Mass Alex: Mass Effect 3 - Part 26 (The Finale)

Thanks guys, I thoroughly enjoyed re-experiencing ME1, 2 and 3 all over again.

It actually puts me into a mood to try Andromeda, against my better judgement... Should I?

Thank you, gang. That was so much fun to watch. I look forward to many, many more stories of the Alex ; )

Just started ME 1 and meeting the Elcor again reminded me that they are a friendly version of the psychotic hitman robots from KOTOR. Which gave me an idea "Navarro of the Old Republic I & II"

Man, watching this series was fun- many thanks to Vinny and Alex. I kind of hated the ME3 ending when I played it at launch and still don't love it but having never played any of the DLC for ME3 (including Javik), its wild how vastly different the game feels with all of the included DLC compared to playing ME3 with no Javik, no Leviathan, no Party, no revised ending.

I remember my dislike for ME3 went beyond just the ending choices and into the game/story itself, but you add in Javik, Leviathan and the Citadel DLC and a lot of my gripes with the game are ameliorated quite a bit. Otherwise, in the base version of the game at launch, it the story felt a bit rushed and lacking in content, especially with some of your old squadmates.

Watching this series has me tempted to try Andromeda just to get that BioWare game fix, but everything I've read about Andromeda makes me second guess myself cause it sounds like its the story/characters and atmosphere that are the weakest parts when that's my whole drive to play a BioWare game.

Because everyone survives and everything goes back to normal, doing the party after the destruction ending makes sense if you plan beforehand to choose it. They gave the party a pretty weird tone, considering the absurdity of the looming threat of the reapers, so you're forced to bring your own context to make it work either way. In my opinion, celebrating fits the tone they gave it a bit better. Great games though.

It was fun to see the journey through to the end. I enjoyed every episode.

I kind of dreaded this one, though. I've always found the internet's hatred for the ending to be both hyperbolic and poorly argued. When the game first came out, I remember the bad buzz around it and braced myself for something truly awful. Would we find out the whole series had been a dream? Was Shepard a science-fiction writer locked in a psyche ward in the 1950's, scribbling her delusions in a smudged journal?

And then I got to the ending was surprised to find that it wasn't bad at all. Truncated, a little underexplained, but still with plenty of atmosphere and high emotion. My main complaint at the time was that the cut to credits from the jungle planet was unsatisfying. Everything else- Shepard's death, the destruction of the mass relays, the complete upheaval of the status quo, felt in line with what the game had been foreshadowing. Defeating the Reapers required sacrifice from everyone-- ushering the galaxy into a new, uncharted infancy.

The star child stuff never bothered me, but cheesiness / cringe is always going to be very personal. The visual of a bloodied Shepard dragging herself toward the beam while Reapers and cruisers wage war overhead is an image that has stuck with me. Say what you will about Bioware, the direction of that final scene is striking.

Thanks again to Vinny, Alex (and Brad!) for giving us hours of fun. It compelled me to replay the series for the first time in many years, and I was happy to find that most of it still held up. I missed my space friends, and it was nice to visit them all again.

Glad Alex got to experience Mass Effect. Thanks for doing this!

This is it, isn't it?

Man I forgot how much I hated this ending.

Thanks Alex and Vinny, watching you play through the whole trilogy has been great entertainment!

I still felt pangs of disappointment at the ending. For me the problem stems from the reaper backstory about inevitable conflict between organics and synthetics being contradictory to many other events in the game and series. They needed a solid justification for their stance for there to be any satisfactory pay-off to the main plot. (Slightly controversial opinion: I think the Leviathan DLC was bad because it didn't provide this.)

Man, and that was their IMPROVED ending. Woof.

I had the same issue as Alex. Had no idea I was making a choice at the end there when I was walking forward. Such a piss poor way of handling it.

Mass Effect 3’s high were as good as anything in the series. But the lows were the lowest by far.

It's my understanding that if you choose "destroy" and had enough war points that you would get the "perfect" ending where Shepard lives. When I completed ME3 the first time I chose synthesis, got the green light ending, and also the Shepard is alive perfect ending. I'm not sure if it was a bug or what it was but in my ME3 playthrough synthetics live and so does Shepard.

Finally got around to finishing this up - hell of a ride.

Gotta say, though, that there was more Dan Simmons in this series than I remembered. Hyperion was obviously a very heavy influence on ME2, but I had forgotten exactly how much Fall of Hyperion there was in ME3.

