How do you like Mass Effect 3 as the end of the Mass Effect trilogy?

  • It's amazing. A worthy finale in all ways that mattered.

    Votes: 113 10.9%
  • It's very good, but it does have some notable weak spots.

    Votes: 478 46.2%
  • It's good. Just good. Good. What more can I say?

    Votes: 204 19.7%
  • It's mediocre in the pure sense of the word. Not great, not terrible.

    Votes: 113 10.9%
  • It's bad. Just bad. Bad. That's all I can say.

    Votes: 46 4.4%
  • It's very bad, but not without some good moments here and there.

    Votes: 41 4.0%
  • It's terrible. In fact I have not yet recovered from it.

    Votes: 40 3.9%

  • Total voters
    1,035

Rodney McKay

Member
Oct 26, 2017
12,329
What do you mean? First playthrough as in not importing a character from ME2? Was it any different in the original ME3?
I did transfer my ME2 character over which does give you a few extra levels early on, but on the highest difficulty it's still pretty rough at times. And I still remembering it being really hard on Insanity originally too.

It's not bad all the time, and I do think the make power combos do more damage which helps a lot, but there's some really tough difficulty spikes, especially near the end.
 

Kutaragi

Member
Sep 3, 2020
624
ITALY
However indoctrination theory, now that I can stand behind. They are truly playing the long game by still not revealing that it is in fact true. Just need to keep believing and it will happen one day.

Developers admitted they were not clever enough to conceived such a good story, so they basically denied it is true.
 

Ambient

Member
Dec 23, 2017
7,308
It's alright. Multiplayer was really fun.

ME1 and 2 are amongst my favourite games of all time. I replay them a bunch and I always end up skipping 3.
 

_Genesis_

Member
Aug 13, 2018
76
Liked it at launch, like it now. Never really had a problem with the ending. Went with Destroy and it felt pretty wrapped up to me, never felt like my choices didnt matter.
 

Rats

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,128
It's a little worse than ME2 in just about every way, and a lot worse in a couple of key ways. But ME2 is a 10/10 for me, so that's not exactly a damning assessment.

I like it, but it took me a long time to wash out the bitter taste left by the state of the game at launch. I never actually replayed it until the Legendary Edition came out.
 

Quinton

Specialist at TheGamer / Reviewer at RPG Site
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
17,417
Midgar, With Love
I'd bet your vote would be my vote: It's very good, but it does have some notable weak spots. If I'm wrong, lock me up in one BSN thread from the days when ME3 was released!

The thing about ME3 is that as much as we can like it, and there is plenty of like here, it's hard not to notice its shortcomings. What could have been if only a little more time was given to Bioware. That why I wouldn't vote the first option, even if some parts of it are the best the trilogy has to offer, like Priority: Tuchanka. Literally the pinnacle of videogame storytelling.

Yup! I'm right there with you, old friend. More time in the oven could have worked wonders. Considering how relatively little time BioWare was given to deliver, it's a minor miracle that Priority: Tuchanka came together so damn nicely.

Very good game with outrageously strong highs… and some rather vivid flaws.
 

Smoolio

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
2,906
Great game, terrible ending that ruined it. Only ME4 where you are Shepard can redeem that part, but I don't think I want that for 4, idk I'm split on that.
 

PlanetSmasher

The Abominable Showman
Member
Oct 25, 2017
117,373
A bad game that destroys the entire series retroactively by existing. In some sense I should've seen ME3 being bad coming, because I thought ME2 was a pointless plot cul-de-sac that accomplished nothing, but I was still shocked by how it absolutely obliterated every single plot point I cared about in the previous two games in favor of some dumb dime-store tech bro philosophy bullshit at the eleventh hour.

And Kai Leng. Ugh.

It's the final season of Game of Thrones in video game form. Unsalvageable.
 
Feb 18, 2022
331
Let's settle down with the spicy ME3 DLC hot takes apparently it's not good and than it's great, mass effect games without their DLCs are a disaster and the reality is DLC is a game's insurance policy the only people dlc upsets are the people who don't buy it.
 
Oct 25, 2017
29,842
God I'm curious what they are going to do with the next Mass Effect, being directly connected to the trilogy is going to be so challenging for them
 

nDesh

The Three Eyed Raven
Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,125
A bad game that destroys the entire series retroactively by existing. In some sense I should've seen ME3 being bad coming, because I thought ME2 was a pointless plot cul-de-sac that accomplished nothing, but I was still shocked by how it absolutely obliterated every single plot point I cared about in the previous two games in favor of some dumb dime-store tech bro philosophy bullshit at the eleventh hour.

And Kai Leng. Ugh.

It's the final season of Game of Thrones in video game form. Unsalvageable.
Are you Derrick01 from the old forum?
 
