What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[Rosenstrauch]

snip

I agree that they built the Reapers up too much to have a reasonable solution to them. But I don't think it bothers me all that much that the unreasonable solution was "blow them up with a really big bomb". That it was such an oddly specific bomb... yeah, that bothers me.

Otherwise it's just like... Lavos. So powerful it can manipulate the flow of time and space, brainwash people to do its bidding, alter and guide the genetic evolution of an entire planet's lifeforms... but Crono whacking it in the face with a sword a dozen or two times is enough to put it down for good (until the sequel).

EDIT: Also, I think I'd hate the the Crucible a hell of a lot more if I'd played the game before the endings got expanded on. Back when it was just "pick the color of your ending".
Also also, I can't believe this slipped my mind, but the very idea that you can only use the weapon made to destroy the Reapers with their explicit approval just baffles me. But that's just another reason for me to say "Removing the Starchild would make the ending better".

Where Dynamis gets me is that it's not even remotely clear that it was necessary to enable the final confrontation with Meteion. All it's ever used for is emulating things that other power sources could already do. Limit Breaks were explicitly aether-based until the Endsinger opened her mouth to squawk "dYnAmIs?!" at us. The telepathy and universal translation stuff was stuff the Echo could reasonably do... or already did. As was the whole "transcending your limits" thing. It's literally called Transcendent Power or something rather than "the Echo" in the Japanese text, iirc.

It's like Dynamis is trying to be the Unreasonable Solution to the Insurmountable Problem, like the Crucible/Catalyst was to the Reapers. Except the problem doesn't seem nearly as insurmountable as the writers wanted it to be, and more reasonable and less genocidal means of dealing with Meteion seem plenty viable as well.

[CrownySuccubus]

I agree that they built the Reapers up too much to have a reasonable solution to them. But I don't think it bothers me all that much that the unreasonable solution was "blow them up with a really big bomb". That it was such an oddly specific bomb... yeah, that bothers me.

Otherwise it's just like... Lavos. So powerful it can manipulate the flow of time and space, brainwash people to do its bidding, alter and guide the genetic evolution of an entire planet's lifeforms... but Crono whacking it in the face with a sword a dozen or two times is enough to put it down for good (until the sequel).

EDIT: Also, I think I'd hate the the Crucible a hell of a lot more if I'd played the game before the endings got expanded on. Back when it was just "pick the color of your ending".
Also also, I can't believe this slipped my mind, but the very idea that you can only use the weapon made to destroy the Reapers with their explicit approval just baffles me. But that's just another reason for me to say "Removing the Starchild would make the ending better".

Where Dynamis gets me is that it's not even remotely clear that it was necessary to enable the final confrontation with Meteion. All it's ever used for is emulating things that other power sources could already do. Limit Breaks were explicitly aether-based until the Endsinger opened her mouth to squawk "dYnAmIs?!" at us. The telepathy and universal translation stuff was stuff the Echo could reasonably do... or already did. As was the whole "transcending your limits" thing. It's literally called Transcendent Power or something rather than "the Echo" in the Japanese text, iirc.

It's like Dynamis is trying to be the Unreasonable Solution to the Insurmountable Problem, like the Crucible/Catalyst was to the Reapers. Except the problem doesn't seem nearly as insurmountable as the writers wanted it to be, and more reasonable and less genocidal means of dealing with Meteion seem plenty viable as well.

What annoyed me more about the Reapers is that the first and second game set up a perfect "Achilles' Heel" for them -- that is, the whole "Assuming Direct Control" thing.

In the first game, Sovereign BSODed when he tried to assume control of Saren, and that's the only reason the Citadel Fleets were even able to beat it. Until then, Sovereign was stomping them. Then, when Harbinger was introduced in the sequel, we see that the workaround the Reapers have come up with for this is to assume control of someone who can also assume control of someone else. That way, as long as the direct host is not killed, the Reaper themself doesn't have to worry. I thought for sure that they were setting this up for an organic way to stop the Reapers in the third game.

But then, nope....Eleventh-Hour superweapon. Hell, the Collectors don't even reappear for the entirety of the third game outside of DLC and multiplayer. From what I heard, the reason for taking out the Collectors was that the dev team were upset with how overused Harbinger was as a meme. Which is....childish, to put it mildly. Harbinger was ridiculously quotable, yes, but the Collectors were also such an enjoyable part of Mass Effect 2 that the third game was absolutely worse for it. Especially if their removal also resulted in the aforementioned foreshadowing, and made Harbinger completely silent for the literal finale of its saga.

[Rosenstrauch]

From what I heard, the reason for taking out the Collectors was that the dev team were upset with how overused Harbinger was as a meme.

That is a massive shame. I liked Harbinger as a villain. I think I'd have preferred him over the Starchild.

Apparently there's a mod that does exactly what I wanted: Removes the Starchild and the Three(Four) choices entirely, replacing it with a modified version of the Destroy Ending. I say modified because it also removes EDI and the Geth's deaths (if you kept the latter alive), which is... well, I do like that there are negative consequences to eliminating the Reapers.

But yeah. A better foreshadowed solution would've definitely been preferred.