way through the Citadel while a space-combat scene straight out of Return of the Jedi plays out in interspersed cutscenes. As Shepard, you blow out the window of an elevator and straight-up run up the side of the Citadel in zero-G while fighting Geth to stop Saren from triggering the Galaxapocalypse, all while Sovereign looms directly in the background and cradles the Councillors room, the very heart of galactic power.
Where you proceed to fight Saren directly and fuck him up so hard a mechanic Cthulhu feels it enough to get murdered.
The second Mass Effect climax is no less impressive, because if you're unprepared (or if you took too long going through the Omega Relay), named characters die in droves. In a world where guides are posted so often and so readily, it's easy to forget just how harrowing a blind playthrough of Mass Effect 2's final moments are.
I lucked out. The only character who died in my initial playthrough of Mass Effect 2 was an unloyal Jack (dat Jack/Miranda fight), and I actually went back and reloaded it. But still, Bioware having the balls to kill off a single named, well-developed character was amazing.
I can't imagine how someone playing through the game quickly without doing many of the "optional" sidequests would feel. Garrus, Tali, and other series mainstays dying as you fought your way through the Collector's base? Named crew members dissolving before your very eyes because you fucked up, and no amount of reloading can change that?
HARSH.
Mass Effect 3's problem is that it robs the finale of any emotional weight by delivering the gut punches beforehand. Fuck over the Quarians or the Geth, it deals with it during those missions. Fuck over Mordin during the Genophage mission, you kill him there, or you kill Wrex shortly thereafter.
Most of the emotional aspects of Mass Effect 3 get tied up before tackling Earth, which robs it of much of its weight. Not only that, but the actual combat is early and neutered of unique experiences, giving you random waves of enemies (weaker than you might have experienced during the online, which is required to get a Galactic Readiness of 100%).
There is no buildup, really. It's just random enemies, a run up to the beam, and then exposition without any tension. After the run up the side of the Citadel while Sovereign looms or a blood-soaked fight to the center of the Collector base, the culmination of Mass Effect 3 is a fucking pathetic excuse for a trilogy finale. Whoever designed the final scenario should be ashamed that the series concluded, from a combat standpoint, as a generic waves of enemies who you fought until you could press a button.
Failure Three: Bioware gave in to the wrong criticism
Anyone who didn't expect Shepard to die at the end of Mass Effect 3 was an idiot. The entire series was built around the theme of sacrifice, and the final game in the trilogy threw up death flags and foreshadowed death for Shepard the way most people yearn for coffee in the morning.
No, the final failure was that Bioware retconned the destruction of the Mass Effect Relays, pussing out on the best god-damned political drama we could have seen in gaming for a long, long time.
Picture it: Shepard goes for the Destruction ending and leaves the Earth surrounded by alien fleets from every sentient race in the galaxy, with no way of getting home. Not only that, but a war-ravaged Earth, a barely-colonized Mars, and nothing else have to deal with maintaining the peace between an alliance of species with enough military strength to challenge a threat which, just a short while ago, was capable of wiping out the entire god-damned universe.
The Turians now have to rely on the Quarians and whatever food they can provide, trading the fact the only threat they could give is a mutually assured destruction with a people who have spent centuries oppressed by the galaxy as a whole. A species which has, of course, just had their salvation offered to them before being cruelly snatched away.
Never mind the Krogan (now decades or centuries from a home planet which is free of the Genophage) or the Asari (who could probably take the journey, but would run the risk of Ardat-Yakshi being spawned during the trip) needing supplies as well...
All from a war-ravaged Earth which tanked the entire Reaper invasion and probably needs every scrap of iron it can find, let alone dealing with the many species which ame to Earth's aid during the final battle.
...anyway, that's my summation of why I think people be mad about Mass Effect 3. What does GAF think?
Cool? Cool.
Alright, so... Mass Effect 3 has, rightly, gotten quite a lot of flack for the way it concluded the series, and quite a lot of people have condemned the ending of Mass Effect 3 as being bad. It's meme-tastic at this point. Gamers were fantastically disappointed with the finale to the Mass Effect trilogy, and let's be honest: Their disappointment came with good reason.
The last few hours of Mass Effect 3, extended cut or not, are a fucking mess. No amount of editing or leniency can excuse the slop-filled bucket which is the final moments of a franchise trilogy bound by Bioware's core concepts. What should have been a redemption after Dragon Age II and an affirmation of their storytelling ability is, instead, a condemnation of them as a studio, and people who think such are not wrong to think so.
The problem with Mass Effect 3 is that the finale (which, here, means the final few hours of the game) is a culmination of three separate failures... Of which only two are Bioware's fault. That's why the Mass Effect 3 finale fails so hard: It disappoints gamers on a bunch of different levels.
So let's address them, shall we?
