Was Mass Effect 3 The Biggest Missed Layup In Gaming History? (Spoilers)

[ORDER_66]

Not a fan of the endings and I'm not one to advocate for the death of every protagonist in epic series' as its cliché at this point, but for my canon playthrough, Shepard surviving and growing of old age just doesn't feel right. They spent three entries attempting to unite the galaxy against the Reaper threat. I've always felt that emotionally, it would have been more poignant and impactful if he/she had died shortly after the beam rush and their effectiveness at uniting the races affected the ending in real time.

His death either gives the various races the gut punch and Valor to honor his sacrifice together as one, or the final 10 - 15 minute cinematic ends with the splintered galaxy suffering from abject failure due to morale and a lack of commital to one another, or casualties but victory at varying costs depending on Shepard's choices. Shep is essentially almost like a Christ figure and they go out of their way to portray their as a status as such. I think Shepard's legacy is even more meaningful and impactful in death for the future of the ME universe than it is with him/her breathing.

nah

 

[Killer Instinct]

nah

To each their own. This fight was bigger than Shepard & the player and the lack of meaningful, varying involvement of the races at the end is a large part as to why the ending felt hollow.

 

[ORDER_66]

To each their own. This fight was bigger than Shepard & the player and the lack of meaningful, varying involvement of the races at the end is a large part as to why the ending felt hollow.

the endings was hollow because they was blame Casey Hudson he fukked it aII up

 

[horizon]

They should've saved the suicide mission for ME3 because the ME2 squadmates got fukked over for real

 

[Rell84shots]

Brokering peace between the Geth and Quarians, the whole game up until those final moments was amazing. The way the game addresses all the main characters ongoing plot threads was good. Jacob kinda got screwed but whatever. How Jack's character was handled. Just looking back on the game I have more positive memories than that dumb ending. I was mad at the time but I've long since let it go.

If you read the old reviews that's exactly what everyone was saying. The game was going great until the final act, the only other problem people had was how long it took Ashley/Kaiden to join the crew.

 

[Kamikaze Revy]

Ending was complete trash and a spit in the face to the loyal fans of the series. In the end, the choices you made barely mattered and the story took a nose dive in the final act. You know they messed up when fans had to fill in gaps themselves and create their own theories to flesh out the story. (Watch the indoctrination theory).
I LOVED the games and the gameplay was refined every sequel. It’s such a shame they totally dropped the ball with the finale.
Anybody claiming they like the third is playing revisionist history. Mass effect 3 was universally hated and in its time was seen as one of the biggest disappoints in gaming history.
Even the devs knew they screwed up. Remember, due to the backlash they actually created additional dlc to help flesh out the story more (and failed) and they also patched the game to include superfluous tweaks to the endings in hopes to appease the furious fan base.

 

[Rell84shots]

Ending was complete trash and a spit in the face to the loyal fans of the series. In the end, the choices you made barely mattered and the story took a nose dive in the final act. You know they messed up when fans had to fill in gaps themselves and create their own theories to flesh out the story. (Watch the indoctrination theory).
I LOVED the games and the gameplay was refined every sequel. It’s such a shame they totally dropped the ball with the finale.
Anybody claiming they like the third is playing revisionist history. Mass effect 3 was universally hated and in its time was seen as one of the biggest disappoints in gaming history.
Even the devs knew they screwed up. Remember, due to the backlash they actually created additional dlc to help flesh out the story more (and failed) and they also patched the game to include superfluous tweaks to the endings in hopes to appease the furious fan base.

This should've been the official ending

 

[Zebruh]

Ending was complete trash and a spit in the face to the loyal fans of the series. In the end, the choices you made barely mattered and the story took a nose dive in the final act. You know they messed up when fans had to fill in gaps themselves and create their own theories to flesh out the story. (Watch the indoctrination theory).
I LOVED the games and the gameplay was refined every sequel. It’s such a shame they totally dropped the ball with the finale.
Anybody claiming they like the third is playing revisionist history. Mass effect 3 was universally hated and in its time was seen as one of the biggest disappoints in gaming history.
Even the devs knew they screwed up. Remember, due to the backlash they actually created additional dlc to help flesh out the story more (and failed) and they also patched the game to include superfluous tweaks to the endings in hopes to appease the furious fan base.

I do enjoy Mass Effect 3 overall, I just might never start that final mission again. I don't think its revisionist history to like Mass Effect 3, but the ending absolutely soured the experience of the trilogy as a whole for me. Which I always felt was the issue with 3 (that and war assets).

 

[42 Monks]

I've said it dozens of times, but ME3 is just a thematic mess all over the place. It starts worse than it ends in a lot of ways and even with the Legendary Edition dropping less than a year ago I found it exhausting to play.

Short version will always be that the combat is great - but the tone and story overall is conflicting throughout.

I can replay ME1 and ME2 whenever I please, but ME3? I had no urge to repeat those highs and lows again. I'm usually burned out before even getting to the third act. Yeah, the ending is bad, but a lot of things leading up to it are just as bad if not worse.

 

[Rell84shots]

I've said it dozens of times, but ME3 is just a thematic mess all over the place. It starts worse than it ends in a lot of ways and even with the Legendary Edition dropping less than a year ago I found it exhausting to play.

Short version will always be that the combat is great - but the tone and story overall is conflicting throughout.

I can replay ME1 and ME2 whenever I please, but ME3? I had no urge to repeat those highs and lows again. I'm usually burned out before even getting to the third act. Yeah, the ending is bad, but a lot of things leading up to it are just as bad if not worse.

It sucked that you only got to meet up with the ME2 crew temporarily. Javik was cool but did we really need Vega in the game? He should've gotten the hate Jacob unfairly received.

 

[The Phoenix]

I think 2 is the best in the series, and I don't understand why it took them 3 games to finally get unlimited sprinting.

I felt like there should've been 3 endings.

Ending 1: Paragon with high war assets would be Shepard surviving and retired with their love interest.

Ending 2: Renegade would have you sacrifice yourself to save the galaxy.

Ending 3: Low assets lead to the galaxy being destroyed.

It seemed like Bioware just wanted to move on from Shepard which is fine, but they did it in the worst way possible. Honestly ME2 should've probably been the end of the series. Now we're going to have to wait until 2024 at the earliest to see what happened to the Normandy crew.

very interesting. I didn't mind the ending to 3. It was more about the journey for me. But yeah, that would have made the game even better.

 

[old pig]

I think 2 was the best game in the series but I was absolutely fine with 3 and how it ended…if anything andromeda completely soured me on having any real hope for 4 providing us with what 2 and 3 did…I actually forgot it was in the works til I read this thread…my expectations are as low as can be

 

[old pig]

The ending was overblown looking back on it. Mass Effect 3 was arguably the best game in the series. The whole game was a giant send off.
The game was filled with moments like this.

the LE version was my first time playing it so my opinion wasn’t swayed by the “universal” sentiment at the time the game originally dropped…and I agree that it could be argued that it’s the best game out the series…to be fair tho, there’s a strong possibility that not having to wait years to play it had a positive impact on how I received the final game as well…some folks waited years imagining what the game would be like and I could understandably see them being disappointed if the game didn’t match their expectations after waiting so long

 

[MisterMajesty]

ME3 Is probably the best game in the series, right up until that ending (at least for me) So to royally fukk it all up like that just...sucks

 

[42 Monks]

ME3 Is probably the best game in the series, right up until that ending (at least for me) So to royally fukk it all up like that just...sucks

was it reallllllly all good til the ending?