OP
OP
SofNascimento

SofNascimento

cursed
Member
Oct 28, 2017
21,630
SĂŁo Paulo - Brazil
It could have been better for sure. But not with a "barely 2 years" dev cycle.

It's probably closer to 1.5 year than 2. In many ways, it's a miracle that ME3 turned out as good as it did. Look at other "3s" that EA published in the same timeframe: Dead Space 3, Crysis 3. All victims of the same (lack of) vision. Compared to those, ME3 is a timeless masterpiece.
 

N7_Kovalski

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,469
I think its good but its extremely noticeable it was rushed. I think it has some of the franchises highest of highs but also the lowest of lows.
 

Swiggins

was promised a tag
Member
Apr 10, 2018
11,543
Mass Effect 3 is everything I wanted in a finale to the trilogy...right up until the last hour or so.

The Citadel might be the greatest piece of fanservice ever made.
 
May 26, 2018
24,163
It's probably closer to 1.5 year than 2. In many ways, it's a miracle that ME3 turned out as good as it did. Look at other "3s" that EA published in the same timeframe: Dead Space 3, Crysis 3. All victims of the same (lack of) vision. Compared to those, ME3 is a timeless masterpiece.

I'm now imagining a universe where ME3 is having its 10 year anniversary this year.
 
OP
OP
SofNascimento

SofNascimento

cursed
Member
Oct 28, 2017
21,630
SĂŁo Paulo - Brazil
I'm now imagining a universe where ME3 is having its 10 year anniversary this year.

F_oc-WsWMAMhFHU
 

aspiegamer

Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,485
ZzzzzzZzzzZzz...
I had a somewhat different exposure to it, playing it for the first time with the remaster trilogy and playing it immediately back-to-back from the first two. Played it a second time on another save just to have different people alive from past decisions and so I could be as hilariously evil as possible. A few strands of story carried in from 1 and 2 had satisfying endings, others not so much. In the end it's a let down that regardless of what you do you just gain a generic +Power amount counting toward the main story and a list of names on the death board in the end cutscene.
The ending was... meh. Not bad, not good, just meh. And this is the better version! The final mission on Earth and the ending are dramatically underwhelming, and not particularly enjoyable to play through. Screw any thought of an ending where Shepard lives, too. You crashed from a space station that was in orbit, and were dead before it even fell out of orbit. Fuck off, game, fuck you.

The Citadel DLC is the most fan servicey thing ever created for a video game, so much so that it gets a little awkward. Extremely funny, of course. I do give massive credit where due on it for the wide wide range of voice lines and script combinations they had to account for for who was actually alive or not for any given person's game. You really don't get that sort of care and detail very often in a game of this scope. That's true of the entire game and series, but especially here.
Big games just aren't willing to put in the effort to account for so many variables in production, and we may never see anything with the tier of freedom this trilogy had ever again. We're in this sad universe where Starfield is supposedly the tier of characters, writing, and (lack of) decision branching a gigantic developer thinks we should enjoy, puke.
 

Drblitzk

Member
Dec 9, 2020
297
Terrible storywise, every event felt rushed because they had finish every storyline, because they had to for some reason, like, just kill Sheperd and finish his trilogy, but keep the war going, in fact the war should't have even started in that game, most things didn't make sense with that setting, the ending was the least of it's problems.

Sublime multiplayer though, worth it just for it.
 

marcbret87

Member
Apr 20, 2018
1,380
The initial release of ME3 was pretty fantastic up until that infamous last hour of the game. It really turned me off of the series for quite a long time, but a few years later I replayed it with all of the DLC + new ending scenes and it was a marked improvement. There really was no defending the initial bizarre lack of closure for most of the major characters and ambiguous status of the universe, but the additional scenes wrapped things up more neatly for me.

The Leviathan plot really should have just been incorporated into the main game from the start, seeing as it actually explains the Reapers' origins. The additional moments with the Crucible(? its been a while) explaining that the entire Reaper cycle was born out of a Rogue AI really complemented the larger AI v Organics narrative that had been present in the series from the start.

Omega is a fun romp through a fan favorite area of 2, and Citadel is an obvious passion project made for the fans. It was the perfect epilogue to the trilogy.

I still think 3 has some issues, in particular with the missions involving the party members from 2 where it seems like your decisions from the previous games really doesn't matter. For example, regardless of whether you kill the Rachni queen in ME1 there will still be Rachni enemies in ME3 with the only difference being some more war resources.

I bought the Javik dlc at launch, but in hindset it was very obvious that he was cut from the main game into the dlc. He is integrated far too nicely into the main game to come across as an "extra" character. Luckily, the METrilogy includes him from the start.

