Yeah that part really did not scan well with the Starchild's talk at the end. In my game the Geth and Quarian made peace and I had both fleets at the final battle so having him say "nope AI and organic can't exist together" without my Shepard pointing those two out made me scratch my head.
So much this. When I got to the end, my Shepard had done a ton of stuff that completely contradicted everything that asshole was saying. I don't care if Shepard dies, but you spend 3 games exploring a universe, highlighting the best things of every race, making allies out of enemies etc, then you get to the end, all that shit goes out the window, who cares that you are literally a fucking variable in the equation the starchild came up with, AND the only way to save the universe is to make everyone the same. The fuck.
The ME hate over the ending is so out of control lol.
It's pretty much right on the money. Three games, 5 years, 90 hours, books, graphic novels, etc, to end like that. What a god damn travesty. The lore and world were immense and they found a way to distill it into three fucking endings which ignored everything you spent 3 games turning your Shepard into. Ugh.
The ending was shit - but it's a 5-10 min blight on 30 hrs of a game (or 90 hrs if you count the series as a whole) that was otherwise next to perfect. And Extended Cut did at least make the appearance of some of the decisions mattering which was a large flaw with the original ending. (Not that it entirely fixed the marr)
The extended cut made less sense out of things than others; for example, partially going off of what Jarnin says, it's stated the Normandy cannot even land on planets etc, (at least the SR2 can't because of increased mass) and that's why the Mako and later the Hammerhead existed. But we have two instances where that just goes out the window - and for all things, to fucking rescue two people. TWO. What was stopping the Normandy from just taking Shepard to the doorstep then?
Having the kid explain the reapers was just the fucking worse. At the very least, most people could tick off two or three reasons why his ultimate solution won't work, and for others, their Shepard literally renders everything invalid.
And as for the geth vs. the quarians - this is literally a time in history where synthetics DON'T turn on their creators. They chased the quarians from Rannoch and then LET THEM BE when they could easily have destroyed them. They just wanted to live. That one little thing should have been enough to give the Reapers pause.
Take over what exactly? The Mass Relays were destroyed. Nobody is going anywhere, galactic civilization is over. Ship based ftl drives are too slow to travel between star clusters.
Let's not forget that the Arrival DLC showed us what happens when a relay is blown up. They retconned it seriously fast to make it just show that the relays are out of commission, and don't explode, but before that, the original ending showed them all vaporizing. 3 choices, all of them lead to the total extinction of every intelligent species. This isn't that big of a deal until you see how often shit like this happens, where they decide to go down one path that their own lore has shown us IS IMPOSSIBLE.
Also as for the whole "Reapers are stupid", this cycle was totally different in many ways. The reason they did not just go to the Citadel was because they were not isolating and destroying a single intelligent race, they were destroying MANY. In past cycles only one race was exterminated, the one that was most intelligent and had used their relays, while the rest were spared and left to advance in time. In our world, many discovered the relays, or at least shared them (With asari technically being the race that should have been annihilated, as they discovered them first and hoarded specific things about them to get more powerful) and thus caused more advanced races. It's even stated that the major (Maybe only?) reason humans were targeted is because Shepard is such a pain in the ass, they go after Earth immediately. That last bit is definitely "Reapers are stupid", because we later find out we're making synthetics to essentially stop meaningless death and then we find out the executioners are letting personal feelings sway them. (Dickholes.)
Going from Sovereign saying "You will never understand or comprehend why we exist" to "YOU GOD DAMN KIDS CAN'T PLAY WELL TOGETHER" was so fucking stupid. I don't think the dark matter thing would have panned out, but it would have been more mysterious and acceptable. Kill organics so our robot friends don't, or kill everyone so we don't kill the universe. One reeks a bit more of vastly more importance.
And while it would have SUCKED, at least "no choice" at the ending would have made a bit more sense. Make allies, do whatever, but the galaxy is still dying and only you being blendered into a construct can stop the universe from imploding. Whoo.
This is why the ending is such an atrocity; it's why other moments are such terrible god damn things. Because the thought processes even a simpleton employs blows their shit out of the water. We want to be artsy or some shit, and distill 3 games worth of emotional investment, and fuck, one which required us to think beyond most people's bigoted worlds in something that mimicked the awesomeness of Star Trek, into an ending that involves no emotion, no thought, nothing. Just the very idea that you are well and truly fucked in the world. I can't remember which writer it was (walters?) who talked about how Hudson is just "so analytical" and he thought that fans would appreciate an ending with no emotional investment, but that's sugar coating it.
Yea, it's 2 1/2 years and I'm still so angry over it. Bro gave us midichlorians and all we wanted was a Vader who wasn't a little bitch.
