A lot of people seem to hate the ending of Mass Effect 3, and though I don't count myself among them, I have the utmost respect for their opinion -- having Shepard's final moments seem unfitting to your multi-game, 100+ hour investment can be, I imagine, quite upsetting. A few people have gone out of their way to be jackasses to BioWare staff or reflect the most regrettable aspects of "gamer" culture, but they are just that... a few people; like all other things in life, sanity loses itself to the furious cries of the vocal minority, and that causes sadfaces. Or maybe I'm a positive guy who likes to think most people are cool beans.
Regardless, cheers for anyone going about all this with class and good-spiritedness, despite how you feel about how things worked out. You are good people. Keep it up.
Me, I've had mixed and ever-changing feelings about the ending. The first time I sat there watching the credits, I did not feel rage, nor did I feel anger. I was expecting to feel these things, given how awful everyone had made the finale sound, but said emotions never came. I didn't really feel much of anything, actually -- joy, sadness, pain -- certainly nothing I'd grown accustomed to throughout the rest of the game (which, by the way, is a roller-coaster ride of emotional gut punching and glorious sunshiny hugs).
HOWEVER, there are several things that, thanks to letting them sink in for a few weeks, make sense to me and that I'm truly happy about. The best thing? That the Mass Relays and all Reaper technology are now destroyed. No matter what choice you make at the end of ME3, and regardless of which hue those final cut-scenes take, nothing better could have happened to the galaxy. Yes, the Mass Relays and other artifacts of the Reapers allowed galactic civilization to progress and intermingle and become what it now is (was?) and thus give us this entire story. But you know what? No. We were all just being led down a path that thousands of other life forms before us had gone down before because the Reapers LET US do so. It is THEIR path, not ours. We can always invent new technology. We can always rebuild. We can always find another way to reach out into the stars. But now, it can be our OWN way. (As for killing the Reapers but keeping their fancy tech, well, that's a little too much cake for me.)
Yes, millions of lives have been lost in this war, and millions more so because of the circumstances revolving the Reapers' defeat, like, say, a whole bunch of galactic races being stuck in the Sol system with what little supplies a ravaged Earth can provide (if it can provide to some of them, like the Quarians, at all). But that is the ultimate sacrifice that we, as Shepard, have made: forging a new path, our own path, by throwing away the easy, the steady, the reliable. We start a new life, but only by sacrificing a great deal. An IMMEASURABLY great deal. We've saved the entire galaxy from millions, perhaps billions of years of slavery, control, systematic genocide. It's not going to be a happy, or simple, thing to do. It's painful as all hell. But I like the idea of starting over and finally, FINALLY being free. It's like the universe suddenly gained free will. That is ridiculously cool to me.
There's also SPECULATION FOR EVERYONE, as one person within BioWare so now infamously put it. I actually LOVE thinking up how everything has happened since I made that final choice. (Which was, in fact, a very big choice; too bad the devs made it all feel so rushed and insignificant with what they showed us.) What happened to my crewmates? Did they go on to live happy lives? Did the Normandy manage to escape the planet it landed on? Would it even need to, given that the place seemed pretty habitable and thus more than likely has advanced life forms living on it? Would the people of Earth and the remaining alien races there come together to build new technologies in order to bring the galaxy together again? So many questions, yet not bad questions. Or at least, I'm not taking them badly. I can see why some people are. Like, I very much understand. Going into this discussion on the other side, it sucks and it's frustrating and the outrage is normal.
And yes, I know, it's a very easy cop-out and BioWare can basically say it's the best ending ever because YOU get to think about what happened, and how awesome it is because YOU get to think about all that changes because of your decision, and so YOU get your own unique take on everything, and that's so incredibly wonderful because it is a game series about YOU, after all. But I'll happily admit that, outside of my own subjective opinion, I can for sure understand the uproar. For some, it's a whole lot to be angry about. For others, it's a whole lot to be confused about. And for even more, it's a reason to ask BioWare to give a bit more closure, which I'm completely okay with. I'm not okay with DEMANDING they change THEIR game, but a little bit of frustration? A little hope to be involved in making things that you see as bad a little bit better? Kind, yet, critical, words about a series you love, and how you thought that the end doesn't fit the supreme quality the rest of the experience has delivered? I get that. And I sympathize. I may not want a remade ending through DLC, but I can certainly understand why others do. Many of these people are my best friends! They are in no way stupid, entitled, anti-art, or what have you. They just have an opinion like you and me.
Now, the people out there leaving 1-star reviews on Amazon or suing BioWare or threatening the wonderful staff behind these games? Yeah, fuck that noise. But the rest of you? Hugs.
ANYWAY, I love ME3, and I've gone from "that was okay" too "I actually like this a lot" with the ending. It sure ain't perfect, and there's plot holes, and I can certainly think of better ways it could have ended. I sort of hate myself for not being more critical about it all, actually. Maybe I shouldn't accept things as they are. Maybe I should hold the devs accountable. But it all feels so subjective that I'd feel pretty crazy for asking them to change anything. To be honest, I am very conflicted about my own stance.
BUT WAIT, I CAN BE CRITICAL, I SWEAR. Hey BioWare? How in the hell could you take out the film grain effect? What a stupid decision. Seriously. That oughta be a crime.
