Mass Effect Ending: Was it really that bad?

Okay this is probably a stupid post which I'm sure a lot of you will remind me of, But Mass Effect 3's ending was actually not half bad!
I've seen lots of players commenting on videos about how none of their decisions from the 3 games have an effect on the end result of the game but when looking back at it,

Mass Effect 1. Whatever you do in the game you MUST finish it the way the Bioware want you to. All you get to decide on no matter what is whether Saren will shoot himself, and to save the council or leave them to their fate. Regardless of what you do It ends with you killing a Saren husk and Harbinger being destroyed.

Mass Effect 2. Again no matter what you do in the game you're going to go onto the collector ship and destroy the half built Human Reaper.( The worst thing I've ever seen in a game) And sure you can play to save your squad members etc but It's still the same end result.

Now Mass Effect 3. I'm guessing you can tell already I'm going to say that regardless of how you play the game,you will always be put on the crucible and given a choice, but It's Bioware's story and you have to play it the way they've written the damn thing!

Now if It's a case of how you actually felt about the story itself then that is of course a different issue, but in terms of how you get to determine the outcome of the story my point would have to be that, we were never able to change it in the other games so why now have did everyone have the expectation that it would happen in the third game?

Anyway I'm a rambler and I'm probably wrong about a lot of this so I'll leave it at that.But I just can't understand after playing the first 2 before the 3rd came out why people thought we'd have control over the ending, like the other games, we have "some" control, which is exactly what I expected and I wasn't shocked or dissapointed.

[BosMa]

I think that it wasnt that good.
Also with mass effect the end game is something we all want no part of (fans of mass effect).

So i dont think any ending couldve changed the fact that many of us are not ready for shepard to go and to be honest i was trying to avoid the end game sequence because of one reason, i love mass effect and i dont want to lose what i love.

I also felt robbed in regards to "choices that matter".
I was very careful to mold my shepard and chose wisely due to this and because of all the time spent invested into doing just that it was kinda sour when mass 3 did not really impliment this system and well i just feel that any ending would not have been good enough..

How do you end mass effect and shepards journey? Carefully and with EA hanging over Biowares shoulder, careful dev process can be hindered by micromanging publishing juggernauts.

[SageHonor]

" But I just can't understand after playing the first 2 before the 3rd came out why people thought we'd have control over the ending, "..

"you will always be put on the crucible and given a choice, but It's Bioware's story and you have to play it the way they've written the damn thing! "

It's statements like these that completely ignore what people were complaining about in the first place. If you honestly wanted to know why people hated the ending so much all you had to do was search youtube. There are a good amound of videos such as mrbtongue or angryjoe that explained why people hated the endings... without the petty insults towards the developers.

There are also a good amound of articles that give constructive criticism for the game. Seriously its that simple. There are alot of reasons people hated the ending. These are mainly contrivances and plot holes... not just the " choices " that ultimately never mattered the way bioware made it so.

I personally found myself giving constant lolwats and facepalms throughout the game. i found the whole game to be a mess in the story and polish department. The ending was more of a icing on the cake for me.

PS. Proofread your blog next time. I had to keep rereading what you wrote because of the bad grammar and sentence fragments.

[Scrivlar]

I appreciate there are lots of other reasons for people not enjoying the game, But this blog was more about defending ME3 from at least 1 specific reason I'm sorry I wasn't more clear on that.

Will take all ( Hopefully constructive) criticism on board though as I'm still a total novice with writing blogs so thanks.

And to BosMa, That last paragraph you wrote I couldn't agree more. It was inevitable that EA would interfere and bring nothing but negative influence to the end product.

[Godmars290]

By this point I'm surprised that people haven't ignored the ending and flayed Bioware on what they really needed to be flayed about: the hearsay side missions.

Don't get me wrong, the ending was a lazy effort if not bad, but having missions you go on based on casual overheard conversations then not having any ability to either manage or track them? That's true unforgivability.

[EmperorDalek]

Yes.

[Scrivlar]

Yeah Godmars that was an abomination, not being able to track them was maybe one of the most frustratingly disappointing features of the game.

I have to say though I felt the main story was really exciting and very epic and really enjoyed it. Of course up until the moment the Reaper blast hit that is.

[HonestDragon]

I think what pisses people off most about the ending to Mass Effect 3 is its lack of logic and narrative cohesiveness. You can go to Youtube and find a few good videos of people who explain why the ending doesn't work or make sense. Hell, I've found an article that shows how other science fiction writers thought the ending wasn't good.

The problem, at least how I see the problem, lies on a few things. Please note that this is all before the free DLC that helped "clarify" the ending we got from vanilla Mass Effect 3.

1. Plot holes in abundance in the last 10% of the game
2. Characters being out of character
3. The "God child"/"Star child"
4. Lack of closure
5. War Assets meaning nothing in the overall finale
6. Shepard's acceptance of the "God/Star Child's" logic
7. Rules of the ME universe being broken

Now with the free DLC, some of this was cleared up, but is still muggy. This is what's left over from those seven points.

1. The "God child"/"Star child"
2. War Assets meaning nothing in the overall finale
3. Rules of the ME universe being broken (to an extent)
4. Lack of closure (to an extent)

All four remaining points still have a lot of questions that need answering. What was the point of making the "God/Star Child"? The logic of this minor character that lasts for a mere 20 minutes is circular and makes no sense. I got the most War Assets I could, but why is my fleet getting annihilated? And what's the point of certain "assets" anyway? I know the Reapers are tough, but the quarians, geth, and turians have technology that can pierce and pulverize Reapers, which was proven over the course of the games. So the Crucible is able to warp everyone's physical origins to be whatever a user wants, yet it cannot be used to single out Reapers only and destroy them? What are the ramifications of EDI and the geth being killed in the destroy option? What happens to my love interest? I can go on.

Also, after reading an interview with one of the writers of Mass Effect 3, it was revealed that Casey Hudson and the lead writer were the only ones who wrote the last part of the game. It's clear to me Casey Hudson and the lead writer wanted to end ME3 with some sort of speculative ending. However, they failed hard and were called out for it. Yes, I don't like the ending, but that doesn't take away anything from how awesome the rest of the game was.