First Impressions After Beating Mass Effect 3

Mass Effect 3 completes the 5 year, three game journey of Commander Shepard. It completes my favorite video game (franchise) ever. It is my favorite game of all time.

Or at least...

It was supposed to be.


For the first 37 hours at least, it was. Let's talk about that.

Mass Effect 3 takes all that was good about both of the previous games and improves them. The super-improved combat returns, complete with several fantastic upgrades (my favorite being the hot keys for your companions' powers). While we don't have a full-on inventory system, weapons are once again upgradeable. BioWare finally, finally made all the choices I made in the first two games feel like they had legitimate impact on the galaxy. They made a few gaffs here and there, like my choice on whether or not to destroy the Collector base at the end of the second game being almost entirely a moot point, but these were small issues, and I had very few problems with them.

I feel BioWare made certain judgments to allow the story to be told, and, really, certain things had to happen to get the story to this point. OK, fine, forgiven and moving on. BioWare brought back all the characters I interacted with in the first two games, and, like I said earlier, brought back all the choices too. My decision to destroy Maelin's data in ME2, for example, came back to haunt me in a big way.

Watching Earth, then Palaven, and the rest of the worlds crumble under the onslaught of the Reapers was upsetting, depressing... it was quite unlike anything I've ever experienced in a video game.

And that was what makes this game SO great! The consequences of my decisions weighed heavily on me with each plot twist and with each story thread tied up. It is this quality of storytelling and immersion that makes Mass Effect my favorite game franchise ever. And it is for this reason I am so conflicted about it now.

BioWare does well what BioWare has always done well. They introduced and made me love a slew of new characters and reminded me why I loved the characters from the previous games this much. My concerns about the soundtrack that I posted about before were laid to rest as I got into the game. Clint Mansell and team did a fantastic job bringing out the dark situation I found myself in - though I'd argue that the sheer number of tracks making comebacks from the previous ME soundtracks shows how the franchise will never outgrow Jack Wall's influence (as fitting as those reuses were). The voice overs are, as always, spot on.

I was a bit miffed that they seemed to spend less time on the character conversations than they had previously. I think each character has 4 or 5 actual conversations with you, and the rest are short back and forths like they did with Kasumi and Zaeed in ME2. But once again, I was willing to forgive that, because Mass Effect has always been about the story and the way my choices impact it.

And now, I'd like to rant a bit, because as somebody who bought the first Mass Effect on release day and has been a loyal (and spending) fan ever since, I think I've earned that right. For those who are not interested in spoiling their game experience, close the page now as THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.

The ending to Mass Effect 3 has me completely conflicted. I want to like it. I really do. I've been a huge supporter of anything BioWare has created since I first laid hands on Jade Empire. I like the kind of game they create, and I'm not afraid to let them know by spending ridiculous amounts of money on them. BioWare is one of the few companies I am loyal to, I don't just buy their products, I anxiously look forward to everything they do, and I recommend their games to everyone who will listen to me. BioWare has earned this loyalty through producing a steady stream of high quality, fun, immersive games.

Likewise, I am a huge fan of the Mass Effect franchise, and not just the games. I read the books and the comics, I listen to the soundtracks regularly, and aside from all that, I've poured hundreds of hours, if not thousands at this point, into this game. Why? The story. The characters. The immersion. The drama. The game play and combat. There are a laundry list of reasons.

So, like I said, I really want to like the end of this franchise, but I just can't.

I can forgive the fact that none of the endings you choose from are particularly happy. I wasn't expecting a very happy ending, though I'd be lying if I said I didn't want one. But let's face it, this is war. War seldom has happy endings. No, what upsets me is that the ending completely, irrevocably invalidates every single choice I made from Mass Effect 1 up to the end of Mass Effect 3. None of those choices mattered. None of them, and I cannot get past that. I saved the Quarian home world. didn't matter. Legion sacrificed himself to give the Geth souls. Didn't matter. I cured the genophage. Didn't. Matter.

Mass Effect has always been a franchise that pushes what I thought possible in terms of emotional involvement with games. That was never more true than in the case of ME3. I cried as I watched people I've known from the first two games die. I laughed at their corny jokes. I sat at the edge of my seat as events unfolded. I held my breath. I cursed the Reapers. I cheered.

But when I look back on all those events in light of the end, I feel something close to anger. None of what I did mattered. None of what I had invested myself in mattered. No matter how I choose at the end, the same thing happens. I'm assuming most of the galaxy is destroyed. I've read some different theories online, but my take is that most of it has to be destroyed. Regardless of which option you choose, you end up destroying the mass relays. As the game has shown us, destroying mass relays also destroys whatever system that mass relay happens to be a part of. Nothing in the game has ever said otherwise. So, when I destroy all of them, that kills tons and tons of systems. Given that most of the galaxy's population is in the Sol system at the end of the game - a system that happens to have a mass relay - I've destroyed the galaxy's population. Never mind that I went through hundreds of hours of work and strain and sweat to unite all these races to join us in battle, they're all dead.

The other theory floating around is that somehow the relays get destroyed but don't wipe out their systems. Okay, so I went through all that work to give the Quarians their home world because... Curing the genophage mattered because...

They're all stuck in the Sol system! Much better! /sarcasm

There is just no reasonable explanation that can be applied to making the things I had done prior to the final decision matter at all.

And because of this, I feel robbed.

Ordinarily, I'd just write the ending off as a pile of rubbish (Matrix trilogy, anybody?) and move on with my life, but Mass Effect is different. It has made up such a large part of the last few years of my life, and I have been so emotionally invested in its universe for that time, that I feel like I deserve something better. So, in the same stroke, I applaud BioWare for creating a fictional universe that I care this deeply about, and I ask them what they were thinking when they robbed my emotional investment of its meaning.

Like I've said, the rest of the game is brilliant. Absurdly so... to the point that this should have been a shoo-in for my favorite game of the franchise and, thus, my favorite game of all time. Everything about this game, from the graphics to the game play, surpasses its predecessors, and I don't want to give the impression that I didn't enjoy the majority of the game. BioWare's writing and game development is top notch through the entire course of the game. I couldn't be happier with most of the game. I just don't want the last 5 minutes to taint it for me. Even with those last five minutes, though, I wouldn't have traded my thousands of hours in the Mass Effect galaxy for anything.

Now, I know that the folks at BioWare will likely stand behind their ending and justify it, but I maintain hope that they will not. This is my extremely passionate plea that something be done about the ending to this franchise. I have an empty pit in my gut where I should be feeling the exhilarating rush of just having completed one of the best stories written in years.

So please, BioWare, fix this.