Basically this. Up to the finale, I felt the game was doing a pretty good job of tying up loose ends built over the previous two games, and I would have said was on the same level as the second part. However, the ending as it was originally released was an incoherent rushed mess, and I am not surprised people tried to find alternative explanations. If Leviathan had been in the original game, at least one would have had some context as to what the Reapers were and how it fit with the trilogy's themes.
 

Necron

â–˛ Legend â–˛
Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,389
Switzerland
The ending is the stuff of legends...

Highest highs, lowest lows.
And yeah, Kai "cereal killer" Leng is one of those lows.
 
Oct 25, 2017
29,842
Absolute trash game that abandoned almost all of its RPG mechanics for dudebro shooter action gameplay, complete with countless "one ally is interacting with a computer, defend them by yourself and the other party member" next to conveniently placed turrets if memory serves.
I'm playing through it for the first time and it's one of my biggest noticable problems with it so far,
It feels like a straight up linear 3rd person shooter.
Even has the old "helicopter door gunner" sequences...

You literally cant put your gun down anymore if you are walking around or exploring while on a mission.
One of the dumbest changes I've seen in a series

Also that first dude in your squad is a straight up Gears of War character.
 
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The_R3medy

Member
Jan 22, 2018
2,876
Wisconsin
Great game with an an abysmal original ending.

It was modestly improved with the revisions and Citadel, but woof. They missed the mark at launch.
 

Herne

Member
Dec 10, 2017
5,354
Going with the consensus, it's a spectacular finale to the trilogy with some very weak spots dragging it down. What the hell they were thinking with that ending?
 

Sportello

Member
Sep 15, 2020
153
The combat was much improved, but everything else was very disappointing. The ending takes a lot of the heat, but honestly outside of the Genophage most of the story was pretty bad, and didn't really feel that epic. Also the reaper boss fight was 🤢.
 

Strike

Member
Oct 25, 2017
27,531
It was fine. Just didn't stick the landing. The Citadel DLC helped soften the blow.
 

liquiddragon

Member
Jun 20, 2020
2,067
At the end of the day, mass effect 2 and 3 are games they clearly sold pieces of content as DLCs that should've been in the main game. That's how a lot of ppl experienced them and that can't be undone. ME3 is fine. I like ME1 and 2 but I guess I've never been a diehard fan of the series so base ME3 is about what I expected out of it so I played it and moved on like w/ most games.
 

deathsaber

Member
Nov 2, 2017
3,110
Great (along with the whole rest of the series) right up until you get to the "choose one of three endings" moment (or get the 4th "I refuse to choose" ending which is the clear "bad ending" and worst of all), and then discover they all suck. Only one (destroy) makes any kind of sense with the narrative at all but does carry all kinds of pain/drawbacks. It kind of feels like a blah "normal ending" that you get in a game if you complete it but forget to do side quests, or made bad choices and the game is trying to tell you that you fucked up), that also has a "true ending" you can get for making the right choices and clearing side content. But there is no True Ending in Mass Effect that feels satisfactory.

And the other two main ending choices are utterly ridiculous, don't fit the tone of the story at all up to this point, and frankly just feel like really bad fanfic, if the gamer chooses them to come to pass.

It makes no sense- especially when the game, had a built-in system that seemed like would be the key to your ending- "war assets" or whatever (been a few years since I last played). You should have won or lost the war (or won with varying degree of losses/galaxy devastation) based on collecting enough war assets- which really was the crux of what you have been doing over three games. So having it all come up more or less meaningless, and everything ending up being shoehorned into one of these very set choices, winds up just being a mass betrayal of all the choice and custom building of "My unique playthrough" that the player has been cultivating over three games.

Still, the journey is still great, even if the ending sucks. Mass Effect three still has some very striking and emotional conclusions to its various arcs- as you determine the fate of the Krogan/Quarians/Geth or what the outcome is with your relationship with various party members. Its just the shame its final minutes and the fate of everyone involved) winds up so incredibly lame.
 

Gemini-Stone

Member
Dec 12, 2021
193
It was pretty good, though it had one big letdown for me. It wasn't the endings (and I played it back in the days before the Extended Cut), and it wasn't Kai Leng.

It was the way the geth were handled in the Rannoch arc.

They Pinocchio'd my robobois when they were perfect the way they were
 
Oct 25, 2017
29,842
Just finished it for the first time yesterday.

Ending was kinda disappointing and I didn't like that it went full shooter comparatively but I legitimately loved 3 for the most part.

I think hearing for 12 years it was "worst thing ever" set my expectations well so that honestly it just came in as a slight disappointment

Honestly after marathoning the series over the last few weeks for the first time, I don't even know if I could pick my favorite of the 3, each was so different and had their pros and cons.(maybe 1 has the edge though for the mystery, exploration and I even liked Mako stuff)