Failure One: Your Choices Matter
I'll be honest, anyone who expected the story to truly branch out based on their decisions in the first two games is an idiot. Logistically speaking, there's no way to generate even broad story paths for the culmination of the many decisions made in Mass Effect 1 & 2 in a way which didn't result in a game like Mass Effect 3.
Flat out, it's impossible to make a game which would have lived up to the franchise which offered true choice and consequences. The game would have been too huge. The only reason Mass Effect 3 feels restrictive as a Bioware game is because your choices are weighed against two previous games worth of choices.
It's the culmination of a three-game series, and the amount of scenarios they'd have had to tackle without restricting things would have bankrupted EA. Not Bioware, EA. They would have had to make a game ten times the size to satisfy the potential of Mass Effect 3, and it's hard to blame them for not living up to it.
However, their other two sins are their own. Specifically...
Failure Two: The climax of the game SUCKED
The first Mass Effect's climax is unforgettable to anyone who's played the game. From Ilos, you crash the Mako through an army of Geth to hit the Beacon, and then you fight your way through the Citadel while a space-combat scene straight out of Return of the Jedi plays out in interspersed cutscenes. As Shepard, you blow out the window of an elevator and straight-up run up the side of the Citadel in zero-G while fighting Geth to stop Saren from triggering the Galaxapocalypse, all while Sovereign looms directly in the background and cradles the Councillors room, the very heart of galactic power.
Where you proceed to fight Saren directly and fuck him up so hard a mechanic Cthulhu feels it enough to get murdered.
The second Mass Effect climax is no less impressive, because if you're unprepared (or if you took too long going through the Omega Relay), named characters die in droves. In a world where guides are posted so often and so readily, it's easy to forget just how harrowing a blind playthrough of Mass Effect 2's final moments are.
I lucked out. The only character who died in my initial playthrough of Mass Effect 2 was an unloyal Jack (dat Jack/Miranda fight), and I actually went back and reloaded it. But still, Bioware having the balls to kill off a single named, well-developed character was amazing.
I can't imagine how someone playing through the game quickly without doing many of the "optional" sidequests would feel. Garrus, Tali, and other series mainstays dying as you fought your way through the Collector's base? Named crew members dissolving before your very eyes because you fucked up, and no amount of reloading can change that?
HARSH.
Mass Effect 3's problem is that it robs the finale of any emotional weight by delivering the gut punches beforehand. Fuck over the Quarians or the Geth, it deals with it during those missions. Fuck over Mordin during the Genophage mission, you kill him there, or you kill Wrex shortly thereafter.
Most of the emotional aspects of Mass Effect 3 get tied up before tackling Earth, which robs it of much of its weight. Not only that, but the actual combat is early and neutered of unique experiences, giving you random waves of enemies (weaker than you might have experienced during the online, which is required to get a Galactic Readiness of 100%).
There is no buildup, really. It's just random enemies, a run up to the beam, and then exposition without any tension. After the run up the side of the Citadel while Sovereign looms or a blood-soaked fight to the center of the Collector base, the culmination of Mass Effect 3 is a fucking pathetic excuse for a trilogy finale. Whoever designed the final scenario should be ashamed that the series concluded, from a combat standpoint, as a generic waves of enemies who you fought until you could press a button.
Failure Three: Bioware gave in to the wrong criticism
Anyone who didn't expect Shepard to die at the end of Mass Effect 3 was an idiot. The entire series was built around the theme of sacrifice, and the final game in the trilogy threw up death flags and foreshadowed death for Shepard the way most people yearn for coffee in the morning.
No, the final failure was that Bioware retconned the destruction of the Mass Effect Relays, pussing out on the best god-damned political drama we could have seen in gaming for a long, long time.
Picture it: Shepard goes for the Destruction ending and leaves the Earth surrounded by alien fleets from every sentient race in the galaxy, with no way of getting home. Not only that, but a war-ravaged Earth, a barely-colonized Mars, and nothing else have to deal with maintaining the peace between an alliance of species with enough military strength to challenge a threat which, just a short while ago, was capable of wiping out the entire god-damned universe.
The Turians now have to rely on the Quarians and whatever food they can provide, trading the fact the only threat they could give is a mutually assured destruction with a people who have spent centuries oppressed by the galaxy as a whole. A species which has, of course, just had their salvation offered to them before being cruelly snatched away.
Never mind the Krogan (now decades or centuries from a home planet which is free of the Genophage) or the Asari (who could probably take the journey, but would run the risk of Ardat-Yakshi being spawned during the trip) needing supplies as well...
All from a war-ravaged Earth which tanked the entire Reaper invasion and probably needs every scrap of iron it can find, let alone dealing with the many species which ame to Earth's aid during the final battle.
...anyway, that's my summation of why I think people be mad about Mass Effect 3. What does GAF think?
