We recall why the final of the Mass Effect trilogy turned into a scandal at the time.
In the heading “In plain text” the authors express exclusively their own opinion, which may not coincide with the opinion of the editorial board (or may coincide). They are free to do it as they please and in any format convenient for them. Everything is possible here.
What have we been waiting for
The first step is to remember what the Mass Effect series was about. The plot itself is extremely simple: in a nutshell, it can be described as “an ancient evil has awakened.” The main character, Captain Shepard, and his allies first confront the universal threat themselves, and later become the face of galactic resistance and, most likely, save the world. In this situation, the fuel for intrigue are questions about the origin of ancient evil: where did it come from, what it wants, what is its weakness. And a sensible ending would give answers to these questions with the help of Chekhov’s guns, previously hung on the walls, organically fit into the context of Shepard’s travels.
Another traditionally strong point of Mass Effect has been lore. The series initially positioned itself as a fairly “hard” science fiction, and the original game already provided a detailed explanation of all the phenomena of its setting. No magic, everything is extremely serious, everything has a rational cause and effect.
What we got
The ending of Mass Effect 3 seems to forget about all this: the third part is almost entirely devoted to collecting parts of an artifact called the Horn. The previous race, which fell at the hands of an ancient evil, almost managed to finish building it, and everyone assumes that the MacGuffin will allow you to defeat the almighty Reapers – however, no one, in general, understands how the Horn works. The previous parts did not mention anything like that: the magic wand, necessary for the climax, simply appeared at the right moment at the behest of the pike.
The decisions made by Shepard throughout all three games mainly affect only the forces of the united forces of the galaxy, which open access to different options for the endings. That is, on the one hand, one cannot say that the player’s actions do not matter at all in the finale, but on the other, their influence in most cases is reduced to abstract numbers. Moreover, in the original ME3, before the Legendary Edition, without participating in multiplayer, these numbers were also divided in two: so the developers unobtrusively hinted that cooperative shooter matches are no less important than the totality of all your previous actions.
As a result, with a low stamina, the player was guaranteed to get a bad ending: the ancient evil was defeated, but the triumph came at a great price, let the credits go. The motivation of the Reapers was explained anyhow, and the story of their origin was generally taken out in a separate DLC.
And with a high rate … The game offered about the same. Only now the player was offered a choice between a bad ending, a normal one and a “true” one. Moreover, in all three, literally the same frames flash, differing only in color. The saga, which lasted six and a half years, ended with a primitive traffic light, and not a word about what happened to your favorite characters. And before you argue that BioWare fixed its mistake with free DLC, ask yourself: how did such a crude ending even get to the release version of the game? Why was it approved by the founders of the studio (who escaped from the game dev shortly after the fiasco), the head of development Casey Hudson, the producers from EA? Did they all really feel like this was how BioWare’s magnum opus should end?
Green eyes are the only thing that distinguishes the new synergistic species of life from ordinary organics
The devil is in the details
The final of Mass Effect 3 disappoints not only with its content, but also with its presentation: it consists almost entirely of nonsense and contradictions to itself. The Citadel seems to be the most important tactical resource for the Reapers, but for some reason they parked the space station in Earth orbit and installed an elevator in central London leading directly inside. The entrance to the elevator is guarded by the Harbinger, the head Reaper, and several simpler enemies. But instead of arranging a serious battle with an equally serious enemy, the victory over which would open the way for the hero to the Citadel, the developers show a cutscene where a threatening cyborg very lazily shoots a laser at the slowly running men. So lazy that they are organizing the evacuation of the wounded in the process – right under the nose of the Reaper, who does not blow his mustache.
The final boss of the Mass Effect series is Marauder Shields. He died trying to save us from a terrible ending
At the Citadel, Shepard is greeted by his companion Admiral Anderson and the antagonist Ghost. The latter is an ordinary person who has fallen under the influence of the Reapers, but he has magical powers from somewhere: he subdues Shepard and forces him to shoot Anderson. All the plausibility of the setting and the elaboration of the lore instantly perish for the sake of cheap drama
Shepard defeats the Ghost – either by overcoming his control or by convincing him that the Reapers are in his head. Curiously, Anderson convinces Shepard of loyalty to the red ending, while the Ghost is an adherent of the blue one. And Shepard, who actively challenged the Phantom’s point of view, can follow his path in just five minutes.
The Horn, meanwhile, successfully docks with the Reaper Citadel as they fly around quietly, making no attempt to shoot at it.
Next, Shepard is magically transported to the galaxy control panel, which is controlled by the Catalyst – in fact, the head of the Reapers. He appears to the hero in the form of a boy who was killed at the beginning of the game – an unnamed NPC who did not surrender to anyone. Here it is really difficult to believe that this is not Shepard’s feverish delirium, who is on the verge of death, but reality. Especially when the boy begins to explain the reasons for the regular genocide of the advanced races of the galaxy: it turns out that organics always create synthetics, and they always rebel against their creators and kill them. And in order to prevent this tragedy, you need to prudently destroy everyone in order to create peace between the two forms of life through war. It is logical.
However, the Catalyst specifically emphasizes that the Reapers do not just eradicate species, but consume them and make them part of their own genome. However, this explanation is not worth a damn: the Reapers are completely devoid of individuality, each of them is a part of the highmind. If some knowledge is accumulated inside them, then they are not good for anything, and the Harvest, in fact, is meaningless.
Likewise, it makes no sense that the Catalyst suddenly changed its mind about destroying all life. According to him, this happened for two reasons. Firstly, the Horn docked with him (no one bothered to do it), and secondly, an organic came to him, although Shepard was brought to the galaxy control panel completely out of the blue, and Anderson and the Ghost got to the Citadel before him. Shepard did not overcome any serious obstacles on the way to the Catalyst, but he still decided to cancel the genocide that had lasted for millions of years as a reward for the captain’s great deeds.
Further, the space child offers three new options for solving the eternal problem of organics and synthetics. Red – to destroy all synthetics – obviously short-lived: organics will soon create new robots, which, as Catalyst is convinced, will kill everyone. I wonder why this option is even worth considering if it leads to the same disaster. Blue – Catalyst invites Shepard to take his place and control the Reapers. And the green option, synthesis, according to the Catalyst itself, is ideal and inevitable. However, it had never worked before because organics were “not ready.” What has changed now? No matter. How is this supposed to work at all? We won’t find out. “This is not something that can be imposed by force,” says the Catalyst, allowing Shepard to impose his own decision on the entire galaxy. Pathetic speeches sound terribly unconvincing and, most importantly, do not correlate in any way with the content of the entire series. Instead of a distinct ending, there are three abstract ways of self-sacrifice in a vacuum.
The ending of Mass Effect 3 is a complete disaster, both in design and execution. She ignores everything that made Mass Effect great. It reduces Shepard’s previous decisions to insignificant numbers, leaving them without a loud final chord. Therefore, I am not going to play the Legendary Edition. Unfortunately, Shepard’s story is a futile journey to nowhere.
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