Mass Effect

[excalibur]

I wanted a satisfying ending, not a build up to a different game. Andromeda was a neat idea but instead of tackling the mess ME3 left behind, they abandoned the idea, messed with canon even more, made a convoluted story that no one's heard of just to put us in the same kind of galaxy as the last one with the same kinds of enemies and aliens in the Milky Way. We got a discount Mako and a discount Normandy, and for some reason, exploring the dangerous unknown...neither vehicles have weapons on board

[CharlesPhipps]

I wanted a satisfying ending, not a build up to a different game. Andromeda was a neat idea but instead of tackling the mess ME3 left behind, they abandoned the idea, messed with canon even more, made a convoluted story that no one's heard of just to put us in the same kind of galaxy as the last one with the same kinds of enemies and aliens in the Milky Way. We got a discount Mako and a discount Normandy, and for some reason, exploring the dangerous unknown...neither vehicles have weapons on board

Oh well, in that case, I would have changed the ending by just making a few edits:

*Shepard lies down beside a dead Anderson*

*Screen blackens*

Voice Over: The Reapers are blowing up! It's working!

The End!

*Screen Montage of people surviving and ending on Shepard approaching the camera*

Literally, they could have ended on Anderson and Shepard and without the Star Child stuff, it would have been fine. Tragic, bittersweet, but fine.

https://youtu.be/AT-dVZRzni8

[Admiral X]

There's no way to do a sequel after ME3 with the type of ending they came up with. It's beyond lame that they changed it because someone leaked the original ending that they had set up in ME2 (something involving dark energy from what I understand). But again there's my general dissatisfaction that started with ME2 anyway, which was undoubtedly caused by EA's interference, and some of the creative force leaving. They tried to side-step the issue by doing a different protagonist and going to a different galaxy, but it came off like a lame fan-fic by someone who seemed to lack an understanding of the franchise, and really an idea of what they even wanted their game to be about to begin with. Not that I blame them too much on that front - the galaxy-wide battle against the space elder gods is a pretty hard act to follow.

[CharlesPhipps]

The thing is, I've never been too interested in the Reaper element.

ME2 is my favorite in the series and there's an infinite number of evil corporations, crimelords, and political intrigue factions to fight there.

[Independent George]

Not that I blame them too much on that front - the galaxy-wide battle against the space elder gods is a pretty hard act to follow.

That's just it - in terms of dramatic potential, it's not a hard act to follow. The galaxy has been trashed and massively depopulated - they sapient species might have survived, but it was still the friggin' apocalypse. There's tons of potential for story set in what happens afterwards. It just requires addressing the ridiculous endings they chose for ME3.

[bronnt]

To truly have meaning in our choices, Bioware would need a ton of man hours crafting several very different paths and effects and half entire routes opened to only certain choices, but that might not be possible in video game tech we have now. We will either get a singular ending or cookie cutter pasted endings

The biggest failing was in giving players a "last choice," honestly. It really made transparent how empty all the preceding story was when it boils down to a player picking A, B, or C. The three endings could have been dramatically different from each other and each incorporated many different variables based on who's living and who's dead, but it still would have fallen on its face because THAT ends up being the only choice that matters. It's especially bad when you've crafted something of an open world where players can explore, and then you get railroaded into choices that don't organically flow from the story before it.

As an aside, I started a fresh playthrough of the first Mass Effect recently. I've tried to approach it like it's fresh, putting up a mental block about the stuff that happens later in my mind, trying to immerse myself in the story. That story hold up so freaking well with all the worldbuilding you get from conversing with random people. The game is much more about that than the gun-play (which admittedly sucks).

[Fixer]

Following on from from ME3's ending just opens up a hornets nest of issues.

If we're to salvage Mass Effect it might be better to do a reboot. That way you could keep the races, asthetics and cultures without the baggage or narrative problems ME3 introduced.

Trouble is that of course, you can't do any sort of Reapers "reveal".

[CharlesPhipps]

Following on from from ME3's ending just opens up a hornets nest of issues.

If we're to salvage Mass Effect it might be better to do a reboot. That way you could keep the races, asthetics and cultures without the baggage or narrative problems ME3 introduced.

Trouble is that of course, you can't do any sort of Reapers "reveal".

Well, they tried to do that to Andromeda.

[Fixer]

Which to be fair, was why Andromeda could have worked if it had been written and produced competently.

If you were to do a 2009 Trek style reboot though, an alternate universe where the Protheans not only managed to shut down the citadel wake-up message but also managed to take out Sovereign while he was in hibernation leaving the Reapers indefinitely dormant in dark space.

We see how the galaxy pans out with the current cycle not being harvested or ever having to fear such.

[Independent George]

Following on from from ME3's ending just opens up a hornets nest of issues.

If we're to salvage Mass Effect it might be better to do a reboot. That way you could keep the races, asthetics and cultures without the baggage or narrative problems ME3 introduced.

Trouble is that of course, you can't do any sort of Reapers "reveal".

I think a reboot would make things even worse. After all the problems with player choices being rendered meaningless in ME3, why start over and basically say that, yeah, all those money and hours you spent on the previous three games didn't mean a friggin' thing.

You can't repair the damage without confronting the original problem; waving a magic wand and shouting "Do over!" just papers over the criticisms of ME3 instead of actually addressing them (exactly as the Extended Cut ending did).