I really don't feel like the game is at fault at all with its presentation of choices. The paths rise up from the sides while you're looking and shows the different structures that were presented during the visions of the choice explanations. Seemed pretty straightforward and I was even just half paying attention.

Also, am I crazy for thinking there's some serious religious implication going on with Mass Effect with the post credit sequence using "The Shepard"? I mean Shep Shep dies, comes back to life, and then dies again to become, essentially, a holy ghost in all life. I could be totally off the rails here.

When Mass Effect 3 originally released, my Xbox hard drive died half way through the game and I never played the ending. I enjoyed watching Mass Alex but stopped before the end thinking I would eventually get to it myself. With the release of the the Mass Effect Legendary Editions, I've realised I don't have the motivation to replay the entire series again to finally see the ending so I returned to Mass Alex to finish the fight.

It was lovely to experience more videos with Alex, Vinny (plus bonus Brad) that I didn't see before their left. Thank you for allowing me to enjoy the parts of this game I never got to play myself.

As for the ending, I would have been very conflicted between the Synthesis and Destroy endings. Despite the moral issues of Synthesis forcing all biological and synthetic life to merge, it does allow all intelligent life to otherwise act with free will. Synthesis has the greatest logical leap and depressing unintended consequences, but as far as the literal depicted scenes, it appears to be the most prosperous. If believe that the Constant has truly acted with best intentions for its initial goal and wish to save every life (even the Reapers), this seems like the correct choice.

On the other hand, even with the Leviathan DLC, I struggle to believe anything the VI Child says. I can't help thinking: "why should I suddenly believe this convenient VI?" The VI seems to imply the Synthesis choice is best (and eventually inevitable after enough cycles) which makes me even more suspicious. I guess this is why fans actively sought out an alternative Indoctrination theory. The Destruction ending obviously kills many innocents (those with many cybernetics, VIs and Geth), but it is the only good option if the VI Child is lying to you.

Overall, I think the conceptual ideas at the heart of the ending - especially the moral uncertainty - is fascinating. The execution (even in this Extended Cut version), however, is extremely underwhelming. I agree with Vinny, I would probably have been happier had it ended with Shepard watching the Conduit fire, dying by Anderson, ambiguous of the result. I don't hate it though. Probably the most disappointing part is it showed enough promise that I now believe there was an execution of thier idea I would have liked. In the years I've avoided seeing the ending, I've always assumed nothing could be satisfying, it's bittersweet to learn they could have proved me wrong but didn't.

Gasp! The first meeting of the Nextlander crew!

And I salute you lot for seeing this through so wonderfully. And envy Commander Navarro, who didn't have to live through the foolishness of "The Indoctrination Theory."

Also wow, I played my first time through almost exactly like Brad and with Brad's logic.

Having played through it via the Legendary Edition now, I truly think EA fucked Bioware out of delivering a satisfying ending. Javik and Leviathan are integral to understanding how and why this is all happening, and lacking those things changes the game fundamentally.

I'm not saying "everyone would've loved the ending" if not for that, but I'm saying it makes a lot more sense and has a greater sense of context.

But I will stand by my belief that replacing that stupid kid with whichever squaddie died in ME1 both in Shepard's dreams AND in the Citadel would have improved things vastly.

@dixavd: It's interesting that while the VI says that people with cybernetics and synthetic beings will die in "Destruction," it's the only one where Shepard is teased as surviving. DESPITE her cybernetics. So even though EDI's name IS on the funeral board, it doesn't mean the Geth died or she can't come back.

@undeadpool: I still would take the Indoctrination theory over anything in this cringe ass ending with magic space kid.

Hey, on that particular subject: you and I are copacetic. As I said above, they missed an open goal with that one.

Really great series, so glad Alex was able to play through all three games. Looking forward to eventually watching him play Andromeda over at Nextlander, though I don't know if I can bring myself to play through alongside watching it like I did with this trilogy.

Honestly, I wish there wasn't a choice at the end of this. They talked about it a bit in the episode, but the Crucible is already this big, elaborate device that keeps getting added to by each cycle that comes before it, and yours is the first one to finally complete it. Let the game end with you defeating the Reapers with the combined might of the entire unified galaxy along with the knowledge passed down through the various cycles.

I still think it's a great trilogy, I like that all three games have a really different feel to them, and for its flaws, I still think ME3 does a great job of nailing some really incredible emotional moments throughout.