Hard to put into the words how disappointed I was with this game's ending. I feel so strongly about it that it has overtaken my ability to meaningfully comment on almost every other aspect of the game. I'll speed through it.
Per usual, the combat isn't innovative for a Shooter (although being able to roll is a nice change) and the controls have interactivity and general response issues from time to time, but lifting "main powers" (Slow-Down Time, "Blinking" across the map, Invisibility, etc) from other games in genre, and then using them as the centerpieces for the six classes, provides a lot of diversity. I've always enjoyed replaying the games of the series for that reason, but I'm not sure I can endure the disappointment of not being able to alter Shepard's or the galaxy's fate in any significant way.
Music, set design, and cinematography also come through strongly, with the game world really feeling like a galaxy going through a desperate time -- until the final hurdle, where the fight scenes become stratified (can't change them unlike Mass Effect 2) and generic (just lots of bland and confusing action on the screen, think beginning of Episode III in SW Prequel Trilogy).
So now we get to the part I really want to talk about. The game's ending.
SPOILERS:
So aside from the things noted in the above observations, what's wrong with the ending?
Well, first of all, the conclusion of the series is making a split second decision to resolve a tension that was never a central theme of the series -- the inability of Organics and Synthetics to coexist peacefully. Obviously this theme mattered in relations between the Quarians and the Geth, but the Quarians and the Geth were only one part of a larger story, and I was never able to make much of connection between Geth and the Reapers ... because the narrative itself stressed that the Geth and Reapers were too different for there to be much of a comparison between them. In fact, Mass Effect 2 retreated from the idea Reapers are Synthetics at all, instead positing they were a species of Cyborgs. Mass Effect 3 doesn't explicitly backtrack that, but they don't affirm it either, and we seem to return to the Mass Effect 1 idea that Reapers are Synthetics, with the added stipulation (loosely coaxed from Mass Effect 2) that they function as storehouses for organic civilizations. My basic point is that the Reaper's motivations, which have been an awkward specter throughout, are brought to the fore after being a mystery for so long so we can upset the themes that were actually developed and derive a sub-par ending from that. Reminds me of the Matrix trilogy.
Now, despite the fact Shepard is capable of demonstrating that Organics and Synthetics CAN live in peace (very successfully), the ending insists that the differences between the species are too immense, and that some kind of radical transformation is required to do what has already been done. Okay. So basically the ending choices revolve around a moral choice that the game never *really* developed up to, but the tone and setting implies that it HAS, in fact, developed up to, which has confused and sickened long time fans.
So the choice itself a a bad one. The consequences are even worse. All of the real choices of the series, from the relationships you develop to the resources and allies you gather, are completely undermined -- the galactic civilization you came to know and love is destroyed despite all of your efforts to save it. That's right. After 4-5 years, hundreds of dollars, and dozens of hours of playtime, there is no way to save it. Mass Relays get destroyed in all endings (ending galactic civilization as we know and love it), and something (or multiple things) you struggled and put additional effort into to saving is lost for no real reason, be it the Geth/Synthetics, Shepard himself, galactic civilization as a whole, the structural integrity of the human spirit and its innocence, etc...
Choice #1: you can destroy the Reapers, but then you also have to obliterate the Geth and other friendly AI, who it has already been established CAN coexist with Organics and have a just claim to life. I think the development team ought to have taken a glance at this and realized it would have left a bad taste in the Paragon audience's mouth, but there you go. Choice #2: Transform into a wave of energy which propagates a mutation of all beings into Organic-Synthetic hybrids, a nod to the classical science authors who enjoyed writing about huge paradigm shifts in evolution creating dramatically new modes of existence. I will concede this choice has some appeal, but it needed to be handled differently, and in a broader context of choices, as a pricey , ambiguously Utopian solution to the galaxy's problems. Choice #3: Take control of Reapers. The Renegades get the best deal of everyone; all the power they craved is theirs at last. Still, even they probably have issues with the execution.
Shepard HAVING to die/being separated from his friends is an extremely poor way to reward fans. Shepard did die in the introduction to Mass Effect 2, but only to illustrate how unstoppable he/she truly was when he/she came back to life. That was pretty cool. This seems to be the final 'death' though, at least as a being with a personal form and identity, and that should have been reserved as a PUNISHMENT or as a PRICE. Specifically, punish people with death for not completing the multitude of optional objectives, or demand it as a PRICE (like destroying the Arch Demon to be 'true' Grey Warden and destroy the threat once and for all); as I said, choice 2 (which is what I ultimately went with) had a lot of promise as an expensive UTOPIAN solution, but there should have still been an option for Shepard to ride off into the sunset into his 'ordinary' galactic civilization if that's what the player wanted.
I really don't understand the logic of this mediocre ending, especially since they seemed to be actively bending the plot to make it happen, against more natural and rewarding endings. Until the last 15-20 minutes, Mass Effect 3 was a great conclusion in some ways, and at least a comfortable one in others.
I don't see why they were so strongly against providing us with the option for a comfortable ending, when the structure of the RPG always seemed to necessitate that such an option should exist for the players who worked for/desired it.
