Quote from: ThatTallGirl on November 18, 2013, 08:43:04 PM
OHAI it's FemShep!
What did you think of the ending of ME3?
Short answer: I liked it.
Long answer: It made a point, a point that some choices are no choice at all. People complain that the ending completely voided the entire premise of the series being about choice. That nothing they did up to that point actually mattered. Bull->-bleeped-<-, I say.
Let me ask you this. Is Conrad Verner still alive? What about Sgt. Toombs? Kaiden Alenko, Ashley Williams, Urdnot Wrex, the entire colony on Feros, that kid signing up to be part of the Blue Suns on Omega, all of these people and millions of others are all affected by your choices. Their lives pivot on your decisions. And someone want to say that the ending of the third game invalidates all of those choices? No. If you're going to say that you're invested enough in the series to be mad that the ending basically boiled down to three variations on the same thing, and then say that nothing else you did matters because of that, I'm sorry, but you're not as invested as you think you are.
If Shepard is real enough to you to make you feel like they're a real person, then so should the universe they inhabit and the other people who inhabit it. I didn't shed any tears when I sent Ashley to her doom, not because I didn't care, but because I did. I didn't like Ashley, and she was real enough to me that her death was satisfying. I was angry when my Shepard kept trying to hit on Jacob, because I saw her as an extension of myself. I thought the Renegade choice would act the same as in any other relationship dialogue: putting the other person down and dissuading them. But no, she apparently decided to try and seduce him.
Back on topic though, I think the thing to remember is that Mass Effect is like a choose your own adventure book. Sure, you can do different things in it, but you're not the author. The author sets those choices down, saying "These are the choice you may make". You can either follow along in the story or stop reading, but you can't go off script. Bioware wanted to end the story of Shepard, a commendable goal in today's modern sequel based industry, and they did it well, I feel. They let Shep go out with a bang, saving the entire galaxy, maybe the entire Universe.
At the end, there's an old man talking to a young child. Picture Bioware as the old man and yourself as the child. He is telling you a story, a legend, about the saviour of the people.
And what do you think Shepard did when the reporter said that, little one?"
"She probably punched her in the face!"
"Oho! Indeed she did, an excellent observation! So after punching that mean reporter square in the jaw..."
That is our story. It is a myth, passed down from generation to generation, changing and evolving with each telling. The children interject with their own ideas about details, but major events must play out. Saren must die, for that is what happened. Everything else is as fluid and changeable as water.
