It’s fine if you want to dismiss the end of the game as just another deus ex machina, but at least be fair enough to recognize that first, it was set up at the beginning of the game and established as something that’s been in existence (in plan form at least) since the reapers were, and carefully handed down and expanded upon ever since, and second that it probably was going to have to end in a deus ex machina anyway. The only other choices would be either destroy all the reapers in a conventional war, which would devalue the reapers into being just another enemy that nobody could defeat until suddenly, hey whoa, we can! Or, we all go down in a blaze of glory which is now an ending option thanks to the new ending DLC.
My favorite ending is still the “do nothing” ending, which should have been the original ending if your readiness score was too low. The others were all meh.
No, the Catalyst is set up from the beginning of the game as a macguffin. We don’t know exactly what it’s meant to do and it’s probably dangerous, but it’s also our only shot at defeating the Reapers. That’s fine. The Catalyst-as-starchild is a deus ex machina because while the Catalyst is established, there is absolutely no setup for it doing -that-, and it effectively hands the salvation of the galaxy over to a god-like entity that arbitrarily fixes things for us despite having no particular reason to do so and no precedent for its existence at all.
Grifman
2684
Yep, this. And worst of all, if you made peace between the Quarians/Geth and encouraged EDI/Joker, you’ve no opportunity to use those examples as proof to refute the Star Child’s contention that biological life and artificial life can live together peacefully. A huge portion of the game and the things Shepard does are totally ignored as if they never happened.
What difference does it make if the Catalyst appears to Shepard as a boy whose death he witnessed or his crazy old Aunt Edith? It all comes down to what the catalyst was designed to do, which was apparently one of three things. That’s the breaks folks.
You’re talking about it as though its purpose and function were fixed in stone instead of being whatever Bioware wanted to write them to be. And in this case, they chose the path of bad, unsatisfying writing.
Hopefully whoever was leary of spoilers has stopped reading by now.
I am saying nothing of the sort. The plot line as written by Bioware was established and supported from the early part of the game. Whether you personally find it satisfying is no concern of mine.
There is absolutely nothing in the treatment of the Catalyst up until that point that requires or supports the ending that we got, or the arbitrary choice presented.
Joe_M
2690
Yeah, reading the Mass Effect dissertation (which analyzed ME1, ME2 and touched on the books) gave me a better handle on the big picture and it’s why the ending didn’t surprise me in the least.
spoilers spoilers spoilers
[spoiler]I do wonder whether the catalyst, as it appears in game, is the AI’s attempt at manipulating Shepard or what else is going on there. They went to great lengths to stress Shepard’s psychological burden, so it would make some sense for the catalyst to try to play on that.
Whatever the case, it does seem overly eager for Shep to embrace Synthesis rather than wholesale destruction, presumably because it would leave the AI intact. This is why I cannot bring myself to pick that ending, as it seems a little too convenient a compromise. Also, I don’t trust anything that little bastard has to say.[/spoiler]
It was absolutely supported. You had a device whose design had been handed down after failing to be built since the beginning of all this. Everybody wonders, loudly and at length, if even building the thing is a good idea. Until of course the entire battle inevitably turns in the reapers favor and there’s no other choice. So you get a bunch of Sophie’s choice endings that allow you to make the best aftermath you can live with. I find this satisfying and well enough written for what I was looking for. I think the original ending was ballsier and more effective, in that it had damn near world-ending ramifications for the survivors. But the complainers won that battle, so good on you.
Yeah, I don’t agree at all, but I think we’ve covered that.
I don’t expect to change your mind. If you don’t like the game or ending, you’re entitled to your opinion and that’s the end of that. But I think it’s pretty chickenshit of people to say “bad writing” when they don’t like something. Bioware tried to do something pretty gutsy and got slapped down hard for it. I guess they’ve learned their lesson.
And I think it’s ludicrous to call the slapdash mess that was the original ending “gutsy”. It’s about as gutsy as those old games that ended by dropping you out to the DOS prompt. I can’t comment on the DLC version of the ending. (I’m willing to give it a chance, but I got the ending I got and I’m going to wait until a second playthrough to experience the new version.)
Different colored lights is the new “gutsy”.
It’s the internet, though, and I guess someone (including people whose opinions I value outside of ME3 ending conversations) will defend anything.
Nice reductionist argument you’ve got there, rhinohelix. All you’ve really proven here is that you’re not colorblind though. The gutsiness is, of course, the near destruction of everything connecting this game universe together, as well as you own party. But no, Bioware pulled it all back, the mass relays are actually ok! So is the Normandy and, oh yeah, pretty much all her crew! Whew, those reapers, that was quite a day, know what I mean?
Alan_Au
2697
They should have replaced the catalyst star child with Sarevok, just to mess with people. Shepard isn’t indoctrinated, YOU are.
Joe_M
2698
Apparently there are still endings in the game where the future looks rather grim and bleak to say the least, I’ve just never experienced any of them because I like to do every side mission in the game. You might try skipping all the optional content and see how that works out.
On principle, I agree though. I much preferred the ambiguity in the original ending: not knowing if all of my friends were going to be ok, believing that the relays were well and truly fucked and wondering how Earth was going to cope with the presence of tens of thousands of stranded aliens, being thrown back into a technological dark age, etc. It wasn’t a comfortable ending by any means but it was one I could respect, and it made me think about all I knew of the Mass Effect universe and how it all tied together.
Now we have Hackett hanging a smiley face on the final page of the story and while it may be “better” for some, it certainly isn’t an improvement for me. Hell, if they were going to go this route, they may as well have completely caved and gone for a third installment of the fist-pump ending.
On the other hand, the extended cut netted us an additional smattering of music that I really like, so there’s that.
Except that the original ending doesn’t deliver any of what you just talked about. At the very best it spends a couple seconds hinting that something bad may have happened before showing a random couple of crew members inexplicably fine and on some other world even if they were with you at the end and shouldn’t have been able to get to the Normandy in time in the best of all possible universes.
If they’d been willing to deliver that sort of near-pyrrhic victory scenario as a natural outgrowth of the game up to that point and demonstrate the repercussions in a clear and continuity-friendly way, that would have been a hell of an ending and I’d be right there with you calling it gutsy, and very disappointed if they had then turned around and “fixed” it to some boring trite happy ending. But they didn’t. They delivered a muddled, truncated, error-filled mess.
I disagree. Bad writing is exactly what the ending was to me. How that makes me cowardly is unclear.
My experience of playing the game, which I really enjoyed up to the final 20 minutes, completely changed after the ending. In fact, if the game had ended 20 minutes before the ending (not unlike the Blade Runner cut which ends with the elevator doors closing), I would have been perfectly fine with it. As it was, I’m done with the series.
In a way, that’s pretty impressive - how can you wreck 120 hours of gameplay in just 20 minutes? It also points up how delicate the entire writing process is - it looks like the freight train of narrative is unstoppable until suddenly - wham! The whole thing comes apart like wet tissue paper.
Like Rock8man, if you loved the original ending and felt it ended perfectly, like Beethoven, then I’m happy for you. I wish I had had that experience. At least you’ll always have Paris.
